‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage

‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage
A view shows a damaged apartment building following a drone attack in the town of Ramenskoye in the Moscow region on Mar. 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 11 March 2025
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‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage

‘War has come’: Russians shaken by Ukrainian drone barrage
  • Like for most Russians, Moscow’s three-year military campaign had until then felt distant — mostly constrained to television screens
  • The attack shattered the sense of comfort that Svetlana — a supporter of the Kremlin’s offensive — had

RAMENSKOYE, Russia: As a drone smashed into the side of her apartment block early on Tuesday, Russia’s full-scale offensive on Ukraine literally came home to Svetlana in a suburb southeast of Moscow.
Like for most Russians, Moscow’s three-year military campaign had until then felt distant — mostly constrained to television screens.
Despite militaristic propaganda and a mass recruitment of soldiers, authorities have tried to keep society at arm’s length from the conflict’s death and destruction — especially in and around the capital.
“You understand that it is war, but you don’t realize it properly,” Svetlana, wearing a winter coat with a fur collar, said. “But now, yes, it has come.”
In her town of Ramenskoye, around 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of central Moscow, police had cordoned off an area where a drone hit.
The attack shattered the sense of comfort that Svetlana — a supporter of the Kremlin’s offensive — had.
“Yes, we were weaving camouflage nets, collecting humanitarian aid, accompanying fighters there, but we still didn’t realize it. Now it has come,” Svetlana said.
“I’m scared for the children,” said Andrei, an electrician who lives on the 12th floor of a building that was hit.
He was sweeping up broken glass from his car, which was hit by falling shrapnel after the drone crashed into the 18th-22nd floors.
“My six-year-old daughter was sleeping with me, she woke up crying from the noise,” he told AFP.
Kyiv said it wants the attack — which involved more than 300 drones — to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to an aerial ceasefire.
The Kremlin has previously ruled that out.
Ukraine says the strikes are just a taste of what Russia has subjected its citizens to over the last three years, with Moscow having fired near daily bomb, missile and drone attacks across the country.
“There is not even any thought that tonight will be peaceful. It’s scary,” said Olga, a 21-year old who works in IT and lives in the adjacent building to one hit.
She ran out to the street after being woken at 5 am (0200 GMT) by the rumbling.
“People just have fear in their eyes,” she told AFP, the ground around her covered with shrapnel.
Unlike in Ukraine — where air alerts ring out practically every night in almost every city — there was no such warning of an incoming attack in the Russian capital or its suburbs.
“We don’t understand what to do in such situations,” said Olga.
“The news says that more and more drones are being shot down. It’s scary to even go to sleep after such a thing,” she added. “It could have been us.”
The idea of peace — previously seen as within reach amid US President Donald Trump’s rapprochement with Moscow — now felt far away in Ramenskoye.
“In my opinion, this attack won’t be the last,” said retiree Sergei, criticizing Ukraine’s “bloodthirsty” European backers who were supplying it with arms.
For 75-year-old Yulia, who lives next to the building that was hit, there was just frustration.
“My heart is bad. I don’t believe there will be peace,” she told AFP.
“Why can’t they agree? Why not? What are they thinking about?,” she said, through tears. “It’s terrible.”


Argentina ratifies WHO withdrawal during US health chief’s visit

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Argentina ratifies WHO withdrawal during US health chief’s visit

