LONDON: British police requested military assistance in investigating a nerve agent attack on a former Russian double agent as speculation mounted Friday about how London could respond if a state actor were to blame.
Police extended the cordon around the modest suburban home of Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, the quiet city in southwestern England where he and his daughter Yulia were found slumped on a bench on Sunday.
The pair remain unconscious in a critical but stable condition, while Nick Bailey, one of the first police officers on the scene, is now sitting up and talking after initially being admitted to intensive care.
With police also hurt in the attack, pressure is intensifying on Prime Minister Theresa May to find and punish the culprits.
The involvement of "a British citizen, especially a policeman, requires the immediate and strong involvement of the British authorities," Chatham House analyst Mathieu Boulegue told AFP.
Around 21 people have been treated, according to Kier Pritchard, chief constable for Wiltshire Police.
"A number of those have been through the hospital treatment process, they're having blood tests, they're having treatment in terms of support and advice," he added.
Authorities are racing to find the source of the nerve agent used against 66-year-old Skripal, who came to Britain in 2010 as part of a spy swap, as politicians warned it bore the hallmarks of an attack by Russia.
National counter-terrorism police, who are leading the investigation, announced on Friday that they had requested assistance from the military "to remove a number of vehicles and objects from the scene".
"Military assistance will continue as necessary during this investigation," they added, with media reporting that more than 100 personnel may be involved.
During a visit to the site on Friday, interior minister Amber Rudd called the attack "outrageous" but urged people to "give the police the space they need to really go through the area carefully, to do their investigation".
In response to questions over Russia's possible involvement, May has said that "if action needs to be taken then the government will do that".
Possible responses include the expulsion of some of Russia's 58 diplomats, some kind of boycott of the 2018 football World Cup or an increased British military presence in eastern Europe.
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson floated the idea of deepening sanctions against Russian officials, but Britain would have to persuade its international partners.
Moscow has reacted angrily to the accusations it was involved, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday dismissing them as baseless "propaganda".
On Thursday, however, Russian state TV presenter Kirill Kleimyonov had appeared to deliver a veiled warning, saying: "Don't choose England as your future country of residence... whether you are a professional traitor to the motherland or whether you hate your country in your spare time."
Analyst Boulegue said it would be "extremely difficult" to pinpoint who committed the attack, and that the response could be a lot more complicated if it turned out that internal factions were responsible.
"It is possible that it is related to the elections in Russia or that it is part of a battle between the elites within the security services, to send messages either to the English or to the Russian elites," he said.
Police have cordoned off the bench where the pair were found, as well as an Italian restaurant and a pub they visited before their collapse.
The also sealed off the grave of Skripal's wife, Liudmila, who died in 2012 from cancer, as well as the memorial stone of his son, Alexander, who was cremated last year after reportedly dying of liver problems.
The Times newspaper said police were probing whether Skripal's daughter, who arrived in Britain from Moscow last week, may have inadvertently brought in the nerve agent as a gift.
Skripal was a former colonel in Russian military intelligence who was jailed in his country for betraying agents to Britain's MI6 secret service.
He was pardoned in 2010 before being flown to Britain as part of a high-profile spy swap involving Russia and the United States.
UK deploys military in Russia-spy attack probe
UK deploys military in Russia-spy attack probe
Tens of thousands of children in Afghanistan are affected by ongoing flash floods, UNICEF says
Unusually heavy seasonal rains have been wreaking havoc on multiple parts of the country, killing hundreds of people and destroying property and crops. The UN food agency has warned that many survivors are unable to make a living.
UNICEF, the UN children’s agency, said the extreme weather has all of the hallmarks of an intensifying climate crisis, with some of the affected areas having experienced drought last year.
The World Food Program said the exceptionally heavy rains in Afghanistan killed more than 300 people and destroyed thousands of houses in May, mostly in the northern province of Baghlan. Survivors have been left with no homes, no land, and no source of livelihood, WFP said.
UNICEF said in a statement Monday that tens of thousands of children remain affected by ongoing floods.
“The international community must redouble efforts and investments to support communities to alleviate and adapt to the impact of climate change on children,” said Dr. Tajudeen Oyewale, the UNICEF representative in Afghanistan.
At the same time, “UNICEF and the humanitarian community must prepare ourselves for a new reality of climate-related disasters,” Oyewale said.
Afghanistan ranks 15th out of 163 nations in the Children’s Climate Risk Index. This means that not only are climate and environmental shocks and stresses prominent in the country, but children are particularly vulnerable to their effects compared with elsewhere in the world.
Last week, the private group Save the Children said about 6.5 million children in Afghanistan are forecast to experience crisis levels of hunger in 2024.
Nearly three out of 10 Afghan children will face crisis or emergency levels of hunger this year as the country feels the immediate impact of floods, the long-term effects of drought, and the return of Afghans from neighboring Pakistan and Iran, the group said in a report.
More than 557,000 Afghans have returned from Pakistan since September 2023, after Pakistan began cracking down on foreigners it alleges are in the country illegally, including 1.7 million Afghans.
Sheinbaum elected Mexico’s first woman president by landslide
MEXICO: Claudia Sheinbaum was elected Mexico’s first woman president by a landslide Sunday, preliminary official results showed, making history in a country long plagued by gender-based violence.
The ruling party candidate won around 58-60 percent of votes, more than 30 percentage points ahead of her main opposition rival Xochitl Galvez, the National Electoral Institute announced after a quick count.
South Africa’s Ramaphosa says violence has no place after election
- Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent
JOHANNESBURG: South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday there was no place for threats of violence or instability after last week’s election cost his African National Congress (ANC) party its majority for the first time.
