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  • Russia says no escape for last defenders of Ukrainian port, prepares for new offensive


Russia says no escape for last defenders of Ukrainian port, prepares for new offensive

A view shows a residential building damaged in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine April 13, 2022. (Reuters)
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Updated 13 April 2022
Reuters
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Russia says no escape for last defenders of Ukrainian port, prepares for new offensive

  • Russian television showed pictures of what it said were marines giving themselves up, many of them wounded
  • A Ukrainian defense ministry spokesman said he had no information about any surrender
Updated 13 April 2022
Reuters

KYIV/LVIV: Russia said it had taken control of the port in Mariupol on Wednesday and that more than 1,000 Ukrainian marines had surrendered in the southeastern Ukrainian city, whose capture would free up forces for a wider offensive.
The capture of the Azovstal industrial district, where the marines have been holed up, would give the Russians full control of Mariupol, Ukraine’s main Sea of Azov port, reinforce a southern land corridor and expand its occupation of the country’s east.
Surrounded and bombarded by Russian troops for weeks and the focus of some of the heaviest fighting in the war, Mariupol would be the first major city to fall since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Russia’s defense ministry said 162 officers were among 1,026 soldiers of the 36th Marine Brigade who had surrendered to Russian and pro-Russian separatist forces near the Illich Iron and Steel Works.
Russian television showed pictures of what it said were marines giving themselves up, many of them wounded.
The defense ministry later said Mariupol’s trade seaport was under full control and remnants of Ukrainian forces were blocked and unable to escape, Interfax news agency reported.
Ukraine’s general staff said Russian forces were attacking Azovstal and the port, but a defense ministry spokesman said he had no information about any surrender.
Reuters journalists accompanying Russian-backed separatists saw flames billowing from the Azovstal area on Tuesday, a day after Ukraine’s 36th Marine Brigade said its troops had run out of ammunition.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ardent supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, urged remaining Ukrainians trapped in Azovstal to surrender.
“Within Azovstal at the moment there are about 200 wounded who cannot receive any medical assistance,” Kadyrov said in a Telegram post. “For them and all the rest it would be better to end this pointless resistance and go home to their families.”

Weapons appeal
Tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in Mariupol and Russia has been massing thousands of troops in the area for a new assault, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“We have destroyed more Russian weapons and military equipment than some armies in Europe currently possess. But this is not enough,” he said in an online video, adding that if Ukraine did not get more tanks, jets, and missile systems, other countries in Europe would be the next targets of Russia.
US President Joe Biden announced an extra $800 million in military assistance including artillery systems, armored personnel carriers and helicopters, taking the total to more than $2.5 billion. France and Germany also pledged more arms.
Ukraine accuses Russia of blocking aid convoys to civilians marooned in Mariupol. Its mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Russia had brought in mobile crematoria “to get rid of evidence of war crimes” — a statement that was not possible to verify. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for civilian deaths and accused Kyiv of denigrating Russian armed forces.
Moscow’s incursion into Ukraine has seen more than 4.6 million people flee abroad, killed or wounded thousands and left Russia increasingly isolated on the world stage.
In the village of Lubianka northwest of Kyiv, from where Russian forces had tried and failed to subdue the capital before being driven away, a message to Ukrainians had been written on the wall of a house that had been occupied by Russian troops.
“We did not want this ... forgive us,” it said.
The Kremlin says it launched a “special military operation” to demilitarise and “liberate” Ukraine, a message villagers said had been repeated to them by the Russian troops.
“To liberate us from what? We’re peaceful...We’re Ukrainians,” Lubianka resident Viktor Shaposhnikov said.

