Send us Patriots: Ukraine’s battered energy plants seek air defenses against Russian attacks

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Workers stand among debris in a damaged DTEK thermal power plant after a Russian attack in Ukraine, on May 2, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 03 May 2024
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Send us Patriots: Ukraine’s battered energy plants seek air defenses against Russian attacks

  • Ukraine's foreign minister has said half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries

KYIV, Ukraine: At a Ukrainian power plant repeatedly hit by Russian aerial attacks, equipment department chief Oleh has a one-word answer when asked what Ukraine’s battered energy industry needs most: “Patriot.”

Ukrainian energy workers are struggling to repair the damage from intensifying airstrikes aimed at pulverizing Ukraine’s energy grid, hobbling the economy and sapping the public’s morale. Staff worry they will lose the race to prepare for winter unless allies come up with air-defense systems like the US-made Patriots to stop Russian attacks inflicting more destruction on already damaged plants.
“Rockets hit fast. Fixing takes long,” Oleh said in limited but forceful English.
The US has sent Ukraine some Patriot missile systems, and said last week it would give more after entreaties from President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Associated Press on Thursday visited a plant owned by DTEK, the country’s biggest private energy supplier, days after a cruise-missile attack left parts of it a mess of smashed glass, shattered bricks and twisted metal. The coal-fired plant is one of four DTEK power stations struck on the same day last week.
The AP was given access on the condition that the location of the facility, technical details of the damage and workers’ full names are not published due to security concerns.
During the visit, State Emergency Service workers in hard hats and harnesses clambered atop the twisted roof of a vast building, assessing the damage and occasionally dislodging chunks of debris with a thunderous clang.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Foreign Policy magazine that half of the country’s energy system has been damaged by Russian attacks.
DTEK says it has lost 80 percent of its electricity-generating capacity in almost 180 aerial attacks since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. It estimates that repairing all the damaged plants would take between six months and two years — even if there are no more strikes.
Shift supervisor Ruslan was on duty in the operations room when the air alarm sounded. He sent his crew to a basement shelter but remained at his post when the blast struck only meters (yards) away.
He rushed out to darkness, dust and fire. He said he wasn’t scared because “I knew what I needed to do” – make sure his team was OK and then try to help put out the flames.
Russia pummeled Ukraine’s energy infrastructure to devastating effect during the “blackout winter” of 2022-23. In March it launched a new wave of attacks, one of which completely destroyed the Trypilska power plant near Kyiv, one of the country’s biggest.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed the attacks as retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Oleh said the Russians are “learning all the time” and adapting their tactics. Initially they targeted transformers that distribute power; now they aim for the power-generating equipment itself, with increasing accuracy. The Russians also are sending growing numbers of missiles and exploding drones to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, and striking the same targets repeatedly.
DTEK executive director Dmytro Sakharuk said in March that out of 10 units the company had repaired after earlier strikes, two-thirds had been hit again.
More Russian missiles have been getting through in recent months as Ukraine awaited new supplies from allies, including a $61 billion package from the US that was held up for months by wrangling in Congress. It was finally approved in April, but it could be weeks or months before all the new weapons and ammunition arrives.
Ukraine’s energy firms have all but exhausted their finances, equipment and spare parts fixing the damage Russia has already wrought. The country’s power plants urgently need specialist equipment that Ukraine can no longer make at sufficient speed and scale.
Some 51 DTEK employees have been wounded in attacks since 2022, and three have been killed. Staff say they keep working despite the danger because they know how crucial their work is.
Machine operator Dmytro, who was on shift during the recent attack and took shelter in the basement, said that when he emerged, “my soul was bleeding when I saw the scale of the destruction.”
He thought of the many people who had poured heart and soul into building the mammoth power plant.
“This was destroyed in a few seconds, in an instant,” he said.
Dmytro, who worked at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant before it was seized by Russia, said he would continue to show up for work every day, “as long as I’m able.”
“It’s our duty toward the country,” he said


In New Zealand’s Parliament, a battered cookie tin decides which new laws get debated

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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

Updated 22 min 32 sec ago
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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
KAMPALA: A Ugandan activist who was arrested and held “incommunicado” in Tanzania after attempting to attend a treason trial for an opposition leader has been found at the Ugandan border with “indications of torture,” a rights group said Friday.
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

Updated 33 min 34 sec ago
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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.


British king to visit Ottawa amid Trump-Canada tension

Updated 35 min 16 sec ago
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British king to visit Ottawa amid Trump-Canada tension

  • The 76-year-old monarch is also Canada’s head of state as part of the Commonwealth
  • Queen Camilla will accompany him on the 24-hour visit to the capital Ottawa

LONDON: Britain’s King Charles III will travel to Canada early next week for a brief but “impactful” visit, at a time when President Donald Trump is floating the idea of making his northern neighbor the 51st US state.

The 76-year-old monarch, who is also Canada’s head of state as part of the Commonwealth, has never publicly commented on the ambitions of the US president, a noted admirer of the royal family.

