KYIV, Ukraine: A top US official said Wednesday that Washington could not predict when a vital $60-billion military aid package for Ukraine would be passed in Congress, as Volodymyr Zelensky called for Western air defenses after a Russian missile attack killed at least five.
A fresh round of aerial bombardments by both sides left civilians dead on Wednesday as strikes escalate in the third year of the war.
Kyiv’s army is facing manpower and ammunition shortages amid political wrangling in the US Congress that has raised uncertainty over the future of Western support.
Addressing the stalled aid bill while on a visit to Kyiv on Wednesday, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said: “It has already taken too long. And I know that, you know that.”
“I’m not going to make predictions about exactly when this will get done, but we are working to get it done as soon as possible... but I cannot make a specific prediction today,” he told reporters at a press conference in the Ukrainian capital.
Republicans in the US House of Representatives have been blocking a sweeping aid package since last year, with the funding caught up in domestic arguments over President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
Washington is Ukraine’s most important military backer and has provided tens of billions of dollars in support since Moscow invaded in February 2022.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Tuesday that he was shocked the package of aid has not yet been unlocked.
And on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the West had vital air defense systems that could save Ukrainian lives if delivered to his country.
Despite the aid delay, Sullivan said he was “confident” the impasse would be overcome.
“We will get that money out the door,” he said.
Both Moscow and Kyiv said civilians had been killed in fresh aerial barrages Wednesday.
“Five people were killed by a Russia missile in Kharkiv today,” Zelensky said in his evening video address.
Another nine were injured and five more were unaccounted for as search and rescue operations continued into the night, local officials said. They warned the death toll could rise.
Ukrainian police said a Russian missile slammed into an eight-story building and a factory in the city, which lies 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the Russian border, at around 1:00 p.m. local time (1100 GMT).
Pictures showed a blaze raging inside the building and at least five fire engines on site. Ukraine’s emergency services published photos as darkness fell, showing windows of the factory blown out and firefighters walking through the charred interior.
Zelensky reiterated his call for air defense systems after the attack.
“Our partners have these defense systems. And our partners need to understand that air defenses must (be used to) protect lives,” he said in a video address.
Directly across the border from Kharkiv, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said multiple attacks had killed three people.
“Since early morning, the Graivoron district has come under massive strikes, including with the use of multiple rocket launcher systems,” Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said Wednesday in a post on Telegram.
Two people were killed there, and another man was killed in the regional capital, also called Belgorod, when shrapnel from a shelling attack hit his car, Gladkov said.
Kyiv has escalated drone, rocket and artillery fire on the region over the last two weeks, in a wave of attacks launched ahead of Russia’s presidential elections. Pro-Ukrainian paramilitaries have also attempted armed raids across the border.
Some schools in Belgorod would shift to remote learning, Gladkov said, a day after he ordered 9,000 children to be evacuated from areas closest to the Ukrainian border.
In Moscow, Russian President Putin vowed he would restore order to the border regions, as the fallout from his invasion continues to spill into Russian territory.
“The first thing is of course to ensure security. There are different ways, they are not easy, but we will do them,” he said, without elaborating.
Speaking inside the Kremlin’s gilded Andreyev Hall, Putin also said his win in a weekend presidential vote in which he faced no competition would be followed by success on the battlefield.
“Victory in the elections is just a prologue to those victories that Russia so badly needs and that will definitely come,” he said.
Russian forces have secured their first territorial gains in almost a year and this week claimed to have made further advances in the eastern Donetsk region.
Ukraine also reported civilian fatalities in areas close to the fighting on Wednesday.
In the south of the country, Russian shelling killed two people outside the city of Kherson and in the east, another two were killed near Vugledar in the Donetsk region.
White House warns Kyiv it cannot say when Ukraine aid will come
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White House warns Kyiv it cannot say when Ukraine aid will come
- Kyiv’s army is facing manpower and ammunition shortages amid political wrangling in the US Congress that has raised uncertainty over the future of Western support
Taliban in talks with Russia, China for trade transactions in local currencies
- Annual bilateral trade between Russia and Afghanistan is currently around $300 million
- Afghanistan’s financial sector has been largely cut off from the global banking system due to sanctions
The Afghan government has made similar proposals to China, the minister, Hajji Nooruddin Azizi, told Reuters on Thursday. Some discussions have been held with the Chinese embassy in Kabul, he said.
