World

MONROVIA — Liberians choose a new leader on Tuesday in a run-off between Vice President Joseph Boakai and footballing icon George Weah, a vote that will mark the country’s first democratic transition since 1944.

After seven weeks of delays caused by legal complaints lodged by Boakai’s ruling Unity Party against the country’s electoral commission, polling stations are due to open at 8:00am (08:00GMT) and close at 6:00 pm for Liberia’s 2.1 million registered voters.

Weah’s Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) has urged voters not to drink too much on Christmas Day and to get up early on the 26th to cast their ballots in what National Elections Commission (NEC) Chairman Francis Korkoya has said is “one sacrifice for the good of our democracy and country”.

They will choose a successor to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is due to step down in January after 12 years at the helm of the west African nation, resurrecting it from the ashes of civil war (1989-2003) and overseeing the response to the Ebola crisis (2014-16).

In the first round of voting on October 10, Weah topped the poll with 38.4 per cent while Boakai came second with 28.8 per cent, triggering a run-off as neither made it past the 50 per cent needed to win outright.

“It’s too close to call,” said Ibrahim Al Bakri Nyei, a Liberian political analyst at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, saying Weah was in a similar position to 2005 when he lost despite widespread predictions of victory.

Given the date of the vote, “it’s likely to have a lower turnout than the first one”, he predicted.

QUETTA, Pakistan/JAKARTA — Christmas church services and other celebrations are being held this weekend under the gaze of armed guards and security cameras in many countries after the Daesh terror group’s gunmen attacked a Methodist church in Pakistan as a Sunday service began.

Majority-Muslim countries in Asia and the Middle East were particularly nervous after US President Donald Trump’s recent announcement he intends to relocate the US embassy in Israel to occupied Jerusalem, a decision that has outraged many Muslims.

In Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim-majority country, police said they had stepped up security around churches and tourist sites, mindful of near-simultaneous attacks on churches there at Christmas in 2000 that killed about 20 people.

Muslim volunteers in Indonesia are also on standby to provide additional security if requested.

“If our brother and sisters who celebrate Christmas need ... to maintain their security to worship, we will help,” said Yaqut Chiolil Qoumas, chairman of the youth wing of the Nahdlatul Ulema, one of the country’s biggest Muslim organisations.

In Cairo, where a bombing at the Egyptian capital’s largest Coptic cathedral killed at least 25 people last December, the interior ministry said police would conduct regular searches of streets around churches ahead of the Coptic celebration of Christmas on January 7.

Egypt’s Christian minority has been targeted in several attacks in recent years, including the bombing of two churches in the north of the country on Palm Sunday in April.

At the Heliopolis Basilica, a Catholic cathedral in northeastern Cairo, security forces had set up metal detectors at the main doors and police vehicles were stationed outside ahead of masses on December 25, which marks Christmas Day for Catholic and Protestant Christians.

Bombed-out church

In the Pakistani city of Quetta, members of a Bethel Memorial Methodist Church were repairing the damage done by a pair of suicide bombers, who attacked during a service last Sunday, killing 10 people and wounding more than 50.

Broken pews and damaged musical instruments were still strewn around church grounds on Thursday, with about a dozen police standing guard.

“We’re making efforts to complete repairs and renovation before Christmas, but it seems difficult in view of the lot of damage,” said Pastor Simon Bashir, who was leading the service when the attackers struck. He was not hurt.

The government of Baluchistan province, of which Quetta is capital, plans to deploy 3,000 security personnel in and around 39 Christian churches this Sunday and Monday.

Provincial police chief Moazzam Jah Ansari told Reuters volunteers from churches were also being trained to conduct body searches and identify worshippers entering churches.

Pakistan’s Christian minority, which makes up about 1 per cent of the population of 208 million, has been a frequent target, along with Shiite and Sufi Muslims, of Sunni Muslim militants.

In the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, where an Easter Day bombing in a park last year killed more than 70 people, police Detective Inspector General Haider Ashraf said every church would be monitored with CCTV cameras as part of security measures.

Christian Kaleem Masih lost his aunt in the Easter attack, which was claimed by Daesh, and his wife was wounded, but he said they would be attending Christmas services.

“Christmas is our holy day,” Kaleem said. “We will fulfil our religious duty by celebrating it with smiles on our faces.”