Argentina ratifies WHO withdrawal during US health chief’s visit
BUENOS AIRES: Argentina has ratified its decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) and reaffirmed its collaboration with Washington, during a visit to Buenos Aires by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.
The decision to pull out of the WHO was initially announced in February by Argentina’s President Javier Milei, following in the footsteps of his US counterpart Donald Trump who had said in January the United States would withdraw.
Milei’s government justified its departure from the UN agency in a statement Monday.
“The WHO’s prescriptions do not work because they are not based on science but on political interests and bureaucratic structures that refuse to review their own mistakes,” the statement said.
Buenos Aires has previously accused the agency of “disastrous” management during the Covid pandemic with its “caveman quarantine.”
The announcement came as Kennedy and Argentine Health Minister Mario Lugones met to define “a joint work agenda that will strengthen transparency and trust in the health system.”
“Together with Robert Kennedy, we believe in the future of collaboration in global health. We have similar visions about the path forward,” Lugones said.
Kennedy, a controversial Trump pick for health secretary given his vaccine skepticism, is also expected to meet with Milei during his visit.
In a video broadcast at the WHO’s annual assembly last week, he urged other governments to withdraw from the agency and create other institutions.
In his speech, Kennedy alleged that the UN health agency was under undue influence from China, gender ideology, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The Argentine government also announced a “structural review” of national health agencies to “organize, update, and make transparent the structures and processes” of the health system “that for years operated with overlaps, outdated regulations, and limited oversight.”

Ancient bread rises again as Turkiye recreates 5,000-year-old loaf

Ancient bread rises again as Turkiye recreates 5,000-year-old loaf
Updated 16 min 4 sec ago
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Ancient bread rises again as Turkiye recreates 5,000-year-old loaf

Ancient bread rises again as Turkiye recreates 5,000-year-old loaf

ESKISEHIR: In the early Bronze Age, a piece of bread was buried beneath the threshold of a newly built house in what is today central Turkiye.
Now, more than 5,000 years later, archaeologists have unearthed it, and helped a local bakery to recreate the recipe — with customers lining up to buy it.
Round and flat like a pancake, 12 centimeters (five inches) in diameter, the bread was discovered during excavations at Kulluoba, a site near the central Anatolian city of Eskisehir.
“This is the oldest baked bread to have come to light during an excavation, and it has largely been able to preserve its shape,” said Murat Turkteki, archaeologist and director of the excavation.
“Bread is a rare find during an excavation. Usually, you only find crumbs,” he told AFP.
“But here, it was preserved because it had been burnt and buried,” he said.
The bread was charred and buried under the entrance of a dwelling built around 3,300 BC.
A piece had been torn off, before the bread was burnt, then buried when the house was built.
“It makes us think of a ritual of abundance,” Turkteki said.


Unearthed in September 2024, the charred bread has been on display at the Eskisehir Archaeological Museum since Wednesday.
“We were very moved by this discovery. Talking to our excavation director, I wondered if we could reproduce this bread,” said the city’s mayor, Ayse Unluce.
Analyzes showed that the bread was made with coarsely ground emmer flour, an ancient variety of wheat, and lentil seeds, with the leaf of an as yet undetermined plant used as yeast.
Ancient emmer seeds no longer exist in Turkiye.
To get as close as possible to the original recipe, the municipality, after analizing the ancient bread, decided to use Kavilca wheat, a variety that is close to ancient emmer, as well as bulgur and lentils.
At the Halk Ekmek bakery (meaning “People’s Bread” in Turkish), promoted by the municipality to offer low-cost bread, employees have been shaping 300 loaves of Kulluoba by hand every day.
“The combination of ancestral wheat flour, lentils and bulgur results in a rich, satiating, low-gluten, preservative-free bread,” said Serap Guler, the bakery’s manager.
The first Kulluoba loaves, marketed as 300-gram (11-ounce) cakes that cost 50 Turkish lira (around $1.28), sold out within hours.
“I rushed because I was afraid there wouldn’t be any left. I’m curious about the taste of this ancient bread,” said customer Suzan Kuru.


In the absence of written traces, the civilization of Kulluoba remains largely mysterious.
In the Bronze Age, the Hattians, an Anatolian people who preceded the Hittites, lived in the Eskisehir region.
“Kulluoba was a medium-sized urban agglomeration engaged in commercial activities, crafts, agriculture and mining. There was clearly a certain family and social order,” said archaeologist Deniz Sari.
The rediscovery of the bread has sparked interest in the cultivation of ancient wheats better adapted to drought.
Once rich in water sources, the province of Eskisehir is today suffering from drought.
“We’re facing a climate crisis, but we’re still growing corn and sunflowers, which require a lot of water,” said Unluce, the local mayor.
“Our ancestors are teaching us a lesson. Like them, we should be moving toward less thirsty crops,” she added.
The mayor wants to revive the cultivation of Kavilca wheat in the region, which is resistant to drought and disease.
“We need strong policies on this subject. Cultivating ancient wheat will be a symbolic step in this direction,” she said.
“These lands have preserved this bread for 5,000 years and given us this gift. We have a duty to protect this heritage and pass it on.”