The proposal with Russia, Azizi said, was being worked on by technical teams from the two countries. The move comes as Moscow focuses on using national currencies to shift reliance away from the dollar and as Afghanistan faces a stark drop in the US currency entering the country due to aid cuts.
“We are currently engaged in specialized discussions on this matter, considering the regional and global economic perspectives, sanctions, and the challenges Afghanistan is currently facing, as well as those Russia is dealing with. Technical discussions are underway,” Azizi said in an interview at his office in Kabul.
The Chinese foreign ministry and the Russian central bank did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Azizi added that annual bilateral trade between Russia and Afghanistan was currently around $300 million and that was likely to grow substantially as the two sides boost investment. His administration expected Afghanistan to buy more petroleum products and plastics from Russia, he said.
“I am confident that this is a very good option...we can use this option for benefit and interests of our people and our country,’ Azizi said.
“We want to take steps in this area with China as well,” he said, adding Afghanistan had around $1 billion in trade with China each year. “A working team composed of members from the (Afghan) Ministry of Commerce and the Chinese embassy which is an authorized body representing China in economic programs has been formed, and talks are ongoing.”
Afghanistan’s financial sector has been largely cut off from the global banking system due to sanctions placed on some leaders of the ruling Taliban, which took over the country in 2021 as foreign forces withdrew.
Rivalry with China and fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine have put the dollar’s status as the world’s dominant currency under fresh scrutiny in recent years. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the need to hold state reserves in foreign currencies since they could easily be confiscated for political reasons, saying that domestic investment of such reserves was more attractive.
The dollar has had a lock on commodity trading, allowing Washington to hinder market access for producer nations from Russia to Venezuela and Iran.
Afghanistan since 2022 has imported gas, oil and wheat from Russia, the first major economic deal after the Taliban returned to power facing international isolation following 20 years of war against US-led forces.
Billions of dollars in cuts to aid to Afghanistan, accelerated this year by the United States, have meant far fewer dollars, which are flown in cash for humanitarian operations, are entering the country.
Development agencies and economists say the Afghani currency has so far remained relatively stable but may face challenges in future.
Azizi said that the stability of the currency and his administration’s efforts to boost international investment including with the Afghan diaspora, would prevent a shortage of US dollars in the country.
Philippines’ Marcos keeps economic team, replaces foreign minister in cabinet revamp
- Marcos had asked all his cabinet secretaries to resign following the government’s disappointing performance in midterm elections last week
- Cabinet shake-up is widely seen as Marcos’ attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his term
MANILA: Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will retain his trade, finance, budget and economic planning ministers but will replace the foreign minister in an overhaul of his cabinet, his executive secretary said on Friday. Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin announced the changes after Marcos had asked all his cabinet secretaries to resign following the government’s disappointing performance in midterm elections last week. “The president decided to retain these five members of the economic team so that there will be no more problems of perception about where the country is going,” Bersamin told a briefing.
Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo will be replaced by his undersecretary, Theresa Lazaro, who will take the helm from July 31. Manalo was named as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
The environment secretary will be replaced by the energy secretary, Bersamin said, adding the performance review was ongoing and decisions would be announced as they are made.
“More action will be coming,” he said.
The cabinet shake-up is widely seen as Marcos’ attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term after a bruising midterm election and in the wake of falling approval ratings.
In New Zealand’s Parliament, a battered cookie tin decides which new laws get debated
WELLINGTON: Under the scrutiny of a black-robed official and before a hushed audience, a decorative cookie tin rattles like a bingo drum. Inside: the future of New Zealand ‘s laws.
The ceremonial lottery at Parliament, where bills are drawn randomly from what’s known as “the biscuit tin” in local parlance, is a way to ensure every New Zealand legislator has the chance to advance a proposed law, no matter how unpopular their bid. When a rare empty slot opens on Parliament’s agenda, the battered metal cookie tin is produced from a glass case and its solemn and silly rite is hastily arranged.
Inside the faded vessel with a peeling label might be an ambitious social initiative considered too risky for partisan support, a sensible but dull measure to tweak a statute, or a lawmaker’s controversial hobby horse that their party wishes they’d stop talking about. The tin doesn’t judge.
