Ukraine makes more gains, pushes back to border in places

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People pass by heavily damaged buildings after latest Russian rocket attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Monday, Sept. 12, 2022. (AP)
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A view shows a burning 5th thermal power plant hit by a Russian missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine on September 11, 2022. (REUTERS)
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Updated 12 September 2022
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Ukraine makes more gains, pushes back to border in places

  • Strikes in Kharkiv continued Monday when administrative facility was hit by a missile
  • Russians forces have fled areas in the Kharkiv region to avoid being surrounded by advancing Ukrainian troops 

KHARKIV, Ukraine: Ukrainian troops reclaimed a wide swath of territory from Russia on Monday, pushing all the way back to the northeastern border in some places as part of a lightning advance that forced Moscow to make a hasty retreat from occupied land.
As blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flags fluttered over newly liberated towns, the Ukrainian military said its troops had freed more than 20 settlements in 24 hours. In recent days, Kyiv’s forces have captured territory at least twice the size of greater London, according to the British Defense Ministry.
After months of little discernible movement on the battlefield, the momentum has lifted Ukrainian morale and provoked rare public criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war. While Ukrainian cities began emerging from Russian occupation, a local leader alleged that the Kremlin’s troops had committed atrocities against civilians there similar to those in other places seized by Moscow.
“In some areas of the front, our defenders reached the state border with the Russian Federation,” said Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the northeastern Kharkiv region. Over the weekend, the Russian Defense Ministry said troops would be pulled from two areas in that region to regroup in the eastern region of Donetsk.
There were reports of chaos as Russian troops abruptly pulled out.
“The Russians were here in the morning. Then at noon, they suddenly started shouting wildly and began to run away, charging off in tanks and armored vehicles,” Dmytro Hrushchenko, a resident of recently liberated Zaliznychne, a small town near the eastern front line, told Sky News of the quick withdrawal.
Video taken by the Ukrainian military showed soldiers raising the Ukrainian flag over battle-damaged buildings. In one scene, a fighter wiped his boots on a Russian flag on the ground. Other videos showed Ukrainians inspecting the wreckage of Russian military vehicles, including tanks.
Efforts to disarm land mines were underway in the recaptured areas, along with a search for remaining Russian troops, Ukrainian military officials said.
It was not yet clear if the Ukrainian blitz could signal a turning point in the war, although some analysts cautioned that fighting would likely go on for months. Momentum has switched back and forth before, but rarely with such a big and sudden swing.
The mood was jubilant across the country.

In Kharkiv, authorities hailed that power and water had been restored to about 80 percent of the region’s population following Russian attacks on infrastructure that knocked out electricity in many places across Ukraine.
“You are heroes!!!” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram, referring to crews who restored utilities in Ukraine’s second-biggest city. “Thanks to everyone who did everything possible on this most difficult night for Kharkiv to normalize the life of the city as soon as possible.”
The buoyant mood was also captured by a defiant President Volodymyr Zelensky late Sunday on social media.
“Do you still think you can intimidate, break us, force us to make concessions?” Zelensky asked. “Cold, hunger, darkness and thirst for us are not as scary and deadly as your ‘friendship’ and brotherhood.’“
In the end, he exclaimed: “We will be with gas, lights, water and food … and WITHOUT you!”
Meanwhile, in Russia, there were some signs of disarray as Russian military bloggers and patriotic commentators chastised the Kremlin for failing to mobilize more forces and take stronger action against Ukraine.
Russia has continuously stopped short of calling its invasion a war, instead describing it as a “special military operation” and relying on on a limited contingent of volunteers instead of a mass mobilization that could spur civil discontent and protest.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the Moscow-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya, publicly criticized the Russian Defense Ministry for what he called “mistakes” that made the Ukrainian blitz possible.
Even more notable, such criticism seeped onto state-controlled Russian TV.
“People who convinced President Putin that the operation will be fast and effective ... these people really set up all of us,” Boris Nadezhdin, a former parliament member, said on a talk show on NTV television. “We’re now at the point where we have to understand that it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine using these resources and colonial war methods.”
Pro-Kremlin separatists reported that Ukrainian troops were approaching a key rail junction in the eastern Ukrainian Donetsk region.
Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, told Russian television that Ukrainian troops were mounting assaults on the town of Lyman, a rail hub captured by Russia in late May that offers access to bridges over the nearby Siversky Donets river.
Pushilin said that pro-Kremlin soldiers “are holding them back, and the situation, despite the fact that it remains difficult, remains controllable.”
The Donetsk region is one of two that make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland known as the Donbas, which continues to be a key target of Russia’s offensive.
Even amid Ukraine’s ebullience, the casualties kept mounting. Ukraine’s presidential office said Monday that at least four civilians were killed and 11 others wounded in a series of Russian attacks in nine regions of the country. The UN Human Rights Office said last week that 5,767 civilians have been killed so far.
Strikes in Kharkiv continued during daylight Monday when an administrative facility in the center of the city was hit by a missile, setting part of it on fire and killing one person, regional Police Chief Volodymyr Tymoahko said. Teams of firefighters battled flames licking the roof from the top floor as smoke billowed above the area.
In a reminder of the war’s toll, a council member in Izium — one of the areas where Russia said it has withdrawn troops — accused those forces of killing civilians and other committing atrocities.
“Russian troops committed crimes and tried to hide them,” Maksym Strelnikov said. His claims could not immediately be verified.
The Ukrainian military also claimed to have found evidence of human rights violations by Russian occupiers. It did not elaborate.
Izium was a major base for Russian forces in the Kharkiv region. The first Ukrainian flag was raised over the city on Saturday, according to Strelnikov, and more have popped up across the whole city. Residents, some wrapped in the country’s flag, happily greeted Ukrainian forces, offering them food.
Ukraine said the Russians continued shelling Nikopol across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia power plant, damaging several buildings there and leaving Europe’s largest nuclear facility in a precarious position. The last operational reactor in that plant has been shut down in a bid to prevent a radiation disaster as fighting raged nearby.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Monday that Kyiv “will likely increasingly dictate the location and nature of the major fighting.”
The British Defense Ministry said the retreat would likely further deteriorate the trust Russian forces have in their commanders and put Moscow’s troops on the back foot.
Some analysts praised Ukraine’s initial move on the southern Kherson area for drawing the attention of enemy troops there, before pouncing on more depleted Russian lines in the northeast.
Even around Kherson, Russia is struggling to bring forces across the Dnieper to stop the Ukrainian offensive there, the British military said.


