Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians

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Britain's Prince William is greeted by well-wishers as he arrives to meet Ukrainian refugees at the Hala Koszyki Food Hall in Warsaw on March 23, 2023. (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
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Updated 24 March 2023
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Prince William thanks Poland for generosity to Ukrainians

  • The heir to the throne’s visit to Poland underscores Britain’s support for both Ukraine and Poland
  • The UK has been one of the most outspoken supporters of bolstering NATO’s eastern flank in the face of Russia’s aggression

 

WARSAW, Poland: Britain’s Prince William paid tribute on Thursday to Poles who lost their lives in past wars, and expressed gratitude to the nation for what it is doing today to provide humanitarian and military support to Ukraine.
The heir to the throne’s visit to Poland underscores Britain’s support for both Ukraine and Poland, an ally on the front line of efforts to help refugees displaced by Russia’s war and to assist the Ukrainian military in fighting off the invasion.
William laid a wreath in Poland’s national colors, white and red, at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and bowed his head solemnly. The memorial honors Poles who lost their lives in wars including World War II, when Polish and British soldiers were allies.
A note on the wreath that he left read: “In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”
He later headed to the presidential palace for a meeting with President Andrzej Duda, who has been a prominent ally of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago. Duda’s office said their talks focused on humanitarian aid for Ukraine.
“The Prince of Wales thanked the Poles for their generosity and hospitality,” Duda’s office said.
In the final stop on his two-day visit, the prince then went to a trendy food hall where he met with young Ukrainians working or continuing their studies in Poland.
William began his surprise visit Wednesday by meeting with British and Polish troops in Rzeszow, a city of 200,000 people in southeastern Poland that has become a hub for shipments of military and humanitarian aid bound for Ukraine.
“I just wanted to come here in person to say thank you for all that you’re doing, keeping everyone safe out here and keeping an eye on what’s going on,″ William said as he spoke to the troops.
He later traveled to a center in Warsaw that houses about 300 recent arrivals from Ukraine, meeting Ukrainians and playing table tennis with children.
The UK has been one of the most outspoken supporters of bolstering NATO’s eastern flank in the face of Russia’s aggression. The country sent troops to Poland and the Baltic states and provided more than 2.3 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) of military aid to Ukraine. It also has pledged 220 million pounds ($269 million) of humanitarian assistance.
Deploying the popular 40-year-old prince, a military veteran who also worked as a civilian air-sea rescue pilot, offers a more personal touch. While British political leaders have visited Poland regularly to trumpet their support for NATO and the Ukrainian cause, a senior royal like William is a symbol of the nation who can thank military personnel for their service without the baggage of party politics.
 


US revokes legal status for 500,000 immigrants

Updated 6 sec ago
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US revokes legal status for 500,000 immigrants

WASHINGTON: The United States said Friday it was terminating the legal status of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, giving them weeks to leave the country.
President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the largest deportation campaign in US history and curb immigration, mainly from Latin American nations.
The order affects around 532,000 Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans who came to the United States under a scheme launched in October 2022 by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden and expanded in January the following year.
They will lose their legal protection 30 days after the Department of Homeland Security’s order is published in the Federal Register, which is scheduled Tuesday.
That means immigrants sponsored by the program “must depart the United States” by April 24 unless they have secured another immigration status allowing them to remain in the country, the order says.
Welcome.US, which supports people seeking refuge in the United States, urged those affected by the move to “immediately” seek advice from an immigration lawyer.
The Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans (CHNV) program, announced in January 2023, allowed entry to the United States for two years for up to 30,000 migrants per month from the four countries, which have grim human rights records.
Biden touted the plan as a “safe and humane” way to ease pressure on the crowded US-Mexico border.
But the Department of Homeland Security stressed Friday that the scheme was “temporary.”
“Parole is inherently temporary, and parole alone is not an underlying basis for obtaining any immigration status, nor does it constitute an admission to the United States,” it said in the order.
Nicolette Glazer, an immigration lawyer in California, said the order would affect the “vast majority” of the half a million immigrants who entered the United States under the CHNV scheme.
“Only 75,000 affirmative asylum applications were filed, so the vast majority of the CHNV parolees will find themselves without status, work permits, and subject to removal,” she posted on X.
“The chaos will be unreal.”
Trump last weekend invoked rare wartime legislation to fly more than 200 alleged members of a Venezuelan gang to El Salvador, which has offered to imprison migrants and even US citizens at a discount.
More than seven million Venezuelans have fled their country over the last decade as the oil-rich country’s economy implodes under leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, a bugbear of Washington who has faced major sanctions.


