World

ROME — Pope Francis left hospital on Saturday after a three-night stay to treat bronchitis, stopping to say hello to well-wishers and joking he was "still alive".

The 86-year-old Pontiff, who was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Wednesday with breathing difficulties, got out of the car transporting him and smiled and joked with the crowd.

Asked by someone how he felt, he quipped twice with a big smile "I am still alive!"

As the crowds clapped, Francis headed off to the Vatican to begin preparations for Holy Week and Easter, the most important week in the Christian calendar.

The pontiff felt unwell Wednesday after a general audience in St Peter’s Square, but his condition improved after he was given antibiotics.

On Friday, the pope visited the children’s cancer ward at the hospital, handing out chocolate Easter eggs and even baptising a weeks-old baby boy, according to a video published by the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Francis had been working earlier on Friday in the hospital’s private papal suite on the 10th floor and catching up on newspapers. On Thursday night, he ate pizza with some hospital staff.

The Argentine pope confirmed on Saturday he will preside over Palm Sunday mass in St Peter’s Square, the start of a busy week of events leading up to Easter.

Francis’ hospitalisation was his second since 2021, when he underwent colon surgery, also at Gemelli.

His increasing health issues over the past year have sparked widespread concern, including speculation that he might choose to retire rather than stay in the job for life.

‘I was afraid’

His predecessor, Benedict XVI, quit in 2013, in a radical step not seen since the Middle Ages.

Visitors to St Peter’s Square on Friday expressed relief over his recovery.

“I was afraid for the Pope,” said one 56-year-old Italian tourist who gave his name as Davide.

“But I’m happy he’s better, that he’s returning. For believers and the Catholic community, it’s important,” he added.

Francis marked 10 years as the head of the worldwide Catholic Church earlier this month.

He has pushed through major governance reforms and sought to forge a more open, compassionate Church, although he has faced internal opposition, particularly from conservatives.

Presiding over mass

He has repeatedly said he would consider stepping down were his health to fail him, but said last month that for now, he has no plans to quit.

During Palm Sunday mass, Francis is expected to remain seated while another cleric, probably a senior cardinal, conducts the ceremony at the altar.

The Vatican, citing medical staff, said on Thursday that Francis had been diagnosed with “infectious bronchitis” requiring antibiotics, and that the treatment had brought about a “marked improvement in his state of health”.

The Gemelli hospital is the favoured choice of pontiffs to the point of being dubbed “Vatican 3” by Pope John Paul II, who was treated nine times at Gemelli and spent a total of 153 days there.

A Jesuit who seems most happy being among his flock, Francis continues to travel internationally and keep a busy schedule.

But he has been forced to use a wheelchair and a walking stick in the past year because of knee pain, and admitted last summer that he had to slow down.

He said on Thursday he was “touched by the many messages” he was receiving in hospital, thanking on Twitter those praying for his recovery.

Francis’ earlier stay at Gemelli in July 2021 lasted 10 days. He was admitted after suffering from a type of diverticulitis, an inflammation of Pockets that develop in the lining of the intestine, that required surgery.

In an interview in January, the Pope said the diverticulitis had returned.

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump's legal team went on the offensive on Friday following his historic indictment, vowing the former president would never seek a plea deal and was ready "to fight" all charges.

The 76-year-old Trump, who is hoping to recapture the White House in 2024, chimed in with attacks on the prosecutors who brought the charges against him and even the judge expected to hear the case.

"ELECTION INTERFERENCE, KANGAROO COURT!" Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social, adding that Juan Manuel Marchal, the judge who may preside over an eventual trial, "hates me."

Trump is to be booked, fingerprinted and will have a mugshot taken at a Manhattan courthouse on Tuesday afternoon before appearing before a judge as the first ever American president to face criminal charges.

"The president will not be put in handcuffs," said Joe Tacopina, one of Trump's attorneys, adding that he does not believe prosecutors will "allow this to become a circus".

Tacopina said the hush-money case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against Trump faces "substantial legal challenges" and the former president would plead not guilty.

There is "zero" chance Trump would accept a plea deal, he told NBC's Today show. "It's not going to happen. There's no crime."

Trump, who is currently at his palatial Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, was initially "shocked" at the indictment, his attorney said, but "he's now in the posture that he's ready to fight this".

'No comment'

Trump's pending arrest throws a political grenade into next year's White House race and President Joe Biden sidestepped questions from reporters about the indictment of the Republican he beat in 2020 and could potentially face again in November of next year.

"I have no comment on Trump," Biden said.