Despite battling cancer for over a year, Charles accepted an invitation from Canada’s newly appointed Prime Minister Mark Carney to deliver the “speech from the throne” at the reopening of parliament on May 27, outlining the new center-left government’s priorities.

Queen Camilla will accompany him on the 24-hour visit to the capital Ottawa.

“The King and Queen are very much looking forward to the program, mindful that it is a short visit but hopefully an impactful one,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said as the couple’s May 26-27 itinerary was released this week.

The throne speech is expected to draw close scrutiny, especially on sovereignty and trade, amid Trump’s renewed rhetoric about annexing the country of 41 million and his recent imposition of higher tariffs.

Charles “will outline our government’s plan to build Canada strong,” Carney said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Earlier he said: “This is a historic honor which matches the weight of our times.”

Traditionally, the speech is read by the governor general, the monarch’s representative in Canada.

The last British sovereign to deliver the speech in Canada was Queen Elizabeth II in 1977.

Carney, who became prime minister in late April, made defending Canada’s sovereignty central to his campaign.

During a May 6 meeting at the White House, he told Trump that Canada “is not for sale.”

“It won’t be for sale, ever,” he said, responding to the US president’s talk of the “tremendous benefits” of a “wonderful marriage.”

This will be Charles’s 20th visit to Canada, but his first since becoming king in September 2022. It is Camilla’s sixth visit and her first as queen.

The visit will begin Monday afternoon with a community event at the city’s Lansdowne Park celebrating Canada’s diversity and cultural heritage through music and crafts.

The king will also meet with Carney and Governor General Mary Simon.

At Rideau Hall, the official residence of the governor general, the king will plant a tree before a short reception with the lieutenant governors of Canada’s 10 provinces and the territorial commissioners.

On May 27, the king and queen will ride in a carriage pulled by 28 horses to the Senate for the throne speech, scheduled around 1500 GMT, with full military honors.

The visit will conclude with a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

A Canadian doctor has been assigned to the king, who is undergoing weekly treatment for an unspecified cancer.


Paris court will deliver the verdict in Kim Kardashian jewelry heist trial

Updated 23 May 2025
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Paris court will deliver the verdict in Kim Kardashian jewelry heist trial

  • At the heart of the trial is Aomar Aït Khedache, a veteran of Paris’ criminal underworld
  • Prosecutors have asked for a 10-year sentence, the loot was never found

PARIS: A decade after robbers stormed Kim Kardashian’s luxury residence and tied her up at gunpoint, a Paris court is set Friday to decide the verdict in one of the most audacious celebrity heists in modern French history.
Nine men and a woman stand accused of carrying out — or aiding — the crime during the 2016 Paris Fashion Week, when masked men dressed as police entered Kardashian’s Paris home, bound her with zip-ties and vanished with $6 million in jewels.
At the heart of the trial is 70-year-old Aomar Aït Khedache, a veteran of Paris’ criminal underworld. Prosecutors have asked for a 10-year sentence. His DNA, found on the zip-ties used to bind Kardashian, cracked open the case. Wiretaps captured him giving orders, recruiting accomplices, and arranging to sell the diamonds in Belgium. The loot was never found.
Khedache claims he was only a foot soldier. He blamed a mysterious “X” or “Ben” — someone prosecutors say never existed.
The accused became known in France as “les papys braqueurs” — the grandpa robbers. Some arrived in court in orthopedic shoes and one leaned on a cane. Some read the proceedings from a screen, hard of hearing and nearly mute. But prosecutors warned observers not to be seduced by soft appearances.
The trial is being heard by a panel of three judges and six jurors, who will need a majority vote to reach a verdict.
The defendants face charges including armed robbery, kidnapping and gang association. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
Kardashian’s testimony earlier this month was the emotional high point. In a packed courtroom, she recounted how she was thrown onto a bed, zip-tied, and had a gun pressed to her on the night of Oct. 2, 2016.
“I absolutely did think I was going to die,” she said. “I have babies. I have to make it home. They can take everything. I just have to make it home.”
She was dragged into a marble bathroom and told to stay silent. When the robbers fled, she freed herself by scraping the tape on her wrists off against the sink, then she hid with her friend, shaking and barefoot.
She said Paris had once been her sanctuary — a city she would wander at 3 a.m., window shopping, stopping for hot chocolate. That illusion was shattered.
The robbery echoed far beyond the City of Light. It forced a recalibration of celebrity behavior in the digital age. For years, Kardashian had curated her life like a showroom: geo-tagged, diamond-lit, public by design. But this was the moment the showroom turned into a crime scene. In her words, “People were watching… They knew where I was.”
Afterward, she stopped posting her location in real time. She stripped her social media feed of lavish gifts and vanished from Paris for years. Other stars followed suit. Privacy became luxury.
Defense attorneys have asked the court for leniency, citing the defendants’ age and health. But prosecutors insist that criminal experience, not frailty, defined the gang.
On Friday morning, the accused will speak one final time before the court withdraws to deliberate.
Even for France’s painstakingly thorough legal system, observers commented about how long it took for the case to be tried.
Kardashian, who once said “this experience really changed everything,” hopes the verdict will offer a measure of closure.