Lesotho’s Revolution For Prosperity (RFP) party put on an outstanding performance for a party that had only been established six months prior, which was also a damning indictment of the nation’s recent political leadership.
But officials in the RFP will be disappointed that an overall majority was not secured.
Many Basotho will also be wondering if a line would have been drawn under the years of infighting and chaos of coalition governments had Sam Matekane’s party gotten over 50% of the seats.
The diamond magnate will still dominate the political scene.
There will be high expectations that the RFP fulfills a promise to cut unemployment.
Some eyes will be checking for potential conflicts of interest between Mr Matekane’s business affairs and the government.
The UShas vowed to keep supporting Ukraine “unwaveringly” and has denounced Russia’s “horrific” attacks this morning, during which it launched several missiles.
“We will continue to provide unwavering economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted.
Blinken said he had spoken to his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba “to reiterate US support for Ukraine”.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says he has spoken to Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, following this morning’s air strikes.
“The United States condemns Russia’s attacks on the infrastructure facilities of Ukraine and is committed to holding Russia accountable for war crimes and atrocities committed in our country. Thank you for your support!” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Results from Friday’s parliamentary elections in Lesothoshowed a newly established party headed by a billionaire diamond magnate won the most seats.
However, Sam Matekane’s Revolution for Prosperity party only managed to win 56 seats, falling barely short of the necessary majority to break the protracted political gridlock.
The All Basotho Convention party, which led the outgoing government, lost a lot of support and only won eight of the country’s 120 seats.
Over the last decade, numerous coalition governments have been undermined by infighting and no prime minister has served out a full five-year term.
Mr Matekane, who only formed the party six months ago, will now have to secure the support of smaller parties to form a government.
Homes in the Venezuelan cityof Las Tejerias, located south of the capital Caracas, have been swept away by deadly landslides.
Following the tremendous rains brought on by the La Nia weather pattern, at least 22 people have been reported dead, and a further 52 are missing.
Vice President Delcy Rodriguez visited one of the worst-affected areas on Sunday. Rescue services are working to find those still missing, she said.
President Nicolas Maduro described the situation as “difficult and painful”.
About 1,000 emergency personnel were taking part in search and rescue operations, deputy civil protection minister Carlos Perez Ampueda added.
The landslides happened after the El Pato river burst its banks, and the resulting floodwaters swept away several houses and shops.
Carmen Melendez, a 55-year-old local, told AFP: “The village is lost. Las Tejerias is lost.”
Las Tejerias, which is some 67km (42 miles) from Caracas, has been hit the hardest in Venezuela by thisyear’s La Niña weather pattern.
La Niña is a naturally-occurring event, which involves a cooling of the Pacific Ocean and usually brings wetter conditions to Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The invasion of Ukrainehas been an aggressive play by an expansionist neighbour and led to global condemnation of the Russians. But it has also got some asking – could Taiwan be next?
Could we see another victim of an ambitious power trying to increase its global clout?
The self-governing island, formed by nationalists who managed to escape the grip of Communist China, has long been the target of Beijing. The Chinese government has always viewed it as a breakaway province it must ultimately re-unify.
Until now, the manpower, money, and influence that it would require has kept China at bay. But some fear President Xi, eyeing an unprecedented third term, now has the ability and the ambition to do something drastic in a bid to carve out his legacy.
After speaking to a wide cast of characters in Taiwan, that still seems an unlikely scenario in the immediate future – even amongst the most anxious and invested parties we heard from.
It would be hugely risky – an enormous logistical undertaking that could easily destabilise China’s relationship with others in the region.
And if China was watching as closely as some suspect, surely Ukraine is a deeply cautionary tale. Nevertheless, Russia’s exploits have highlighted how fragile peace is when you’re dealing with an unpredictable power.
America has also played a big part in the escalating tension. Nancy Pelosi’s visit in August was diplomatically explosive.
China was so infuriated by the US House Speaker touching down in what it views as Chinese territory, that Beijing embarked on its biggest-ever military drills around Taiwan.
Many on the island now claim that almost daily incursions into its skies and waters are the new normal.
In Central Taiwan, we witnessed a military drill – up to 400 soldiers working in searing heat,firing Howitzers. Taiwan insists these exercises are not a reaction to any recent moves by China, but it is also a little more real.
President Tsai, who we followed on the campaign trail, certainly isn’t capitulating – far from it.
At rehearsals for National Day, where Taiwan flexed its military muscle, the theme was a strong nod to national security. “Protect soil, guard country,” the banners read.
We met civilians preparing for the worst, building survival kits at home. There’s been a huge spike in people attending self-defence and first aid courses recently. We heard from others trying to improve shelters.
Then there are the cyber warriors taking on fake news. Drones are the latest threat. Taiwan thinks they represent psychological warfare, a “grey zone” tactic it must confront.
But unpicking propaganda, verifying footage and working out where drones came from, who’s flying them and where they’re landing, is very difficult.
And it’s easy to misread the dynamics.
Kinmen Island, where China is easily visible, has been described as akin to Korea’s DMZ. But it doesn’t feel like a place with a bunker mentality. In fact we also met lots of people who really enjoy living so close to the mainland. Until the pandemic, they’d love to take a 30-minute ferry over to shop there.
Chinese tourists in turn would come to Kinmen to watch historic re-enactments of darker days, when Kinmen was under bombardment by the Chinese.
Now, it’s more a conflict curiosity shop than an anxious outpost. Many share a language and cultural affinity with mainlanders.
On a cliff edge on one of Kinmen’s islands sits a 3 storey high wall of speakers. It looks out over a narrow strip of water to China, just two kilometres away at its narrowest point.
Housed in concrete, the tower used to blast songs and propaganda messages across the sea. Today, it still plays a song by Tawainese pop idol, Teresa Teng, but the volume is much lower these days.
It’s become a tourist attraction on the island, a place for snapping selfies and remembering a darker time when the island was under attack from China.
Kinmen is Taiwan’s literal frontline.
Roy Chen has come with his wife, Vicky, and a group of friends to celebrate his 40th birthday. He was in the army for 18 months and is prepared to fight again for his country, if China invaded Taiwan.
“We don’t really care about the history between China and Taiwan. It happened a very long time ago”, he says. “Taiwan is Taiwan, China is China. It’s different countries.”
“If China really wants to get Taiwan, it’s easy. But he cannot get our people, our hearts, our spirit”.
Roy’s friend, Nina Wu, agrees. “We fight for our freedom and we love our people and the country.” she says. “We don’t want to become a part of China.”
In a humid warehouse south of Taipei, four men in military fatigues and body armour are poised to attack.
Peering through the sights of their airsoft rifles, they exchange hand signals and quick glances before kicking a door open and firing.
These men aren’t soldiers. They’re just practising military skills with replica guns. Skills that Ping-yu Lin, 38, hopes he will never need.
He thinks everybody needs to be prepared for an attack from China “in their own way”, and that an attack could happen in “three to five years”.
“After the Ukraine war, we start to think it’s rising, the threat is rising. And some of us are starting to prepare ourselves. Compared with China we are small. And we need more friends, more allies.”
Ping-yu is a father of three and worries about Taiwan’s future. He believes there’s a lot at stake if China were to invade.
“Taiwan will lose everything in our democracy and our society, our property, our lives… in the current climate we can’t take peace for granted.”
In the glaring heat of an autumn day, it’s a welcome relief to step inside the gloom of the Zhaishan tunnels.
We walk along the edge of the subterranean channels, looking down into the clear green waters.
The cold war era caves were built by hand to shelter ships from Chinese view.
For 56-year-old Hsi-Tein Lee, they were home for more than a year.
He joined Taiwan’s army when he was 18, in the 1980’s.
“The tension between Taiwan and China was at a high level.” he tells us. “As a kid under 20, I was very nervous and scared. I was worried that the war would break out at any time, and I had to sacrifice my life to the country. I was terrified.”
Hsi-Tein doesn’t miss those days, and has no desire to return to them.
“Everybody thinks that Taiwan and China should keep the peace” he says. “It’s good that people enjoy freedom. It’s not wise to promote Taiwanese independence or to provoke China’s armed forces.”
The start of the war in Ukraine had a massive impact on manyTaiwanese. The reality of a neighbour invading has prompted many to consider a future conflict on their shores.
Enoch Wu wants to prepare civilians for any disaster, whether that’s an earthquake – or war. Frontline Alliance runs emergency response training and since the start of the war in Ukraine, their classes are packed.
“One of the biggest lessons from Ukraine is that our world can be turned upside down just like that” he tells us.
“You know, people don’t appreciate how incredibly fragile peace is, and especially when you live next to a volatile ruler, a dictatorship who can act on a whim to attack and invade another country, an autocratic government that is not accountable to its people or to the international community.”
The 41-year-old believes that Taiwan has been living under an “existential threat” from China for decades. He says his parents fought for democracy in Taiwan, and now their children have to protect it.
“We are unfortunately facing our biggest generational challenge of national survival”, he says. “It’s up to us now to maintain and protect this way of life.”
Enoch Wu is concerned about the Chinese military build up and is calling for a NATO-style collective security agreement.
“China took over the South China Sea, rock by rock, and now it’s militarised.. They’ve never hid their intentions. And I think we need to not be naive.”
In Taipei, you get the sense it is now forged its own identity and the horse feels like it’s well and truly bolted. In the past, some saw the economic appeal of China.
Now you get a sense of a gaping gulf between the two societies. Gay marriage is legal in Taiwanand many young people we spoke to, including those about to embark on military service, believe there’s no going back. They’re proud of Taiwan – they see it as a progressive nation with an increasingly distinct character.
They weren’t preoccupied with worries about war. But it’s everything in between that concerns others – the multitude of ways China could and likely will try to exert its influence.
And there is plenty it could do to derail the path Taiwan has set for itself – without a full-scale invasion.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
Source: SkyNews, Cordelia Lynch and Rachel Thompson
Following the attacks in Kyiv this morning, a Russian military expert labeled Ukraine a “psychiatrically sick society.”
