article_text
stringlengths 294
32.8k
⌀ | topic
stringlengths 3
42
|
|---|---|
MADRID — Voters in Spain go to the polls Sunday in an election that could make the country the latest European Union member to swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government.
Here's what you need to know about the vote.
What is at stake?
Opinion polls indicate the political right has the edge going into the election, and that raises the possibility a neo-fascist party will be part of Spain's next government. The extreme right has not been in power in Spain since the transition to democracy following the death of former dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.
With no party expected to win an absolute majority, the choice for voters is basically between another leftist governing coalition or one between the right and the far right.
The right-of-center Popular Party, the front-runner in the polls, and the extreme right Vox party are on one side. They portray the vote as a chance to end "Sanchismo" — a term the PP uses to sum up what it contends are the dictatorial ways of Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the left's radical ideology and numerous lies by the government.
In the other corner are the Socialists and a new movement called Sumar that brings together 15 small leftist parties for the first time. They warn that putting the right in power will threaten Spain's post-Franco changes.
Why were early elections called?
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the early election a day after his Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and its small far-left coalition partner, Unidas Podemos (United We Can), took a hammering in local and regional elections May 28.
Prior to that, Sánchez had insisted he would ride out his four-year term, indicating that an election would be held in December. But after the May defeat, he said it was only fair for Spaniards to decide the country's political future without delay.
What happened since May 28?
The Popular Party emerged from the local and regional elections as the most-voted party by far, giving it the right to take office in all but a handful of towns and one or two regions.
Since then, the PP and Vox have agreed to govern together in some 140 cities and towns as well as to add two more regions to the one where they already co-governed.
The Socialists and other leftist parties lost political clout across the country, but after weathering the initial shock, they have regrouped and recovered some ground, leaving the vote outcome Sunday still an unknown.
What does it mean for Europe?
A PP-Vox government would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies.
Spain's two main leftist parties are pro-EU participation. On the right, the PP is also in favor of the EU, but Vox is not.
The election comes as Spain holds the EU's rotating presidency. Sánchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made. An election defeat for Sánchez could see the PP taking over the EU presidency reins.
What are the campaign themes?
The campaign has been dominated by mudslinging from all sides, with both the left and right accusing each other of lying about their policies and past records.
The PP has managed to put Sánchez's honorability in question by highlighting the many U-turns he has made and his alliances with small regional secessionist parties, something that alienates even some left-wing voters.
The left has sought to convince voters that there is little difference between the two right-wing parties and that a victory for them would set Spain back decades in terms of social progress.
Nearly every poll has put the PP firmly ahead of the Socialists and Vox ahead of Sumar for third place. But 30% of the electorate is said to be undecided.
With the election taking place at the height of summer, millions of citizens are likely to be vacationing away from their regular polling places. But postal voting requests have soared, and officials are estimating a 70% election turnout.
Is there any chance for a surprise?
A surprise factor that could upset poll predictions is Sumar: the brand new, broad-based movement of 15 small left-wing parties, including Podemos and prominent social figures.
Sumar is headed by highly popular Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz, who is also the second deputy vice president and the only woman among the leaders of the four main parties.
This is the first time small left parties have ever come together on a joint ticket in Spain. Their earlier fragmentation was blamed for many of the town and regional losses in the May election, and they hope that joined together they can make a bigger showing.
Sumar's big goal is to beat out Vox for the potential king-making third place finish. That would allow Sumar to give valuable support for another leftist coalition government. Surveys consistently suggested during the campaign that an absolute majority for Popular Party and Vox is very possible. | Europe Politics |
IDF finds body of soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held by Hamas ■ Body of 65-year-old Israeli woman hostage found near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, IDF announces ■ Netanyahu blames Hamas for Israel's 'unsuccessful' efforts to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza ■ Blinken: U.S. to told Netanyahu that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza ■ Biden says reoccupying Gaza would be 'a big mistake' ■ Five Israelis wounded, one fatally, in Jerusalem checkpoint shooting attack ■ IDF attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon ■ At least 1,200 civilians and soldiers killed since October 7; 239 hostages held in Gaza ■ Hamas-controlled health ministry: 11,240 killed
- Israeli forces find body of soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held hostage in northern Gaza
- Palestinians: Three killed, ten wounded in IDF operation in Jenin
- Netanyahu blames Hamas for Israel's 'unsuccessful' efforts to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza
- Body of 65-year-old Israeli woman hostage found near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, IDF announces
- RECAP Israel-Hamas War Day 42: IDF starts 'next phase' of ground operation
IDF finds body of soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held by Hamas ■ Body of 65-year-old Israeli woman hostage found near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, IDF announces ■ Netanyahu blames Hamas for Israel's 'unsuccessful' efforts to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza ■ Blinken: U.S. to told Netanyahu that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza ■ Biden says reoccupying Gaza would be 'a big mistake' ■ Five Israelis wounded, one fatally, in Jerusalem checkpoint shooting attack ■ IDF attacks Hezbollah in Lebanon ■ At least 1,200 civilians and soldiers killed since October 7; 239 hostages held in Gaza ■ Hamas-controlled health ministry: 11,240 killed
- Israeli forces find body of soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held hostage in northern Gaza
- Palestinians: Three killed, ten wounded in IDF operation in Jenin
- Netanyahu blames Hamas for Israel's 'unsuccessful' efforts to minimize civilian deaths in Gaza
- Body of 65-year-old Israeli woman hostage found near Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, IDF announces
- RECAP Israel-Hamas War Day 42: IDF starts 'next phase' of ground operation
The IDF announced Friday that Israeli forces operating in the Gaza Strip have found the body of 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano, who had been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza.
According to a statement by the IDF spokesperson's unit, Marciano's body was located in a building near the northern Gaza al-Shifa hospital.
On Monday night, Hamas published a video of Marciano from captivity, more than five weeks after she was kidnapped during the October 7 attacks. According to the IDF, the announcement of Marciano's death was based on intelligence and not on the contents of the video.
Marciano was from Modi’in, and served in the Combat Intelligence Collection Corps of the 414th Regiment. Her mother, Adi, last spoke to her on October 7 at 7:30 A.M. “She told me she was in a protected space and that there had been an infiltration,” she said in an interview. “She said that she had to end the call. I didn’t hear shots or screams. Half an hour later, I sent her a message, but she didn’t reply.”
Palestinian sources in the West Bank city of Jenin say that three people have been killed and ten wounded during an Israeli military operation early Friday. Two of those killed belonged to the Jenin Bridges, a local militia.
According to the report, four people were wounded in an aerial attack, two by live fire and others from tear gas inhalation. Two of the wounded are reportedly in serious condition. The reports also claim that the IDF has encircled the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday that he has told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that “there can’t be a reoccupation by Israel of Gaza,” but conceded that “there may have to be a transitional period where […] security is provided for Gaza.”
Speaking to ABC World News Tonight, Blinken said that “when it comes to the future of Gaza, in our judgment, it has to be under Palestinian governance and there has to be security provided as well.”
“It’s imperative, in our judgment, if there is going to be lasting peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike, that we actually move forward on ensuring that the Palestinians have political rights, that they have the ability to govern themselves, to make decisions for their own future in their own state,” he added.
Israel is doing all it can to get civilians out of harm's way as it battles Hamas in Gaza, including dropping leaflets warning them to flee, but its attempts to minimize casualties were "not successful," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Netanyahu was asked by U.S. television's CBS News whether Israel's killing of thousands of Palestinians as it retaliates for the Oct. 7 attack by Gaza's ruling Hamas militants would fuel a new generation of hatred.
"Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn't have any because we're doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm's way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm's way," Netanyahu said.
"So we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say: 'leave'. And many have left," Netanyahu said.
"The other thing that I can say is that we'll try to finish that job with minimal civilian casualties. That's what we're trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we're not successful."
Netanyahu then said he wanted to draw a parallel with something related to Germany, but he was interrupted by the CBS interviewer, who asked him a question about Gaza's post-war security.
Syria shoots down Israeli missiles fired from Golan Heights towards Damascus surroundings, Syrian army says
Syria shot down Israeli missiles fired from the Golan Heights towards the surroundings of the capital Damascus in the early hours of Friday, the Syrian army said.
Most of the Israeli missiles were intercepted but some caused material damage, the army said in a statement.
The Israeli military declined comment.
The National Security Council is set to discuss proposed legislation that would allow Israel to impose the death penalty of terrorists, an official involved told Haaretz. The NSC will convene next week for a preliminary discussion on the proposal, which is being promoted by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit).
The discussion will examine Ben-Gvir’s proposal and its possible ramifications on the international stage, given the possibility that the far-right minister will present his proposal to the cabinet. The bill was given preliminary approval by the Knesset in March this year.
According to the proposal, courts will be obligated to impose the death penalty on anyone convicted of killing an Israeli citizen in a nationalist act. The wording of the law, however, states that the death penalty is only applicable to Arab terrorists, since it specifically defines such acts as those that “have a racist motivation and have the goal of harming the Jewish people and the revival of the Jewish people in their homeland.”
After the bill was approved by the ministerial committee on legislation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote that “our response to terror is to strike back with strength and to strengthen our hold on our land.”
The body of Judith Weiss from Kibbutz Be'eri was found on Wednesday near the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City. The body was recovered after Israeli forces searched the area, according to the army's preliminary intelligence information.
Weapons were found in the building where her body was found, and the IDF believes the kidnappers escaped before the soldiers arrived.
Weiss, who was 65-years-old, was being treated for breast cancer diagnosed a few months ago. She worked in the kibbutz kindergarten, coordinated activities in the dining room, and later also specialized in nursing.
Her husband Shmulik was considered missing for many days following the attack on October 7, until his body was identified. Four of Judith's five children have continued to live on the kibbutz into adulthood.
The door to Judith and Shmulik's safe room was sprayed with bullets during the attack. In a document later found in their home left by Hamas terrorists, the sentences were written in Arabic and Hebrew: "I will kill you", "Take off your pants", "You are a prisoner", "We have hostages" and "We will kill hostages."
The IDF has completed its takeover of part of Gaza City, and is commencing “the next phase” of its ground incursion, according to Israel’s defense minister. As international calls for a ceasefire mount, reports say the main impasse to a possible hostage deal relates to the number of captives to be freed by Hamas and the length of the Israeli cease-fire.
Here’s what you need to know 41 days into the war.
■ The IDF has completed its takeover of the western part of Gaza City, and is commencing “the next phase” of its ground maneuver, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The IDF said it is still operating within Al-Shifa Hospital, and that it has found computers with information and documentation related to the hostages held by Hamas. During operations near the hospital compound, the Israeli army found the body of 65-year-old Judith Weiss, who was kidnapped from her home in Be'eri on October 7.
■ Three Hamas militants opened fire at Israeli security forces at a checkpoint south of Jerusalem, killing one and wounding five. Police said the Palestinian shooters came from the West Bank and intended to carry out an attack in Jerusalem. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
■ The director of Al-Shifa hospital told Al Jazeera that Israeli soldiers took bodies from the hospital. According to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry, 26 hospitals in Gaza have been shut down and nine more are only partly operational.
■ All telecom services in Gaza have gone down as all energy sources sustaining the network have run out, according to the Strip’s main providers.
■ Rocket sirens sounded in both northern and southern Israel throughout Thursday. The IDF said it attacked Hezbollah launch sites in Lebanese territory in retaliation for rocket strikes.
■ Israeli security forces arrested 20 Hamas members during an operation in the West Bank Thursday overnight, the IDF said in a statement. Senior U.S. officials believe Israel is at risk of opening another front in its current war, this time in the West Bank. France condemned settler violence, calling it a "policy of terror."
■ A group of progressive Democrats, led by Rep. Ilhan Omar, is set to introduce the first legislation aimed at blocking U.S. arms sales to Israel since the war in Gaza began.
■ American Jews overwhelmingly approve of U.S. President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza following the Hamas attack, according to the first poll dedicated to U.S. Jewish voters since October 7. | Middle East Politics |
Lebanese residents of border towns come back during a fragile cease-fire
A cautious calm has prevailed over the border area in south Lebanon.
KFAR KILA, Lebanon -- With a cautious calm prevailing over the border area in south Lebanon Saturday, the second day of a four-day cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, villages that had emptied of their residents came back to life — at least briefly.
Shuttered shops reopened, cars moved through the streets, and a family on on outing posed for photos in front of brightly colored block letters proclaiming “I (HEART) ODAISSEH” in one border town, with the tense frontier as a backdrop.
Around 55,500 Lebanese are displaced by the clashes between the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and Israeli forces since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the International Organization for Migration.
The fighting has killed more than 100 people in Lebanon, including more than a dozen civilians — three of them journalists — and 12 people on the Israeli side, including four civilians.
While Lebanon and Hezbollah weren't officially parties to the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, it has brought at least a temporary halt to the daily exchanges of rockets, artillery shelling and airstrikes. Some Lebanese took the opportunity to inspect their damaged houses or to pick up belongings.
Others came back hoping to stay.
Abdallah Quteish, a retired school principal, and his wife, Sabah, fled their house in the village of Houla — directly facing an Israeli military position across the border — on the second day of the clashes. They went to stay with their daughter in the north, leaving behind their olive orchard just as the harvest season was set to start.
They returned to their house on Friday and to an orchard where the unharvested olives were turning dry on the branches.
“We lost out on the season, but we’re alright … and that’s the most important thing,” Sabah said. “God willing, we’ll stay in our house if the situation remains like this.”
Others were less optimistic.
On the western side of the border in the village of Marwaheen, Khalil Ghanam had come on Saturday to pack up the remaining stocks from his cafe on the frontier road and take them to Beirut.
The cafe has been closed since Oct. 13, the day that Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed and six other people were wounded in an Israeli strike in nearby Alma al-Shaab. Shells also fell next to the cafe, leaving mangled remnants of what used to be its outdoor seating.
“We say God willing nothing bad will happen, but the situation now is difficult, and as I see it we’re heading into a long difficult period,” Ghanam said.
Others never left their villages.
In Kfar Kila on Saturday, iron worker Hussein Fawaz picked through the charred shell of his house, hit by an airstrike two days earlier — no one was inside at the time, but the family's furniture, school books and household goods were destroyed.
Fawaz had sent his wife and three children to stay with relatives soon after the war began, but he stayed in the village because his parents refused to go. He still has no plans to leave.
“Where would we go? This is our land and our home. We’re staying here,” he said. “No one knows what will happen, but we hope things will stabilize and the war will end.”
The general calm of the cease-fire was punctuated by scattered moments of tension. The Israeli military said Saturday afternoon that its air defenses intercepted a “suspicious aerial target” that entered Israeli airspace from Lebanon and that it had shot down a missile launched from Lebanon at an Israeli drone.
Meanwhile, the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon said one of its patrols in a border area was hit by gunfire from Israeli forces, causing no injuries but damaging the vehicle.
UNIFIL said in a statement that the shooting in the border village of Aitaroun occurred during “a period of relative calm” along the Lebanon-Israel border.
“This attack on peacekeepers, dedicated to reducing tensions & restoring stability in south Lebanon, is deeply troubling,” UNIFIL tweeted.
The Israeli military didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. | Middle East Politics |
'We’re not going to be party to Labor breaking an election promise': Coalition refuses to back Labor's proposed tax increase on superannuation earnings
The Coalition says the government's tax increase on super fund earnings is just the first part of billions of dollars in additional taxes Labor is planning to impose.
Labor’s proposed superannuation tax changes have been slammed as “another broken promise” and a sign of things to come, with the Opposition predicting the government will impose additional new taxes to fund their unrestrained spending.
Earlier today the Albanese Government announced changes to how earnings from super funds will be taxed, with rates doubling for super funds valued at over $3 million.
Under current tax concessions all earnings from super funds are taxed at 15 per cent, but under the government’s proposal this will double to 30 per cent from 2025-26, but only for super funds valued at over $3 million.
Responding to the changes, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor said this was the latest in a series of broken promises from the new government – citing the Labor's election commitments to reduce electricity prices by $275 and to make mortgages cheaper as previous examples.
“Another day another broken election promise from the Labor Party,” Mr Taylor said.
“Today we’ve seen the Prime Minister and the Treasurer walking away from their commitment to not add taxes to superannuation.
“Now this was an unambiguous commitment from the Prime Minister. He said he wouldn’t raise taxes on Australian super.”
“At the end of the day, Australian super is Australian’s money. That must be the starting point here. And It is clear Labor is prepared to break a promise to charge more tax.”
The Labor Government will target Australians with superannuation funds larger than $3 million after promising no changes to the scheme weeks out from the election.https://t.co/LuJLwUx3wZ— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) February 28, 2023
When announcing their proposal, Prime Minister Albanese gave examples of individuals with hundreds of millions in their super accounts.
“If Mr Dutton chooses to stand up for the individual with over $400 million in their account, and the 17 people who have over $100 million, well, that's a matter for him,” the Prime Minister said.
But shadow finance minister Jane Hume said these examples were misleading.
“They’re not taxing people with more than 100 million in their superannuation, they’re taxing people with more than $3 million," Senator Hume said.
“There are around 80,000 Australians that fall into that trap”.
“And they’re doing it not for any reason of keeping the superannuation system sustainable but because they can’t balance their budget and they can’t balance their budget because they’re addicted to spending.”
“Tens of thousands of Australians who have relied on the superannuation system as it is who are going to pay the price for Labor’s inability to manage their own budget commitments.”
The government’s announcement was made to coincide with the release of the 2022-23 Tax Expenditures and Insights Statement, which listed superannuation tax concessions as costing the budget $50 billion per year.
In total, the statement claimed $150 billion is lost in foregone revenue due to current tax arrangements – which the opposition seized upon as evidence of new taxes the government was considering.
“The Prime Minister and the Treasurer released a report laying out more than $150bn of additional taxes that they may well choose to impose on the Australian people,” the shadow Treasurer said.
“They refused to rule out imposing capital gains tax on Australians’ homes. They refuse to rule out getting rid of negative gearing. And we know they’re coming after franking credits. Indeed, they’ve introduced broad-ranging legislation to come after franking credits into the Parliament already.
“This is the Labor Party that says one thing before an election and does something very different afterwards."
Asked if the opposition would consider supporting the super changes, Mr Taylor was unequivocal.
“We’re not going to be party to Labor breaking an election promise,” he said. | Australia Politics |
- Summary
- Minister: prepare for more drones, more attacks
- Ukraine testing AI systems for drone target detection
- Ukraine aerial drone production up over 100 times in a year
KYIV, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Ukraine will be able to conduct more drone attacks on Russian warships, a Ukrainian minister who has played a key role in building the country's drone industry told Reuters after a recent series of sea raids.
“There will be more drones, more attacks, and fewer Russian ships. That’s for sure,” Digital Transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov said in an interview on Friday, answering a question about recent attacks near Crimea.
This week, Ukraine has made several attacks using sea drones and missiles on Russia’s Black Sea naval fleet in and around the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.
In a sign of growing confidence, Ukraine has recently claimed responsibility for attacks on Crimea, having previously not directly confirmed involvement in blasts at military targets there.
Russia has acknowledged a Ukrainian missile attack that damaged a warship and a submarine this week, but says it has repelled all sea drone attacks.
On Thursday, Fedorov posted a grainy video on social media that appeared to be filmed from a vessel heading towards a much larger warship, followed by an explosion.
He said at the time that attack was the work of Ukrainian systems paid for by funds from a government-run crowdfunding platform that raises money for equipment including drones.
Fedorov also said Ukraine’s aerial drone production had increased by over 100 times in 2023 from last year.
“I think it’ll be an increase of around 120 to 140 times by the end of this year, if you compare it to the previous one.”
According to the minister, Ukraine is testing AI systems that can locate targets several kilometres away and guide drones to them even if external communications are disrupted by electronic warfare measures.
“We need AI, for instance the technology for finding targets, just like how the Lancet (a Russian drone) operates, so that a target can be located under electronic warfare and destroyed.”
“At the moment it's all at the testing stage, but some drones we are buying use AI to recognise targets. In a forest, it can detect a target and recognise whether it's a person, tank, or a certain vehicle. These technologies are being used actively.”
(This story has been refiled to clarify that drones are for strikes on warships in the headline and paragraph 1)
Reporting by Max Hunder Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Europe Politics |
BAMAKO, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, three West African Sahel nations ruled by military juntas, signed a security pact on Saturday promising to come to the aid of each other in case of any rebellion or external aggression.
The three countries are struggling to contain Islamic insurgents linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State and have also seen their relations with neighbours and international partners strained because of the coups.
The latest coup in Niger drove a further wedge between the three and countries of the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States, which has threatened to use force to restore constitutional rule in the country.
Mali and Burkina Faso have vowed to come to Niger's aid if it is attacked.
"Any attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of one or more contracted parties will be considered an aggression against the other parties," according to the charter of the pact, known as the Alliance of Sahel States.
It said the other states will assist individually or collectively, including with the use of armed force.
"I have today signed with the Heads of State of Burkina Faso and Niger the Liptako-Gourma charter establishing the Alliance of Sahel States, with the aim of establishing a collective defence and mutual assistance framework," Mali junta leader Assimi Goita said on his X social media account.
All three states were members of the France-supported G5 Sahel alliance joint force with Chad and Mauritania, launched in 2017 to tackle Islamist groups in the region.
Mali has since left the dormant organisation after a military coup, while ousted Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum said in May last year that the force is now "dead" following Mali's departure.
Relations between France and the three states have soured since the coups.
France has been forced to withdraw its troops from Mali and Burkina Faso, and is in a tense standoff with the junta that seized power in Niger after it asked it to withdraw its troops and its ambassador.
France has refused to recognise the authority of the junta.
Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo; writing by Bate Felix; editing by Jason Neely
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Africa politics |
At least 50 people have been killed and more than 50 injured in a suicide attack in Pakistan, police say.
The blast happened near a mosque in the southwestern province of Balochistan on Friday as people gathered to celebrate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad.
Officials in Balochistan have declared a state of emergency. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, a separate blast has taken place at a mosque near Peshawar City in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
The number of casualties at the mosque in Hangu near Peshawar is not yet known but police say a number of people could be trapped under rubble after the roof collapsed.
The mosque in Hangu is part of a police complex that has a capacity of 40 to 50 people, local police told the BBC.
Footage from the scene in the Balochistan city of Mastung showed the injured being rescued by emergency responders and locals.
Balochistan's police chief Abdul Khaliq Sheikh confirmed the explosion was a suicide blast. He said a senior police officer was killed while trying to stop the attacker.
Pakistan's Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti said the blast was a "very heinous act" and condemned what he called "the terrorist attacks" in Balochistan and Hangu.
Bordering Afghanistan and Iran, Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province and has frequently been hit by armed fighters including the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) or the Pakistani Taliban, and the Islamic State group.
However the TTP have denied involvement in Friday's blast, saying in a statement that such an attack was against its policies.
Earlier this month, at least eleven people including a prominent Muslim leader were injured in an explosion in the same district.
In July, more than 40 people were killed in a suicide bombing in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province at a religious political party's gathering. | Asia Politics |
The government of new Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was sworn into office Tuesday by King Maha Vajiralongkorn.
Prime Minister Srettha pledged that this will be “a government for the people” in his inaugural address delivered in Bangkok shortly after he and his 33 cabinet ministers were sworn in. He said he would formally unveil his policy agenda next Monday.
The 61-year-old real estate tycoon was elected by Thai lawmakers on August 22 after his nomination by the Pheu Thai party, the latest to emerge from the political movement forged by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was popular among Thailand’s rural poor for such policies as universal health care and cash payments to farmers.
Sretta’s nomination ended a political standoff that had lingered since the progressive Move Forward Party and its coalition partners scored an upset victory in May’s parliamentary elections. Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat failed to get the necessary votes to win the post due to strong opposition in the conservative, military-backed senate.
Pheu Thai came in second in May’s elections, but formed an alliance with military and pro-royalist lawmakers to break the stalemate.
Srettha will also hold the post of finance minister, with Pheu Thai also holding the key posts of foreign, defense, commerce, transport and health ministries.
Thaksin returned to Bangkok the same day as Sretta’s election to end a 15-year self-imposed exile begun two years after he was overthrown by a military aligned with members of Thailand’s pro-monarchy elite, who saw him as a threat to their longstanding grip on social order.
He surrendered to police and was ordered by Thailand’s Supreme Court to serve an eight-year prison sentence based on previous convictions on corruption charges. The king commuted Thaksin’s sentence to one year last Friday.
Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters. | Asia Politics |
Since the Conservatives narrowly won a shock byelection victory by campaigning against a key low-emissions zone known as Ulez in London, there have been seven days of turmoil for climate policy in the UK.
Support for a net zero UK by 2050 is expressed among all ages and types of political voter, according to the pollsters. But nevertheless, Rishi Sunak’s government scented in Uxbridge a possible “wedge” issue that could put Tories on the side of swing voters and pit them against Labour.
Almost immediately, senior cabinet ministers began to flirt with the idea of watering down some climate policies that the public might regard as too costly to them personally in the short term.
Tory insiders say Sunak is committed to renewables and decarbonising the energy sector but that he appears to be more sceptical of the car and boiler targets brought in by Boris Johnson, which they say the former prime minister brought forward without much thought for the consequences or feasibility.
Alongside this, there is the temptation among senior Conservatives to cast Labour as going too far in support of green measures that will cost voters money, tapping into fears about the party’s stewardship of the economy that Keir Starmer and the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have worked relentlessly to dispel.
Grant Shapps, the energy secretary, has led the charge, accusing Labour of supporting a “criminal eco mob” of climate protesters, and recording a video slamming the party’s policy of no more oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
“It is playing with fire; we undermine the political consensus on net zero at our peril,” says one Conservative MP who strongly supports tackling the climate emergency but was reluctant to stick his head above the parapet to say so publicly. “We also need to remember that voters are heavily in favour of our net zero targets.”
Sebastian Payne, director of the centre-right Onward thinktank, who has warned that scrapping the net zero agenda could cost the Conservative party 1.3m votes, said the party had always had to strike a “balance between conservation and growth”.
“We do believe very strongly that net zero and renewables are critical for the country and economy’s future and we shouldn’t resile from it,” he said. “On the politics, if you look at how many MPs are members of the Conservative Environment Network versus how many are on the Net Zero Scrutiny Group, I think that tells you where the centre of the party is on the environment.”
Conservative MPs who back measures to tackle the climate emergency are far more numerous than sceptics, with more than 130 parliamentary members of the party’s environment network. Chris Skidmore, the leading Tory voice calling for more net zero support, said this week that abandoning climate policies would be “an abdication of responsible government”, and he is considering launching a Westminster “climate charter” to galvanise backing for its aims.
Zac Goldsmith, the Tory peer and ally of Johnson who resigned with a devastating criticism of the government’s commitment to protecting the environment, also weighed in with a Guardian interview specifically singling out Michael Gove and Shapps for backsliding on their support for net zero.
However, some of the net zero sceptics are noisier. A stream of rightwing Conservatives from Jacob Rees-Mogg to David Frost jumped on the first signs of a cracking in the political consensus to claim that it was more pragmatic and could win the party more support.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Conservative leader and cabinet minister, was one of those making the argument that the UK has set itself too stretching targets compared with other countries internationally, particularly on the 2030 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales.
“We’re having to subsidise a switch to green technologies and the key point is how quickly we can do all of this because it feels to me like 2030 was just plucked out of the air. There’s no question that the British car industry will not make 2030 in a competitive shape on this if you demand that they drop petrol and diesel cars by then.”
Right-leaning newspapers also jumped on the bandwagon with leaders calling for a delay to the nearer term targets. And by the end of the week, talk of a U-turn on climate policy had reached the New York Times, which ran a piece on the British Conservatives’ commitment to green issues being tested.
Jill Rutter, a senior fellow at the Institute for Government, said Whitehall and business would be worrying about the mixed messages.
“This isn’t the first time government has flip-flopped on climate policy. There has been an awful lot of on-off-ing particularly from the Treasury including when Rishi Sunak was chancellor – on carbon capture, and the green homes grant,” she said. “If you are someone working on this you would be looking at it with a degree of despair.”
At first glance, it has looked this week as though the Tories’ splits on green issues could be mirrored in the Labour party. In the hours after last week’s Uxbridge byelection result, more than one ally of Keir Starmer was taking the shadow net zero secretary Ed Miliband’s name in vain.
While the Labour leader blamed the expansion of Sadiq Khan’s clean air zone for his party failing by just 495 votes to take Uxbridge and South Ruislip from the Tories, others felt it spoke to a wider electoral vulnerability.
One party source said: “It shows that our focus on the green agenda could backfire. We need to be careful that it doesn’t leave us open to Tory attacks or let it distract from our core messages.”
Another added: “We need to talk about the economic challenge rather than net zero. That’s the public’s overwhelming priority”.
Miliband, however, dismissed the noises in the wake of the byelection as “tittle tattle”, telling BBC Radio 4 that he was “far too experienced to be worried about that kind of thing”.
He went on: “The truth is that Keir Starmer is absolutely 100% committed to the project of clean energy by 2030, which is the way to cut bills and give us energy security and tackle the climate crisis”.
Senior Labour figures stress that for the past 18 months, Miliband has been talking about the green agenda through the prism of the cost of living crisis. “It is possible to do both,” they say.
But others in the party have been spooked by Starmer immediately laying the blame for the failure to take Boris Johnson’s old seat on the London mayor’s Ulez policy.
At Labour’s National Policy Forum (NPF) in Nottingham the following day, Starmer told his party: “We are doing something very wrong if policies put forward by the Labour party end up on each and every Tory leaflet.”
His allies deny that his approach to Ulez should be interpreted as him backing off his climate commitments, suggesting the nuance was lost as “politics is a primary colours business”.
Senior Labour figures insist that “nothing has changed” in the past week – despite appearances – and that Starmer and Reeves remain “firmly committed” to the green agenda.
They point out that at the NPF the party formally signed off on bold commitments on clean power by 2030, setting up Great British Energy and not granting new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.
“The real change on this has been in the Conservative party,” one said. “Shapps and Sunak are obviously desperate and have decided they want to have a bit of a culture war on these issues. I don’t think it’s going to work.” | United Kingdom Politics |
Exit Polls 2023 Live Streaming: How To Watch Results Of Assembly Elections In Rajasthan, MP And Other States?
With Telangana, voting in five poll-bound states will conclude on Thursday and all eyes will be on exit poll results 2023.
Polling is underway to elect 119 members of the Telangana Legislative Assembly, with voters queuing up to exercise their franchise amid tight security on Thursday.
Voting began at 7 AM in the 35,655 polling stations across the state. Polling would be held till 5 PM in 106 constituencies, while it would conclude at 4 PM in 13 Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected seats.
There are 3.26 crore eligible voters, including 1,63,13,268 male voters and 1,63,02,261 female electors, in the state.
With Telangana, voting in five poll-bound states will conclude on Thursday and all eyes will be on exit poll results 2023.
Polling was held in two phases in Chhattisgarh on November 7 and November 17. Voting took place in Mizoram, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan on November 7, November 17 and November 25 respectively.
The counting of votes will be taken up on December 3.
What Are Exit Polls?
An exit poll is a survey of voters taken soon after they have voted in an election. Exit polls may not accurately predict the outcome of an election but many people look forward to it.
Assembly Elections Exit Poll Results 2023: Date And Time
The exit poll results for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Mizoram, Chhattisgarh and Telangana will be declared after 6:30 pm on Thursday.
How To Watch Exit Poll Results 2023 Live On TV?
One can watch the exit poll results of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Telangana, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram Assembly elections on NDTV India and NDTV.
How To Watch Exit Poll Results 2023 Live Online?
One can watch the exit polls 2023 live on BQ Prime's YouTube channel and track live updates on bqprime.com.
Telangana Assembly Elections 2023
As many as 2,290 contestants are in the fray for the elections, including Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, his minister-son K T Rama Rao, state Congress president A Revanth Reddy and BJP Lok Sabha members Bandi Sanjay Kumar and D Arvind.
The model code of conduct came into force in the state after the Election Commission announced the schedule on October 9.
BRS has fielded candidates in all 119 seats.
As per the seat sharing agreement, BJP and actor Pawan Kalyan-headed Jana Sena are contesting in 111 and 8 seats respectively.
The Congress has given one seat to its ally CPI, and is fighting from 118 others.
Asaduddin Owaisi-led AIMIM has put up candidates in nine segments in the city.
Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, his Tripura counterpart N Indrasena Reddy, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, Union Minister and state BJP president G Kishan Reddy are among the prominent leaders who will cast their votes in the elections.
(With PTI inputs) | India Politics |
President Bola Tinubu has conveyed the decisions of the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, on recent military intervention in Niger.
The ECOWAS decision is contained in a letter addressed to President of Senate, Godswill Akpiabio and read at plenary on Friday.
Mr Tinubu, who is the Chairman of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS in the letter said: ”I present my modest compliments to the distinguished Senate President and distinguished senators.
”I do have the honour to inform you, that following the unfortunate political situation in Niger Republic culminating in overthrow of the adminstration of His excellency President Mohammed Bazoum on 26 July 2023.
“The Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS), under my leadership condem the coup in its entirety and resolved along side other members of the international community to seek return of a democratic elected government in Niger.
“Consequently in a bid to broker peace and restore democracy in the country ECOWAS conveyed an extraordinary summit of the Authority of Heads of States and governments on July 30 in Abuja.
“The body, consistent with Africa Union (AU) and ECOWAS) protocols on consititutional changes of government , thereafter issued communique on the line of action decided upon by member states .
“As Chair of ECOWAS, Nigeria has the obligation to lead in the implementation of the directive outlined in the communique and such resolved as follows.
“Closure and monitoring of all land borders with Niger Republic and reactivation of border drill exercise, cutting off electricity supply to Niger Republic.
“Mobilising international support for the implementation of the provisions of ECOWAS communique, presenting cooperation of commercial and special flights into and from Niger Republic.”
Other resolutions reach by ECOWAS according to Tinubu includes brockage of goods in transit to Niger Republic especially from Lagos and eastern seaports, embarking on sensitisation of Nigerians and Nigrians on imperative of actions of ECOWAS especially social media.
Mr Tinubu said ECOWAS also resolved to ensure military build up and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta.
NAN reports that the ECOWAS also enforced a no-flight zone over Niger.
This significant move which includes air and land border closure, is seen as a crucial reaction to the recent ascendancy of the junta.
NAN | Africa politics |
BBC Chairman Donated Tens of Thousands of Pounds to Right-Wing Group Funding Criticism of BBC
Richard Sharp has pumped money into a group that funds organisations like the TaxPayers’ Alliance, Eurosceptics and the BBC-bashing News-Watch. Was this known at the time of his appointment?
Sign up for our weekly Behind the Headlines email and get a free copy of Byline Times posted to you
The Chairman of the BBC gave tens of thousands of pounds through his personal charity to an organisation that funds right-wing organisations in the UK – several of which back the privatisation of the BBC.
Richard Sharp – who has donated more than £400,000 to the Conservatives – gave the money to the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) think tank, Byline Times can reveal.
There is already growing internal opposition from staff at the BBC and an investigation into Sharp’s alleged role in helping to arrange a £800,000 loan for former Prime Minister Boris Johnson before he was appointed as the corporation’s Chairman by Johnson in February 2021.
Sharp has denied all wrongdoing but is cooperating with the BBC’s investigation.
The IPR does not have a website but is run by several prominent Conservative backers. Sharp’s donations, via his personal charity the Sharp Foundation, include £20,000 in 2017 and the same amount in 2018.
In 2018, the IPR funded analysis critical of the BBC’s coverage of Brexit, as newly-unearthed Charity Commission records reveal.
The IPR has also given money to an organisation, News-Watch, which produces content almost exclusively targeted at the BBC, as well as the Centre for Policy Studies and the TaxPayers’ Alliance – the latter of which campaigns for tax cuts and rails against “wasteful” government spending.
It is not clear if Richard Sharp disclosed these donations to the BBC upon his appointment as Chairman. They were not mentioned to parliamentarians when he was quizzed by MPs last month over the Johnson loan scandal.
Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee found that Sharp’s “omissions” relating to the Johnson loan “denied MPs the opportunity to fulfil their scrutiny role, as they were left without the full facts to make a judgement on his suitability” when he appeared before the Committee for a pre-appointment hearing in January 2021.
The Committee called on Sharp to “reflect on the potential damage caused to trust in the corporation”.
Richard Sharp refused to comment when approached with several questions from Byline Times but he is understood to argue that he donates to a range of organisations in the spirit of “lively debate”.
Don’t Miss a Story
In 2018 – the year Sharp’s foundation donated to the IPR – the think tank gave £30,000 to News-Watch.
News-Watch’s coverage is almost exclusively targeted at the BBC, accusing it of bias against Brexit and Conservatives. In January 2018, it published ‘The Brussels Broadcasting Corporation’ which was heavily critical of the BBC – one of many publications and articles it published that year criticising the corporation.
In the report, News-Watch said it had “conducted around 40 separate reports into elements of the BBC’s output, including for the Centre for Policy Studies”.
Sharp sat on the board of the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS), which calls itself Britain’s “leading centre-right think tank” – a claim Johnson and Rishi Sunak have endorsed.
Other pieces on the News-Watch site at the time claimed that “the reality is that the BBC has a skewed agenda” on climate change, Brexit and other issues. Other reports – including one published jointly with a Tufton Street think tank – alleged that the BBC was highly partial and sat on the left of politics.
One ‘study’ by the group claimed that the BBC over-cited left-wing think tanks – but the methodology described the free-market capitalist think tank the Institute for Economic Affairs as left-wing; alongside climate-sceptic group the Global Warming Policy Foundation, headed up by Thatcher’s former Chancellor Lord Lawson.
In 2017 and 2018, IPR also gave the TaxPayers’ Alliance nearly £130,000 – making it the third-largest recipient of IPR funds after the CPS and Open Europe.
The following year, it gave the TaxPayers’ Alliance £180,000, accounting for its largest grant at 39% of its total gifts that year.
Between 2016 and 2019, the TaxPayers’ Alliance ran social media posts including: “Do you agree that the BBC licence fee should be abolished?” Many of its comments in the media in this time pushed its campaign to scrap the licence fee.
Sharp also gave £42,400 directly to Robert Colville, co-author of the 2019 Conservative Manifesto, chair of the CPS, and editor-in-chief of the right-leaning publication CapX.
Colvile told Byline Times: “Richard was a CPS Board member at the time and was deeply affected by the death of my wife. The money went into a trust to support my children as they grew up, and help ensure that I wouldn’t have to worry so much about education and living costs as a widower. It was an incredibly kind gesture on his part and I will always be extraordinarily grateful to him for it.”
He added that his work on the Conservative Manifesto was “purely voluntary” and that he took a leave of absence from the CPS to do it. “I was only brought in late in the process, during the campaign itself,” he added. “So I didn’t receive any money for doing so or any quid pro quo payments via an indirect route.”
The CPS has published several reports criticising the so-called bias at the BBC against Brexiters and the right.
In the same time period, CapX published articles calling for abolition of the licence fee, with one headed “the licence fee model worked in 1946 – but it is now outdated and should be overhauled”. Several pieces also hit out at the BBC’s coverage on Russia.
Byline Times columnist Peter York – co-author of The War Against The BBC with Professor Patrick Barwise – has charted many of the organisations undermining the BBC, including News-Watch.
“I hadn’t realised Mr Sharp was so involved with organisations that are clearly hostile to the BBC,” he said. “Did the various organisations involved with scrutinising his appointment know all this or is it the first anyone’s seen of it? Did the BBC Board and senior management know all this? Not that they could’ve done anything about it.”
He added: “The issues relating to Richard Sharp’s appointment are not of the BBC’s making. They don’t appoint him – they have no say in it. The Government does: he was imposed on the BBC.”
The BBC did not respond to Byline Times’ request for comment.
Sharp is the subject of two investigations into allegations he helped Boris Johnson secure a loan of up to £800,000. Industry figures such as Jonathan Dimbleby and Baroness Patience Wheatcroft have called on him to resign, while Labour and the Scottish National Party have described his position as “increasingly untenable”.
A Labour source told Byline Times: “These reports raise further questions about how much pertinent information Richard Sharp disclosed to Parliament and to the BBC ahead of his appointment as BBC Chair.
“The Select Committee has already ruled that Sharp made significant errors of judgement when failing to declare his role in the facilitation of a loan to the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Tory cronyism is dragging down the BBC when we should be promoting it as the cornerstone of our creative economy.”
National Union of Journalist members working for the BBC believe Sharp must immediately resign, according to a snapshot poll carried out over the past week with just over 1,000 respondents.
Paul Siegert, the NUJ’s national broadcasting organiser, said Byline Times’ findings are “yet another reason which explains why our members say they no longer have faith in Richard Sharp to remain as Chairman of the BBC”.
“Impartiality is so important for everyone who works at the BBC and Richard Sharp can’t argue he is impartial,” he added. “The longer he stays in post, and the more stories like this come to light, then the more damage he is doing to the reputation of the BBC.”
Got a story for Byline Times? Contact [email protected] in confidence
OUR JOURNALISM RELIES ON YOU
Byline Times is funded by its subscribers. Receive our monthly print edition and help to support fearless, independent journalism.
SUBSCRIBE TO THE PRINT EDITION
A new type of newspaper – independent, fearless, outside the system. Fund a better media.
Don’t miss a story! Sign up to our newsletter (and get a free edition posted to you)
Our leading investigations include: empire & the culture war, Brexit, crony contracts, Russian interference, the Coronavirus pandemic, democracy in danger, and the crisis in British journalism. We also introduce new voices of colour in Our Lives Matter. | United Kingdom Politics |
U.S. forces stationed in Syria were attacked Tuesday, Pentagon officials said Thursday, marking the 74th time since Oct. 17 that troops were targeted in the Middle East.
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh confirmed the attack during Thursday's Department of Defense briefing.
"There was an attack on Tuesday…that brings the total attacks up to 74 attacks from October 17th until now," she said, adding that there were no additional attacks over the last two days.
Singh also said there were no injuries reported from the attack, nor any damage to infrastructure.