A New York grand jury indicted Trump on Thursday over a $130,000 hush-money payment made to a porn star to buy her silence during his 2016 campaign.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and accused Bragg, a Democrat, of waging a “political witch-hunt” to derail his new White House bid.

In predicting his indictment, Trump called for protests and warned it could lead to “potential death and destruction” for the country.

And in a statement, the ex-president said he had already raised $4 million for his 2024 presidential campaign in the 24 hours following news of the indictment.

Extra security has been deployed for days around the downtown Manhattan courthouse where Trump is to be booked and arraigned, with the New York Police Department saying Friday there were “no current credible threats” to the city.

Trump survived two impeachments while in the White House and kept prosecutors at bay over everything from the US Capitol riot to missing classified files — only to land in court over a sex scandal involving Stormy Daniels, a 44-year-old adult movie actress.

He faces felony investigations in Georgia relating to the 2020 election and in Washington over both the classified files and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

Top Republicans have rallied around the former president who remains the favorite to win the party’s 2024 presidential nomination.

‘Outrage’

Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, said the indictment had “irreparably damaged” the country.

Trump’s former vice president and possible 2024 challenger Mike Pence called it an “outrage” that would only “further serve to divide” the United States.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, another likely 2024 Republican rival, slammed the indictment as “un-American.”

On the Democratic side, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said “no one is above the law” and Representative Adam Schiff, lead prosecutor of Trump’s first impeachment, called it “sobering”.

“The indictment and arrest of a former president is unique throughout all of American history,” Schiff said. “But so too is the unlawful conduct for which Trump has been charged.”

Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress in 2019 that he made the payment to Daniels on Trump’s behalf to hide a 2006 tryst and was later reimbursed.

The grand jury that indicted Trump was asked to consider if there had been a cover-up intended to benefit his campaign by burying the scandal.

The impact of the indictment on Trump’s 2024 election chances is unpredictable but Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said it would benefit the former president.

“From a political point of view, it’s going to solidify Trump’s standing in the Republican Party,” Graham told the Washington Post.

PODGORICA, Montenegro — Montenegro is girding for a closely watched presidential run-off on Sunday, when a young upstart could upend the Balkan nation’s political landscape, dominated for decades by incumbent Milo Djukanovic.

The outcome of the race will likely determine the balance of power ahead of a snap parliamentary vote due in June, following months of deadlock after the government collapsed in August.

The election comes two weeks after the first round, where Djukanovic fended off a range of rivals hoping to shake up the political scene, garnering 35 per cent of the vote compared to 29 per cent for his main challenger, Jakov Milatovic.

However, analysts have largely tipped Milatovic to win the presidency, saying the pro-European economist is likely to appeal to a large number of voters desperate for change after decades of rule by Djukanovic and his Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS).

“The fall of Djukanovic would probably mean the fall of the DPS as we know it, which had absolute power in Montenegro,” Predrag Zenovic, a political analyst based in the capital Podgorica, told AFP.

The DPS has been on the back foot since the party suffered a historic defeat in the 2020 parliamentary elections.

Since then Montenegro has lurched from crisis to crisis that has seen the collapse of two governments.

Decades in power 

Djukanovic, 61, was installed at the helm of the former Yugoslav republic in 1991 by former Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic when he was just 29.

But as Serbia increasingly became an international pariah, Djukanovic pivoted West, broke ties with Belgrade and helped oversee Montenegro’s independence in 2006.

Under the leadership of Djukanovic and his party, Montenegro joined NATO, kick-started the negotiating process for EU membership and moved away from Russia’s influence.

However, his party’s rule has been plagued by allegations of widespread corruption and links to organised crime, which Djukanovic denies.

“We have a man in power here for 30 years who is the epitome of dictatorship, abuse of power, who made it possible for corruption and criminality to flourish,” Mladen Vukovic, a doctor in Podgorica, told AFP.

For him, Sunday’s vote is the “last chance to remove such a man from power and for someone new to come”.

Ahead of Sunday’s vote, Djukanovic has repeatedly questioned whether Milatovic, 36, and his Europe Now Party are able to secure a European future for Montenegro, while accusing him of being vulnerable to Serbian influence.

“I cannot support Milatovic and the Europe Now movement since I’m afraid that it will allow too much influence from Serbia,” said Zorica, a 39-year-old economist in Podgorica, who declined to provide her surname.

“Milatovic is too ambitious and too young and I don’t trust that he will have the political skills to resist the influence of Serbia” and the Serbian Orthodox Church, she said.