Four presidents in Kyiv
Polish President Andrzej Duda said on a visit to Kyiv with his Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian counterparts that those who had committed and ordered crimes must be brought to justice.
“This is not war, this is terrorism,” he told reporters.
Germany’s president did not join them as he had planned. Zelensky said there had been no official approach and one of his officials denied a newspaper report he had rejected the visit due to Steinmeier’s recent good relations with Moscow.
The Kremlin denounced Biden’s description of Moscow’s actions in Ukraine as amounting to genocide, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying this was unacceptable coming from the leader of a country he said had committed crimes of its own.
An initial report by a mission of experts set up by Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe documents a “catalogue of inhumanity” by Russian troops in Ukraine, according to the US ambassador to the OSCE.
“This includes evidence of direct targeting of civilians, attacks on medical facilities, rape, executions, looting and forced deportation of civilians to Russia,” Michael Carpenter said.
Russia has denied targeting civilians and has said Ukrainian and Western allegations of war crimes are fabricated.
The Kyiv district police chief said 720 bodies had been found in the region around the capital from where Russian forces had retreated, with more than 200 people missing.
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said after visiting Bucha, a town where bound bodies of people apparently shot at close range were found, that Ukraine was a “crime scene” and this was within ICC jurisdiction.
“We have to pierce the fog of war to get to the truth,” Khan said on Twitter.
The major of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest, said bombing had increased significantly on Wednesday and satellite photos from Maxar technology showed long columns of armored vehicles in the region.
At least seven people were killed, including a two-year-old boy, and 22 wounded in Kharkiv over the past 24 hours and Ukrainian forces shot down two Russian planes attacking towns in the region, regional Governor Oleh Synehubov said earlier.
Reuters could not immediately verify his statement, but filmed people in Kharkiv quietly carrying bodies from an apartment block hit by shelling. A woman sat sobbing by the body of her son, lying on the floor in the room she said she had implored him to leave before a second explosion killed him.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Mariupol Ukraine Russia

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Driver dies after crashing into White House perimeter gate, Secret Service says

Updated 4 sec ago
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Driver dies after crashing into White House perimeter gate, Secret Service says

  • The driver was not immediately identified
Updated 4 sec ago
AP

WASHINGTON: A driver died after crashing a vehicle into a gate at the White House Saturday night, authorities said.
The driver was found dead in the vehicle following the crash shortly before 10:30 p.m. at an outer perimeter gate of the White House complex, the US Secret Service said in a statement.
Security protocols were implemented but there was no threat to the White House, the agency said.
The driver was not immediately identified.
The Secret Service will continue to investigate the matter, while turning over the fatal crash portion of the investigation to the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, the agency said.

Topics: White House US

Fake videos of Modi aides trigger political showdown in India election

Updated 05 May 2024
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Fake videos of Modi aides trigger political showdown in India election

  • Indian police arrest nine people for circulating fake video of Indian Home Minister Amit Shah 
  • With more than 800 million Internet users, tackling misinformation in India is a huge challenge
Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

BENGALURU/LUCKNOW: Manipulated videos are taking center stage as campaigning heats up in India’s election, with fake clips involving two top aides of Prime Minister Narendra Modi triggering police investigations and the arrest of some workers of his rival Congress party.

In what has been dubbed as India’s first AI election, Modi said last week fake voices were being used to purportedly show leaders making “statements that we have never even thought of,” calling it a conspiracy “to create tension in society.”

Indian police — already investigating the spread of fake videos showing Bollywood actors criticizing Modi — are now investigating a doctored online clip that showed federal home minister Amit Shah saying the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party will stop certain social guarantees for minorities, a subject sensitive for millions of voters.

Shah retorted on X, posting his “original” and the edited “fake” speech and alleging — without providing any evidence — that the main opposition Congress was behind the video it created to mislead the public. The minister said “directions have been issued to the police to address this issue.”

Indian police arrested at least nine people, including six members of Congress’ social media teams, in the states of Assam, Gujarat, Telangana and New Delhi last week for circulating the fake video, according to police statements.

Five of the Congress workers were released on bail, but the most high-profile arrest made by the cybercrime unit of New Delhi police came on Friday, when they detained a Congress national social media coordinator, Arun Reddy, for sharing the video. New Delhi is one region where Shah’s ministry directly controls police. Reddy has been sent into three-day custody.

The arrest has sparked protests from Congress workers with many posting on X using the #ReleaseArunReddy tag. Congress lawmaker Manickam Tagore said the arrest was an example of “authoritarian misuse of power by the regime.”

Congress’ head of social media, Supriya Shrinate, did not respond to messages and an email seeking comment.

MISINFORMATION

India’s election from April 19 to June 1 will be the world’s largest democratic event. With nearly a billion voters and more than 800 million Internet users, tackling the spread of misinformation is a high stakes job. It involves round-the-clock monitoring by police and election officials who often issue take down orders to Facebook and X as investigations start.