The 74 attacks on U.S. troops have taken place in Iraq and Syria and began on Oct. 17 by Iraqi militia groups. The attacks are reportedly linked to the U.S.’s support for Israel in its retaliation against the Palestinian militant group Hamas, following its attack on Oct. 7.
The attacks do not include ballistic missiles being shot in the direction of U.S. military vessels, which commanding officers on those ships have ordered to be shot down.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy Destroyer USS Carney shot down an Iranian-made Houthi drone launched from Yemen.
There was no damage to the Carney or any injuries to the U.S. personnel onboard the vessel, which was sailing near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait at the time of the attack.
During the briefing, Singh was asked why Houthi drones and missiles heading in the vicinity of U.S. ships were not being included in the number of attacks.
She explained that action is being taken against drones and missiles when commanding officers on those ships feel they pose a threat.
"In terms of intended target…our initial assessment is that the ships were not the intended target, but they came close enough where, at least the Carney, felt the need that it had to engage the drone that was coming its way or headed toward the general direction," Singh said.
She could not say what the intended target of the drones or missiles were, but the initial assessment, Singh added, was that the ships were not the intended target.
"It is up to the commanders of these ships if they feel that they are under attack, or they feel like their personnel are threatened, to be able to respond and take action," Singh said.
Fox News Digital's Bradford Betz contributed to this report. | Middle East Politics |
- Summary
- Three attackers killed in Sunday's incident
- Gunbattle prompts international concern over Kovoso
- Police seize weapons, suspects appear in court
PRISTINA/BELGRADE, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The main political party representing Serbs in northern Kosovo declared three days of mourning on Tuesday for people killed in a gunbattle in a monastery with Kosovo police, after the worst violence for years in the contested area.
Kosovo authorities say around 30 heavily armed Serbs stormed the village of Banjska on Sunday, battling police and barricading themselves into the Serbian Orthodox monastery. Police recaptured the monastery late on Sunday after three attackers and one police officer were killed.
The gunbattle has prompted new international concern over stability in Kosovo, which has an ethnic Albanian majority and declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla uprising and a 1999 NATO intervention.
Belgrade has never recognised the independence of its former province. Around 50,000 ethnic Serbs in the north reject rule from Pristina.
No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack or explain the motives of the gunmen.
Kosovo has accused Serbia of backing the armed militants; Serbia says Kosovo is to blame for mistreating residents in the Serb-majority area.
The Serb List party said all entertainment would be cancelled and flags lowered to half staff during the period of mourning from Tuesday to Thursday.
Serbia itself declared Wednesday a day of mourning "due to the tragic events", without explicitly endorsing the gunmen or their grievances.
"Serbia has no problem to say it condemns the murder of an (Kosovo) Albanian policeman, but we cannot remain mute, deaf and blind to the persecution and killing of Serbian people in Kosovo," Defence Minister Milos Vucevic said in Belgrade after meeting his Norwegian counterpart Bjoern Arild Gram.
WEAPONS SEIZED
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met the ambassadors of the United States, EU, Britain, France, Germany, and Italy in Belgrade on Tuesday about the incident. He said he had demanded that the international KFOR peacekeeping force "take care of all security issues in the north of Kosovo instead of (Kosovo Prime Minister Albin) Kurti's police".
Kosovo police said on Tuesday they arrested two more suspects in a hotel in the predominantly Serb north of the country and seized a cache of weapons including assault rifles and a heavy machine gun.
Police had also searched houses in Banjska on Monday and displayed weapons and equipment they said they had seized.
Police also released drone footage they said showed a group of armed men resting inside the monastery compound on Sunday.
It said one of them was Milan Radojcic, a Kosovo Serb politician and one of the leaders of the Serb List party.
Neither Radojcic nor the party could be reached by telephone or email for comment about the video. The party has made no comment on the incident other than the declaration of mourning.
Reuters could not independently verify the identity of the man highlighted in the video. Reuters confirmed the location as the Banjska Monastery, but was not able to independently verify the date when the video was filmed.
Serb List was the dominant Serb party in Kosovo's parliament before Serbs from the north and those loyal to Belgrade boycotted Kosovo's institutions nearly a year ago. It is closely allied with Vucic's Serbian Progressive Party.
Two Serbs captured in the gunbattle appeared in court on Tuesday for a hearing in Kosovo's capital Pristina.
Dejan A. Vasic, a lawyer who represents Dusan Maksimovic, a suspect in the shooting, said he planned to appeal against the 30-day detention given to his client.
The court said a third suspected gunman who was wounded had already appeared before a judge in hospital, where he was charged with participating in a terrorist attack and remanded in custody for one month.
Reporting by Fatos Bytyci and Aleksandar Vasovic; Writing by Ivana Sekularac; Editing by Christina Fincher and Alison Williams
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Europe Politics |
Ukraine’s Marine command in a Friday statement claimed its fighters destroyed hundreds of Russian combat vehicles in battles on the east bank of the Dnipro River, following Kyiv’s first official announcement this Tuesday acknowledging that one month ago its forces had captured a bridgehead there – an important goal in Ukraine’s counteroffensive.
Friday’s statement was the first official announcement by Kyiv of Russian losses, resulting from Russian attempts, thus far unsuccessful, to eliminate fortified Kyiv footholds on the eastern (left) bank of Ukraine’s biggest waterway, in the southern Kherson region.
“Thanks to the courage and professionalism of Ukrainian Marines, in cooperation with other units of the Defense Forces, (Ukrainian Marines) managed to gain a foothold on several bridgeheads,” the Ukrainian Armed Forces Marine Corps posted on its Facebook channel on Friday.
On Nov. 13, Kremlin media had initially reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense had decided to regroup troops in the Kherson region, before quickly retracting the reports.
“Having assessed the situation, the command of the Dnipro group decided to move the troops to more advantageous positions east of the Dnipro,” the deleted statements from Russian media outlets TASS and RIA Novosti had said. But they soon backtracked saying that their earlier reports were “issued by mistake.”
Similar language had been used to announce previous Russian troop retreats in the wake of Ukrainian attacks last year in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions that Russia had occupied at the beginning of its February 2022 Ukraine invasion.
Unofficial Ukrainian military information platforms first reported Marines using small boats to cross the Dnipro in mid-October.
Russian milbloggers quickly confirmed a growing Marine presence and Ukrainian infantry digging in and slowly expanding positions.
The Marine command statement said Ukrainian troops “had carried out a series of successful actions on the left bank of the Dnieper River in the Kherson direction…(and) managed to gain a foothold in several bridgeheads.”
There was no information about troop strength or when, precisely, the enclaves were first established.
According to the Marines’ statement, Ukrainian troops fighting on the left bank of the Dnipro inflicted serious losses on Russian forces in the sector, particularly in personnel and heavy weapons.
Estimated Russian service personnel losses were given at 1,216 soldiers killed and 2,217 wounded. Russian weapons and equipment destroyed or put out of action included 24 tanks, 89 artillery systems and mortars, 135 trucks and cars, 48 armored fighting vehicles, 9 rocket artillery launchers, 14 boats, 15 electronics interception or radar systems, and 4 command posts, the Ukrainian Marine announcement claimed.
A “combined electronic warfare unit of the Marine Corps neutralized 135 (Russian) FPV (kamikaze strike) drones and 5 operational-tactical (long range reconnaissance) UAVs,” the statement said.
Kyiv Post was unable to confirm the Ukrainian Marines’ claims. Anecdotal reports by Ukrainian milbloggers and military information platforms over the past four weeks have told of wet, marshy terrain and heavy Ukrainian interdiction artillery fire hitting and halting Russian pushes towards the Ukrainian bridgeheads.
Drone operators confirmed by Kyiv Post to be operating in the Kherson sector have, since early November, reported wide use of crowd-sourced drone jamming equipment by volunteer teams deployed to Kherson sector, and successful intercepts and destruction of as many as 20 Russian drones in a day.
The Marine statement confirmed reports widespread by military bloggers on both sides of the fighting of dense Ukrainian drone surveillance around the bridgeheads, especially over the few hard roads leading through forests and wetlands in the river lowlands.
“Ukrainian marines carry out fire strikes on the Left Bank of the Kherson region and carry out actions with the aim of destroying the enemy,” the statement said.
A statement released later in the morning by Ukraine’s Army General Staff described the bridgeheads’ operational stance as static, saying that “(D)istraction attacks, raids and reconnaissance operations are being carried out. Enemy logistics routes for the delivery of ammunition and supplies are being identified. Deployment locations of Russian occupation troops and equipment, artillery locations as well, with the goal of their future destruction using strike systems. Heavy battles are in progress.”
Some Russian military bloggers on Friday reported the Ukrainian troops were dug in in two enclaves on the left bank and under heavy pressure by Russian air force air strikes. The Kremlin-linked Voenniyy Osvedomitel’ posted video of what it called a dual guided glide bomb strike against Marine positions near the village of Krynky.
Other Russian military bloggers partially confirmed the Ukrainian General Staff and Marine claims of successful strikes hitting Kremlin troops needed against the Ukrainian cross-river incursion.
A Friday post by Romanov_92, a blogger reportedly serving with Russian troops in the Kherson sector, said that on Nov. 11 a Ukrainian massed precision-guided rocket strike fired by US-made HIMARS launchers stationed on the right bank of the river struck a truck and automobile column carrying troops from Russia’s 1st Battalion, 35th Separate Motor Rifle Brigade near the village of Gladky, killing dozens of soldiers. The Ukrainian strike’s success was the result of poor security and sloppy staff work, and an investigation to determine possible officer negligence was in progress, the report said.
According to open-source reports, the Ukrainian Marines hold two bridgeheads; one clustered around the around the villages of Pishchanivka, Poime and Pidstepne some 10 kilometers (6 miles) upstream from the Kyiv-controlled right bank city of Kherson, and a second toehold centered around Krynky village, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) further upriver.
Unit bloggers from Ukraine’s 35th, 36th, 37th and 38th Marine Brigades have claimed formation elements are across the river and fighting. Russian military bloggers have confirmed the presence of 35th and 36th Marines and, on Wednesday, claimed Russian forces captured at least eight Marines from the 36th Brigade.
On Friday the Russian milblogger DvaMajora, citing purported eyewitnesses, said that social media reports that Ukrainian forces were constructing a military pontoon bridge near the village of Krynky were inaccurate, and that Ukrainian forces on the left bank still depend on small boats moving back and forth across the river for supply.
Although the Ukrainian incursion across the Dnipro had been in progress and heavily reported for weeks, the first formal acknowledgement that Kyiv troops had crossed the river and established bridgeheads was on Tuesday, when head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak told reporters covering his trip to Washington D.C. that “Defense Forces had seized a bridgehead on the left bank of the Dnipro.”
The first Ukrainian cross-river raids, by special operations troops aboard small boats, were reported in open sources in May. Official Russian army statements in October acknowledged Kyiv forces were operating on the east bank of the Dnipro, but characterized them as weak in strength and each in turn eliminated by Russian artillery and air strikes.
On Oct. 30 the Kremlin sacked the general commanding all Russian forces in the southern sector, reportedly, because he and his staff concealed from their Moscow bosses the fact that the Ukrainian crossing was for the first time in strength.
In a Nov. 9 report, ISW said that the Russian military command will likely face challenges in transferring combat-capable reinforcements to respond to Ukrainian operations on the left bank of the Kherson region.
You can also highlight the text and press Ctrl + Enter | Europe Politics |
Anthony Albanese’s approval rating has dropped five points over the summer as Peter Dutton ramped up what Indigenous leader Noel Pearson calls “a spoiling game” on the voice to parliament.The first Guardian Essential poll for 2023 shows voter approval of the prime minister dipped from 60% in December to 55% in January – which is Albanese’s lowest result since last August. Voter approval of the prime minister had been steady during the last quarter of 2022, ranging between 59% and 60%.Albanese’s approval slide is accompanied by a four-point rise in voter disapproval. In December, 27% of Guardian Essential respondents disapproved of the prime minister’s performance, and that increased to 31% in January.Many Australian voters switch off from politics entirely during their summer break, and one monthly dip in voter approval does not necessarily presage the end of the Albanese government’s post-election honeymoon.But the negative movement outside the poll’s margin of error is nonetheless a signpost to a gruelling political year ahead.The government has battled high inflation, rising interest rates and high energy prices – and those challenges will persist in 2023. The coming year will also include the high-stakes referendum on a constitutionally enshrined First Nations advisory body, with Albanese investing significant prime ministerial capital in securing a yes vote. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup The National party confirmed late last year it would oppose the voice to parliament, effectively ending the prospect of bipartisanship. Dutton also has to manage hardline opponents inside the Liberal party room. The Liberal leader has spent the summer demanding more detail about the reform as a prelude to the referendum campaign later in 2023.A range of opinion polls suggest Australians are supportive of the change in-principle. But Pearson on Monday expressed concerns that the opposition’s calls for more details on the referendum were a diversion that threatened reconciliation.Surveys indicate voters don’t have a firm grasp on the detail, even though the reform was first proposed in the Uluru Statement from the Heart back in 2017, and there have been a range of detailed deliberations around design principles since – most of them initiated by the government of which Dutton was a senior member.Albanese is seeking to have Australians vote first on the principle of enshrining a voice, with the precise design to follow, ultimately determined by the parliament. But the prime minister said on Monday that more detail would be released by the referendum working group, which is due to meet again on 2 February.The latest Guardian Essential poll suggests Australians are entering 2023 feeling positive about their country. A significant majority of respondents agree with the statements “Australia is a better place to live than most other countries” (83% support) and “I am proud of Australia” (77% support) – and less than half (47%) agree with the statement “Australia needs to be a better global citizen”.A growing number of respondents also believe life has improved for Indigenous Australians over the past 10 years. Last January, 36% of respondents thought things were better for First Nations peoples than they were a decade ago, and now 43% of the sample agrees with that proposition.A growing number of Australians also support a separate day to recognise Indigenous Australians to replace Australia Day on 26 January – the public holiday marking British colonisation.Last January, 20% of respondents were positive about that idea, and that has climbed now to 26%. But voters remain divided about the best approach. A third of the sample supports keeping Australia Day and adding another holiday to recognise Indigenous Australians, and the same percentage would not support a separate day to recognise the original inhabitants of the continent.With an election looming in New South Wales, Guardian Essential respondents resident in the state were also asked their view of the performance of the premier and the opposition leader.Just under half the respondents in the sample (47%) said they approved of Dominic Perrottet’s performance as NSW premier (36% said they disapproved) while 38% said the Labor leader, Chris Minns, was doing a good job (27% disapproved). These results should be treated with caution because the sample size is small. | Australia Politics |
Israel’s Truce And Hostage Deal With Hamas Faces Delays
The four-day halt in military operations in Gaza and freeing of hostages were initially envisaged to begin on Thursday morning.
(Bloomberg) -- Israel and Hamas’s negotiations continued overnight, with Israeli officials signaling that a release of hostages from Gaza and pause in fighting would be delayed.
The four-day halt in military operations in Gaza and freeing of hostages were initially envisaged to begin on Thursday morning.
The head of Israel’s National Security Council said the releases would begin “not before Friday,” underscoring the fragility of the complex accord with Hamas, which was announced earlier this week.
In northern Gaza, there were more battles between Hamas militants and Israeli troops on Wednesday night.
Qatar, which along with Egypt is acting as a mediator, said Thursday the timing of the truce’s implementation would be announced “within the coming hours.”
US President Joe Biden spoke with key players, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leaders of Qatar and Egypt. The White House emphasized the need for all parts of the deal to be executed.
Israel and Hamas agreed that the Iran-backed group would free 50 women and children held in Gaza. In turn, Israel will release 150 women and Palestinians under the age of 19 from Israeli jails. US officials said three Americans would be among the hostages leaving Gaza.
Netanyahu said the war will carry on until Hamas is destroyed as an organization, but the accord will still mark the first major lull in fighting since the conflict erupted just over six weeks ago.
Israeli media have reported that the cease-fire would start only after the Red Cross receives hostages from Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and the European Union.
“Negotiations on the release of our hostages are progressing and continuing all the time,” Tzachi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, said.
Under the deal, more aid is expected to flow into Hamas-controlled Gaza to alleviate what the United Nations and Palestinian officials say is a humanitarian disaster. A second stage could see the pause in fighting extended another day for every 10 additional hostages released.
The agreement falls short of calls from many nations for an extended cease-fire. Israel and the US have rejected such a move, saying it would allow Hamas to rearm.
What Will Happen in Gaza After Israel Stops Its War on Hamas?
The deal’s outcome has high stakes for Biden, who faces pressure from many in his own party to bring an end to Israel’s offensive, launched after an Oct. 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people and saw 240 taken hostage. More than 14,500 people, including 6,000 children, have since been killed in the Palestinian enclave, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Qatar said the “humanitarian pause” could help stop the war and lead to a “just peace process.”
Netanyahu, though, has made clear Israel won’t let up.
“We are committed to destroying Hamas, getting all of our hostages back and making sure Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel,” he said.
He’s also instructed Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence agency, “to act against the leaders of Hamas wherever they are.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas’s leaders were “living on borrowed time,” and the fight against them would “span the entire globe.”
Diplomatic efforts to contain the conflict continued. An Arab delegation headed by Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, visited London on Wednesday, before heading to Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron. UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron arrived in Israel on Thursday and is due to meet Israeli and Palestinian officials, Sky News reported.
Iran Top Diplomat Meets Hamas, Islamic Jihad Officials in Beirut
Events elsewhere in the region over the past 24 hours have underlined the risks of spillover.
To Israel’s north in Lebanon, an Israeli airstrike on a house in the village of Beit Yahoun killed four people and wounded another, according to Lebanese state media.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which has launched regular rocket attacks on Israel, said five of its members were killed, including the son of the head of its bloc in parliament, according to Al Manar TV. It didn’t give details and it wasn’t clear if it was the same incident.
The US said Wednesday that one of its destroyer ships in the Red Sea shot down several drones launched from Yemen. The country’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have pledged to keep targeting Israel until its ends the war.
It’s not clear if groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthis will also adhere to the truce between Hamas and Israel.
Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned the longer Israel presses ahead with its assault on Gaza, the greater the risk of a wider conflict and terrorist attacks on Western assets.
There is a concern that “if we get to a certain point there’s no going back,” he said.
(Updates with fighting, Qatar comments starting in second paragraph.)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Middle East Politics |
Jim Chalmers has declared it is “absurd” to think the Albanese government in 2023 will be a photocopy of the Hawke and Keating governments in the wake of a sustained backlash against his new essay championing values-based capitalism.
The treasurer says the overwhelmingly negative reaction to his summer think piece, published by the Monthly last month, is out of step with sentiment in the investor community and also reveals a disconnect between some opinion leaders in Australia and cutting-edge economic policy analysis overseas.
Chalmers used a speech to a Labor-aligned thinktank on Sunday to outline his policy agenda for the opening of the new parliamentary year, confirming he would release a tax expenditure statement later in the month, a review of the Reserve Bank of Australia in March, and an intergenerational report and a wellbeing framework later in the year.
With parliament to sit on Monday in the first session after the summer recess, Chalmers said he was pursuing “important steps” on sustainable finance, a “new focus” for the Productivity Commission, work on regulating crypto and payments, while pursuing a housing accord with the housing minister, Julie Collins.
He said high inflation would be the government’s main economic focus, and his priorities in the May budget would be providing cost-of-living relief, growing the economy in a more inclusive and more sustainable way, and repairing the budget to enable more generous social policy spending, including on Medicare and aged care.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
Chalmers also addressed the sustained controversy around the summer essay. The treasurer signalled in the 6,000-word piece he wanted to expand the opportunity for “impact investing” while pressing ahead with regulatory reforms, including a “new taxonomy” to help investors “align their choices” with the government’s more ambitious emissions reduction targets.
On Sunday, Chalmers characterised the backlash on the opinion pages of national newspapers as, largely, “hyperventilating from the usual suspects – some with such intensity it seemed they might spontaneously combust” – although he joked the attention was likely better than “being ignored”.
During a question and answer session on Sunday at the Chifley Research Centre conference, the treasurer said “there’s a contrast between some of that coverage and what you pick up in investor circles”.
“People get into habits. I think people get into a habit of what their views are, and some habits were formed some time ago. That is not the case in the investor community and the international community, so I think there is a bit of a disconnect there.”
Some of the criticism portrayed Chalmers’s support for values-based capitalism as a departure from Labor’s policy approach in the 1980s and 1990s. But the treasurer said the Albanese government would not be a facsimile of past Labor governments because the current government had to rise to meet contemporary challenges rather than mimic the shibboleths of the past.
“My view about the changes of the last 40 years is there is much to commend, particularly in the Australian context, particularly when it comes to the Hawke-Keating legacy,” Chalmers said on Sunday.
“But our job now is to make our own way in the 2020s, in this defining decade.” He said the “same things that worked for Paul in 1983 are not going to be the same things I reach for in 2023”.
Chalmers said people expecting he would be a carbon copy of Keating as treasurer was “as absurd as someone saying to Paul when he fronted up to the Treasury for the first time 40 years ago and saying what we need to do is a photocopy of Ben Chifley’s policies as treasurer 40 years earlier.
“You can believe in markets, you can believe in the important role of the private sector as I do … but what we need to do is a much better job of working out how do we better design and define and inform our markets so that we get the right kind of economic outcomes but also, ideally, outcomes that align with our values and our society.” | Australia Politics |
Eight Buildings Collapse In Kullu, Rains Continue To Lash Himachal Pradesh
The assessment of damage is being done and some other unsafe buildings along the National Highway-305 in Anni have been vacated.
At least eight buildings that had developed cracks and were declared unsafe following recent rains collapsed in Anni area of Himachal Pradesh's Kullu district on Thursday, throwing up large clouds of dust and debris. There were no casualties.
The buildings housing shops, banks and other commercial establishments had developed cracks four-five days ago, Sub Divisional Magistrate, Anni, Naresh Verma, who was at the spot, said.
The buildings were declared unsafe and vacated recently, he said.
The assessment of damage is being done and some other unsafe buildings along the National Highway-305 in Anni have also been vacated as a precautionary measure, the official added.
Rains, meanwhile, continued to lash several parts of Himachal. While Palampur received 137 mm of rain since Wednesday evening, Nahan received 93 mm, Shimla 79 mm, Dharamshala 70 mm and Mandi 57 mm.
As many as 120 people have died in rain-related incidents in the state this month while a total of 238 people have died and 40 are still missing since the onset of monsoon in Himachal Pradesh on June 24.
The rains have led to closure of 709 roads in the state.
Himachal saw three major spells of heavy rains this Monsoon. The first on July 9 and 10 led to large-scale destruction in Mandi and Kullu districts. Shimla and Solan districts were hit during the second spell on August 14 and 15 and Shimla city suffered heavy damage in the third spell on Tuesday night.
Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu on Wednesday said that Rs 165.22 crore had been released to all the deputy commissioners and the line departments in the state for the restoration of damaged works.
He has claimed that the state has suffered losses of Rs 10,000 crore so far due to the heavy rains. | India Politics |
An informal EU summit in Granada, Spain, was overshadowed by the prime ministers of Hungary and Poland, who opposed the section of a joint declaration that focused on migration.
The formal outcome of Friday's gathering bypassed any reference to migration policy, a glaring omission given the recent developments on the Italian island of Lampedusa.
This is not the first time that Viktor Orbán and Mateusz Morawiecki have joined forces to derail a communiqué of the European Council, having done so in late June.
Both instances related to the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, a comprehensive reform of the bloc's migration policy that establishes a system of "mandatory solidarity" to ensure the 27 member states, without exception, contribute to the management and reception of asylum seekers.
The New Pact, which is under negotiations, received on Wednesday a strong boost after the EU Council reached its long-awaited position on the fifth and last piece of the complex puzzle: the Crisis Regulation.
The legislation is approved under the rules of a qualified majority, as foreseen in the EU treaties, which means neither Poland nor Hungary can exercise a veto right.
"We are not afraid of diktats (...) from Berlin and Brussels," Morawiecki said upon arrival, decrying what he described as "draconian penalties."
Viktor Orbán went further, comparing the qualified majority rules with sexual assault.
"There is no chance to have any kind of compromise and agreement on migration. Politically, it's impossible. Not today, but generally speaking, for the next years. Because legally we are, how to say it, we are raped," Orbán told reporters on Friday morning, with a smirk on his face.
"So if you are raped, legally, forced to accept something (that) you don't like, how would you like to have a compromise and agreement?"
The comments, shocking even for Orbán's standards, set the scene for the rest of the day, leading to a widely anticipated failure in the late afternoon.
The blockage forced Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, to publish a separate statement on his own behalf. No reference to migration can be found in the Granada declaration, which instead addresses various economy-oriented issues such as energy, technology and competitiveness.
"The declaration on migration is broadly supported and contains what was contributed by myself and the (European) Commission on the external dimension of migration," Michel told reporters, referring to engagement with countries of origin and transit.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who acted as host, admitted there was a "risk" in trying to include migration in the final text but said what really mattered was Wednesday's preliminary deal on the Crisis Regulation.
"This is really the relevant part, this is the important fact in political terms," Sánchez said.
Meanwhile, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who also spoke at the press conference, appeared optimistic and said the New Pact was "on its way."
"There is a very good chance that it will make it over the finish line," von der Leyen said.
The bloc's shared goal is to wrap up negotiations on the New Pact before the next elections to the European Parliament, scheduled for June 2024. | Europe Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Sam Mednick, Associated Press
Sam Mednick, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
NIAMEY, Niger (AP) — West African nations have given Niger’s coup leaders one week to reinstate the country’s democratically elected president and have threatened to use force if the demands aren’t met.
The announcement came at the end of an emergency meeting of West African countries Sunday in Nigeria, where the regional bloc, known as ECOWAS, convened to respond to last week’s military takeover. President Mohamed Bazoum remains under house arrest and has yet to resign.
READ MORE: French embassy in Niger attacked during pro-junta rally in capital
“In the event the authority’s demands are not met within one week, (the bloc will) take all measures necessary to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger. Such measures may include the use of force,” said the statement.
The bloc also imposted strict sanctions, including suspending all commercial and financial transactions between ECOWAS member states and Niger and freezing of assets in regional central banks.
Economic sanctions could have a deep impact on Nigeriens, who live in the third-poorest country in the world, according to the latest U.N. data. The country relies on imports from Nigeria for up to 90% of its power, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
The sanctions could be disastrous and Niger needs to find a solution to avoid them, the country’s Prime Minister Ouhoumoudou Mahamadou told French media outlet Radio France Internationale on Sunday.
“When people say there’s an embargo, land borders are closed, air borders are closed, it’s extremely difficult for people … Niger is a country that relies heavily on the international community,” he said.
The 15-nation ECOWAS bloc has unsuccessfully tried to restore democracies in nations where the military took power in recent years. Four nations are run by military governments in West and Central Africa, where there have been nine successful or attempted coups since 2020.
In the 1990s, ECOWAS intervened in Liberia during its civil war. In 2017, it intervened in Gambia to prevent the new president’s predecessor, Yahya Jammeh, from disrupting the handover of power. Around 7,000 troops from Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal entered, according to the Global Observatory, which provides analysis on peace and security issues.
If the regional bloc uses force, it could trigger violence not only between Niger and ECOWAS forces but also civilians supporting the coup and those against it, Niger analysts say.
“While this remains to be a threat and unlikely action, the consequences on civilians of such an approach if putschists chose confrontation would be catastrophic,” said Rida Lyammouri, senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, a Morocco-based think tank.
Lyammouri also said he does not see a “military intervention happening because of the violence that could trigger.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken commended ECOWAS’ leadership Sunday to “defend constitutional order in Niger” after the sanctions announcement, and joined the bloc in calling for the immediate release of Bazoum and his family.
The military junta, which seized power on Wednesday when members of the presidential guard surrounded Bazoum’s house and detained him, is already cracking down on the government and civil liberties.
READ MORE: Blinken says Niger must restore ‘democratic order’ to avoid loss of U.S. economic aid
On Sunday evening it arrested four government officials, including Mahamane Sani Mahamadou, the minister of petroleum and son of former President Mahamadou Issoufou; Kassoum Moctar, minister of education; Ousseini Hadizatou Yacouba, the minister of mines, and Foumakoye Gado, the president of the ruling party. That’s according to someone close to the president, who was not authorized to speak about the situation, and a Nigerien analyst who did not want to be named for fear of reprisal.
The same night, junta spokesman Col. Maj. Amadou Abdramane said on state television that all government cars need to be returned by midday Monday and banned the use of social media to diffuse messages against state security. He also claimed that Bazoum’s government had authorized the French to carry out strikes to free Bazoum. The Associated Press can’t verify his allegations.
In anticipation of the ECOWAS decision Sunday, thousands of pro-junta supporters took to the streets in the capital, Niamey, denouncing its former colonial ruler, France, waving Russian flags and telling the international community to stay away.
Demonstrators in Niger are openly resentful of France, and Russia is seen by some as a powerful alternative. The nature of Moscow’s involvement in the rallies, if any, isn’t clear, but some protesters have carried Russian flags, along with signs reading “Down with France” and supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The situation of this country is not good … It’s time for change, and change has arrived,” said Moussa Seydou, a protester. “What we want from the putschists — all they have to do is improve social conditions so that Nigeriens can live better in this country and bring peace,” he said.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Africa politics |
By Maayan Lubell
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel's Supreme Court is set on Tuesday to hear arguments against a bid by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition to curb bench powers, in a historic session that has already inflamed a crisis which has gripped the country for months.
The court's entire 15-judge bench will convene for the first time in Israeli history, to hear appeals by opposition lawmakers and watchdog groups against a judicial amendment that was passed by Netanyahu's national-religious coalition in July.
The legislation removed one, but not all, of the tools the Supreme Court had for voiding government and ministers' decisions if it deemed them "unreasonable".
A ruling could come within weeks or even months.
The appellants say the amendment removes vital democratic checks and balances, opens the door to corruption and invites abuses of power. They also argue that the swift legislation process was flawed.
In its legal response to the petitions, the government has said the Supreme Court has no authority to even review amendments to a quasi-constitutional Basic Law, and said the debate could "lead to anarchy".
Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges he denies, says the judicial changes are meant to balance a Supreme Court that has become too interventionist. He has been hazy when asked whether he would abide by a ruling that would quash the new law.
His coalition started its judicial campaign in January, triggering unprecedented protests, spooking investors and sending the shekel down as Western allies voiced concern for the health of Israel's democracy.
Netanyahu has since said some of the proposals have been scrapped.
Efforts to reach agreements between Netanyahu and opponents on the overhaul have so far been fruitless, adding to fears that Israel's worst domestic crisis in years will deepen with the court asked to strike down legislation by politicians who already accuse it of intervening where it shouldn't.
However, with two more appeals scheduled this month, a court ruling could come as late as January, leaving time for the sides to agree on reforms. Such an outcome would grant a reprieve after months of protests and signal stability to the markets.
(Writing by Maayan Lubell; editing by Grant McCool) | Middle East Politics |
The Wall Street Journal first reported that Chinese and Cuban officials had reached an agreement for the spy base, with Beijing slated to pay several billion dollars for the facility.
CNN has also reported the arrangement, but U.S. officials are denying those reports.
Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder called the reports “inaccurate” during a briefing on Thursday.
“Certainly we know that China and Cuba maintain a relationship of sorts, but when it comes to the specific activities outlined in the press reporting, based on the information we have, that is not accurate,” Ryder said.
“We are not aware of China and Cuba developing any type of spy station,” Ryder added.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby also called the reports “not accurate” in an interview with MSNBC.
Meanwhile, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío said the reporting was based on “unfounded information.”
“We reject any foreign military presence in Latin America and the Caribbean,” de Cossío said in a statement.
Any Chinese spy base in Cuba would pose a serious threat to U.S. national security, allowing Beijing to pick up on emails, phone calls and satellite communications.
Florida is home to U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base.
China has just one overseas base, located in Djibouti on the Horn of Africa, though secret Chinese police stations have reportedly operated across the world, including on the U.S. mainland.
The U.S. has a rocky relationship with the communist regime of Cuba, which has allied with American adversaries before.
The Soviet Union once operated a signals intelligence base outside of Havana, a site that closed down in 2001. Soviets also once planned to stash nuclear missiles in Cuba in 1962, a decision it later withdrew after a standoff with Washington.
Following the news on Thursday, Republicans slammed the Biden administration for what they called a failure to stop Chinese aggression.
Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the administration “must take note that China’s military operations are not limited to the Indo-Pacific.”
“China’s military is at our doorstep, in North America and throughout South America, and we cannot afford to ignore or overlook the threat,” Rogers said in a statement. “We must use every tool available to counter and deter China’s aggression.”
We have more on the story available at TheHill.com. | Latin America Politics |
A Kosovo police officer and three gunmen have been killed after about 30 attackers stormed a village before barricading themselves in a monastery, police say.
Prime Minister Albin Kurti has urged the gunmen in the village of Banjska near the Serbian border to surrender.
He blamed "Serbia-sponsored criminals". Serbia has not commented.
The Nato-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo says it has troops in the area and is ready to respond if required.
Sunday's shooting began at about 03:00 (01:00 GMT), after police said they arrived in Banjska where a blockade had been reported.
Officers were attacked from several different positions with "an arsenal of firearms, including hand grenades and shoulder-fired missiles", they said in a statement.
"We can see armed people in uniforms... they are firing on us and we are firing back," Kosovo police official Veton Elshan told AFP.
Mr Kurti said they were "professionals, with military and police background".
The Serbia Orthodox Church said that gunmen had stormed a monastery in the village, located in Leposavic, where pilgrims from the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad were staying.
Priests and pilgrims locked themselves inside the monastery's temple for safety, the Diocese of Raska-Prizren said.
"Armed masked men move around the courtyard and occasional gunshots are heard," it said in a statement condemning the violence.
Tensions have run high in Kosovo, after violent clashes followed a disputed local election in May and EU-mediated political talks designed to stabilise the situation have stalled.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 but Serbia - along with Belgrade's key allies China and Russia - does not recognise it.
Many Serbs consider it the birthplace of their nation. But of the 1.8 million people living in Kosovo, 92% are ethnic Albanians and only 6% are ethnic Serbs.
The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned what he called the "hideous attack" and said those responsible must be brought to justice.
But Kosovo's foreign minister, Donika Gervalla-Schwarz, criticised Mr Borrell's statement, saying it did not express support for the police nor use the word "terrorists" to describe the attackers.
It comes after the latest EU-mediated talks collapsed last week, with Mr Borrell blaming Mr Kurti for failing to set up the association of Serb-majority municipalities which would give them more autonomy.
Unrest engulfed northern Kosovo in May after Kosovo Albanian mayors were installed in majority-Serb areas, after Serb residents boycotted local polls.
Nato deployed an additional 700 troops to Kosovo to deal with unrest in the northern town Zvecan following the elections.
Some 30 Nato peacekeepers and more than 50 Serb protesters were hurt in the ensuing clashes. | Europe Politics |
The Malian army said Sunday it was involved in battles with separatist rebels in north of the country.
It comes as Tuareg rebels claimed to have seized another military base from the military.
There has been 'intense fighting' against 'terrorists' in the Bamba area, which separatist rebels claim to have taken control of, according to army reports on social media.
The Co-ordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), an alliance of Tuareg-dominated groups, said they have taken control of the Bamba military base in the Gao region.
The military base is the fourth taken in a series of attacks carried out since August by the CMA. The attacks followed the departure of a UN peacekeeping mission that had helped maintain a fragile calm for years.
What is CMA fighting for?
The CMA have long complained of government neglect. They have sought autonomy or independence for the desert region they call Azawad.
Islamist groups hijacked a Tuareg uprising in 2012. They were later driven out of major towns by a French-led intervention in 2013.
The CMA signed a peace deal with the previous government and pro-government militias in 2015. But tensions have risen again since the military seized power in two coups in 2020 and 2021.
The junta also teamed up with the Russian military contractor Wagner Group and drove out French troops and UN peacekeepers.
Battle for the desert in the north of Mali
The rebel attack on Bamba follows those on military bases in Lere, Dioura and Bourem in recent weeks, and signals an intensification of clashes as both sides seek to control territory in Mali's central and northern deserts.
The escalation in violence coincides with the ongoing withdrawal of the UN stabilization force MINUSMA, which was pushed out by the ruling junta.
On Saturday, Tuareg-dominated separatist groups said they had inflicted heavy losses on the Malian military in an attack in the centre of the country, claiming to have killed 81 soldiers.
The Malian army has also come under attack from al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked insurgents. On 7 September, the military was attacked in Bamba in an operation claimed by the al-Qaeda-linked alliance, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM).
dh/lo (AFP, Reuters) | Africa politics |
PH military on high alert after calling Marawi bombing terrorism
MANILA, Philippines — Philippine forces were on high alert on Sunday after a bomb killed four people and wounded several during a Catholic Mass in a university gymnasium in the south of the country, an attack the authorities called Islamist terrorism.
“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the senseless and most heinous acts perpetrated by foreign terrorists,” said President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “Extremists who wield violence against the innocent will always be regarded as enemies to our society.”
The blast in Marawi, a city besieged by pro-Islamic State militants for five months in 2017, followed the killing of 11 combatants in a military operation on Friday in Maguindanao del Sur some 200 km (125 miles) away.
Urging calm, Marcos posted on the social media platform X that he had instructed the national police and armed forces “to ensure the protection and safety of civilians and the security of affected and vulnerable communities”.
“Rest assured we will bring the perpetrators of this ruthless act to justice.”
Army Major General Gabriel Viray III called the attack at the Mindanao State University “a terror act”, speaking to reporters as explosive disposal experts were deployed.
“Right now we are on heightened alert and our troops remain vigilant as we are determining the motive and identifying the perpetrators to really ascertain who was behind it,” Viray said.
Military officials surveyed the gymnasium, which appeared intact except for burn marks in the center where the explosion occurred, according to images shared by the government of Lanao del Sur on its Facebook account. White plastic chairs were strewn about.
Videos posted by DZBB radio on X showed rescuers carrying injured people out of the gym on plastic chairs.
“Terroristic attacks on educational institutions must also be condemned because these are places that promote the culture of peace,” Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr said in a statement.
The Philippine military killed 11 militants on Saturday, including members of the Dawlah Islamiyah-Philippines group, in an operation that recovered 10 high-powered firearms and three explosive devices.
“We are looking at the bomb signature to determine if the group was indeed behind it,” Viray said.
The coast guard said in a statement it had directed its districts to intensify pre-departure inspection at ports.
Mindanao State University is “deeply saddened and appalled by the act of violence that occurred during a religious gathering,” it said in a statement on Facebook. “We unequivocally condemn in the strongest possible terms this senseless and horrific act.” | Asia Politics |
Protesters demanding a cease-fire in the Israeli war in Gaza blocked a U.S. military supply ship leaving the Port of Oakland for hours Friday by locking themselves to the vessel.
The protesters also blocked the entrance to Berth 20 where the container carrier Cape Orlando is moored. Protest groups say the ship is bound for Israel after being loaded with weapons and military equipment in Tacoma, Washington.
The protest was organized by the San Francisco-based Arab Resource Organizing Center. Police were at the scene of the protest which appeared to number about 200 people, many holding Palestinian flags and signs demanding an end to U.S. military aid to Israel.
The protest began at 6:45 a.m. and has not disrupted any other cargo handling activities, according to a spokesperson for the Port of Oakland.
Three Palestinian supporters were holding on to a rope ladder and refusing to let workers close a door to the military ship. A U.S. Coast Guard negotiator tried to convince them to get off the ship, but protestors refused.
"It's a U.S. Military ship. It's destined to go to Tacoma [Washington], pick up U.S. military arms and then take those arms to Israel," claimed Palestinian protestor Meena Abushamala.
KPIX has not been able to confirm that information with the government.
Abushamala was one of many demonstrators that blocked a port entrance to the ship. She said she lost several relatives in the war.
"One missile killed three generations. An uncle, their son, and their child," said Abushamala. "I'm enraged that our government is still sending aid, missiles to Israel."
Another Palestinian protestor, Noura Khouri, said she also lost a relative in a bombing last week.
"It's literally impossible for any of us to sleep, to eat, to work, to carry on with our lives," said Khouri.
Some Jewish people also joined in the protest.
"I'm here as a Jewish person, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. And I grew up hearing the stories of my grandmother surviving the Nazi's Holocaust, losing her entire family. And today, Israel is weaponizing my history, the history of my family that was killed, to kill Palestinian families in Gaza," said Alameda resident Anna Baltzer.
Just before 3 p.m., authorities removed the three protesters who held onto the rope ladder, and the ship made its way out of the port. Abushamala and other protestors were disappointed. They hope their action will have a lasting impact on lawmakers.
"No more U.S. military aid to Israel. It is within your power. Do not let the fear stop you," said Abushamala.
Oakland Police told KPIX it was monitoring the protest and collaborating with the U.S. Coast Guard and the Port of Oakland to ensure the demonstrations remained peaceful. Oakland police said told KPIX they had not arrested anyone.
According to a release from AROC, three protesters who climbed onto the vessel were detained by the U.S. Coast Guard -- the federal agency with jurisdiction on the water. As it is an ongoing investigation, Coast Guard Petty Officer Hunter Schnabel said Friday evening that he could not provide specifics but confirmed "multiple individuals are currently under investigation."
The release from AROC called on "communities in cities around the country and across the world to be on alert for vessels carrying similar cargo."
The vessel's real-time location can be found online. | Middle East Politics |
Today saw all five of Poland’s main political groups hold major events in what media dubbed “Super Saturday”, as campaigning for this autumn’s elections heats up.
The national-conservative ruling United Right (ZP) coalition focused its message on defending Poland’s sovereignty from EU “attacks”. The main opposition party, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), however, warned that, by isolating Poland from its allies, the government is threatening national security.
Meanwhile, the far-right Confederation (Konfederacja) outlined plans to slash taxes and social spending; the Third Way (Trzecia Droga) alliance presented its “radical centrism” as an alternative to the PiS-PO “civil war”; and the Left (Lewica) further expounded a programme focused on supporting women.