Footage shared by the BBC’s Francis Scarr shows Alexander Artamonov telling Russian state television that the “strikes need to continue systematically” following the attack.
There are fears Ukraine could see more strikes after Vladimir Putinwarned of a “harsh” response if attacks against Russia continued.
Earlier today, he told a Security Council: “The responses will be of the same scale as the threats to Russia.
“In the event of further attempts to carry out terrorist acts on our territory, Russia’s response will be harsh.”
Just when you thought Russian state TV couldn’t go any lower, military pundit Alexander Artamonov comes along while this morning’s strikes were still continuing all across Ukraine, and brands the country a “psychiatrically sick society” pic.twitter.com/udgGGIa7Kd
Two days after the only bridge connecting Russia with the annexed Crimea was broken in an explosion, Russia fired missiles at various Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv.
Here are the latest developments:
Missile strikes have been reported in cities including Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, and Zaporizhzhia, in what appears to be the most widespread set of Russian attacks since the early weeks of the war
Russia has partially reopened the bridge linking it to Crimea, which is an important supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine
Ukrainian troops have continued to progress after breaking through Russian defences in the southern Kherson region
In Donetsk, Ukrainian forces are pushing east, having taken the town of Lyman
Ukrainian cities hit in missile strikes
At least 12 Ukrainian cities have been hit in missile strikes two days after a strategically important bridge linking Russia with Crimea was damaged in a blast.
Kyiv has been targeted for the first time in months, but explosions have also been reported in Ternopil and Lviv in the west, which has so far escaped the worst of the war.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has targeted energy infrastructure across the country and that energy facilities in Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv are among the places hit.
Ukraine’s military commander says Russia launched 83 missiles in total.
It comes a day after Russian President Vladimir Putinaccused Ukraine’s security services of attacking the Kerch bridge – although Ukrainian officials have not indicated whether their forces were behind the attack.
The 19km (12-mile) bridge, the longest in Europe, is an important supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
Russia has used the bridge to move military equipment, ammunition, and personnel from Russia to battlefields in southern Ukraine.
Mr Putin described the blast as an “an act of terrorism aimed at destroying Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure”.
Russian authorities partially reopened the roadway part of the bridge hours after the attack but for light traffic only.
The railway part of the bridge – where oil tankers caught fire – has also reopened.
Ukrainian breakthrough in the south
Ukrainian troops have continued to advance after breaking through Russia’s defences on the west bank of the Dnieper River in Kherson.
They have retaken the village of Dudchany and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says Ukrainian sources report that Russian occupation authorities are moving their families from the Kherson region to Crimea.
Ukrainian troops have been attacking bridges, ferries and pontoons in recent weeks, attempting to make Russian positions on the west side of the river unsustainable, and thereby force a withdrawal.
Also in the south, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called for the demilitarisation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Russian and Ukrainian sources have accused each other of shelling close to the plant, which is Europe’s biggest nuclear facility.
Russia’s military took over the power station in early March, but it is still being operated by Ukrainian staff.
Intense fighting in the east
Ukrainian troops took control of the key logistical hub of Lyman in Donetsk more than a week ago and have continued to push further east towards the region of Luhansk.
The ISW says they have “made substantial gains” in the area.
Russian reports suggests their next target may be the city of Kreminna.
Analysts say the loss of Lyman is a major set-back for Russia.
Russian forces have been trying to push forward in Bakhmut, but reports suggest they have been repelled by Ukrainian troops.
The latest fighting follows a major Russian defeat in the east.
Ukraine says it recaptured 6,000 sq km (2,317 sq miles) of territory from Russia in early September, when it forced back Russian units in the Kharkiv region.
Russian troops withdrew from the key towns of Izyum and Kupiansk, saying that the retreat would allow its troops to “regroup”.
Both towns were major logistical hubs for Russian forces in Donbas.
Annexation of four regions
Four regions of Ukraine, that are partially or almost completely occupied byRussiaare being annexed by the Russian Federation.
It follows self-styled referendums in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, held between 23 and 27 September.
IMAGE SOURCE,MAP SHOWING THE FOUR REGIONS OF UKRAINE – DONETSK,
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will use “all the forces and resources” it has to “liberate” the four regions.
In an address to the Russian people, Mr Putin said his country had “various weapons of destruction”, adding: “I’m not bluffing.”
The annexations follow a “partial mobilisation” of about 300,000 Russian reservists.
Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, but Ukrainian forces retook large areas around Kyiv in early April after Russia abandoned its push towards the capital.
Areas in the west of the country, including Lviv, have seen missile attacks but no attempt by Russian forces to take and occupy ground.
The Russianshave suffered heavy losses since the invasion began and significant quantities of Russian weaponry have also been destroyed or captured.
Representatives of Tunisia’s influential UGTT labour union say, the nation only has enough gasoline to last a week.
Typically, fuel reserve levels are established at 60 days.
Long queues of cars have been jamming roads in the capital, Tunis, waiting to fill their tanks.
Energy Minister Naila Nouira has denied that the fuel shortage is down to the government’s inability to pay for supplies, insisting instead that many motorists are taking more than they need.
She added that a tanker, full of petrol, is now being unloaded which will give the country several more days’ supply.
In an effort to reduce energy prices, Kenya is to move forward with the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Tanzania’s largest city, Dar es Salaam, to its coastal city of Mombasa and ultimately to the capital Nairobi, according to Kenya’s President William Ruto.
Mr Ruto spoke to Tanzanian media on Monday, shortly after holding bilateral talks with President Samia Suluhu, on his first visit to the neighbouring country since he took office in September.
Mr Ruto said the project would lower energy tariffs in the industrial sector, as well as for families in their homes.
In May last year, Mr Ruto’s predecessor, Uhuru Kenyatta, and Ms Suluhu signed a preliminary agreement covering the transport of gas from Tanzania to Kenya for use in power generation and, potentially, for cooking and heating.
The deal was said to be part of a longer-term plan to expand infrastructure links between the two big economies of East Africa.
You can listen to the full media briefing of the two presidents, in Swahili and English, here:
The foreign ministry of Indiahas expressed its grave worry about the conflict’s escalation in Ukraine after dozens of Russian missiles have struck different cities.
Spokesman Arindam Bagchi said India is willing to support “all attempts” at de-escalation in the coming weeks.
“We reiterate that escalation of hostilities is in no one’s interest,” he said.
“We urge immediate cessation of hostilities and the urgent return to the path of diplomacy and dialogue.”
The European Commission earlier condemned the strikes as “heinous” as it emerged at least 11 people had died in the blasts, with upwards of 64 injured.
Dmytro Kuleba has responded to Vladimir Putin‘s comments in the last few minutes, saying: “No, Putin was not provoked to unleash missile terror.”
Mr Putin claimed Monday’s deadly missile strikes targeting cities in Ukraine were in retaliation for its “terrorist action” against Russian territory – namely the hit on Kerch bridge this weekend.
But Mr Kuleba refutes this, saying: “This nonsenseabout being provoked must stop. He does not need anything to provoke him in order to commit heinous crimes.”
No, Putin was not “provoked” to unleash missile terror by “Crimea Bridge”. Russia had been constantly hitting Ukraine with missiles before the bridge, too. Putin is desperate because of battlefield defeats and uses missile terror to try to change the pace of war in his favor 1/2
Kunti Kamara, a former commander of the Liberian rebels, will begin his trial in a Paris court on Monday.
Mr. Kamara is accused of rape, murder, and torture committed during the nation’s first civil war in the 1990s and is facing trial under universal jurisdiction, an international law that recognizes that the prosecution of some crimes transcends all borders.
He denies the accusations.
“Since the start, Mr Kunti Kamara has indicated that he has nothing to do with these events, that he is not involved in the crimes he’s accused of,” his lawyer is quoted as saying by French state-owned television France24.
Bobi Wine, a former pop sensation from Uganda who is now a politician, claims he was detained in Dubai over the weekend after travelling there to take part in a concert.
He claims that throughout his 12-hour detention at the airport, he was questioned about his political affiliation, personal history, and family.
He was later released without charge and the concert, whose proceeds were meant to benefit African migrants in the Gulf country, was later cancelled.
Mr Kyagulanyi has blamed Uganda embassy officials for the cancellation of his music concert
“The information I have is that the Ugandan embassy in Dubai influenced the cancellation of this concert because maybe if I was able to return these girls back home then the government of Uganda will be slapped in the face,” he told the BBC’s Newsday programme.
He added: “I have performed in Dubai many times for the last 15 years but this show was cancelled, and the cancellation was not adequately explained.”
Mr Kyagulanyi participated in last year’s presidential election which he lost to the incumbent Yoweri Museveni.
They sleep nearly all day and night, avoid socializing, and are not actually bears. There’s nothing else like them, yet koalas face extinction.
Koala “bears” are a marsupial — not a mammal, and, therefore, not actually bear — that evolved over 25 million years ago.
A very distant relativeof the wombat, no other animal on earth comes close to them and they’re even classified into their own family, called Phascolarctidae. These loners are also very territorial.
One of the most iconic animals on the planet, the universal symbol for all that is cute and fluffy — and lazy — has extremely powerful claws with three fingers and two thumbs for extra grip. These paws allow koalas to easily scale and make a home in towering eucalyptus trees that dominate Australian forests.
The animal is raised in its mother’s pouch and sleeps up to 22 hours a day. Koalas get so tired because they spend their waking life feasting on toxic eucalyptus leaves that would kill most mammals. They eat up to one kilogram (2.2 pounds) a day due to the low nutritional value of the leaves, and also to satisfy their thirst.
Koalas are also extremely fussy. They will eat just 50 varieties of the more than 800 eucalyptus species in Australia.
These trees can only be found in Australia’s relatively forested east and southeast coasts. The problem is, when forests burn or are cut down, Australia’s furriest mascot has nowhere to go.