In India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, more than 500 people keep tabs on online content, flagging controversial posts and coordinating with social media companies for their removal when needed, police chief Prashant Kumar told Reuters on Saturday.

Another fake video that sparked a storm last week showed Yogi Adityanath, the state’s chief minister, criticizing Modi for not doing enough for families of those who died in a 2019 militant attack. Though fact checkers said the video was created using different parts of an original clip, state police called it an “AI generated, deepfake.”

Using Internet address tracking, state police arrested a man named Shyam Gupta on May 2 who had shared the fake video post on X a day earlier, receiving over 3,000 views and 11 likes.

The police have accused Gupta of forgery and promoting enmity under Indian law provisions that can carry a jail term of up to seven years if convicted. Reuters could not reach him as he is currently serving a 14-day custody period.

“This person is not a tech guy. Had he been tech savvy, arresting him quickly would not have been possible,” said police officer Kumar.

Topics: Modi India elections 2024

Australian police shoot boy dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism

Updated 05 May 2024
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Australian police shoot boy dead after stabbing with ‘hallmarks’ of terrorism

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

SYDNEY,: Australian police said on Sunday they had shot dead a boy after he stabbed a man in Western Australia’s capital Perth, in an attack authorities said indicated terrorism.

There were signs the 16-year-old, armed with a kitchen knife, had been radicalized online, state authorities said, adding they received calls from concerned members of the local Muslim community before the attack, which occurred late on Saturday night.
The attack, in the suburb of Willetton, had “hallmarks” of terrorism but was yet to be declared a terrorist act, police said.
“At this stage it appears that he acted solely and alone,” Western Australia Premier Roger Cook told a televised press conference in the state capital Perth, regarding the attacker.
The victim, stabbed in the back, was stable in hospital, authorities said.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he had been briefed on the incident by police and intelligence agencies, which advised there was no ongoing threat.
“We are a peace-loving nation and there is no place for violent extremism in Australia,” Albanese said on social media platform X.
The incident comes after New South Wales police last month charged several boys with terrorism-related offenses in investigations following the stabbing of an Assyrian Christian bishop while he was giving a live-streamed sermon in Sydney, on April 15.
The attack on the bishop came only days after a stabbing spree killed six in the Sydney beachside suburb of Bondi.
Gun and knife crime is rare in Australia, which consistently ranks among the safest countries in the world, according to the federal government. (Reporting by Sam McKeith in Sydney; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and William Mallard)

Topics: Australia terrorism perth Anthony Albanese

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North Korea’s UN ambassador says new sanctions monitoring groups will fail

Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters
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North Korea’s UN ambassador says new sanctions monitoring groups will fail

  • Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the annual renewal of a panel of experts amid US-led accusations that North Korea has transferred weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine
Updated 05 May 2024
Reuters

SEOUL: Efforts led by the US and other Western countries to form new groups to monitor sanctions on North Korea will fail, the country’s UN envoy said on Sunday, according to state media KCNA.
Ambassador Kim Song made the comment in response to a joint statement the US and its allies issued this week calling to continue the work of a UN panel of experts monitoring longstanding sanctions against Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
Earlier this year, Russia vetoed the annual renewal of the panel amid US-led accusations that North Korea has transferred weapons to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine.
“The hostile forces may set up the second and third expert panels in the future but they are all bound to meet self-destruction with the passage of time,” KCNA quotes Kim as saying in a statement.
Last month, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited the Demilitarized Zone, a heavily fortified border between the two Koreas, which remain technically at war and urged Russia and China to stop rewarding North Korea for its bad behavior.
Her trip came after Russia rejected the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts that has over the past 15 years monitored the implementation of UN sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.

