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The Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago said Monday it had authorized US military aircraft to use its airports, amid growing fears Washington may be preparing an attack on nearby Venezuela.The archipelago of Trinidad and Tobago, situated just a dozen kilometers from Venezuela at its closest point, is a staunch backer of President Donald Trump’s campaign of military and economic pressure on Caracas.Trinidad’s foreign ministry said it had given the green light for US military aircraft to use its airports “in the coming weeks.”The ministry said Washington would use them for “logistical” operations, including “facilitating supply replenishment and routine personnel rotations.” Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has thrown open her country to US forces as Washington builds a major military deployment in the Caribbean.US officials say the operation aims to counter “narco-terrorists,” but the Trump administration is particularly piling pressure on Venezuela and its leftist strongman Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington does not recognize as the legitimate president.In October, a US guided missile destroyer docked off the island of Trinidad for four days of joint drills, within firing range of Venezuela.Last month, a contingent of US Marines took part in exercises in the archipelago.The United States has also installed radar at a new airport on the island of Tobago, which Persad-Bissessar says is aimed at detecting Venezuelan drug trafficking and sanctions-busting oil deliveries.On Monday, Caracas accused Trinidad and Tobago of participating in the “theft” last week of Venezuelan oil after US forces seized a tanker they said was in breach of US sanctions.Washington said the move was aimed at Maduro’s “regime,” but Caracas decried it as an act of “international piracy.”Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez accused Persad-Bissessar of having a “hostile agenda towards Venezuela” and reiterated Caracas would halt natural gas exploration with its neighbor.Trinidadian Foreign Minister Sean Sobers said the decision was part of a government commitment “to cooperation and collaboration in the pursuit of safety and security for Trinidad and Tobago and the wider region.”

The double killing of movie director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner in their Los Angeles home sent shockwaves through Hollywood and the political world Monday.Rob Reiner, 78 was a beloved Hollywood mainstay for decades, having helmed films including rock music mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap,” the much-quoted “When Harry Met Sally,” courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,” and coming-of-age classic “Stand By Me.”Michele Singer Reiner was a photographer who collaborated with her husband on his 1990 horror film “Misery.”Here’s what we know so far about their apparent murders and the circumstances surrounding them.- Police called -Police were called to the Reiners’ luxury home in the upmarket Los Angeles enclave of Brentwood at around 3:40 pm Sunday (2340 GMT), with reports suggesting the call had come from inside the home.The bodies of Rob and Michele Reiner were found inside, with multiple media reporting they appeared to have been stabbed, and some reports suggesting their throats had been slashed.Detectives reportedly found no signs of forced entry.Entertainment outlet TMZ said the bodies had been found by the couple’s daughter, who told police another family member had killed them.- Arrest and charge -The couple’s 32-year-old son, Nick Reiner, was taken into custody on Sunday evening and quizzed overnight.Police said Nick Reiner was charged before dawn on Monday with murder. Records show that he is being held on $4 million bail in Los Angeles.- Troubled history -Nick Reiner has a long, documented history of substance abuse.As a teenager he was in and out of rehab, and experienced bouts of homelessness.By 2015, and seemingly recovering, he and his father collaborated on “Being Charlie” a semi-autobiographical film about a successful actor and aspiring politician whose son is addicted to drugs.Rob Reiner told reporters at the time of the film’s release that parenting a child suffering from addiction had been difficult.”It was very, very hard going through it the first time, with these painful and difficult highs and lows,” he said, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Making the movie dredged it all up again.”TMZ reported Rob and Michele Reiner had attended late-night tv show host and comedian Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party on Saturday night with Nick, where guests said the two men had got into a “very loud argument.” – Political reaction -As a Democratic activist and supporter, Rob Reiner had campaigned for the legalization of same-sex marriage and for issues including early years education.His sudden death was mourned by a firmament of Democratic Party names, including former president Barack Obama and California Governor Gavin Newsom.But as tributes for Reiner poured in, President Donald Trump took to social media to launch an extraordinary attack on the director.Trump claimed the Reiners had died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.””He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness,” the Republican leader wrote.The outburst sparked condemnation across the political spectrum, with Republican lawmakers Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie amongst those who said it was inappropriate.