More frequent and intense bushfires are destroying koala habitats
Wildfires and chlamydia threaten koalas
Back in 1788 when the British invaded Australia, as many as 10 million koalas were said to inhabit the country. That number has now dropped to 50,000 by some estimates.
Since European colonization, millions of koalas died at the hands of hunters who prized their furs. More recently, koala populations are threatened as habits are cleared for development.
If that’s not bad enough, chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease,is rampant in the population. It can not only cause blindness but infertility.
But global heating is the animal’s greatest threat. Drought and extreme heat are reducing the water and nutrition content of the koala’s pure leaf diet. And wildfires worsened by climate change have already destroyed fast swathes of their habitat.
Scenes of blackened, burning koalas fleeing the Black Summer fires that engulfed eastern Australia in 2019-2020 helped inspire politicians to raise the conservation status of koalas from vulnerable to endangered.
Bushfire survivors are released back into the wild following the Black Summer fires
Yet koala numbers declined by 30% between 2018 and 2021. In the state of New South Wales, Australia’s most popular animal will likely be extinct by 2050 without urgent intervention. As populations become more isolated, a reported lack of genetic diversity also limits their ability to adapt.
Could koalas be saved?
While the koala population is struggling in the hotter north, the marsupial is said to flourish in cooler climates and some populations are stable in the southern state of Victoria — and more genetically diverse.
The koalas are also a few kilos bigger on average and are also fluffier with more fur.
Though they weigh up to 14 kilograms in the south, the critters are half the size of the “giant” koalas that roamed Australiauntil becoming extinct around 50,000 years ago.
The koala population in Victoria is around 24,000, according to one estimate, and has the potential to grow. But, as ever, continued deforestation means its habitat limit has been reached — for now.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
The government of Kenyahas been urged by the Central Organization of Trade Unions (Cotu) to ban employment agencies that transport migrant workers to Saudi Arabia.
This is in response to a viral video that purported to show a Kenyan woman breastfeeding dogs in the Gulf country.
The BBC has not verified the authenticity of the video.
But speaking to reporters on Sunday, Cotu Secretary-General Francis Atwoli said the woman, who had left a two-month-old baby in Kenya, was compelled by her employer to breastfeed the puppies.
COTU boss Atwoli speaks after Kenyan records herself while “breastfeeding dogs in Saudi Arabia”, wants employment agencies banned in Kenya. #NTVatOnepic.twitter.com/r9sgcVvH7i
“I want to appeal to the administration to go the way the first government under former President Mwai Kibaki did. He banned all employment agencies in Kenya,” Mr Atwoli said.
The union leader asked President William Ruto to stop the “indirect slavery” of Kenyan migrants and negotiate for their welfare with the gulf countries.
High unemployment rates in Kenya has prompted young people to migrateto gulf countries in search of jobs as domestic workers and labourers.
Many migrants have reported mistreatment in the Middle East and most recently in Myanmar, Laos, and Cambodia.
Oleksii tells me: “I feel safe here because we are on our land and even the ground will bring me help.” That’s despite the nearby sound of small-arms fire, exploding artillery shells landing within sight, and the roar of Russian jets overhead.
The ground he and the small team of Ukrainian troops now occupy is on the border of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The same ground that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently declared as being Russian forever.
Over the past week, the men of Ukraine’s D1 National Guard Unit have advanced more than 20km (12 miles) east of the recently liberated city of Lyman in the Donetsk region. They now occupy a former Russian position in a wood – still within range of the retreating Russian army. Part of “forever Russia” is already back in Ukrainian hands. Russia’s now the defending army.
The reversal in fortunes has been a shot in the arm for Ukrainian troops. There’s a palpable sense of confidence among them, even though they’re still within range. Ilya, another member of the unit, tells me: “We can retake territory, but the Russians cannot.” I ask why? “Because they are weak now, they’re scared of us, they’re running from us.”
This position also tells a story about the difference between Ukrainian and Russiandiscipline and morale. Strewn across the ground and hanging in trees are remnants of the retreating Russian forces – empty cans, ration packs, boots, bottles, and clothes.
Ilya picks up a discarded Russian helmet and compares it with his own. “Army of the future,” jokes Ilya as he taps the Russian helmet. “A very bad future,” adds a comrade, laughing.
It’s not that dissimilar to what Russian troops would have worn in World War Two. They hold up a Russian winter glove and read the label. It says it was made in 2005. “New for Russians,” they joke. Another soldier called Duke says Russia treats its soldiers like meat.
Oleksii says discarded Russian trash often gives away their positions when they fly their small drone. They rely on one of Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite kits for communication. They say it’s been working all week.
As you drive around the Donbas there are more signs of Russia’s depleted army. We witnessed Ukrainian forces towing away a troop carrier and a large self-propelled gun – both still marked with the Russian “Z”.
Image caption, Some of the collected, discarded materiel the Russian leave behind
Ukraine’s now captured more Russian armour than it’s been supplied by the West. Dozens more burnt-out military vehicles, too damaged to salvage, have been left rusting on the sides of roads. Boxes of unused ammunition are collected to be used against their former owners. The Donbas is also still littered with lethal mines – which will take years to clear.
Any sense of euphoria among Ukrainian troops is not always shared among the people they’ve freed from Russian control. Liberation comes with a costly legacy.
Those who survived the shelling are wondering how they’ll make it through the winter. Tens of thousands of people are without power and running water.
In Lyman we come across Natalia and Vitali, searching in the rubble of abombed-out house for the wood they can burn. Their fire is now the only way they can stay warm. An estimated 80% of their city has been destroyed or damaged. They narrowly survived a Russian rocket landing on their home – waking them up at 05:30.
Image caption, Natalia and Vitali speaking to the BBC’s Jonathan Beale
Natalia describes life now as “hard and simply unbearable”.
“We are like ants. We were trampled on and those who survived now carry firewood. And those who did not are buried,” she says. Like many here, she tries to avoid blaming either side for her woes.
When we arrive at the centre of Lyman there’s already a long queue for bread. Many of them appear to be hedging their bets on the future.
Image caption, The queue for bread in Lyman
Kataryna, a mum with two young children, tries to explain her dilemma: Russia, she says, still “has a lot of power, which is why it is scary that they might return. Because the city has already suffered very badly, and if the city will be passed back and forth from hand to hand, then nothing will remain including people”.
At the moment she says all she wants is electricity and peace.This winter she’s unlikely to get either.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
The notorious scammer-socialite, who stole over $67 million from banks and prominent New York City figures, is no longer behind bars.
Anna “Delvey” Sorokin, the con artist who defrauded Manhattan’s elite by pretending to be a German heiress, claims that after being released from prison, she received “exactly what I desired.”
She told the New York Times in her first interview after being released that she is “really happy” to be free and added that “nothing was guaranteed.”
The infamous scammer-socialite defrauded banks and New York City bignames to the tune of around $67m (£51.5m) to fund her jet-setting lifestyle.
The spree eventually saw her sentenced to four to 12 years and was the subject of the hit Netflix series Inventing Anna.
She was released from state prison in February 2021 but was swiftly back in jail again after Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her into custody.
Sorokin, 31, was granted a $10,000 bond and released from jail on Friday.
She is subject to house arrest and is banned from social media.
Sorokin spoke to the New York Times, saying she is “really happy”.
She told the newspaper: “They denied bail before. It was an exercise in perseverance.
“So many immigration lawyers told me I’d get deported to Mars before I’d get out in New York.”
Sorokin, who was born in the then-Soviet Union, expects to be in the Big Apple for a while as her immigration case goes through the courts.
“I’m really, really happy about that. That’s exactly what I wanted. I’m just hoping to get more freedom eventually.”
Sorokin is now living in a one-bedroom apartment in the East Village area of the city.
Asked if the money to lease the apartment and the $10,000 bond were hers, she replied: “Yes.”
After accepting a salary offer from the government, criminal barristers in England and Wales voted to end their strike.
The end of the industrial action, which led to the suspension of numerous cases, was confirmed by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA).
In a statement on Twitter, it said: “The Criminal Bar has voted to accept the proposal made by the government.
“With 57% voting to accept the offer made by the government, action is suspended from 18.00hrs this evening.”
It comes after the justice secretary proposed more reforms to fees for legal aid work, which the government said amounted to another £54m.
The CBA said the criminal justice system remained “chronically underfunded” but that it would respect the decision of its members and end the strike.
Barristers will be able to accept new cases from Monday evening and will return to court on Tuesday.
They had originally been offered a 15% fee rise from the end of September – an extra £7,000 per year – but were told it would only apply to new cases.
However, an improved offer from the Ministry of Justiceapplied the increase to the “vast majority of cases currently in the crown court”.
Justice Secretary Brandon Lewis said he was “glad that barristers have now agreed to return to work”.
He added: “This breakthrough is a result of coming together and restarting what I hope to be a constructive relationship as we work to drive down the backlog and ensure victims see justice done sooner.”
The High Court had warned recently that strike delays might not be a good enough reason to keep defendants on remand in custody if the dispute dragged on past November.
Barristers started their activities in the summer – initially on alternate weeks and refusing certain work – before escalating it to a continuous walkout last month.
The CBA argued that real-terms pay had decreased on average by 28% since 2006.
Some barristers said they sometimes earned minimum wage for government-funded work when accounting for the number of hours they put in.
The recent volley of missile launches, according to North Korea, was a “simulation” of a nuclear strike on the South.
It occurs at a time when intelligence reports suggest North Korea is getting ready to conduct its first nuclear test in five years.
Pyongyang has fired seven sets of missiles in recent weeks in retaliation for the US and South Korean military exercises.
On Monday, state media published extensive reports claiming the missiles were designed to carry nuclear weapons.
They said the military practised loading the missiles with tactical nuclear warheads, which are small short-range weapons aimed for use on the battlefield.
They also claimed to have successfullysimulated hitting South Korea’s military bases, ports and airports, and said the launches were a warning to US and South Korea.
State news agency KNCA ran photos of leader Kim Jong-un overseeing and “guiding” the tests.
