BERLIN: The leaders of Britain and Germany pledged Wednesday to back Ukraine in its war with Russia for “as long as it takes,” but the German chancellor doubled down on his refusal to deliver long-range Taurus missiles to Kyiv.
UK Premier Rishi Sunak was on his first trip to the German capital since becoming prime minister 18 months ago, after visiting Poland on Tuesday where he pledged additional money for Kyiv and announced plans to boost UK defense spending.
“We’re united on wanting to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Sunak told reporters, adding that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggression must “end in failure.”
“We’re defending the values that are incredibly important to us,” the UK leader added, standing alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a press conference at Germany’s chancellery.
Sunak embarked on a two-day trip to Europe designed to get the spotlight back on Ukraine after months of world attention on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
In Poland, he pledged an additional £500 million ($617 million) for Ukraine, taking the amount of money the UK has contributed to Ukraine’s war effort to £12 billion.
Kyiv has been pleading with allies to ramp up supplies of ammunition and air defenses desperately needed to repel relentless Russian attacks.
US lawmakers eased the pressure last weekend by unblocking a $61-billion military aid package for Kyiv following six months of political wrangling.
But EU defense and foreign ministers insist that Europe must still speed up its deliveries of arms to Ukraine.
Germany has answered Kyiv’s call in recent days by saying it would send an extra Patriot air defense system to Ukraine.
But Scholz again resisted calls to send long-range Taurus missiles, which Ukraine desperately wants but which Germany fears would escalate the conflict.
“My decision is very clear” on not sending the Taurus, said Scholz.
“But my decision is also very clear that we will continue to be the biggest supporter of Ukraine in Europe,” he added.
Sunak hailed “a new chapter” in relations between Britain and Germany as they announced plans for a joint endeavour to develop remote-controlled Howitzer artillery systems that will be fitted to Boxer armored vehicles.
“At this dangerous moment for the world, the UK and Germany are standing side by side to preserve security and prosperity at home and across our continent,” Sunak said before landing in Berlin.
In Warsaw, the UK PM pledged to gradually increase UK defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030 as NATO countries face pressure to raise defense expenditure in the face of these global threats.
Sunak said that the West was facing its most dangerous period since the end of the Cold War, with Russia’s assault on Ukraine in its third year, but also the threat of escalation in the Middle East.
More of NATO’s European members — including heavyweights France and Germany — have increased their defense spending recently to meet the alliance’s two percent of GDP target.
Sunak refused to say that NATO should increase its target to 2.5 percent but added: “We recognize we need to do more,” adding: “I do believe we are in a world where defense spending is rising.”
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen recently warned that European countries need to boost defense budgets and Brussels is set to come up with further proposals by a summit of EU leaders in June.
It has put forward a 1.5-billion-euro ($1.6-billion) strategy to step up defense production, but officials say this is nowhere near sufficient.
The UK, which quit the European Union in early 2020, is among some 20 countries to have signed up to Germany’s air defense project called the European Sky Shield Initiative.
The project would involve joint procurement for short-, medium- and long-range systems, including the German-made Iris-T, the American Patriot system and the US-Israeli Arrow 3.
France has so far declined to sign up to the pact, with officials there arguing instead for an air defense system using European equipment.
Sunak, Scholz vow support for Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’
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Sunak, Scholz vow support for Ukraine for ‘as long as it takes’
- “We’re defending the values that are incredibly important to us,” the UK leader added
- Sunak embarked on a two-day trip to Europe designed to get the spotlight back on Ukraine after months of world attention on Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza
A British-Palestinian doctor was denied entry to France for a Senate meeting about the war in Gaza
Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe
PARIS: A well-known British-Palestinian surgeon who volunteered in Gaza hospitals said he was denied entry to France on Saturday to speak at a French Senate meeting about the Israel-Hamas war. Authorities wouldn’t give a reason for the decision.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta was placed in a holding zone in the Charles de Gaulle airport and will be expelled, according to French Sen. Raymonde Poncet Monge, who had invited him to speak at the Senate.
‘’It’s a disgrace,’’ she posted on X.
Abu Sitta posted on social networks that he was denied entry in France because of a one-year ban by Germany on his entry to Europe. Germany denied him entry last month, and France and Germany are part of Europe’s border-free Schengen zone. He posted Saturday that he was being sent back to London.
The French Foreign Ministry, Interior Ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority would not comment on what happened or give an explanation.
Abu Sitta had been invited by France’s left-wing Ecologists group in the Senate to speak at a colloquium Saturday about the situation in Gaza, according to the Senate press service. The gathering included testimony from medics, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza-related experience.
Last month Abu Sitta was denied entry to Germany to take part in a pro-Palestinian conference. He said he was stopped at passport control, held for several hours and then told he had to return to the UK He said airport police told him he was refused entry due to “the safety of the people at the conference and public order.”
Abu Sitta, who recently volunteered with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, has worked during multiple conflicts in the Palestinian territories, beginning in the late 1980s during the first Palestinian uprising. He has also worked in other conflict zones, including in Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
France has seen tensions related to the Mideast conflict almost daily since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas incursion into Israel. In recent days and weeks police have cleared out students at French campuses holding demonstrations and sit-ins similar to those in the United States.
