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Tag: held
Police say multiple people are being held hostage in a Dutch town. They have evacuated nearby homes
EDE, Netherlands — Heavily armed police cordoned off part of a Dutch town on Saturday, saying that multiple people were being held hostage in a building there.
Police spokesman Simon Klok told The Associated Press people were being held hostage in the town of Ede but he declined to give more details of the incident or say how many people were involved.
Police said in a message on X, formerly Twitter, that “at the moment there is no indication of a terrorist motive.”
Earlier, officers evacuated 150 homes near a central square, saying that there was a person in the area “who could be a danger to themself or others.”
Images from the scene in Ede, a rural market town 85 kilometers (53 miles) southeast of Amsterdam, showed police and firefighters on the streets in a cordoned-off area.
The municipality said that all shops in the center of Ede would remain closed.
Video shows kidnapped labourers in Ethiopia, not government soldiers held by rebel fighters
Claims of rebels capturing thousands of Ethiopian soldiers in the country’s restive Amhara region have become a popular disinformation topic on social media. One post recently featured a video of men in civilian clothes being marched down a mountainside by armed individuals. However, the captives in the footage were not Ethiopian troops: officials said the clip showed labourers from southern Ethiopia who had been snatched by militia in Amhara while heading to work on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) in neighbouring Benishangul Gumuz region.
“Thousands of soldiers of the regime have been captured,” reads a line of Amharic text on a TikTok video posted to Facebook on March 1, 2024.
The video has since been removed from TikTok but garnered more than 110 shares and 1,300 likes on Facebook.
Another strip of text at the bottom of the footage reads: “Drive these invaders like cattle.”
The name of the Facebook page where the video was posted translates from Amharic to “The Amhara Fano”.
The Fano are an Ethiopian rebel group in the Amhara region. They have been fighting Ethiopian troops — referred to as “invaders” in the text overlay of the misleading video — since July 2023.
Another Facebook post shared the footage on the same day, claiming it showed soldiers captured by Fano in the Gojjam zone in Amhara in what it termed an “Adwa victory”.
Adwa refers to a battle in 1896 when Ethiopia defeated invading Italian forces.
Conflict in Amhara
The armed conflict in the Amhara region has caused civilian deaths and a severe humanitarian crisis. In February 2024, the Ethiopian parliament voted to extend a state of emergency first imposed in August 2023 across the region (archived here).
Local media reported that fighting recently intensified in many zones in Amhara, including Gojjam, North Shoa, Gondar and Wollo (archived here).
However, the claim that the footage shows government soldiers captured by Fano is false.
‘Labourers’ from Gardula
AFP Fact Check conducted a keyword search in Amharic for “people captured by armed groups in Amhara region”.
One of the results included this article reporting that the people shown in the footage were labourers from the Gardula zone in the Southern region who were “abducted” by Fano fighters while on their way to work on clearing forests for the GERD — a multibillion dollar hydro project on the Blue Nile nearing completion (archived here).
The Addis Stanard article, published on March 7, 2024, featured a screenshot from the video.
The GERD is located in the Benishangul Gumuz region, in an area bordering Amhara known as Guba.
Fano allegedly captured the workers near Debre Markos in Amhara’s Gojjam zone in late February 2024.
In a press statement (archived here) issued on Facebook a day before the Addis Standard article, local officials from Gardula said that footage was circulating showing “labourers being escorted to unknown locations by Fano militia fighters”.
On March 11, 2024, an independent Ethiopian journalist shared copies of official-looking documents on Facebook (archived here), which indicated that a construction company had asked to hire several hundred labourers from the Gardula zone. Their demand had been approved by the labour and social affairs bureau.
Captives freed
The state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC) reported on March 23, 2024, that the army had freed “271 people who were kidnapped by Fano” (archived here).
The story included a picture of the freed labourers.
AFP Fact Check identified individuals wearing the same clothes in the FBC image published following after their release and in the footage of their capture.
On March 26, 2024, the Gardula Zone Administrator also confirmed in a statement that the labourers had returned to their homes (archived here).
The post also included images of the freed men.
AFP Fact Check has contacted the zone’s administration for further comment and will update the story accordingly.
We have previously debunked similar posts about Fano capturing government soldiers here and here.
Russian elections are ‘costly bureaucracy’ that ‘don’t have to be held,’ Putin spokesman says
A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin claims the unified coalition around the leader makes democratic elections unnecessary and irrelevant.