For years, Djukanovic has been eager to curb the influence of Belgrade and the Serbian church in Montenegro, while helping cement a separate Montenegrin national identity.

But it has been no easy task, with a third of Montenegro’s population of 620,000 identifying as Serbs.

Fresh faces 

Milatovic will likely be looking to harness the eagerness of young voters looking for an injection of fresh faces into the country’s leadership.

Milatovic made political headlines as minister of economic development after the 2020 parliamentary elections, which resulted in the first government not ruled by the DPS.

The father-of-three gained popularity with a controversial economic programme that, among other things, doubled the minimum wage.

For Podgorica resident Milena Sekulic, 31, the election will be about fomenting change and creating better economic conditions in Montenegro, where many young people flock abroad in the thousands for better opportunities.

“To get a job, political affiliation is more important than professionalism,” she told AFP.

The minimum wage is just 450 euros ($490) a month in the tiny country along the Adriatic, which remains heavily reliant on tourism thanks to its picturesque beaches and rugged mountains.

Montenegro’s president, elected for a five-year term, has a largely ceremonial role while most of the political power rests with the prime minister.

BERLIN — King Charles III called Russia's war in Ukraine a threat to Europe's democratic values in the first speech made by a monarch at the German parliament, but said allies like Germany and Britain can draw courage from their unity.

Speaking mostly in German through the 30-minute speech, Charles underlined that "the scourge of war is back in Europe, the war of aggression against Ukraine has brought unimaginable suffering on so many innocent people".

"The security of Europe as well as our democratic values are under threat. But the world did not stand idly by... we can draw courage from our unity," he added.

Charles is on his first state visit since ascending the throne following the death of his mother Queen Elizabeth II last year, and his choice to travel to Germany has been viewed as a bid to build bridges following Brexit.

In Germany, the themes of reconciliation and a future ahead forged by common values have featured prominently in his speeches.

Charles has blood ties to Germany, but the two countries had fought on opposing ends during two devastating world wars.

Speaking at the Bundestag on Thursday, he pointed to how far Britain and his hosts’ country had come in putting behind their conflict-ridden past as he underlined the common values they now share.

“Together we must be vigilant against threats to our values” and face them down resolutely, he said.

On Friday, Charles will take a further step in rapprochement by commemorating victims of allied bombings during World War II in Hamburg.

Charles’ mother, the late Queen Elizabeth II, had been a symbol of post-war reconciliation.

It was World War I that had led the British royal family to drop their German name,  Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, for Windsor.

The war in Ukraine is a key part of Charles’ programme on Thursday afternoon, with a visit of a reception centre for Ukrainian refugees right after the Bundestag speech.

He will also travel to neighbouring state Brandenburg where he will speak with a German-British battalion.

A tour of an organic farm is also planned with environmental issues, which Charles championed long before he became Britain’s sovereign, key in his three-day programme.

Among his first engagements on Wednesday was a reception on sustainability, where he met with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economy Minister Robert Habeck, both from the Greens Party. 

On Friday, in the port city of Hamburg, he will tour a renewable energy project.

Charles, who has visited Germany 40 times, has always made sustainable farming a part of his visits to the country.

The monarch’s decades-long commitment to green farming has partly been nurtured by German professor Hardy Vogtmann, a leading voice on organic agriculture who became Charles’ adviser in the 1980s.

During one trip to Germany in 1997, Vogtmann arranged for Charles to tour several eco projects in the western state of Hesse, culminating in Charles jokingly being gifted a bag of compost.

On another occasion in 2013, the Welt newspaper said Charles was “clearly in his element” chatting to organic farmers and stroking a piglet on a field in Langenburg, north of Stuttgart.

In 2019, Camilla joined her husband on a tour of an organic farm in Glonn, near Munich, where Charles gamely held a rooster in his arms.

The British monarch was initially supposed to travel to France before heading on to Germany, but that trip was postponed in the wake of violent pension reform protests.

BRUSSELS (AFP) — Europe's top rights body on Thursday blasted the "inhuman" treatment of migrants who were brutally turned away at its borders, especially the EU's external frontier.

Migrants had been beaten and suffered "punches, slaps, blows with truncheons, other hard objects... by police or border guards", the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) said in its annual report.

"Other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment were also deployed, such as firing bullets close to the persons' bodies while they lay on the ground," it added.

It said other tactics included "pushing them into rivers [sometimes with their hands still tied], removal of their clothes and shoes and forcing them to walk barefoot and/or in their underwear and, in some cases, even fully naked across the border".

The CPT said it had met with "increasing numbers" of people who claimed they were pushed back from the European frontier by force.

