Archives for May 2021

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — A prominent opponent of Belarus’ authoritarian president was arrested Sunday after the airliner in which he was traveling was diverted to the country after a bomb threat, in what the opposition and Western officials denounced as a hijacking operation by the government.

Raman Pratasevich, who faces charges that could bring 15 years in prison, was aboard the Ryanair flight from Athens, Greece, to the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius when it changed course to head for Minsk.

“I saw this Belarusian guy with girlfriend sitting right behind us. He freaked out when the pilot said the plane is diverted to Minsk. He said there’s death penalty awaiting him there,” passenger Marius Rutkauskas said after the plane arrived in Vilnius following several hours in the Belarusian capital.

“We sat for an hour after the landing. Then they started releasing passengers and took those two. We did not see them again” Rutkauskas said.

Flight tracker sites indicated the plane was about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the Lithuanian border when it was diverted. There were conflicting accounts of the move.

The press service of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said the president himself ordered that a MiG-29 fighter jet accompany the airliner after he was informed of the bomb threat. Deputy air force commander Andrei Gurtsevich said the plane’s crew made the decision to land in Minsk.

But Ryanair said in a statement that Belarusian air traffic control instructed the plane to divert to the capital.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda called the incident a “state-sponsored terror act.” He said that the European Council would discuss the case Monday and that he would propose banning Belarusian planes from European Union airports and “serious sanctions” against Lukashenko’s government.

“Belarusian airspace is completely unsafe for any commercial flight, and it should be deemed this not only by the EU but by the international community. Because now, this instrument could be used for any plane crossing Belarusian airspace,” said Lithuania’s foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis..

Pratasevich is a co-founder of the Telegram messaging app’s Nexta channel, which Belarus last year declared as extremist after it was used to help organize major protests against Lukashenko. The protests have dwindled in recent months, but Belarus authorities are continuing to crack down on opposition with arrests.

The Belarus presidential press service said the bomb threat was received while the plane was over Belarusian territory. Officials later said no explosives were found on board.

Passengers were taken off the plane in Minsk. After the plane arrived in Vilnius, Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas said Pratasevich’s girlfriend and four other people did not reboard.

“We will find out who are the other four that did not travel with the rest. Lithuania has launched an investigation to find out what really happened on that plane,” he said on Facebook.

Exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya called on the International Civil Aviation Organization to begin an investigation.

“It is absolutely obvious that this is an operation by the special services to hijack an aircraft in order to detain activist and blogger Raman Pratasevich,” she said in a statement. “Not a single person who flies over Belarus can be sure of his safety.”

The ICAO later said it “is strongly concerned by the apparent forced landing.”

Belarusian authorities said there were 123 passengers on the plane. But Landsbergis, the Lithuanian foreign minister, said there were 171.

Western countries also expressed alarm.

Belarus “showed again its contempt for international community and its citizens,” U.S. Ambassador Julie Fisher said, calling the event “dangerous and abhorrent.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted: “It is utterly unacceptable to force @Ryanair flight from Athens to Vilnius to land in Minsk.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that “such an act cannot be left without definite consequences from the side of the European Union” and called for Pratasevich to be released.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the incident “shocking” and accused Lukashenka’s government of endangering the lives of those aboard the aircraft, some of them Americans. He called for the release of Pratasevich and for the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization to review the incident.

“Independent media are an essential pillar supporting the rule of law and a vital component of a democratic society. The United States once again condemns the Lukashenka regime’s ongoing harassment and arbitrary detention of journalists,” Blinken said.

Months of protests erupted in Belarus after last August’s presidential election that official results said gave Lukashenko a sixth term in office.

Police cracked down on the protests harshly, detaining around 30,000 people and beating many of them.

Although protests died down during the winter, Belarus has continued to take actions against the opposition and independent news media. Last week, 11 staff members of the TUT.by news website were detained by police.

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Associated Press writers Jim Heintz in Moscow and Sylvia Hui in London contributed to this report.

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BEIJING (AP) — The Biden administration’s solar power ambitions are colliding with complaints the global industry depends on Chinese raw materials that might be produced by forced labor.

A big hurdle is polysilicon, used to make photovoltaic cells for solar panels. The global industry gets 45% of its supply from Xinjiang, the northwestern region where the ruling Communist Party is accused of mass incarceration of minorities and other abuses. Other parts of China supply 35%. Only 20% comes from U.S. and other producers.

Biden’s climate envoy, John Kerry, says Washington is deciding whether to keep solar products from Xinjiang out of U.S. markets. That sets up a conflict with President Joe Biden’s plans to cut climate-changing carbon emissions by promoting solar and other renewable energy while also reducing costs.

In Xinjiang, more than 1 million Uyghurs and other members of predominantly Muslim ethnic groups have been forced into detention camps, according to foreign researchers and governments. Authorities are accused of forced sterilizations of minorities and of destroying mosques.