Jerusalem issue

In Malaysia, a police official said Trump’s decision on Jerusalem increased worry about attacks.

“We are concerned not only with safety at churches and places of worship but also any threats by Daesh or any other security threat following the Jerusalem issue,” said Malaysia’s Inspector General of Police Mohamad Fuzi Harun.

Jerusalem, revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, is home to Islam’s third holiest site and has been at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for decades. Israel captured Arab East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in an action not recognised internationally.

Protests across the Muslim world in Asia and the Middle East have largely been peaceful.

In Jerusalem itself, an Israeli police spokesman said there were no new security measures but police would deploy forces as usual around Christian holy sites including the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and also secure convoys of worshippers from the West Bank city of Bethlehem, traditionally known as the birthplace of Jesus Christ and run by the Palestinian Authority.

Many Palestinian Christians oppose Trump’s announcement and say they have no fear of attacks.

“Trump’s decision offended all Palestinians, be they Christians or Muslims. Why would we feel threatened by Muslims?” said George Antone, a Catholic who lives in Gaza, which is run by the Palestinian Hamas group.

BARCELONA — Ousted Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was weighing up whether to return to the region, where he faces arrest, close aides said on Saturday, after pro-independence parties defeated Spain’s central government in pivotal elections.

Puigdemont campaigned from Brussels, where he sought self-imposed exile after he was sacked by Madrid and a Spanish court charged him with rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds.

After the divisive regional elections on Thursday, how the independence camp intends to rule remains a mystery, with other secessionist leaders, including Puigdemont’s former deputy Oriol Junqueras, behind bars pending trial.

When asked if Puigdemont was inclined to return to the region, one of his lawyers in Catalonia said: “In principle yes, but my advice is to evaluate the situation because the moment he comes back here he would be arrested.” 

“We must assess if it is worth it, if he can do more inside than outside — obviously if he returns and is imprisoned, that would create... a very significant political conflict,” lawyer Jaume Alonso-Cuevillas told Catalunya Radio.

“We are studying all the scenarios,” said Elsa Artadi, Puigdemont’s campaign manager, told Rac1 radio on Saturday.

Artadi also called for talks with the central government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy after the polls, in which the three pro-independence groupings won an absolute majority in the Catalan regional parliament with 47.5 per cent of the vote.

Rajoy, meanwhile, has warned that the new Catalan government should fully respect the law, a reference to the former leaders’ defiance on October 1, when they went ahead with an independence referendum despite being banned by the Spanish courts.

Catalan lawmakers went on to declare independence, prompting Madrid to sack Puigdemont’s government, dissolve the regional parliament and call the snap elections that were held on Thursday.

‘No majority for independence’ 

Puigdemont on Friday picked up where he had left off in the tug-of-war with his nemesis, calling on Rajoy to hold talks in Brussels or anywhere else in Europe — barring Spain.

Puigdemont’s statement was in line with his strategy throughout the crisis, positioning himself as an equal to the Spanish prime minister and seeking recognition from the international community.

But Rajoy quickly rejected the request.

“The person I should be meeting with is with the one who won the elections, and that is Mrs Arrimadas,” Rajoy said, referring to centrist, anti-independence candidate Ines Arrimadas, whose Ciudadanos party got the best individual result, with 37 seats and 25 per cent of the vote.

“The top political force in Catalonia is Ciudadanos, a constitutional force,” Arrimadas said in an interview published on Saturday in the El Mundo newspaper.

“It is fundamental to highlight the fact that there is no majority in Catalonia in favour of independence,” she said.

But Ciudadanos does not have the allies to form a government, with the three secessionist lists expected to reach an agreement to rule together with a 70-seat majority in parliament — two fewer seats than their previous tally.

As the crisis continues, the economy is at risk in a region that has seen its tourism sector suffer and more than 3,100 companies — including the largest banks, utilities and insurers — move their legal headquarters out of Catalonia.

BARCELONA — Deeply divided Catalans voted on Thursday with support for separatists and unionists running neck-and-neck, leaving prospects of a quick end to Spain’s worst political crisis in decades looking slim.

Initial figures suggested turnout was heading for a record high.

Final preelection surveys published last Friday showed parties backing the region’s independence drive, galvanised in an autumn referendum, could lose absolute control of the regional parliament but might be able to form a minority government.