Heathrow resumes operations as global airlines scramble after shutdown

Updated 22 March 2025
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Heathrow resumes operations as global airlines scramble after shutdown

  • Flights began to resume late on Friday
  • British Airways warns of ‘huge impact’ in coming days

LONDON: London’s Heathrow Airport resumed full operations on Saturday, a day after a fire knocked out its power supply and shut Europe’s busiest airport, causing global travel chaos.
The travel industry was scrambling to reroute passengers and fix battered airline schedules after the huge fire at an electrical substation serving the airport.
Some flights had resumed on Friday evening, but the shuttering of the world’s fifth-busiest airport for most of the day left tens of thousands searching for scarce hotel rooms and replacement seats while airlines tried to return jets and crew to bases.
Teams were working across the airport to support passengers affected by the outage, a Heathrow spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
“We have hundreds of additional colleagues on hand in our terminals and we have added flights to today’s schedule to facilitate an extra 10,000 passengers traveling through the airport,” the spokesperson said.
The travel industry, facing the prospect of a financial hit costing tens of millions of pounds and a likely fight over who should pay, questioned how such crucial infrastructure could fail without backup.
“It is a clear planning failure by the airport,” said Willie Walsh, head of global airlines body IATA, who, as former head of British Airways, has for years been a fierce critic of the crowded hub.
The airport had been due to handle 1,351 flights on Friday, flying up to 291,000 passengers, but planes were diverted to other airports in Britain and across Europe, while many long-haul flights returned to their point of departure.
Heathrow Chief Executive Thomas Woldbye said he expected the airport to be back “in full operation” on Saturday.
Asked who would pay for the disruption, he said there were “procedures in place,” adding “we don’t have liabilities in place for incidents like this.”
Restrictions on overnight flights were temporarily lifted by Britain’s Department of Transport to ease congestion, but British Airways chief executive Sean Doyle said the closure was set to have a “huge impact on all of our customers flying with us over the coming days.”
Virgin Atlantic said it expected to operate “a near full schedule” with limited cancelations on Saturday but that the situation remained dynamic and all flights would be kept under continuous review.
Airlines including JetBlue, American Airlines, Air Canada, Air India, Delta Air Lines, Qantas, United Airlines, British Airways and Virgin were diverted or returned to their origin airports in the wake of the closure, according to data from flight analytics firm Cirium.
Shares in many airlines fell on Friday.
Aviation experts said the last time European airports experienced disruption on such a large scale was the 2010 Icelandic volcanic ash cloud that grounded some 100,000 flights.
They warned that some passengers forced to land in Europe may have to stay in transit lounges if they lack the paperwork to leave the airport.
Prices at hotels around Heathrow jumped, with booking sites offering rooms for 500 pounds ($645), roughly five times the normal price levels.
Police said after an initial assessment, they were not treating the incident at the power substation as suspicious, although enquiries remained ongoing. London Fire Brigade said its investigations would focus on the electrical distribution equipment.
Heathrow and London’s other major airports have been hit by other outages in recent years, most recently by an automated gate failure and an air traffic system meltdown, both in 2023.


UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan

Updated 22 March 2025
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UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan

  • Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with Taliban justifying ban
  • The ban has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million, the UN agency says

ISLAMABAD: The UN children’s agency on Saturday urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to immediately lift a lingering ban on girls’ education to save the future of millions who have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan without girls beyond sixth grade. The ban, said the agency, has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with the Taliban justifying the ban saying it doesn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“For over three years, the rights of girls in Afghanistan have been violated,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement. “All girls must be allowed to return to school now. If these capable, bright young girls continue to be denied an education, then the repercussions will last for generations.”
A ban on the education of girls will harm the future of millions of Afghan girls, she said, adding that if the ban persists until 2030, “more than four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school.” The consequences, she added, will be “catastrophic.”
Russell warned that the decline in female doctors and midwives will leave women and girls without crucial medical care. This situation is projected to result in an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths. “These are not just numbers, they represent lives lost and families shattered,” she said.
The Afghan Taliban government earlier this year skipped a Pakistan-hosted global conference where Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the state of women’s and girl’s rights in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.