Opening statements began Monday in the jury trial of a judge in the northern US state of Wisconsin accused of helping an undocumented man evade federal immigration agents.Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan has pleaded not guilty to charges of obstructing an official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest.The 66-year-old judge, who could face up to six years in prison if convicted, has been temporarily suspended from her duties.The case stems from a standoff with federal immigration agents outside Dugan’s courtroom in downtown Milwaukee in April.They had come to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant appearing on misdemeanor battery charges.Prosecutors say Dugan sent the agents down the hall to see the chief judge and, while they were away, postponed Flores-Ruiz’s hearing and directed him and his lawyer to a private jury exit.Immigration agents spotted Flores-Ruiz, however, and arrested him outside the building after a foot chase. He was subsequently deported.Dugan was later arrested and FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo on social media of her being led away in handcuffs. Attorney General Pam Bondi accused the judge of “protecting a criminal defendant over victims of crime.”President Donald Trump has conducted a sweeping crackdown on undocumented migrants since returning to power in January, and has clashed with several courts which have argued he has not followed due process.A number of judges have issued rulings that put several of Trump’s executive actions on hold, particularly those related to his bid to exercise unprecedented powers in deporting migrants.Dugan’s arrest set off a torrent of criticism by Democrats but was welcomed by some Republicans. More than 150 former state and federal judges signed a letter to the Justice Department calling Dugan’s arrest an attempt to intimidate the judiciary.

Police took Rob Reiner’s son into custody after the Hollywood director of hits including “When Harry Met Sally” and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home, US media reported Monday.Networks CBS and ABC said Nick Reiner was arrested, and the Los Angeles Times reported he was booked into the Los Angeles County jail on suspicion of murder, citing jail records.Los Angeles deputy police chief Alan Hamilton had said earlier they were seeking to interview “every family member” of the 78-year-old actor-director and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner.The bodies were discovered Sunday and police said they were treating the case as an “apparent homicide.”As tributes poured in for Reiner, Donald Trump unleashed a crude broadside on the Hollywood icon, appearing to blame the deaths on the director’s “raging” criticism of the US president.Several US news media cited police sources as saying the couple were stabbed, while celebrity news website TMZ, which first broke the story, reported that their throats had been cut by a family member during an argument.Reiner directed classic films including 1984’s rock music mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap,” fantasy gem “The Princess Bride” from 1987, and the 1992 courtroom drama “A Few Good Men.”His films spanned everything from laugh-out-loud comedy to searing drama and earned him a global following.Reiner was politically active and an outspoken supporter of progressive causes — potentially a reason for the extraordinary statement by Trump on Monday less than a day after the killings.While movie fans around the world grieved, Trump claimed Reiner died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.””He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness,” the president posted.- A beloved director -Democratic politicians and Hollywood figures expressed shock over the deaths.Former US vice president Kamala Harris was friends with the couple and said on X she was “devastated to learn of their passing,” while former president Barack Obama said he and his wife Michelle were “heartbroken.”Reiner gave television and movie viewers “some of our most cherished stories on screen. But beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people,” Obama said on X.Movie heavyweight John Cusack said he was “at a loss for any words that make sense” about the deaths.Horror and thriller writer Stephen King, whose novella “The Body” was the basis for Reiner’s 1986 coming-of-age classic “Stand By Me,” lauded a “wonderful friend.”Reiner rose to acting fame as the oafish son-in-law Michael “Meathead” Stivic on groundbreaking 1970s sitcom “All in the Family,” before transitioning to directing. Even as a force behind the camera, he often appeared in cameo roles in his own films.He directed the 1989 romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan, and famously cast his real-life mother Estelle Reiner to utter the line “I’ll have what she’s having” after Ryan’s classic fake orgasm scene in Katz’s Delicatessen.His 1992 thriller “A Few Good Men,” starring Hollywood heavyweights Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson, earned an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.Reiner backed efforts to secure equal marriage rights for LGBTQ people and create California’s First 5 program, which provides child development programs funded by taxes on tobacco products. He also helped fundraise for Democratic presidential candidates including Hillary Clinton.He was the son of legendary comedian Carl Reiner, who won 11 Emmy Awards for his television performances and wrote screenplays with movie greats Mel Brooks and Neil Simon.

