INTERNATIONALARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, JANUARY 23, 2020

9

Russia

‘Well-balanced’

Putin names new CabinetMOSCOW, Jan 22, (AP): Russian President Vladimir Putin formed his new Cabinet Tuesday, replacing many of its members but keeping his foreign, defense and fi nance ministers in place.

The Cabinet shake-up comes as Putin has launched a sweeping con-stitutional reform that is widely seen as an attempt to secure his grip on power well after his current term ends in 2024.

Immediately after announcing the proposed changes last week, Pu-

tin fi red Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who had the job for eight years, and named tax chief Mikhail Mishus-tin to succeed him.

On Tuesday, Putin issued a de-cree outlining the structure of the

new Cabinet and named its members. He appointed his economic adviser Andrei Belousov as fi rst deputy prime minister and named eight deputy prime ministers, including some new names, such as Dmitry Chernyshenko who was the head of the organizing committee for the 2014 Sochi Olym-pics.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov have retained their jobs. Siluanov, however, was stripped of his additional role of fi rst deputy prime minister, which he had in the old Cabinet.

Other leading fi gures in the previ-ous Cabinet, including Energy Min-ister Alexander Novak, Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, In-terior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev and Emergencies Minister Yevgeny Zinichev, also stayed.

JusticeMedvedev’s longtime associate,

Alexander Konovalov, lost the job of justice minister, and Konstantin Chu-ikchenko, who was chief of staff in the old Cabinet, was moved to succeed him.

Others who lost their jobs include Economics Minister Maxim Oreshkin, Sports Minister Pavel Kolobkov, Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova and Culture Minister Vladimir Med-insky.

Kolobkov was replaced with Oleg Matytsin, who served as president of the International University Sports Federation, a body which often works closely with Olympic sports bodies. His connections could be important as Russia appeals against a ban on its name and fl ag at events like the Olym-pics over doping-related issues.

Along with the Cabinet members, Putin also dismissed Prosecutor Gen-eral Yuri Chaika and replaced him with Igor Krasnov.

Putin met with members of the new Cabinet on Tuesday, hailing it as “well-balanced.”

“The most important tasks are to increase the well-being of our peo-ple and to strengthen our state and its global standing,” he said.

Putin, 67, has been in power for more than 20 years, longer than any other Russian or Soviet leader since Josef Stalin, who led from 1924 until his death in 1953.

Under the current constitution, Putin must step down as president when his current term ends in 2024, and the set of constitutional changes he proposed last week are widely seen as part of his ef-forts to continue calling the shots.

Putin’s proposes that parliament will have a broader say over Cabinet appointments, but maintain and even strengthen the powers of the presidency.

Putin also suggested that the consti-tution must specify the authority of the State Council, an advisory body that consists of regional governors and top federal offi cials. The Kremlin’s con-stitutional bill submitted to parliament empowers the council to “determine the main directions of home and for-eign policy,” its specifi c authority yet to be spelled out in a separate law.

It remains unclear what position Putin may take to continue calling the shots, but observers say that the pro-posed changes could allow him to stay in charge by shifting into the position of the State Council’s head.

Also:WARSAW: Poland appealed to Rus-sian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to refrain from using World War II and Holocaust victims for current political goals and pointed to wartime documents in which the Pol-ish government called on the Allies to save Jews.

Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sek made the appeal before a conference in Isra-el this week to mark 75 years since So-viet troops liberated the German Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Putin, who will be one of the key speakers, recently alleged that Poland bears some blame for the war and ac-cused Poland’s government of the time of anti-Semitism. Polish Presi-dent Andrzej Duda decided to boy-cott the conference, saying he wasn’t offered a chance to speak.

PutinGreek lawmakers applaud during a parliamentary session to vote for the new Greek President, in Athens, on Jan 22. (Inset): Katerina Sakellaropoulou, head of the Council of State smiles at her offi ce in Athens on Wednesday. Greece’s lawmakers elected their country’s fi rst female president Wednesday, with an overwhelming majority voting to give high court

judge Katerina Sakellaropoulou the largely ceremonial post. (AP)

Top judge elected as Greece’s fi rst female presidentGreek islanders protest: Local resi-dents, business owners and offi cials have launched a day of protest on the Greek islands hardest hit by migration, demand-ing that the Greek government ease the severe overcrowding at refugee camps.