“We have to fight a great battle for Poland,” said Jarosław Kaczyński, chairman of the main ruling Law and Justice (PiS), at the United Right gathering in Bogatynia. The small town of 16,000 was an unusual choice for a large rally. Today’s event had initially been planned in Łódź, Poland’s fourth largest city.
However, in a last-minute change, the venue was switched to Bogatynia, which sits alongside Turów, a major coal mine and power plant that has been subject to domestic and European legal action from Poland’s neighbours, Germany and the Czech Republic.
“Turów has become a symbol of Polish resistance to the Berlin-Brussels diktat, a symbol of energy sovereignty, but also a symbol of Polish sovereignty in general,” said Zbigniew Ziobro, justice minister and leader of PiS’s junior coalition partner Sovereign Poland (SP), quoted by Polsat News.
— Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (@pisorgpl) June 24, 2023
Kaczyński, who returned to the government this week as deputy prime minister, likewise declared that “what is happening around the mine is nothing more than an attack on our sovereignty”. However, he emphasised that, despite its differences with Brussels, Poland “will be in the European Union, but we will be sovereign”.
The United Right convention also saw the continuation of recent criticism of plans to create a new EU system for redistributing migrants and asylum seekers, something Poland is strongly opposed to.
Kaczyński blamed the migration crisis on the “Western elites” and warned that “we will defend ourselves, we will not allow others to decide for us”.
Poland's ruling party has passed a parliamentary resolution condemning the EU's proposed migrant relocation scheme.
Its leader, Jarosław Kaczyński, also announced that a referendum will be organised to allow Poles to vote on the EU plan https://t.co/edUpKMiukC
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 15, 2023
Meanwhile, Donald Tusk, leader of PO, addressed a rally of thousands of supporters in the city of Wrocław, which, like Bogatynia, is also located in the southwestern province of Lower Silesia.
Tusk warned that, at a time of insecurity beyond Poland’s eastern borders, it was vital that the country retains good relations with its western neighbours. “Anyone who declares war on the European Union and the West at this time threatens the interests of our homeland,” he said, referring to PiS.
Regarding PiS’s decision to switch its conference to Bogatynia, Tusk claimed that the failings of the coal mine there are due to the government’s own corruption and incompetence. “In Bogatynia like in the rest of Poland, what PiS cannot steal they will destroy,” he declared, referring to allegations of nepotism in state companies. “That is the definition of their rule.”
💬 Przewodniczący @donaldtusk👇
— PlatformaObywatelska (@Platforma_org) June 24, 2023
In the capital, Warsaw, Confederation – one of the smallest groups in parliament but currently running third in the polls – held a convention at which it unveiled its “Constitution of Freedom”, reports broadcaster RMF.
Krzysztof Bosak, one of the party’s leaders, said that their four main aims were to introduce simple and low taxes, to make social insurance payments for businesses voluntary, to reduce the price of housing by 30%, and to ensure that the right to use cash is protected in the constitution.
Confederation has since last autumn shifted focus away from its nationalist, often xenophobic rhetoric and instead focused on the economically libertarian aspects of its programme. That has seen its support in polls rise to around 11%, making it a potential kingmaker after the elections.
During a speech at today’s event, another of the party’s leaders, Sławomir Mentzen, pledged to end the additional pension payments introduced by the United Right government and not allow the payments from its flagship “500+” child benefit programme to be increased, as PiS recently proposed.
The far-right Confederation is now running third in the polls with double-digit support.
That raises the likelihood of it holding the balance of power after this year's elections and has led to renewed scrutiny of the views of its young new leader https://t.co/jrC2mmxENi
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 2, 2023
Just outside Warsaw, in the town of Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the recently formed Third Way alliance held a convention at which one of its leaders, Władysław Kosiniuk-Kamysz, said that the group offers a “radical centrism” beyond the traditional division between PiS and PO.
“We must end this civil war, because it will end tragically,” added Kosiniuk-Kamysz, quoted by the Wprost weekly.
“A divided home, a divided nation means insecurity,” agreed the alliance’s other leader, Szymon Hołownia, quoted by the Onet news website. “We will bring you peace, you will be safe with the Third Way, that is our guarantee”.
The alliance was formed earlier this year between Kosiniuk-Kamysz’s agrarian Polish People’s Party (PSL) and Hołownia’s centrist Poland 2050 (Polski 2050). However, after a strong start in the polls, its support has recently been in danger of falling below the 8% vote threshold needed for coalitions to enter parliament.
— Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz (@KosiniakKamysz) June 24, 2023
Finally, at an event in Warsaw, The Left – which is the third largest party in parliament but only currently the fifth most popular in the polls, with support of 7-8% – continued its recent focus on winning the votes of women.
A group of its female MPs outlined recent policy promises by the party to end the near-total ban on abortion and allow terminations on demand, to provide free contraception, state funding for IVF treatment, and to improve sex education in schools.
“We want a safe and free Poland, a Poland free of fear for women,” said Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus, one of its MPs, quoted by RMF. “Because a safe Polish woman is a safe Poland, and that is our most important election promise.”
The Left has proposed policies to improve women's safety, including abortion on demand, changing the legal definition of rape and paid menstrual leave.
It also wants to end the conscience clause that allows doctors to refuse abortions on religious grounds https://t.co/MzUGFnfHdl
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) June 16, 2023
Main image credit: pisorgpl/Twitter
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. | Europe Politics |
The joint extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit held in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on 11 November 2023 concluded its work in the presence of Heads of State and Government of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the League of Arab States... more
His Excellency President Adama Barrow, President of the Republic of The Gambia, received in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on Sunday, November 12, 2023, His Excellency Mr. Hissein Brahim Taha, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), on the sidelines of the Extraordinary Joint Arab-Islamic Summit held in Riyadh on Saturday, November 11, 2023... more
The Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit was held in the city of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, today, Saturday, November 11, 2023, to discuss the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.
The Summit was opened by the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, with the participation of the leaders and heads of government and heads of delegations of the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the League of Arab States... more
The Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, H.E. Mr. Hissein Brahim Taha, participated, in the Saudi-African Summit in Riyadh, hosted by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the theme: âFruitful Partnershipâ, on November 10, 2023... more
On the invitation of the Islamic Cooperation Youth Forum (ICYF), the OIC General Secretariatâs delegation led by Dr. Maiga Boubakari, Head of the Youth and Sports Department, participated in the virtual 11th Session of the Executive Board of ICYF held in Istanbul, Republic of Türkiye on 10 November 2023... more | Middle East Politics |
Khalil Senosi/AP
toggle caption
U.N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pictured in Nairobi, Kenya in May. Guterres says Sudan is on the brink of a "full-scale civil war," as fierce clashes between rival generals continued unabated Sunday in the capital, Khartoum.
Khalil Senosi/AP
U.N Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is pictured in Nairobi, Kenya in May. Guterres says Sudan is on the brink of a "full-scale civil war," as fierce clashes between rival generals continued unabated Sunday in the capital, Khartoum.
Khalil Senosi/AP
CAIRO — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Sudan is on the brink of a "full-scale civil war" as fierce clashes between rival generals continued unabated Sunday in the capital of Khartoum.
Guterres warned late Saturday that the war between the Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary force is likely to destabilize the entire region, according to Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the U.N. chief.
Sudan descended into chaos after months of tension between military chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and his rival, Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in mid-April.
Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said last month that the clashes have killed over 3,000 people and wounded over 6,000 others. The death tally, however, is highly likely to be much higher, he said. More than 2.9 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighboring countries, according to U.N. figures.
The fighting began 18 months after the two generals led a military coup in October 2021 that toppled a Western-backed civilian transition government. The coup and ensuing conflict dashed Sudanese hopes of a peaceful shift to democracy after a popular uprising forced the military removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in April 2019.
The war has turned the capital Khartoum and other urban areas across the country into battlefields.
Residents in Khartoum said fierce fighting was underway early Sunday south of the capital. The warring factions were using heavy weapons in battles in the Kalaka neighborhood and the military's aircraft were seen hovering over the area, said resident Abdalla al-Fatih.
In his statement, Guterres also condemned an airstrike Saturday that health authorities said killed at least 22 people in Omdurman, a city just across the Nile from the Khartoum. The assault was one of the deadliest in the conflict so far.
The RSF blamed the military for the attack in Omdurman. The military denied the accusation, saying in a statement Sunday that its air force didn't carry out any airstrikes in the city Saturday.
Darfur has experienced some of the worst fighting in the conflict
The secretary-general also decried the large-scale violence and casualties in the western region of Darfur, which has experienced some of the worst fighting in the ongoing conflict, Haq said in a statement.
"There is an utter disregard for humanitarian and human rights law that is dangerous and disturbing," Guterres said.
U.N. officials have said the violence in the region has recently taken on an ethnic dimension, with the RSF and Arab militias reportedly targeting non-Arab tribes in Darfur, a sprawling region consisting of five provinces. Last month, the governor of Darfur, Mini Arko Minawi, said the region was sliding back to its past genocide, referring to the conflict that engulfed the region in the early 2000s.
Entire towns and villages in West Darfur province were overrun by the RSF and their allied militias, forcing tens of thousands of residents to flee to neighboring Chad. Activists have reported many residents killed, women and girls raped, and properties looted and burned to the ground.
There were clashes between the military and the RSF elsewhere in Sudan on Sunday, including the province of North Kordofan, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
Egypt, meanwhile, said it will host a meeting on Thursday for Sudan's neighboring countries. The gathering aims at establishing "effective mechanisms" to help find a peaceful settlement to the conflict in coordination with other international and regional efforts, Ahmed Fahmy, spokesman for Egypt's presidency, said in a statement.
Fahmy provided no further details on the gathering.
The efforts come as talks between warring factions in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah repeatedly failed to stop the fighting. The Jeddah talks were brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States. | Africa politics |
WASHINGTON, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Israel is doing all it can to get civilians out of harm's way as it battles Hamas in Gaza, including dropping leaflets warning them to flee, but its attempts to minimize casualties were "not successful", Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.
Netanyahu was asked by U.S. television's CBS News whether Israel's killing of thousands of Palestinians as it retaliates for the Oct. 7 attack by Gaza's ruling Hamas militants would fuel a new generation of hatred.
"Any civilian death is a tragedy. And we shouldn't have any because we're doing everything we can to get the civilians out of harm's way, while Hamas is doing everything to keep them in harm's way," Netanyahu said.
"So we send leaflets, (we) call them on their cell phones, and we say: 'leave'. And many have left," Netanyahu said.
Israel has said the goal of its military campaign is to destroy Hamas.
"The other thing that I can say is that we'll try to finish that job with minimal civilian casualties. That's what we're trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately, we're not successful."
Netanyahu then said he wanted to draw a parallel with something related to Germany, but he was interrupted by the CBS interviewer, who asked him a question about Gaza's post-war security.
Palestinian civilians have borne the brunt of Israel's weeks-long military campaign in response to the attack by Hamas that Israel says killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Hamas also took about 240 people of different nationalities as hostages, according to Israel.
Gaza health authorities deemed reliable by the United Nations say at least 11,500 people have been confirmed killed in an Israeli bombardment and ground invasion - more than 4,700 of them children.
Two thirds of the Gaza Strip's population of 2.3 million have been made homeless by the war. On Thursday, Israel's air force dropped leaflets in parts of south Gaza telling people to evacuate for their own safety.
Israel has also used leaflet drops in northern Gaza to warn civilians to move. Hundreds of thousands have done so, in a mass displacement that many Palestinians fear could become permanent.
Reporting by Rami Ayyub; editing by Grant McCool
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Middle East Politics |
Low-slung buildings, blue huts and somber soldiers dot the border village of Panmunjom inside the DMZ, or demilitarized zone, the swath of land between North and South Korea where a U.S. soldier on a tour crossed into the North under circumstances that remained murky.
The soldier was on a tour of the storied border town, inside the heavily fortified 248-kilometer-long DMZ, when the crossing happened, U.S. officials said Tuesday. It remained unknown exactly what prompted the soldier's actions, though U.S. officials said he was facing disciplinary action after he had been held in South Korea on assault charges. The soldier was believed to be in North Korean custody.
The DMZ is lined with observation posts on both sides, whose soldiers watch the border and each other carefully for any signs of transgression. North and South Korea remain technically in a state of war since the hostilities in Korean War ended and an armistice was signed — at Panmunjom — in 1953. Neither nation has direct jurisdiction over Panmunjom, where a concrete slab divides the two nations.
North Korea, whose formal name is the DPRK, or the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, maintains tight controls on entry and has been known to punish those who illegally cross the border from South Korea into its territory. Not all of the frontier with South Korea is as strictly patrolled as the DMZ around Panmunjom, though it is unclear how intensively the North patrols its side in more remote areas.
The North under the Kim family and the third-generation current leader, Kim Jong Un, is a tightly controlled society, and very few Americans are in the country at any given time; the two countries have no diplomatic relations and typically conduct any necessary diplomacy through third countries.
While the South Korean side of the DMZ brings in frequent tourists, few North Koreans have ever ventured either to or near their side of the heavily fortified DMZ. On the South Korean side, though, the different areas where tourists are welcomed sometimes take pains to put on a positive spin, with colorful ribbons tied to railings and the occasional ribbon-wielding dancer performing not far from barbed wire and stone-faced soldiers. Cameras are OK in some locations and prohibited in others.
During the politically inflected 2018 Olympics in the South Korean town of Pyeongchang, Associated Press journalists were shown the baby blue-colored room in Panmunjom that's the only spot where high-level talks are held between the two countries. In the room was a large wooden table where talks are held. The border runs right down the middle of it.
At one point during another 2018 visit at another site along the DMZ, an AP illustrator was sketching the view below when a South Korean soldier came over and tore four pages from his book.
Tours to the southern side of Panmunjom reportedly drew around 100,000 visitors a year before the pandemic, when South Korea restricted gatherings to slow the spread of COVID. The tours resumed fully last year.
There have been a small number of U.S. soldiers who went to North Korea during the Cold War, including Charles Jenkins, who deserted his army post in South Korea in 1965 and fled across the DMZ. He appeared in North Korean propaganda films and married a Japanese nursing student who had been abducted from Japan by North Korean agents. He died in Japan in 2017. | Asia Politics |
Article content
An independent United Nations human rights expert says Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs are “a breeding ground for contemporary forms of slavery.”
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Tomoya Obokata, the Human Rights Council-appointed special rapporteur, is urging the Canadian government to step up its efforts to safeguard workers’ rights and offer a clear pathway to permanent residency for migrants.
Article content
Article content
“I am deeply disturbed by the accounts of exploitation and abuse shared with me by migrant workers,” he said, after spending two weeks travelling through Canada.
Obokata, who is also a professor of International Human Rights Law at the York Law School, said that employer-specific work permit regimes “make migrant workers vulnerable to contemporary forms of slavery, as they cannot report abuses without fear of deportation.”
Related Stories
-
Ottawa failed to protect temporary foreign workers during the pandemic despite warnings: AG
-
More Canadian agricultural producers denounce 'mass' foreign worker application rejections
The report arrives just weeks after allegations that a farm in Southwestern Ontario sent six Jamaican seasonal workers home early after they protested their living and working conditions.
Those allegations are now being investigated by both the federal government and Jamaica’s ministry of labour and social security.
The Canadian government made updates to the temporary worker program in 2022 to prohibit employers from reprisals against employees.
If the review finds the farm was in violation of the requirements of the temporary foreign worker program, it faces a fine of up to $1 million and a temporary or permanent ban from the program.
Temporary foreign workers make up about one-quarter of Canada’s agricultural workforce and about one-tenth of the food and beverage manufacturing sector, according to Statistics Canada.
Article content
The 2022 updates also included lifting the limit to the number of low-wage positions that employers in seasonal industries, such as fish and seafood processing, can fill with temporary foreign workers. The maximum employment duration for high-wage workers was also extended from two years to three years.
The changes were put in place to “help workers access pathways to qualify for permanent residency, enabling them to contribute to our workforce for the long-term,” per Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC).
In 2019, the government also established a Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise (CORE), which investigates ethical violations, including human rights complaints, with an annual budget of about $5 million.
Earlier this year, the ombudsman came under fire after failing to submit a single report to the International Trade Minister. In July, CORE launched its first investigations, alleging both Nike Canada and Dynasty Gold Corp. were benefiting from the use of Uyghur forced labour in their supply chains and operations in China.
Article content
Obokata acknowledged the CORE program in his report but said more needs to be done to “regularize” the status of foreign migrant workers in Canada.
“I urge the Government to bring forward legislation requiring Canadian companies to implement mandatory human rights due diligence, and expand the independence, powers, and mandate of the CORE,” he said.
Over his two-week tour, Obokata said he observed that marginalized communities face the highest risk of contemporary slavery, including migrants with uncertain status, people of African descent and Indigenous populations.
He also noted improvements in Canada’s efforts to combat slavery but highlighted the lack of trauma-informed personnel and human rights-centred approaches in law enforcement and the judicial system and underscored the need for survivor consultation in policy-making.
A 2021 report from Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan found that Ottawa failed to properly protect foreign temporary workers during the pandemic, despite repeated warnings about systemic problems with its inspection regime.
Article content
“Overall, we found that the Employment and Social Development Canada’s inspections — whether they targeted quarantine, outbreaks or basic living conditions — provided little assurance that the health and safety of temporary foreign workers were protected,” said Hogan.
The audit found that inspections by ESDC suffered “significant” quality problems, including failing to ensure whether employers were following hygiene and quarantine requirements or satisfying basic living conditions.
“These findings point to a systemic problem across the department’s inspection regime that needs immediate attention,” said Hogan. “It’s long past time to fix the situation for temporary foreign workers in Canada.”
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here. | Human Rights |
Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has written a letter to his country’s Senate, asking its members to back a regional military intervention in neighbouring Niger, where a coup toppled the democratically elected government of Mohamed Bazoum last week.
Local daily The Cable reported on Friday that Tinubu requested for “military buildup and deployment of personnel for military intervention to enforce compliance of the military junta in Niger should they remain recalcitrant”.
Regional powerhouse Nigeria currently holds the rotating presidency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which imposed sanctions on Niger and on Sunday gave the putschists a week to restore Bazoum to power or risk possible armed intervention.
Sanctions imposed on Niger by the 15-member ECOWAS include border closures and suspension of all financial and commercial ties with the country. The Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) cancelled a planned 30-billion-CFA-franc ($51m) bond issuance by Niger on Monday.
ECOWAS also dispatched a delegation to Niger – headed by former Nigerian leader Abdulsalami Abubakar – to negotiate with the soldiers who seized power. But the team left without meeting General Abdourahamane Tchiani, the coup leader.
Meanwhile, Tchiani has said he will not bow to pressure to reinstate Bazoum. He denounced the sanctions as “illegal” and “inhumane” and urged his countrymen to get ready to defend their nation.
ECOWAS has been struggling to contain a democratic backslide in West Africa in the last two years. This has included military takeovers in member states Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea and an attempted coup in Guinea-Bissau.
Tinubu who is yet to appoint ministers for defence and foreign affairs – despite sending a list of 48 ministerial nominees to parliament, is eager to stamp his authority in a region derided as the “coup belt”.
And Nigeria, which has the largest armed forces in the region and has previously contributed the most number of troops to other regional peacekeeping missions, is set to lead any intervention force in Niger.
Western countries have also strongly condemned the July 26 coup. Many of them saw Niger as the last reliable partner in efforts to battle armed groups linked to al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) in the Sahel region.
Several Western nations have also cut aid, even though Niger is one of the poorest counties in the world and relies on outside help for nearly half of its annual budget. | Africa politics |
Irish political leaders gathered Sunday to mark 100 years since the end of the Irish Civil War.
Head of state Leo Varadkar and his deputy Micheál Martin met in Dublin with relatives of people killed in the war, BBC News reported. The two men laid a wreath at the city’s Garden of Remembrance.
The Irish army was also present. Each of Ireland’s 31 local municipalities was allotted five tickets to distribute to people who lost family members in the war.
An estimated 2,000 people died in the civil war, which lasted for 11 months across 1922 and 1923. The conflict erupted after Irish leaders at the time signed a peace treaty with the United Kingdom to end the Irish War of Independence.
A significant portion of the nation rejected the treaty and took up arms rather than accept it. However, the pro-treaty forces dominated the battlefields and quickly controlled all major urban areas of Ireland.
On May 24, 1923, the sides signed a resolution declaring the end of the conflict.
But the divisions persisted for decades. Varadkar’s political party, Fine Gael, descended from the pro-treaty forces, while Martin’s Fianna Fáil party traces its roots to the anti-treaty side. The two parties were bitter rivals for many years, but Varadkar and Martin worked together to form a ruling coalition in 2020. | Europe Politics |
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his army is ready to stage a much-awaited counteroffensive against Russia, but warned of mass casualties unless Western allies can provide more military aid.
"A large number of soldiers will die" if Kyiv is not provided with the tools needed to defend against Russian missile strikes, Zelenskyy told the Wall Street Journal in comments published on Saturday.
"Everyone knows perfectly well that any counteroffensive without air superiority is very dangerous," he said.
"Imagine the feeling of a soldier who knows that he doesn't have a roof and he doesn't understand why neighboring countries have one."
In particular, Zelenskyy called for more deliveries of the US-made Patriot air defense system that he said was the only weapon that could defend Ukraine's skies.
"The reality is 50 Patriots will, for the most part, prevent people from dying," he said.
Zelenskyy's comments came as Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Volodymyr V. Havrylov praised the effectiveness of Patriot defense systems delivered by the US and Germany earlier this year.
Speaking on the sidelines of Asia's top security conference, the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Havrylov said Ukraine's existing air defense systems were key to preparing for the counteroffensive.
He said Russia's "primary goal is to stop our counteroffensive and target decision-making centers."
For Russia "it was a huge surprise to find that the effectiveness of (their ballistic missiles) was almost zero against modern air defense systems, which we received from our partners," he added.
Here are some of the other developments concerning Russia's war in Ukraine on Saturday, June 3:
Wagner's Prigozhin hits out at Kremlin factions
In a message posted by his press service, Prigozhin said comments made by Chechen leaders at a Security Council meeting on Friday "were rather provocative, aimed at hurting me and freaking me out."
"Pandora's Box is already open — we are not the ones who opened it," Prigozhin said.
"Some Kremlin tower decided to play dangerous games," he added, using the word "tower" to refer to unidentified factions.
"Dangerous games have become commonplace in the Kremlin towers...they are simply destroying the Russian state."
The former restauranteur who now runs a private army also lashed out at Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, threatening to deploy his own mercenaries to Belgorod on the Ukrainian border if the military cannot put an end to repeat incursions that guerrilla groups have claimed responsibility for.
"The Ministry of Defense is not in a state to do anything at all as it de facto doesn't exist — it is in chaos," Prigozhin said.
Two Russians dead in Belgorod shelling
Two people have died in the Russian border region of Belgorod in what one official said was Ukrainian shelling.
"Since this morning, the district of Shebekino has been under shelling of the Ukrainian armed forces," said Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov on Saturday.
Belgorod was the site of an incursion last month, which Moscow blamed on Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials denied any responsibility and pointed to Russian guerrilla groups that later claimed responsibility for the attacks.
Zelenskyy orders shelter probe after deaths
Zelenskyy told his government on Friday night to remedy problems with air-raid shelters in the capital, Kyiv, as Russia continues heavy missile attacks on the city.
His comments on the shelters in his nightly address come after three people, including a 9-year-old child, were killed by missile debris after reportedly being unable to access a locked shelter. Police have detained four people in an investigation into the deaths.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv residents were reporting that there were too few shelters, that they were sometimes locked and that access to them was sometimes difficult.
He said that bunkers were entirely lacking in some city districts.
"This level of negligence in the city cannot be justified," Zelenskyy said, adding he had told the strategic industries minister and the interior minister to conduct a "full audit of bomb shelters."
Zelenskyy and Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who have clashed before, appear to be trading blame over the shelter issue, with Klitschko saying allies of the president are responsible for shortfalls.
The prosecutor's office in Kyiv said it had joined with police to investigate the situation and that it was also looking into possible misappropriation of funds earmarked for repairing the shelters.
Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant 'extremely vulnerable': IAEA's Grossi
Ukraine and Europe's largest nuclear plant, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, remains in a "highly precarious" situation, having had an insufficient external back-up power supply for three months, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, has warned.
The IAEA said the facility near the southeastern city of Enerhodar now relied on one operational power line for external electricity. The plant needs the external power to cool reactors and carry out other vital safety and security measures.
If the line fails, as it did on May 22, the plant would be forced to rely on emergency diesel generators, the IAEA said.
Before the Russian invasion began in February 2022, the plant had four off-site power lines at its disposal.
"The general situation at the site remains highly precarious and potentially dangerous," Grossi said, adding that there was "a need for intensified efforts to ensure a more stable and predictable external electricity supply."
The six-reactor plant has been occupied by Russian forces since March 2022.
Indonesia calls for UN referendum on 'disputed' territory in Ukraine
Indonesia's defense minister has proposed a multi-point peace plan for Ukraine and called on the Shangri-La Dialogue defense summit in Singapore to issue a declaration calling for hostilities to cease.
The plan put forward by Prabowo Subianto called for a cease-fire and a demilitarized zone monitored by UN peacekeepers.
He also said a UN referendum should be held "to ascertain objectively the wishes of the majority of the inhabitants of the various disputed areas."
"I propose that the Shangri-La dialogue find a mode of ... voluntary declaration urging both Ukraine and Russia to immediately start negotiations for peace," Prabowo said.
His description of Russian-held territories in Ukraine as "disputed areas" is highly questionable under international law and goes against the stance of Ukraine and its allies that Kyiv's territorial integrity has been grossly violated.
Indonesia's president, Joko Widodo, has previously offered his services to both Kyiv and Moscow as a peace broker.
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy has proposed a 10-point peace plan that calls on Russia to withdraw all its troops from Ukraine.
More DW coverage of the Russian invasion
Many Ukrainians are seeking family members who they say are being held prisoner by Russia despite their civilian status, as DW reports.
Meanwhile, attacks by pro-Ukrainian militants within Russia itself are starting to undermine faith in the country's allegedly insuperable military power.
zc, tj/rs (dpa, Reuters, AFP, AP) | Europe Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Farai Mutsaka, Associated Press
Farai Mutsaka, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
BINDURA, Zimbabwe (AP) — Opposition party supporters in Zimbabwe chanted and sang freedom songs outside a courthouse Sunday following a decision to ban them from holding a rally six weeks before elections.
The court in the town of Bindura upheld Friday’s police order that the opposition Citizens Coalition for Change party could not hold the rally to officially launch its election campaign because the venue was unsuitable. The CCC had appealed in court against the order.
The decision increased tensions in the southern African nation, which has a history of violent and disputed elections.
The CCC immediately criticized the move as more evidence of a push by President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling ZANU-PF party to silence the opposition using the police and the courts.
READ MORE: Zimbabwe government abuses critics, allege rights groups
Mnangagwa, 80, replaced long-ruling autocrat Robert Mugabe in a coup in 2017. He promised a new era of freedom and prosperity for Zimbabweans, who had seen their country’s economy crumble amid some of the highest inflation rates ever seen.
But Mnangagwa has turned out to be as repressive as his predecessor, say critics, and the economy continues to collapse. There has been a crackdown on any kind of criticism.
The yellow-clad CCC supporters who gathered outside Bindura Magistrates Court sang “Dictatorship remains. When will this country be free?”
Police said that the opposition party’s chosen venue for Sunday’s rally was unsuitable because it was a “bushy” area with poor access via road, raising safety concerns for those attending. The police also said there was a “high risk” of the spread of communicable diseases.
A rally where thousands of ruling party supporters packed tightly together in a stadium to hear Mnangagwa speak was allowed to go ahead on Saturday.
“We are getting into a match with both legs tied,” said CCC lawyer Agency Gumbo. “They would rather keep the opposition at the courts than on the campaign trail.”
There was “an uneven playing ground that shows that the democratic process has been corroded,” Gumbo said.
The CCC initially appealed against the police order at the High Court in the capital, Harare on Saturday. The case was moved to the court in Bindura, where the rally was scheduled to take place. The Bindura court eventually ruled late afternoon on Sunday, hours after the rally was meant to start at 10 a.m.
The CCC says the repression in the buildup to the Aug. 23 elections has included violence and intimidation against its supporters, the arrest of its officials and bans on its meetings. The opposition has also raised concerns over alleged voters’ roll irregularities ahead of elections that will decide the presidency but also the makeup of the Parliament and nearly 2,000 local government positions.
Mnangagwa and his administration have denied the allegations of intimidation, with the president recently describing Zimbabwe as “a mature democracy.”
CCC leader Nelson Chamisa lost narrowly to Mnangwagwa in the 2018 presidential election and had his claim of vote-rigging rejected by the Constitutional Court.
Mnangagwa and the 45-year-old Chamisa are two of 11 candidates who have registered to stand in next month’s presidential election.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Africa politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Monika Scislowska, Associated Press
Monika Scislowska, Associated Press
Vanessa Gera, Associated Press
Vanessa Gera, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk declared the beginning of a new era for his country after opposition parties appeared to have won enough votes in Sunday’s parliamentary election to oust the governing nationalist conservative party.
That party, Law and Justice, has bickered with allies and faced accusations of eroding rule of law at home in its eight years in power. It appeared that voters were mobilized like never before, voting in even greater numbers than when the nation ousted the communist authorities in 1989. In some places people were still in line when polling officially closed, but all were allowed to vote.
If the result predicted by an exit poll holds, Law and Justice won but also lost. It got more seats than any other party but not enough to be able to lead a government that can pass laws in the legislature.
The Ipsos exit poll suggested that Law and Justice obtained 200 seats. Its potential partner, the far-right Confederation got 12 seats, a showing the party acknowledged was a defeat.
It also showed that three opposition parties have likely won a combined 248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm. The largest of the groups is Civic Coalition, led by Tusk, a former prime minister and former European Union president. It won 31.6 percent of votes, the exit poll said.
“I have been a politician for many years. I’m an athlete. Never in my life have I been so happy about taking seemingly second place. Poland won. Democracy has won. We have removed them from power,” Tusk told his cheering supporters.
“This result might still be better, but already today we can say this is the end of the bad time, this is end of Law and Justice rule,” Tusk added.
Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski acknowledged the ambiguous result. He told supporters at his headquarters that his party’s result, at nearly 37 percent of the vote, according to the exit poll, was a success, making it the party to win the most votes for three parliamentary elections in a row.
“We must have hope and we must also know that regardless of whether we are in power or in the opposition, we will implement this (political) project in various ways and we will not allow Poland to be betrayed,” Kaczynski said.
If the result holds, and Law and Justice is the single party with the most seats, then it would most likely get the first chance to try to build a government.
It falls to President Andrzej Duda, who is an ally of Law and Justice, to tap a party to try to form a government.
Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Polsat News that Duda “will entrust the mission of forming the government to the winning party and in this first step we will certainly try to build a parliamentary majority.”
Three opposition parties, Tusk’s Civic Coalition, Third Way and the New Left, ran on separate tickets but with the same promises of seeking to oust Law and Justice and restore good ties with the European Union.
Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, a leader of the Left party, vowed to work with the others to “create a democratic, strong, reasonable and predictable government.”
Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, the head of election campaign for Third Way, called it a “huge day for our democracy.”
Votes were still being counted and the state electoral commission says it expects to have final results by Tuesday morning.
At stake are the health of the nation’s constitutional order, its legal stance on LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, and the foreign alliances of a country that has been a crucial ally to Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
LGBTQ+ rights activist Bart Staszewski called it the end of a “nightmare” for himself as a gay man and others.
READ MORE: Parents take on struggle for transgender rights for their kids and others in conservative Poland
“This is just the beginning of reclaiming of our country. The fight is ahead but we are breathing fresh air today,” Staszewski said.
Environmental activist Dominika Lasota was emotional with relief, saying “we have our future.”
Law and Justice has eroded checks and balances to gain more control over state institutions, including the courts, public media and the electoral process itself.
During the campaign many Poles described the vote as the most important one since 1989, when a new democracy was born after decades of communism.
Turnout Sunday appeared to be even higher than the 63 percent of voters who turned out for the 1989 election that led to the ouster of the communists.
Despite many uncertainties ahead, what appeared certain was that support for the governing party has shrunk since the last election in 2019 when it won nearly 44 percent of the vote, its popularity dented by high inflation, allegations of cronyism and bickering with European allies.
There is a high level of state ownership in the Polish economy, and the governing party has built up a system of patronage, handing out thousands of jobs and contracts to its loyalists.
A political change could open the way for the EU to release billions of euros in funding that has been withheld over what the EU viewed as democratic erosion.
Piotr Buras, of the European Council of Foreign Relations, said the opposition had gained from “growing fatigue” with the government among Poles, “beyond the groups usually supporting the liberals.”
The fate of Poland’s relationship with Ukraine was also at stake. The Confederation party campaigned on an anti-Ukraine message, accusing the country of lacking gratitude to Poland for its help in Russia’s war. Its poor showing will be a relief for Kyiv.
A referendum on migration, the retirement age and other issues was held simultaneously. Some government opponents called on voters to boycott the referendum, saying it was an attempt by the government to galvanize its supporters. Many voters were seen refusing to take part in the referendum.
Associated Press journalists Kwiyeon Ha, Pietro De Cristofaro and Rafal Niedzielski contributed to this report.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Europe Politics |
RIYADH: Ministers from Arab and Muslim countries will visit China on Monday on the first leg of a tour that aims to end the war in Gaza, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.
The tour will be the first step for the Islamic Ministerial Committee to carry out decisions reached at the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Riyadh earlier this month, Prince Faisal said on the sidelines of the IISS Manama Security Summit in Bahrain, in comments posted by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on X on Saturday.
The ministers will visit several other capitals after China to convey a strong message of achieving an immediate ceasefire and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the minister noted.
Prince Faisal discussed developments in Gaza on Saturday with EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said despite the agreement within the international community on the importance of peace, there is still not enough attention given to the need of an immediate ceasefire.
“We hope at some point we can relaunch efforts towards permanent peace with the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure the security for all of us in the region, but the priority now is ending the fighting,” the prince said.
He added: “We must work together to ensure that we end this fighting and civilian suffering we are seeing every day in Gaza.”
Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip which has so far killed around 12,300 people and displaced more than one million Gazans.
Who’s who: Hanan Alsaif, Consultant on Cultural Transformation and Leadership Development.
Updated 19 November 2023
Arab News
Hanan Al-Saif was appointed as a consultant at Hail Region Development Authority in August this year with the responsibility of enhancing culture development, customer experience and capability-building strategies.
Al-Saif is an executive Ph.D. candidate at Bayes Business School — City, University of London. There, she provides expertise and consulting services on topics such as transformation, culture change, change management, communications and strategy development and execution for various industries.
In September, Al-Saif became a founding board member of the Ma’ak Association, which is dedicated to supporting and enhancing the quality of life for cancer patients and their families.
Prior to that, Al-Saif served as the director of change management and communications at the Ministry of Health’s Vision Realization Office in Riyadh. She collaborated with regional teams and conducted assessments for employees, resulting in the development of an internal culture-change plan.
From 2018 to 2020, Al-Saif held positions at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center. As director of change management in health care delivery, she established the department and strategy for the organization and led all transformational change-management activities.
She also served as the director of change management in the transformation office, playing a key role in assessing the overall organizational culture and developing strategies for change-management communications in Riyadh and Jeddah.
Al-Saif’s career in the health sector has also encompassed leadership roles such as head of registration appointment and admissions, assistant director of patient services, and chairperson for training and education in patient experience.
Al-Saif holds a bachelor’s degree in management and leadership from Portland State University. She earned a master’s degree in change management and organizational sciences from George Washington University.
She also holds an associate’s degree in banking administration from the Institute of Public Administration in Riyadh.
Throughout her career, Al-Saif has received numerous awards and recognitions for her outstanding contributions. As a graduate of the first cohort of Misk 2030 Leaders Program, Al-Saif and her team were awarded first place in the capstone project, focusing on artificial intelligence and data collection.
She has also led the remote workforce project for implementing an innovative work-from-home plan during the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in receiving the gold award from the Stevie Awards for Great Employers in 2022.
Ministers from Arab, Muslim countries to visit China in bid to end Gaza war
Tour will be first step for Islamic Ministerial Committee to carry out decisions reached at Arab-Islamic Summit in Riyadh
Ministers will visit several other capitals after China to convey a strong message of achieving an immediate ceasefire
Updated 19 November 2023
Arab News
RIYADH: Ministers from Arab and Muslim countries will visit China on Monday on the first leg of a tour that aims to end the war in Gaza, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said.
The tour will be the first step for the Islamic Ministerial Committee to carry out decisions reached at the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Riyadh earlier this month, Prince Faisal said on the sidelines of the IISS Manama Security Summit in Bahrain, in comments posted by the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs on X on Saturday.
The ministers will visit several other capitals after China to convey a strong message of achieving an immediate ceasefire and facilitating the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the minister noted.
Prince Faisal discussed developments in Gaza on Saturday with EU Foreign Affairs High Representative Josep Borrell.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said despite the agreement within the international community on the importance of peace, there is still not enough attention given to the need of an immediate ceasefire.
“We hope at some point we can relaunch efforts towards permanent peace with the establishment of a Palestinian state that will ensure the security for all of us in the region, but the priority now is ending the fighting,” the prince said.
He added: “We must work together to ensure that we end this fighting and civilian suffering we are seeing every day in Gaza.”
Israel is carrying out a relentless bombardment and ground offensive in the Gaza Strip which has so far killed around 12,300 people and displaced more than one million Gazans.
Israel-Hamas war a turning point in search for just solution to Palestinian issue: former Saudi intelligence chief
Prince Turki Al-Faisal said conflict represents failure in international diplomacy, which is no longer sustainable
Former Saudi intelligence chief condemns acts of Hamas and Israel
Updated 54 min 6 sec ago
Arab News
RIYADH: The Israel-Hamas war is a turning point in the search for a just solution to the Palestinian issue, a former head of Saudi intelligence said on Saturday, backing a call for an international conference to be held to find a lasting solution.
Prince Turki Al-Faisal said the conflict represents a failure in international diplomacy, which is no longer sustainable.
Israel has been conducting a brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip after Hamas carried out a surprise attack on towns near the enclave, killing around 1,200 Israelis. The response by the Israeli military has killed 11,500 Palestinians.
فيديو | الأمير تركي الفيصل: الصراع لم يبدأ بسبب هجمات 7 أكتوبر الماضي بل له تاريخ طويل أدى إلى الوضع الحالي.. والعالم يشهد فشلًا في إيقاف هجمات الاحتلال الإسرائيلي والتي تعادل إبادة جماعية لأهالي قطاع غزة#الإخباريةpic.twitter.com/AyjIO10aff
“I condemn Hamas’ barbaric attack on civilians on Oct. 7. But I must also condemn the equally barbaric and more savage attack of Israelis on Palestinian civilians not only in Gaza but in the West Bank,” Prince Turki said.
Israel’s heavy-handed approach to its stated goal of eradicating Hamas has been criticized for causing high levels of civilian deaths and has prompted calls for a ceasefire.
Israeli leaders’ rhetoric has also been criticized, including their use of dehumanizing language against Palestinians and talks of using nuclear weapons against them.
This month, an Israeli minister said that dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza was “one of the options” to deal with the militant group.
“The Israeli nuclear threat is an open invitation to others in the region to pursue this option,” Prince Turki said. “We must ponder this recklessness on the part of Israel and not let it pass without reckoning.”
Prince Turki reminded an audience at the International Institute for Strategic Studies Manama Dialogue in the Bahraini capital that the conflict did not begin when Hamas breached Israeli defenses last month but rather has a long history, “most of it in the mode of assaults on Palestinians.”
He also highlighted the hypocrisy and double standards of some nations that claim to be “the guardians of what they call the rules-based international order, democracy, human rights, and international law.”
Prince Turki, once the top Saudi diplomat in the US and UK, said the solution to the conflict requires a collective approach.
“All of us have failed in solving this problem and the responsibility goes (to) all of us to find a solution,” he said, adding that the world is more aware of the plight of the Palestinian people and the atrocities of Israel’s continued occupation.
The former envoy said there was no shortage of ideas and initiatives for peace but “all stopped at Israel’s door due to the unwavering US and European backing, therefore all initiatives went in vain.”
He said the “Israeli, American and European illusion” of bettering Palestinian life under occupation and normalizing ties with Arab states is not an alternative to what real peace requires.
Prince Turki backed Bahrain’s call for an international peace conference, under the effective leadership of the US, which aims to find a credible peace process.
The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is still on the table and offers a durable solution to both Palestinians and Israelis, he said. The initiative “makes Israel an integral and normal state within the region and above all brings justice to the Palestinians with their own state.”
Prince Turki said he hopes the fate of Palestinian prisoners will also be considered in any negotiations between the two sides. “What about their fate? Are they also going to be included in this quid pro quo? I hope they will be considered in that.”
Riyadh street art festival transforms abandoned building into gallery
The RSH Street Art Festival organized by Visual Arts Commission will run until Dec. 6
Updated 19 November 2023
Nada Alturki
RIYADH: A building that stood abandoned in Riyadh’s Al-Mughrizat District for 15 years was transformed on Nov. 15 as crowds attended its rebirth.
The annual RSH Street Art Festival, which is organized by the Saudi Ministry of Culture’s Visual Arts Commission and runs until Dec. 6, displays the work of more than 30 international, regional, and local artists, and aims to build communities around art while helping to beautify the city of Riyadh.
Basmah Felemban, co-curator of the festival, told Arab News: “The festival puts on stage the works of artists from Saudi Arabia and all over the world, and that diversity really reflects on the different flavors in the works.
“It creates a great environment to discuss deeper questions about street art as a practice through workshops, lectures, and discussions for both curious artists and more advanced individuals and collectives.”
Two of the works, one by ST4 Collective and another by Saudi artist San Shyn, are to be repurposed and permanently relocated to Municipal Square and Sunset Park, respectively.
HIGHLIGHTS
• The RSH Street Art Festival aims to build communities around art and beautify the city of Riyadh.