IMAGE SOURCE,KCNA/REUTERS Image caption, State media also published several pictures of Kim Jong-un presiding over the missile launches
US and South Korean intelligence officials have been suggesting that the North may soon test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017.
Experts believe it could also use the opportunity to detonate a smaller tactical device for the first time – the sort which would fit into the missiles it has been testing.
Last month North Korea revised its nuclear laws, expanding the range of scenarios in which it could deploy nuclear weapons. Mr Kim also declared North Korea an “irreversible” nuclear power.
It has also markedly stepped up its frequency of missile firings this year, carrying out over 40 missile launches this year so far – its most ever.
Most of the launches in the past fortnight have been short-range missiles, which landed in the sea between North Korea and Japan.
But North Korea also fired a longer-distance missile over Japan last Tuesday– which analysts say is a new intermediate-range ballistic missile, based on the weapon’s design.
This year has seen the North test-fire missiles from a variety of launch sites including trains and convoys – moving platforms which would make it harder for the weapons to be destroyed in a strike, analysts have suggested.
They also noted that Monday’s state media reports framed the recent launches as “tactical nuclear operations units” – instead of describing them purely as missile tests – suggesting that North Korea has now developed a system for deploying nuclear weapons.
The 25 September-October 9 barrage were a response to the US deploying its nuclear-powered aircraft carrier the USS Ronald Reagan to waters around the Korean peninsula, and holding joint drills with Seoul and Tokyo.
The acceleration marks a significant change from when Pyongyang pursued denuclearisation talks with then US President Donald Trumpbetween 2018 and 2019.
Analysts say North Korea is also reacting in response to South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was elected in May and has pursued a more hawkish stance to the North and closer ties with the US.
North Korea’s recent launches
Sunday 25 September: A short-range missile fired the day after a US naval carrier arrived in waters around the Korean peninsula. 600km distance/60km altitude
Wednesday 28 September: Two short-range missiles fired on the eve of US Vice President Kamala Harris’ visit to Seoul and the DMZ. 360km distance/30km altitude
Thursday 29 September: Two short-range missiles after Harris departed South Korea. 300km distance/50km altitude
The foreign minister of Germanyhas demanded that perpetrators behind Iran’s harsh crackdown on demonstrators be brought to justice.
According to Annalena Baerbock Germany, would see to it that the EU froze assets and enforced entry restrictions.
She referred to those on “the wrong side of history” as those who “beat up ladies and girls on the street.”
EU foreign ministers are expected to decide on sanctions on 17 October, according to Reuters news agency.
Speaking to a German newspaper, Baerbock also criticised those who “condemn to death people who want nothing other than to live free”.
She told Iranians: “We stand by you, and will continue to do so.”
The proposed sanctions come after the death of Mahsa Amini sparked demonstrations throughout the country.
The 22-year-old died in custody after being detained by Iran’s morality police on 16 September.
Dozens of Iranians have lost their lives after taking to the streets to protest Ms Amini’s death.
The Iran Human Rights group, based in Norway, said at least 185 people – including 19 children – had died since the unrest began.
Iran’s state media say 20 members of the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps, police, and security forces have been killed.
Videos and images circulating on social media over the weekend appeared to show Iran’s security services entering schools and universities.
Security forces today (Oct9) attacked multiple schools in Iran trying to arrest schoolgirls: @1500tasvir. Schools have turned into a hotbed of protests. Rights group @iranhr: 185 protestors been killed, 19 children among them. #مهسا_امینیpic.twitter.com/vudGGWvqQm
After Tesla CEO Elon Muskstated that Taiwan should become a special administrative region of China, Beijing and Taipei expressed their disagreement.
The richest man in the world stated in an interview with the Financial Times that he thought the two countries could come to a “fairly agreeable” agreement.
Musk received praise from China’s ambassador to the US, while his Taiwanese colleague declared that freedom is “not for sale.”
Taiwan rules itself but Beijing claims it as part of its territory.
Last week, Mr Musk also drew criticism for posting a Twitter poll with his suggestions for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine, including Kyiv giving up territory to Moscow.
Mr Musk’s comments come as the electric car maker hit a monthly record for sales in China.
He weighed in on heightened China-Taiwan tensions in a wide-ranging interview with the UK business newspaper the Financial Times, which was published on Friday.
“My recommendation… would be to figure out a special administrative zone for Taiwan that is reasonably palatable, probably won’t make everyone happy,” he said.
“And it’s possible, and I think probably, in fact, that they could have an arrangement that’s more lenient than Hong Kong.”
I would like to thank @elonmusk for his call for peace across the Taiwan Strait and his idea about establishing a special administrative zone for Taiwan. Actually, Peaceful reunification and One Country, Two Systems are our basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question… https://t.co/KYH1Gsu3Um
On Saturday, China’s ambassador to the US Qin Gang welcomed Mr Musk’s suggestion to establish Taiwan as a special administrative zone.
He said on Twitter that “peaceful reunification” and the “one country two systems” model used in governing Hong Kong were China’s “basic principles for resolving the Taiwan question”.
“Provided that China’s sovereignty, security and development interests are guaranteed, after reunification Taiwan will enjoy a high degree of autonomy as a special administrative region, and a vast space for development,” he added.
In response, Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to Washington said on Twitter: “Taiwan sells many products, but our freedom and democracy are not for sale.”
“Any lasting proposal for our future must be determined peacefully, free from coercion, and respectful of the democratic wishes of the people of Taiwan,” Ms Hsiao added.
Shihoko Goto, director for geoeconomics and Indo-Pacific enterprise at the Wilson Center in Washington DC, told the BBC that Mr Musk’s suggestions could hurt his business interests.
“Let’s bear in mind that Elon Musk is supposedly on the brink of purchasing Twitter. Of course, Twitter is banned in China because free speech is not allowed in China,” Ms Goto said.
“So if he is investing in Twitter, his company will probably not be able to operate in Taiwan which is going to be under pressure or under the thumb of China. That would be a suicidal act on the part of Elon Musk,” she added.
China sees self-ruled Taiwan as a breakaway province that will eventually be under Beijing’s control.
Meanwhile, Tesla delivered 83,135 China-made electric vehicles in September, according to a report released on Sunday by the China Passenger Car Association.
That broke the previous record set by the company in June and marked a milestone for Tesla’s factory in Shanghai which has been trying to boost production.
US news outlet CNN has issued an apology for its coverage of the attack on a Thai childcare facility last week, which resulted in the deaths of 37 people, including 23 children.
Two CNN reporters entered the building where the attack took place and filmed on the premises.
They were accused of trespassing and filming a crime scene without permission.
Both of them were later cleared of the charges but fined for working as journalists while on tourist visas.
CNN International’s executive vice president and general managerMike McCarthy said in a statement that his reporters had sought permission to enter the building, but understood that “officials were not authorised to grant this permission”. He added that CNN had since stopped broadcasting the report and removed the video from its website.
The journalists – reporter Anna Coren and cameraman Daniel Hodge – have agreed to leave the country. They have also apologised in a video that has since been widely circulated by local news outlets. It appeared to be taken inside a police station.
“My deepest apologies… especially the families of victims of this tragedy – we are so sorry to have caused you more pain and suffering,” said Ms Coren, who along with Mr Hodge were fined 5,000 baht ($133; £120).
“We know your country is going through a painful time and we never came here to cause more grief.”
Thai police investigated the incident after journalists raised concerns. The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and Thai Journalists’ Association issued statements criticising the CNN crew for ” a serious breach of journalistic ethics in crime reporting”.
“Would one of their crews have behaved in the same way at a serious crime scene in the United States?” the statement asked.
There was also a widely shared picture on social media from the weekend that showed a CNN crew member climbing over a low fence to leave the compound.
Ms Coren and Mr Hodge were later taken to the police station in Nong Bua Lam Phu province, where the attack took place, for questioning.
Two Thai ministers have said that the CNN crew did not have official permission, but the police accepted that they believed they had permission and decided not to prosecute them.
CNN said in a tweet that their crew was told by three public health officials that they could film inside. They said the premises had been cordoned off while they were inside, so they needed to climb over the fence to leave. Police found that village health volunteers had granted the team entry despite having no authority to do so, according to local news outlet The Nation.
Police say the 34-year-old attacker – a local named Panya Kamrab – killed his wife and his stepson, before killing himself after a manhunt. The motive for the attack is not yet known.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, has described the attack on the bridge leading to Crimea, which Russia has annexed act as an “act of terrorism”.
President Putin said Ukraine’s intelligence forces had aimed to destroy a critically important piece of Russia’s civil infrastructure.
He was speaking at a meeting with the head of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Alexander Bastrykin.
Officials say three people were killed in the blast on the bridge.
The victims were in a nearby car when a lorry blew up, Russian officials say.
“There is no doubt, this is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying Russia’s critical civilian infrastructure,” Mr Putin said.
“Its authors, perpetrators, and beneficiaries are the security services of Ukraine.”
Mr Bastrykin said that citizens of Russia and some foreign states had aided preparations for the attack.
According to Mr Bastrykin, investigators have established that the truck which they say blew up travelled through Bulgaria, Georgia, Armenia, North Ossetia and Krasnodar Territory.
He has ordered an investigation into the incident which brought down sections of the roadway.
Ukrainian officials have not indicated that their forces were behind the attack.
But an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mykhailo Podolyak, denied Mr Putin’s accusation.
He wrote that there is “only one terrorist state here” and that the “whole world knows who it is”.
“Does Putin accuse Ukraine of terrorism? It looks too cynical even for Russia,” he said.
On Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyacknowledged the incident in his nightly address: “Today was not a bad day and mostly sunny on our state’s territory.”
“Unfortunately, it was cloudy in Crimea. Although it was also warm,” he added.
Russian authorities partially re-opened the roadway part of the bridge hours after the attack but for light traffic only.
The railway part of the bridge – where oil tankers caught fire – has also reopened.
The 19km (12-mile) bridge, the longest in Europe, is an important supply route for Russian forces fighting in Ukraine.