Biden, US officials warn of hunger for millions in a government shutdown

Visitors tour the Capitol grounds in Washington, Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. (AP)
Updated 26 September 2023
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Biden, US officials warn of hunger for millions in a government shutdown

  • More than 40 million Americans relied on SNAP to make ends meet in 2022; inflation has put new pressure on household budgets, with prices higher since the COVID-19 pandemic for goods from bread to fresh vegetables and baby formula

WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and one of his top aides warned on Monday that a federal government shutdown could cause widespread suffering, including a rapid loss of food benefits for nearly 7 million low-income women and children.
Biden told a meeting on Historically Black Colleges and Universities that failure by Congress to fund the federal government would have dire consequences for the Black community, including by reducing nutritional benefits, inspections of hazardous waste sites and enforcement of fair housing laws.
He said he and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had agreed a few months ago on spending levels for the government.
“We made a deal, we shook hands,” he said. “Now a small group of extreme House Republicans .. don’t want to live up to that deal, and everyone in America could be faced with paying the price for it.”
Asked if he had spoken with McCarthy, Biden said, “I haven’t.” He shook his head when asked when they would speak.
US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told reporters earlier that the “vast majority” of the 7 million participants in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program would see an immediate reduction in benefits in the days and weeks after a shutdown starts.
Nearly half of US newborns rely on WIC, the USDA says.
A separate benefits program, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), will continue as normal for the month of October but could be affected afterward, he said.
More than 40 million Americans relied on SNAP to make ends meet in 2022; inflation has put new pressure on household budgets, with prices higher since the COVID-19 pandemic for goods from bread to fresh vegetables and baby formula.
During a shutdown, farm service agencies will also stop making loans to farmers during harvest time, and new homebuyers will not be able to get loans in rural areas, Vilsack said. More than 50,000 Department of Agriculture workers will be furloughed, meaning they will not receive a paycheck.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives may move to advance steep spending cuts this week that would almost certainly be rejected by the Democratic-controlled Senate. While the cuts would not become law, a failure by both chambers to agree could force a partial shutdown of the US government by next Sunday.
House lawmakers on Tuesday were set to take up four spending bills for the coming fiscal year that would also impose new restrictions on abortion access, undo an $11 billion Biden administration climate initiative, and resume construction of the Mexico-US border wall, a signature initiative of former President Donald Trump. Biden has vowed to veto at least two of the bills.
Vilsack called Republican fiscal plans “punitive” and “petty.” 

 


US condemns reported attack on Cuba’s embassy in Washington

Updated 26 September 2023
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US condemns reported attack on Cuba’s embassy in Washington

  • An assailant attacked the embassy with two Molotov cocktails on Sunday night, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said earlier on X, adding that nobody was hurt

WASHINGTON: The United States on Monday condemned a reported attack on Cuba’s embassy in Washington and said it was in contact with law enforcement to ensure a timely investigation took place, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.
An assailant attacked the embassy with two Molotov cocktails on Sunday night, Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said earlier on X, adding that nobody was hurt.

 

 


Anti-Muslim hate speech in India concentrated around elections, report finds

Updated 59 min 31 sec ago
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Anti-Muslim hate speech in India concentrated around elections, report finds

  • About 80 percent of those events took place in areas governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is widely expected to win the general elections in 2024

WASHINGTON: Anti-Muslim hate speech incidents in India averaged more than one a day in the first half of 2023 and were seen most in states with upcoming elections, according to a report by Hindutva Watch, a Washington-based group monitoring attacks on minorities.
There were 255 documented incidents of hate speech gatherings targeting Muslims in the first half of 2023, the report found. There was no comparative data for prior years.
It used the United Nations’ definition of hate speech as “any form of communication... that employs prejudiced or discriminatory language toward an individual or group based on attributes such as religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender, or other identity factors.”
About 70 percent of the incidents took place in states scheduled to hold elections in 2023 and 2024, according to the report.