• Two of the works, one by ST4 Collective and another by Saudi artist San Shyn, will be permanently relocated to Municipal Square and Sunset Park, respectively.
• Saudi artist Bolotron’s work ‘Bolotron 808 — Cyber Vision’ is a futuristic cyborg-obsessed take on the Kingdom.
Shyn said of the work: “I was inspired by the location. The park is a place for families and children to gather, play, and enjoy their time, surrounded by trees and grass. I chose colorful and vibrant flowers as the main element while the character runs in the middle.”
A large black and white collection of headshots of various members of the community hits the senses just before the entrance. The work is by the Inside Out Project, a platform that amplifies voices through public art and highlights street communities.
To enhance their presence in the space, visitors can listen to the experiences through testimonies and the voices of the people themselves.
Walking through the interior, Saudi artist Zainab Al-Mahoozi’s mural reels in visitors with tempting visuals of an ice cream truck. Emerging from the blacked out window is a stranger’s arm handing awaiting children the frozen dessert. She uses her dedicated space to tackle social issues, in this particular case concerning children and vulnerable members of society.
The festival puts on stage the works of artists from Saudi Arabia and all over the world, and that diversity really reflects on the different flavors in the works.
Basmah Felemban, RSH Street Art Festival co-curator
She told Arab News: “Not everything that looks outwardly pleasing is the same on the inside.
“I chose to exemplify this notion through children since they’re the most impressionable, but this also applies to everyone.”
Others choose to platform the new Saudi and its promising future. Saudi artist Bolotron’s work “Bolotron 808 — Cyber Vision” is a futuristic cyborg-obsessed take on the Kingdom, while Fouad Alghareeb showcases a Saudi Lego character running toward the 2034 World Cup in one mural and nods to the country’s first-ever car manufacturing facility in another.
Iraqi artist Wijdan Al-Majed’s “Landmarks of Iraq in Riyadh” is an impressive interpretation of an imagined space. The mural pays homage to prominent Iraqi figures and the country’s deep-rooted history and identity.
Photojournalist Martha Cooper played a pivotal role in documenting graffiti culture in the 1970s and 80s in New York City, and her collaborative 1984 book “Subway Art” has quickly become a street culture bible. A collection of her photos is displayed digitally at the festival.
Backdropping the festival’s miniature skate park is a colorfully contrasted artwork by SHN Collectivo, composed of Brazilian creatives Haroldo Paranhos, Edwardo Saretta, Marcelo Fazolin, and their crew. The silkscreen-printed neon mural features Saudi cultural elements like palm trees while also boasting tropical prints, stylized in printed letter stamps.
Ahmad Bawazeer’s RSH work is a self-portrait in which he is seen carrying a bouquet of flowers and boasting his beating red heart to surrounding faces. “I like giving out good vibes and happiness,” he told Arab News. “With all the suffering in the world, this is me just sending flowers to everyone through art.
“I think all this — skateboarding, street art, music — is part of youth culture and they all complement each other.
“In order for all of us to succeed we need to support each other and push further to become better. It’s all about boosting the culture.”
Bawazeer speaks of his early interaction with art when his mother would sketch out Street Fighter characters and he would then bring them to life with colors. To this day, characters are central to his work.
But the event is not merely a display of captivating artworks. It works to actively educate and engage the public through workshops, lectures, street performances, skate classes, competitions, and film screenings.
The first night’s program began with a lecture from American artist Futura 2000, who was at the forefront of the early 1980s street art movement, in conversation with festival co-curator Cedar Lewisohn.
Other topics include “A Brief History of Graffiti Writing” and “The Community Mind Map,” while other discussions will be taking place throughout the month, as well as workshops for aspiring artists and children.
As the festival champions collaboration, collectiveness, and knowledge exchange, the halls of the abandoned building echo with discourse circles, music, and the rattles and hisses of spray cans.
The Art of the People Area buzzes with visitors looking to unleash their creative expression with various materials, including paint and non-toxic chalk, on the building’s walls. By the end of the fest, the concrete will become a collective artwork. The zone is open to all, daily from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Al-Mahoozi said: “We used to dream of something like this happening. Street art or graffiti used to be forbidden, and today artists are acknowledged and asked to present work to the community by the Visual Arts Commission.” | Middle East Politics |
The northern leg of the HS2 line is set to be scrapped, Sky News understands.
Rumours had been circling for weeks that the high-speed rail line between Birmingham and Manchester was going to be axed by the prime minister and chancellor due to soaring costs.
Even the reports - which have been denied by Number 10 - led to a huge backlash from all sides of the political spectrum, including from former Conservative prime ministers Boris Johnson and Theresa May.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: "These reports are incorrect. No final decisions have been taken on Phase 2 of HS2."
The development threatens to attract controversy and overshadow Rishi Sunak's first Tory conference as leader and prime minister as the party faithful gathers in Manchester for the annual event.
The first indications that the leg to Manchester could be scrapped came after The Independent reported that ministers were considering shelving the northern phase because of concerns about spiralling costs and severe delays.
The newspaper said a cost estimate revealed that the government has already spent £2.3bn on stage two of the railway from Birmingham to Manchester, but that ditching the northern phase could save up to £34bn.
Sky News understands the Department of Transport (DfT) has worked up a package of alternative projects - rail, bus and road schemes - which could be funded from money saved by scrapping the Manchester to Birmingham leg of the project.
But Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, accused the government of treating people in the north of England as "second-class citizens" with regards to HS2.
He told Sky News's Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips: "An east-west line is really important for north of England, as well as north-south. Why is it always that people here are forced to choose? That we can't have everything, 'you can have this or you can have that but you can't have everything'?
"London never has to choose between a north-south line and an east-west line and good public transport within the city.
"Why is it that people in the north are always forced to choose, why are we always treated as second-class citizens when it comes to transport?"
Number 10 is trying to shut down an announcement it is not ready to make public Ahead of today, Downing Street drew up a plan for announcing a decision on scrapping the northern leg of HS2 in Manchester. It would involve a cabinet meeting here at conference, possibly a visit by the PM and the announcement itself. Earlier today, I was told a decision had been made. This would have been at the heart of government’s inner sanctum, with this communicated only to a small number. All the internal government documentation on HS2 is numbered to try and capture leakers, with press spokesman not in the loop. It has also not yet gone to cabinet - we would know if this had happened. Therefore Number 10 can legitimately say that no final decision has been made - as some decisions have, we are told. This revelation - as the chancellor was due on stage - could not be more disruptive for conference, meaning HS2 is eclipsing yet another day of the coverage. Number 10 are now trying to shut down an announcement they are evidently not ready to make in public. That is why they have issued the following: "These reports are incorrect. No final decisions have been taken on Phase 2 of HS2." We await the next twist in the tale.
He was joined in his criticism by Mr Johnson, who said delaying or scrapping the northern leg of HS2 would be "betraying the north of the country and the whole agenda of levelling up".
The ex-prime minister's intervention came on on the eve of the party conference.
In a series of interviews on Thursday, Rishi Sunak repeatedly refused to be drawn on the future of HS2, saying: "I'm not speculating on future things."
But writing in his weekly Daily Mail column, Mr Johnson appealed to his former chancellor to show Britain still has "the requisite guts and ambition" to invest in infrastructure and labelled the aim of saving money "deluded".
Mr Johnson - who made levelling up a centrepiece of his 2019 manifesto and government - said when he heard reports the northern leg was set to be delayed or cancelled, he let out a "long, low despairing groan".
Read more:
HS2 'pause' designed to save money is costing the taxpayer more than £360m, leaked govt briefing reveals
HS2: The morphing conundrum - Why are so many people upset with rail project?
He wrote: "Cancel HS2? Cut off the northern legs? We must be out of our minds."
Andy Street, the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands, has also warned against any downscaling of HS2.
Asked about the reports by Sky News at the conference in Manchester, he said: "You must ask the PM - I'm confident he'll do the right thing."
Delivery of the high-speed railway has been a core pledge of the Conservative government, but it has been plagued by delays and ever-increasing costs.
The initial opening date of 2026 has fallen back to 2033, while cost estimates have spiralled from about £33bn in 2010 to £71bn in 2019 - excluding the final eastern leg from the West Midlands to the East Midlands.
It is not just the northern section of the project that has encountered trouble.There are also doubts about the future of Euston station in London and whether services will terminate there or at Old Oak Common in west London. | United Kingdom Politics |
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea test-fired two short-range ballistic missiles toward its eastern waters Tuesday in Pyongyang's second show of force this week, officials said, a day after the beginning of U.S.-South Korean military drills that the North views as an invasion rehearsal.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement that the launches were made from the southwestern coastal town of Jangyon from 7:41 a.m. to 7:51 a.m., and it assessed that the missiles flew across North Korea before landing in the sea off that country's east coast.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said the South Korean military had boosted its surveillance posture and maintained readiness in close coordination with the United States.
Pyongyang could further escalate its weapons tests over the coming days in a tit-for-tat response to the allies’ military drills, which are planned to run until March 23. Last week North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered his troops to be ready to repel what he called the “frantic war preparations moves” by the country's rivals.
On Monday, North Korea said it had test-fired two cruise missiles from a submarine, the first time it is known to have conducted a launch of that type. Its previous underwater launches all involved ballistic missiles. It was also the first time North Korea fired multiple missiles from a submarine in a single launch event, observers said.
The North implied the cruise missiles were being developed to carry nuclear warheads and claimed that the latest test verified the posture of the country’s “nuclear war deterrence.”
North Korea acquiring submarine-launched missile systems is an alarming development for the United States and South Korea because launches would be harder to detect and it would provide the North retaliatory second attack capability.
Experts say it would take years, extensive resources and major technological improvements for the heavily sanctioned nation to build a fleet of several submarines that could travel quietly and reliably execute strikes.
The U.S.-South Korean joint exercises that started Monday are the largest in years and and included a computer-simulated command post training. The drills are designed to sharpen the allies' response to North Korea's growing nuclear threat and other changing security environments.
The countries have been expanding their drills since last year as North Korea test-fired more than 70 missiles in 2022. Those included intercontinental ballistic missiles with the potential range to reach the U.S. mainland and short-range, nuclear-capable missiles that could target South Korea. | Asia Politics |
"It's the economy, stupid."
It's a well-worn trope that the politicians who look after our wallets are the ones who tend to win.
With interest rates still climbing, inflation still gobbling up spending power and taxes at historically high levels, times are hard for millions.
A winning political party certainly needs smart answers. Labour has been miles ahead in the polls for many months, but can the party, and its shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves - who is on our show this Sunday - persuade you their answers add up?
Labour are not short of slogans about the state of the economy. You only need to glance at their MPs' social media, or dip into the House of Commons for a few minutes, to hear one of the economic charges they are levelling against the Conservatives.
But when you look closely at the party's actual plans, it is not so easy to spot the difference.
Taxes are already very high and Labour has no desire to raise them beyond a couple of specific, and relatively minor changes, like charging VAT on private school fees and altering non-dom status (where a UK resident whose permanent home is outside the country pays British taxes on money earned here but not on income from overseas).
What about spending on public services? With the election probably still more than a year away Labour doesn't want to be drawn - although you'll hear some shadow ministers make warm noises about spending "more".
And there's not an obvious difference when it comes to spending on benefits either. Both main parties want to keep the very expensive protection for pensioners - the so-called "triple lock".
To the irritation of many Labour left-wingers they have not committed to getting rid of the two-child limit, where parents who have a third or subsequent child do not qualify for additional financial support. So on the traditional areas of tax, spending and benefits, playing spot the difference between the government and the wannabe government doesn't get you that far.
There are important distinctions we'll come to in a second, but it is worth pondering the mixture of politics and policies that seems to make the gap quite narrow.
First, Labour know the Conservatives will grab any shred of evidence to suggest their opponents will splash the cash irresponsibly.
Ms Reeves has long been trying to counter that with the strict message that all spending has to be paid for. Her so-called "fiscal rules" mean a hypothetical Labour government would only borrow to invest.
That is frustrating to some in Labour, with one MP on the party's left telling me: "I know the front bench is concerned about appearing credible, and the conclusion is to spend less money, but because things are so bad we have to be much bolder."
Another MP said the "self-imposed strait-jacket is going to be more and more of a problem".
There is zero chance that Ms Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer are going to budge on this.
That's not just because they don't want to give the Tories an inch, but because they have what a source described as a genuinely "hard-headed" even "zealot-like" approach to controlling spending. This is not just a political decision, it's based on principles too.
With the economy in a bad way, a safety-first attitude prevails - especially after the pandemonium of the Truss government last autumn.
As one Labour-backing City insider says: "The whole approach right now is to ensure investors are confident in the UK."
Another source suggested "people in the City are quite worried that this government and the regulators have already moved a long way to the interventionist side of things - Rachel will have heard that in spades".
- As well as Labour's shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, we'll hear from Financial Secretary to the Treasury Victoria Atkins
- Also on the show are actors James Norton and Luke Thompson talking about their play A Little Life
- Watch from 09:00 BST this Sunday on BBC One and iPlayer or follow the latest here on the BBC News website
Labour also knows not to reveal its hand this far from an election. That's partly because the financial pressures people face will change by the time the UK goes to the polls. And there is always a risk of your rivals nabbing your plans.
There are differences though - most notably Labour's promise to spend up to £28bn a year on shifting to a greener economy. The party would create a National Wealth Fund to invest in big projects and create a state-owned green power firm called GB Energy.
While Ms Reeves may not have an intensely detailed programme, she does have a new brand: "Securonomics".
"Securonomics" is meant to be a whole new way of doing business. Making and selling more in the UK, creating more lasting jobs, and working more closely with industry to make sure the country is competing with its rivals.
It is meant to sound radical, but what it means in practice is unclear. As one source put it: "Securonomics is extremely clever because it feels like there is a lot in there but it is not very obvious what is."
There is an opportunity for Labour here. Even without the finer details, there is clear difference over how much the main parties would be prepared to intervene in the economy.
Labour is also likely to make a big thing in the run up to the next election of expanding workers' rights. While what will actually end up in the manifesto is yet to be finalised, one shadow minister says you can expect it to be a "big part of the offer" across the UK.
So while Labour's Treasury team shares some of the Conservatives' view that now is not the time to go wild with public spending or borrowing, there are important distinctions.
But that shared instinct to be careful with the cash is getting stronger because of what is happening to interest rates.
One economist notes that if short and medium-term interest rates are one percentage point higher than expected it raises borrowing by £20bn in the medium term.
So it is getting more expensive for the government to borrow - as is the cost of repaying the debts the country already has.
Of course there are always economic choices about taking an alternative approach. But the desire to keep debt down is something Labour's leadership and the Conservatives share.
Ms Reeves has scaled back her green ambitions just as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has talked down the prospect of tax cuts.
Voters on the left may be frustrated that Labour is promising less than in recent years, but it is harder to make big promises when there is less to go around - so we shouldn't expect a cheque book election. | United Kingdom Politics |
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has labelled his surprise trade trip to China "a very successful visit" and downplayed concerns about transparency during the four days of meetings.
Key points:
- Daniel Andrews says his visit was about sending a message that Victoria wants to deepen its relationship with China
- He says defence and security issues were not raised on the trip, nor was the detention of Melbourne woman Cheng Lei
- The state has established new working groups on trade and higher education partnerships
Mr Andrews flew to China late on Monday, less than two days after the visit was announced, and returned early on Saturday. The focus of his trip was attracting more Chinese students back to the state.
Addressing media on Sunday morning for the first time since his return, Mr Andrews said it was "a very successful visit, meeting with senior officials".
After a meeting with China's Education Minister, a working group was established to focus on postgraduate students moving between China and Victoria.
Another working group was established after meetings with leaders from Sichuan province, alongside a taskforce with Jiangsu province, both aimed at moving the "sister province" relationships forward.
"Between those two provinces, it's 175 million people, pretty much. This is an enormous opportunity for us," Mr Andrews said.
The premier was widely criticised for not taking reporters with him on the trade mission, while a peak body for the international education sector was critical of the fact there were no educators travelling from Australia.
Scant details were provided about the premier's meetings with leaders and diplomats in Beijing, and the Jiangsu and Sichuan provinces.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto said the trip was "still shrouded in secrecy and many questions remained".
Mr Pesutto said the questions he wanted answered included why journalists and experts were not invited and what else the premier did on his trip.
The opposition leader pointed to the West Australian Premier Mark McGowan's upcoming trip to China, saying that leader had given advanced notice and was allowing media to attend.
"There is an important set of principles at stake here — scrutiny and transparency," Mr Pesutto said.
The Liberal Party last week pushed for a parliamentary inquiry into the way the trip was conducted, a move which is unlikely to be successful.
Mr Andrews downplayed transparency questions, saying he had travelled internationally without media in the past, including his previous visit to China and Vietnam in 2019.
"It's not always the case that media travels with us and, again, I'm not certain that visas would have been issued," he said.
China is consistently ranked as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom and very few western journalists are currently based in China after a number were forced out.
However, when asked whether the risk of journalists being detained was a consideration when planning the trip, Mr Andrews replied: "No. That's not a matter for us."
Mr Andrews said that, with back-to-back meetings and no deals signed, "it wasn't a trip to take 100 businesses or nine or 10 vice-chancellors".
"This was about sending a really clear message that, after a terribly disruptive event — a tragic event — we still value, and we want to see, the relationship and partnership deepen," he said.
Foreign policy 'not matters that I take responsibility for', Andrews says
The trip was significant because it was the first time Mr Andrews had visited the nation's biggest trading partner since the Belt and Road deal was scrapped, as well as the first time an Australian leader had visited China since the controversial AUKUS submarine deal had been signed.
While the trade relationship between Australia and China has been gradually thawing, defence, strategic policy and human rights issues remain contentious.
Mr Andrews said there had been "very deep" engagement with the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade before the trip.
It is understood Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was supportive of the visit.
However, Mr Andrews repeatedly said that, as a state leader, it was not his role to raise foreign policy issues.
"As a state leader, those matters were not raised and, if they had been raised, then I would have offered very little comment, other to say that they are not matters that I take responsibility for," he said.
The partner of detained Melbourne journalist Cheng Lei had urged the premier to raise her plight on the trip.
Ms Cheng has two children, who both live in Melbourne and have not seen their mother for more than two years.
Her partner, Nick Coyle, last week told the ABC that "supporting two young Victorian children by making representations to officials in China for regular contact with their mother would be an entirely appropriate thing for a premier to do".
The premier last week flagged he would not be raising the issue of Australians in custody while on the trip, saying they were "deeply sensitive matters" best dealt with by the Australian foreign service.
Mr Andrews confirmed on Sunday that he did not raise Ms Lei’s plight on the trip, saying it was not his job to cut across sensitive consular matters.
On Sunday, Mr Coyle said that, while he did not have high expectations for the visit, he had hoped the premier would raise the issue.
"Obviously he had flagged that he wasn't going to mention it, and that's disappointing," he said.
"But really, it's not about me — it's disappointing for Lei and it's disappointing for the kids."
He said he understood that these issues were usually dealt with at a Commonwealth level, but said he thought the premier could have raised the issue on behalf of the Victorian, Ms Cheng, and her Melbourne-based children.
"From a Victorian context, her ongoing detention causes significant concern amongst the wider public, and that of course is going to negatively impact the relationship between Victoria and China," he said. | Australia Politics |
Daw Nant Mai woke up to the deafening sound of explosions as her body bounced into the air. She realized immediately that her village was being bombed.
That thought was followed by physical terror.
“I tried to get up from the bed, but I was trapped under rubble and couldn’t move,” she recalled in horror and shock.
She was not alone. The village hit by junta bombs was home to 168 families of internally displaced persons (IDPs).
They still don’t know what hit them: bombs from the sky or shelling from the ground?
Mung Lai Hkyet Village is about two miles north of Laiza Town, the headquarters of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which resumed fighting the junta’s military after the 2021 coup.
Several hundred internally displaced persons (IDPs) had called the village home before it was turned into rubble. Residents and volunteers say the village was obliterated in the blink of an eye shortly before midnight on Monday.
At least 29 people, including 13 children—one was just one-and-half-years old—lost their lives, while another 57 people were also injured in the attack, according to the KIA.
“Fourteen men and fifteen women were killed by junta shelling. Eleven children under the age of 16 were among the victims,” KIA spokesperson Colonel Naw Bu told The Irrawaddy on Tuesday afternoon.
The death toll is expected to rise as volunteers clear more debris and rubble from the site.
Monday’s near-midnight bombing of IDPs occurred 13 days before the first anniversary of A’Nang Pa Village massacre when when junta warplanes bombed a concert being held to mark the 62nd anniversary of the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
That massacre was in Hpakant Township on October 23 last year.
Naw Bu said the KIA—the armed wing of the KIO— is investigating how the IDP camp was bombed because no sound of aircraft was heard. They are looking into whether junta troops used drones to bomb the IDP camp near the Chinese border, he said.
“Bombing civilian villages and displacement camps are war crimes,” Naw Bu said.
“We won’t take an individual action [in retaliation to] this incident. As a revolutionary institution, we are committed to achieving our destiny through the ongoing revolution,” he added.
Junta spokesman Major-General Zaw Min Tun denied the allegations on Tuesday, saying it had not carried out any attack near the Myanmar-China border.
“More than 30 bodies were discovered under piles of debris. Children aged 1.5, two, three, four and seven years old were among the victims,” a Kachin human rights activist told the Irrawaddy on Tuesday.
“I feel utterly saddened and disheartened by this tragedy. I have been living in Mon Lai Khat … since 2011,” said Daw Nant Mai, a mother of two children who survived.
Kachin News Group posted a video on Facebook showing an infant found alive in the rubble. The infant’s parents, however, were both killed in the bombing.
“Four children, including the infant, lost their parents. One of the children is currently undergoing surgery,” a volunteer said.
Survivors of the massacre are sheltering at their relatives’ homes in nearby villages and community halls near Laiza.
“We have nowhere to go now. We cannot return to Mung Lai Hkyet. It is not a safe place anymore,” a former resident said.
On Tuesday, Myanmar’s parallel National Unity Government condemned the junta bombardment of the IDP camp as a crime against humanity and a war crime. It called, once again, for the international community to take more aggressive action against the junta for targeted attacks on civilians. | Asia Politics |
South Korea’s top spy agency believes North Korea sent more than a million artillery shells to Russia since August to help fuel Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, according to a lawmaker who attended a closed-door briefing Wednesday with intelligence officials.
North Korea and Russia have been actively boosting the visibility of their partnership in the face of separate, deepening confrontations with the United States. Their diplomacy – highlighted by a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Putin in September – has triggered concerns about an arms arrangement in which North Korea supplies Russia with badly needed munitions in exchange for advanced Russian technologies that would strengthen Kim’s nuclear-armed military.
Both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied U.S. and South Korean claims that the North has been transferring arms supplies to Russia.
According to lawmaker Yoo Sang-bum, the South Korean National Intelligence Service believes the North shipped more than a million artillery shells to Russia through ships and other transport means since early August to help boost Russia’s warfighting capabilities in Ukraine. Those shells would roughly amount to two months’ worth of supplies for the Russians, Yoo said.
The agency believes North Korea has been operating its munitions factories at full capacity to meet Russian munition demands and has also been mobilizing residents to increase production, Yoo said. There are also signs that North Korea dispatched weapons experts to Russia in October to counsel Russian officials on how to use the exported North Korean weapons.
NIS officials didn’t immediately respond to a request to confirm Yoo’s account of the meeting. The agency has a mixed record on tracking developments in North Korea, which is made difficult by Pyongyang’s stringent control of information.
There are concerns in South Korea that North Korea could receive sensitive Russian technologies that would enhance the threat of Kim’s nuclear weapons and missiles program. But the NIS believes it’s more likely that the Russian assistance would be limited to conventional capabilities, possibly including efforts to improve North Korea’s aging fighter aircraft fleets, Yoo said.
It’s also likely that North Korea is receiving Russian technological assistance as it pushes ahead with plans to launch its first military reconnaissance satellite, Yoo quoted the NIS as saying. Following consecutive launch failures in recent months, the North failed to follow through on its vow to attempt a third launch in October. The NIS believes that the North is in the final phase of preparations for the third launch, which is more likely to be successful, Yoo said.
Kim has repeatedly described space-based reconnaissance capabilities as crucial for monitoring U.S. and South Korean military activities and enhancing the threat posed by his nuclear-capable missiles. Experts say the decision to meet Putin at Vostochny Cosmodrome, a major satellite launch facility in the Russian Far East, hinted at Kim’s desire to seek Russian technology assistance over spy satellites.
United Nations Security Council resolutions ban North Korean satellite launches because it views them as cover for testing long-range ballistic missile technologies.
The United States, South Korea and Japan issued a joint statement on Oct. 26 that strongly condemned what they described as North Korea’s supply of munitions and military equipment to Russia, saying that such weapons shipments sharply increase the human toll of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.
The statement issued by the countries’ top diplomats came days after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov denied U.S. claims that his country received munitions from North Korea as he returned from a two-day trip to Pyongyang.
The White House had earlier said that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia. The White House released images that it said showed the containers were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being moved via train to southwestern Russia. | Asia Politics |
Keir Starmer has been urged to intervene in the selection process for a Labour target “red wall” seat, after a leading candidate who had the support of eight trade unions was blocked from standing.
Greg Marshall, a Broxtowe borough councillor for Beeston West in Nottinghamshire, who previously stood as a candidate for Broxtowe in 2017 and 2019, was barred from contesting the seat on Monday, prompting the entire executive committee of Broxtowe constituency Labour party (CLP) to resign.
Marshall was backed by eight unions and had the support of insiders from different Labour party factions, including Vernon Coaker and Alex Norris MP, who routinely shared their support on social media.
Senior leftwing Labour MPs and former shadow cabinet ministers have urged Starmer’s office to reverse the decision, describing Marshall as the only local candidate with a “long history of service to the party”.
In Broxtowe CLP committee’s resignation statement, the group accused Labour of acting in bad faith, insisting “the road to government runs through the Midlands and local people deserve local representation”.
It said: “As a result of the undemocratic decision by the NEC to exclude the only local candidate from the Broxtowe long list, instead leaving us with three out-of-area contenders, we are resigning as the CLP executive committee.
“It seems clear to us that the NEC have purposely blocked hugely popular local councillor, Greg Marshall, leaving a choice of candidates who have shown no dedication of time or effort to the CLP. The party has acted in bad faith and this is not something we can support.” The CLP has said its members would protest outside Labour’s regional office on Thursday if the decision has not been reversed.
The former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: “There is no person better equipped to stand for Labour in Broxtowe than Greg Marshall. A principled socialist and trade unionist working for years at the heart of his community. Many will consider that this decision debases the selection process. Keir Starmer needs to intervene.”
Marshall described Labour’s move as a “tough pill to swallow”, claiming the party did not inform him of its decision to block him.
He said: “Broxtowe is currently being failed by an ineffectual Tory MP who has no ties or commitment to the area. This remoteness has been the cornerstone of local Labour messaging since 2019, yet now our party members will be asked to go out and support a candidate of our own who is similarly remote and detached from Broxtowe.”
Darren Henry is the Conservative MP for Broxtowe.
Under Starmer’s leadership, the national executive committee (NEC) has exerted tight control over the final shortlisting of candidates in a range of seats.
A Labour insider said Marshall’s inability to win in the previous two elections demonstrated the need for a fresh pair of hands to win the seat.
A spokesperson said: “Thanks to Keir Starmer’s leadership, Labour is now a serious, credible government in waiting and our candidates reflect that. Robust due diligence processes have been put in place to make sure everyone selected is of the highest calibre and for that we’ll make no apologies.
“Labour has changed. Keir believes that politics can be a force for good, and that his government can restore the faith in it that 13 years of Tory government has carelessly eroded. The public rightly expect anyone asking to hold office is of the highest standard, and with Labour they can. We’re really pleased that outstanding Labour candidates have already been selected in constituencies across Britain, and that work continues.” | United Kingdom Politics |
Four children were among 11 people killed in a devastating Russian rocket attack on a packed pizza restaurant in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said at least 56 people were injured, some critically, when two Iskander missiles slammed into the cafe in the city centre on Tuesday evening, when it was full of diners. The restaurant is popular with civilians and international journalists.
On Wednesday, firefighters were combing through the ruins in the hope of finding survivors buried beneath concrete debris.
The missile strike occurred at 7.32pm on Tuesday, hitting RIA Pizza and a popular shopping plaza. “Two rockets were fired at a food establishment in the centre of the city where there were a great number of civilians,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region.
A large crowd gathered at the scene as police officers, ambulance crews and the military worked to recover victims. As many as a dozen people were pulled from the ruins, according to witnesses.
Among the dead named on Wednesday were twin sisters, Yulia and Anna Aksenchenko, both 14. The girls were about to finish eighth grade. A 17-year-old girl was also killed and a baby suffered head injuries.
Survivors were taken to hospital in Kramatorsk. One of the restaurant’s cooks, Ruslan, 32, said there were “quite a lot of people” inside at the time. “I was lucky,” he said.
A woman called Natalia told Agence France-Presse that her half-brother Nikita, 23, was inside near the pizza oven. “They can’t get him out, he was covered by debris,” she said.
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said Russia hit Kramatorsk with two short-range Iskander ballistic missiles. “They have a circular error probable (CEP) rating of between 30 and 70 metres, or 5-7 metres when equipped with a homing system, which means Russia was deliberately targeting civilians. Not that anyone needs any more proof of this any more,” he said.
“Russia deliberately targeted crowded areas,” Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, Ihor Klymenko, added on Telegram.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address condemned the “brutal” attack on civilians. “Each such manifestation of terror proves over and over again to us and the whole world that Russia deserves only one thing as a result of everything it has done – defeat and a tribunal, fair and legal trials against all Russian murderers and terrorists,” Zelenskiy said.
The White House national security council, asked about the attack, said: “We condemn Russia’s brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, which have caused widespread death and destruction and taken the lives of so many Ukrainian civilians.”
Separately on Wednesday, the US president, Joe Biden, said Vladimir Putin “was clearly losing the war”. “He’s losing the war at home, and he has become a bit of a pariah around the world,” Biden told reporters.
When asked about the attack on Kramatorsk, the Kremlin said on Wednesday that its forces only attack military targets.
“The Russian Federation does not strike at civilian infrastructure,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Strikes are carried out on objects that are connected with military infrastructure in one way or another.”
Moscow has in both Ukraine and Syria – where it supports dictator Bashar al-Assad – bombed hospitals, schools and markets and been accused by rights groups of war crimes.
Later on Wednesday, the Russian defence ministry reported that the target hit in Kramatorsk was a “temporary command post” of the Ukrainian army, but provided no details of the strike.
Kramatorsk, once a city of 150,000 inhabitants, is the last major urban centre under Ukrainian control in the east of the country. It lies about 18 miles (30km) from the frontline, and next to the city of Sloviansk.
Some residents have left but many remain. Restaurants and hotels have mostly closed down. The pizzeria and nearby shopping centre kept going, and are typically full of local people shopping or relaxing, as well as troops stocking up on food during breaks from the fighting.
Several photographers and correspondents were having dinner when the missiles struck. They included three Colombians: novelist and journalist Héctor Abad Faciolince, Catalina Gómez Ángel, a correspondent for France 24 and Sergio Jaramillo Caro, who recently served as the country’s high commissioner for peace. “Russia has attacked three defenseless Colombian civilians, violating the protocols of war,” said Colombian president Gustavo Petro, adding that the country would lodge a diplomatic complaint.
Ukraine’s SBU intelligence agency said it had arrested a local resident who helped coordinate the strike and allegedly sent video footage of the cafe to the Russian military.
The SBU said the man it detained was an employee of a gas transportation company, who is suspected of informing the Russian military about the cafe’s popularity. The SBU provided no evidence for its claim. | Europe Politics |
A prominent female rights activist in Afghanistan lambasted the global community Saturday for failing to come up with a plan or agreement on how to help her crisis-ridden country since the Taliban took control of it 18 months ago.
Mahbouba Seraj, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, spoke virtually from the Afghan capital, Kabul, to a town hall at the Munich Security Conference on prospects for her country under Taliban rule.
“Is there a plan, or you are just going to sit down and have meetings after meetings and talk about it and not get anywhere?" she asked. "Is that the name of the game now?”
Seraj, 75, and a handful of female activists stayed behind when the Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021 as the United States and NATO troops chaotically withdrew from Afghanistan after almost 20 years of war with the then-insurgent Taliban.
“You were a part of our lives for so long. You did so much for us, we counted so much on you. What happened?” she asked, adding Western nations need to take urgent measures to help Afghans get out of the current situation.
U.S. Representative Michael McCaul, the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and Pakistan Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, along with his counterparts from Belgium and Spain, were among the speakers at the town hall event.
Restrictions on women
Since capturing Kabul, the radical Taliban have placed sweeping restrictions on women across Afghanistan, effectively blocking their access to public life. They closed schools for girls beyond grade six, have progressively banned most women from government and private workplaces, citing edicts stemming from their interpretation of Islamic laws or Shariah — interpretations that most Islamic scholars do not agree with.
The restrictions, coupled with terrorism-related concerns, have kept the world from opening formal political engagements with the Taliban and from granting them legitimacy. However, there has been no disruption in humanitarian assistance for millions of Afghans through the United Nations and its partner organizations. When the Taliban banned women from NGOs in December, several did suspend their operations there.
Seraj suggested the global community needs to engage with the Taliban. She warned that deepening economic and social problems could make it difficult for women to return to schools even if the ban on their education is removed.
“There are no proper schools, there are no teachers, there is no money, (Taliban) can’t do it. So how are we going to do it? Very soon you are going to be actually sitting in a country that is falling apart,” she said. “The poverty is holding us by the neck and is going to take us down.”
Economy pushed to brink
The return of the Taliban to power prompted tens of thousands of capable and educated Afghans, particularly those who worked with U.S.-led foreign troops, to flee the country fearing reprisals.
Washington and other Western nations suspended financial support for the largely aid-dependent country since the Taliban took over and isolated the country’s banking sector.
The Afghan central bank’s access to more than $9 billion in foreign exchange reserves in U.S. and European banks has been blocked to keep the money from falling into the hands of the de facto rulers as many of them remained under sanctions for terrorism.
The U.S. has transferred $3.5 billion of the $7 billion in its banks to a newly created Swiss-based Afghan Fund to help stabilize the country’s economy but the remaining amount is blocked and could go to U.S. victims of terrorism pending court judgments against the Taliban.
Critics say the sanctions and other punitive measures have pushed the country’s war-hit economy to the brink and its revival is crucial for resolving the long-running Afghan humanitarian crisis.
“Until they engage in better behavior, we cannot recognize them as an official government," McCaul said, supporting calls from other speakers for the Taliban to remove restrictions on women. "... I think we can leverage them to change [that] behavior but until that happens, we do have these restrictions in place.”
'We can’t wash our hands and turn our backs'
For his part, Zardari argued that without economic engagement with Kabul, the de facto Taliban authorities would not be able to build their capacity to counter terrorist groups such as Islamic State and anti-Pakistan insurgents sheltering on Afghan soil.
“We can’t wash our hands and turn our backs on Afghanistan. It’s time to create a consensus based on the realities of Afghanistan. We need to continue the humanitarian aid, open up their banking channels, unfreeze their funds so their economy can function,” the Pakistani foreign minister said.
Zardari acknowledged that his country has experienced an increase in terrorist attacks emanating from Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power there, saying if the radical regime demonstrates resolve to combat terrorism the world should help them improve their capacity to counter the threat effectively.
Earlier this week, Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said they had brought peace to Afghanistan and that no one was allowed to use the country for cross-border attacks. Muttaqi added that his administration was determined to seek engagement with the world, including the U.S., to discuss and resolve security, diplomatic and other issues.
However, Taliban leaders have refused to negotiate their rules for women, claiming they are strictly in line with Afghan culture and Shariah. | Middle East Politics |
National Police of Ukraine urge evacuations and for electrical appliances to be turned off
Ukraine’s National Police force are asking people in affected villages to evacuate.
The Police said on Telegram a moment ago:
Units of the National Police and the State Emergency Service of the Kherson region were alerted to alert and evacuate the civilian population from potential flooding zones on the right bank of the Dnipro River, namely: the villages of Mykolaivka, Olhivka, Lyovo, Tyaginka, Poniativka, Ivanovka, Tokarivka, Poniativka, Prydniprovske, Sadove and partly the city of Kherson - Korabel Island.
The water level is rising and everyone who is in the danger zone must:
🔹turn off all electrical appliances
🔹take documents and essentials
🔹take care of loved ones and pets
🔹 follow the instructions of rescuers and policemen.
Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, has posted more details about evacuations to Telegram. Residents in what he called the “danger zone” were also urged to turn off electrical appliances.
Gerashchenkosaid:
❗️ In the Kherson region, the settlements on the right bank of the Dnieper have been named as being at risk of flooding
Evacuation of the civilian population from potential flood zones on the right bank of the Dnieper River is underway, namely:
▪️ The village of Nikolaevka,
▪️ Olgovka,
▪️ Лёво,
▪️ Tyaginka,
▪️ Ivanivka,
▪️ Ivanovka,
▪️Tokarevka,
▪️ Pridneprovskoye,
▪️Partly the city of Kherson - the island of Korabel.
The water level is rising and everyone who is in the danger zone must:
🔹turn off all electrical appliances,
🔹take documents and essential items,
🔹will take care of loved ones and pets,
🔹 follow the instructions of rescuers and policemen.
Here is a summary of what we know so far, via Reuters:
A vast Soviet-era dam in the Russian controlled part of southern Ukraine was blown on Tuesday, unleashing a flood of water across the war zone, according to both Ukrainian and Russian forces. Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam.
The dam, 30 metres (yards) tall and 3.2 km (2 miles) long, was built in 1956 on the Dnipro river as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. It holds a reservoir of about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah and also supplies water to the Crimean peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is also under Russian control.
Ukraine’s military said that Russian forces blew up the dam. “The Kakhovka (dam) was blown up by the Russian occupying forces,” the South command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Tuesday on its Facebook page. “The scale of the destruction, the speed and volumes of water, and the likely areas of inundation are being clarified.”
Russian news agencies said the dam, controlled by Russian forces, had been destroyed in shelling while a Russian-installed official said it was a terrorist attack – Russian shorthand for an attack by Ukraine.
The dam traverses Ukraine’s enormous Dnipro River, holding back an enormous reservoir of water. The dam itself is 30 metres tall and hundreds of metres wide. It was built in 1956 as part of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant.
The enormous reservoir that it contains holds about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Bursting the dam could send a wall of water flooding settlements below it, including Kherson, which Ukrainian forces recaptured in late 2022.
Water from the reservoir supplies the Crimean peninsula to the south - which was annexed by Russia in 2014 - as well as the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – Europe’s largest – to the north.
It also helps power the Kakhovka hydro-electric plant. Destroying the dam would add to Ukraine’s ongoing energy problems, after Russia spent weeks earlier this year targeting vital infrastructure.
It would also wreck the canal system that irrigates much of southern Ukraine, including Crimea.
Russian state news agencies report collapse of dam, flooding
The large Nova Kakhovka Dam in the Russia-controlled parts of the Kherson region in southern Ukraine was destroyed and the territory is flooding, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed source close to the matter.
A second state news agency RIA cited the Moscow-installed Mayor of Nova Kakhovka as saying that the upper part of the dam was destroyed by shelling.
The mayor earlier denied that that the dam had been blown up. Tass then quoted him as saying that the destruction of the dam was a “serious terrorist act”.
Neither Reuters nor the Guardian were able to independently verify the reports.
Head of Kherson region says 'evacuations have begun'
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson region, has posted a video to Telegram in which he says that as a result of the damage to the Nova Kahhovka dam, “water will reach a critical level in 5 hours” and that evacuations have begun.
The translation of the video was obtained via Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
Gerashchenko posted the video from Prokudin’s Telegram, with the text:
The water will reach a critical level in 5 hours, the evacuation has begun - the head of Kherson OVA
As Alexander Prokudin reported, local residents have already begun to be evacuated from potential flood areas. He confirmed that the [Russians] had blown up the Kakhovskaya HPP and called for them to leave the dangerous places as soon as possible.
The mayor of Nova Kahhovka, a city in Russia-controlled parts of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, denied social media reports that the Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro River was blown up, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported early on Tuesday.
Russian and Ukrainian social media reported widely in early hours on Tuesday that the dam was destroyed. Reuters could not independently verify the reports.
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.
In breaking news: Ukraine’s Southern Military command has accused Russia of “blowing up” the Nova Kakhovka dam near Kherson, “likely” causing flooding. The Guardian has not been able to verify the claim.
Unverified video footage shared on social media on Tuesday morning appeared to show a large amount of water flowing out of the dam.
The mayor of Nova Kahhovka, a city in Russia-controlled parts of the Ukrainian region of Kherson, denied social media reports that the dam was blown up, Russia’s state RIA news agency reported early on Tuesday.
Russian and Ukrainian social media reported widely in early hours on Tuesday that the dam was destroyed. Neither Reuters nor the Guardian have been able to independently verify the reports.
We’ll have more information shortly.
Here are the other key recent developments in the war:
Ukraine’s deputy defence minister has confirmed that in some areas Kyiv’s forces are moving to “offensive actions”, heightening speculation that a counteroffensive is close to launch.
Russia claimed to have repelled a “major offensive” in the Donetsk region and to have killed hundreds of Ukrainian troops, but the claims could not be independently verified. The defence ministry in Moscow said Ukraine had attacked with six mechanised and two tank battalions from two brigades.
The ministry claimed 250 Ukrainian troops had been killed, and 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured personnel carriers destroyed. It also claimed that Valery Gerasimov, the Russian chief of general staff, had been near the frontlines when the attack was repelled. The Russian defence ministry has consistently made exaggerated claims about the casualties its forces have inflicted.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed on Monday what he called “the news we have been waiting for” from troops in Bakhmut, but gave no further details. “I am grateful to each soldier, to all our defenders, men and women, who have given us today the news we have been waiting for. Fine job, soldiers in the Bakhmut sector!” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
The US imposed sanctions on members of a Russian intelligence-linked group for their role in Moscow’s efforts to destabilise democracy and influence elections in Moldova, the Treasury department said. The sanctions target seven individuals, several of whom maintain ties to Russian intelligence services, the department said. They include the group’s leader, Konstantin Prokopyevich Sapozhnikov, who organised the plot to destabilise the government of Moldova, which borders Ukraine, earlier this year.