Chinese officials reject accusations of abuse and say the camps are for job training aimed at economic development and deterring radicalism.

U.S. and some Chinese solar vendors have pledged to avoid suppliers that might use forced labor. It isn’t clear, however, whether they can meet rising demand without Xinjiang, where Beijing won’t allow independent inspections of workplaces.

The biggest manufacturers all use raw materials from Xinjiang and have a “high risk of forced labor in their supply chains,” according to a May 14 report by researchers Laura T. Murphy and Nyrola Elimaat of Britain’s Sheffield Hallam University.

The possibility of forced labor “is a problem,” Kerry told U.S. legislators last week. He cited “solar panels that we believe in some cases are being produced by forced labor.”

Western governments have imposed travel and financial restrictions on Chinese officials blamed for abuses. The U.S. government has banned imports of cotton and tomatoes from Xinjiang, citing concerns over forced labor.

The administration was assessing whether to extend that ban to solar panels and raw materials from Xinjiang, Kerry said. He said he didn’t know the status of that review.

At issue is the government’s “labor transfer” program, which places workers in Xinjiang with companies.

Chinese officials say it is voluntary, but Murphy and Elimaat argue it takes place in “an environment of unprecedented coercion” and is “undergirded by the constant threat of re-education and internment.”

“Many indigenous workers are unable to refuse or walk away from these jobs,” their report says. It says the programs are “tantamount to forcible transfer of populations and enslavement.”

Murphy and Elimaat said they found 11 companies engaged in forced labor transfers of Uyghurs and other minorities and 90 Chinese and foreign enterprises whose supply chains are affected. They said manufacturers need to make “significant changes” if they want to avoid suppliers that use forced labor.

Murphy and Elimaat say the biggest global solar equipment manufacturers — JinkoSolar Inc., LONGi Green Energy Technology Co., Trina Solar Energy Co. and JA Solar Holdings Co. — might have forced labor in their supply chains.

Trina and JinkoSolar also have “possible labor transfers” in factories, while a JinkoSolar facility is in an industrial park that also has a prison, according to Murphy and Elimaat.

JinkoSolar, LONGi, Trina and JA Solar didn’t immediately respond to questions about the report.

At the same time, a supply crunch as demand surges has boosted polysilicon prices more than 100% since January to a 9-year high.

The market is “already undersupplied,” Johannes Bernreuter, head of Germany’s Bernreuter Research, said in an email.

China is both the biggest global market for solar equipment and the biggest producer.

That reflects multibillion-dollar government spending over the past two decades to promote solar energy. The ruling party wants to curb reliance on imported oil and gas, which it sees as a security weakness, and take the lead in an emerging industry.

A supply glut as hundreds of Chinese manufacturers rushed into the industry 15 years ago drove prices down. That hurt Western competitors but accelerated adoption of solar in the United States and Europe.

Seven of the top 10 global producers are Chinese. Canadian Solar Inc. is registered in Canada but its production is in China. South Korea’s Hanwha Q-Cells is No. 6.

The only U.S. producer in the top 10, First Solar Inc., has no exposure to the Xinjiang polysilicon supply chain because the Tempe, Arizona, company uses thin film technology that requires no polysilicon.

Vendors serving U.S. and European markets probably can get enough polysilicon outside Xinjiang, Bernreuter said. But he said supplies might be squeezed if other countries impose the same requirement.

Potential non-Chinese suppliers include Germany’s Wacker Chemie AG and the Malaysian arm of South Korea’s OCI Co.

However, those companies also buy polysilicon from Xinjiang’s biggest supplier, Hoshine Silicon Industry Co., according to Murphy and Elimaat. They cited documents they said show Hoshine, also known as Hesheng, participates in “labor transfer.”

Hoshine didn’t immediately respond to questions about the report.

U.S. solar equipment vendors have been trying since last year to overhaul supply chains to eliminate problem suppliers, according to their trade group, the Solar Energy Industries Association.

In February, 175 companies including the U.S. arms of JinkoSolar, LONGi, Trina and JA Solar signed a pledge to oppose use of forced labor by their suppliers.

Potential changes should be done by the end of June, according to the group’s president, Abigail Ross Hopper.

“If their customers and the U.S. government are demanding it, they will need to move quickly,” Ross Hopper told PV Magazine USA in February.

Bernreuter warned the Chinese government “might interfere” with an overhaul, though there is no sign that has happened.

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Sheffield Hallam University report: www.shu.ac.uk/helena-kennedy-centre-international-justice/research-and-projects/all-projects/in-broad-daylight

Bernreuter Research: www.bernreuter.com

Solar Energy Industries Association: www.seia.org

Copyright © 2021 . All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.