A quirky tin becomes a democratic tool
The quaintly patterned container, bought from a Wellington department store by a Parliament staffer in the early 1990s, might seem like a gag but the ritual selection of bills from it is a serious affair. Where decisions governing which bills are debated by legislators in Parliament are often determined by backroom brokering and subject to political gatekeeping, the cookie tin strikes an egalitarian note.
“We ate the biscuits, got some bingo tokens numbered one through to 90, I think, and that is the way that the random numbers are drawn now, rather than any kind of computer system,” said David Wilson, the Clerk of New Zealand’s House of Representatives. “Which has become quite an iconic part of our democracy.”
An unusual public ritual
Most laws that pass through New Zealand’s Parliament need never enter the ballot. They’re part of the government’s legislative agenda, advanced by senior legislators from ruling parties who already know their proposals will succeed by vote.
But on one day each fortnight that Parliament sits, bills drawn from the cookie tin are debated. On Thursday, with spaces for three new bills suddenly available, Wilson presided over a ballot in Parliament’s library.
A small crowd of staffers and lawmakers watched as the clerk’s colleagues tipped numbered bingo tokens representing each bill into the cookie tin with a flourish, shook the vessel, and drew. Spectators could find out by email which bills had won the lottery, Wilson said.
“I just think they quite like the performance of it,” he said.
All lawmakers who aren’t ministers are permitted to enter one bill at a time into the ballot. It’s drawn by someone who isn’t affiliated to a political party including school students or visitors celebrating birthdays.
So-called members’ bills – and ballot or negotiation systems to select which will advance – are a feature of Westminster parliamentary democracies worldwide. But Wilson did not know of another country with such an unusual ceremony.
Tradition replaces overnight scramble
The ritual began pragmatically, a bid to end a practice that wearied officials before. Once, lawmakers would race to the clerk’s office to submit bills when a spot on the agenda became free, sometimes queuing overnight.
It prompted the purchase of the cookie tin and a tradition that blends dry procedural necessity and New Zealand’s cheerful cultural irreverence. Visitors to Parliament can buy mugs and socks printed with the tin’s distinctive blue pattern at the gift shop.
Cookie tin shapes major laws
The lottery has produced some of New Zealand’s most notable modern laws. Bills legalizing marriage equality and voluntary euthanasia were once drawn from the cookie tin and eventually enacted after their sponsors launched sweeping public campaigns to sway the opinions of their peers.
That was the hope of two lawmakers whose measures were selected from the ballot Thursday and who said they would campaign to rally cross-party support.
Arena Williams will seek a law change forcing greater transparency about the fees associated with international money transfers, which she said would especially benefit working people who send money to their families abroad. It was the second of her measures selected from the tin, improbably good luck for a lawmaker of fewer than five years.
Meanwhile, a “delighted” Tim van de Molen, whose law would prohibit the improper use or disposal of military decorations, was celebrating his first cookie tin victory after seven and a half years in Parliament.
“It’s a quirky part of our system that I think is typically Kiwi,” he said. “It’s a pretty basic sort of system, but she’ll be right. It does the job.”
Ugandan activist arrested in Tanzania found ‘tortured’ at border: rights group
- Ugandan activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire was arrested earlier this week alongside her Kenyan counterpart, Boniface Mwangi
- Atuhaire and Mwangi were among activists who went to Tanzania to show solidarity with opposition leader Tundu Lissu
Ugandan activist and journalist Agather Atuhaire was arrested earlier this week alongside her Kenyan counterpart, Boniface Mwangi, a prominent campaigner against corruption and police brutality in Kenya.
Atuhaire and Mwangi were among activists who went to Tanzania to show solidarity with opposition leader Tundu Lissu at the latest hearing of his treason trial on Monday.
Ugandan rights group Agora Discourse posted on X on Friday that Atuhaire had been found.
“She was abandoned at the border by Tanzanian authorities,” it said.
Its co-founder Spire Ssentongo said that “Agather is under the care of family and friends.”
“She was dumped at the border at night by the authorities and there are indications of torture,” Ssentongo added.
Police in Tanzania initially told a Tanzanian rights group that Mwangi and Atuhaire would be deported by air.
But Mwangi was also found abandoned on a roadside in northern Tanzania near the Kenyan border, according to the local newspaper Daily Nation.