That would keep national politics mired in turmoil and raise concerns in European capitals and financial markets, though the secessionist campaign has lost some momentum since the October 1 plebiscite that Madrid outlawed.

The independence movement could, however, be dealt a potentially devastating blow if unionists managed to mobilise enough of their supporters to win a majority in the regional parliament.

Opinion polls have shown the next Catalan government is likely to emerge only from weeks of haggling between parties over viable coalitions. 

Almost 70 per cent of eligible Catalans had turned up to vote by 17:00 GMT, against 63 per cent in previous elections in 2015. Unlike in 2015, Thursday was a working day and many Catalans could only cast votes just before polling booths close at 19:00 GMT.

Some analysts say a high turnout could benefit unionist parties, whose voters are less politically engaged than separatists, but so far it remains unclear. 

In Barcelona, the capital of the affluent region of northeastern Spain, voters told of very different expectations. 

“I want the independence bloc to win. We are a repressed people,” said Rut Salvador, a 45-year-old shop owner, coming out of a polling station in the working class suburb of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

At the same polling station, retired cleaner Manuela Gomez, who voted for unionist party Ciudadanos, said she wanted a strong regional government that would respect the law.

“I want a change, because things are going from bad to worse here and it’s the young people that carry the brunt of it,” she said. 

The atmosphere was one of peace and order as long queues of voters formed, in contrast to the October 1 referendum marked by police firing rubber bullets and wielding truncheons to prevent people voting as the central government cracked down on the illegal ballot.

BARCELONA — Catalans were anxiously preparing on Wednesday for a decisive regional vote, hoping it will help settle the bitter dispute over independence from Spain that has divided their region and rattled Europe.

The election pits leaders of the wealthy northeastern region’s separatist movement against candidates who want to stay part of Spain.

Record turnout is expected but with pro- and anti-independence candidates neck-and-neck in opinion polls, neither side is likely to win a clear majority.

The regional election is being closely watched across a European Union still reeling from Britain’s shock decision to leave the bloc, and wary about any breakup of the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy.

‘Extreme’ positions

The separatist drive has inflamed passions not just in Catalonia but across Spain, with the government in Madrid taking the unprecedented step of stripping the region of its autonomy after its parliament declared independence on October 27.

“I think many positions have become very extreme,” said Assumpta Corell, a 21-year-old university student from the seaside city of Castelldefels who says she will vote for Ciudadanos, the centrist, anti-independence party that is scoring high in opinion polls.

“People who have one opinion will maintain it, people who have a different opinion will continue thinking differently, which is great, but the problem comes when politics play at dividing people even more,” she said.

The election campaign has been tense and often surreal, with axed regional president Carles Puigdemont holding rallies via videolink from exile in Belgium, and his former deputy Oriol Junqueras sending out messages and even poems to supporters from behind bars.

“This is not a normal election,” Puigdemont told supporters on Tuesday evening in a final, virtual rally from Belgium.

“What is at stake is not who gets the most votes, but whether the country [Catalonia] or [Spanish Prime Minister Mariano] Rajoy wins” the standoff, he added.

End of a ‘nightmare’? 

While opinion polls suggest a narrow lead for Junqueras’s leftist, pro-independence ERC, voters could ultimately hand victory to Ciudadanos, whose charismatic candidate Ines Arrimadas has campaigned on a fierce anti-nationalist ticket.

She is fighting to replace Puigdemont, who is wanted by the Spanish courts on charges of sedition, rebellion and misuse of public funds for his role in the independence drive.

“We are very close to making our dream come true,” Arrimadas told supporters at a rally Tuesday in a working-class district of Barcelona.

“We are going to wake up from this nightmare on Thursday,” she added.

But ordinary Catalans on all sides of the divide appeared unsure the election would bring the independence crisis to an end, regardless of who wins.

“I’m anticipating problems, whoever wins,” said Marc Botey, a 47-year-old musician, as he prepared to teach guitar to a student in Poblenou, a former industrial district of Barcelona that has since become hip.

He says he will be voting for the ERC, and hopes that the vote — at the very least — will clarify once and for all how many independence supporters there are in Catalonia.

“We want to know how many we are to be able to decide if it’s worth it,” he said.