Russia has used the bridge to move military equipment, ammunition, and personnel from Russia to battlefields in southern Ukraine.
It was opened by Mr Putin in 2018, four years after Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
Security camera footage released on social media showed a truck – allegedly from the Russian city of Krasnodar, an hour’s drive from the crossing – moving west across the bridge at the time of the explosion.
The footage shows a huge fireball erupting just behind – and to one side – of the truck as it begins to climb an elevated section of the bridge.
The speed with which the truck bomb theory started to spread in Russian circles was suspicious. It suggested the Kremlin preferred an act of terrorism to a more alarming possibility: that this was an audacious act of sabotage carried out by Ukraine.
“I’ve seen plenty of large vehicle-borne IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in my time,” a British army explosives expert told me. “This does not look like one.”
A more plausible explanation, he said, is a massive explosion below the bridge – probably delivered using some kind of clandestine maritime drone.
“Bridges are generally designed to resist loads on the deck and a certain amount of side loading from the wind downwards,” he said. “They are not generally engineered to resist upward loads. I think this fact was exploited in the Ukrainianattack.”
Some observers have noted that in one of the other security camera videos, something that looks like the bow wave of a small boat appears next to one of the bridge supports, a split second before the explosion.
British actress Michaela Coelhas taken her American Vogue cover to the streets of Accra.
Coel, who has been cast in Marvel’s blockbuster Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is Vogue’s November cover star – and she chose to have the photo shoot in her ancestral home, Ghana, alongside her father, Derek Kwesi Coel, and grandmother Jemima Andam.
She was photographed by Senegalese-Italian model Malick Bodian.
“They asked me where I’d like to shoot it and I thought to myself ‘shoot for the stars aim for the moon’, and I said ‘Ghana’, and they were like ‘sure’.”
Speaking to Vogue about a previous visit to Ghana in 2018, Coel said: “I’d been to Africa before – Kenya and Uganda – but when I came here, I was really seeing people who looked like me.”
“I remember looking at all the kids playing, and it hit me, like, Wow, this could’ve been me and I think I would have really enjoyed that,” she continued.
“Yes, there are a lot of sad things, poverty, unemployment, struggle. There’s also a lot of peace and friendliness. There’s a lack of anxiety.”
In her Vogue interview, Coel also spoke about her upcoming rolein Black Panther where her character falls in love with her warrior colleague, played by Florence Kasumba.
“That sold me on the role, the fact that my character’s queer,” Coel said. “I thought: I like that, I want to show that to Ghana.”
Coel was born and raised in East London after her parents emigrated from Ghana. She is most famous for writing, directing, and starring in the comedy-drama series I May Destroy You.
A new report says more than 10 million children across East Africa are suffering from malnutrition,and more than 300,000 people are at risk of dying from hunger.
The study, commissioned by the regional bloc, Igad, warned the food crisis would get worse if rains failed for a fifth year running.
Igad executive director Workneh Gebeyehu added that conflict across the region had disrupted food production, worsening the crisis further.
He alsoappealed for help from the international community as East Africa experiences its longest dry spell in 40 years and its fourth drought in a decade.
In a statement, the agency said Africa is home to six of the 10 countries with the highest suicide rates globally.
The continent is said to have one psychiatrist for every 500,000 inhabitants – 100 times less than the WHO recommendation.
Around 11 people per 100,000 per year die by suicide in the African region, higher than the global average of nine per 100,000 people, the WHO says.
Mental health problems account for up to 11% of the risk factors associated with suicide, it continued.
The agency added that mental health workers are mostly located in urban areas on the continent.
The WHO Regional Director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, said suicide was a major public health problem, although prevention is rarely a priority in national health programs.
Mayor Eric Adams says 17,000 asylum seekers have been bused into New York Citysince April, straining resources.
The mayor of New York City has declared a state of emergency, saying an influx of asylum seekers being bussed into the city each day from the US state of Texas is creating a “humanitarian crisis”.
Mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat, said during a news conference on Friday that more than 17,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since April.
He said the city expects to spend more than $1bn by the end of this fiscal year on housing, accommodation, healthcare, and other assistance for the migrants, straining local resources.
“This is a humanitarian crisis that started with violence and instability in South America that is being accelerated by American political dynamics,” Adams told reporters.
“Thousands of asylum seekers have been bussed into New York City and simply dropped off without notice, coordination or care.”
The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, has been bussing asylum seekers to Democratic-run cities – New York, Washington, DC, and Chicago – in order to bring attention to the growing number of migrants arriving at the United States’ southern border with Mexico.
The governor of Arizona later joined the effort, and last month, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis put 48 migrants on board two private planes to Martha’s Vineyard, a wealthy vacation island in Massachusetts.
The push has accelerated just weeks before the US midterm elections, in which migration and the situation at the border have taken centre stage.
Republican officials, who blame the administration of US President Joe Biden for the record-high number of arrivals at the border, have said the transport of migrants is necessary to share the burden of hosting asylum seekers.
But rights groups have slammed the practice as cruel and inhumane, while the White House accused Republicanleaders of using vulnerable migrants as “political pawns”.
The majority of the asylum seekers have been from Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua – countries that the US has been unable to expel people back to under a public health policy at the border called “Title 42”.
Under that order, the majority of the people seeking asylum at the border are quickly sent back to Mexico or to their country of origin without a chance to file a claim.
On September 9, the mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, declared a public health emergency in response to the migrant buses coming into the city, releasing $10m in funds. Chicago, which has received fewer migrants, has set up a website for donations and volunteers.
Asylum seekers waiting in line before boarding buses to New York and Chicago [File: Paul Ratje/Reuters]
Friday’s order in New York City directs “all relevant city agencies to coordinate their efforts to respond to the asylum seeker humanitarian crisis and construct the city’s Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers”, the city said.
Last month, Adams announced plans to open two centres to provide shelter, food, and medical care, as well as a range of settlement support, to hundreds of asylum seekers arriving each day.
An average of five to six buses have been dropping people off in New York City daily, and on Thursday, nine buses arrived, the mayor said during the news conference.
He said 42 hotels had been set up as emergency shelters for the migrants and 5,000 children have been enrolled in schools. But since most adult migrants do not have work permits, they require long-term assistance.
“The asylum seekers coming here need more than a hot meal and a bed for the night,” Adams said.
Declaring a state of emergency, he added, would allow city officials to provide the required assistance at a faster pace.
Another senior Russian commander has been sacked as the Kremlin‘s war effort continues to falter.
Colonel-General Alexander Chaiko, commander of Moscow’s Eastern Military District, has been removed in the latest top brass reshuffle, Russian news site RBC reported.
The Eastern Military District covers troops based in Russia’s the Far East, though much of its strength is currently deployed in Ukraine.
He is believed to have been replaced by Lieutenant-General Rustam Muradov, a senior officer who has already been sanctioned by the EU.
The US does not have any new intelligence that sparked Joe Biden’s remarks about nuclear “Armageddon”, the White House has said.
President Bidenhad said the world is closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.
In statements this afternoon, the White House said the US has seen no reason to change its own nuclear posture.
Its spokesperson said Russia’s talk of using nuclear weapons was irresponsible, but added that it has no indications that Moscow is preparing to imminently use them.
President Biden’s comments show how seriously he takes the threats, the spokesperson added.
There are reports of serious injuries after what is believed to have been an explosion at a service station in Ireland.
Ambulance crews, a Coast Guard helicopter, and a Coast Guard team are amongthose responding to a serious incident at the Applegreen service station on the outskirts of Creeslough, Co Donegal.
According to local media, a number of cars have been damaged by falling debris and the main part of the building, which contains apartments, has been largely destroyed.
Councillor John O’Donnell told Sky News: “It’s a very serious incident.
“I know there have been serious injuries, and it’s just a very sad incident.”
Forecourt retailer Applegreen confirmed there was a “serious incident” at one of its dealer-operated locations.
Thomas Pringle, independent TD for Donegal, wrote on Twitter: “I’m deeply saddened hearing the tragic news coming from Creeslough this evening.
“My thoughts are with those affected.
“With sincere appreciation for those who have responded (ed) so quickly.”
Photos on social media showed debris all around the service station, with the apartments behind it appearing to have lost their wallsand roofs.
Residents have been asked to stay away from the area.
The death toll from a Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia this week has risen to 11, it has been reported.
The emergency services of Ukraine said the toll of Russian S-300 missile strikes on the city had now risen to 11 and a further 21 people had been rescued from the rubble of destroyed apartments.
In a Telegram message, regional governor Oleksandr Starukh said: “This was not a random hit, but a series of missiles aimed at multi-storey buildings.”
For context: Zaporizhzhia is one of the four regions of Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin has illegally claimed as Russian territory.
The region is home to a sprawling nuclear power plant under Russian occupation while the city of the same name remains under Ukrainian control.
Russia is reported to have converted the S-300 from its original use as a long-range anti-aircraft weapon into a missile for ground attacks because of a shortage of other, more suitable weapons.
The Tory MP for Bournemouth West has also had the whip suspended while the complaint is investigated.
A No 10 spokesman said: “Following a complaint of serious misconduct, the prime minister has asked Conor Burns MP to leave the government with immediate effect.
“The prime minister took direct action on being informed of this allegation and is clear that all ministers should maintain the high standards of behaviour – as the public rightly expects.”
A whips office spokesman said: “We have suspended the whip pending an investigation into allegations of inappropriate behaviour earlier this week.
“We take all such allegations extremely seriously. The prime minister has been clear that the highest standards in public life must be upheld.”
He has been an MP since 2010 and held a number of ministerial positions under Boris Johnson, to whom he was fiercely loyal.
It comes after the annual Conservative Party conference took place in Birmingham from last Sunday to Wednesday.
Mr Burns, 50, has said he will cooperate fully with the probe and “looks forward to clearing his name”, according to The Sun.
He has been an MP since 2010 and held a number of ministerial positions under Boris Johnson, to whom he was fiercely loyal.