The British foreign secretary, James Cleverly, met with Zelenskiy in Kyiv. They discussed preparations for the Nato summit in Lithuania next month and Ukraine’s plan for ending Russia’s invasion. During the meeting, Cleverly said: “Ukraine will win this war and can count on our support.”
Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, said three people were killed in the region yesterday as a result of Russian attacks.
Two drones have fallen on the M3 Ukraine highway, in the Russian region of Kaluga, just south of Moscow, the region’s governor has said. There was no detonation and the sites have been cordoned off by investigators, said governor Vladislav Shapsha.
Poland’s agriculture minister has received a draft regulation from the European Commission extending a ban on Ukrainian grain imports until 15 September, he said on Monday.
Belgium will ask Ukraine for clarification on reports that rifles made in Belgium had been used by pro-Ukrainian forces to fight Russian troops inside Russia’s western border, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo said on Monday. | Europe Politics |
Actors Idris Elba and Sabrina Dhowre Elba say their parents were driving forces behind their own activism today, which focuses on food security.Idris Elba was inspired by his father's work in the Ford union and the stories he would tell him about it, where he worked for many years."I remember my dad wasn't getting paid extra money for being in the union. He just got such pride in fighting for those that didn't have a voice and, you know, going up against the guy," Elba told CNBC's Tania Bryer on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos."We're privileged to be able to speak and so that's why, how my dad really sort of encouraged me to do that," Elba added.Elba said he came from a "humble" background, with both of his parents leaving their villages for "big dreams." His main motivator for working hard, and starting to work early in his life, was matching these dreams, he said."It really allows me at my seat of privilege is, what I do now, to just remember where I come from and where there are people there that would like to get her or would like to, you know, fight poverty and don't have a voice to do that. So that's what really sort of inspires me," Elba said.For Sabrina Dhowre Elba it was her mother that shaped her drive to give back, she said."For me, my mother is everything," Dhowre Elba told CNBC. "Her stories and her passion really just kind of just bled into everything I do," she added.She also first introduced the Elba couple to the United Nations' International Fund for Agricultural Development, for which they are now goodwill ambassadors, Sabrina explained. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, the couple was among the winners of the annual Crystal Award, which recognizes artists that are also role models for global leaders.A trip to Sierra Leone also inspired her due to the stories she heard from locals, Dhowre Elba explained. "It was a life-changing trip for me," she said. "Why I go on field visits so often with the organization is because you really remember that small things can make such huge changes." | Global Organizations |
The navies of South Korea, the United States and Japan conducted a trilateral missile defense exercise outside the territorial waters of South Korea and Japan on Wednesday to enhance military interoperability and readiness against escalating threats from North Korea.
The US Indo-Pacific Command’s reference to the international waters where the exercise took place as the “Sea of Japan” in a statement immediately prompted a backlash from South Korean media outlets.
“We’ve asked the Indo-Pacific Command to revise its reference to the location as the Sea of Japan, which has remained unchanged,” JCS spokesperson Col. Lee Sung-jun said during a televised briefing held on Thursday morning. “We will wait for a response.”
Lee said the South Korean military expects the US Indo-Pacific Command to amend its statement in light of the contested naming of the area between South Korea and Japan. South Korea’s Defense Ministry and JCS made the requests to the US on Wednesday evening.
The US Indo-Pacific Command’s statement generated a whirlwind of local media reports raising the questions of whether it is fair to call the international waters which are not subject to any state’s jurisdiction as the “Sea of Japan.”
More than 30 local news outlets and broadcasters in South Korea highlighted the difference between the South Korean military and the US Indo-Pacific Command in specifying the spot of the trilateral exercise as of 6 p.m. on Thursday.
The JCS was asked by local media whether it was appropriate to stage the trilateral exercise around 180 kilometers east of the Dokdo islets on Takeshima Day, the day Japan annually celebrates its claim to the Dokdo islets.
This is not the first time that South Korea has asked the US to amend its reference to the location of trilateral exercises, which have been generally staged on international waters between South Korea and Japan.
In October last year, the US Indo-Pacific Command initially designated the location of the trilateral missile defense exercise in an area similar to where the Wednesday drills were conducted as the “Sea of Japan.” But the command later revised its statement and used the term “waters between Korea and Japan,” complying with a request from South Korea.
The US Pacific Fleet also took out the term “East Sea” in its press release on the bilateral naval drills staged between South Korea and the US in South Korean waters in September 2022 after Japan lodged a complaint.
The ongoing conflict on the naming reflects the sensitivity of the issue for both countries that have been at odds for years over territorial and wartime history disputes rooted in Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of Korea.
Tokyo insists that the Sea of Japan is the only name that has been established internationally, with no need or reason for changing it. But Seoul has been putting forward diplomatic efforts to campaign for the term East Sea, which it says has been in use for more than 2,000 years as numerous historical records illustrate.
But the waters between the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago became widely known as the Sea of Japan as Japan emerged as a regional power in Asia in the late 19th century and the early 20th century when world maps were being drawn similarly to current ones. South Korea has elucidated that the country was unable to claim the legitimacy of the name “East Sea” during the period of the Japanese occupation.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said the government has repeatedly clarified its stance on using the term “East Sea,” and conveyed clear messages to the US including the US Indo-Pacific Command.
“Our government will continue to make efforts to rectify mistakes related to the reference of the East Sea and enhance the understanding of the international community on the issue in close cooperation with overseas missions, related government agencies such as Northeast Asian History Foundation and nongovernmental organizations,” Lim Soo-suk, a spokesperson for the ministry, said at a televised general press briefing in response to a question on the issue on Thursday. | Asia Politics |
ABUJA, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Monday swore in 45 ministers to a new cabinet that must get to grips with tackling the problems of sluggish growth, a weak currency and high inflation in Africa's largest economy.
The country also faces widespread insecurity, including the theft of crude oil by criminal gangs.
The ceremony took place nearly three months after Tinubu took office on May 29 after winning a disputed presidential election in February which is being challenged by his main opponents in court.
"Your obligation is to return public faith in government so that our people can once again believe in government," Tinubu told the new ministers.
The new cabinet will have to confront sluggish growth, caused by a previous collapse in oil prices that weakened the currency, slashed government revenues and drove up inflation.
It must also try to win back foreign investors who fled as currency controls were introduced in 2016.
Tinubu, 71, who is chairman of regional bloc ECOWAS, is working with other heads of government in West Africa to find a solution to the crisis in Niger where a military junta has seized power.
He has embarked on some of the boldest reforms that Nigeria has seen in years, including scrapping a popular but costly petrol subsidy and removing exchange rate restrictions. The naira has weakened to record lows.
The reforms are a gamble to try to kick-start growth but inflation has soared, worsening a cost of living crisis for Africa's most populous nation. Nigeria will release its second-quarter growth data on Friday, the first after Tinubu initiated the reforms.
Tinubu, appointed former investment banker Olawale Edun as finance minister and coordinating minister for the economy. He named Heineken Lokpobiri as junior minister of petroleum and Ekperipe Ekpo as junior minister of gas resources.
A main petroleum minister has yet to be appointed, spokesman Ajuri Ngelale said.
Tinubu's cabinet is bigger than that of his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari, who had 36 ministers in his first terms and 43 in his second term in office. Under the law, the president must include a member from each of the country's 36 states.
Most cabinet members are political veterans, many of whom were key players in Tinubu's election campaign.
"I believe in you that government can be a positive force for transformation and the vehicle for the collective progress of this country," Tinubu said.
Reporting by Felix Onuah, Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha, Editing by Angus MacSwan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Africa politics |
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry said Tuesday it had begun an “anti-terrorist” campaign in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, as Armenian media and local authorities reported heavy bombardment of the regional capital of Stepanakert.
At least five people were killed, including a child, and 80 people were injured, amid artillery, missile and drone strikes by the Azerbaijan military, according to Armenian state news.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, has been the cause of two wars between the neighbors in the past three decades, most recently in 2020.
Tensions have been simmering around the region for months, after Azerbaijani troops blockaded the Lachin corridor in December, cutting off the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and preventing the import of food to its roughly 120,000 inhabitants.
Russian peacekeepers, who deployed to Nagorno-Karabakh under the terms of the 2020 ceasefire, have been tasked with preventing a fresh conflict breaking out. But Moscow has been accused of being unable or unwilling to intervene to protect Armenia, its long-term ally, in the face of continuing aggression from Azerbaijan.
Karabakh authorities said they have asked for immediate talks with Azerbaijan, amid continued shelling of the region.
In response, the Azerbaijani Presidency said it is willing to meet with Karabakh Armenians, but added in a statement: “To stop anti-terrorist measures, illegal Armenian armed groups must raise the white flag, surrender all weapons, and the illegal regime must dissolve itself. Otherwise, anti-terrorist measures will be continued until the end.”
‘Systematic shelling’
The Azerbaijani defense ministry demanded in a statement Tuesday “the complete withdrawal of ethnic Armenian troops and the dissolution of the government in Stepanakert.”
“The only way to achieve peace and stability in the region is the unconditional and complete withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and the dissolution of the puppet regime,” it said.
“As part of local anti-terrorist measures carried out in the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, regular long-term firing points and military installations of the Armenian armed forces were destroyed by precise strikes by units of the Azerbaijan Army,” the ministry added.
The ministry claimed its army had come under “systematic shelling” from Armenia’s armed forces, adding that its action was designed to “neutralize their military infrastructure” and “ultimately restore the constitutional order of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”
“Only legitimate military targets are being incapacitated,” it added.
It said Armenia had fortified its positions, “bringing units to a high level of combat readiness,” and that mines had been planted in previously de-mined areas. The ministry also claimed one Azeri vehicle had struck a mine and two civilians had been killed.
But Armenia’s foreign ministry rejected claims that the Armenian army was in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Armenia’s assistance to Nagorno-Karabakh is of a humanitarian nature, the need for which is further confirmed by the humanitarian crisis caused by the illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor,” it said in a statement.
Armenian news agency Armenpress reported that Nagorno-Karabakh’s army, which is not part of Armenia’s armed forces, is “displaying ‘resolute resistance’ to the Azeri military’s attempts to advance.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has convened a meeting of the Armenian Security Council against the backdrop of the situation in Karabakh.
Armenia’s defense ministry wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, to deny Azerbaijan’s claims that Armenian forces had opened fire on Azeri combat outposts.
Armenian news agency Armenpress said the city of Stepanakert City was under heavy Azerbaijani bombardment, and that mobile and internet connection had been disrupted.
“Recently, the Azerbaijani side has been carrying out daily troop transfers and stockpiling of various weapons, which were accompanied by intensive information and propaganda activities, preparing the ground for large-scale aggression against Artsakh,” the Foreign Ministry of Artsakh – the local term for Nagorno-Karabakh – said in a statement.
“Now we are witnessing how Azerbaijan, in order to implement its policy of genocide, is moving towards the physical destruction of the civilian population and the destruction of civilian objects.”
CNN has been unable to verify the claims of either side in the conflict.
Sudden escalation
The previous war, which ended in a crushing defeat for the de-facto Nagorno-Karabakh state backed by Armenia’s government, lasted 44 days, before a Moscow-brokered ceasefire ended the conflict.
The deal provided for around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to deploy to Nagorno-Karabakh to guard the Lachin corridor. But Russia’s peacekeepers did not prevent Azerbaijani troops from establishing a military checkpoint along the corridor, stopping the import of food to the enclave.
Earlier this month, Pashinyan said Azerbaijan had concentrated troops on the border with Armenia and the dividing line with Nagorno-Karabakh, and warned of a possible escalation.
“Over the past week, the military-political situation in our region has deteriorated significantly,” Pashinyan said. “The reason is that Azerbaijan has been accumulating troops along the contact line of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border for several days now.”
The European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell condemned the attack, saying “military escalation should not be used as a pretext to force the exodus of the local population.”
The French Foreign Ministry also slammed Azerbaijan’s aggression and said it had called for a UN Security Council meeting “to be urgently convened.”
Pashinyan’s told Armenpress that he had spoken with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and French President Emmanuel Macron about the unfolding crisis, saying that “both sides emphasized the unacceptability of the use of force and noted the need to use international mechanisms for de-escalation.”
Russia’s inaction?
The Russian Foreign Ministry said it was deeply alarmed by the sharp escalation in the region.
“(The) Russian side urges the conflicting parties to stop the bloodshed, immediately cease hostilities and return to the path of political and diplomatic settlement,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Tuesday, claiming the Russian peacekeeping contingent “continues to fulfill its tasks.”
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov also expressed “concern about the sharp escalation of tensions and the outbreak of hostilities,” and called for Armenia and Azerbaijan to adhere to the tripartite agreements signed after the war in 2020.
But Pashinyan criticized Russia for not alerting his government about Azerbaijan’s plans to launch military action.
“We haven’t received any information from our partners in Russia about that operation,” Pashinyan was quoted by Armenpress as saying, describing this as “strange and perplexing.”
“Azerbaijan has essentially launched the ground operation to subject the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing,” Pashinyan said. “We believe that the Russian peacekeeping forces should first of all take measures, and second of all we expect the UN Security Council to take measures as well.”
CNN’s Chris Liakos, Maya Szaniecki and Alex Hardie contributed reporting. | Asia Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Monika Scislowska, Associated Press
Monika Scislowska, Associated Press
Yuras Karmanau, Associated Press
Yuras Karmanau, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland is deploying thousands of troops to its border with Belarus, calling it a deterrent move as tensions between the two neighbors ratchet up. Those tensions between Poland — a NATO and European Union country — and Belarus, which is Russia’s ally in its war on Ukraine, have been building up in recent months on the border. Here is why:
Poland has been backing the Belarusian opposition ever since the 2020 presidential elections, where pro-Russian Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko won a sixth term in a vote that Poland and the wider Western community saw as rigged.
In 2021, Belarus began organizing and pushing thousands of migrants from the Middle East and Africa across the border into Poland. The move is seen by Poland and the EU as planned with the Kremlin and intended to cause instability in Europe. Poland’s right-wing government, hostile to the idea of accepting migrants, built a $400,000 wall that substantially reduced the inflow.
After Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022, invasion of Ukraine, Poland condemned the attack and has been supporting Kyiv with military equipment, political backing, and humanitarian aid, including hosting more than 1.2 million refugees. Belarus is on Russia’s side in the conflict, and Poland is participating in international economic sanctions on both countries.
Belarusian state officials and pro-government activists have formed a group called the Patriotic Force Command, which Minsk uses as a political tool. In a recent address to the Polish nation the group alleged that Polish politicians are “igniting the fire of war with their actions and rhetoric” and are being “driven by the frenzy of chauvinism.”
Meanwhile, officials in Moscow have repeatedly voiced groundless allegations that Poland intends on annexing western regions of Ukraine. Moscow also says it has moved some of its short-range nuclear weapons into Belarus, close to the NATO eastern frontier.
READ MORE: EU says Lukashenko using refugee crisis to ‘destabilize’ region, overwhelm Polish border
Poland is also concerned over the presence in Belarus of thousands of Russian Wagner mercenaries who were recently said to have taken part in training near the border. Two Russian men were arrested last week in Poland accused of having spread the Wagner group’s ideology. More than half of Poles questioned recently by the IBRIS survey center said they considered the Russian mercenaries in Belarus as a threat.
Two Belarusian military helicopters flew at low altitude over the Polish village of Bialowieza, near the border, for a few minutes last week before returning to Belarus, an action that Poland said was a provocation.
Beside being NATO’s and the EU’s frontier, Poland’s eastern border includes a strategic spot, the so-called Suwalki Gap — 96 kilometers (60 miles) of border with Lithuania that links the three Baltic states, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, to the rest of the NATO alliance and the EU. The narrow gap also separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, a heavily militarized Russian exclave that has no land connection to Russia.
Military analysts in the West have long viewed the Suwalki Gap as a potential flashpoint in any confrontation between Russia and NATO. They worry that Russia might try to seize the gap and cut off the three Baltic states.
The area is heavily protected by Polish and U.S. troops on the Polish side and Canadian and German troops on the Lithuanian side.
Poland’s government says it will not be intimidated and is building up its defense and deterrence potential and moving troops and modern equipment east, to beef up the border with Belarus and with Kaliningrad.
READ MORE: Russia launches nationwide missile attack on Ukraine as Putin speaks at security conference
“There is no doubt that the Belarus regime is cooperating with the Kremlin and that this action is aimed against Poland in order to destabilize our country,” Poland’s defense minister, Mariusz Blaszczak, said last week.
Poland increased its spending on defense to more than 2.5 percent of GDP last year and the amount is to rise again this year. It spent more than $16 billion on weapons, including Abrams tanks, Patriot missile systems, jet fighters, tanks and howitzers. Some of them will replace Soviet and Russian-made equipment offered to Ukraine.
Poland is to hold crucial parliamentary elections Oct. 15. The populist Law and Justice party, which has been in power since 2015, is intent on winning an unprecedented third term.
The party is tapping into the public’s security concerns and stressing its efforts to beef up defense, seeking to rally voters around its policies and discredit the opposition and its main leader, former prime minister Donald Tusk.
Karmanau reported from Berlin.
Support Provided By:
Learn more
World
Aug 08 | Europe Politics |
Former NBA player Enes Kanter Freedom discussed his international youth basketball camps during an event on Capitol Hill on Monday, claiming it was a way to inspire younger generations.
Freedom said he started a basketball camp at the Vatican two weeks ago, following a meeting with Pope Francis, which marked the second foreign basketball camp for the sports star.
"At the Vatican about two weeks ago, I had an incredible meeting with the pope," Freedom said during an International Religious Freedom event on Monday. "Then, we organized a basketball camp, and it was unbelievable. Some of the nuns came, actually, and I realized it was one of the most beautiful camps because I realized that basketball camps are a great way to inspire younger generations."
Freedom said the camp at the Vatican came after the success of a basketball camp he hosted in Israel, which he decided to create after attending an International Religious Freedom summit last year.
"I came up with this crazy idea to go to Israel and organize this basketball camp. I said, 'Let's bring these Israelis, Palestinians, Christians, Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and let's play basketball,'" Freedom said. "Forget about the conflict, forget the war, forget about everything that's going on and just play basketball."
Although there was skepticism from his friends at the beginning of the camp, Freedom said watching the children play the game had amazed him.
One girl from Europe did not originally want to go to a basketball camp in Israel, Freedom said. But after playing at the camp for one week, the girl apologized for not seeing the unity in the sport.
"The biggest reason I wanted to come here today is because I want to know what people are going through," Freedom said. "Because these kids are basketball fans, and they are asking a lot of questions about what's happening in China, what happened to the Muslims, what's happening in Taiwan. It gives me hope because these kids are asking me about more than just: 'Who is the better player, LeBron or Kobe.'"
Freedom's address fell during the International Religious Freedom's Congressional Advocacy Day, which occurred the day before a two-day International Religious Freedom summit.
The advocacy day includes over 200 meetings with Capitol Hill staffers and members of Congress and culminates in a solidarity event with persecuted religious groups. The event features speeches from faith representatives and policy experts on the persecution affecting the Uyghurs, Rohingya, Christians, Yazidis, Hazaras, Ahmadi Muslims, and Falun Gong, who will address members of Congress.
Freedom, who currently has a $500,000 bounty on his head from Turkey after speaking out about human rights violations in the country, told the Washington Examiner that he wants to be a voice for other communities.
"I came here to learn about different religions, different backgrounds, different communities. It gives me so much hope and motivation to keep fighting when I see that I'm not alone in this," Freedom told the Washington Examiner after the event. "At the basketball camps, we invite everybody, so I really want to learn about the struggles that others are having so I can be their voice."
The international summit will take place at the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., from Jan. 31 through Feb. 1. | Human Rights |
The UK’s first and only Green MP Caroline Lucas has announced she will not stand as a candidate at the next general election.
Ms Lucas, who has represented the constituency of Brighton Pavilion, confirmed she would stand down as an MP at the next election, which is expected to take place next autumn.
In a letter to her constituents seen exclusively by The Argus, Ms Lucas said that, while she was grateful for the opportunity to represent the city, her commitments have meant she has been unable to focus more on “the existential challenges that drive me - the nature and climate emergencies”.
She said: “I love this city and its people, and I know how incredibly blessed I’ve been to have been given the opportunity to represent you, and to work alongside you.
“I have always prided myself on being, first and foremost, a good constituency MP. I’ve done everything possible to help wherever I can and always worked to ensure that people feel heard, that their concerns matter, and that they are not alone.
“But the intensity of these constituency commitments, together with the particular responsibilities of being my party’s sole MP, mean that, ironically, I’ve not been able to focus as much as I would like on the existential challenges that drive me - the nature and climate emergencies.
“The truth is, as these threats to our precious planet become ever more urgent, I have struggled to spend the time I want on these accelerating crises.
“I have therefore decided not to stand again as your MP at the next election.”
Selected as a candidate for Brighton Pavilion in 2007, Caroline Lucas made history in 2010 when she was elected as the first Green MP in the UK, beating Labour’s candidate Nancy Platts by 1,252 votes. She also became the first woman to represent the constituency.
Since first being elected 13 years ago, Ms Lucas has increased her majority at every subsequent election, securing 57.2 per cent of the vote in 2019.
She said: “My heart will always be in this special city, and with the inspiring communities and individuals I’ve been privileged to get to know.
“On election night 2010, I pledged that I would my very best to do you proud. I can only hope that - whether you voted for me or not - you will judge that that is what I have done.”
Ms Lucas looked back at some of the progress achieved on climate change during her time in Parliament, as well as other issues she “put… on the political agenda”.
She said: “The reason I came into politics was to change things. 13 years ago, it was inconceivable that Parliament would have declared a climate emergency; I’ve put issues like a universal basic income and a legal right to access nature on the political agenda; secured the first Parliamentary debate in a generation on drug law reform; and thanks to my work in Parliament, a Natural History GCSE will soon be on the syllabus.
“I have said the previously unsayable, only to see it become part of the mainstream, on coal, on the myth that endless economic growth makes us happier, on a Green New Deal.
“My determination to try and make change is stronger than ever. I look forward to having the time to explore ever more imaginative and creative ways of helping to make a liveable future a reality.”
Although it is widely expected that the next election will take place in autumn 2024, the Prime Minister could call the election for as late as January 28, 2025. | United Kingdom Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Raf Cassert, Associated Press
Raf Cassert, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s parliament on Wednesday backed a major plan to protect nature and fight climate change in a cliffhanger vote that had the 27-nation bloc’s global green credentials at stake.
After weeks of intense lobbying against the plan, the legislature still supported the general outlines of a European Commission bill in a razor-thin 324-312 vote with 12 abstentions to send it onward to negotiations with the member states.
The plan is a key part of the EU’s vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world’s most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues.
The vote “marks a significant milestone in our commitment to fulfilling the Green Deal,” said MEP Mohammed Chahim of the center-left Socialists and Democrats group.
The plans proposed by the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, set binding restoration targets for specific habitats and species, with the aim to cover at least 20 percent of the region’s land and sea areas by 2030.
WATCH: Group of young people sue Montana over inaction on climate change
Despite the staunch opposition of the legislature’s biggest group, the European People’s Party, the plan survived in the highly anticipated vote at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
The Christian Democrats’ EPP opposition also highlighted the fundamental struggle in Europe on how to deal with climate issues. Despite the succession of droughts, floods and heat waves increasingly hitting countless areas in Europe, the EPP wanted to hit the pause button on such environmental action and concentrate on economic competitiveness first over the next five years.
Together with other conservatives and the far right, it said the plans would undermine food security, fuel inflation and hurt farmers. Thousands of scientists and even multinational companies argued instead to back the proposed plans.
“The disinformation campaign and attempts to derail the Nature Restoration Law from the EPP leadership and their far-right friends has failed,” said Greens leader Terry Reintke. “Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and return to constructive and consensus-based politics.”
David Nemecek, a senior associate for sustainable finance at climate think tank E3G, said that “although nature has triumphed, the tight margin that led to its victory is worrisome” and saw it as a lack of urgency on nature and climate.
WATCH: Why extreme heat is more dangerous than many realize
The law implements a landmark agreement reached at the United Nations biodiversity conference in December, where member countries — including the EU — agreed to protect 30 percent of the world’s lands and oceans that are considered especially important for nature.
But the EU’s law does not show “additional ambition,” Nemecek said.
Hannah Mowat, of the environmental organization Fern, sounded a similar note. She contrasted what she called a “weak” nature law and the bloc’s more stringent regulations on deforestation-free products.
“The EU’s double standards could be detrimental to its international credibility on climate and biodiversity action,” Mowat said in a written statement.
Legislators also voted on more than 100 amendments to make the plan more flexible. The approved amendments will be taken into negotiations with the member states that will take months before a final law can be approved. Nemecek said the amendments aren’t expected to greatly affect the “overall objectives” of the law.
The EU’s climate czar Frans Timmermans said he was willing to look beyond the disinformation “nonsense” that marred the campaigning against the nature restoration law and was open to find compromises that would also seek to appease the EPP.
Timmermans wants the nature restoration law to be a key part of the Green Deal since it’s necessary for maximum impact. Others say that if the EU fails on the nature restoration law, it would indicate an overall fatigue on climate issues.
Support Provided By:
Learn more
Science
Jul 11 | Europe Politics |
Divisive Wilders stunned by PVV victory, pledges to govern for all Dutch people
Dutch politician Geert Wilders expressed enthusiasm and pride after leading his far-right PVV party to victory in the 2023 General Election. The first exit poll showed that his party will win 35 of the 150 seats in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch Parliament. The exit poll has a margin of 1-2 seats. The question will be if the controversial politician can cobble together a coalition to form a Cabinet, but he seemed to have the support of right-wing parties NSC and BBB.
"35 seats! The biggest party in the Netherlands!" he shouted to his supporters in Scheveningen at the PVV's election party on Wednesday night. He asked for other parties to join the PVV in forging a new path forward, not burdened by "their own shadows." He said his party can no longer be ignored, because it would be "very undemocratic," and "voters would not accept it."
He told the gathered crowd, "We are going to govern," and said he was ready to be the leader for all Dutch people, and to find solutions "within the legal and constitutional framework." However, Wilders may face an uphill battle when he tries to form a coalition government. The PVV will need the support of at least two, and likely several more parties in order to hold majority support in either house of Parliament.
The PVV wants stricter limits on immigration in the Netherlands, and he wants people to keep more of their money in their pocketbook, while returning "healthcare and security back to a state of order."
Can Wilders gain support from other parties to form a coalition?
Wilders could potentially form a coalition if he can convince the right-wing parties VVD, NSC and BBB to join him. The three parties are projected to win 24, 20 and 7 seats, respectively. That would give them 86 seats in total, a dominant majority.
"I have 100 percent confidence that we will get into the Cabinet," said BBB leader Caroline van der Plas, noting that 2.5 million people cast a ballot for the PVV. "You cannot ignore that. We will go into these negotiations very seriously. Wilders has promised several things. We will see whether he sticks to them."
Wilders was excluded from coalition talks by multiple parties for several consecutive elections. This year, the PVV leader announced that he wanted to govern in the next Cabinet instead of being an opposition leader, and he was willing to step back on his anti-Islam position to do so. His party quickly climbed in the polls after this statement, but the other poll leaders were skeptical about his suddenly milder tone.
He reiterated that stance on Wednesday, saying he would be a prime minister for all Dutch people. "Regardless of where you come from, and what your faith is."
NSC leader Pieter Omtzigt softened his stance on the prospect of working with Wilders on Wednesday. Omtzigt also spoke about moving forward on Wednesday, saying the NSC was willing to be closely involved in the Cabinet formation process. "We are available to translate this trust into action from tomorrow. We are going to take responsibility. We have plans and we can implement them. But it will not be easy," Omtzigt said.
Earlier this month, Omtzigt said it would not be possible to form a government with Wilders. He noted that the PVV does not demonstrate its respect for freedom of religion in its election program. "That is the obstacle to cooperation in the government," Omtzigt said. "As a party you can only form a government with parties that adhere to classical fundamental rights."
VVD leader Dilan Yeşilgöz didn’t believe the change in tune, though her party initially seemed to leave the door open to work with the PVV. This week, she toughened her stance as Wilders surged in the polls, and said the VVD would not take part in a Cabinet if Wilders was to be the next prime minister. She said he "would not be prime minister for all people."
Yeşilgöz did not make it clear if her position has changed following the initial election results. She only said the party would consider its options. Her predecessor, Prime Minister Mark Rutte, previously said his biggest political mistake was forming his first coalition, a minority Cabinet, with the support of Wilders' PVV. The Cabinet fell shortly after its formation.
“It is the same Wilders who has been sowing division for 19 years,” said Frans Timmermans, the leader of left-wing GroenLinks-PvdA during the recent campaign. He continued his tough position, saying his party would not participate in a coalition with the PVV. | Europe Politics |
Maya Regev released from Hamas captivity, rushed to hospital for surgery
The director of Soroka hospital said Maya is in moderate condition and is expected to make a full recovery
Maya Regev, who was abducted by Hamas from the Nova music festival on October 7, was among the second group of hostages to be released late Saturday night.
Of the thirteen Israelis and 4 Thai nationals to be freed, Maya was the only one to be rushed to Soroka Medical Center, in Beer Sheba, while the rest were taken to Sheba Medical Center and Shamir Medical Center in the center of the country.
Maya was listed in moderate condition. The director of Soroka hospital, Dr. Shlomi Kodesh, said that Maya's life is not in danger, and that she will have to undergo surgery. Dr. Kodesh added that Maya is expected to make a full recovery, and that the hospital staff are providing her and her family with their full support.
21-year-old Maya was released alone, contrary to the ceasefire agreement which detailed that siblings would not be separated. Hamas claims that they were unable to locate her brother Itay, 18, who was kidnapped with her at the Nova festival.
During their 50-day captivity, Maya and Itay's parents shared with i24NEWS the horrifying moments as they heard their children being kidnapped.
Hila Rotem Shoshani, another one of the 13 Israelis released Saturday, was freed without her mother Raaya, also in violation of the ceasefire terms, after Hamas claimed they were unable to locate her.
14 more Israeli hostages are expected to be released on Sunday, the third day of the ceasefire. | Middle East Politics |
The people of Leicester have chosen who they want to run the council for the next four years. In 2019, Labour tightened their grip on a city that was already firmly in their control, winning all but one of the 54 seats on the councils.
But, it has been a tumultuous few months for the party as suspensions, defections and deselections made headlines. As they approached the end of the four-year term, that grip had weakened, and as we went into the election, they held just 37 of the seats.
Leicester City Council had 13 independents, two Conservatives, one Green and one Liberal Democrat officially making up the opposition. However, three of those independents, Councillors Paul Westley, Hemant Rae Bhatia and Rashmikant Joshi, were running for their seats again as Conservative candidates.
Following today's count, Labour has held on to power with a reduced majority of 31 seats. Leicester's Conservatives will form the main opposition, with 17 seats.
Their two existing councillors, Sanjay Modhwadia for North Evington and Deepak Bajaj for Evington, held onto their seats. The Greens secured 3 seats with their one councillor going into the election, Patrick Kitterick, holding his Castle ward seat.
The Liberal Democrats also won 3 seats, with their single councillor prior to the vote, Nigel Porter, maintaining his Aylestone seat. Independents, including a number of councillors who were in the Labour ranks after the last elections, came away with no seats.
The result of the 2023 Local Election in Leicester
Abbey, three seats
- Nags Agath, Conservative - 1793 (elected)
- Charleigh Barnes, Conservative - 1829 (elected)
- Annette Dawn Byrne, Labour - 1776 (elected)
- Hannel Chohan, Independent - 482
- Jim McCallum, Green - 583
- Vijay Singh Riyait, Labour - 1652
- Yevgeny Richard Salisbury, Liberal Democrat - 391
- Emma Elaine Saunders-Sinclair, Labour - 1536
- Kuljit Singh, Conservative - 1748
Aylestone, two seats
- Bob Ball, Green - 300
- George Scott Brown, Independent - 68
- Rose Norah Ann Griffiths, Labour - 839
- Scott Kennedy-Lount, Liberal Democrat - 927 (elected)
- Rebecca Louise Pawley, Labour - 605
- Deloris Esther Philip, Conservative - 360
- Nigel Carl Porter, Liberal Democrat - 1096 (elected)
- Steve Score, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 157
- Inder Pal Singh, Conservative - 301
Beaumont Leys, three seats
- Adrian Charles Barnes, Independent - 321
- Alieu Ceesay, Liberal Democrat - 233
- Daniel Irungu, Liberal Democrat - 299
- Hazel Orton, Conservative - 1470 (elected)
- Mo Peberdy, Labour - 1235
- Hemant Rae Bhatia, Conservative - 1456 (elected)
- Andrew James Reeves, Green - 370
- Denis Yomi Tanfa, Labour - 1278
- David Stephen Towers, Labour - 1234
- Paul Thomas Westley, Conservative - 1420 (elected)
Belgrave, three seats
- Shital Adatia, Conservative - 4409 (elected)
- Gurinder Kaur Athwal, Labour - 1818
- Padmini Chamund, Independent - 1296
- Yogesh Chauhan, Conservative - 4424 (elected)
- Jaiantilal Gopal, Conservative - 4335 (elected)
- Darren Roger Howes, Green - 341
- Kirit Mistry, Labour - 1759
- Pravin Raja, Liberal Democrat - 239
- David Howard Rollins, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 183
- Nita Solanki, Independent - 1356
- Hersh Thaker, Labour - 1636
- Mahendra Mohanbhai Valand, Independent - 1103
Braunstone Park and Rowley Fields, three seats
- Alexandros Ali, Conservative - 760
- Susan Barton, Labour - 1489 (elected)
- Ian Carmichael Bradwell, Liberal Democrat - 370
- Jaspreet Kaur Gill, Independent - 369
- Elaine Christina Halford, Labour - 1419 (elected)
- Kulwinder Singh Johal, Labour - 1395 (elected)
- Neil McDermott, Green - 489
- Wayne Jan Naylor, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 237
- Kamal Panchmatia, Liberal Democrat - 259
- Jay Baret Popat, Conservative - 805
- Arshdeep Singh, Liberal Democrat - 245
- Ian Alix Daliston Stanton-Wright, Conservative - 705
Castle, three seats
- Mick Gregg, Green - 1453 (elected)
- Nathan Mark Gubbins, Liberal Democrat - 288
- Lee David Holmes, Labour - 1128
- Patrick Joseph Kitterick, Green - 1564 (elected)
- Danny Myers, Labour - 1219
- Chizor Anthonia Onwuegbute, Labour - 1101
- Hania Rosalind Catherine Orszulik, Liberal Democrat - 196
- Liz Sahu, Green - 1419 (elected)
- Jayaram Shastri, Conservative - 309
- Philip Simon Smith, Liberal Democrat - 209
Evington, three seats
- Ruma Ali, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 234
- Deepak Bajaj, Conservative - 1794 (elected)
- Nitest Pravin Dave, Liberal Democrat - 1200
- Jill Fisher, Green - 349
- Zuffar Iqbal Haq, Liberal Democrat - 1841 (elected)
- Naj Hassan, Labour - 1603
- Sue Hunter, Labour - 1367
- Jenny Joannou, Conservative - 1657 (elected)
- Rashmikant Joshi, Conservative - 1590
- Jatinder Singh Matharu, Labour - 1292
- Farida Patel, Liberal Democrat - 1490
- Baljit Singh, Independent - 377
Eyres Monsell, two seats
- Mohammad Ahsan Ahmadi, Conservative - 389
- Anna Broszkiewicz, Green - 174
- Elaine Pantling, Labour - 791 (elected)
- Karen Leslie Pickering, Labour - 644 (elected)
- Zelda Claire Rubinstein, Liberal Democrat - 141
- Vineed Vijayan, Conservative -373
- Jo Webb, Liberal Democrat - 147
Fosse, two seats
- Chikaire Wilfred Williams Ezeru, Independent - 90
- Benjamin Feist, Liberal Democrat - 580
- Geoff Forse, Green - 377
- Foligar Kum Lang, Conservative - 535
- Rally Pamsi, Conservative - 531
- Martin Pold, Liberal Democrat - 355
- Brian Rodney Scott, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 129
- Sue Waddington, Labour - 999 (elected)
- Syed Monsur Zaman, Labour - 729 (elected)
Humberstone and Hamilton, three seats
- Bicram Athwal, Liberal Democrat - 416
- Pam Bellinger, Green - 492
- Stephen Robert Bonham, Labour - 1673 (elected)
- Vinodrai Ghadiali, Independent - 345
- Romail Issac Gulzar, Conservative - 1275
- Thomas Neville Hunnings, Liberal Democrat - 337
- Ashiedu Joel, Labour - 1531 (elected)
- Manjit Kaur Saini, Labour - 1642 (elected)
- Solly Lunat, Independent - 478
- Barbara Potter, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 196
- Ravi Kanta Powar, Independent - 196
- Ranjit Sonigra, Conservative - 1342
- Sameer Thanki, Conservative - 1286
- Karan Vyas, Liberal Democrat - 299
Knighton, three seats
- Jorawar Singh Bhoot, Liberal Democrat - 1000
- Alex Gillham, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 208
- Sue King, Green - 1053
- Ravinder Kaur Lall, Conservative - 981
- Melissa Claire March, Labour - 2203 (elected)
- Lu Mistry, Conservative - 886
- Lynn Valerie Moore, Labour - 2071 (elected)
- Roopal Jaimini Shah, Liberal Democrat - 843
- Amar Tanna, Conservative - 866
- Bill Walker, Green - 692
- Geoff Whittle, Labour - 2067 (elected)
- Chris Willmott, Liberal Democrat - 1198
North Evington, three seats
- Ajay Kumar Aggarwal, Labour - 2776
- Hakan Akgoz, Liberal Democrat - 636
- Hitesh Bhutiya, Liberal Democrat - 728
- Nilesh Bica, Liberal Democrat - 732
- Martin Charles Gage, Green - 302
- Dilip Joshi, Conservative - 3943 (elected)
- Brendan Robert Keegan, Green - 296
- Ravi Mahesh, Conservative - 3863 (elected)
- Sanjay Modhwadia, Conservative - 3910 (elected)
- Zoya Shaikh, Labour - 3136
- Raj Salanki, Reform UK - 80
- Mohammed Abu Taher, Labour - 3154
- Hannah Rose Wakley, Green - 385
Rushey Mead, three seats
- Hash Chandarana, Liberal Democrat - 475
- Piara Singh Clair, Labour - 2008
- Bhupen Dave, Conservative - 3036 (elected)
- Pradeep Gocal, Liberal Democrat - 301
- Geeta Karavadra, Conservative - 2990 (elected)
- Dharmesh Bhagwanji Lakhani, Independent - 941
- Priya Evarista Lavina Mendes, Labour - 1751
- Devi Singh Patel, Conservative - 2844 (elected)
- Rita Patel, Independent - 1328
- Gurinder Singh Sandhu, Labour - 1761
- Asit Sodha, Liberal Democrat - 213
- Rajul Tejura, Independent - 761
- Ross Willmott, Independent - 384
- Ross Willmott, Independent
Saffron, two seats
- Ursula Elizabeth Bilson, Green - 438
- Peter Anthony Bisson, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 80
- Denise Cathrine Buchan, Liberal Democrat - 95
- Ted Cassidy, Labour - 783 (elected)
- Elly Cutkelvin, Labour - 774 (elected)
- Ann Waltrina Green, Communist Party of Britain - 42
- David John Haslett, British Democrat - 34
- Gillian Jillett, Conservative - 286
- Mags Lewis, Green - 428
- Julie Simons, Conservative - 284
- Michael Thomas Smith, Liberal Democrat - 78
Spinney Hills, two seats
- Mishbah Batool, Labour - 2513 (elected)
- Iqbal Alibhai Desai, Independent - 510
- Sheraz Durrani, Conservative - 713
- Mohammed Fozdar, Conservative - 1121
- Christopher Everitt Garner, Liberal Democrat - 277
- Jan Grothusen, Green - 219
- Shahid Ullah Khan, Independent - 671
- Ghulam Mustafa Malik, Labour - 2455 (elected)
- Abdul Vali, Alliance for Democracy and Freedom - 138
Stoneygate, three seats
- Alan Francis Fox, Liberal Democrat - 529
- Aqdus Ghafar, Liberal Democrat - 535
- Abdul Giash, Conservative - 1688
- Chris Hughes, Green - 534
- Saeed Khilji, Conservative - 1017
- Kirk Master, Independent - 1503
- Raffiq Mohammed, Labour - 2898 (elected)
- Sharmen Zabun Rahman, Independent - 1153
- Shirin Shafia, Conservative - 954
- Manjula Sood, Labour - 2107 (elected)
- Yasmin Ahmed Surti, Labour - 2777 (elected)
- Mohammed Aminur Thalukdar, Independent - 1504
Thurncourt, two seats
- Teresa Louise Aldred, Labour - 1202 (elected)
- Brahmpreet Kaur Gulati, Labour - 998
- Mike Joannou, Conservative - 1024
- Abdul Razak Osman, Conservative - 1122 (elected)
- Kate Sullivan, Liberal Democrat - 257
- Karen Wildin, Green - 293
Troon, two seats
- Diane Linda Cank, Labour - 1489 (elected)
- Ashton Fernandes, Conservative - 1329
- Sital Singh Gill, Independent - 567
- Kamlesh Kumari, Independent - 439
- Karan Modha, Independent - 307
- Mohinder Singh Sangha, Labour - 1432 (elected)
- Paul Edwin Smith, Liberal Democrat - 281
- Heten Tejura, Conservative - 1244
Westcotes, two seats
- Sofia Ali, Conservative - 243
- Adam Michael Drewitt Clarke, Labour - 818 (elected)
- Dhirubhai Dholakia, Conservative - 283
- Juliet Kechouane Gill, Liberal Democrat - 357
- Parmjit Singh Gill, Liberal Democrat - 482
- Jacky Nangreave, Independent - 231
- Sarah Christine Russell, Labour - 986 (elected)
- Michael Shenton, Independent - 137
- Jessica Anne Southworth, Green - 353
Western, three seats
- Kanchan Choudhary, Conservative - 993
- Orlanzo George Cole, Labour - 1441 (elected)
- Vi Dempster, Labour - 1536 (elected)
- Tine Juhlert, Green - 707
- Gary O’Donnell, Independent - 840
- Molly Ann O’Neill, Labour - 1465 (elected)
- Chris Sidwell-Smith, Liberal Democrat - 548
- Jay Thobhani, Conservative - 967
- Richard Philip Tutt, Conservative - 998
Wycliffe, two seats
- Subane Mohamed Abdi, Conservative - 1168
- Zakaria Ahmed, Conservative - 1218
- Hoque Akramul, Liberal Democrat - 275
- Hanif Aqbany, Labour - 3690 (elected)
- Mohammed Dawood, Labour - 3681 (elected)
- Sarah Joanne Read, Green - 219
- Tessa Alison Warrington, Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition - 116
Get all the latest news direct to your inbox by signing up for our newsletter here.