A pro-Hindu supporter brandishes a gun during a protest against a new citizenship law outside the Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi, India, January 30, 2020. (REUTERS)

Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Gujarat witnessed the highest number of hate speech gatherings, with Maharashtra accounting for 29 percent of such incidents, the report found. The majority of the hate speech events mentioned conspiracy theories and calls for violence and socio-economic boycotts against Muslims.
About 80 percent of those events took place in areas governed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is widely expected to win the general elections in 2024.
Hindutva Watch said it tracked online activity of Hindu nationalist groups, verified videos of hate speeches posted on social media and compiled data of isolated incidents reported by media.
Modi’s government denies the presence of minority abuse. The Indian embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
Rights groups allege mistreatment of Muslims under Modi, who became prime minister in 2014.
They point to a 2019 citizenship law described as “fundamentally discriminatory” by the United Nations human rights office for excluding Muslim migrants; an anti-conversion legislation challenging the constitutionally protected right to freedom of belief, and the 2019 revoking of Muslim-majority Kashmir’s special status.
There has also been demolition of Muslim properties in the name of removing illegal construction and a ban on wearing the hijab in classrooms in Karnataka when the BJP was in power in that state.

 


Missing for 4 months, prominent Pakistani TV anchor returns home

Updated 26 September 2023
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Missing for 4 months, prominent Pakistani TV anchor returns home

  • Imran Riaz Khan, widely perceived to be sympathetic to ex-PM Imran Khan, was arrested two days after the May 9 protests

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani anchorperson and YouTuber Imran Riaz Khan has been “safely recovered,” Sialkot Police confirmed on Monday, four months after the journalist was arrested and his whereabouts remained unknown following a nationwide crackdown against supporters of former prime minister Imran Khan. 

The TV anchor, widely perceived to be sympathetic to ex-PM Imran Khan, was arrested from Sialkot airport on May 11, according to his lawyer Mian Ali Ashfaq, after the violent protests of May 9 which saw angry Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf supporters torch government buildings and attack military installations across the country. His lawyer told media Khan was arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance, under which authorities can arrest a person to maintain public order and extend the period of such detention for a time period not exceeding six months at a time.

According to Ashfaq, Khan was taken to Cantt police station after his arrest and later to the Sialkot prison. On May 15, a law officer told a court that Khan was released from jail after an undertaking in writing was taken from him.

Following that, his whereabouts remained unknown for four months. 

Khan’s father Muhammad Riaz lodged a case of alleged abduction of his son at the Sialkot Civil Lines police against “unidentified persons” and police officials and subsequently filed a petition at the Lahore High Court for his son’s recovery. During a hearing of the petition, the LHC gave the Punjab police chief one “last opportunity” to recover the missing anchor. 

“Journalist/Anchor Mr.Imran Riaz Khan has been safely recovered,” Sialkot Police wrote on Twitter. “He is now with his family.”


Taiwan golf ball maker fined for storing 30 times limit for hazardous material

Updated 26 September 2023
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Taiwan golf ball maker fined for storing 30 times limit for hazardous material

TAIPEI: Taiwan authorities fined a golf ball manufacturer $75,000 on Monday and warned of criminal charges for storing 30 times the legal limit of hazardous material and other violations after a major factory fire killed nine people and left one other missing.

The mayor of Pingtung county said at a news conference that Launch Technologies Co. had 3,000 tons of organic peroxides on site, far more than the 100 tons of hazardous material that is permitted, Taiwan’s Central News Agency reported.

Those responsible would be held accountable for public endangerment and negligent manslaughter, Mayor Chou Chun-mi said.

Company officials could not be reached for comment.

It’s unclear what caused the fire on Friday, but two explosions in the already burning building trapped firefighters and workers under rubble. Four firefighters were among the nine who died. More than 100 other people were injured.

Organic peroxides, which are highly flammable, are used in a variety of rubber products including golf ball cores. Launch Technologies is one of the world’s major golf ball makers, producing 20 percent of the global supply last year.

Taiwanese law requires organic peroxides to be stored in a separate warehouse building, but Launch Technologies kept the material on the first floor of the factory building, Chou said.

Larger fines were assessed for failing to designate a point person to help fight the fire and failing to give a complete inventory of the organic peroxides on site when firefighters arrived, she said.

Launch Technologies, which was founded in 2006, has been fined before.

Since 2018, the company has been fined $6,200 for safety and health violations and another $9,300 over labor conditions, according to Taiwan’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The company was also fined $9,300 for air pollution violations in 2020, according to its 2021 annual report.

In 2011, a court ordered Launch Technologies to pay compensation to five workers who had sued the company for working overtime beyond the legal limit and in polluted conditions harmful to their health. Company general manager Lu Ying-cheng said at a news conference on Sunday that Launch Technologies has made improvements to the work environment in recent years.