Earlier this year, he infamously claimed the former PM was “ambushed with cake” in defence of claims of a lockdown party in Downing Street.
The allegations against him are the latest to rock the Conservative Party following a string of scandals.
In July, former deputy chief whip Chris Pincherresigned from his post after he was accused of groping two men in a private members’ club – with the fallout ultimately leading to Boris Johnson’s downfall.
And in May, former Tory MP Neil Parish resigned after confessing to watching pornography in the House ofCommons“in a moment of madness”.
Just short of two weeks later, an unnamed Conservative MP was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault offences spanning seven years.
Government minister Victoria Prentis said the allegations were “obviously concerning”, but she had been assured the matter was being taken “very seriously”.
“I think all I can say is that the Prime Minister has taken decisive action, and we’ll make sure that this is properly investigated,” she told Times Radio.
“In terms of politics as a whole it’s always worrying because we all expect and hope to maintain the highest standards in public life.”
Sanna Marin, the prime minister of Finland, has stated that “leaving” Russia from Ukraine is the only way to end the crisis there.
Speaking to reporters today, Ms Marin said: “The way of the conflict is for Russia to leave Ukraine. That’s the way out of the conflict.”
The comments come after US President Joe Biden said Vladimir Putin’s threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine had brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than at any time since the Cold-War Cuban Missile Crisis.
Are Christmas festivities set to be cancelled in the Russian capital?
Moscow authorities are set to discuss whether New Year and Christmas events in the capital should be cancelled, according to Russian news site GazettaRu.
As we understand it, their tweet about it reads: “Moscow authorities announced a discussion on the cancellation of New Year and Christmas events in the capital”
A few other Russian cities have already announced that they are canceling festivities.
❗️Власти Москвы анонсировали обсуждение вопроса отмены новогодних и рождественских мероприятий в столице
Officers later administered first aid at the scene until paramedics arrived.
The man was taken to hospital by ambulance but declared dead on arrival.
Derbyshire Constabulary said efforts to identify the man are ongoing.
No officers, staff, or members of the public were injured during the incident.
The force said in a statement: “At 9.55 am today (7 October) officers reported seeing a man armed with a knife in the secure car park of Ascot Drive Police Station, off Ascot Drive in Derby.
“Armed officers were sent to the scene, and at 10.03 am a police firearm was discharged.
“The man, whose identity is unknown, sustained a gunshot injury, and East Midlands Ambulance Service was requested to attend.”
Police said a cordon is in place and Ascot Drive is closed.
A father-of-three was fatally stabbedoutside of his home by a 15-year-old kid. The boy has been imprisoned for life.
Described in court as an “obnoxious teenage troublemaker”, the youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, will serve a minimum term of 15 years.
He was aged just 14 and subject to an antisocial behaviour order (ASBO) when he attacked 45-year-old James Markham, in Chingford, east London, on 9 August last year.
Image:The 45-year-old was stabbed to death outside his home in Chingford
He had already breached his ASBO six times before fatally stabbing Mr Markham with an 18 knife.
The youth claimed to have acted in self defence but was found guilty of murder and having an offensive weapon following a trial at the Old Bailey in July.
On Friday, Judge John Hillen ordered the boy to be detained for life.
He described Mr Markham as “a hard-working stonemason with his own business who worked hard to support and bring up his family”.
He told the teenage killer: “You had not responded to attempts to divert you away from crime and antisocial behaviour.
“You regularly went missing.
“You have a low attendance record at school.
“Your foster parents could not prevent your behavior.
“You were out of control.”
He went on: “Your unhealthy interest in knives, antisocial behaviour, and violence against those who challenged you all came together on Chingford Mount on 9 August last year.”
Earlier, Mr Markham’s mother Anita described the impact of the “wicked” murder on them and the wider community.
She told the thug: “On 9 August 2021 you stabbed my son Jamie Markham three times and murdered him.
“You had nothing to say, not even ‘sorry, I did not mean it to happen’.
“You could not say it was an accident as you stabbed him three times.
“Taking my son’s life has broken me.
“Jamie is in my thoughts all the time, seeing him lying there knowing I could not patch him up like when he was a kid.
“Wanting so much to help him, bring him back to us.
“You can never replace a child.
“When Candice (Mr Markham’s partner) phoned and told me Jamie had been stabbed I had never thought that would be it and I would never be able to give him a hug and a kiss.”
Previously, Crispin Aylett KC had told jurors the defendant should never have been in the area of Chingford Mount at all on the day of the stabbing.
He said: “It is only too obvious that he cannot have thought that the criminal behaviour order was worth the paper it was written on.
“Just as he was not willing to abide by the terms of the order, so the evidence in this case suggests he was not someone who was prepared to let anyone tell him what to do.”
On August 9 last year, the boy and four friends went into an area behind shops near where Mr Markham lived with his family.
Mr Aylett had told jurors the victim and his family had become “increasingly exasperated” by groups of youths making a nuisance of themselves there.
A row broke out and two youths were said to have goaded Mr Markham before the defendant told a witness: “It’s alright mate. He’s going to get it.”
Mr Aylett said: “Provoked beyond endurance, there must have come a point when Jamie Markhamwanted to chase this obnoxious youth away from the area where he and his family lived – and, no doubt, make sure that he did not come back.”
The stonemason armed with a drill bit from his shed ran at the boy, swinging the tool to scare him off, jurors were told.
But the boy produced an 18-inch long blade and stabbed him in the armpit, neck and back before running away.
Mr Markham was helped back to his flat where he collapsed and died.
The defendant had dropped his mobile phone during the fight and it was later used by police to track him down.
Mr Aylett said the boy had a “miserable” criminal record, having been in court 12 times and convicted of 22 different offences.
In mitigation, Laurie-Anne Power KC said the boy had been affected by a lack of family presence or support as well as “neglect, abuse, and feelings of trauma and loss”.
She said her client offered “sincere regret for his actions”.
On Friday, President Vladimir Putincelebrated his 70th birthday with the adoring greetings of his subordinates and a request from Orthodox Patriarch Kirill for everyone to pray for the well-being of the most powerful man in Russia since Josef Stalin.
Putin is facing the biggest challenge of his rule after the invasion of Ukraine triggered the gravest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. His army there is reeling from a series of defeats in the past month.
Officials hailed Putin as the saviour of modern Russia while the patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia implored the country to say two days of special prayers so that God grants Putin “health and longevity”.
“We pray to you, our Lord God, for the head of the Russian state, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and ask you to give him your rich mercy and generosity, grant him health and longevity, and deliver him from all the resistances of visible and invisible enemies, confirm him in wisdom and spiritual strength, for all, Lord hear and have mercy,” Kirill said.
Putin, who promised to end the chaos which gripped Russia after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, is facing the most serious military crisis any Kremlin chief has faced for at least a generation since the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-89.
Opponents such as jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny say that Putin has led Russia down a dead end towards ruin, building a brittle system of incompetent sycophants that will ultimately collapse and bequeath chaos.
“Today, our national leader, one of the most influential and outstanding personalities of our time, the number one patriot in the world, president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, turns 70 years old,” Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said.
“Putin has changed the global position of Russia and forced the world to reckon with the position of our great state.”
More than seven months into the invasion, Russia has suffered huge losses in men and equipment and been beaten back on several fronts within the past month as Putin’s army has lurched from one humiliation to the next.
Putin has resorted to proclaiming the annexation of territories only partly under Russian control – and whose borders the Kremlin has said are yet to be defined – and threatening to defend them with nuclear weapons.
A partial mobilisation declared by the president on September 21 has unfolded so chaotically that even Putin has been forced to admit mistakes and order changes. Hundreds of thousands of men have fled abroad to avoid being called up.
Even normally loyal Kremlin allies have denounced the failings of the military – though they have stopped short, so far, of criticising the president.
Putin finds himself confronted with a resurgent, united, and expanding NATO despite his insistence that the “special operation” in Ukraine was aimed at enforcing Russian “red lines” and preventing the alliance from moving closer to Russia’s borders.
Signs of disquiet have emerged from China and India, on which Russia is increasingly reliant as geopolitical and economic partners in the wake of successive waves of Western sanctions.
Reflecting on Putin’s birthday, former Kremlin speechwriter Abbas Gallyamov said: “On an anniversary, it’s customary, to sum up, results, but the results are so deplorable that it would be better not to draw too much attention to the anniversary.”
History lessons
Putin has dominated Russia for nearly 23 years since being handpicked by President Boris Yeltsin as his preferred successor in a surprise announcement on New Year’s Eve 1999.
Changes adopted to the constitution in 2020 paved the way for him to rule potentially until 2036, and there is no obvious frontrunner to succeed him.
He maintains a full schedule of meetings and public events and invariably appears in control of his brief, holding forth at length in video conferences on topics ranging from energy to education. The Kremlin has denied recurrent speculation about alleged health problems.
As he has grown older, Putin has appeared increasingly preoccupied with his legacy. In June he compared his actions in Ukraine with the campaigns of Tsar Peter the Great, suggesting both of them were engaged in historic quests to win back Russian lands.
Putin has become increasingly fond of quoting Russian philosopher Ivan Ilyin, who argued that Russia had an exceptional mystical and holy path to follow that would ultimately restore order to an imperfect world.
In a televised encounter with teachers this week, Putin showed a keen interest in another episode from history – an 18th-century peasant revolt against Empress Catherine the Great – that he blamed on “the weakness of central authority in the country”.
From the man who has dominated Russia for more than two decades, it sounded as though a lesson had been taken to heart: faced with the possibility of rebellion, the ruler needs to be both strong and vigilant.
Olusegun Obasanjo, a delegate of the AU and a former president of Nigeria, was supposed to lead the negotiations in South Africa.
The African Union-led peace talks proposed for this weekend to try to end a two-year conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have been delayed for logistical reasons, two diplomatic sources told Reuters news agency on Friday.