READ MORE | United Kingdom Politics |
North Korea said it fired four strategic cruise missiles Thursday, continuing its rapid pace of launches, as it blasted the United States and its allies for escalating military tensions.
The four Hwasal-2 cruise missiles flew 2,000 kilometers in about two hours and 50 minutes before hitting a "preset target" in the sea off North Korea's east coast, according to the Korean Central News Agency.
"The drill clearly demonstrated once again the war posture of the DPRK nuclear combat force bolstering up in every way its deadly nuclear counterattack capability against the hostile forces," KCNA added, using the abbreviation for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Although South Korea and Japan typically issue alerts when North Korea launches missiles, they did not do so Thursday, raising the question of whether they detected the cruise missile exercise.
Later Friday, South Korea's military disputed North Korea's claim about the cruise missiles, without specifying what portion it believed was inaccurate.
"There is a difference between what South Korea-U.S. reconnaissance surveillance assets identified and what North Korea announced,” read a statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“We are closely analyzing related matters in cooperation with the United States,” the statement added.
Cruise missiles typically fly at lower altitudes than ballistic missiles and are therefore harder for other countries to track and potentially intercept.
North Korea claims its cruise missiles are nuclear-capable. However, it is not clear whether it has built warheads small enough to be carried on such missiles.
Thursday's cruise missile launch comes days after North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile — its ninth ICBM launch since the beginning of last year.
Even as it bolsters its defenses, North Korea has expressed outrage at the United States and its regional allies for expanding their own military activity.
In a statement Friday in KCNA, a North Korean Foreign Affairs Ministry official said the only way to prevent a “vicious cycle of escalating military tension” is for the United States to halt its military drills and deployment of advanced weaponry to the peninsula.
“The U.S. should bear in mind that if it persists in its hostile and provocative practices against the DPRK despite the latter's repeated protest and warning, it can be regarded as a declaration of war against the DPRK,” said Kwon Jong Gun, the director general of the ministry’s U.S. Affairs Department.
On Thursday, the United States and South Korea announced they held a tabletop exercise at the Pentagon that focused on the possibility of North Korea using a nuclear weapon.
The drill was followed by a visit to a U.S. Navy base in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia where key U.S. nuclear submarines are based, according to a joint statement.
The discussion-based exercise, known as a TTX, was meant to assure South Korean leaders of the U.S. defense commitment amid North Korea's rapid nuclear weapons buildup.
"Given the DPRK's recent aggressive nuclear policy and advancements in nuclear capabilities, the TTX scenario focused on the possibility of the DPRK's use of nuclear weapons," the joint statement said.
The U.S. side reaffirmed that "any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its Allies and partners is unacceptable and will result in the end of that regime."
Washington also vowed to "continue to field flexible nuclear forces suited to deterring regional nuclear conflict, including the capability to forward deploy strategic bombers, dual-capable fighter aircraft and nuclear weapons to the region."
The United States and South Korea are discussing the possible deployment of a U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to South Korea next month, the Yonhap news agency reported Friday.
If agreed, the carrier would make a port call in South Korea and participate in the allies’ upcoming Freedom Shield joint military drill, Yonhap reported.
On Wednesday, U.S., South Korean, and Japanese warships participated in a ballistic missile defense drill, a relatively rare display of trilateral defense cooperation that has become more frequent as North Korea becomes more aggressive.
In a statement last week, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, vowed that her country will use the Pacific Ocean as a "firing range" if the U.S. and its allies continue their hostile actions. | Asia Politics |
Pakistan and Afghanistan’s Taliban government have agreed to boost trade and lower tensions along their border amid a surge in attacks on Pakistani security forces, officials said.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and Afghanistan’s Taliban-appointed foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, struck the deal on Sunday in Islamabad, according to Pakistan’s foreign ministry.
The agreement is designed to improve bilateral trade, combat “terrorism” and boost bilateral ties.
According to a Pakistani foreign ministry statement, Bhutto Zardari and Muttaqi on Sunday “held a candid and in-depth exchange on key issues of mutual concern, including peace and security, as well as trade and connectivity”.
The two sides “reaffirmed their desire to pursue continuous and practical engagement”, it said.
According to the Afghan embassy, Muttaqi and his delegation met Bhutto Zardari and other officials. “During the meeting, matters of mutual interest, Afghan-Pak political, economic, and transit relations as well as challenges of Afghan Refugees in Pakistan have been discussed,” it said on Twitter early on Monday.
Pakistan’s military said Muttaqi also met General Asim Munir, the army chief, to discuss “issues of mutual interest including aspects related to regional security, border management, and formalisation of bilateral security mechanisms for improvement in the current security environment”.
Munir sought enhanced cooperation to “effectively tackle the common challenges of terrorism and extremism”, the statement added.
Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have featured ups and down in the past year.
In February, the two sides shut the main Afghan-Pakistan border crossing at Torkham, stranding people and trucks carrying food and essential items. After a Pakistani delegation travelled to Kabul for talks on the crisis, the border was reopened after a week and Muttaqi’s visit to Islamabad was planned.
The Taliban government of Afghanistan has been shunned by most of the international community for the harsh and restrictive measures they have imposed since seizing power in August 2021, when the United States and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.
The Taliban has banned girls from education beyond the sixth grade and barred women from most jobs and public life.
Pakistan has lately expressed concern over a surge of deadly attacks across the country by the Pakistan Taliban – an independent armed group that is allied with and allegedly sheltered by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Islamabad has demanded from the Taliban in Kabul that they do more to rein in anti-Pakistani groups such as the Pakistan Taliban – also known as TTP – which has stepped up attacks on Pakistani security forces in recent months.
Saad Muhammad, former Pakistani military attaché to Kabul and defence analyst, told Al Jazeera he was hopeful of a “positive outcome” and that the Pakistani concerns will be taken on board by the Taliban government.
“When Pakistan sent a high-level delegation in February, we saw that the number of violent attacks emanating from the Afghan soil dropped down, which showed that the Afghan government took action,” he said.
“If Afghanistan wants other countries to invest and help improve its socioeconomic conditions, it has to take onboard these suggestions and bring some reform in their governance.”
Earlier on Sunday, Bhutto Zardari and Muttaqi also held talks with China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang, a departure from recent years when such dialogue had been on hold, according to analysts, who say Beijing is expanding its influence in the region.
China has also played a role in the resumption of Saudi Arabia-Iran diplomatic ties.
In Pakistan, Beijing is bankrolling the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a sprawling package that includes such projects as road and power plant construction and boosting agriculture production.
The package is considered a lifeline for the Muslim-majority nation, which is currently facing one of its worst economic crisis amid stalled talks on a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.
CPEC, also known as the One Road Project, is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a global endeavour aimed at reconstituting the ancient Silk Road and linking China to all corners of Asia.
Qin arrived in Islamabad on Friday and met President Arif Alvi, Bhutto Zardari and powerful army chief General Munir.
During these meetings, he was assured that Pakistan will boost security for all Chinese nationals working on multibillion-dollar projects in cash-strapped Pakistan.
China has been demanding more security from Pakistan for its nationals residing and working in the Islamic country since 2021, when a suicide bomber killed nine Chinese and four Pakistanis in an attack in the volatile northwest.
Defence analyst Muhammad told Al Jazeera that China also stressed in the meeting that the concerns of regional countries are valid and that the Taliban must act to safeguard its neighbours’ interests.
“However, the world too must realise that abandoning Afghanistan is not a solution. It is imperative to keep them engaged and nudge them towards required reforms,” he said. | Asia Politics |
Ukraine has released what it says is helmet-camera footage from its special forces clearing a Russian position in Bakhmut. Kyiv says it has stopped the enemy and pushed it back, with President Zelenskyy telling his people the Russians are mentally prepared for defeat.
Ukrainian military commanders said on Friday that their troops had recaptured more territory from Russian forces at the scene of the war's longest and bloodiest battle, for the eastern city of Bakhmut, but it wasn't clear if this marked the start of Kyiv's long-expected counteroffensive.
In a separate incident, two-long range Ukrainian rockets hit what Russian described as administrative buildings of two defunct enterprises in Russian-occupied Luhansk in the east.
Russia's Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said Ukrainian forces had stepped up attacks north of the Bakhmut region while denying speculation by Russian military bloggers that the Kyiv forces had achieved "defence breakthroughs."
The two kilometres of territory that Ukrainian forces south of Bakhmut retook this week represent a significant gain and will protect an important supply chain, according to commanders of Ukraine's 3rd Separate Assault Brigade, a special forces unit that led the attack, releasing what it said was helmet camera footage from one its soldiers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he met with the top military commanders on Friday, noting that Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi reported his forces "stopped the enemy and even pushed him back in some directions."
In his nightly address to the Ukrainian people, Zelenskyy praised his troops and noted the low morale of the Russian forces.
"The occupiers are already mentally prepared for defeat. They have already lost this war in their minds," he said. "We must push them every day so that their sense of defeat turns into their retreat, their mistakes, their losses."
In a statement on Telegram on Friday, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed that Ukrainian forces gained ground around Bakhmut, reiterating statements from military commanders earlier this week.
In Washington, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US has assessed that Bakhmut remains contested territory.
"Ukrainians have not given up their defence of Bakhmut and the Russians haven't given up their attempts to take Bakhmut," Kirby said. "Every single day, the lines change back and forth. I mean, sometimes block by block."
The US maintains that Bakhmut has limited strategic value but that Russia has absorbed an enormous loss of troops and weaponry in the battle for the former salt-mining town that has been grinding on for eight months.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of Russia's private military contractor Wagner who is a frequent critic of the Russian military, slammed it again for losing ground around Bakhmut and exposing his forces battling for the city.
In a video statement Friday, Prigozhin mocked the Russian Defence Ministry's report claiming that its forces regrouped to take more favourable positions, saying they effectively fled and "our flanks are crumbling."
He warned that the Ukrainian forces have reclaimed key heights around the city and effectively unblocked the key supply link to Bakhmut. Prigozhin again accused the military leadership of refusing to provide sufficient ammunition to Wagner.
"You must immediately stop lying," Prigozhin said, addressing Russia's military leaders. "If you fled, you must prepare new defensive lines."
Prigozhin - who seems to use harsh criticism to pressure the Kremlin for more support and improve his stature - alleged the Defence Ministry's failure to protect Wagner's flanks amounted to high treason and could result in a "great tragedy" for Russia.
Apparently denying Prigozhin's claim of abandonment, Defence Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said Russian airborne units are still supporting ground forces to "stop the attempts of the Ukrainian armed forces to counterattack on the flanks."
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, explained the spat as being "reflective of increased panic in the Russian information space over speculations about planned Ukrainian counter-offensives." This indicates increased concern among leaders of Wagner and the Russian Defense Ministry as well as "reflecting Kremlin guidance to avoid downplaying Ukrainian successes," it said.
Ukrainian military officials have dismissed speculation that the fighting and forward movement in Bakhmut signalled that its anticipated counteroffensive was underway. Zelenskyy said in remarks broadcast Thursday that Kyiv was delaying the campaign because it lacks enough Western weapons. Some saw the comments as designed to keep Russia guessing about Ukraine's next move.
Addressing the nation Friday evening, Zelenskyy said more arms were coming "to defeat the aggressor and restore peace."
The territorial gains occurred near the Siversky-Donets canal, between the villages of Ivanivske and Kurdiumivka, according to a commander of the 1st Assault Battalion of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade. He spoke on condition he be referred to only by his call sign of "Rollo," in line with Ukrainian military protocol.
"This was the enemy's bridgehead, which they intended to use in their future attacks along the canal, in the direction of Kostiantynivka," he said. "We had to neutralise the enemy and push them to the other side of the canal."
Another commander and a military spokesman corroborated his account.
Kostiantynivka is part of an important logistics chain that leads to the city of Kramatorsk.
Rollo said the gains followed other successes, including one that secured an access road near Khromove, north of Bakhmut, and another that allowed Ukrainian forces to reclaim lost positions in the Industrial College inside Bakhmut city.
The assault south of Bakhmut was followed by a reported increase in Ukrainian offensive actions near the city of Soledar on Thursday, Russia's Defence Ministry said. Russia repelled 26 Ukrainian attacks carried out by over 1,000 soldiers, the ministry said, adding that up to 40 tanks were involved.
The slow and grinding fight for Bakhmut has been costly for both sides, with Ukraine seeking to deny Russia any territorial gains despite its marginal strategic significance. Ukrainian forces are stationed in the city, while Russian troops are attacking from the north, east and south.
In other fighting, at least two people were killed and 22 injured elsewhere in the country since Thursday, according to figures from the Ukrainian President's Office.
Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said a Russian strike hit Kramatorsk, where some Ukrainian military units are based, destroying a school and residential building. Russian shelling hit 11 cities and villages in the region, killing 12 civilians, he said. | Europe Politics |
By Chae Yun-hwan
SEOUL, Sept. 11 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense ministry said Monday it sees the "possibility" of a summit between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, amid speculation about Kim's possible trip to Russia.
The assessment by defense ministry spokesperson Jeon Ha-kyu came amid media reports that Kim and Putin could hold a summit on the sidelines of an economic forum in Vladivostok this week, although there has been no word from both Pyongyang and Moscow on Kim's possible trip.
"The defense ministry assesses that there is a possibility of Kim Jong-un visiting Russia," Jeon told reporters when asked about Kim's possible trip to Russia.
"If the visit takes place, (we) assess that a summit with Russian President (Vladimir) Putin is being pursued," he said.
Russian media earlier reported that Putin has embarked on a two-day trip to Vladivostok on Monday to take part in the forum.
Pyongyang has recently been seeking to bolster military ties with Moscow in the wake of growing security cooperation among South Korea, the United States and Japan.
[email protected]
(END)
-
BTS' V to drop debut solo album 'Layover'
-
BTS' Jungkook to headline 2023 Global Citizen Festival
-
Defense chiefs of S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss security cooperation in phone call
-
Yoon to embark on trip to Indonesia, India to attend ASEAN, G20 summits
-
(LEAD) Seoul says N. Korea should seek int'l norms-based cooperation amid report of possible Kim-Putin summit
-
(2nd LD) Teachers hold massive rally following suicide deaths of distressed teachers
-
(2nd LD) Yoon urges immediate halt to attempts to seek military cooperation with N. Korea
-
Defense chiefs of S. Korea, U.S., Japan discuss security cooperation in phone call
-
(3rd LD) N. Korea unveils new 'tactical nuclear attack submarine'
-
S. Korea to offer financial, R&D support to shipbuilding industry: Choo
-
Yoon pledges US$2.3 bln in additional aid for Ukraine
-
Yoon, Japan's Kishida agree to work toward S. Korea-Japan-China summit
-
No word on N. Korean leader's possible visit as Russia kicks off economic forum
-
(LEAD) Yoon pledges US$2.3 bln in additional aid for Ukraine
-
Police bust multinational drug ring for smuggling meth into S. Korea | Asia Politics |
Australia closes oldest coal plant, pivots to renewables
Australia's oldest coal-fired power plant was shuttered Friday, as the country—a once-notorious climate straggler—prepares for a seismic shift towards renewable energy.
The Liddell power station, a three-hour drive north of Sydney, was one in a series of aging coal-fired plants slated to close in the coming years.
Built in 1971, Liddell provided about 10 percent of the electricity used in New South Wales, Australia's most populous state.
Liddell's owner AGL said it would take about two years to demolish the hulking facility, which would free up the site for new clean energy projects such as a hydrogen power plant.
"More than 90 percent of the materials in the power station will be recycled, including 70,000 metric tons of steel—which is more steel than there is in the Sydney Harbour Bridge," the company said.
For decades, coal has provided the bulk of Australia's electricity, but University of New South Wales renewable energy expert Mark Diesendorf told AFP that stations such as Liddell were fast becoming unreliable "clunkers".
Besides being inefficient, highly polluting and expensive to repair, the continued widespread use of coal-fired power plants would make Australia's climate targets almost impossible to meet.
Australia has long been one of the world's largest coal producers and exporters, and a series of governments have resisted pressure to scale back the industry.
But the center-left Labor Party elected last year on the promise of climate action has pledged that 82 percent of the country's electricity will come from renewable sources by 2030.
This demands a drastic overhaul—while world leaders such as Norway produce more than 90 percent of their power through renewables, Australia currently sits around 30 percent.
"The plans are for a fairly rapid phase-out," Diesendorf told AFP.
"These stations are overdue for retirement and there's no economic argument for replacing them with new coal."
'Right direction'
Under growing public pressure to address the climate crisis, many Australian fossil fuel companies increasingly prefer to shutter old coal plants than keep them online.
Australia's largest coal-fired power station, the Eraring facility in New South Wales, is scheduled to close in 2025 and a handful more will follow over the next decade.
While these closures will test whether renewables are ready to fill the gap, a government report released Friday indicated Australia was heading in the right direction.
The Australian Energy Market Operator found that record levels of renewable electricity—mostly solar power—were already driving down both emissions and household power prices.
"Every bloody week there's a new battery announced, or a new wind farm, or other major projects proceeding," he said.
The tricky part, he added, would be figuring out how to store this energy and pump it across the vast distances between Australian towns and cities.
"We are talking about projects that haven't been attempted in Australia for decades, where labor shortages are real and engineering problems are to be expected.
"The chance of everything going smoothly between now and 2030 is close to zero."
Even if it does go smoothly, Australia still faces enormous challenges in meeting its target of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
'Terrible laggard'
Over the past decade, an ideological brawl dubbed the "climate wars" has dominated Australian politics, repeatedly undermining attempts to reduce carbon emissions.
Researchers in 2020 found that eight percent of Australians were in climate change denial, more than double the global average.
And although Australia is planning to clean up its domestic energy market, the economy is still fuelled by exports of coal and gas.
Dozens of new coal mines, oil fields and gas projects are in government planning pipelines.
"In terms of still developing gas and coal mines for export, we are a terrible laggard," Diesendorf said. "It's a real contradiction."
© 2023 AFP | Australia Politics |
Farm attacks in South Africa surge after EFF sings ‘Kill the Boer’ song Photos: Facebook/WitkruisMonument/Twitter/@JuliusMalema
Farm attacks in South Africa surge after EFF sings ‘Kill the Boer’ song Photos: Facebook/WitkruisMonument/Twitter/@JuliusMalema
There has been a sharp increase in farm attacks since the EFF’s controversial song.
The EFF’s song, which calls for the killing of white farmers, has been widely condemned by South Africans and international leaders. The EFF has defended the song, saying that it is a struggle song.
The increase in farm attacks has caused fear and anxiety among South African farmers.
The South African Agricultural Union (TAU) has called on the government to do more to protect farmers.
According to TAU SA, 35 farm murders have already been committed in the first seven months of this year. Many people have also been seriously injured and tortured. This is in comparison to last year’s 24 murders in the same period.
Afriforum had previously filed a hate speech case against the EFF, but Equality dismissed it last year. However, the organisation is currently appealing the court’s decision.
Ernst Roets, Afriforum’s Chief Executive for Strategy, clarified the ongoing legal battle, stating:
“The matter has been heard in the High Court, and there was a ruling on this last year, and the matter is going on appeal, so it will be going to the SCA in September.
“That is the matter of whether the chanting of the song ‘Kill the boer, kill the farmer’ is hate speech. Given the fact that the matter is still pending and in the process of going to court, it does not give Malema the right to chant this song.”says Roets.
He furthermore said after the chant; several farmers were attacked on their farms in South Africa.
Meanwhile, President Cyril Ramaphosa will not be establishing an inquiry into the ‘Kill the Boer’ chant anytime soon. This is according to the Presidency’s spokesperson Vincent Magwenya who briefed the media on Friday, 4 August.
According to Magwenya, this is because the matter is before the courts.
Here are some of the farm attacks that recently happened:
The chairman of the Taxpayers Union of South Africa, Willem Petzer, said they are aware of nine farm attacks, resulting in 4 farmers brutally tortured and murdered.
“Seven more brutally tortured but thankfully surviving.” | Africa politics |
It was an otherwise ordinary night at the Avalon Club, a bar and sauna popular with the LGBTQ community in Valencia, Venezuela’s third-largest city.
Music was playing, drinks were flowing and guests were enjoying the accommodations, which included a restaurant, smoking room and massage parlour.
But that evening, on July 23, police would burst into the club, propelling the venue and its patrons into the national spotlight — and sparking questions about LGBTQ discrimination in Venezuela.
Patrons would later recount how the police arrived shouting, “Hands up!”
“I was having a drink with some of my best friends,” one guest, Ivan Valera, later told local media. “I thought it was a joke.”
But the officers proceeded to round up the 33 men in the establishment and hold them in the sauna’s locker rooms.
Luis – who asked to be identified by his first name only, to protect his privacy – told Al Jazeera that the police said they were conducting a “routine inspection”.
“At that moment I was calm,” he said. “I simply thought that it was a normal police procedure.”
But then the officers took Luis and the other men to police headquarters in Los Guayos, a municipality adjacent to Valencia. The men were not told what crime they were being charged with, Luis said. On the contrary, they were told they were “witnesses”.
“That’s when I began to question what was happening,” Luis told Al Jazeera. “Because why are we going as witnesses? Witnesses to what?”
Only after he was forced to give up his mobile phone and have his picture taken did Luis realise he was under arrest.
“[The police] said I have the right to a phone call,” said Luis. “That’s when I started to feel disoriented, like, what’s happening? They didn’t even tell us we were arrested.”
Being gay is not a crime in Venezuela. But the men were eventually charged with “lewd conduct” and “sound pollution” among other counts. The police offered images of condoms and lubricant as evidence for the supposed crimes.
In addition, the men’s photos were leaked to local media, where they were accused of participating in an “orgy with HIV” and recording pornography. Some of the men, like Luis, had not previously gone public with their sexuality.
But the backlash to the mass arrest was swift. Protests broke out in Caracas and Valencia, with demonstrators calling for the men’s release. The hashtag #LiberanALos33, or “Free the 33”, also went viral on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Thirty of the men were ultimately released on “conditional parole” after 72 hours in custody. The other three — the owner of the Avalon Club and two massage specialists — were let go 10 days after their arrest.
The Public Ministry of Venezuela and the Valencia Police did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
But Tamara Adrian, Venezuela’s first transgender legislator and a candidate in the 2024 presidential elections, told Al Jazeera she worries about the long-term effects the arrests may have on LGBTQ rights.
“Well, the truth is that this type of action, in the Venezuelan context, sends a very powerful message to the police and sends a very powerful message to judges that LGBT people can be persecuted for being LGBT,” she said.
She also tied the arrests to efforts under President Nicolas Maduro to rally support among evangelical Christians, some of whom hold anti-LGBTQ views. Evangelicals make up at least 17 percent of the country.
“Madurismo and Chavismo are having their worst moment,” Adrian said, using terms that refer to political movements under Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez. She believes Maduro is courting evangelicals to bolster his flagging approval ratings.
Last month, for instance, legislators from Maduro’s party, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), struck a deal to consult with religious groups on legislative initiatives that involve family-oriented policy.
The president’s son, Nicolas Maduro Guerra, who assumed the position of vice president of religious issues for the PSUV last July, was among the leaders who met with the religious organisations.
The agreement came after evangelical churches and socially conservative groups staged protests and parades promoting “family” values as a reaction to Pride Month, the annual LGBTQ celebration.
For Yendri Velasquez, a Venezuelan LGBTQ activist, recent events signal a deepening relationship between evangelical groups and the Maduro government.
“Principal representatives from the state are forming an electoral alliance with anti-rights groups,” Velasquez said. “I believe the arrest of the 33 people is an escalation of the political homophobia and transphobia that already existed.”
While last month’s mass arrest in Valencia was notable for the number of people detained, it was not the first time LGBTQ people have been arbitrarily detained in Venezuela.
Between January 2021 and December 2022, the nonprofit Observatorio de Derechos LGBTIQ+ documented 11 arbitrary detentions of LGBTQ people carried out by police and state security forces.
Four of the cases included acts of extortion, torture and violence including physical, verbal or psychological abuse. The organisation also found four police raids on LGBTQ leisure spaces during that time.
“Over [the last] 20 years, there has been no change for the LGBT community,” Laura Dib, the Venezuela program director at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), told Al Jazeera.
Dib attributes the lack of progress to a “democratic back-sliding” thanks to Chavez, Maduro and the closure of organisations that face alleged state intimidation, like human rights groups, independent radio stations and news outlets.
“If you take a look at discussions in the legislature over the past 20 years, there has been next to no discussion on matters such as sexual and reproductive rights … and protection of LGBTQI rights,” said Dib. “And this is a result of the closure of civic spaces and the persecution of human rights groups and human rights defenders.”
Venezuela remains one of South America’s most conservative countries for LGBTQ rights. It is one of the few countries in the region — along with Peru, Paraguay, Guyana and Suriname — that offer no legal recognition for same-sex couples. And transgender individuals still cannot legally change their gender on official documents.
Though Venezuela has some laws to prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, critics say they are rarely enforced in practice. In the case of the 33 men from the Avalon Club, Venezuela’s Attorney General Tarek William Saab has recommended the charges be dropped.
But the experience has shaken Luis’s hopes for the future of the LGBTQ community in Venezuela.
“[What happened] to us kind of reaffirms that, here in Venezuela, we are not all equal,” he said. “Here there are no rights, here there is no equality, and this confirms it.” | Latin America Politics |
India Forms Probe Panel On Allegations Of Plot To Kill Sikh Extremist On American Soil
India has constituted a high-level enquiry committee to probe allegations relating to a conspiracy to kill a Sikh extremist on American soil.
India has constituted a high-level enquiry committee to probe allegations relating to a conspiracy to kill a Sikh extremist on American soil.
The Financial Times, citing unnamed sources, last week reported that U.S. authorities foiled a plot to assassinate Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, and issued a warning to the Indian government over concerns it was involved in the plot.
External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi on Wednesday said India constituted a high-level enquiry committee on Nov. 18 to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter.
Following the FT report, U.S. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said the issue is being treated with "utmost seriousness".
Bagchi said the U.S. side shared some 'inputs' pertaining to nexus between organised criminals, gun runners and terrorists and that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge on 'our national security interests as well' and that relevant departments were examining the issue.
Bagchi said India will take necessary follow-up action based on the findings of the enquiry committee.
It is learnt that it will be a multi-agency probe. However, there was no official word on its composition.
Pannun, a Sikh extremist and known to be an American and Canadian citizen, is a leader of the so-called 'Sikhs for Justice'. He is wanted by Indian probe agencies on various terror charges.
"We have already said that during the course of discussions with the U.S. on bilateral security cooperation, the US side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others," Bagchi said.
He was responding to a media query on the issue.
"We had also indicated that India takes such inputs seriously since they impinge on our national security interests as well, and relevant departments were already examining the issue," he said, referring to his comments on the matter last week.
"In this context, it is informed that on Nov. 18, the Government of India constituted a high-level Enquiry Committee to look into all the relevant aspects of the matter,' he added.
Washington's allegations relating to the failed plot came weeks after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alleged that there was a 'potential' involvement of Indian agents in the killing of Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in a Vancouver suburb in June.
India had strongly rejected Trudeau's charges.
National Security Council spokeswoman Watson told AP that the issue is being treated with "utmost seriousness".
"We are treating this issue with utmost seriousness, and it has been raised by the US Government with the Indian Government, including at the senior-most levels," National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said. "Indian counterparts expressed surprise and concern," she said.
Bagchi last week said the U.S. side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organised criminals, gun runners and terrorists which were a "cause of concern" for both countries.
"During the course of recent discussions on India-U.S. security cooperation, the US side shared some inputs pertaining to nexus between organized criminals, gun runners, terrorists and others," he had said.
He said the inputs are a "cause of concern" for both countries and they decided to take necessary follow up action.
"On its part, India takes such inputs seriously since it impinges on our own national security interests as well. Issues in the context of U.S. inputs are already being examined by relevant departments," he had said. | India Politics |
Rescue workers combed through the rubble of damaged buildings in the city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine on Tuesday, the day after Russian strikes killed at least seven people.
Pokrovsk sits just 50 kilometres from the eastern frontline, where Moscow says it is gaining ground and repelling Ukrainian attacks.
Two missiles — launched 40 minutes apart — damaged residential buildings, a hotel, catering establishments, shops and administrative buildings on Monday, Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region’s military administration said.
AFP correspondents on the ground saw rescuers evacuating survivors from the rubble of a five-storey building, and carrying the wounded into ambulances.
Seven people died and 67 were wounded, including two children, according to Igor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs.
Those killed included a high-ranking emergency official of the Donetsk region, Klymenko said.
“We are resuming the demolition of rubble,” he said on early Tuesday after the rescuers “were forced to suspend work for the night due to the high threat of repeated shelling”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday that Moscow had struck a residential building, and shared a video on social media of civilians helping wounded people and rescuers clearing rubble from a building that had lost its top floor.
The footage also showed a second building that appeared heavily damaged. The city had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.
Russia advances
Also on Monday, Russia said it had recently advanced three kilometres towards Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine around 150km north of Pokrovsk and a few dozen kilometres from the Russian border.
Kupiansk and its surroundings in the Kharkiv region were retaken by Ukrainian forces in September, but Moscow has renewed its assault on the area.
“Over the past three days, the advance of Russian troops… amounted to 11km along the front and more than three kilometres deep into the enemy’s defence,” Moscow’s defence ministry said.
It said that it had “improved” its standing along the frontline and continued to repel Ukrainian counterattacks.
On Saturday, Russia struck a blood transfusion centre in Kruglyakivka — near Kupiansk — with a “guided air bomb”, killing at least two people and wounding four, Kyiv said.
Two more people in Kruglyakivka died on Monday when Russia attacked with “four guided aerial bombs”, according to Oleg Synegubov, governor of the Kharkiv region.
In mid-July, Ukraine said that it was in a “defensive position” in the Kupiansk area as the Russian army launched an offensive there.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces.
Saudi talks
On the diplomatic front, Ukraine said on Monday it was “satisfied” after a peace summit held in Saudi Arabia, to which Moscow was not invited.
Representatives from around 40 countries including China, India, the United States and Ukraine took part in the weekend summit in Jeddah. The initiative was greeted with scorn by Moscow on Tuesday.
“We have become eyewitnesses of yet another unsuccessful attempt by the US administration to pass off their wishes for reality.
There was no diplomatic success in Jeddah,“ said Russian ambassador to Washington, Anatoly Antonov, as quoted by state news agency RIA Novosti.
The diplomat said it was pointless to discuss the crisis in Ukraine without Russia’s participation.
“Does anyone still not understand that in such a situation it is impossible to achieve a specific result?” he said. | Europe Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Felipe Dana, Associated Press
Felipe Dana, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The U.N. atomic watchdog says its monitors at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant reported seeing anti-personnel mines around the site as Ukraine’s military pursues a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s entrenched forces after 17 months of war.
The International Atomic Energy Agency said its team observed the mines Sunday in a restricted area that is off-limits to the plant’s Ukrainian staff. The agency did not directly attribute the placement of the mines to the Russians but said its experts were told “it is a military decision, and in an area controlled by military.”
READ MORE: Plan to discharge water into Hudson River from closed Indian Point nuclear plant sparks uproar
“Having such explosives on the site is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and creates additional psychological pressure on plant staff,” Rafael Mariano Grossi, the agency’s director general, said in a statement late Monday.
However, any detonation of the mines, which were facing away from the plant and located between its internal and external perimeter barriers, “should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems,” the statement said.
The IAEA has repeatedly expressed concern that the war could cause a potential radiation leak from the facility, which is one of world’s 10 biggest nuclear power stations. The plant’s six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Ukraine’s military intelligence said last month without providing evidence that Russia is planning a “large-scale provocation” at the nuclear power plant in the southeast of the country and had placed suspected explosives on the roof. Russia, in turn, has alleged without offering evidence that Ukraine was planning a false flag attack involving radioactive materials.
The IAEA statement said that the Russian occupiers still haven’t granted it access to the roofs of the reactors and their turbine halls.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities said Tuesday that air defenses intercepted Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia fired at Kyiv overnight, in what was the sixth drone attack on the capital this month. No casualties or damage were reported, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration head.
READ MORE: Deal for protection zone around Ukrainian nuclear plant is ‘close,’ IAEA leader says
The Russian Defense Ministry said a Russian patrol ship destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones that attacked it in the Black Sea early Tuesday. It said the crew of the Sergey Kotov patrol ship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet wasn’t hurt in the attack 370 kilometers (200 nautical miles) southwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol.
Ukrainian officials, in turn, said that Russians used cluster munitions in an attack on Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, late Monday.
Rockets hit a recreational pond, killing a 10-year-old boy and wounding four other children ranging in age from 5 to 12, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration.
Russia and Ukraine have both used cluster munitions throughout the war, and the U.S. has recently provided them to Ukraine.
Western analysts said Tuesday that Russia’s recent attacks on Odesa and other parts of southern Ukraine have employed missiles that were originally developed to destroy aircraft carriers.
Each missile weighs 5.5 metric tons, the U.K. Ministry of Defense said in an assessment.
READ MORE: Ukraine strikes ammunition depot in Crimea as Russian attacks kill more civilians
In only a week, Russia has fired dozens of missiles and drones at the Odesa region, on Monday hitting a cathedral. The strikes have come since Moscow broke off from a landmark grain deal a week ago. Odesa is a key Ukrainian hub for exporting grain.
The attacks have damaged several grain silos at Chornomorsk Port, south of Odesa, and Russian drones have hit docks on the Danube River, approximately 200 meters (650 feet) from the Romanian border, according to the assessment.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Europe Politics |
Senior figures from the moderate and conservative factions of the New South Wales Liberal party have moved to block the state transport minister, David Elliot, from mounting an 11th-hour bid to save his career by running for a spot on the party’s upper house ticket.
Elliott confirmed on Monday that he was seeking to fill the spot left vacant after the sacking of Peter Poulos, who admitted to circulating explicit photos of a female colleague during a preselection contest five years ago.
The transport minister had been forced into retirement after a redistribution left him without a seat heading into the election next month. But he told Sydney radio station 2GB on Monday that he had put his hand up for the vacancy created by the sacking of Poulos.
“I was sad to leave politics but I accepted the circumstances in which I found myself. I couldn’t see a pathway for me to return,” he said.
“Well, if this is a pathway for me to return, I certainly can confirm I’ve told the premier I would like to be considered.”
But Elliott has not received the backing of senior figures within the party. On Monday the treasurer, Matt Kean, a factional rival who most recently butted heads with Elliott during his bid to become deputy leader of the party, was blunt when asked about his attempt to remain in state politics.
Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup
“What I’d like to see is a female fill that vacancy,” Kean said. “That’s no secret. I’ve been campaigning on that front for a while and that’s what I think should happen here.”
Instead, Kean is pushing for the president of the party’s women’s council, Jacqui Munro, a moderate, to fill the spot. He was part of a phone hookup on Sunday night where it was agreed the leftwing faction would push for her to be endorsed without a preselection by the state executive.
Other names also floated on the call included the Holsworthy MP, Melanie Gibbons, who is set to retire after losing a preselection challenge, the former Young Liberals president Deyi Wu and the Shoalhaven deputy mayor and state executive member, Paul Ell.
As a member of the moderate faction, it’s likely Poulos would be replaced by another moderate.
However, while Munro is the moderates’ pick thanks to her progressive credentials, she is perhaps the toughest candidate for the conservative and centre-right factions to swallow.
The state executive was expected to vote on whether to bypass nominations and confirm her selection on Monday, but it was unclear if the moderates had the numbers to win the vote.
But even if it failed, it’s understood Elliott would face an uphill battle to win the spot. While he has the support of his own centre-right faction, rightwing party sources said it was unlikely he would have enough rank-and-file backing to win a preselection for the spot.
On Monday the premier, Dominic Perrottet, also declined to endorse Elliott, saying only that he could be “proud” of his service to parliament but that it was a “matter for the organisation” as to who replaced Poulos. It’s understood the premier is also keen to see a woman fill the spot.
It comes as the premier was asked about a complaint regarding the Camden MP, Peter Sidgreaves, over branch stacking and the alleged bullying of an electorate office employee.
“So we received that complaint [and there are] two aspects of that,” Perrottet said.
“There is absolutely no place for bullying in any workplace environment and [the allegations] need to be dealt with appropriately, independently and, in the best case scenario, confidentially.”
The issue was being dealt with by parliament’s independent complaints officer, who was appointed last year after former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick’s inquiry into bullying, harassment and sexual misconduct in NSW parliament offices, he said.
The factional fracas comes just days after the government was caught up in another scandal when Damien Tudehope resigned as finance minister after declaring he owned shares in Transurban, the company that operates most of Sydney’s toll roads.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report | Australia Politics |
Israel Grinds War South As U.S. Monitors Gaza Civilian Deaths
The stepped-up fighting comes after increased warnings from the US that Israel must curtail civilian deaths in Gaza.
(Bloomberg) -- Israel is pushing military operations further into the southern Gaza Strip, with reports of strikes Monday night hitting the territory’s second-largest city as the war against Hamas ramps up again following a week-long truce.
The stepped-up fighting comes after increased warnings from the US that Israel must curtail civilian deaths in Gaza and that the destruction seen in the north shouldn’t be repeated in the drive south to root out the group.
A spokesman for Israel Defense Forces said Monday evening that the ground offensive had expanded throughout the Gaza Strip, including hand-to-hand combat in some areas of the north.
The offensive is going “house to house, tunnel to tunnel,” the spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said in a briefing. He made no reference to Washington’s admonitions about casualties, but said targets are based on “precise” intelligence.
Read more: Understanding the Roots of the Israel-Hamas War: QuickTake
Southern Gaza was hit by airstrikes, including about 200 targets overnight, while rockets were fired toward Israel from Gaza. The attacks came hours after the Israel Defense Forces urged those who fled south to evacuate once again, deepening concern for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who had escaped from the north.
The conflict’s latest round kicked off after the end Friday of a week-long cease-fire to release some hostages, brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the US — although 137 still remain in Gaza. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday that “intensive discussions” are ongoing to get all hostages released, and echoed Israel’s position that the cease-fire collapsed after Hamas reneged on a pledge to release civilian women.
Washington sharpened its message to Tel Aviv in recent days over the death toll in Gaza since fighting started in October, with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warning of a potential “strategic defeat.”
US officials on Monday stressed it was too early to assess whether their diplomacy had been effective in guiding the new course of combat. NSC’s Sullivan said Monday “it’s a dynamic situation, and we will keep watching and keep measuring day by day, and stay in persistent contact with the Israelis,” adding that Israel has a right to pursue Hamas while also taking responsibility to protect civilians.
“We’ve seen a much more targeted request for evacuations” into designated “deconfliction” zones during the southward push, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a separate briefing. “We have seen improvement in their plans for Khan Yunis,” he added, but ultimately the US will judge the offensive based on results.
Meanwhile, the flow of information from the territory has been hampered by the loss of internet and mobile services. Paltel, the main Palestinian telecommunications operator, said its services for the entire strip are offline.
The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, called for greater protection of civilians during a visit to Gaza — where fatalities stand at about 15,900, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
“The level of human suffering is intolerable,” she said in a statement Monday. “It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible.”
The World Health Organization said it was told by the IDF to move medical supplies out of two of its warehouses in southern Gaza as they will be “beyond use” due to ground operations, Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X. “We appeal to Israel to withdraw the order, and take every possible measure to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure, including hospitals and humanitarian facilities.”
Israel’s government rejected that accusation.
The resumption of fighting has raised fears that the conflict will spread across the Middle East and destabilize the region.
A US Navy ship responded to a flurry of drone and missile attacks against commercial ships operating in the Red Sea, blaming Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. Meanwhile, Turkey warned Israel’s spy agency not to try to kill members of Hamas on its soil, following reports of plans to assassinate overseas leaders of the group, which the US and European Union have designated a terrorist organization.
--With assistance from Josh Wingrove.
(Adds Israel rejecting accusation from World Health Organization in 14th paragraph.)
©2023 Bloomberg L.P. | Middle East Politics |
BAMAKO, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Mali's military junta on Monday said it would postpone February elections for technical reasons, further pushing back a timeline for a return to democratic rule after two coups.
Mali had been expected to hold the first round of the vote on Feb. 4, 2024, and a second round two weeks later, which was already a two-year delay to a timetable originally agreed by the West African country's interim authorities.
The junta's statement said the delay would be small and was due to several factors including a dispute with a French firm over a civil registry database. It said it would give a new timeline at a later date.
It accused the French-based international tech company IDEMIA, which provided a civil identification system known as RAVEC to the former government, of holding its database "hostage" since March due to unpaid bills.
The situation makes it impossible to register newly eligible voters and update the voter registry, and is slowing down the roll out of a new biometric identity card, the junta said.
A spokesperson for IDEMIA said the company has no contract with Mali's interim authorities and confirmed that its service had been shut down because of outstanding invoices.