“Many European countries face very complex migration challenges at their borders, but this does not mean they can ignore their human rights obligations. Pushbacks are illegal, unacceptable and must end,” said CPT head Alan Mitchell.

The committee visited police, border and coast guard posts, detention centres as well as transit areas on the main migratory routes to Europe.

The CPT called on the Council of Europe’s member states to guarantee migrants’ rights by registering each individual, providing medical and vulnerability assessments and offering people the opportunity to apply for asylum.

“Detention should only be used as a measure of last resort,” it added.

The Council of Europe is made up of 46 countries.

Russia had been excluded from the watchdog after its invasion of Ukraine last year but remains a party to the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture.

Migrants remain a contentious issue in the European Union since more than a million people arrived in Europe during the 2015-16 refugee crisis.

The number of attempts by migrants to enter Europe hit 330,000 in 2022, up 64 percent from the previous year, the EU’s border agency Frontex said.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Wednesday promised nearly $700 million to support a global "turning point" toward democracy, painting a portrait of progress at a summit despite the growing assertiveness of China and Russia and concern elsewhere over backsliding.

Biden invited 121 leaders for his second, largely virtual "Summit for Democracy," where he also announced an alliance by like-minded countries on rules for surveillance technology — seen as a growing tool by China as its technology advances.

Biden hailed a "turning point for our world toward greater freedom, greater dignity and greater democracy."

"I believe this is the defining challenge of our age and, today, we can say with pride that the democracies of the world are getting stronger, not weaker," Biden said.

"Autocracies of the world are getting weaker, not stronger," Biden said.

His optimism stands in contrast to the latest annual report from the Swedish-based V-Dem Institute, which found that global advances in democracy over the past 35 years had been wiped out.

Freedom House, the US-backed research group, said that democracy deteriorated last year, although it also saw a growing number of bright spots.

Addressing the summit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the world was undergoing a "dramatic upheaval" in which democratic values are "under assault", pointing to rising attacks and restrictions on media and human rights defenders.

"Today, we see more and more despotism and less and less enlightenment," Guterres said.

Biden nonetheless pointed to progress including efforts by Angola to build an independent judiciary, anti-corruption plans by the Dominican Republic and Croatia and, at home, US voters' rejection of Donald Trump-backed deniers of the 2020 election results.

Saying it was crucial to “keep the momentum going”, Biden announced $690 million to promote democracy overseas.

The funding followed a commitment of $424 million offered at the first summit in 2021. The new funding will back programmes to stage free elections, advance independent media and strengthen action against corruption.

After criticism that the first summit was too US-focused, with Biden seeking to turn the page from Trump’s norm-shattering presidency, Biden tapped leaders on each continent — from South Korea, Zambia, Costa Rica and the Netherlands — as co-hosts.

“We must embark on a new journey to revive democracy, which is currently under attack,” said South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who announced his country would spearhead the third Summit of Democracies.

The United States also gave prominent roles at the summit to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy claimed by China and not recognised by Washington, and Ukraine, which is defending against a Russian invasion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told the summit that his country was the frontline against a threat to all democracies from Russia.

“We should get rid of the illusion that compromising with evil can give something to freedom. The enemies of democracy must lose — and only this can be the basis of true security for democracy,” Zelensky said.

Just Tuesday, Biden voiced alarm about Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed to weaken the judiciary, unleashing massive protests with critics accusing him of denigrating democracy.

Netanyahu, who put the measures on at least temporary hold in the face of a general strike, told the summit that the alliance with the United States was “unshakable” and called Biden “a friend of 40 years.”

Addressing foreign critics, Netanyahu promised that Israel “was, is and will always remain a proud, strong and vibrant democracy as a beacon of liberty and shared prosperity in the heart of the Middle East”, and said he wanted a compromise that protects civil liberties.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, courted by the United States as a bulwark against China, also extolled the virtues of democracy days after the opposition chief was expelled from parliament over a conviction for defaming the right-wing leader.

Modi called India the “mother of democracy” — a title more frequently taken by Greece — as he pointed to the ancient Sanskrit epic the Mahabharata’s call for leaders to exercise power through consultation.

“Democracy is not just a structure; it is also a spirit,” said Modi, whose government is also accused of a growing clampdown on media.

Biden declined to invite a number of leaders over concern on their records including Turkish Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who faces reelection in May after two decades in power, and, alone among European Union members, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an outspoken critic of liberal values.

Close US partners who failed to make the cut include Bangladesh, Singapore and Thailand.