“We were both treated worse than dogs, chained, blindfolded and underwent a very gruesome torture,” Mwangi told reporters on his return to Nairobi.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu Hassan said earlier this week that foreign activists would not be allowed to interfere in the country’s affairs.
She urged security services “not to allow ill-mannered individuals from other countries to cross the line here.”
North Korea denies warship was severely damaged as full investigation underway on its failed launch
- North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un expressed fury over an incident that he said was caused by criminal negligence
- Satellite imagery on the site showed vessel lying on its side and draped in blue covers, with parts of it submerged
SEOUL: North Korea is seeking to arrest those responsible for the failed launch of its second naval destroyer, as it denied the warship suffered major damage – a claim quickly met with outside skepticism.
A statement from North Korea on its handling of the botched launch came after leader Kim Jong Un expressed fury over an incident that he said was caused by criminal negligence. The main military committee said Friday that those responsible would be held responsible for an “unpardonable criminal act.”
Satellite imagery on the site showed vessel lying on its side and draped in blue covers, with parts of it submerged. North Korea says it’ll take about 10 days to repair its damage, but outside observers question that timeframe because damage to the ship appeared much worse than what North Korea claims.
Here is what you need to know about the failed ship launch:
How much damage was there to the ship
North Korea’s state news agency, KCNA, said Friday that the severity of the damage to the 5,000-ton-class destroyer was “not serious” as it canceled an earlier assessment that the bottom of the hull had been left with holes.
It said the hull on the starboard side was scratched and some seawater had flowed into the stern section. But it said it’ll take a total of 10 days to pump up the seawater, set the ship upright and fix the scratches.
It’s almost impossible to verify the assessment because of the extremely secretive nature of North Korea. It has a history of manipulating or covering up military-related setbacks, policy fiascoes and other mishaps, though it has periodically acknowledged some in recent years.
Lee Illwoo, an expert with the Korea Defense Network in South Korea, said the North Korean warship likely suffered much worse damage, including the flooding of its engine room located in the stern section, and holes in the starboard. He said North Korea could simply set the ship upright, paint it and claim the ship has been launched, but that repairs could take more than a year as the replacement of an engine requires cutting the hull.
Why the ship’s launch failed
According to the North Korean account, the destroyer was damaged when a transport cradle on the ship’s stern detached early during a launch ceremony at the northeastern port of Chongjin on Wednesday.
Moon Keun-sik, a navy expert who teaches at Seoul’s Hanyang University, said North Korean workers are probably not familiar with launching a 5,000-tonne-class warship, which is nearly three times heavier than its existing main navy ships.
Observers say North Korea tried to launch the destroyer sideways, a method it has never used for warships, although it has previously employed it with big cargo and passenger ships.
Compared with those non-military vessels, Lee sad it would be more difficult to maintain balance with the destroyer because it’s equipped with heavy weapons systems. He suspected North Korean scientists and workers likely did not factor that in.
How Kim has reacted
The damaged ship is assessed as the same class as North Korea’s first destroyer, launched with great fanfare last month with a floating dry dock at a western shipyard. It is North Korea’s biggest and most advanced warship to date, and Kim called its construction “a breakthrough” in modernizing North Korea’s naval forces to cope with what he calls US-led security threats.
Subsequently, a failure to launch the second destroyer was an embarrassment for Kim. But by disclosing it to both internally and externally, Kim could be trying to show his resolve in modernizing naval forces and boost discipline at home. He ordered officials to thoroughly investigate the case and repair the warship before a high-level ruling Workers’ Party meeting in late June.
North Korea said Friday the country’s Central Military Commission summoned Hong Kil Ho, manager of the Chongjin shipyard, as it begun its investigation of the failed launch.
“No matter how good the state of the warship is, the fact that the accident is an unpardonable criminal act remains unchanged, and those responsible for it can never evade their responsibility for the crime,” the commission said, according to state media.
Kim Dong-yub, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea appears to be using the failed launch as a chance to strengthen the ruling party’s control over science and technological sectors.
Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea’s Science and Technology Policy Institute, said that North Korea’s handling of the damaged warship could have long-term consequences for its defense science sector, especially if military scientists face harsh punishment.
“If scientists are held severely accountable, I would say the future of North Korea’s defense science doesn’t look very bright, as it would be a sign that political responsibility is being prioritized over technical accountability,” Lee wrote on Facebook.
