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Erdogan demands EU help in Syria as price to end migrant crisis
By Raziye Akkoc
Ankara (AFP) March 4, 2020

Singaporean Daren Tang elected to head global patent agency: UN
Geneva (AFP) March 4, 2020 - Countries voted Wednesday to put the head of Singapore's national patent agency in charge of global intellectual property, replacing Australian Francis Gurry at of the helm of the World Intellectual Property Organization.

After a hotly contested and at times politicised race, Daren Tang won over five other candidates, including Chinese national Wang Binying, who has served as deputy chief of the UN agency for a decade.

In a second and final round of voting by the 83 members of WIPO's coordination committee, Tang took 55 votes over 28 for Wang.

The vote still needs to be confirmed during the agency's full general assembly in May, but that is traditionally a formality.

Once confirmed, he will replace Gurry when he steps down at the end of September after 12 years at the helm.

"It really is an honour," Tang, 47, told reporters after the vote, adding that his candidacy had received "support from every part of the world."

"We hope to bring to WIPO the spirit of inclusiveness, the spirit of Singapore as a bridge to connect east and west and north and south.... We are here to serve all regions, all countries," he said.

- 'Political game' -

His message of unity contrasted with politicised statements by some countries in the lead-up to the vote.

Washington, which threw its weight behind Tang, warned ahead of the election against the prospect of putting a Chinese national in charge of global intellectual property protection.

"We want a candidate who comes from a country with a history of protecting IP," US Ambassador Andrew Bremberg told AFP in a recent interview.

"China does not have that history," he said.

Beijing meanwhile has accused Washington of turning the election "into a political game".

Chinese Ambassador Chen Xu told reporters in Geneva last week that "the Americans are trying to do whatever they can and... they exert pressures (to vote for) anyone but China."

But after Wednesday's vote the tone was more conciliatory.

"We congratulate the elected, and we will continue our cooperation and the participation in WIPO," Chen told reporters.

"It is not defeat," he said, adding that Beijing's active engagement and participation in the process should be seen as "a very strong indication of China's readiness to make more contributions to the international community."

Wednesday's process had been expected to take far longer, with a separate round of voting to eliminate each of the five other candidates.

But after a first round, during which a delegation from each of WIPO's 83 member states walked to the front of the room to put their ballot in the voting box, all but two candidates dropped out.

Tang hailed all of the candidates, saying they had "run in a spirit of mutual respect", and said the unusually large number of candidates initially in the race showed "how important WIPO is to the global community."

If confirmed as head of the agency, he vowed to "connect IP much closer to the community, much more closer to the people, make IP more relevant to the man in the street."

"Innovation, creativity, technology, digitalisation ... will transform our lives, and IP is a very important part of that," he said.

Turkey's president on Wednesday warned a fresh migrant crisis could be resolved only if Europe supports its efforts in Syria, as violent clashes broke out between refugees and police on the Greek border.

Thousands of migrants have massed at the Greek frontier with Turkey since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last week that they would no longer be prevented from trying to enter Europe.

Erdogan's move came after 34 Turkish troops were killed in northern Syria by Russian-backed Syrian forces, prompting him to seek greater assistance from the international community.

But EU leaders now fear a repeat of the migrant crisis of 2015-16, when more than one million migrants crossed into the EU, and have decried Turkish "blackmail".

With mounting tensions around the border crossing at Pazarkule, a Turkish official claimed one migrant was killed and five injured by live fire from the Greek side.

Athens strongly denied the claim, but an AFP photographer earlier saw a migrant shot in the leg -- it was not clear whether by a real or rubber bullet -- as a group of refugees tried to cut their way through fencing.

The group then threw stones at the Greek police, who responded with tear gas, while multiple shots and cries were heard.

Athens released a video apparently showing Turkish police firing tear gas at Greek border guards, which could not be immediately confirmed.

Speaking in Ankara, Erdogan said Europe must support Turkey's "political and humanitarian solutions in Syria" if it wants to resolve the situation.

Turkey already hosts nearly four million refugees, most of them Syrians, and has been fighting the Syrian government in a bid to prevent another influx from Idlib, the jihadist-dominated region that has been under attack by Damascus since December.

Close to one million people in Idlib have been displaced by the government assault, which is backed by Russian air power, though they are currently blocked from entering Turkey.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and Council President Charles Michel met with Erdogan and other top officials in Ankara on Wednesday, promising an additional 170 million euros ($189 million) in aid for vulnerable groups in Syria.

Borrell said the EU recognised the "difficult situation Turkey is facing" but that Turkey's decision to open the way for migrants could "only make the situation worse".

- Ceasefire? -

Despite being on opposing sides of the nine-year war in Syria, NATO-member Turkey and Russia have kept lines of communication open.

But the relationship has been heavily strained as more than 50 Turkish soldiers have died in Idlib in recent weeks.

Erdogan said he hoped a ceasefire would be "swiftly established" when he meets his counterpart Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Thursday.

Turkey's defence ministry said Wednesday that three more soldiers had been killed by government fire in the past 24 hours.

Turkey said it had "immediately" retaliated, and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine government troops were killed by Turkish drone strikes in the Saraqeb area.

Ankara officially announced an offensive against Syrian forces over the weekend, demanding they pull back behind lines agreed under the 2018 Sochi deal with Russia.

"We expect Russia to fulfil its promises as a guarantor country and stop the regime's attacks and to use its influence to ensure the regime adheres to the Sochi deal's borders," Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said, according to broadcaster NTV.

But many say Russia is determined to see the Syrian government regain full control of its territory.

"There might be a ceasefire announced after the talks between Putin and Erdogan but it'll be for show," a Western diplomat told AFP.

"I believe Putin will tell Erdogan that's it for his actions in Syria."

- Support Turkey -

The EU has scrambled to respond to the surge of migrants at the Greek border, where authorities say some 24,000 were stopped from entering between Saturday and Monday.

Turkey agreed in 2016 to stop the flow of refugees in exchange for billions of euros, but says the EU failed to honour other parts of the deal, such as visa liberalisation and an improved customs agreement.

Erdogan criticised the Greek response, saying: "The Greeks -- who are resorting to any means to stop refugees coming into their country, even drowning them or killing them with live ammunition -- they shouldn't forget they might need this same mercy one day."

A Syrian refugee near the border in Turkey's Edirne province told AFP the Greek authorities were shooting at them.

"Whoever goes is immediately hit, they threw tear gas," he said.

Meanwhile, Greece sent a navy ship to the island of Lesbos to house some 500 people, many of them families with small children, who managed to reach its shores over the weekend.


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S.Africa to airlift 151 from virus-infected China within days
Johannesburg (AFP) March 1, 2020
South Africa will evacuate 151 citizens from the coronavirus-hit Chinese city of Wuhan within days, the health minister said Sunday, as the death toll and number of infected worldwide mounted. The virus has spread to more than 60 countries around the globe - killing nearly 3,000 people and sickening 87,000 - prompting the World Health Organization to raise its risk assessment to its highest level. The decision to airlift the trapped South Africans came after President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursd ... read more

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