Ethiopia’s government and rival Tigray regional forces said on Wednesday that they accepted the AU’s invitation to talks in South Africa, which would be the first formal negotiations between the two sides since war broke out in November 2020.
The conflict in Africa’s second most populous nation has killed thousands of civilians and uprooted millions.
The diplomatic sources, who asked not to be named, said the postponement was related to organising logistics and that a new date had not yet been scheduled.
Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu; Redwan Hussein, the national security adviser to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed; Getachew Reda, a spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF); and Ebba Kalondo, an AU spokesperson, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The negotiations will be led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the AU’s high representative for the Horn of Africa, supported by former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, according to one of the AU’s invitation letters seen by Reuters.
Lesotho citizens have voted in a parliamentary election that political analysts said could see the ruling party lose power after years of political instability that the Southern African mountain kingdom’s legislators have failed to resolve.
Friday’s election has gone ahead despite a deadlock in parliament on a gamut of constitutional reforms that were meant to be enacted ahead of the vote to bring order to Lesotho’s fractious politics.
The All Basotho Convention (ABC) has run the country of 2.14 million people since 2017, but divisions within the party have seen two prime ministers installed over five years.
Defections, meanwhile, have left the party vulnerable to its opposition rivals, the Democratic Congress (DC) and the new Revolution for Prosperity (RFP), which is led by businessman Sam Matekane.
“These elections will be highly contested and by the look of things, the DC and RFP will be neck and neck,” said Lesotho political analyst Lefu Thaela, who saw the ABC trailing in third place.
Speaking to Reuters before polls opened, Thaela said the DC was likely to get the most votes but if it did not win an outright majority, the outgoing ABC could emerge as the kingmaker.
Some voters who turned up early at the polling stations said they hoped to bring a change of government.
“Truth be told, no government has ever fulfilled my aspirations and I am very disappointed,” said Semoko Monare, who has been voting since 1993.
Surrounded on all sides by South Africa’s mountains, Lesotho’s high-altitude springs provide vital freshwater to its parched neighbour, supplying its commercial hub, Johannesburg.
In 2020, ABC leader Thomas Thabane stepped down as prime minister after being charged with the murder of his ex-wife. He denied any wrongdoing, and the charges were later dropped.
His successor, Moeketsi Majoro, declared a state of emergency in August after politicians failed to pass constitutionalreforms to amend everything from the role of political parties and rules on floor-crossing in parliament to the appointment of senior officials and the prime minister’s role.
The reforms were supposed to make Lesotho less prone to political logjams but got stuck in one themselves.
Last month, Lesotho’s highest court ruled the state of emergency unconstitutional. The ABC has selected another leader, former health minister Nkaku Kabi, to contest its ticket.
On October 2, the six-month-long cease-fire, which had so far been unsuccessfully attempted to be extended, came to an end.
Yemenis have had years to get used to the political and economic crises that have rocked their lives, even before the outbreak of the war in the country in 2014.
So, when it became apparent earlier this week that the United Nations-brokered six-month truce that had significantly reduced hostilities on the country’s front lines would not immediately be renewed, residents of Sanaa, the country’s rebel-held capital, immediately resorted to tried and trusted coping mechanisms.
Petrol stations were full; fuel supplies may be stable, but Yemenis have learned the hard way that they have to be prepared.
“I wasn’t worried about petrol throughout the ceasefire as it was available in all petrol stations,” Mokhtar Saleh, a 25-year-old minibus driver in Sanaa, told Al Jazeera. “But when I heard about the failure of the truce renewal, I darted to the station to fill up my bus.”
“If the petrol tank of my vehicle is empty, my four children and I will go to bed with empty stomachs,” he said. “This is my sole source of income, and the resumption of the war will bring us hunger.
“The continued failure of the attempts to extend the truce is horrible, and is a bad sign for us.”
The truce expired on October 2 and has yet to be renewed, despite efforts by the UN to sign parties in the conflict onto a new deal.
Fuel imports into Hodeidah, the main port of entry for fuel and other goods into Yemen, had increased since the start of the ceasefire in April, positively affecting the livelihoods of Yemenis and stabilizing the price of essential goods.
During the ceasefire, the number of civilian deaths declined by 60 percent, and displacement nearly halved, according to the UN.
The main dividing line in Yemen’s civil war is between the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, and Iran-allied Houthi rebels. However, other groups are also involved in the conflict, including United Arab Emirates-backed separatists in the south.
While a truce significantly reduced fighting in the country, the UN has been unable to get the government and the rebels any closer to a lasting peace deal that would end the conflict.
Brief calm
The six months of relative calm allowed some Yemenis to dream of a better future.
Basheer Nasser opened a bakery in Sanaa two years ago but had struggled due to a shortage of cooking gas.
“I used to close the bakery when the cooking gas was unavailable or highly expensive,” Nasser told Al Jazeera. “I also bought firewood to manage the shortage. It made me consider giving up on this business.”
That all changed after the truce began in April.
“Days after the truce declaration, my business improved,” said Nasser. “It was easier to find and buy cooking gas at a reasonable price. I have not closed my bakery for even one single day since then, and profits have been good.”
Yunis Saleh, a grocery store owner in the al-Thawra district of the city, reasoned that the truce had boosted businesses – the flow of goods had increased, and prices had not risen.
“The conflict makes people unwilling to spend because they fear more rainy days ahead,” said Nasser. “Only those who are wealthy or war profiteers see no value in the truce.”
While there has been no major uptick in violence since the truce expired, the Houthi rebels have threatened to attack oil companies operating in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Yemen. Houthi military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said the group was ready for another round of fighting.
Meanwhile, the Yemeni government is adamant that fighting is the only way to defeat the Houthis.
On Monday, after the truce had expired, the military’s chief of staff, Sagheer bin Aziz, said that “military force alone” would end the war, and establish peace in the country.
Efforts by the UN and the United States, among others, have continued to renew the truce.
While the Yemeni government has indicated its support for a continuation of the ceasefire, despite frustration at the continued Houthi blockade of Yemen’s third-largest city Taiz, the Houthis, according to the US special envoy for Yemen, have not.
Instead, the Houthis have made “maximalist and impossible” demands, Tim Lenderking said.
The Houthis, for their part, said that discussions had reached a “dead end”.
But that does not mean that civilians in Sanaa are not worried that heavy fighting, and the Saudi air attacks that used to hit their city, might return.
“The Houthis are confident in their military abilities, and demanded tough conditions for the truce to be extended,” Saleh, the minibus driver, said. “They want to win militarily. But what we hope for is for weapons to be fully silenced in Yemen.”
We reported earlier that this year’s Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to the jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organisation, Centre for Civil Liberties.
The honour will be widely seen as a rebuke to Russian leader Vladimir Putin,who is celebrating his 70th birthday, and his Moscow ally Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko.
Here, we take a look at the winners:
Jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski
Mr Bialiatski, 60, was one of the leaders of the democracy movement in Belarus in the mid-1980s and has continued to campaign for human rights and civil liberties in the authoritarian country.
He founded the non-governmental organisation, Human Rights Centre Viasna, and won the Right Livelihood Award, sometimes referred to as the “Alternative Nobel”, in 2020.
The human rights activist was sentenced to three years in prison in 2011 after being convicted on tax evasion charges – accusations which he denies.
He was detained again in 2020 following anti-government protests that year and remains in jail without trial.
The Russian group Memorial
Memorial was founded in the Soviet Union in 1987 to ensure the victims of communist repression would be remembered and was initially led by the famous Soviet dissident scientist Andrei Sakharov.
For over 30 years, the group exposed human rights abuses in the country at the hands of the government.
It has continued to compile information on human rights abuses in Russia and tracked the fate of political prisoners in the country.
Tatyana Glushkova, a board member of the Memorial human rights defence Centre, noted that the award was handed to the group on the day when it once again had to appear in court in Moscow — this time on a case related to its office building in central Moscow.
International Memorial owned the building, but after the group was shut down, it gave the building to one of its affiliate organisations.
Russian authorities are contesting the deal in court, and the prosecutor general’s office filed a motion to invalidate it.
Memorial considers the move an attempt to seize the building and hinder the organisation’s operation.
Ukraine’s Centre for Civil Liberties
The group was founded in 2007to promote human rights and democracy in Ukraine during a period of turmoil in the country.
It has played a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the group has worked to document Russian war crimes against Ukrainian civilians.
It has continued to play a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.
Following the announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize, a representative of the group, Volodymyr Yavorskyi, said the award was important for the organisation because “for many years we worked in a country that was invisible”.
DISCLAIMER: Independentghana.com will not be liable for any inaccuracies contained in this article. The views expressed in the article are solely those of the author’s and do not reflect those of The Independent Ghana
As they depart Yakutia, in the Russian Far East, footage has surfaced showing men who have been mobilised in Russia receiving goody bags from the local authorities.
During the video, which was shared by the BBC’s Francis Scarr, the men are heard laughing as they view the bag’s contents, which contain a chocolate bar, sanitary pads, and a first aid kit.
In recent weeks, Ukraine’s advances in the east have exposed fundamental problems within the Russian military, including gaps in its intelligence and power struggles.
And as fighting continues there has been a drive to recruit more soldiers for the front line.
Local authorities in Yakutia are handing out goody bags as they bid farewell to mobilised men
They contain a first aid kit, a chocolate bar, and sanitary pads (apparently a makeshift bullet wound dressing)
Kenyans have received an apology from President Yoweri Museveni after reading tweets from his son Muhoozi Kainerugaba that regularly threatened to invade Uganda’s neighbouring country in East Africa.
In a series of tweets on Monday and Tuesday, Kainerugaba posted provocative messages, including proposing the unification of Kenya and Uganda.
“It wouldn’t take us, my army and me, 2 weeks to capture Nairobi,” Kainerugaba wrote, referring to Kenya’s capital.
“Union is a MUST! No honorable men can allow these artificial, colonial borders anymore. If our generation has men, then these borders must fall!.”
Presidential apology
President Museveni apologized for his son’s comments, saying it was wrong for public officers to meddle in the affairs of other nations.