Press secretary Dmitry Peskov remarked to Russian media that democratic elections have become a “costly bureaucracy” that serves no purpose due to the supposed widespread support for Putin.
“Elections are what a democracy demands and Putin himself decided to hold them, but theoretically, they don’t even have to be held,” Peskov told state media outlet RBK.
RUSSIAN OPPOSITION LEADER ALEXEI NAVALNY SENTENCED TO 19 YEARS IN PRISON
He added, “Because it’s clear that Putin will be elected. That’s completely my personal opinion.”
Peskov told RBK he was seeking to clarify his statement to The New York Times earlier this week that he claims was misquoted.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
“Our presidential election is not really democracy, it is costly bureaucracy,” Peskov told the New York Times in an article published Aug. 6. “Mr. Putin will be re-elected next year with more than 90 percent of the vote.”
RETIRED FBI COUNTERINTEL AGENT REPORTEDLY INVOLVED IN TRUMP-RUSSIA PROBE ARRESTED FOR TIES TO RUSSIA
The press secretary’s comments on Russian democracy follow the conviction of political opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was found guilty of extremism by a Russian court on Friday.
Navalny, already serving a nine-year sentence on separate political charges, was sentenced to an additional 19 years.
“I understand perfectly that, as many political prisoners, I’m serving a life sentence, which is measured by the length of my life or the length of life of this regime,” Navalny told his supporters via social media.
Navalny has long been Putin’s most outspoken critic, leading anti-corruption watchdog organizations and protesting Kremlin policy.
In 2020, he sought medical attention in Germany after being poisoned with a nerve agent. He was arrested after returning to Moscow in January 2021.
Ukraine says woman held in plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
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Ukraine says woman held in plot to assassinate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as airstrikes kill 3
Ukraine’s intelligence agency, the Secret Service of Ukraine (SSU), said Monday that it had arrested a woman in connection with an alleged assassination plot against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The woman in question “was preparing a Russian airstrike in the Mykolaiv region during the visit of the President of Ukraine,” the SSU said.
“Primarily, the woman tried to establish time and list of locations of the Head of State’s tentative itinerary in the region,” a statement from the SSU said, referring to a planned visit by the president to the southern region.
The report from Kyiv’s intelligence community came as Russian forces struck the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson in the south, and border areas in the northeast Kharkiv region, with at least three people killed in the attacks, according to Ukrainian officials.
Reuters/OLEKSANDR PROKUDIN/TELEGRAM
“A difficult night for Kherson… The Russian army continued to set fire to the homes of Kherson residents in the central part of the city,” Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on social media. One woman was killed in the attacks, Prokudin said.
Separately, Andriy Yermak, President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said Moscow had shelled the village of Kucherivka, close to Ukraine’s border with Russia in the Kharkiv region. That strike left two people dead, Yermak said.
The strikes were just the latest examples of Russia’s daily aerial bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities. Both countries have ramped up attacks on each other’s troops, infrastructure and military hardware in recent weeks as the deadliest war in Europe since World War II nears the 18-month mark.
On Sunday, the Reuters news agency, citing officials in both Kyiv and Moscow, reported that Ukraine had struck two bridges linking Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — a large region that has been occupied by Russia since 2014 — to the Ukrainian mainland.
Over the weekend, Russia unleashed a missile and drone barrage across Ukraine, including an assault on a blood transfusion center that Zelenskyy called “a war crime.” The strikes were seen as likely retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on a major Russian port in the Black Sea, which was struck by Ukrainian sea drones Friday, causing significant damage to a Russian warship.
Attacks on key strategic ports in the Black Sea have increased following Russia’s withdrawal in July from an internationally brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export grain to the rest of the world.
Meanwhile, senior officials from some 40 countries including Ukraine, the U.S and China, but notably not Russia, gathered in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for peace talks, with no concrete steps emerging from the summit.
The Ukrainian delegation described the talks as an attempt to secure broad international support for Kyiv’s terms and conditions for peace, including the withdrawal of all Russian troops and the return of all Ukrainian territory to its control.
On Monday, China’s foreign ministry said in a written statement to Reuters that the talks in Jeddah had helped “to consolidate international consensus.”
Last week, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy expressed hope that a Ukraine “peace summit” would be held later this year, and he said the talks in Saudi Arabia were a step toward that objective.
Ramy Inocencio
US declines to declare Army Pvt. Travis King a prisoner of war while held in North Korea: report
The United States has declined to classify Army Pvt. Travis King as a prisoner of war, as he continues to be held in North Korea after crossing into the repressive state last month.