Secessionist bid on hold 

With the separatist camp in disarray, secessionists will probably put their independence drive on hold even if they win the vote.

“Even if a pro-independence government is formed it will be very cautious how it acts because it won’t want to lose the restored authority the Catalan government has,” Andrew Dowling, contemporary historian in Hispanic studies at Cardiff University, told AFP.

“It won’t want to see that suspended again,” he said.

The deposed government’s independence declaration prompted more than 3,000 companies to move their headquarters out of the region, and no country has recognised the new “republic”.

The Catalan crisis kicked off in earnest on October 1, when the regional government held a referendum on independence despite a ban by Spain’s constitutional court.

The vote was marred by a brutal police crackdown and triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Neither separatist nor pro-unity parties are predicted to win a decisive majority in the 135-seat regional parliament, which could lead to lengthy negotiations to form a government.

If parties cannot agree a governing coalition, Catalonia could face elections again next year, prolonging the political uncertainty.

TEGUCIGALPA — The president of Honduras declared himself reelected on Tuesday despite calls by his opponent and the Organisation of American States (OAS) for a fresh vote amid allegations of fraud and deadly protests over last month’s disputed election.

President Juan Orlando Hernandez who spoke for the first time since electoral authorities on Sunday said he had won the November 26 election. A partial recount did not tip the result in favour of his opponent, TV host Salvador Nasralla, the electoral tribunal said.

Hernandez, who is an ally of the United States, said in a televised address that accepting the popular will bring “peace, harmony and prosperity” to the poor Central American nation.

“As a citizen and president-elect of all Hondurans, I humbly accept the will of the Honduran people,” said Hernandez, a conservative who has led a military crackdown on the country’s violent gangs. “All that is left to do is heed the freely expressed will of the people.”

Nasralla countered with a call for a re-run of the election, to be monitored by international observers, saying Hernandez was insisting on holding on illegally to power after what he called gross electoral fraud.

Nasralla, who leads a centre-left coalition, was speaking in Washington, where he travelled on Monday to meet with OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro and a senior State Department official.

Honduras risks falling into civil war, Nasralla told reporters, adding he sought a peaceful and just negotiated solution to the crisis. He also urged Washington to suspend aid to Honduras and to refrain from recognising the election result until a new vote can be held.

In the early hours after last month’s election, Nasralla had seemed headed for a surprise upset win. But results abruptly stopped being issued. When they restarted, the outcome began to favour Hernandez, arousing suspicion among Nasralla supporters.

Shortly after the electoral tribunal backed Hernandez’s victory on Sunday, the OAS said the election did not meet democratic standards. Protesters took to the streets and set up flaming barricades to block roads around the country.

At least 24 people, including two police officers, have died in protests around the country since the opposition declared fraud, according to the Honduran human rights group COFADEH, which tracks kidnappings and murders by the state.

Opposition leaders have accused government security forces of firing into barricades and peaceful protests. A military official has said troops are firing back only if they are shot at by protesters. Opposition leaders deny protesters are armed with guns.

On Monday, one of Hernandez’s top officials rejected the call for another vote.

The US State Department urged Honduran political parties on Monday to raise any concerns about the official results through a formal legal challenge this week.

The Central American country struggles with violent drug gangs, one of world’s highest murder rates and endemic poverty, driving a tide of Hondurans to migrate to the United States.

Hernandez, 49, has been supported by US President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, John Kelly, since Kelly was a top general.

SANTIAGO — Billionaire conservative Sebastian Pinera will begin a second term as Chile's president in March with a strong mandate after trouncing his centre-left opponent in Sunday's election, and local markets soared on hopes of more investor-friendly policies.

Still, Pinera will face a divided Congress and an upstart leftist coalition that has promised to fight his plans to lower taxes and "refine" the progressive policies undertaken by outgoing centre-left President Michelle Bachelet. Pinera's previous stint as president, from 2010 to 2014, was marked by huge student protests.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Bachelet on Monday, Pinera struck a tone of unity, saying he would work to form a "broad Cabinet, of continuity and change". 

Chile's peso strengthened more than 2 percentage points against the dollar on Monday, while the IPSA stock index hit an all-time high and was up nearly 7 per cent, as investors bet on more business-friendly policies under a Pinera administration.