A manhunt was underway Monday after a mass shooting at elite Brown University left two dead and nine wounded and US authorities said they were releasing a man initially detained as a person of interest.The shooting took place Saturday in a building where exams were underway on the Ivy League campus in Providence, Rhode Island. A man with a rifle burst in and opened fire before fleeing.News that a person was being held indicated a breakthrough, with FBI Director Kash Patel announcing that local police had given federal investigations a lead.But authorities had to walk this back, saying late Sunday that there was not enough evidence to connect the person to the shooting.”I think it’s fair to say there’s no basis to consider him,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said.A lockdown and shelter-in-place order went into effect immediately after the shooting, as heavily armed officers flooded the area. But the latest news meant renewed fears for the college town and state capital.”We know that this is likely to cause fresh anxiety for our community,” Providence Mayor Brett Smiley was quoted as saying by US media.All the victims were students. Of the nine wounded, one was in critical condition, seven were in stable condition and one has been discharged, Smiley said.Joseph Oduro, a teaching assistant at Brown, said he was in a campus auditorium when the gunman entered.”I was standing in the front of the auditorium, and he came through the back, so we pretty much directly made eye contact, and then as soon as that happened, I looked at my students and signaled them to come to the front, and then I just ducked,” Oduro told CNN.”He came in, pointed the gun and then screamed something… then he just started shooting right after that.”Police released 10 seconds of footage of the suspect, seen from behind, walking briskly down a deserted street after apparently opening fire inside a first-floor classroom.”It is shocking and so terribly sad. I know the students here, many of whom were sheltering for many, many hours last night,” Smiley said later on CNN. “They’re all incredibly shaken up.”Final exams scheduled for Sunday were postponed, university officials said.- Latest mass shooting -The attack is the latest incident of mass shooting in a country where attempts to restrict access to firearms face political deadlock.”This should not be normal,” Smiley said on CNN. “This should not be the case that every community needs to prepare for something like this to happen. And I certainly never thought that it would actually happen in Providence, although we were well prepared for it.”There have been more than 300 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.During a Christmas event Sunday at the White House, President Donald Trump spoke briefly about the shooting, saying “things can happen” and wishing the injured to “get well fast.”- Emergency alert -Brown, which has around 11,000 students, issued an emergency alert at 4:22 pm (2122 GMT) on Saturday reporting “an active shooter near Barus and Holley Engineering,” which is home to the engineering and physics departments. Two exams had been scheduled at the time.”Lock doors, silence phones and stay hidden until further notice,” the university said.Law enforcement and first responders swarmed the scene, with local news station WPRI reporting “clothing and blood on the sidewalk.”The deadliest school shooting in US history took place at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007, when South Korean student Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 people and wounded 17 others before taking his own life.

Spain’s leftist government said Monday it had fined Airbnb more than 64 million euros ($75 million), notably for advertising banned rental properties, at a time the country faces a housing crisis.The fine is final, the consumer affairs ministry said in a statement, adding the US holiday-rental giant must “correct the violations by deleting illegal content”.The ministry said 65,122 adverts on Airbnb breached consumer rules, including the promotion of properties without a licence or those whose licence number did not match with data in registers.The fine is equivalent to six times the illegal profit made by Airbnb between the time the company was warned about the offending adverts and when they were taken down, the ministry added.A company spokesperson said Airbnb would challenge the fine in court, “confident that the ministry of consumer affairs’ actions are contrary to applicable regulations in Spain”.Airbnb was “closely collaborating” with the housing ministry to implement a new registration system, with more than 70,000 listings adding a registration number since January and remaining available for booking, the spokesperson added.A tourism boom has driven the buoyant Spanish economy, which is predicted to grow at more than double the eurozone average in 2025.The world’s second most-visited country hosted a record 94 million foreign tourists in 2024 and is on course to surpass that figure this year.But the bonanza has fuelled local concern in tourist hotspots such as Barcelona about increasingly scarce and unaffordable housing, a top priority for the minority coalition government.Residents complain that landlords convert residential properties into short-term rentals and say tourism is changing the fabric of their neighbourhoods.”There are thousands of families who are living on the edge due to housing, while a few get rich with business models that expel people from their homes,” far-left consumer rights minister Pablo Bustinduy said in the ministry statement.”We’ll prove it as many times as necessary: no company, no matter how big or powerful, is above the law. Even less so when it comes to housing,” he added on social network Bluesky.In June, the consumer rights ministry also ordered online accommodation giant Booking.com to take down more than 4,000 illegal adverts.