“I ask our Kenyan brothers and sisters to forgive us for tweets sent by General Muhoozi, formerCommander of Land Forces here, regarding the election matters in that great country,” Museveni wrote in a statement released Wednesday on his official website.
His comments drew angry reactions from Kenyans on social media and Kainerugaba, who is widely regarded as the de facto head of the military and his father’s chosen successor, was on Tuesday removed as commander of Uganda’s land forces. It was unclear whether the change was made following his controversial tweets.
He was later promoted from lieutenant general to the rank of a full general and will remain a senior presidential adviser for special operations, a Ugandan Ministry of Defence statement announced.
Despite his apology, Museveni justified Kainerugaba’s promotion, saying his son had only erred in his comments and not in his service.
“Why, then, promote him to full General after these comments? This is because this mistake is one aspect where he has acted negatively as a public officer,” the Ugandan leader said.
“There are, however, many other positive contributions the General has made and can still make,” he added while describing Kainerugaba as “a passionate Pan-Africanist.”
An outspoken general
Kainerugaba is outspoken on social media and has frequently traded barbs with opposition figures and weighed into politics, despite his military role barring him from doing so.
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni pictured in 2018. SUMY SADRUNI/AFP/Getty Images
Kainerugaba also asked his more than 600,000 Twitter followers how many cows should be offered as a bride price for Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing politician expected to be named Italy’s prime minister this month.
“I would give her 100 Nkore cows immediately! For being fearless and true!!,” he wrote.
Ugandan LGBTQ organization calls government shutdown of its operations a ‘clear witch-hunt’
Kainerugaba later said the comments were made in jest. While an aide to Francesco Lollobrigida, told reporters Kainerugaba’s offer was not a serious topic.
Ugandan analysts and opposition leaders havelong accused the 78-year-old Museveni of grooming his son to take over from him, but Museveni, who has been in power for 36 years, has repeatedly denied doing so.
Vladimir Putin, president of Russia,has received wishes from the president of Belarus in honour of his 70th birthday, which falls on Friday, October 7.
Aleksandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, has sent his congratulations to Russian President Vladimir Putin on his 70th birthday.
“Please accept my warmest congratulations on your anniversary. Being a true leader of great power, you make deliberate and difficult decisions in order to ensure the independent development of the Russian Federation, and protect the traditions and values of the Russian people,” Aleksandr Lukashenko said.
The Belarus president said that “he cherishes open and trusting relations with the Russian President and an equal and fruitful dialogue, which serves to strengthen the allied Belarusian-Russian ties.”
“Recently, this has clearly manifested in the closer integration of our countries. I am convinced that together Minsk and Moscow will adequately respond to global challenges and reach a new level of strategic partnership.
“I wholeheartedly wish you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, excellent health, constructive accomplishments for the benefit of the Russian state and long years in a circle of loving family and reliable friends,” the message read.
The news comes after Lukashenko to the nation of Belarus that “From October 6, all price increases are FORBIDDEN. Forbidden!”
President Joe Bidenon Thursday delivered a stark warning about the dangers behind Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats as Moscow continues to face military setbacks in Ukraine.
“First time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use (of a) nuclear weapon if, in fact, things continue down the path they are going,” Biden warned during remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in New Yorkwhere he was introduced by James Murdoch, the youngest son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, according to the pool report.
He added: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily (use) a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”
It’s striking for the President to speak so candidly and invoke Armageddon, particularly at a fundraiser, while his aides from the National Security Council to the State Department to the Pentagon have spoken in much more measured terms, saying they take the threats seriously but don’t see movement on them from the Kremlin.
“I’m trying to figure out what is Putin’s off ramp?” Biden said during the event, “Where does he find a way out? Where does he find himself in a position that he does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia?”
His comments come as the US considers how to respond to a range of potential scenarios, including fears that Russians could use tactical nuclear weapons, according to three sources briefed on the latest intelligence and previously reported by CNN.
Officials have cautioned as recently as Thursday that the US has not detected preparations for a nuclear strike. However, experts view them as potential options the US must prepare for as Russia’s invasion falters and as Moscow annexes more Ukrainian territory.
“This nuclear saber-rattling is reckless and irresponsible,” Pentagon spokesperson Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said earlier Thursday. “As I’ve mentioned before, at this stage, we do not have any information to cause us to change our strategic deterrence posture, and we don’t assess that President Putin has made a decision to use nuclear weapons at this time.”
A US official said that despite Biden’s warning that the world is the closest it has been to a nuclear crisis since the 1960s, they have not seen a change to Russia’s nuclear posture as of now. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s Tuesday statement that there has been no indication of a change in Russia’s posture and therefore no change in the US posture still stands, the official said.
A senior US government official expressed surprise at the President’s remarks, saying there were no obvious signs of an escalating threat from Russia.
While there is no question Russia’s nuclear posture is being taken seriously, this official said the President’s language at a fundraiser tonight caught other officials across the government off guard.
“Nothing was detected today that reflected an escalation,” the official said, who went on to defend Biden’s remarks because of the ongoing gravity of the matter.
At the fundraiser, Biden was speaking clearly about the threat officials believe Russia poses, a person familiar with his thinking told CNN.
Still, US officials have taken somber note of the Russian President’s repeated public threats to use nuclear weapons. In a televised address late last month, Putin said, “If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will, without doubt, use all available means to protect Russia and our people. This is not a bluff.”
Last Friday, at a ceremony in which he announced the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions, Putin said Russia would use “all available means” to defend the areas, adding that the US had “created a precedent” for nuclear attacks in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.
“We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said of Putin Thursday. “He’s not joking when he talks about the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly under-performing.”
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says remarks by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy recommending that NATO undertake preventative strikes on Russia validate the need for a “special operation” in Ukraine.
“By doing so, (he) essentially presented the world with further evidence of the threats posed by the Kyiv regime,” Mr Lavrov said.
“This is why a special military operation was launched to neutralise them.”
For context: During an Australian think tank last night, Mr Zelenskyy said he believed strikes were necessary to preclude any use of nuclear weapons.
He did not go into detail about what kind of strikes he meant and made no reference to any need for nuclear strikes.
The Ukrainian leader also urged the world to “show strength” following the annexation of four Ukrainian regions.
He told the think tank: “The head of Russia is now carefully analysing the world’s reaction to the sham referenda he organised on Ukrainian soil and to the announcement of the annexation of our territory.
“He is interested in whether he still has the potential for escalation. If the world’s reaction is weak now, Russia will come up with some new escalation.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denounced Mr Zelenskyy’s comments as “an appeal to start yet another world war with unpredictable, monstrous consequences”, according to RIA news agency.
The US president is hardly unique in saying that the risk of nuclear Armageddon is higher now than it has been since the Cuban missile crisis, or as it is known in Russia, the Caribbean crisis.
Anyone who has thought for more than five seconds about Vladimir Putin‘s nuclear threats given the geopolitical state of play would conclude the same and indeed it is a staple comment across Russian state TV.
And though the Russian president’s assertion that “this is not a bluff” is the kind of statement you make when you’re bluffing, Russia’s nuclear arsenal should be taken seriously. That is why it’s there.
Clearly, US officials are which is why they have reportedly been making firm comments behind closed doors to their Russian counterparts that a nuclear strike is the worst of all possible ideas and that retaliation would be decisive.
At their core, the power of nuclear weapons lies in their ability to persuade the opposing party to do or not to do something, that is the very nature of deterrence.
Actually putting them to use in any capacity, tactical or strategic, has undeterminable benefits and escalation risks which are in all likelihood impossible to control and potentially catastrophic for all concerned.
At a very basic level – the wind might blow in Russia’s direction, Vladimir Putin would lose his friends in China and India, and a Western conventional retaliatory strike might knock out the Russian infrastructure President Putin needs to keep his country going and his people on side.
The question is whether Vladimir Putin, who celebrates his 70th birthday today, is thinking rationally about any of that.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for a first-strike nuclear attack only if the very existence of the state is deemed at risk. It is a high bar.
Russia seems to have preferred not to make too big a deal out of it. Although these illegitimate annexations mean Russia can claim these territories as its own and therefore that any Ukrainian attack is a strike on the Russian state, it is a stretch to claim that as existential and a road that Russia has so far chosen not to travel.
Nor does Russia appear to have moved to take any of its nuclear warheads out of central storage and unite the payload with the means of delivery. So far, its nuclear threats are just that – threats. There is still a long way to go in the way of signalling and warnings before we reach actual Armageddon.
And although Russia may be losing ground on the battlefield, it does still have other options beyond continuing to hammer it out in Donbass and Kherson.
Why hasn’t it taken out targets in Kyiv, for example, since the early days of the war? What about other forms of hybrid warfare, (continuing to) target energy infrastructure in Ukraine and beyond? Vladimir Putin is a master of those dark arts. A nuclear strike, one would hope, would be his weapon of last resort.
The talk now in Russia is moving increasingly toward the Kremlin’s willingness to talk. The proposition seems to be – let’s discuss ending this now with Russia claiming a huge chunk of Eastern Ukraine as its own and there is the threat of tactical nuclear weapons if you don’t or if NATO troops get involved.
Ukraine’s president is understandably not convinced. Volodomyr Zelenskyy wants his country back, whole. He is not the one thinking about potential off-ramps for Vladimir Putin, he’s thinking about winning.
Which is why it is so important that the US president is. As Joe Biden put it in comments overheard by reporters, he’s trying to figure out where Mr Putin finds a way out where he “does not only lose face but lose significant power within Russia”.
The trouble is it is incredibly hard to determine what that is and by raising the rhetorical stakes, Vladimir Putin appears to be backing himself increasingly into a corner. The prospects are deeply worrying.
In an interview with Sky News, a Russian lawmaker and TV host Evgeny Popov insisted Russia would never makethe first strike.
“Using a nuclear weapon in the 21st century is an insane decision. We are not insane and we hope you are not either,” he said.