Pinera, 68, won more votes than any presidential candidate since Chile's return to democracy in 1990, with a 9-percentage point win over centre-left senator Alejandro Guillier in Sunday's run-off presidential election.

It was the biggest ever loss for the centre-left coalition that has dominated Chile's politics since the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. Other South American countries including Argentina, Peru and Brazil have also shifted to the political right in recent years. 

The results of a first round vote and a congressional election last month pointed to a more divided country, however. Far-left candidate Beatriz Sanchez captured 20 per cent of votes, nearly as many as the more moderate Guillier, suggesting some dissatisfaction with Chile's long-standing free-market model.

Guillier on Sunday acknowledged the "harsh defeat" and urged his supporters to defend Bachelet's progressive policies, which have included overhauls of tax, labour and education laws in an effort to fight persistent inequality in one of South America's most developed economies.

Changes to constitution

Pinera said Bachelet had confirmed she plans to present parliament with a bill to recast Chile's dictatorship-era constitution before her term ends in March.

Such a change was also a key campaign promise of Guillier. Pinera said he agreed on "perfecting it [the constitution] but in a climate of unity." 

Pinera's Chile Vamos party has 72 of 155 representatives in the lower house, more than any other bloc. Still, without an outright majority in either chamber of the legislature, Pinera's supporters will have to form alliances to pass most laws. 

Sanchez's coalition earned its first senate seat and around 20 seats in the lower house in November's election.

"The Frente Amplio commits to continuing to work for a changing Chile, with more rights and more democracy," she wrote in a tweet congratulating Pinera, referring to the leftist Broad Front Party.

Efforts by Pinera's ideological allies in Brazil and Argentina to reduce fiscal deficits by cutting spending and reforming pension systems have faced political opposition and sparked protests in recent months.

"What I think he's going to do is perfect Bachelet's reforms, make them more effective, more efficient, maybe help out business a little bit more," said analyst Kenneth Bunker, of political research group Tresquintos.

"But he'll be cutting around the edges, he's not going to have power in congress to do everything he would otherwise."

Pinera has sought to strike a conciliatory tone. In his victory speech Sunday night, he addressed Guillier, saying, "Despite our great differences, there are large points of agreement."

QUETTA/ISLAMABAD — Two suicide bombers attacked a packed church in southwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least eight people and wounding up to 45 before one of them blew himself up and police killed the other, officials said.

The gunmen wearing explosives-filled vests stormed the church in Quetta city when Sunday services had just opened, exploding a suicide vest and shooting at the worshippers, said Sarfraz Bugti, the home minister of Baluchistan province.

Police guards at the church exchanged fire with the attackers before they could enter the main sanctuary, said provincial police chief Moazzam Jah. He said two women were among those killed.

“There were nearly 400 people inside the church, but the attackers couldn’t get inside the services,” Jah said. “We killed one of them, and the other one exploded himself after police wounded him,” he said.

Jah said the venue — Bethel Memorial Methodist Church — was on high alert as Christian places of worship were often targeted by extremists over Christmas.

Another police official, Abdur Razaq Cheema, said two attackers escaped from the scene.

No one has claimed responsibility.

Baluchistan has long been the scene of an insurgency by separatists fighting against the state to demand more of a share of the gas- and mineral-rich region’s resources. They also accuse the central government of discrimination.

The Taliban, Sunni militants and sectarian groups linked to Al Qaeda and the terror group Daesh also operate in the strategically important region, which borders Iran as well as Afghanistan.

The violence has fuelled concern about security for projects in the $57 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor, a transport and energy link planned to run from western China to Pakistan’s southern deep-water port of Gwadar.

Pakistan has launched several military offensives over the last decade against the militants who want to install their own harsh brand of religion.

Although beaten and dispersed, the militants have shown resilience to launch spectacular attacks. Early this month, three Taliban suicide bombers attacked an agriculture college in northwestern Peshawar city, killing eight students and a guard. 

JAKARTA — A powerful magnitude- 6.5 earthquake struck the island of Java in Indonesia just before midnight on Friday, with authorities reporting three deaths and damage to hundreds of buildings.

The US Geological Survey said the epicentre of the quake was located at a depth of 92km, about 52km southwest of Tasikmalaya. 