The decision could mean King could not be entitled to the protections granted to POWs under the Geneva Convention, said Reuters, which first reported the decision. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Pentagon.
U.S. officials have said the priority is to bring King home.
US ‘WORKING VERY HARD’ TO DETERMINE CAPTURED SOLDIER TRAVIS KING’S STATUS IN NORTH KOREA, DIPLOMAT SAYS
“Private King must be treated humanely in accordance with international law,” a Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters.
Another official told the news outlet that the U.S. could call King a POW at a later time. Prisoners of war are protected by the Third Geneva Convention, which North Korea and the U.S. have signed onto. It entails standards for the treatment of captives, their medical needs, to the ability of prisoners to send messages to their families.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
King, 23, “willingly” crossed into North Korea on July 18 while on a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, officials have said. The two Koreas are technically still at war after signing an armistice in 1953 following a bloody conflict between both nations.
King was supposed to fly from South Korea to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he was expected to face disciplinary proceedings after a short jail term on assault charges. At the time, he was stationed in South Korea.
He instead skipped his flight and joined the tour group to the DMZ, where he dashed across the border.
Earlier this week, Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, confirmed “that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has responded to United Nations Command (UNC).”
“What I will tell you is, as you heard us say previously, United Nations Command did communicate or provide some communication via well established communication channels,” Ryder said.
US declines to declare Army Pvt. Travis King a prisoner of war while held in North Korea: report
The United States has declined to classify Army Pvt. Travis King as a prisoner of war, as he continues to be held in North Korea after crossing into the repressive state last month.
The decision could mean King could not be entitled to the protections granted to POWs under the Geneva Convention, said Reuters, which first reported the decision. Fox News Digital has reached out to the Pentagon.
U.S. officials have said the priority is to bring King home.
US ‘WORKING VERY HARD’ TO DETERMINE CAPTURED SOLDIER TRAVIS KING’S STATUS IN NORTH KOREA, DIPLOMAT SAYS
“Private King must be treated humanely in accordance with international law,” a Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters.
Another official told the news outlet that the U.S. could call King a POW at a later time. Prisoners of war are protected by the Third Geneva Convention, which North Korea and the U.S. have signed onto. It entails standards for the treatment of captives, their medical needs, to the ability of prisoners to send messages to their families.
READ ON THE FOX NEWS APP
King, 23, “willingly” crossed into North Korea on July 18 while on a civilian tour of the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea, officials have said. The two Koreas are technically still at war after signing an armistice in 1953 following a bloody conflict between both nations.
King was supposed to fly from South Korea to Fort Bliss, Texas, where he was expected to face disciplinary proceedings after a short jail term on assault charges. At the time, he was stationed in South Korea.
He instead skipped his flight and joined the tour group to the DMZ, where he dashed across the border.
Earlier this week, Pentagon spokesman, Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder, confirmed “that the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) has responded to United Nations Command (UNC).”
“What I will tell you is, as you heard us say previously, United Nations Command did communicate or provide some communication via well established communication channels,” Ryder said.
Couple who held impromptu reception after wedding venue caught fire return for anniversary trip
Bride and groom Elizabeth and Jake Landuyt say their wedding was like a fairytale.
The ceremony, which CBS News first reported on in 2021, was “perfect,” Elizabeth said, and “everything we could have dreamed of,” according to Jake.
Elizabeth’s father was giving a speech at the Mackinac Island, Michigan, venue when some guests interrupted the picture-perfect day with some alarming news: There was a fire next door.
Everyone had to evacuate and abandon the reception, turning the happy couple into newly-fleds. The wedding party went inside the church where they’d just been married. Luckily, no one was hurt, and in the end, even the building was saved.
On the Road
While they were in the church praying for everyone’s safety, angels swooped in: The chef at the venue took all 120 meals that had been prepared for the reception to a restaurant next door, where the dishes were finished and moved to a resort that had an open event space. The resort teamed up with a second restaurant to get everything ready, and within an hour, the party was back on.
“To have them pick up the reception out of ashes, in a very literal sense, made the wedding better than we ever could have imagined,” said Jake Landuyt at the time.
Now, two years later, the couple returned to the venue to celebrate their anniversary without the dramatics — but with some new perspective and their baby son, Owen.
On The Road
“That was one day, one part of our life journey,” Jake Landuyt said. “And now we have a much more important part now.”
To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: OnTheRoad@cbsnews.com.
Steve Hartman
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Couple who held impromptu reception after wedding venue caught fire return for anniversary trip
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