Germany approves $3.25 billion in new Ukraine military aid

Updated 22 March 2025
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Germany approves $3.25 billion in new Ukraine military aid

  • The amount comes on top of four billion euros in Ukraine military aid already planned in Germany’s budget for 2025
  • A further 8.3 billion euros were earmarked for Kyiv for 2026 to 2029

BERLIN: Germany on Friday approved three billion euros ($3.25 billion) in new military aid for Ukraine, just days before planned US-brokered talks with Moscow and Kyiv on a limited truce.
The money is earmarked for defense equipment for the country fighting Russian forces, including munitions, drones, armored vehicles and air-defense systems.
The parliament’s budget committee gave the green light for the funds, which had been on hold for months amid discord in the coalition government of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
But the final adoption on Friday of a major new spending package that also eased Germany’s strict debt rules for defense outlays gave the government new room for maneuver.
President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Germany for the new aid in a post on X, saying it would provide “exactly what Ukraine needs most — what saves Ukrainian lives.
“This means contracts with the German defense industry will now be signed for future — a significant step toward building long-term security guarantees,” Zelensky said.
“It is also a recognition that Ukraine’s army will become even stronger after the war ends, and Germany is committed to contributing to that.”
Greens MP Britta Hasselmann, whose party has strongly pushed for Ukraine aid, expressed relief the new billions were being released, “albeit late.”
She called it “a strong signal to Ukraine, a signal that is absolutely necessary for peace and security in Europe.”

The new money comes on top of four billion euros in Ukraine military aid already planned in Germany’s budget for 2025.
A further 8.3 billion euros were earmarked for Kyiv for 2026 to 2029.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit has said the latest package would include units of the German-made Iris-T air-defense systems that had yet to be built and would be delivered over the next two years.
Germany has been Ukraine’s second-largest supplier of military aid after the United States, contributing some 28 billion euros so far since Russia launched its full-scale invasion over three years ago.
But the situation has changed dramatically since US President Donald Trump reached out to Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end the war and suspended military aid to Ukraine. He also cast doubt on America’s commitment to NATO.

Russia and Ukraine on Friday traded accusations of massive overnight attacks, three days before both sides will hold talks with US officials in Saudi Arabia on how to halt the war.
Both countries have said they agree with a 30-day pause in strikes on energy targets, though they have continued their aerial attacks unabated.
Each has repeatedly accused the other of breaking the truce, which has not been formally agreed.
Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, whose party won February elections, has pushed through a spending package worth hundreds of billions to bolster Germany’s armed forces and infrastructure and to keep backing Ukraine.
Merz’s conservatives are in coalition talks with the SPD of Scholz, who has also vowed that Germany would keep supporting Kyiv.
Ukraine “can rely on us and we will never leave it on its own,” Scholz said at a European Council summit late Thursday.
“It will also need a strong army in times of peace, and it must not be put in danger by any peace agreement.”
 


Trump pulls security clearances for Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton

Updated 22 March 2025
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Trump pulls security clearances for Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton

BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey: US President Donald Trump on Friday took away security clearances for former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others in his latest move against his Democratic opponents.
The Republican president, who has also revoked the security clearance for former President Joe Biden, defeated Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Harris in last year’s election.
“I have determined that it is no longer in the national interest for the following individuals to access classified information,” Trump said in a late Friday memorandum that also included former Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
While the revocations may not have immediate impacts, it is another sign of the growing political rift in Washington as Trump seeks revenge on his perceived enemies.
The memorandum was issued hours after Trump arrived at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf property for the weekend.
Trump also targeted Republican former Representative Liz Cheney, a sharp Trump critic, former Biden White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Fiona Hill, a Russia expert who served on his National Security Council during his first term.
Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer in Washington who represents whistleblowers, and Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican lawmaker who is a sharp Trump critic, were among several others who had their security clearances revoked.
He had already revoked the security clearance for Biden, denying the former president to the traditional access to US intelligence.
Former US presidents have traditionally received intelligence briefings so they can advise incumbent presidents on national security and foreign policy.
In 2021, Biden revoked the security clearance for Trump, who was then a former president.