The junta said it would migrate its current civil identification data to a new system "exclusively under Malian control."
West Africa's main political and economic body ECOWAS has not yet commented on the announcement.
The bloc has been leading tense negotiations with Mali and other coup-hit West African nations to restore democratic rule within acceptable timelines.
Reporting by Tiemoko Diallo, Additional reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout Writing by Edward McAllister and Sofia Christensen, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne and Josie Kao
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Africa politics |
Armenia says 1,050 people have crossed into the country from Nagorno-Karabakh, days after the majority ethnic Armenian enclave was seized by Azerbaijan.
They entered after the government in Yerevan announced plans to move those made homeless by the fighting.
Azerbaijan retook the area inhabited by some 120,000 ethnic Armenians early this week and says it wants to re-integrate them as "equal citizens".
But Armenia has warned they may face ethnic cleansing.
"As of 22:00 local time (18:00 GMT), 1,050 people entered Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh," the Armenian government said in a statement on Sunday.
It said many of them had already been provided with government-funded housing.
The Armenian separatist forces in the territory agreed to disarm on Wednesday, following a lightning Azerbaijani military offensive.
Armenia says it will help anyone leaving Nagorno-Karabakh - but has repeatedly said a mass exodus would be the fault of the Azerbaijani authorities.
In a TV address on Sunday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said many inside the enclave would "see expulsion from the homeland as the only way out" unless Azerbaijan provided "real living conditions" and "effective mechanisms of protection against ethnic cleansing".
He repeated that his government was prepared to "lovingly welcome our brothers and sisters".
But David Babayan, an adviser to Nagorno-Karabakh's ethnic Armenian leader Samvel Shahramanyan, told Reuters he expected almost everyone to leave.
His people "do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan - 99.9% prefer to leave our historic lands", he said.
"The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilised world," he told Reuters.
"Those responsible for our fate will one day have to answer before God for their sins."
Nagorno-Karabakh - a mountainous region in the South Caucasus - is recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan, but has been controlled by ethnic Armenians for three decades.
The enclave has been supported by Armenia - but also by their ally, Russia, which has had hundreds of soldiers there for years.
Five Russian peacekeepers were killed - alongside at least 200 ethnic Armenians and dozens of Azerbaijani soldiers - as Azerbaijan's army swept in last week.
On Sunday, Azerbaijan's defence ministry said it had confiscated more military equipment including a large number of rockets, artillery shells, mines and ammunition.
Despite Azerbaijan's public reassurances, there are ongoing fears about the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, with only one aid delivery of 70 tonnes of food having been allowed through since separatists accepted a ceasefire and agreed to disarm.
Ethnic Armenian leaders say thousands are without food or shelter and sleeping in basements, school buildings or outside.
In his TV address, the Armenian prime minister also hinted that Russia had not come to its defence in the conflict.
His comments echoed criticism that Moscow had effectively handed Nagorno-Karabakh over to Azerbaijan - a charge Russia's foreign minister has described as "ludicrous".
"Yerevan and Baku actually did settle the situation," Sergei Lavrov told the UN General Assembly. "Time has come for mutual trust-building.
Armenia-Azerbaijan: Nagorno-Karabakh map | Europe Politics |
Israel says it will allow two fuel trucks a day to enter the Gaza Strip, after pressure to do so from the US.
A US State Department official says around 140,000 litres of fuel will be allowed in every two days.
Most of that is intended for trucks delivering aid, as well as supporting the UN in providing water and sanitation, the official said.
The rest is for mobile phone and internet services, which had been cut off due to a lack of fuel.
On Friday, the company which provides Gaza's communications said that its services were returning after receiving some fuel via Unrwa, the UN's agency for Palestinian refugees.
The US official said Washington exerted considerable pressure on Israel to push this fuel agreement through.
The deal had been agreed in principle weeks ago, the official added, but was delayed by Israel for two reasons. Israeli officials told the US that fuel had not actually run out in southern Gaza, and they also wanted to wait and see if they could negotiate a hostage deal first.
The head of Unrwa warned on Thursday that the agency may have to suspend all of its activities due to the lack of fuel.
In its latest situation report, the agency said it required "160,000 litres of fuel every day for basic humanitarian operations" - more than double what has been agreed.
Earlier, an Israeli official said the new fuel allowance would be brought in through the Rafah crossing to the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip via the UN, provided that it does not reach Hamas.
The Israeli official said the fuel would give "minimal" support to water, sewage and sanitation systems, in order to prevent the outbreak of epidemics that could spread in the area.
International organisations have repeatedly expressed grave concerns over the humanitarian situation unfolding the Gaza Strip.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned of "worrying trends" in the spread of disease in Gaza, where the lack of fuel and Israeli bombardment have severely disrupted the healthcare system and sanitation facilities.
On Friday, Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative in the Palestinian Territories, said that more than 70,000 cases of acute respiratory infections and over 44,000 cases of diarrhoea had been recorded, according to Reuters - figures significantly higher than expected.
More on Israel-Gaza war
- Follow live: Latest updates
- In Gaza: Lack of fuel causes blackout across Strip
- Reporting: BBC goes inside Al-Shifa hospital with the Israeli army
- Explained: The faces of hostages taken from Israel
- History behind the story: The Israel-Palestinian conflict
Fuel is needed in Gaza to run the enclave's desalination plant, to provide electricity to homes and hospitals, and for sanitation, transport, and communications infrastructure.
It is also crucial for the delivery of aid around the territory.
Israel has been blocking fuel from entering Gaza, arguing that it could be stolen by Hamas and used for military purposes.
Before the latest war Israel provided the majority of Gaza's electricity, and some was produced by the enclave's sole power plant which is no longer functioning.
Meanwhile, the Red Crescent said at least five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a building in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The Israeli army said it was checking on the reports.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has told Israel to take "urgent" action to "de-escalate tensions in the West Bank, including by confronting rising levels of settler extremist violence".
The strike happened a day after Israeli military said it killed at least seven militants in two separate confrontations in the West Bank.
Israel's latest siege and military operation began following Hamas's brutal 7 October attack, when the group - which is banned as a terrorist organisation by the UK, US and other powers - killed around 1,200 people and took more than 230 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
At least 12,000 people have been killed in the territory since Israel began its retaliatory strikes, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian enclave. | Middle East Politics |
Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani has declared himself the new leader of Niger after a dramatic coup.
Also known as Omar Tchiani, he staged a takeover which started on Wednesday when the presidential guards unit he led seized the country's leader.
Deposed President Mohamed Bazoum was the first elected leader to succeed another since independence in 1960.
Mr Bazoum is currently thought to be in good health, and still held captive by his own guards.
He had been considered a key ally by Western nations in the fight against Islamist militants in the region.
France has said that it does not recognise any of the coup's leaders and will only recognise Mr Bazoum as head of state.
"We reiterate in the strongest terms the international community's clear demand for the immediate restoration of constitutional order and democratically elected civilian power," a statement from the French foreign ministry read.
The coup has also been roundly condemned by international bodies including the African Union, West African regional bloc (Ecowas), the EU and the UN.
However, the leader of Russia's Wagner mercenary group has reportedly praised the coup, describing it as a triumph.
"What happened in Niger is nothing other than the struggle of the people of Niger with their colonisers," Yevgeny Prigozhin was quoted as saying on a Wagner-affiliated Telegram channel.
The BBC has not been able to verify the authenticity of his reported comments.
Gen Tchiani, 62, has been in charge of the presidential guard since 2011 and was promoted to the rank of general in 2018 by former President Mahamadou Issoufou.
He had also been linked to a 2015 coup attempt against the ex-president, but appeared in court to deny it.
Speaking in a televised address, Gen Tchiani said his junta took over because of several problems in Niger, including insecurity, economic woes and corruption, amongst other matters.
Niger's coup is the latest in a wave of military takeovers that have hit the West African region in recent years, toppling governments in countries including Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso.
It also comes as a big blow to the leadership of Ecowas. Just two weeks ago, the bloc's chairman, President Bola Tinubu, warned that terrorism and the emerging pattern of coups in West Africa had reached alarming levels and demanded urgent, concerted actions.
There are now concerns in the West about which countries the new leader will align with. Niger's neighbours, Burkina Faso and Mali, have both pivoted towards Russia since their own coups. | Africa politics |
The performing arts industry in France was in a state of shock on Thursday, September 14, as the crisis between France and Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso took its toll on an artistic territory that could have done with more support instead. "On instructions from the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs," all subsidized cultural establishments were informed that they must "suspend, until further notice, all cooperation with the following countries: Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso."
This message, dispatched by the General Directorates for Cultural Affairs (DRAC) to the cultural structures that depend on their services, such as national drama and choreography centers and national stages, was forwarded to the secretariat of the Ministry of Culture. The measures recommended were radical: "All cooperation projects carried out by your establishments or departments with institutions or nationals of these three countries must be suspended, without delay, and without exception. All financial support must also be suspended, including via French structures such as associations. Similarly, no invitations should be extended to any nationals of these countries. As of today, France will no longer issue visas for nationals of these three countries, without exception, and until further notice."
Described as "threatening" by the all-powerful National Syndicate for Artistic and Cultural Enterprises union (SYNDEAC), the order from on high sent shockwaves through the ranks of the cultural community. "We've never had an injunction like this before," said Bruno Lobé, vice president of the SYNDEAC and director of Le Manège, a national theater in Reims. "France's philosophy towards artists living in countries with which it is in conflict has always been to continue to invite them, without ever breaking off the dialogue. These artists are already prevented from working by their own governments. If we add another layer of hardship, it will be a real catastrophe, not only for their survival but also for France's image."
'What has become of the values of France?'
Implementing the ban demanded by the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs would set a precedent. But it would also reveal an inconsistency that Lobé spelled out: "At the start of the war in Ukraine, the message was to continue to support Russian artists. That they do not represent Vladimir Putin. What's the difference between a Burkinabe, Malian or Nigerian artist and a Russian artist?" The ministerial decision is a cause for concern for artists who come and go on both sides of the Mediterranean.
You have 50.48% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only. | Europe Politics |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Felipe Dana, Associated Press
Felipe Dana, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces have ramped up attacks in eastern Ukraine in an attempt to gain ground near two key front line cities, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday.
Moscow’s troops have begun a push to regain territory near Bakhmut, the eastern mining city that was the site of the war’s bloodiest battle before falling into Russian hands in May, the head of Ukraine’s ground forces wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian troops had recaptured the heights over Bakhmut and made some advances west, north and south of the city since Kyiv launched its summer counteroffensive.
“Toward Bakhmut, the Russians have become more active and are trying to recapture previously lost positions. … Enemy attacks are being repelled,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote in a Telegram update on Sunday afternoon.
A Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Sunday that Russian forces over the previous day repelled five Ukrainian attacks near Klischiivka and Kurdyumivka, two small settlements lying south of Bakhmut. Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov made the claim at the latest of regular press briefings.
Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive has so far resulted in only incremental gains and heavy losses, with Ukrainian troops struggling to punch through Russian lines in the south. Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces have attempted to press forward in the northeast, likely with a view to distract Kyiv and minimize the number of troops Ukraine is able to send to key southern and eastern battles.
READ MORE: Civilians suffer casualties as Russia renews push to take eastern Ukrainian towns
Ukraine’s General Staff said that Russian troops were also continuing their weekslong push to encircle Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold south of Bakhmut and a key target since the beginning of the war. It’s considered the gateway to parts of the eastern Donetsk region under Kyiv’s control. The General Staff said Russia’s air force was playing a key part in the latest assault.
Gen. Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who leads Ukrainian troops fighting in and near Avdiivka, said Sunday that the attacking Russian forces were ramping up airstrikes, particularly those using guided bombs. He wrote on Telegram that Russian troops had launched 30 airstrikes and 712 artillery barrages at the city and surrounding areas over the previous day, and clashed almost 50 times with Ukrainian units.
Also on Sunday, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed responsibility for a powerful blast in the country’s occupied south the day before that they said killed “at least three” officers serving with Russia’s internal military force.
In an online statement, the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense called the explosion, which rocked the headquarters of the Russian occupation authorities in the city of Melitopol on Saturday, “an act of revenge (…) carried out by representatives of the local resistance movement.”
“At least three officers of the Russian (National) Guard were eliminated,” the statement said, referring to Russia’s internal military agency that reports directly to the Kremlin.
It added that the strike was carried out “during a meeting of the occupiers” attended by National Guard officers as well as operatives from Russia’s main security agency, the FSB.
Melitopol, a city in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region that had a pre-war population of over 150,000, was captured by Russian troops just days into the war. It now lies well behind its southern front line, even as a Ukrainian counteroffensive continues to grind on in Zaporizhzhia.
Russian authorities did not immediately respond to the Ukrainian claims, which could not be independently verified. The announcement came just over a day after more than a dozen freight cars carrying cargo in Russia’s western Ryazan region were derailed by an improvised explosive device, according to Russian law enforcement.
Nineteen carriages traveling from the town of Rybnoye were thrown from the tracks and 15 were damaged, investigators wrote in a statement on social media. They said they would be opening a criminal investigation on terrorism charges.
A regional branch of Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, on Saturday cited anonymous sources from Ukraine’s GUR as claiming that the intelligence agency was behind the blast. A spokesman for the GUR, Andriy Yusov, that same day refused to confirm or deny the agency’s involvement, but said that similar strikes within Russia “will continue.” Yusov made the remarks in an interview with the Ukrainian armed forces’ official news service, ArmyInform.
Russian officials have previously blamed pro-Ukrainian saboteurs for several attacks on the country’s railway system since Moscow invaded the country in February 2022, although no group has claimed responsibility for the damage.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, a 64-year-old man was killed when Russian shells slammed into his yard, Ukrainian regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Prokudin added that the man’s wife was hospitalized with a skull injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds to her legs.
Prokudin said that Russian forces shelled Kherson and the surrounding region 62 times over the previous 24 hours, wounding four civilians and damaging one of the city’s libraries. The city has come under near-daily attacks since Ukraine recaptured it a year ago.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Europe Politics |
TOKYO -- The lower house of Parliament approved Tuesday a budget for the coming fiscal year that includes a record 6.8 trillion yen ($50 billion) in defense spending, part of Japan's effort to fortify its military as China’s influence in the region grows.
The 2023 defense budget, up 20% from a year earlier, includes 211.3 billion yen ($1.55 billion) for deployment of U.S.-made long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be launched from warships and can hit targets up to 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) away.
The planned purchase of the Tomahawks has drawn criticism over the cost, with opposition lawmakers blasting Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for prioritizing arms spending over other issues such as Japan's shrinking population.
“The improvement of childcare has been neglected for more than 10 years,” Chinami Nishimura, a lawmaker with the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, told a lower house budget committee meeting Tuesday. “Why did the budget for spending so much money on Tomahawks get approved so quickly?”
“I don’t think it’s about choosing between one or the other," Kishida responded. "Both are important for the lives and livelihood of the people.”
Japan is to pay the United States another 110 billion yen ($830 million) in the coming fiscal year, which begins in April, for equipment and software needed to launch the Tomahawks plus fees for technology transfers and training.
Kishida told a parliamentary session Monday that Japan will purchase 400 units of Tomahawks.
Passage of the 114 trillion yen ($836 billion) budget by the lower house of parliament, the more powerful of its two chambers, ensures it will be enacted by the end of March regardless of any decision by the upper house.
The hefty defense budget is the first installment of a five-year, 43-trillion-yen ($315-billion) military spending plan as part of Japan's new National Security Strategy, which was announced in December.
The new strategy includes developing a “counterstrike capability” to preempt enemy attacks, a controversial change given Japan's commitment to retain only defensive capabilities after its defeat in World War II. Military spending is due to nearly double within the next five years as Japan builds up its defenses in response to potential threats from China, North Korea and Russia.
The new spending target conforms to NATO standards and will eventually push Japan’s annual defense budget to about 10 trillion yen ($73 billion), the world’s third biggest after the United States and China.
Kishida has called Japan’s rapidly aging and shrinking population a national crisis and promised to compile a package of comprehensive measures to tackle the problem in coming months. A new government department, the Children and Families Agency, is due to be launched in April to help coordinate government policies on various social issues including child poverty and child abuse.
The budget allocates 4.8 trillion yen ($35 billion) for the new agency, but experts say more funding and broader social changes are needed to alleviate the burdens of child care and education and encourage younger Japanese to marry and have children.
Government statistics released Tuesday showed births in 2022 fell to a record low 799,728, dropping below 800,000 for the first time since 1899 and at a faster-than-expected pace than earlier predicted. The number of births last year was one-third of the peak of nearly 2.7 million in 1949.
The 2023 budget also allocates more than 850 billion yen ($6.25 billion) to the Economy and Industry Ministry to help phase out use of fossil fuels and 53 billion yen ($388 million) to promote digitalization and increase domestic manufacturing of computer chips.
On Tuesday, government-backed chip maker Rapidus announced plans to build a new semiconductor plant in Chitose on the northern main island of Hokkaido. Rapidus said it plans to launch a prototype line in 2025, with mass production of cutting-edge chips planned for “the second half of the 2020s.”
Rapidus includes automaker Toyota Motor Corp., electronics makers Sony Group Corp. and NEC Corp., SoftBank Corp., Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. and computer memory maker Kioxia. The company recently announced a tie up with International International Business Machines Corp. in the development and production of 2-nanometer chips. | Asia Politics |
Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called for steps to be taken against an official in her party who threatened to physically assault Peter Haas, the U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh.
The official justified his words by claiming that Haas was working in the interest of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, or BNP, ahead of elections scheduled for early January.
While it was not disclosed exactly what action has been ordered, Bangladesh’s junior foreign affairs minister, Shahriar Alam, confirmed in front of local reporters in Dhaka on Friday that the prime minister has directed action against the official.
In a video clip that went viral on social media last week, Mujibul Haque Chowdhury, chairman of a unit of Hasina’s Awami League in a Chittagong subdivision, was seen hurling threats and insults at the American ambassador at a political meeting on November 6.
“Peter Haas said he wants to see a free and fair election here. I say, ‘Peter Haas, you are as knowledgeable as a newborn, while we are the actual grown-ups,’” Chowdhury said in the video. “You have no idea what we are capable of. You will know just how dangerous we are once we bash you up.”
Chowdhury added: “To the BNP members, you are a god, a savior. But we are not scared of you. You cannot harm us in any way.”
As the video spread on social media, Hasina directed her party colleagues to discipline Choudhury at an AL Central Committee meeting Thursday.
Obaidul Quader, the general secretary of her party, acknowledged afterward that Chowdhury’s comments about the ambassador were abusive.
“Peter Haas, as an ambassador, is a respectable person. Mujibul Haque Chowdhury’s comment, as it surfaced in the media, is rude and indecent. We will take disciplinary action against him for his misconduct,” Quader said in a press briefing.
US seeking free and fair election
The 2014 general elections in Bangladesh were boycotted by the BNP. The next general elections, in 2018, were marred by allegations of massive vote stuffing by the AL.
Since 2022, the United States and other countries have been urging the Hasina government to hold the next general election, set for January 7, in a free and fair manner.
In September, the U.S. government announced that it had started “taking steps to impose visa restrictions” on Bangladeshi individuals who are found complicit in “undermining the democratic electoral process” in Bangladesh.
During a visit to the U.S. in September, Hasina said at a New York press conference that every time her party has come to power, it was through a fair democratic process. “We indeed want the next general elections to be free and fair,” she said.
However, the BNP, the largest opposition party in Bangladesh, insists that the general election will not be free and fair if it is held under the Hasina government, and has said it will not participate unless a nonpartisan caretaker government is installed for the election period.
In recent weeks, Haas has met several Bangladeshi government officials, ruling party leaders and the election commissioners. He reportedly conveyed a message from the U.S. government that it seriously wants the next general election in Bangladesh to be free and fair.
Over the past weeks, several leaders of the AL and its various wings and allies have expressed irritation, directly and indirectly alleging that Haas is working in support of the BNP.
“How will Peter Hass help you [the BNP]? Will he impose visa restrictions, sanctions? We have already had talks with his superiors in the U.S. Everything has been settled, and we are going to hold the elections following our plan,” Quader, the party general secretary, said last month.
“We will not allow you to carry out violent activities and disrupt elections by using Peter Haas,” Quader said.
Calls for ambassador to be replaced
Last week, Hasanul Haq Inu, a former minister and political ally of the AL, called for the removal of Haas from Bangladesh.
U.S. President “Joe Biden’s representative Peter Haas, who is the ‘newly appointed adviser of BNP,’ is acting in support of the BNP by supporting the killing of a policeman,” Inu said in a speech. He was referring to the death of a policeman during an outbreak of violence at a BNP rally in Dhaka on October 28.
“Peter Haas is the supporter of the BNP, the killer of the policeman. He does not deserve to continue as the ambassador of the friendly nation of America,” Inu said.
“I call on the Bangladesh government to declare Peter Haas persona non grata, for indulging in undiplomatic activities, interfering in Bangladesh’s internal politics and supporting the dastardly killing of a policeman. The government should tell its U.S. counterpart to replace him with a new ambassador immediately.”
Haas has denied any U.S. interest in who wins the election. “I want to make one thing very clear,” he said in September. “That the U.S. does not support any political party. What we do want is a free and fair election in accordance with international standards so that people of Bangladesh can freely choose their own government.”
Attack on ambassador “deeply disturbing”
Ali Riaz, professor of political science at Illinois State University, said that while any individual has the right to criticize the policies of any government, a “personal attack on the envoy of that country is deeply disturbing.”
“The ruling party leaders and activists are angry with the U.S. because they see the current U.S. policy towards Bangladesh as an obstacle to holding an election according to their plan. Their anger is both spontaneous and orchestrated,” Riaz told VOA.
“Those who are beneficiaries of the present system are spontaneously angry in fear of losing these benefits,” he said. “Others are motivated by [suspicions] that the U.S. has a regime change agenda. They think that the U.S. is out to get its leaders and trying to depose the Hasina government.”
Mohammad Ashrafuzzaman of the Capital Punishment Justice Project, who has been documenting human rights abuses in Bangladesh for over a decade, said that Haas has “become a target of the regime” for being the most prominent foreign diplomat “supporting people’s aspirations for democratization and human rights” in Bangladesh.
He noted that former U.S. Ambassador Marcia Bernicat escaped an attack in Dhaka a few months ahead of the 2018 general elections. Police subsequently identified many of the assailants as leaders and activists of the AL and its student wing, Chhatra League.
On Friday, the U.S. State Department told VOA it has raised Chowdhury’s remarks at the highest levels of the Bangladesh government in Dhaka as well as with the Bangladesh Embassy in Washington.
“The safety and security of our diplomatic personnel and facilities are of the utmost importance. While we don’t comment on specific information regarding our security posture, the Diplomatic Security Service has a robust security program at each post tailored to each mission’s specific needs,” a State Department spokesperson wrote in an exchange of emails.
“Given the charged political atmosphere in Bangladesh, we expect that the government of Bangladesh will take all appropriate measures to maintain the safety and security of all U.S. missions and personnel in the country, per its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic relations.” | Asia Politics |
MPs demand inquiry into disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal that led to Taliban return to power: Tobias Ellwood calls scuttle 'dark chapter' as report warns country is turning into terrorist safe haven again
- UK and US forces ended a bloody 20-year campaign in the country in 2021
- It almost immediately allowed the Taliban to arrive unopposed into Kabul
MPs have demanded an inquiry into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan which led to the Taliban's return to power.
The UK and US ended a bloody 20-year campaign in the country in 2021, which almost immediately allowed the fundamentalist group to arrive unopposed into Kabul.
Many have since voiced concerns that the chaotic exit means Afghanistan may once again become a 'breeding ground' for terror.
Tobias Ellwood, chair of the cross-party Commons Defence Committee, described the withdrawal as 'a dark chapter in UK military history' in a damning 30-page report.
The committee also called on the government to set out what action it is taking to ensure safe passage to the UK for several thousand Afghans still eligible for evacuation.
MPs have demanded an inquiry into the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan which led to the Taliban's return to power
The UK and US ended a bloody 20-year campaign in the country in 2021 , which almost immediately allowed the fundamentalist group to arrive unopposed into Kabul
Afghan people climb atop a plane as they wait at the Kabul airport during a frantic evacuation
How the withdrawal from Afghanistan ended in chaos
The Taliban launched a 10-day takeover of Afghanistan in August last year as United States-led forces withdrew from the country.
This was despite billions being spent by the US and Nato over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces.
The takeover culminated in the fall of the capital Kabul on August 15 as president Ashraf Ghani fled to Abu Dhabi and admitted the Taliban had won.
Chaos ensued at Kabul's airport as people tried to flee, with refugees pictured clinging to planes as they tried to take off.
Since then, the Taliban have barred girls at secondary school from returning to class and ordered all women to cover their faces in public.
MPs said that the evacuation, in August 2021, saw 15,000 people brought to the UK but many also left behind.
A review by the Government is of 'critical importance', MPs said in the report, calling for an 'open, honest and detailed review of the UK's involvement in the country' that would cover military operations and political decisions from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to the final evacuation.
'This thinking would have been helpful to contribute to the update to the Integrated Review that is currently under way,' the report said.
The Taliban launched a 10-day takeover of Afghanistan in August last year as United States-led forces withdrew from the country.
This was despite billions being spent by the US and Nato over nearly two decades to build up Afghan security forces.
The takeover culminated in the fall of the capital Kabul on August 15 as president Ashraf Ghani fled to Abu Dhabi and admitted the Taliban had won.
Chaos ensued at Kabul's airport as people tried to flee, with refugees pictured clinging to planes as they tried to take off.
Since then, the Taliban have barred girls at secondary school from returning to class and ordered all women to cover their faces in public.
MPs, who found that the withdrawal revealed the limits of Nato's 'military capability' without US involvement, said that the Government needs to show 'what action they are taking to ensure safe passage to the United Kingdom for eligible Afghans who remain to be evacuated' under the Government's Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy scheme.
The Commons committee report also had criticism for officials involved in the events of the summer of 2021.
Since their takeover in 2021, the Taliban have barred girls at secondary school from returning to class and ordered all women to cover their faces in public
Footage from Hamad Karzai airport in August 2021 showed hundreds of people running alongside - and in front of - a US Air Force plane preparing to take off
Thousands of Afghans scaled the walls of Hamid Karzai International Airport desperate to get on the last flights out of the country before the Taliban impose their rule. The group have been shooting at people trying to clamber their way into the airport
'While it was never going to be possible to evacuate everyone who met the eligibility criteria as part of the operation, there was an obvious lack of effective co-ordination across Government, with real and painful human consequences for those who reasonably expected to be evacuated but were not,' MPs said.
'Well over a year since the end of Operation Pitting, thousands of Afghans eligible for evacuation remain in Afghanistan,' Mr Ellwood said.
'They are at risk of harm as a direct result of assisting the UK mission. We can't change the events that unfolded in August 2021, but we owe it to those Afghans, who placed their lives in danger to help us, to get them and their families to safety,' the Tory MP said.
'The rapid fall of Kabul will have been painful to many of the British troops and veterans who served in Afghanistan. We welcome the additional funding that has been provided to veterans' mental health charities since and the medals awarded to those who contributed to Operation Pitting. The bravery of those on the ground was never in doubt.
'The fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan will continue for generations to come. We need to get to grips with the factors that led to the Taliban's swift return to power and the wider impact on global security.'
He said that the committee was calling for a Government review 'to take an unflinching look at where we went wrong'.
'It is only through this that we can learn the necessary lessons and prevent this from ever happening again.'
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: 'We owe a debt of gratitude to Afghan citizens who worked for, or with, the UK armed forces in Afghanistan and to date we have relocated over 12,100 individuals under the scheme.
'During Operation Pitting we worked tirelessly to safely evacuate as many people out of Afghanistan as possible, airlifting more than 15,000 people from Kabul and their dependants.
'We estimate there are approximately 300 eligible principals to identify and our priority is finding them and bringing them and their families to the UK. In doing this, we are prioritising minimising risk to life, maximising the pace of relocations out of Afghanistan and ensuring when individuals arrive here in the UK, they are set up for a successful life.'
The spokesperson also said: 'We acknowledge the report and its recommendations and will be providing a response in due course.' | United Kingdom Politics |
Here are the five things we can do to legislate against Australia's weasel-wording politicians and their constant blame shifting
Whether it's Labor's recent surprise on super, or the confusion that surrounded shared powers during the pandemic, our political leaders are continually failing to speak truth to their people, writes Dr Scott Prasser.
The Albanese administration’s recent surprise announcements about superannuation — like its predecessor’s failure to admit the flaws on robodebt program until it was too late — highlight the need for governments to speak truth to people.
While public servants are expected to speak truth to power, to give frank and fearless advice to their ministers, too little attention is given to the need for governments speaking truth to people.
The failure of governments — and oppositions — to speak truth to people, to not take us into their confidences, or share their dilemmas and the challenges facing the nation, explains our declining trust in the political system.
We get shocked by the policy surprises, wary of the weasel words, confused by the sudden u-turns and frustrated by the interminable politicking, point scoring and blame shifting.
Speaking truth to people means admitting what can and cannot be done; not just in terms of resources but, in a federal system like ours, constitutionally, where powers are shared and responsibilities confused.
We saw this during the pandemic.
And we see it every day on issues from the environment to school funding.
Speaking truth to people means governments explaining that expert advice is often ambiguous and that consequently-elected administrations have to take responsibility for difficult decisions reflecting multiple concerns.
It even means saying “no” in some cases to the demand for more government action that might be against the wider public interest and fiscal responsibility.
It also means just “doing something” so as to “kick the can down the road” until it has all been forgotten —which is ultimately wasteful and ineffective.
And please, can incoming governments stop playing the blame card on the previous regime for all our woes.
We have heard this cliched script before. Just get on and run the country.
Speaking truth to people means neither sugar-coating the seriousness of an issue nor creating a false sense of crisis for political advantage.
Speaking truth to people means parties neither over-promising during an election and then not delivering, nor having such a low profile as to have no mandate to do anything as we are currently witnessing.
Can talking truth to people ever happen?
Admittedly, it is hard; given our adversarial political culture, opposition sniping, the media’s “gotcha” moments, the insatiable demands of interest groups and the complexity of modern policy issues.
The current Charter of Budget Honesty might ensure the pre-election release of forward estimates and costing of election promises, but its remit is limited.
Election costings need to be done earlier.
One suggestion which the Robodebt royal commission has highlighted is to modify some Westminster conventions like cabinet solidarity and confidentiality, which allows ministers to avoid speaking truth to parliament and hence to the people.
Parliamentary scrutiny of executive government could be enhanced if our legislatures just sat more.
Elected officials in the United States Congress sit three times more than their Australian counterparts where the average is about 67 days a year.
In some Nordic countries, public servants are allowed to participate more in public debates; and we need to reinstate permanency for our senior public servants so they can give that frank and fearless advice.
Indeed, departments need to be more insulated from direct ministerial interferences and directives.
A small start could be ensuring departmental responses to Senate estimates questions-on-notice are no longer filtered by ministerial offices.
And how about considering — as proposed by the Queensland Coaldrake report on integrity and accountability — that after a cabinet decision the information on which it was based should be released.
It would be better than, as is the case now, waiting 30 years for files to be declassified.
For governments to talk truth to people they need to share their burden of governing with us rather than pretending they have all the answers and can do everything.
For our part we need to be more grown up and accept that truth is often unpalatable, that governments cannot do everything nor should they, that resources are limited, and mistakes are inevitable.
After all, aren’t we all in this together?
Dr Scott Prasser is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies and coedited White Elephant Stampede: Case Studies in Policy and Project Management Failure | Australia Politics |
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has announced that he would be willing to step aside and serve in a government led by Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz of the opposition Polish People’s Party (PSL) if it allowed the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party to remain in power.
However, Kosiniak-Kamysz and his centre-right party today again reiterated that they wish to form a new government with other centrist and left-wing opposition parties, and not with the national-conservative PiS.
The ruling party lost its parliamentary majority at elections last month but has insisted that, because it won the largest individual share of the vote, in keeping with tradition it should have the first opportunity to try to form a new government.
However, with 194 seats, it is 37 short of the majority it would need in the Sejm, the more powerful lower house of parliament, in order to govern. Moreover, all other political groups have rejected the idea of working with PiS.
The three main opposition groups – the centrist Civic Coalition (KO), centre-right Third Way (Trzecia Droga) coalition, which includes PSL, and The Left (Left) – together have a comfortable majority of 248 seats.
They have therefore argued that President Andrzej Duda – whose role it is to name a new prime minister – would simply be wasting time by asking PiS to form a government. They have called for KO leader Donald Tusk to instead be appointed.
Duda has so far said that he remains undecided as to whom he will appoint as prime minister. However, he has called the first sitting of the new parliament for 13 November, at which point he must make a decision.
Following talks with all parliamentary groups, the president says he needs more time to decide who to pick as prime minister.
He notes that both the opposition and ruling party claim they can form a government. "This is a new situation in our democracy" https://t.co/XdyEGml2ry
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 26, 2023
In an interview with news website Interia published yesterday, Morawiecki again declared that “PiS won the elections”. But he admitted that “we cannot be sure” of forming a government and that it would depend on “how many righteous people there will be among the opposition MPs”.
“I want to appeal to those MPs from Third Way, Confederation [Konfederacja, a far-right group] and other parliamentary caucuses who care about the social programme and sovereignty and the issue of fighting illegal migration,” he added.
Focusing on PSL, Morawiecki asked them to consider if they “really want to become Civic Platform’s sidekicks” in a new government. Civic Platform (PO), led by Tusk, is the main force within KO.
“Independence in a loose coalition with our camp would be much better, believe me,” he added. Asked by Interia if that coalition could include Kosiniak-Kamysz becoming prime minister, Morawiecki answered “yes”.
Mateusz Morawiecki w rządzie Władysława Kosiniaka-Kamysza? Premier nie widzi przeciwskazańhttps://t.co/IURi1SDAdQ
— WPROST.pl (@TygodnikWPROST) November 4, 2023
Even if all of PSL’s MPs were to enter a coalition with PiS, that would still not be enough for a parliamentary majority, meaning PiS would also need to try to attract allies from elsewhere.
In any case, PSL and its leader today ruled out such an arrangement, just as they did when the idea was previously floated by PiS figures in the immediate aftermath of the elections.
Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that his party’s supreme council had this weekend unanimously confirmed that they want to remain part of the Third Way alliance – which also includes Poland 2050 (Polska 2050) – and that they want to form a governing coalition with KO and The Left.
We answer 12 questions about Poland's new government, including:
1. How will it be formed?
2. Will it be stable?
3. How will it tackle rule of law and abortion?
4. Can it unlock EU funds?
5. Will it face presidential vetoes?
Read our full analysis here⬇️https://t.co/oLK33waftV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) October 23, 2023
“We are prepared to take over the government, we are ready, we have a plan, we have a programme, we have an idea for Poland,” said the PSL leader. He also noted – as have other opposition figures in recent days – that work on a coalition agreement between the three groups “is at the final stage”.
“Of course, differences will remain because we are different groups, but obtaining [frozen] funds from the European Union, restoring the rule of law, matters of national security, health, energy and food security – these are the elements that unite us very much and [on which] we cooperate very closely,” said Kosiniak-Kamysz.
Meanwhile, in response to Morawiecki’s suggestion that he could serve in a government led by Kosiniak-Kamysz, Tusk responded sarcastically in a social media post. “Don’t call anymore, Mateusz. We have a full set of ministers,” he tweeted.
Nie dzwoń już więcej, Mateusz. Mamy komplet ministrów.
— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) November 4, 2023
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Władyszław Kosiniak-Kamysz/X
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. | Europe Politics |
Northern Ireland was created to secure an in-built Protestant and unionist majority. When, in the early 1930s, the Ulster Unionist MP Basil Brooke told his constituents not to employ Catholics, Northern Ireland’s prime minister, James Craig, commented: “I would not ask him to withdraw one word he said.”
How times change. Last Saturday, Sinn Féin became the largest party of local government in Northern Ireland. The party now has 144 seats across local councils, as opposed to the Democratic Unionist party’s 122. This comes on the back of last year’s local assembly election when Michelle O’Neill, deputy leader of Sinn Féin, became Northern Ireland’s first minister-designate. The nationalist vote outpolled the unionist vote for the first time. Now, Belfast city council, a traditional unionist stronghold, has only 17 unionist councillors out of 60 seats. Historic is the only word for it.
The results reflect a fact: Northern Ireland is slowly changing beyond recognition. The census results last year show that Catholics outnumber Protestants for the first time. The younger generation are more likely to be from a Catholic, nationalist background and identify as Irish or Northern Irish, rather than British. The unionist support base is older and gradually shrinking. Crucially, there is a growing middle ground full of voters who identify as neither unionist nor nationalist.
This new reality poses problems for unionism in the long term. As a political movement, it needs to broaden support and become more appealing to younger people. Even before the Brexit vote, unionists spoke about the need for reform and reaching across the divide to nationalists. There has been little progress. The DUP is currently boycotting the assembly to protest against the Northern Ireland protocol, a move that has only irritated nationalists and the middle ground more.
It is the DUP, paradoxically, that has created the conditions that allowed Sinn Féin to thrive. The latter didn’t go into the local elections talking about a united Ireland, but focusing on the collapse of devolved government and devastating cuts to public services. To take just one example: discretionary support, a crisis loan made to the most vulnerable people, is facing an estimated 75% cut.
Sinn Féin, which sold itself as a party for everyone in Northern Ireland, has positioned itself as the leading voice opposing the DUP’s boycott, thus siphoning off votes from the party that used to dominate nationalist politics, the Social Democratic and Labour party. The fact that Sinn Féin also bears responsibility for the collapse of the assembly in 2017 isn’t having an impact on its vote.
Many nationalist voters suspect that the real reason for the DUP’s boycott of the assembly is simply O’Neill’s rise to first minister. Unionists, they say, can’t accept “second place”; the old prejudices never die. The DUP only said it would accept holding the deputy first minister post, as opposed to the first minister post, after last year’s assembly election – that hasn’t happened yet and few nationalists believe it will. Voters are turning up to register their anger.
Perspective, though, is needed. We aren’t heading for a united Ireland. Sinn Féin may be the largest party of local government, but unionists still, by a slim margin, have more councillors across Northern Ireland. The DUP had a good election, consolidated its position, and didn’t lose a single seat. This is where the importance of the non-aligned Alliance party comes in – it doesn’t take a position on the constitutional question and last week it became the third largest of local government. Neither side in the constitutional debate has won it over yet.
The side that wins any future border poll will be the side that promises a better future for Northern Ireland. That hope is sorely needed. This week, for instance, the East Belfast Gaelic Athletic Association club was involved in a security alert, having received threats and intimidation earlier this year. The team’s pitch is close to an integrated primary school and nursery, which had to close as the security operation unfolded.
East Belfast GAA is a cross-community team. Its motto is “Together”, the words emblazoned on its crest in Irish, Ulster Scots and English, alongside Harland and Wolff, the cranes that built the Titanic. This is, seemingly, too much for Northern Ireland’s bigots. It is also a stark reminder of the dark, ugly legacy of our history. The purported attack has been condemned by politicians across the board.
We are in a holding pattern that may not last. What happens if the middle ground decides that it is no longer willing to accept a status quo of devolution characterised by long periods of absent government and a declining quality of public services? Nationalists have an answer – a united Ireland – that demographic change may make easier to sell. But unionism? Without a positive, inclusive vision of the union and Northern Ireland, it faces oblivion. | United Kingdom Politics |
The "scandal" of MPs' earnings from second jobs and donations exposed by Sky News' Westminster Accounts project "needs to end" through "root-and-branch" reform, the SNP has said.The party's Westminster leader Stephen Flynn told Sky News' deputy political editor Sam Coates that the findings of the investigation should "ring alarm bells for everyone" and demonstrate that a "complete overhaul" of the rules is required.
