KYIV: Ukraine’s army chief said Wednesday the situation on the battlefield was “difficult” and that Russian forces could be poised to strike deep into Ukrainian lines in the eastern Donetsk region.
Kyiv’s forces are on the defensive across the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front lines in the east and south after Moscow made its first territorial gains in almost a year.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said he had visited two brigades “where the situation is gradually becoming more complicated and there is a threat of enemy units advancing deep into our battle formations.”
Ukraine is facing a shortage of both manpower and ammunition amid hold-ups to Western aid and a domestic debate over how to recruit more soldiers with the war now in its third year.
“In general, the operational situation on the eastern front remains difficult. The enemy continues to conduct offensive actions,” in a number of areas of the Donetsk region, Syrsky said in a post on Telegram.
“At the same time, probably due to the high level of losses, the activity of the enemy in other areas of the front decreased significantly,” he added, without providing further detail.
In an interview with French media on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s advance had been “halted” in the east and that the situation was “much better” than it had been three months ago.
Russian forces captured the symbolic frontline town of Avdiivka, just outside the Russian-held city of Donetsk, in February after one of the bloodiest battles of the two-year war.
Ukraine’s army chief says battlefield situation ‘difficult’
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Ukraine’s army chief says battlefield situation ‘difficult’
- Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said he had visited two brigades “where the situation is gradually becoming more complicated”
- Ukraine is facing a shortage of both manpower and ammunition amid hold-ups to Western aid
Indonesia allowing nickel industry abuses to go unchecked: report
Indonesia is both the world’s largest nickel producer, and home to the biggest-known reserves, and a 2020 export ban has spurred a domestic industrial boom.
Operations have grown around Weda Bay, the world’s largest nickel mine by production, on Halmahera island as Indonesia exploits the metal reserves used in everything from electric vehicle batteries to stainless steel.
Climate Rights International (CRI) said companies had caused a spike in air and water pollution and deforestation around the industrial park, accusing the government of ignoring their conduct.
“The Indonesian government is giving a green light to corporate practices that prioritize profits over the rights of local communities and the environment,” Krista Shennum, researcher at Climate Rights International, told AFP.
“The Indonesian government should immediately hold companies accountable. This could include civil penalties, criminal prosecutions, or rescinding permits.”
Much of the park’s nickel is sourced by Weda Bay Nickel (WBN), a joint venture of Indonesian mining firm Antam and Singapore-based Strand Minerals, with shares divided between French mining giant Eramet and Chinese steel major Tsingshan.
An AFP report last week detailed how the home of the nomadic Hongana Manyawa tribe was being eaten away by the world’s largest nickel mine, with members issuing a call for nickel companies to leave their tribal lands alone.
Locals have reported a rise in air pollution from nickel processing smelters and rivers polluted by nickel tailings in soil brought down by heavy rain.
Water tests by Indonesian NGOs AEER, JATAM, and Nexus3 Foundation in 2023 and 2024 “revealed dangerously high levels of nickel and hexavalent chromium, among other pollutants,” the report said.
“(Companies) are failing local communities by not making information about the safety of important drinking water sources publicly available and accessible,” said Shennum.
Both WBN and Eramet told AFP last week they work to minimize impacts on the environment, including conducting water tests.
CRI also said Indonesian and foreign companies in coordination with police and military personnel had “engaged in land grabbing, coercion and intimidation” of Indigenous peoples and other communities.
Local activists and students opposing the industrial park have “faced criminalization, harassment and smear campaigns,” the report said.
Weda Bay Nickel and the Indonesian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But Indonesia’s energy ministry told AFP last week it was committed to “protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples and ensuring that mining activities do not damage their lives and environment.”
New Zealand parliament suspends three lawmakers who performed Maori haka in protest
- Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days
WELLINGTON: New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Maori haka to protest a proposed law.
Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days. Three days had been the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand’s Parliament before.
The lawmakers from Te Pati Maori, the Maori Party, performed the haka, a chanting dance of challenge, last November to oppose a widely unpopular bill, now defeated, that they said would reverse Indigenous rights.
But the protest drew global headlines and provoked months of fraught debate among lawmakers about what the consequences for the lawmakers’ actions should be and whether New Zealand’s Parliament welcomed or valued Maori culture — or felt threatened by it.
A committee of the lawmakers’ peers in April recommended the lengthy punishments in a report that said the lawmakers were not being punished for the haka itself, but for striding across the floor of the debating chamber toward their opponents while they did it. Maipi-Clarke Thursday rejected that, citing other instances where legislators have left their seats and approached their opponents without sanction.
It was expected that the suspensions would be approved, because government parties have more seats in Parliament than the opposition and had the necessary votes to affirm them. But the punishment was so severe that Parliament Speaker Gerry Brownlee in April ordered a free-ranging debate among lawmakers and urged them to attempt to reach a consensus on what repercussions were appropriate.
No such accord was reached Thursday. During hours of at times emotional speeches, government lawmakers rejected opposition proposals for lighter sanctions.
There were suggestions that opposition lawmakers might extend the debate for days or even longer through filibuster-style speeches, but with the outcome already certain and no one’s mind changed, all lawmakers agreed that the debate should end.
Pentagon chief confident NATO will commit to Trump’s defense spending target
- Donald Trump has said NATO allies should boost investment in defense to 5 percent of GDP
- Hiking defense expenditure is the price of ensuring a continued US commitment to the continent’s security
BRUSSELS: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Thursday he was confident that members of the NATO alliance will sign up to Donald Trump’s demand for a major boost in defense spending, adding that it had to happen by a summit later in June.