Most stores were closed and public services were halted Wednesday on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios and Samos, where the camps in some cases have more than 10 times the number of people they were built for.

Public protests are planned on all three islands and their regional governors and mayors plan to travel to Athens on Thursday to present their demands to the government.

Nearly 75,000 people crossed illegally to European Union member Greece from Turkey in 2019, according to the UN refugee agency, an increase of nearly 50% from the previous year.

Island authorities are urging the Greek government to step up migrant transfers to the Greek mainland and are seeking further information on its plans to build additional facilities that would be used to detain migrants listed for deportation. (AP)

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34 migrants detained: French mari-time security and rescue services inter-vened in the English Channel Tuesday to rescue and detain 34 migrants, including ten children, attempting to cross to Britain from France, media sources reported.

The migrants, presumed to be illegals, were identifi ed as 18 Iranians and six Iraqis while the nationalities of the 10 children was not established but is considered the same, “France Info” local media in Calais said.

The rescue services were called when the makeshift and dangerous craft the migrants were using got into diffi culty in the treacherous waterway separating France and Britain.

Six other unidentifi ed migrants were already rescued Tuesday in diffi culty after their craft ran into problems in the waters off north-western France.

This followed an incident Monday in which 12 migrants ran aground in the nearby area close to the Calais region.

“France Info” also reported that last year 2,758 migrants tried to make it to Britain via the Channel and were stopped by French Maritime Security. This represents a 400 percent increase over attempted crossings in 2018.

At least four migrants have also been found drowned on local beaches and an unknown number may have been lost at sea.

Britain has also intercepted a number of boats carrying migrants into its territo-rial waters. (KUNA)

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Potential radicals fi red: Sixteen people with potential Islamist radicalisa-tion profi les or linked with radical circles have been fi red in the past fi ve years by France’s Intelligence Services, a media report said Tuesday.

Quoting the office of Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, “France Info” said that the decision to “remove” the 16 individuals was revealed after two en-quiries by France’s “Internal Affairs” investigative branch of the Intelligence Services.

Even France’s elite intelligence services have been scrutinized after an attack last October by a French employee who became radicalised and stabbed to death three policemen and a civil servent in the Police HQ in central Paris.

The report stressed, however, that no intelligence offi cers have been fi red since that high-profi le attack.

More than 260 people have been killed by terrorist attacks in France since January 2015, the bulk of them in bombing and mass shooting incidents. But there have also been a number of knife attacks by foreign terrorists or French radicalised nationals, prompt-

ing a high level of security throughout the country.

At a high point, around 90,000 secu-rity personnel were mobilised here, in-cluding close to 10,000 troops and many are still patrolling France’s sensitive sites and tourist spots. (KUNA)

EuropeATHENS, Jan 22, (AP): Greece’s lawmakers elected their country’s fi rst female president Wednesday, with an overwhelming majority vot-ing to give high court judge Katerina Sakellaropoulou the largely ceremo-nial post.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitso-takis nominated Sakellaropoulou as a non-partisan candidate who would enjoy broad support from across the political spectrum. All major parties

voted in favor of the nomination, with Sakellaropoulou being elected on a 261-33 vote, well above the 200 votes required. Six lawmakers were absent.

Sakellaropoulou, who has headed the Council of State since 2018, is to begin her fi ve-year term in March, when the term of the current presi-dent, veteran conservative politician Prokopis Pavlopoulos, expires.

Greece has a historically low level of women in senior positions in poli-

tics, and Mitsotakis had been criti-cized for selecting a nearly all-male cabinet after he won general elections in July 2019.

In the current Greek cabinet, all but one of the 18 senior positions are held by men.

Speaking after the vote, Mitsotakis described Sakellaropoulou, 63, as a “great jurist, a great judiciary person-ality who unites all Greeks from the minute this procedure began.”

He said he sought to nominate a candidate who would “symbolize the youth of the Greek nation, and I am glad that the result confi rmed that on the big issues, we can fi nally agree.”

European offi cials congratulated Sakellaropoulou, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen welcoming the election of Greece’s fi rst female president in a tweet that said the country was “mov-ing ahead into a new era of equality.”

Philippe