US aid kept many hungry Somali children alive. Now that money is disappearing

US aid kept many hungry Somali children alive. Now that money is disappearing
Updated 27 May 2025
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US aid kept many hungry Somali children alive. Now that money is disappearing

US aid kept many hungry Somali children alive. Now that money is disappearing
  • The US Agency for International Development once provided 65 percent of Somalia’s foreign aid

MOGADISHU, Somalia: The cries of distressed children filled the ward for the severely malnourished. Among the patients was 1-year-old Maka’il Mohamed. Doctors pressed his chest in a desperate attempt to support his breathing.
His father brought him too late to a hospital in Somalia ‘s capital, Mogadishu. The victim of complications related to malnutrition, the boy did not survive.
“Are you certain? Did he really die?” the father, Mohamed Ma’ow, asked a doctor, shocked.
The death earlier this month at Banadir Hospital captured the agony of a growing number of Somalis who are unable to feed their children — and that of health workers who are seeing hundreds of millions of dollars in US support disappear under the Trump administration.
The US Agency for International Development once provided 65 percent of Somalia’s foreign aid, according to Dr. Abdiqani Sheikh Omar, the former director general of the Ministry of Health and now a government adviser.
Now USAID is being dismantled. And in Somalia, dozens of centers treating the hungry are closing. They have been crucial in a country described as having one of the world’s most fragile health systems as it wrestles with decades of insecurity.
Save the Children, the largest non-governmental provider of health and nutrition services to children in Somalia, said the lives of 55,000 children will be at risk by June as it closes 121 nutrition centers it can no longer fund.
Aid cuts mean that 11 percent more children are expected to be severely malnourished than in the previous year, Save the Children said.
Somalia has long faced food insecurity because of climate shocks like drought. But aid groups and Somalis alike now fear a catastrophe.
Former Somali Foreign Minister Ahmed Moalin told state-run TV last month that USAID had provided $1 billion in funding for Somalia in fiscal year 2023, with a similar amount expected for 2024.
Much of that funding is now gone.
A US State Department spokesperson in a statement to the AP said “several lifesaving USAID humanitarian assistance programs are active in Somalia, including programs that provide food and nutrition assistance to children,” and they were working to make sure the programs continue when such aid transitions to the State Department on July 1.
The problem, aid workers say, is the US hasn’t made clear what programs are lifesaving, or whether whatever funding is left will continue after July 1.
The aid group CARE has warned that 4.6 million people in Somalia are projected to face severe hunger by June, an uptick of hundreds of thousands of people from forecasts before the aid cuts.
The effects are felt in rural areas and in Mogadishu, where over 800,000 displaced people shelter. Camps for them are ubiquitous in the city’s suburbs, but many of their centers for feeding the hungry are now closing.
Some people still go to the closed centers and hope that help will come.
Mogadishu residents said they suffer, too.
Ma’ow, the bereaved father, is a tailor. He said he had been unable recently to provide three meals a day for his family of six. His wife had no breast milk for Maka’il, whose malnutrition deteriorated between multiple trips to the hospital.
Doctors confirmed that malnutrition was the primary factor in Maka’il’s decline.
The nutrition center at Banadir Hospital where Ma’ow family had been receiving food assistance is run by Alight Africa, a local partner for the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, and one that has lost funding.
The funding cuts have left UNICEF’s partners unable to provide lifesaving support, including therapeutic supplies and supplemental nutrition at a time when 15 percent of Somali children are acutely malnourished, said Simon Karanja, a regional UNICEF official.
One Alight Africa worker, Abdullahi Hassan, confirmed that the group had to close all their nutrition centers in several districts of Mogadishu. One nutrition project supervisor for the group, Said Abdullahi Hassan, said closures have caused, “tragically, the deaths of some children.”
Without the food assistance they had taken for granted, many Somalis are seeing their children waste away.
More than 500 malnourished children were admitted to the center for malnourished children at Banadir Hospital between April and May, according to Dr. Mohamed Jama, head of the nutrition center.
He said such increases in patients usually occur during major crises like drought or famine but called the current situation unprecedented.
“The funding gap has impacted not only the malnourished but also health staff, whose salaries have been cut,” he said.
Fadumo Ali Adawe, a mother of five who lives in one of the camps, said she urgently needed help for her 3-year-old daughter, malnourished now for nine months. The nearby nutrition center she frequented is now closed.
“We are unsure of what to do next,” she said.
Inside that center, empty food packages were strewn about — and USAID posters still hung on the walls.