China — identified by Washington as the sole long-term adversary to the US-led liberal international order — and Russia both described the summit as hypocritical.

Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said the summit “hypes up confrontation” and will “stoke division in the name of democracy.”

ENERGODAR, Ukraine — The chief of the UN atomic watchdog said on Wednesday he was working on a security plan for the Moscow-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and warned of increased military activity around it.

During a rare visit to Europe's largest nuclear plant currently controlled by Russian forces, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, said he was working to find a compromise that would suit both Moscow and Kyiv.

But he also warned of "increasing" military activity around the nuclear plant and hoped Russia and Ukraine would agree on safety principles.

"The idea is to agree on certain principles, certain commitments, including not to attack the plant," he added.

Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of shelling the plant, increasing fears of a disaster.

The United Nations has called for a demilitarised zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.

Grossi said his team had previously focused on "the possibility of the establishment of a well-determined zone around the plant."

"Now the concept is evolving," he said.

"We are focusing on the protection itself... rather than on territorial aspects which pose certain problems."

The UN atomic watchdog chief arrived Wednesday at Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in a rare visit to Europe's largest atomic facility currently controlled by Russian forces.

There are persistent fears over the safety of the nuclear plant in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, where there has been frequent shelling since Russian troops invaded last year.

The Ukrainian nuclear power operator Energoatom and Russian news agencies announced on social media that the International Atomic Energy Agency's Rafael Grossi had arrived with his delegation.

Energoatom distributed footage of a convoy of civilian and military vehicles marked with the letter Z, a symbol emblazoned on Russian military hardware in Ukraine.

“Raphael Grossi plans to see how the situation at the ZNPP has changed, speak with the nuclear engineers at the plant, and act as a guarantor of the rotation of members of the IAEA permanent mission,” it said on social media.

This is Grossi’s second visit to Zaporizhzhia since Russia invaded Ukraine last February and the aim of the visit is to “assess first-hand the serious nuclear safety and security situation at the facility”, the IAEA said.

The agency has had a team of experts inside the plant since September 2022, but Grossi has said the situation “is still precarious”.

 ‘Anything can happen’ 

Earlier this week, he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who said it was not possible to restore safety at the plant with Russia in control.

“Without the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops and personnel from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and adjacent territory, any initiatives to restore nuclear safety and security are doomed to failure,” Zelensky told Grossi.

Renat Karchaa, an advisor to Russia’s Rosenergoatom, which runs the facility, said Wednesday ahead of the visit that it would unlikely bring about any major breakthroughs.

“We are far from having any illusions that Grossi’s visit will dramatically change anything. For us, this is an ordinary working event,” he was cited as saying by Russian news agencies.

“Of course anything can happen,” he added.

The plant needs reliable electricity supply to ensure essential nuclear safety and security functions.

But it has suffered repeated electricity outages during the war, causing alarm in the IAEA and the international community.

The Russian invasion has caused devastation across swathes of the country, and despite more than 13 months of gruelling battles, Ukraine’s top diplomat on Tuesday struck a defiant tone.

“Russia has to withdraw from every square meter of Ukrainian territory,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a virtual session ahead of the Summit for Democracy, which US President Joe Biden will formally kick off on Wednesday.

“There should be no misinterpretation of what the word withdrawal implies.”

 ‘Crime of aggression’ 

In Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, fighting in recent months has been concentrated on the eastern city of Bakhmut, with Kyiv saying it is holding out in the urban hub to exhaust Russian troops.

The key military objective of Russia’s invasion is the complete capture of Donetsk, which it already claimed to have annexed last year even as fighting there is ongoing.

Moscow said Tuesday it had for the first time downed a long-range rocket supplied by the United States to Ukraine.

These devices have a range of up to 150 kilometres, which could threaten Russian positions and supply depots far behind the front lines.

Russian authorities said Wednesday that Ukrainian forces had used US-supplied HIMARS systems to strike Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region.

The city controlled by Moscow lies some 65 kilometres from the frontline and analysts have speculated it could be a target for a highly-anticipated Ukrainian counter offensive.

Since the invasion, more than 850 health facilities in Ukraine have been attacked, according to the World Health Organisation — creating a massive gap in health and emergency services.

A Norway and EU-backed project is conducting medical evacuation flights, carrying Ukraine’s war wounded to hospitals across Europe.

Vladyslav Shakhov, who had to leave Ukraine on a medical flight for treatment after he was hit by shrapnel, said he was “not happy about leaving my country”.

“I hope they will get me back on my feet quickly so I can get back,” the 24-year-old told AFP.