 

 

Topics: North Korea US

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China publicizes for the first time what it claims is a 2016 agreement with Philippines

Updated 05 May 2024
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China publicizes for the first time what it claims is a 2016 agreement with Philippines

  • The move threatens to further raise tensions in the disputed waterway, through which much of the world’s trade passes and which China claims virtually in its entirety
Updated 05 May 2024
AP

TAIPEI, Taiwan: For the first time, China has publicized what it claims is an unwritten 2016 agreement with the Philippines over access to South China Sea islands.
The move threatens to further raise tensions in the disputed waterway, through which much of the world’s trade passes and which China claims virtually in its entirety.
A statement from the Chinese Embassy in Manila said the “temporary special arrangement” agreed to during a visit to Beijing by former president Rodrigo Duterte allowed small scale fishing around the islands but restricted access by military, coast guard and other official planes and ships to the 12 nautical mile (22 kilometer) limit of territorial waters.
The Philippines respected the agreement over the past seven years but has since reneged on it to “fulfill its own political agenda,” forcing China to take action, the statement said.
“This is the basic reason for the ceaseless disputes at sea between China and the Philippines over the past year and more,” said the statement posted to the embassy’s website Thursday, referring to the actions of the Philippines.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Duterte have denied forging any agreements that would have supposedly surrendered Philippine sovereignty or sovereign rights to China. Any such action, if proven, would be an impeachable offense under the country’s 1987 Constitution.
However, after his visit to Beijing, Duterte hinted at such an agreement without offering details, said Collin Koh, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and an expert on naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly Southeast Asia. 


“He boasted then that he not only got Chinese investment and trade pledges, but also that he secured Philippine fishermen access to Scarborough Shoal,” Koh said, referring to one of the maritime features in dispute.
Beijing’s deliberate wording in the statement “is noteworthy in showing that Beijing has no official document to prove its case and thus could only rely mainly on Duterte’s verbal claim,” Koh said.
Marcos, who took office in June 2022, told reporters last month that China has insisted that there was such a secret agreement but said he was not aware of any.
“The Chinese are insisting that there is a secret agreement and, perhaps, there is, and, I said I didn’t, I don’t know anything about the secret agreement,” said Marcos, who has drawn the Philippines closer to its treaty partner the US “Should there be such a secret agreement, I am now rescinding it.”

Duterte nurtured cozy relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his six-year presidency while openly being hostile to the United States for its strong criticism of his deadly campaign against illegal drugs.

While he took an almost virulently anti-American stance during his 2016 visit to Washington’s chief rival, he has said he also did not enter into any agreement with Beijing that would have compromised Philippine territory. He acknowledged, however, that he and Xi agreed to maintain “the status quo” in the disputed waters to avoid war.
“Aside from the fact of having a handshake with President Xi Jinping, the only thing I remember was that status quo, that’s the word. There would be no contact, no movement, no armed patrols there, as is where is, so there won’t be any confrontation,” Duterte said.
Asked if he agreed that the Philippines would not bring construction materials to strengthen a Philippine military ship outpost at the Second Thomas Shoal, Duterte said that was part of maintaining the status quo but added there was no written agreement.
“That’s what I remember. If it were a gentleman’s agreement, it would always have been an agreement to keep the peace in the South China Sea,” Duterte said.
House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, Marcos’s cousin and political ally, has ordered an investigation into what some are calling a “gentleman’s agreement.”
China has also claimed that Philippine officials have promised to tow away the navy ship that was deliberately grounded in the shallows of the Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to serve as Manila’s territorial outpost. Philippine officials under Marcos say they were not aware of any such agreement and would not remove the now dilapidated and rust-encrusted warship manned by a small contingent of Filipino sailors and marines.
China has long accused Manila of “violating its commitments” and “acting illegally” in the South China Sea, without being explicit.
Apart from China and the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei also have overlapping claims in the sea that is rich in fishing stocks, gas and oil. Beijing has refused to recognize a 2016 international arbitration ruling by a UN-affiliated court in the Hauge that invalidated its expansive claims on historical grounds.
Skirmishes between Beijing and Manila have flared since last year, with massive Chinese coast guard cutters firing high-pressure water cannons at Philippine patrol vessels, most recently off Scarborough Shoal late last month, damaging both. They have also accused each other of dangerous maneuvering, leading to minor scrapes.
The US lays no claims to the South China Sea, but has deployed Navy ships and fighter jets in what it calls freedom of navigation operations that have challenged China’s claims.
The US has warned repeatedly that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines — its oldest treaty ally in Asia — if Filipino forces, ships or aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.

Topics: China Philippines South China Sea

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