Los Angeles police were investigating the deaths of Hollywood star Rob Reiner and his wife as an “apparent homicide”, as condolences poured in for the director behind hits like “When Harry Met Sally”.Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner were found dead in their Los Angeles mansion with what appeared to be stab wounds, US media reported Sunday.The deaths of the “Princess Bride” director and his wife drew condolences from California political heavyweights like ex-vice president Kamala Harris.Los Angeles police did not confirm the identity of the deceased but said homicide detectives were dispatched to the Reiners’ home.”At this time, no further details are available as this is an ongoing… investigation, into an apparent homicide,” the Los Angeles Police Department said on social media.  LAPD deputy chief Alan Hamilton subsequently told reporters “the Los Angeles Police Department is not seeking anyone as a suspect or as a person of interest, or in any other manner, and we will not be doing that until we conduct our investigation and we move forward”.”I’m not going to confirm whether someone’s being interviewed at this time or not. We’re going to try to speak to every family member that we can to get to the facts of this investigation,” he added.Broadcaster CNN reported that a spokesperson for the family had confirmed Reiner and his wife had died. California Governor Newsom, Harris and former US President Barack Obama issued separate statements expressing their condolences. “Rob will be remembered for his remarkable filmography and for his extraordinary contribution to humanity,” Newsom said on X, adding he was “heartbroken by the tragic loss”.Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass also said that the investigation was ongoing.”I knew Rob and have tremendous respect for him,” Bass said. “An acclaimed actor, director, producer, writer, and engaged political activist, he always used his gifts in service of others,” she added. The Los Angeles Fire Department told NBC a man and a woman, approximately 78 and 68 years old, were found deceased inside the home.Reiner rose to acting fame as the oafish son-in-law Michael “Meathead” Stivic on groundbreaking 1970s sitcom “All in the Family,” before transitioning to directing with rock mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap” in 1984.Reiner directed the 1989 romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan.He was also an outspoken supporter of liberal causes in Hollywood, backing efforts to secure equal marriage rights for LGBTQ people and create California’s First 5 program, which provides child development programs funded by taxes on tobacco products. 

Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai was found guilty Monday on three national security charges, a conviction rights groups denounced as a death knell for press freedoms in the Chinese financial hub.Prosecutors said Lai was the mastermind behind two conspiracies to ask foreign countries to take action against Hong Kong or China, and accused him of publishing materials they said “excited disaffection” against the government.The 78-year-old, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, now faces a maximum penalty of life in prison when he is sentenced. He can appeal Monday’s convictions.”There is no doubt that (Lai) had harboured his resentment and hatred of the PRC for many of his adult years,” Judge Esther Toh told the court, referring to the People’s Republic of China.”His constant invitation to the US to help bring down the Government of the PRC with the excuse of helping the people of HK would be analogous to the situation where an American national asks for help from Russia to bring down the US Government under the guise of helping the State of California.”Lai, wearing a light green cardigan and grey jacket, looked impassive as he listened to the verdicts with folded arms, and did not speak.As he left, he nodded to his wife Teresa and his son Lai Shun-yan, who were sitting in the public gallery, an AFP reporter inside the court saw.His defence lawyer Robert Pang told reporters as he left court that Lai “is in fine spirits”.Dozens of police officers were deployed around around the West Kowloon court in the morning, with an armoured car positioned nearby.Consular representatives, including those from the United States, the European Union and France, were among those in attendance, as well as veterans from Hong Kong’s pro-democracy camp, including Cardinal Joseph Zen and former legislator Emily Lau.- ‘Death knell for press freedom’ -The founder of the now-shut Apple Daily newspaper has been behind bars since 2020.His case has been widely criticised as an example of eroding political freedoms under the national security law Beijing imposed on Hong Kong following huge and sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019.”The predictability of today’s verdict does not make it any less dismaying — the conviction of Jimmy Lai feels like the death knell for press freedom in Hong Kong,” Amnesty International said in a statement.Reporters Without Borders called the “unlawful conviction” illustrative of “the alarming deterioration of media freedom in the territory”, while the Committee to Protect Journalists called it a “sham conviction” and “a disgraceful act of persecution”.Beijing, meanwhile, said Friday it “firmly supports” Hong Kong in “safeguarding national security” from criminal acts.Lai once described himself as a “born rebel” and defied the Chinese Communist Party for years while amassing millions from his clothing and media empires.The 78-year-old is a British citizen, and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces pressure from rights groups to secure his release.Before Monday’s verdict, another former Apple Daily employee surnamed Chan recalled that Lai wished for a “free and democratic China”.”He loved the country a lot, he just didn’t love the regime. (The situation) is absurd,” Chan told AFP outside court.