The result, announced on Sunday, was the worst election showing for the ANC, Africa’s oldest liberation movement, once led by Nelson Mandela, since it came to power 30 years ago, ending white minority rule.
Voters angry at joblessness, inequality and rolling power blackouts slashed support for the ANC to 40.2 percent, down from 57.5 percent in the previous 2019 parliamentary vote.
The result means the ANC must share power, probably with a major political rival, to keep it — an unprecedented prospect in South Africa’s post-apartheid history.
“This moment in our country calls for responsible leadership and constructive engagement,” Ramaphosa told the nation in a weekly newsletter. “There can be no place for threats of violence or instability.”
The sharp drop in ANC support has fueled speculation that Ramaphosa’s days might be numbered, either due to the demands of a prospective coalition partner or as a result of an internal leadership challenge.
But so far senior party officials have publicly backed him, and analysts say he has no obvious successor.
Former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto we Sizwe party has said it is considering a court challenge to the election results, despite performing much better than many had expected to come in third with 14.6 percent of the vote.
Analysts have long feared Zuma’s party may stir up trouble if his supporters, who rioted and looted for days when he was arrested for contempt of court in 2021, reject the results.
Ramaphosa added, “South Africans must stand firm against any attempts to undermine the constitutional order ... for which so many struggled and sacrificed.”
Sri Lanka closes schools as floods and mudslides leave 10 dead and 6 others missing
- Six people died after being washed away and drowning in the capital, Colombo, and the remote Rathnapura district on Sunday, according to the disaster management center
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka closed schools on Monday as heavy rain triggered floods and mudslides in many parts of the island nation, leaving at least 10 people dead and six others missing, officials said.
The education ministry announced that the reopening of schools would depend on how the weather develops.
Heavy downpours have wreaked havoc in many parts of the country since Sunday, flooding homes, fields and roads, and forcing authorities to cut electricity as a precaution.
Six people died after being washed away and drowning in the capital, Colombo, and the remote Rathnapura district on Sunday, according to the disaster management center. Three others died when mounds of earth collapsed on their houses, and one person died when a tree fell on him. Six people have gone missing since Sunday.
By Monday, over 5,000 people had been moved to evacuation centers and more than 400 homes had been damaged, the center said in a statement.
Navy and army troops have been deployed to rescue victims and provide food and other essentials to those affected.
Sri Lanka has been grappling with severe weather conditions since mid-May caused by heavy monsoon rains. Earlier, strong winds downed trees in many areas, killing nine people.
China’s lunar probe could return with answer to origins of solar system
- Chang’e-6, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, was launched on May 3
- A landing in China’s Inner Mongolia is expected around June 25
BEIJING: China’s Chang’e-6 lunar probe looks set to begin its historic journey back to Earth from the moon’s far side after collecting samples that scientists expect will help answer key questions about the early evolution of the solar system.
Chang’e-6, named after the mythical Chinese moon goddess, was launched on May 3 from the southern Chinese island province of Hainan.
The fully robotic probe landed on Sunday in a previously unexplored location in a gigantic impact crater called the South-Pole Aitken Basin, on the side of the moon that permanently faces away from Earth.
China’s previous Chang’e mission collected samples from the moon’s near side in December 2020, restarting global lunar material retrieval efforts after a gap of 44 years.
The uncrewed Luna 24 mission launched by the former Soviet Union in 1976 collected 170.1 grams (6 ounces) of samples from Mare Crisium, or “Sea of Crises,” on the near side of the moon.
Between 1969 and 1972, six Apollo missions, all crewed, collected 2,200 samples weighing a total of 382 kilograms, also from the side of the moon facing Earth.
James Carpenter, head of the European Space Agency’s lunar science office, said the samples collected by the Apollo missions from the moon’s near side suggested the South-Pole Aitken Basin on the far side was caused by an epoch of extremely heavy bombardment of the solar system, Earth and moon.
“This is a really core event in the history of the whole solar system, but there is some controversy about whether it happened or not,” he said.
“To understand that, you need to anchor those events, and that’s going to be done with samples from the lunar far side from the South-Pole Aitken Basin.”
SMALL WINDOW
After landing, Chang’e-6 had a 14-hour window to drill, excavate, and seal 2 kg of material, with the goal of being the first probe to bring back such samples from the moon’s far side. This compares to the 21-hour window Chang’e-5 had in 2020.
“Once it gets dark, once the sun goes over the horizon, the mission has to end, so there is a limited time window between landing, getting those samples, and getting off the surface again, so it’s quite an exciting mission because it has to be done quickly,” Carpenter said.
While China said it had improved the efficiency of its digging and drilling machines compared with 2020, the mission could still encounter snags at the sampling phase.
Chang’e-5 returned 1.73kg of lunar samples, rather than the planned 2kg, as the drill was only able to create a hole one meter deep, rather than two meters, after encountering impenetrable layers beneath the surface.
The Chang’e-6 samples will be transferred and sealed on a rocket booster atop the lander, which will launch back into space, dock with another spacecraft in lunar orbit and transfer the samples.
A landing in China’s Inner Mongolia is expected around June 25.
Throughout the probe’s journey, payloads from Italian, French, and Pakistani research institutes, as well as the European Space Agency, will collect data on questions pertaining to space and the moon, highlighting the growing international weight of China’s space program, which is competing with the United States to build a lunar outpost in the next decade.
Carpenter said there was “extremely strong” collaboration between European and Chinese scientists in analizing the lunar samples brought back by Chang’e-5, and he hoped this would be repeated for Chang’e-6.