Indonesia's national disaster management agency said the quake activated early tsunami warning systems in the south of Java, prompting thousands to evacuate from some coastal areas, but no tsunami was detected.

Tremors were felt in central and west Java. 

Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, a spokesman for the disaster agency, said in a press briefing on Saturday three people had been killed, seven injured and hundreds of buildings damaged, including schools, hospitals, and government buildings in West and Central Java.

Dozens of patients had to be helped to safety from a hospital in Banyumas and were given shelter in tents, he said.

He posted on his Twitter page photos of people scouring collapsed buildings.

The quake swayed buildings for several seconds in the capital Jakarta. Some residents of high rise apartment buildings in central Jakarta quickly escaped their apartments, local media reported.

Indonesia's meteorology and geophysics agency said a magnitude 5.7 quake early on Saturday also struck south of West Java. It said the quake did not have tsunami potential.

Java, Indonesia's most densely populated island, is home to more than half of its 250 million people.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said the opposition was hoping for a “coup”, during a marathon press conference that marked his first major public appearance since announcing he would seek a new six-year term in March 2018 elections.

At the annual event, which this year lasted almost four hours and saw more than 1,600 journalists accredited, Putin also touched on Olympic doping, North Korea and the achievements of US leader Donald Trump.

Putin warned against unrest in response to a question from Ksenia Sobchak, a former socialite and liberal journalist who announced in October she would run in next year’s elections, about whether authorities were afraid of opposition.

“Do you want us to have coup attempts here? We’ve already been through all that. You want to go back to that? I am sure that the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens do not want this and will not stand for it,” he told Sobchak.

“We don’t want a second edition of today’s Ukraine for Russia, do we?” asked Putin, referring to the pro-Western 2014 uprisings that culminated in the removal of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Sobchak mentioned Alexei Navalny by name, the opposition leader who has spent the last year gathering support for a Kremlin bid but is barred from running because of a criminal conviction that he says is politically motivated. 

Many suspect Sobchak, whose father was Putin’s political mentor and who is rumoured to be the president’s goddaughter, is standing as a Kremlin “spoiler” candidate to split the opposition and boost interest in the polls.

Second only to Stalin 

The press conference kicked off with a question from a Moscow radio station on why Putin was seeking re-election.

“To improve quality of life for Russians,” said Putin, who has been in power since 1999. He could become the country’s longest-serving leader since Joseph Stalin if he wins a fourth term.

Putin said he would stand for election as an independent candidate rather than with the backing of his traditional party, United Russia.

A journalist asked about the state of the opposition in polls in which Putin will face only nominal competition and is all but certain to cruise to victory. 

“Is it up to me to form the opposition myself?” Putin replied. “I think in politics, as in the economy, there should be competition. I will strive for this.” 

Putin’s main challenge will be to convince Russians to vote at all in polls in which the outcome already appears clear. According to the independent pollster Levada, only 28 per cent of Russians said they were certain to vote in March. 

Trump’s achievements 

Putin typically addresses local, national and international issues at the end-of-year event, which he hosted this year for the 13th time. 

In response to a question from an American journalist he hailed the “significant achievements” of President Donald Trump but denied Moscow had meddled in the election that brought him to power.

“Look at how the markets are reacting, they are growing. This shows confidence in the American economy. With all due respect to [Trump’s] opponents, these are objective facts,” he said.

Putin also addressed the doping scandal that has seen Russia barred from competing in next year’s Winter Olympics and athletes from the country only allowed to take part under a neutral flag. 

Russia would “defend the interests of our athletes, including in civil courts”, he said, even as it cooperated with the World Anti-Doping Agency and the International Olympic Committee.

He accused state doping programme whistleblower Grigory Rodchenkov, who fled to America in 2016, of working “under the control and the protection of the FBI”. 

When asked about North Korea, Putin said he welcomed the United States’s “awareness of reality” in the crisis after Washington announced it was ready for talks with Pyongyang without preconditions. 

As in previous years, there was a carnival atmosphere in the press conference hall. Journalists held signs to attract the president’s attention and one reporter even dressed as the Russian equivalent of Father Christmas, an AFP correspondent said.

Signs offered an indication of the sort of question the reporters would ask if given the floor by the president. Slogans included “children”, “agriculture”, and “spiritual foundations”.