- Health concerns -Lai looked thinner than when he first entered custody, and some of the dozens of supporters who gathered at dawn in front of the court expressed concern for his wellbeing.”I really want to see what’s happening with ‘the boss’, to see if his health has deteriorated,” said Tammy Cheung, who worked at Lai’s newspaper for nearly two decades.Lai’s family recently said he had lost weight and had visible decay to his nails and teeth since his long imprisonment.His daughter Claire told AFP last week that Lai, a diabetic, had “lost a very significant amount of weight” and showed nail and teeth decay.National security police chief superintendant Steve Li told a press conference on Monday that Claire Lai’s concerns as to her father’s health were smearing.Authorities have said Lai was receiving “adequate and comprehensive” care, and that he had been held in solitary confinement “at his own request”.- Sprawling trial -Prosecutors cited 161 items Apple Daily published in their case against Lai.Those items, including opinion articles with Lai’s byline and talk shows he hosted, were deemed seditious under a colonial-era law because they “excited disaffection” against the government.Prosecutors also accused Lai of being the mastermind and financial backer of the protest group “Stand with Hong Kong, Fight for Freedom”.Lai countered that he had never sought to influence other countries’ foreign policies, saying Apple Daily represented Hongkongers’ core values: “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly”.Apple Daily was forced to close in 2021 following police raids. Six top executives were charged as co-defendants and have already pleaded guilty.

US President Donald Trump’s administration is facing a Friday deadline to release decades of government secrets on notorious sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the latest milestone in the long-running effort to uncover the full extent of his network.Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) must release by December 19 its vast cache of records on the late financier’s sex-trafficking empire, which is alleged to have entangled underage girls and brushed against the world’s elite.For the public, the release offers the clearest opportunity yet to lift the veil on one of the century’s most enduring scandals — although transparency advocates caution that key details may still be withheld under government claims of legal constraint.For Trump — who has faced questions over his own close friendship with Epstein — things could get awkward. The financier — who died in custody after his 2019 arrest — moved in elite circles for years. He cultivated ties with tycoons, politicians, academics and celebrities to whom he was accused of trafficking hundreds of girls and young women for sex. Trump and his allies long alleged that powerful Democrats and Hollywood liberals were being shielded from accountability for their involvement, framing the case as proof of how power hides behind lawyers and money. But the president dismissed the transparency push as a “Democrat hoax” as soon as he returned to office and acquired the unilateral authority to release the files.The president appeared to change tack again in November, apparently resigned that he was fighting a losing battle against disclosure, and signing the act into law after it passed Congress almost unanimously.- What’s coming out -The files’ release could illuminate how Epstein operated, who helped him and whether influential figures received protection. Survivors are hopeful but wary of the changing stances adopted by Trump, who broke off his friendship with Epstein years ago and is not accused of wrongdoing in the case. “I can’t help to be skeptical of what the agenda is,” Haley Robson, who was recruited at 16 to massage Epstein, told a recent news conference. The law compels officials to open a substantial archive of internal correspondence, investigative material and court records previously sealed or buried. That includes victim statements, flight logs, seized electronic devices and correspondence on charging decisions, as well as documentation of Epstein’s death in custody.While many names are familiar, the mandate may expose new associates and clarify why prosecutors hesitated for years. But hopes for a definitive “client list” are misplaced. The DOJ says no such roster exists.- Where black bars could bite -Disclosure applies only to records that don’t identify victims and jeopardize active investigations or national security, giving the DOJ latitude to black out victims’ names, classified intelligence and litigation-sensitive material. Observers expect heavy redactions, although the law forbids censorship for “embarrassment” or “political sensitivity.”Trump recently ordered probes into Democrats linked to Epstein, fueling speculation that prosecutors might cite those inquiries to withhold files. The scandal remains explosive because it sits at the intersection of wealth, power and impunity.Epstein cultivated influential friends, maintained luxury homes where prosecutors say he trafficked underage girls, and secured an extraordinary 2008 plea bargain potentially shielding unnamed co-conspirators. His arrest — and subsequent death in a New York jail, ruled a suicide — reignited scrutiny of how he operated so long with so little accountability.Oregon Senator Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the powerful finance committee, is doubtful of Attorney General Pam Bondi allowing a comprehensive disclosure. He is spearheading his own investigation into institutions he accuses of shielding Epstein by failing to report his suspicious financial activities.”We need both lanes, because I don’t trust Bondi and following the money is how, in our country, we’ve had a long history of catching and rooting out corrupt behavior,” he told AFP.