Describing the situation as "not acceptable", Mr Flynn said "everything needs to be on the table" when it comes to reform, adding: "We need to have transparency in public life."On Sunday, Sky News and Tortoise Media launched a new database of MPs' outside earnings - the first time they have all been collated in one place.Search for your MP here
According to Sky News' analysis of the MPs' register of financial interests, 38 MPs have taken on second jobs where the ultimate party paying them is unclear.While 14 MPs have been given more than £250,000 each towards their campaigns and causes. The investigation also discovered that nobody had heard of a company donating hundreds of thousands to Labour MPs on a visit to its registered address.Union boss laughs at Tory MP asking about strikes - follow live politics updates Mr Flynn told Sky News that the project has highlighted that "the Westminster system is broken and corrupt", with MPs earning millions outside of their parliamentary day jobs.After asking Rishi Sunak a question on former prime minister Boris Johnsons' outside earnings at PMQs earlier today, Mr Flynn has now written to the current PM calling for him to introduce robust legislation to tighten the rules.The SNP's Westminster leader's demands include:• a ban on "dark money donations"• a block on MPs from taking second jobs that involve "a considerable time commitment or conflict of interest"• tightened restrictions and full transparency on outside earnings Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player SNP MP questions PM on Westminster Accounts 'This is the expenses scandal all over again'Mr Flynn told Sky News that the revelations uncovered by the Westminster Accounts project will be "of huge concern to the public"."We are all public servants, we serve the public - and if the public don't know why we are doing what we are doing or who is funding us that is deeply concerning," the SNP's Westminster leader said.He continued: "But if we are going to have transparency in British politics, we need to get to the bottom of this and ultimately Westminster needs reform."Mr Flynn added: "And we should also broaden that discussion out to whether MPs should be spending as much time as they are on second jobs when, in reality, they are members of parliament there to legislate."It is pretty clear cut to me that we should be putting out duties in parliament first."Mr Flynn said he was "sceptical" that change will happen, describing Mr Sunak as being "ambivalent" to the idea earlier on Wednesday.In a statement, the SNP's Westminster leader added: "This is the MP expenses scandal all over again." Opposition parties attempt pincer movement to pressure Sunak into rule change Sam Coates Deputy political editor @SamCoatesSky The intervention from Stephen Flynn, leader of the third biggest party in parliament, suggests there is something of a pincer movement going on. One by one, opposition party leaders are embracing - to an increasing degree - the idea that there needs to be some kind of change as a result of the Westminster Accounts that have been published by Sky News and Tortoise Media. But what is interesting is that the person most bullish in their demand for change is actually a Conservative - Lord Pickles. He matters because he is a former cabinet minister who was in office in the aftermath of the expenses scandal and now heads a government ethics watchdog. His powerful case for change, delivered in an interview with Sky News on Tuesday, has really kicked off this debate. It is notable that it has been opposition MPs, perhaps most robustly led by the new SNP leader today, adopting the charge as well. But it is worth looking closely at what the Tories are doing because, ultimately, there are more of them than any other party in the Commons. That means if there is going to be change they need to be on board. Rishi Sunak likes to talk about the importance of transparency, and that is the government line right now. But beneath the surface, he knows that change is hard. He cannot risk another battle with his own party on top of the many that have fractured the Conservatives in the course of this bruising parliament. Boris Johnson tried to take on his backbenchers on the subject of second jobs but abandoned serious reform early in 2022. Another fight over changes to the rules and a greater drive to transparency at this point looks unlikely. So while government ministers come on Sky News and commend the principle of transparency, as yet no government minister will actually engage with any detail on the question of reform. That is why the issue is stuck. It does not mean there is no way out in this parliament - pressure will build the more problems people find in the way that money works in politics. But it could well be that serious change can only come after the next general election. Senior politicians react to Sky News' Westminster Accounts projectEarlier this week, the prime minister said there was a reason that "rules and regulations" are in place surrounding donations to MPs after the Westminster Accounts project launched.Mr Sunak said: "I think transparency is really important for the healthy functioning of democracy, it's absolutely right that there's disclosures around donations and outside interests. And transparency is a good thing, and I fully support it."However, he did not answer when asked whether it was right that some MPs are being given six-figure donations.Chancellor Jeremy Hunt told Sky News that the information will help people make more informed decisions at the ballot box."People should know what income their MPs are receiving, what funding they have for their political campaigns. I think it's really helpful that you have put that information together so people can make a judgement at the ballot box as to whether MPs are behaving the way they want," he said.Asked about the prospect of reforms, he insisted the UK has one of the most transparent systems "in the world". Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player 'We have a lot of transparency' - chancellor 'It wouldn't take much to just sort this out'But the chair of parliament's ethics watchdog said the Westminster Accounts project has shown that MPs should be forced to exercise more "due diligence" over donations.Praising the investigation, Lord Pickles told Sky News that MPs should have to know and declare a named individual as the originator of a donation, even if the funds come from a company."It wouldn't take very much to just to sort this out," said Lord Pickles, who is the chair of the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments.He added that it "wouldn't be unreasonable to put together some guidelines for MPs to be able to answer some just very basic questions".While Labour's Chris Bryant posted on social media: "I welcome Sky News and Tortoise's work making information that is already in the public domain more readily accessible." Spreaker Due to your consent preferences, you’re not able to view this. Open Privacy Options Click to subscribe to the Sky News Daily wherever you get your podcastsEarlier today, Sky News' Westminster Accounts project revealed all-party parliamentary groups (APPGs) have received over £20m worth of funding from external organisations since the 2019 general election, with registered lobbying agencies dominating the ranks of biggest benefactors.APPGs are informal interest groups of MPs and peers that facilitate cross-party work on an issue, a country or a sector, but the chair of one of Westminster's ethics watchdogs has told Sky News they could represent "the next big scandal". | United Kingdom Politics |
CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- Two people were fatally shot on a fifth day of violent protests in the South African city of Cape Town on Monday sparked by a dispute last week between minibus taxi drivers and authorities.
A person was killed and three others were wounded in a shooting near the Cape Town International Airport after a group of protesters pelted a car with stones and the driver responded by firing shots at them, police said. The shooting happened while minubus taxis blockaded a road near the airport, police said.
Police said the shooter would be investigated for murder and attempted murder.
A man died of multiple gunshot wounds in a separate shooting that police said they believed was also related to the protests.
The unrest on the outskirts of South Africa's second-largest city followed an announcement last Thursday of a weeklong strike by minubus taxi drivers, who are angered at what they call heavy-handed tactics by police and city authorities in impounding some of their vehicles.
The taxis' national union has said its members aren't instigating the violence and others are using the strike as an excuse to launch their own protests.
A community safety officer was killed Friday night, with city authorities also linking that officer's death to the protests. Vehicles have been set alight in numerous areas around the outskirts of Cape Town, where large, impoverished townships are often the scene of violent protests. One of the city’s depots was firebombed over the weekend, authorities said.
Cape Town is viewed as one of the most beautiful cities in the world and is South Africa’s tourist highlight, with its majestic Table Mountain and picturesque Atlantic seaboard.
But the areas on the city’s outskirts have some of the highest homicide rates in the country and residents say they have been neglected for years and are now deeply troubled by violence and poverty.
At least 35 people were arrested in the protests Monday that occurred in several areas, city authorities said.
Four city buses, four private vehicles and two trucks were set on fire, while police officers reported being shot at while trying to move minibus taxis that caused another blockade on Cape Town's main highway, said JP Smith, the member of the mayoral committee in charge of safety and security. He also said there was another shooting at a railway station, but gave no detail on any casualties.
“There have also been clear attempts to target city staff and infrastructure,” Smith said.
Police have been deployed and are on high alert on a 30-kilometer (18-mile) stretch of highway from the edges of the city and out past the airport.
___
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa | Africa politics |
Delhi Environment Minister Seeks Suspension Of Officer Who Halted Smog Tower Project
In the letter to Kejriwal, Rai also sought disciplinary action against the project in-charge, Anwar Ali, whom the minister accused of changing his stance on the smog tower's effectiveness under pressure from Kumar.
Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai wrote to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday, seeking the suspension of Delhi Pollution Control Committee chairman Ashwani Kumar for "arbitrarily halting" the operation of a large smog tower installed at Connaught Place two years ago to mitigate air pollution.
In the letter to Kejriwal, Rai also sought disciplinary action against the project in-charge, Anwar Ali, whom the minister accused of changing his stance on the smog tower's effectiveness under pressure from Kumar.
Rai mentioned that two smog towers were installed in Delhi -- at Connaught Place under DPCC and at Anand Vihar under the Central Pollution Control Board -- following the Supreme Court's directions.
Kumar, who assumed the role of DPCC chairman in December, stopped the release of funds to IIT-Bombay and other agencies working on the project without informing the government, which Rai considered a contempt of court.
"I would like to propose the suspension and disciplinary action against Ashwani Kumar, Chairman DPCC, for acting in contempt of the Hon'ble Supreme Court's directions, not implementing the council of ministers' decision, arbitrarily halting operations and maintenance payments, failing to make decisions based on the merits of the study and presenting them before the Cabinet, and not reopening the smog tower after the monsoon months, which prevented the formation of clean air zones at a time when pollution levels are expected to rise," Rai wrote.
Chief Minister Kejriwal had inaugurated the more-than-24-metre-high smog tower at Connaught Place on Aug. 23, 2021. The city government had formed a team of experts from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay to study its impact over two years.
Sharing the smog tower's data, Rai had said last year that the giant air purifier could reduce air pollution by 70 to 80% within a radius of 50 metres and by 15 to 20% up to 300 metres.
Officials had previously said that the smog tower, built at a cost of Rs 20 crore, could purify the air in a one-kilometer radius at a rate of around 1,000 cubic metres per second.
The smog tower has 40 large fans that draw air from the top of a special canopy structure and release clean air below.
In October, Rai alleged that the Delhi government's first-of-its-kind study to determine pollution sources in the national capital was unilaterally halted on the orders of Kumar.
The Delhi Cabinet had approved the study proposal in July 2021 and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with IIT-Kanpur in October 2022.
The estimated cost was more than Rs 12 crore. The Delhi government had released Rs 10 crore to IIT-Kanpur for the procurement of necessary equipment and setting up a centralised supersite for data collection.
However, in February, Kumar made a file note expressing concerns about the 'substantial expenses associated with the study' after several meetings with IIT-Kanpur scientists, Rai claimed.
On Oct. 18, Kumar issued orders to stop the release of the remaining funds to IIT-Kanpur, effectively cancelling the study, he said. | India Politics |
- Summary
- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Truce details to be announced by Qatar, Hamas tells Al Jazeera
- Hostages to be swapped for Palestinian prisoners: Hamas official
- Both sides to free women, children: Hamas official
- Talks centred on truce, aid arrangements: Hamas official
GAZA/JERUSALEM, Nov 21 (Reuters) - The chief of Hamas told Reuters on Tuesday that the Palestinian militant group was near a truce agreement with Israel, even as the deadly assault on Gaza continued and rockets were being fired into Israel.
Hamas officials are "close to reaching a truce agreement" with Israel and the group has delivered its response to Qatari mediators, Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement sent to Reuters by his aide.
The statement gave no more details, but a Hamas official told Al Jazeera TV that negotiations were centred on how long the truce would last, arrangements for delivery of aid into Gaza and the exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Both sides would free women and children and details will be announced by Qatar, which is mediating in the negotiations, said the official, Issat el Reshiq.
Hamas took about 240 hostages during its Oct. 7 rampage into Israel that killed 1,200 people.
Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), met Haniyeh in Qatar on Monday to "advance humanitarian issues" related to the conflict, the Geneva-based ICRC said in a statement. She also met separately with Qatari authorities.
The ICRC said it was not part of negotiations aimed at releasing the hostages, but as a neutral intermediary it was ready "to facilitate any future release that the parties agree to."
Talk of an imminent hostage deal has swirled for days. Reuters reported last week that Qatari mediators were seeking a deal for Hamas and Israel to exchange 50 hostages in return for a three-day ceasefire that would boost emergency aid shipments to Gaza civilians, citing an official briefed on the talks.
Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Herzog said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that he hoped for an agreement "in the coming days" while Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said that the remaining sticking points were "very minor."
U.S. President Joe Biden and other U.S. officials said on Monday a deal was near, but an agreement has appeared close before.
"Sensitive negotiations like this can fall apart at the last minute," White House deputy national security adviser Jon Finer told NBC's "Meet the Press" program on Sunday. "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
Hamas' raid on Oct. 7, the deadliest day in Israel's 75-year-old history, prompted Israel to invade the Palestinian territory to target Hamas.
Since then, Gaza's Hamas-run government said at least 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, including at least 5,600 children and 3,550 women, by unrelenting Israeli bombardment.
Hamas said on its Telegram account on Monday that it had launched a barrage of missiles towards Tel Aviv. Witnesses also reported rockets being fired at central Israel.
HOSPITALS AT RISK
The Palestinian news agency WAFA said on Tuesday at least 17 Palestinians were killed in Israeli bombing of the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza at midnight.
There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Gaza's health ministry said on Monday that at least 12 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by firing into the Indonesian Hospital complex, which was encircled by Israeli tanks.
Health officials said 700 patients along with staff were under Israeli fire.
WAFA said the facility in the northeast Gaza town of Beit Lahia, funded by Indonesian organisations, had been hit by artillery rounds. Hospital staff denied there were any armed militants on the premises.
World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was "appalled" by the attack that he too said had killed 12 people, including patients, citing unspecified reports.
The Israeli Defence Forces said troops had fired back at fighters in the hospital while taking "numerous measures to minimise harm" to non-combatants.
Like all other health facilities in the northern half of Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital has largely ceased operations but is still sheltering patients, staff and displaced residents.
Twenty-eight prematurely born babies evacuated from Gaza's biggest hospital, Al Shifa, were taken into Egypt for urgent treatment on Monday.
Israeli forces seized Shifa last week to search for a tunnel network they said was built by Hamas beneath the hospital. Hundreds of patients, medical staff and displaced people left Shifa at the weekend, with doctors saying they were ejected by troops and Israel saying the departures were voluntary.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Idrees Ali and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman & Simon Cameron-Moore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Middle East Politics |
Myanmar’s junta launched airstrikes as resistance groups tried to seize Kawkareik town in Karen State on Friday morning, according to residents.
The Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), the armed wing of the Karen National Union (KNU), and other resistance groups attacked junta bases in the town before dawn.
A resident told The Irrawaddy on Friday: “The fighting is intense. The military is shelling and a jet fighter and small plane are attacking.”
A pro-junta Telegram channel reported that the military had responded to resistance attacks with airstrikes and shelling.
On November 24, the KNU warned all junta civil servants in Kyaikdon, Sukali, Wawlay Mying and Kawkareik towns to quit.
Residents said staff at the general administration department and other offices were staying away and some had fled since the KNU warning.
Most residents have reportedly left the town.
A philanthropist said three civilians had reportedly been injured in fighting but there is no confirmation.
Kawkareik is on the trade route with Thailand and around 100 trucks are purportedly trapped on the Asia road to Myawaddy on the border.
On October 27, the KNLA and resistance allies attacked junta targets in the town, where KNU Brigade 6 is based.
The junta has been shelling civilian targets throughout Kawkareik Township, the KNU reported.
Two novice Buddhist monks were wounded but a regime shell at a monastery in Ann Pa Lay village on November 27.
A Maung Ma Thit villager was wounded by Light Infantry Battalion 97 shelling on November 29. | Asia Politics |
KYIV, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Russia attacked Ukraine's grain ports in the early hours of Wednesday, including an inland port across the Danube River from Romania, sending global food prices soaring as Moscow ramps up its use of force to reimpose a blockade of Ukrainian exports.
Ukraine's defence ministry said a grain silo was damaged in the Danube port of Izmail in the Odesa region: "Ukrainian grain has the potential to feed millions of people worldwide," the ministry wrote on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
There were no reports of casualties, Odesa region governor Oleh Kiper wrote in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Kiper posted several photos showing firefighting crews trying to put out a fire in a blighted high-rise building next to a river.
"Unfortunately, there are damages," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram.
"The most significant ones are in the south of the country. Russian terrorists have once again attacked ports, grain, global food security."
An industrial source also confirmed Izmail was the main target of the attack, describing the level of damage as "serious".
Ukraine's prosecutor's office released pictures showing a war crimes investigator outside a ruined building, and at least two damaged silos with wheat tumbling out.
The port, across the river from NATO-member Romania, has served as the main alternative route out of Ukraine for grain exports since Russia reimposed its de facto blockade of Ukraine's Black Sea ports in mid-July.
Chicago wheat prices jumped 4% following Wednesday's attack, with traders worried afresh about a hit to global supplies from driving Ukraine, one of the world's top food exporters, off the market.
Russia has relentlessly attacked Ukrainian agricultural and port infrastructure for more than two weeks, since refusing to extend an agreement that had lifted its war-time blockade of Ukrainian ports last year. Moscow has demanded better terms for its own food and fertiliser exports, which are already exempt from international financial sanctions.
"The enemy... is trying to destroy Ukrainian grain, attacking industrial and port infrastructure. Unfortunately, there are hits, unfortunately the silo was damaged, and fires broke out at the site," Serhiy Bratchuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Volunteer Army South, part of Ukraine's armed forces, said in a video statement.
"Russia is trying to cut Ukraine out of the future grain agreement and, most importantly, to strategically displace our country from the global food market," he said.
Ukraine's Danube river ports accounted for around a quarter of grain exports before Russia pulled out of the Black Sea deal and have since become main route out, with grain loaded onto barges and shipped to Romania's Black Sea port of Constanta for shipment onwards.
On Sunday, Ukrainian media reported several foreign cargo ships had arrived directly at Izmail from the Black Sea, for the first time since the expiration of the grain deal, opening a potential breach in Russia's newly restored blockade.
The United Nations has warned of a potential food crisis and hunger in the world's poorest countries as a result of Russia's decision to abandon the deal, brokered by the U.N. and Turkey.
Moscow says it will treat ships heading to Ukrainian seaports as potential military targets. Kyiv has said it hopes ships will return anyway, but so far they have not done so.
As a result of the deal's collapse midway through July, Ukraine's grain exports for the month were down 40% from June, analysts said on Tuesday.
Russian drones already targeted Izmail once before in late July, destroying a grain warehouses.
Ukrainian officials have said Moscow has hit 26 port facilities, five civilian vessels and 180,000 tonnes of grain in nine days of strikes since quitting the grain deal. Moscow has said such attacks are retribution for a Ukrainian strike on a bridge that Russia uses to supply its occupation army in southern Ukraine.
Ukraine's Air Force reported that Russia also launched a drone attack on Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight. Air defence shot down 23 drones, but debris from downed drones damaged several buildings in the capital and the region.
No casualties have been reported so far.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Europe Politics |
Breakthrough in trade relations between Canberra and Beijing with reports Australian coal is on its way to China
There has been a major breakthrough in trade relations between Australia and China with Beijing's unofficial ban on importing Australian coal set to come to an end.
An unofficial ban on China importing Australian coal is about to come to an end, with reports the first shipment in years is on its way north.
Sky News Australia Political Editor Andrew Clennell on Thursday detailed a report that appeared in the Chinese government mouthpiece, The Global Times, about the resumption of coal imports from Down Under.
"The article said: 'A Chinese steel firm has resumed to purchase Australian coal products, with the first shipment of about 72,000 tons of coking coal expected to arrive at Zhanjiang Port, South China's Guandong Province on February 8'," Clennell said.
"'The resumption comes amid restored enthusiasm and attention towards Chinese companies towards Australian goods thanks to wide expectations for an improvement in bilateral ties. It's also part of a diversification effort to reduce China's reliance on any single source'.
Stream more on this story and all the latest news with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2023
"The report goes on to say: 'Chinese companies that suspended coal trade with Australia are now turning their attention back to Australia, with the resumption of coal trade a real-life example'."
According to an industry insider quoted in The Global Times "the shipment from Australia is small and it will take time for more Chinese companies to regain confidence in the Australian side".
Clennell noted the news could provide a further boost to Treasurer Jim Chalmers ahead of the May federal budget, with the government's financial position already improved from iron ore sales to China, along with coal and gas exports to other parts of the world.
China's unofficial ban on importing Australian coal came as it slapped sanctions on barley, beef and wine imports at the height of tensions between Canberra and Beijing.
"The apparent change comes after the Foreign Minister Penny Wong visited China last year and Anthony Albanese had the first Australian bilateral meeting with a Chinese leader in five years in Bali last November," Clennell said.
Last month it was revealed Trade Minister Don Farrell will meet virtually with his Chinese counterpart in a further thawing of relations between the two countries.
Reports said Mr Farrell will speak with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao "in the near future", in the first such talks between the nations in about three years.
Mr Farrell told The Australian how he was looking forward to discussing the trade sanctions with his counterpart in Beijing "as soon as practicable".
"I made it very clear right from the day I took over this job seven months ago, that we would much prefer to sort this out with China through dialogue and discussion rather than arbitration through the World Trade Organisation," he said. | Australia Politics |
India has said it is exploring all legal options after a court in Qatar sentenced eight former Indian naval officers to death on unspecified charges.
Reports say the eight men, who worked with a private company in Qatar, were arrested on spying charges last year.
Neither Qatar nor India have revealed the specific charges against them.
On Thursday, the Indian government said it was "deeply shocked" and will take up the verdict with Qatari authorities.
The country's foreign ministry said it was awaiting the detailed judgment and attaches "high importance to this case" and "have been following it closely".
"We are in touch with the family members and the legal team, and we are exploring all legal options," the ministry said in a statement, adding that it will not make further comment because of the "confidential nature of proceedings of this case".
Millions of Indians live in the Gulf, where they work as semi-skilled and unskilled low-income workers.
These migrant workers have played a key role in building the economies of Gulf Arab states and also make an important source of income for India.
Reports say the eight men used to work for defence services company in Doha. Their arrest in August last year had made front page headlines in India.
According to The Hindu newspaper, the men were allegedly accused of "breaching sensitive secrets" but neither of the governments have confirmed this. The BBC could not independently verify the allegations but has reached out to the Qatar embassy with questions.
Experts say the recent diplomatic tensions could impact relations between the two countries. "There are over 700,000 Indians in Qatar and we have close economic ties. The Indian government has been following the case closely without doubt, but would need to take it up at the highest level to ensure their lives are saved," Former Indian ambassador to Qatar Deepa Gopalan told The Hindu.
In December, India's Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told the parliament that the government had been in constant touch with Qatar over the "very sensitive case".
"Their interests are foremost in our minds. Ambassadors and senior officials are in constant touch with Qatar's govt. We assure, they're our priority," he said.
BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click here to subscribe and watch our documentaries, explainers and features.
Read more India stories from the BBC:
- The firebrand Indian MP in âcash-for-queryâ scandal
- Indian cricket legend Bishan Bedi dies aged 77
- Stricter rules for India student hub after suicides
- The Indian magician whose 'X-ray eyes' charmed the West
- The lesbian activist seeking marriage equality in India
- How Shah Rukh Khan went from romance king to action star | India Politics |
Daniel Andrews defends Anthony Albanese after the PM was criticised for spending more time at the tennis than Alice Springs
Daniel Andrews has said Anthony Albanese "works hard every day" after the Prime Minister copped criticism for spending three nights at the tennis in Melbourne amid the Alice Springs crime crisis.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has defended Anthony Albanese's work ethic after the Prime Minister was criticised for the time he spent at the Australian Open.
Mr Andrews on Tuesday declared Mr Albanese, his friend of three decades, "works hard every day" and described the Melbourne Park tournament as a "significant event".
Mr Albanese spent three nights watching the tennis in Melbourne, including the men's final and a semi-final and the women's final.
His appearance at the Grand Slam on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights came the same week he spent only four hours on the ground in Alice Springs amid a crime crisis.
Stream more on politics with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. New to Flash? Try 1 month free. Offer ends 31 October, 2023
Mr Andrews told reporters "how things look is a matter for others to judge" and that Mr Albanese "travels right throughout the country".
"He work's a pretty full week in my experience. I’m often talking to him very late at night about work, about a lot of important reform," the Premier said.
"I've known the Prime Minister going on 30 years and in my experience you won't find a harder working person.
"So people can form their own views but what I know, not a matter of perception, a matter of fact, is the Prime Minister works hard every day.
"There's no leave if you're the PM, and he's all about getting things done and all about making sure all the commitments that he made at the election are delivered in full."
Government Services and NDIS Minister Bill Shorten, who Mr Albanese replaced as federal Labor leader, also leapt to the Prime Minister's defence on Tuesday.
Mr Shorten was asked by Sky News Australia host Peter Peter Stefanovic if Mr Albanese had his priorities misplaced.
"His priorities are to make sure that Alice Springs the community there is safe," Mr Shorten, the Member for Maribyrnong in Melbourne's north-west, said.
"The problems in the Northern Territory and Alice Springs in particular, I think have been 25 years in the making. What we're seeing is all of the failures of past policy and rebuilding community there’s going to take time and that's the Prime Minister's priority.
"But it is really pretty irrelevant of the Liberals to criticize him for being at the tennis, the reality is he's been to Alice Springs. It's a major issue for him.
"In terms of visiting the tennis, he goes every year. This is nothing new. And also he's one of the hardest working blokes I've ever met."
Manager of Opposition Business Paul Fletcher had questioned the timing of Mr Albanese's tennis trip due to the pressing issue of rampant crime in the Northern Territory.
"It's a perfectly reasonable question. The Prime Minister spent a lot of time at the tennis… but there are pressing issues in relation to the safety of Indigenous Australians in Alice Springs," Mr Fletcher told Sky News Australia on Tuesday.
"Let's see some focus from the Prime Minister on this pressing issue of public safety."
Melbourne radio presenter Neil Mitchell was even more scathing while interviewing Mr Shorten, likening the behaviour to that of Scott Morrison's awfully timed Hawaii trip.
"I don't deny he should go to the tennis, it's a good thing. But three days and a few hours in Alice Springs. We have a real crisis there," Mr Mitchell said on 3AW on Tuesday.
"The Prime Minister has to do something and he has to be seen to do something. At least ScoMo paid his own way to Hawaii, we paid for Albo to go to the tennis."
Indigenous Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price told The Herald Sun she found images of Mr Albanese "chugging beers" and eating ice cream at the Australian Open an "insult and a kick in the guts".
"For the people of Alice Springs to see the PM spending more time relaxing and chugging back beers at the tennis than what he did on the ground in Alice Springs," Senator Price said.
The Prime Minister was not the only famous face to attend Sunday's spectacular Djokovic versus Tsisipas final, with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Bill Gates and former pies boss Eddie McGuire also in the crowd.
Mr Albanese visited Alice Springs on Tuesday afternoon following community outcry and national coverage of escalating crime in the town, and threw his support behind a number of Northern Territory Government measures.
The pressure led to reinstating bans on the sale of takeaway alcohol on Mondays and Tuesdays over the next three months as well as limiting transactions for customers. | Australia Politics |
Milan — Italy's nationalist government is leading the revolt against European Union plans to tighten vehicle emissions limits, vowing to defend the automotive industry in a country still attached to the combustion engine. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's far-right coalition, which came into office last October, tried and failed to block EU plans to ban the sale of new cars running on fossil fuels by 2035, which her predecessor Mario Draghi had supported.
But this week the government shifted its fight to planned "Euro 7" standards on pollutants, joining seven other EU member states — including France and Poland — to demand Brussels scrap the limits due to come into force in July 2025.
"Italy is showing the way, our positions are more and more widely shared," said Enterprise Minister Adolfo Urso, a fervent defender of national industry in the face of what he has called an "ideological vision" of climate change.
The EU plan "is clearly wrong and not even useful from an environmental point of view," added Transport Minister Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right League party, which shares power with Meloni's post-fascist Brothers of Italy.
Salvini led the failed charge against the ban on internal combustion engines, branding it "madness" that would "destroy thousands of jobs for Italian workers" while benefiting.
Federico Spadini from Greenpeace Italy lamented that "environmental and climate questions are always relegated to second place," blaming a "strong industrial lobby in Italy" in the automobile and energy sectors.
"None of the governments in recent years have been up to the environmental challenge," he told AFP.
"Unfortunately, Italy is not known in Europe as a climate champion. And it's clear that with Meloni's government, the situation has deteriorated," he said.
Jobs "orientated towards traditional engines"
In 2022, Italy had nearly 270,000 direct or indirect employees in the automotive sector, which accounted for 5.2 percent of GDP.
The European Association of Automotive Suppliers (CLEPA) has warned that switching to all electric cars could lead to more than 60,000 job losses in Italy by 2035 for automobile suppliers alone.
"Since Fiat was absorbed by Stellantis in 2021, Italy no longer has a large automobile industry, but it remains big in terms of components, which are all orientated towards traditional engines," noted Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at the Italian Treasury.
"Extremely behind"
For consumers too, the electric revolution has yet to arrive.
Italians are attached to their cars, ranking fourth behind Liechtenstein, Iceland and Luxembourg with 670 passenger cars per 1,000 inhabitants, according to the latest Eurostat figures from 2020.
But sales of electric cars fell by 26.9 percent in 2022, to just 3.7 percent of the market, against 12.1 percent for the EU average.
Subsidies to boost zero emissions vehicles fell flat, while Minister Urso has admitted that on infrastructure, "we are extremely behind."
Italy has just 36,000 electric charging stations, compared to 90,000 for the Netherlands, a country a fraction of the size of Italy, he revealed.
"There is no enthusiasm for electric cars in Italy," Felipe Munoz, an analyst with the automotive data company Jato Dynamics, told AFP. "The offer is meagre, with just one model manufactured by national carmaker Fiat."
In addition, "purchasing power is not very high, people cannot afford electric vehicles, which are expensive. So, the demand is low, unlike in Nordic countries."
Gerrit Marx, head of the Italian truck manufacturer Iveco, agrees.
"We risk turning into a big Cuba, with very old cars still driving around for years, because a part of the population will not be able to afford an electric model," he said.
for more features. | Europe Politics |
Taliban take out ‘mastermind’ of bombing that killed 13 U.S. troops in Afghanistan
U.S. officials took no part in the raid, but have since independently confirmed the terrorist’s death.
The terrorist leader responsible for planning the attack on Abbey Gate during the evacuation from Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members was killed in a Taliban operation in Afghanistan, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby confirmed Tuesday.
The U.S. government had no part in the Taliban raid, which took place in recent weeks, said a senior administration official, who like others interviewed for this story who were granted anonymity to speak ahead of a formal U.S. announcement. The officials declined to say exactly when the raid occurred, or name the terrorist killed, citing “sensitivities.”
“The ISIS-K terrorist who was the mastermind of the horrific attack at Abbey Gate that killed 13 brave American servicemembers and many others has been removed from the battlefield,” Kirby said in a statement after POLITICO published this story, referring to the Islamic State Khorasan, the branch operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia. “He was a key ISIS-K official directly involved in plotting operations like Abbey Gate, and now is no longer able to plot or conduct attacks.”
After U.S. officials learned of the Taliban operation, the intelligence community worked with the military in recent days to independently confirm the terrorist’s death with “a high level of confidence,” the official said. The Biden administration is holding off on announcing the news until the family members of the victims of the Abbey Gate attack have been notified.
“We are not partnering with the Taliban, but we do think the outcome is a significant one,” the senior official said.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have criticized the chaotic withdrawal after the rapid collapse of the Afghan government in August, 2021. They have also questioned whether the Biden administration has the ability to prevent another terrorist attack on the homeland without a presence on the ground in Afghanistan.
But the senior administration official noted that the Taliban operation validates Biden’s decision to withdraw American troops from Afghanistan.
It “reflects moreover the president’s judgment that we did not need to remain on the ground, in harm’s way, in Afghanistan in perpetuity in order to effectively address any threat that might emanate from Afghanistan,” the official said.
Kirby said the Biden administration has “made clear to the Taliban that it is their responsibility to ensure that they give no safe haven to terrorists, whether al Qa’ida or ISIS-K.”
The U.S. government has been hunting the Islamic State member responsible for the attack since Aug. 26, 2021, when a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device outside of the Abbey Gate at Hamid Karzai International Airport where U.S. service members were working to evacuate American citizens and at-risk Afghans. In addition to the service members killed, at least 170 Afghans also died in the attack.
At the time, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the bombing. After an investigation, the Pentagon concluded that it was the result of a single bomber, not the “complex” attack U.S. officials initially described.
Since the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 31, 2021, Pentagon officials have warned that ISIS-K is becoming an increasing threat. In October of that year, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary for policy, told lawmakers that the group could be able to launch attacks on the West and its allies within six months to two years.
Although the U.S. military no longer has a presence on the ground in Afghanistan, the U.S. still maintains an “over-the-horizon” capability to hunt terrorists there, military leaders have said. The Pentagon has conducted a number of operations in the country since August 2021, including one that resulted in the death of 9/11 architect and al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in August of 2022.
In January, the military took out Bilal al-Sudani, a financial facilitator for ISIS and ISIS-K, who was hiding in Somalia, Kirby said. The U.S. and its partners have also killed many ISIS leaders in Syria in recent years, he added.
“We have made good on the president’s pledge to establish an over-the-horizon capacity to monitor potential terrorist threats, not only from in Afghanistan but elsewhere around the world where that threat has metastasized as we have done in Somalia and Syria,” Kirby said. | Asia Politics |
PARIS, Nov 16 (Reuters) - France on Thursday condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling it a "policy of terror" aimed at displacing Palestinians and urging Israeli authorities to protect Palestinians from the violence.
U.N. figures show that daily settler attacks have more than doubled, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
"Concerning the West Bank, I'd like to express the strongest condemnation by France of the violence carried out by the settlers against the Palestinians," foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre told a press conference.
"Violence which has the clear objective of forced displacement of the Palestinians and a policy of terror."
She said the Israeli authorities needed to take the necessary measures to protect the Palestinian population and warned that the settlement policy harmed the two-state solution.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk echoed her words. Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, Turk said he was deeply concerned about the intensification of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. He said it was clear the Israeli occupation must end.
This year was already the deadliest in at least 15 years for West Bank residents, with some 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis killed, according to United Nations data. But just in the three weeks since the Oct 7 attack, more than 120 West Bank Palestinians have been killed. Clashes with soldiers have caused most deaths.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war and it has been under military occupation since, while Israeli settlements have consistently expanded. Palestinians envisage the West Bank as part of a future independent state also including Gaza and East Jerusalem.
France's Legendre also said that about half the 100 tonnes of aid France had sent to Gaza had entered the enclave. She added it was not up to Israel to decide the future governance of Gaza, which she said should be part of a future Palestinian state.
Reporting by John Irish Editing by Bernadette Baum and Angus MacSwan
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. | Middle East Politics |
Israel's health ministry is investigating claims that Ethiopian women are being injected with a controversial contraceptive without their knowledge or consent.
Thousands of Ethiopian women are said to be receiving shots of Depo-Provera every three months in Israeli clinics. The contraceptive stops menstruation and has been linked to fertility problems and osteoporosis.
Yaakov Litzman, Israel's deputy minister of health, who has previously denied the practice, will lead the inquiry, a spokesperson announced on Wednesday.
The phenomenon was uncovered when social workers noticed the birth rate among Ethiopian immigrants halving in a decade. An Israeli documentary investigating the scandal was aired in December and prompted a popular outcry.
It revealed that women were started on a course of contraceptive jabs while still in transit camps in Ethiopia, some without being told they were being given birth control and many having no idea of the side-effects. When they eventually arrived in Israel, doctors continued the treatment unquestioningly. But the critical question remains unanswered as to who instigated the policy, with neither Israel nor Ethiopia willing to claim responsibility.
Sava Reuben, an Ethiopian who has lived in Israel since 1984, interviewed more than 35 women from her community for the film and found that 25 were still receiving contraceptive shots from healthcare providers.
Reuben spoke to one woman who believed she had been given a flu vaccination and had no idea she had been injected with Depo-Provera.
Another was pregnant with her fifth child when she arrived in the transit camp, where she would live for seven years. The woman in her thirties told Reuben that officials had gathered together all the new mothers in the camp and told them they would be given Depo-Provera as it would be too difficult for them to give birth Israel.
"No, we didn't want to take it, we refused. We said we didn't want it," the unnamed woman recalls in the film. She agreed to the injections only because she was told her immigration to Israel would be blocked and she would receive no further healthcare in the camps if she refused.
"This happened to many, many other women," Reuben said.
More than 50,000 Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel in the past decade. The fast-growing community has struggled against bias. In 1996, thousands rioted when it was discovered that the Israeli health ministry had destroyed all stocks of blood donated by Ethiopians on the grounds that it might be contaminated with HIV.
Israel's health ministry has strongly denied allegations that the injections are part of a policy to control the growth of the Ethiopian community.
"The Israel ministry of health neither advises nor encourages the use of Depo-Provera injections and if they are being administered this is in despite of our view," a spokesperson said.
And yet Reuben claims to have discovered a letter from the health ministry to a clinic in Ethiopia in 2000 thanking doctors there for the large numbers of women they had treated with Depo-Provera.
"Why are only Ethiopian women being given Depo-Provera in Israel? It's supposed to be a last-resort contraceptive. Israeli health authorities claim the injections are a cultural preference but in our culture, to have lots of children is to be rich," Reuben said.
"It is my opinion that this is a deliberate policy on the part of Israel. They are taking advantage of women who are weak because they are new to the country, do not understand the language and who traditionally respect authority. It makes me more than angry."
Dr Mushira Aboodia, a gynaecologist working at Jerusalem's Hadassah medical centre, said the majority of Ethiopian women she had met received Depo-Provera injections.
"This is a policy that no one will admit. No one in Israel will take responsibility for the treatment in the camps but someone must have instigated it and it would not be in Ethiopia's interests to treat women preparing to leave the country," Aboodia said.
"Something is definitely wrong here. I'm very glad the ministry of health will be investigating the issue. They will need to do a thorough job." | Middle East Politics |
Years of violent unrest and armed conflict in Ethiopia have resulted in countless abuses in regions across the country, with no end in sight, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.
Laetitia Bader, HRW Director for Horn of Africa wrote that since April 2023, the Ethiopian military and militias known as Fano have clashed in towns throughout the Amhara region after the government announced plans to dismantle and integrate all regional special forces in the country. The fighting has intensified in recent weeks, with increased reports of civilian casualties.
She indicated that Amhara residents have been living with the consequences of the two-year armed conflict in northern Ethiopia. The region was also managing an influx of ethnic Amhara fleeing violence and targeted attacks in the neighbouring Oromia region.
In response to the growing violence, the federal government has cracked down on dissent and freedom of expression.
HRW has documented the arrest of at least eight journalists reporting on the unrest, as well as the blocking of mobile internet access in early April. On Aug. 4, 2023, Ethiopia’s federal cabinet declared a six-month state of emergency and placed the Amhara region under a military command post accountable to the prime minister.
Previous states of emergency declarations under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s administration resulted in mass arrests, prolonged arbitrary detentions, politically motivated charges, and unlawful restrictions on movement and communication.
HRW is concerned that the current state of emergency could lead to further abuses, including the arbitrary detention of journalists, activists, and opposition figures.
The state of emergency declaration also contains sweeping restrictions on a range of actions that could undermine basic rights.
It grants the government far-reaching powers to arrest criminal suspects without a court order, impose curfews, ban public gatherings, and carry out searches without a warrant. While currently limited to Amhara, the declaration could be extended to “any area of the country as necessary.”
HRW calls on Ethiopia’s regional and international partners to forcefully urge the government to protect civilians in conflict-affected areas and respect basic rights. After years of rights crises throughout the country, now is not the time for concerned governments to ease up their scrutiny and pressure. | Human Rights |
Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics
newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
Thank you. Please check your inbox to confirm.
Samya Kullab, Associated Press
Samya Kullab, Associated Press
Leave your feedback
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian air defenses thwarted an intense Russian air attack on Kyiv early Tuesday, shooting down all 18 missiles aimed at the capital, officials said.
Loud explosions boomed over Kyiv as the nighttime attack combined Russian missiles launched from the air, sea and land in an apparent attempt to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses. No casualties were reported as Western-supplied weapons helped fend off the assault.
The barrage came as European leaders sought new ways to punish Russia for the war and a Chinese envoy sought traction for Beijing’s peace proposal.
Russia’s latest attack on Kyiv was “exceptional in its density — the maximum number of attacking missiles in the shortest period of time,” said Serhii Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration.
Valentyna Myronets, a 64-year-old Kyiv resident, said she felt “pain, fear, nervousness, restlessness” amid the assaults. “God, we are waiting for victory and when all this is over,” she said.
U.K. Ambassador Melinda Simmons tweeted that the barrage was “pretty intense.”
“Bangs and shaking walls are not an easy night,” she wrote.
It was the eighth time this month that Russian air raids had targeted the capital, a clear escalation after weeks of lull and ahead of a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive. It also came as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy concluded a whirlwind European tour to greet Ukraine’s key wartime allies, which spurred an additional tranche of pledged military aid.
Six “Kinzhal” aero-ballistic missiles were launched from MiG-31K aircraft, nine cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea and three land-based S-400 cruise missiles targeted the capital, air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said in a statement on Telegram.
After the first onslaught, Russia also launched Iranian-made Shahed attack drones and conducted aerial reconnaissance, Ihnat said.
Debris fell across several districts in the capital, starting fires, but no losses were reported, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Sophisticated air defense systems provided by Ukraine’s Western allies, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed elsewhere in the country as Russian forces press on with their tactic of long-range bombardment.
A Russian defense official said that Tuesday’s attack destroyed a Patriot missile battery in Kyiv. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said the system was destroyed by a “Kinzhal.”
He didn’t provide evidence, and the statement couldn’t be independently verified.
The bolstered air defenses have deterred Russian aircraft from going deep into Ukraine and helped shape the course of the war, military experts say.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov cheered the display of defensive prowess, calling it in a tweet “another unbelievable success.”
The barrage came as European leaders were due to attend a rare summit of the 46-nation Council of Europe, the continent’s main human rights body.
The two-day meeting in Iceland seeks to set up a way of logging damage in Ukraine caused by the Kremlin’s forces so compensation claims can be lodged against Moscow.
Meanwhile, a Chinese envoy is preparing to visit Ukraine and Russia in coming days as Beijing presses the peace plan it released in February.
Li Hui, a former ambassador to Moscow, also will visit Poland, France and Germany, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government says it is neutral and wants to play a role as mediator in the war, but it has given Moscow political support and a breakthrough appeared unlikely more than 14 months after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
At least seven civilians died and 14 others were wounded in Russian shelling of Ukrainian regions from Monday through Tuesday morning, the country’s presidential office said.
Support Provided By:
Learn more | Europe Politics |
Akal Takht Disqualifies Priests At Bathinda Gurdwara For Performing Same-Sex Wedding
The Akal Takht has disqualified the priests at a Bathinda gurdwara from performing religious services after they performed a same-sex wedding at the shrine last month.
The Akal Takht has disqualified the priests at a Bathinda gurdwara from performing religious services after they performed a same-sex wedding at the shrine last month.
The decision was announced by the Jathedar of the Akal Takht, the highest temporal body of the Sikhs, following a meeting of the 'Panj Singh Sahibans' (five Sikh clergymen) in Amritsar on Monday, a day before the Supreme Court pronounced its verdict on same-sex marriage.
Two women got 'married' at Gurdwara Kalgidhar Sahib in Bathinda district on Sept. 18. Following this, the Akal Takht had then suspended the 'granthis' (sikh priests), the management and the 'ragis' (gurbani exponents) of the gurdwara.
On Monday, Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh said there is no room for same-sex marriage under Sikh tenets and disqualified the priests from performing religious services.
Head Granthi Hardev Singh, priest Ajaib Singh, 'ragi' Sikandar Singh and 'tabla vadak' Satnam Singh of the gurdwara have been blacklisted for five years for violating the 'Sikh rehat maryada' (code of conduct).
They will not be allowed to perform any religious service at any gurdwara or at religious events, the Jathedar said on Monday. The gurdwara management committee members have been barred from holding any position in any other gurdwara.
The Akal Takht had in 2005 issued a 'hukamnama' (religious edict) against same-sex marriage when Giani Joginder Singh Vedanti was the Jathedar.
He had then urged the Sikh community not to allow such marriages at any gurdwara. | India Politics |
Subsets and Splits