US lawmaker says denied access to man deported to El Salvador

US lawmaker says denied access to man deported to El Salvador
Updated 27 May 2025
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US lawmaker says denied access to man deported to El Salvador

US lawmaker says denied access to man deported to El Salvador

SAN SALVADOR: US lawmaker Glenn Ivey said Monday that authorities in El Salvador had prevented him from visiting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man deported from the United States by the Trump administration due to an administrative error.
US President Donald Trump has delivered on campaign promises by launching a sweeping crackdown on migrants to the United States since coming to power in January.
Rights groups have alleged that Trump’s government is committing rights abuses and denying undocumented migrants due process, claims that courts have, in part, upheld in cases that are ongoing.
Abrego Garcia’s case is one of the most prominent to have come to light. US authorities admit that he was deported to a notorious El Salvadoran prison for violent criminals due to an error, but have refused to comply with court orders to return him to the United States.
Ivey is the sixth US Democratic lawmaker to visit El Salvador in an effort to secure the return of Abrego Garcia, 29, who is being held in a penal facility in Santa Ana, 70 kilometers  from the Salvadoran capital, after being deported in March.
“We were not able to meet with Kilmar, for sure,” Ivey told a press conference in San Salvador. “We went out to the Santa Ana prison today and got there, and we spoke to the people at the gate. They wouldn’t open the gate and let us in.”
Ivey said he was told to obtain a permit for a visit, but he had already spoken to senior officials in order to arrange the meeting.
He said he had spoken to Salvadoran Ambassador to the United States Milena Mayorga and that he intended to speak to Abrego Garcia “to make sure that he’s okay, to discuss his legal rights and the like.”
The US lawmaker said he had met leaders of human rights groups, but was unable to meet officials from the government of President Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally who has also refused to facilitate returning Abrego Garcia to the United States.
Chris Newman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia’s family, said this was his third visit to El Salvador to try and secure the release of his client.
“We want access to Mr. Abrego Garcia so he can receive legal services,” he said.
El Salvador has received 288 migrants deported from the United States, including 252 Venezuelans, who are being held in a maximum security prison.
The Trump administration says — without proof — that Abrego Garcia is a violent criminal who is a member of the MS-13 gang, which has been declared a “terrorist” organization by Washington.
Trump’s government has used an obscure wartime law to summarily deport alleged gang members, a process some US courts have halted and that one, in Texas, has deemed “unlawful.”
 


Sumy region governor says Russian forces have captured four villages

Sumy region governor says Russian forces have captured four villages
Updated 27 May 2025
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Sumy region governor says Russian forces have captured four villages

Sumy region governor says Russian forces have captured four villages

May 26 : The governor of Ukraine’s Sumy region on the Russian border said on Monday that Russian forces had captured four villages as part of an attempt to create a “buffer zone” on Ukrainian territory.
Oleh Hryhorov, writing on Facebook, listed four villages in the region that he said were now held by Russian forces. He said their residents had long been evacuated.
“The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called ‘buffer zone,’” he wrote.
Russia’s Defense Ministry earlier on Monday listed two villages, other than those announced by Hryhorov, that it said had come under Russian control.