The US president has said NATO allies should boost investment in defense to 5 percent of gross domestic product, up from the current target of 2 percent.
“To be an alliance, you got to be more than flags. You got to be formations. You got to be more than conferences. You need to be, keep combat ready capabilities,” Hegseth said as he arrived at a gathering of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.
“We’re here to continue the work that President Trump started, which is a commitment to 5 percent defense spending across this alliance, which we think will happen,” Hegseth said, adding: “It has to happen by the summit at The Hague later this month.”
Diplomats have said European allies understand that hiking defense expenditure is the price of ensuring a continued US commitment to the continent’s security and that keeping the US on board means allowing Trump to be able to declare a win on his 5 percent demand during the summit, scheduled for June 24-25.
“We have to go further and we have to go faster,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told reporters on Wednesday.
“A new defense investment plan will be at the heart of the NATO summit in The Hague,” he added.
In a bid to meet Trump’s 5 percent goal, Rutte has proposed alliance members boost defense spending to 3.5 percent of GDP and commit a further 1.5 percent to broader security-related spending, Reuters has reported.
Details of the new investment plan will likely continue to be negotiated until the eve of the NATO summit.
“We have to find a realistic compromise between what is necessary and what is possible really to spend,” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Wednesday.
Countries remain divided over the timeline for a new pledge.
Rutte has proposed reaching the 5 percent by 2032 – a date that some eastern European states consider too distant but which some others see as too early and unrealistic given current spending and industrial production levels.
A 2032 target is “definitely too late,” Lithuanian Defense Minister Dovile Sakaliene said on Wednesday, arguing for a target of 2030 at the latest.
There is also an ongoing debate over how to define “defense-related” spending, which might include spending on cybersecurity and certain types of infrastructure.
“The aim is to find a definition that is precise enough to cover only real security-related investments, and at the same time broad enough to allow for national specifics,” said one NATO diplomat.
China urges EU to stop ‘provoking trouble’ in South China Sea dispute
- Beijing advises Manila not to ‘fantasize’ about relying on outside forces to resolve the South China Sea dispute
- ’The EU is not a party to the South China Sea disputes and has no right to interfere in the South China Sea differences’
BEIJING: The Chinese embassy in the Philippines advised Manila on Thursday not to “fantasize” about relying on outside forces to resolve the South China Sea dispute, and urged the European Union to stop “provoking trouble.”
An embassy spokesperson made the comments after EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas visited the Philippine capital and voiced concern over China’s activities in the busy waterway, where its claims overlap those of some Southeast Asian nations.
“The EU is not a party to the South China Sea disputes and has no right to interfere in the South China Sea differences between China and the Philippines,” the spokesperson said in a statement on the embassy website.
The Philippine embassy in Beijing did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Trump orders inquiry into ‘conspiracy’ to hide Biden’s health decline
- The Democratic Party is increasingly riven by squabbles about whether Biden could have been forced to step down earlier to give the party chance to find a more popular presidential candidate
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday ordered an investigation into what Republicans claim was a “conspiracy” to cover up Joe Biden’s declining cognitive health during his time in the White House.
The move is the latest in a long-running campaign by Trump to discredit his predecessor, which has been joined by Republican Party politicians and their cheerleaders in the conservative media.
But it also comes as a growing chorus of Democrats begin to acknowledge the former president appeared to have been slipping in recent years.
Those concerns were thrown into stark relief by a disastrous debate performance against Trump during last year’s presidential campaign, in which the then-81-year-old stumbled over his words and repeatedly lost his train of thought.
“In recent months, it has become increasingly apparent that former President Biden’s aides abused the power of Presidential signatures through the use of an autopen to conceal Biden’s cognitive decline,” a presidential memorandum issued Wednesday reads.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history.
“The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
Republicans have long claimed that Biden was suffering from intellectual decline even as the White House pressed ahead with major legislation and presidential decrees during his term.
They cite his infrequent public appearances, as well as his apparent unwillingness to sit for interviews as evidence of what they say was a man incapable of doing the demanding job of Commander-in-Chief of the United States.
They insist that those around him covered up his physical and cognitive decline, taking decisions on his behalf and using a device that could reproduce his signature to allow them to continue to run the country in his name.
“The Counsel to the President, in consultation with the Attorney General and the head of any other relevant executive department or agency... shall investigate... whether certain individuals conspired to deceive the public about Biden’s mental state and unconstitutionally exercise the authorities and responsibilities of the President,” the document says.
The probe will also look at “the circumstances surrounding Biden’s supposed execution of numerous executive actions during his final years in office (including) the policy documents for which the autopen was used (and) who directed that the President’s signature be affixed.”
Biden’s calamitous debate performance ultimately sank his bid for reelection, with key Democratic Party figures soon calling for him to drop out of the race.
But it was only several weeks later, after unsuccessful attempts to quieten his critics, that he withdrew, anointing his vice president Kamala Harris, who eventually lost to Trump.
The Democratic Party is increasingly riven by squabbles about whether Biden could have been forced to step down earlier to give the party chance to find a more popular presidential candidate.
The fight has been given oxygen with the publication of a book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson that claims the former president’s inner circle connived to keep him from public view because of his decline, which included forgetting familiar faces like Hollywood star and party stalwart George Clooney.
Trump’s claims of a cover-up were also boosted by news that Biden is suffering from an “aggressive” prostate cancer, with some voices on the right insisting — without evidence — the diagnosis must have been known some time ago to those close to the former president.