Ales Bialiatski struggles to believe he is a free man and that he can — after years in prison largely barred from outside contact — speak to his wife in person. Only hours ago, the 63-year-old Belarusian dissident and Nobel Prize winner was woken up in his cell at 4:00 am, put in a car and blindfolded as he was driven hundreds of kilometres into forced exile to Lithuania.Bialiatski won the Nobel in 2022 for his decades-long work documenting rights abuses in Belarus. President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, considers him a personal enemy. The world barely got proof of life from Bialiatski in almost three years as he was kept incommunicado in Prison Colony Number 9 in Gorki, near the Russian border.”I had to find a way to ‘wave’ to the outside world that I am alive,” he told AFP in Lithuania’s capital Vilnius. He would tell prisoners who were about to be freed to pass on the news that he was alive. Imprisoned in 2021 as Minsk waged a massive crackdown following the major 2020 protests, Bialiatski has a lot to catch up on.In prison, he only received heavily censored information.  The morning after being one of 123 political prisoners freed in a US-brokered deal, Bialiatski was being briefed by friends on the details of what he missed.”After the (Russia-Ukraine) war, the situation with contact with the outside world got much worse,” he said. He did not receive letters and only had access to highly controlled Russian and Belarusian TV. “I had to read between the lines,” he said.- Nobel Prize ‘saved’ Bialiatski -Bialiatski is no stranger to censorship or prison, and he said his decades-long dissident career even helped him get through the latest ordeal.”I was morally prepared,” he said, while adding that the isolation in Belarusian prisons was incomparably worse than a decade ago.He endured the “humiliation” political prisoners go through in Belarus — including long stints in various types of punishment cells. He recalled being put in light clothing in freezing cells for days and other “inhumane” treatment. He struggled to talk about the hardships he lived through. But Bialiatski believed he was spared from the worst treatment because of his Nobel Prize — which he said he shares with the “whole of Belarusian society”.  “The prize saved me from worse things, which my other colleagues went through,” he said. He joked that the guards “understood that this person has some kind of prize and that probably we cannot beat him”.- ‘Freeing some while locking up others’ -While Bialiatski was glad to be free — his mind was with colleagues still in prison back home.  His rights group Viasna says there are currently 1,110 political prisoners in Belarus. The dissident warned that while the regime had carried out a wave of releases, it was still regularly arresting others.  “They are keeping up this level of fear,” he said. “It is schizophrenic politics: they are liberating people with one hand and locking up people with the other.” Bialiatski was freed as the US has pushed Minsk to release political prisoners in talks taking place as Washington pushes for an end to the war in Ukraine.  But he called on the EU — which has largely frozen relations with Minsk — to also enter negotiations with the reclusive regime to get people out.  “For European society and other democracies, we have to stop repressions in Belarus,” he said.  “The repressions are carried out by the regime, who else are you meant to talk to if not the regime?”  Europe had to do so from a “position of pressure” and “force” as “the Belarusian regime only understands this language”, he insisted.- ‘Not put my hands down’ -More than five years after Minsk suppressed the 2020 demonstrations, Bialiatski said protesters and the opposition had underestimated the extent of repression the regime would unleash.”They basically repeated what happened 100 years ago in Belarus, in the 1920s and 1930s,” he said, referring to the Stalin-era repression. Now in his 60s, he has to learn to live in exile like much of the Belarusian opposition and rights circles.He joked that the last time he lived outside Belarus was in his childhood: Bialiatski was born in northern Russia, where his Belarusian parents were sent in the Soviet era.He vowed “not to put my hands down” and continue his fight for democracy in Belarus from outside the country, accusing the regime of “suffocating” people with repression.And with a smile, he added: “I am sure that sooner or later the situation in Belarus will change for the better.”