Afghanistan’s only female diplomat resigns in India after gold smuggling allegations
- Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X
- According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity
ISLAMABAD: Afghanistan’s diplomat in India, who was appointed before the Taliban seized power in 2021 and said she was the only woman in the country’s diplomatic service, has resigned after reports emerged of her being detained for allegedly smuggling gold.
Zakia Wardak, the Afghan consul-general for Mumbai, announced her resignation on her official account on the social media platform X on Saturday after Indian media reported last week that she was briefly detained at the city’s airport on allegations of smuggling 25 bricks of gold, each weighing 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds), from Dubai.
According to Indian media reports, she has not been arrested because of her diplomatic immunity.
In a statement, Wardak made no mention of her reported detention or gold smuggling allegations but said, “I am deeply sorry that as the only woman present in Afghanistan’s diplomatic apparatus, instead of receiving constructive support to maintain this position, I faced waves of organized attacks aimed at destroying me.”
“Over the past year, I have encountered numerous personal attacks and defamation not only directed toward myself but also toward her close family and extended relatives,” she added.
Wardak said the attacks have “severely impacted my ability to effectively operate in my role and have demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society.”
The Taliban Foreign Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment on Wardak’s resignation. It wasn’t immediately possible to confirm whether she was the country’s only female diplomat.
She was appointed consul-general of Afghanistan in Mumbai during the former government and was the first Afghan female diplomat to collaborate with the Taliban.
The Taliban — who took over Afghanistan in 2021 during the final weeks of US and NATO withdrawal from the country — have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade as part of harsh measures they imposed despite initial promises of a more moderate rule.
They are also restricting women’s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, and arresting those who don’t comply with the Taliban’s interpretation of hijab, or Islamic headscarf.
Russia puts Ukraine's Zelensky on wanted list, TASS reports
- Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians
MOSCOW: Russia has opened a criminal case against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and put him on a wanted list, the state news agency TASS reported on Saturday, citing the Interior Ministry's database.
The entry it cited gave no further details.
Russia has issued arrest warrants for a number of Ukrainian and other European politicians since the start of the conflict with Ukraine in February 2022.
Russian police in February put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments.
Russia also issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor who last year prepared a warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
- Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger
- His wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation
BEIJING: A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country’s mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Wang Xiangnan was driving Wednesday along the highway in Guangdong province, a vital economic hub in southern China. At around 2 a.m., Wang saw several vehicles moving in the opposite direction of the four-lane highway and a fellow driver soon informed him about the collapse, local media reported.
Reacting swiftly, Wang, a former soldier, positioned his truck to block the highway, effectively stopping dozens of vehicles from advancing into danger, Jiupai News quoted Wang as saying. Meanwhile, his wife got out of the truck to alert other drivers about the situation, it said.
“I didn’t think too much. I just wanted to stop the vehicles,” Wang told the Chinese news outlet.
Wang’s courageous actions not only garnered praise from Chinese social media users but also recognition from the China Worker Development Foundation.
The foundation announced Friday that in partnership with a car company it had awarded Wang 10,000 yuan ($1,414). A charity project linked to tech giant Alibaba Group Holding also gave an equal amount to Wang, newspaper Dahe Daily reported. Wang told the newspaper he would donate the money to the families of the collapse victims.
Local media also reported that another man had knelt down to prevent cars from proceeding on the highway.
The accident came after a month of heavy rains in Guangdong. Some of the 23 vehicles that plunged into the deep ravine burst in flames, sending up thick clouds of smoke.
About 30 people were hospitalized. On Saturday, one was discharged from the hospital, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The others were improving, but one remains in serious condition.
On Saturday, the Meizhou city government in Guangdong said in a statement that authorities would conduct citywide checks on expressways, railways and roads in mountainous areas. A team led by the provincial governor is investigating the cause of the collapse, Southcn.com reported.
The Chinese government had sent a vice premier to oversee recovery efforts and urged better safety measures following calls by President Xi Jinping and the Communist Party’s No. 2 official, Premier Li Qiang, to swiftly handle the tragedy.
The dispatch of Zhang Guoqing, who is also a member of one of the ruling Communist Party’s leading bodies, illustrates the concern over a possible public backlash over the disaster, the latest in a series of deadly infrastructure failures.
Russia says it shot down four US-made long range missiles over Crimea
- The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17
MOSCOW: The Russian defense ministry said on Saturday its air defense forces shot down four US-produced long-range missiles over the Crimea peninsular, weapons known as Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that Washington has shipped to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ministry said later that Russian aircraft and air defense systems had downed a total of 15 ATACMS in the past week.
On Tuesday, Russian officials said Ukraine had attacked Crimea with ATACMS in an attempt to pierce Russian air defenses of the annexed peninsula but that six had been shot down.
A US official said in Washington last month that the United States secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine in recent weeks.
The ATACMS missiles, with a range up to 300km were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said.
The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, concerned that taking the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt US military readiness.
There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia, a step which could lead to an escalation of the war toward a direct confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Separately on Saturday, the Russian defense ministry said that in the last week its forces had destroyed a military train carrying equipment and arms produced in the West and supplied to Ukraine by NATO.
The scale of the damage, exact date and location were not disclosed.
Reuters is not immediately able to corroborate battlefield accounts from either side.
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron promised 3 billion pounds ($3.7 billion) of annual military aid for Ukraine for “as long as it takes,” adding that London had no objection to its weapons being used inside Russia, drawing a strong rebuke from Moscow.
