KYIV: An agreement allowing Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea and aimed at relieving global food insecurity has been extended for 120 days, officials said on Thursday.
Ukraine is a top world exporter of grain, but Russia’s invasion in late February stopped shipments.
The deal between the two warring sides, brokered by Turkiye and the UN in July, has helped to transport more than 11 million tons of grain and other agricultural products from Ukrainian ports since the start of August. It had been due to expire on Saturday.
On Thursday Ukrainian and Turkish officials announced that the agreement would be extended by four months under existing conditions.
“#BlackSeaGrainInitiative will be prolonged for 120 days,” Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on Twitter, while a senior Turkish official confirmed to AFP that the deal had been extended “under current terms.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tweeted: “It has been clearly seen how important and beneficial this agreement is for the food supply and security of the world.”
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres hailed the extension and said the grain deal “continues to demonstrate the importance of discreet diplomacy in the context of finding multilateral solutions,” he said.
In recent weeks, Russia had repeatedly warned that it may not agree to extend the agreement because a separate deal that was also signed in July, exempting Russian fertilizers from sanctions, had not been implemented.
Guterres sought to allay those concerns, saying that “The United Nations is also fully committed to removing the remaining obstacles to exporting food and fertilizers from the Russian Federation.”
Both agreements were “essential to bring down the prices of food and fertilizer and avoid a global food crisis,” Guterres said in a statement released by the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Center (JCC) that has been overseeing the agreement.
The flow of Ukrainian exports is essential to stabilising prices on international markets and to supplying the populations most vulnerable to the risk of hunger, particularly in Africa.
Some 40 percent of the grain exported under the agreement has gone to developing countries.
In the weeks of intense diplomacy leading up to Thursday’s announcement, much of the negotiations focused on the issue of fertilizers, a UN source said on condition of anonymity.
Agricultural products and fertilizers do not fall under the sanctions against Russia but because of the risks in the Black Sea linked to the Ukraine conflict, it has become difficult to insure the vessels transporting them.
According to the UN source, a policy framework has been established for the exceptions in insurance, access to ports, financial transactions, shipping and access for shipping, in compliance with the sanctions imposed on Russia.
“Only if we could clarify this policy framework, the private sector actors were willing to reengage in the trade” of Russian fertilizers.
The Black Sea agreement allows Ukrainian grain ships to sail along safe corridors that avoid mines in the Black Sea.
Last month, Russia temporarily pulled out from the agreement, accusing Ukraine of a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea fleet in Crimea before rejoining it.
Russia’s invasion blocked 20 million tons of grain in Ukraine’s ports before the United Nations and Turkiye brokered the deal in July.
Ukraine grain export deal extended for four months
https://arab.news/y9byc
Ukraine grain export deal extended for four months
- The deal had been due to expire on Saturday
- Deal will be extended under existing conditions
Bondi Beach shooting suspect conducted firearms training with his father, Australian police say
MELBOURNE, Australia: A man accused of killing 15 people at Sydney’s Bondi Beach conducted firearms training in an area of New South Wales state outside of Sydney with his father, according to Australian police documents released on Monday.
The documents, made public following Naveed Akram’s video court appearance from a Sydney hospital where he has been treated for an abdominal injury, said the two men recorded footage justifying the meticulously planned attack.
Officers wounded Akram at the scene of the Dec. 14 shooting and killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
The state government confirmed Naveed Akram was transferred Monday from a hospital to a prison. Authorities identified neither facility.
The 24-year-old and his father began their attack by throwing four improvised explosive devices toward a crowd celebrating an annual Jewish event at Bondi Beach, but the devices failed to explode, the documents said.
Police described the devices as three aluminum pipe bombs and a tennis ball bomb containing an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings. None detonated, but police described them as “viable” IEDs.
The pair had rented a room in the Sydney suburb of Campsie for three weeks before they left at 2:16 a.m. on the day of the attack. CCTV recorded them carrying what police allege were two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two homemade Daesh group flags wrapped in blankets.
Police also released images of the gunmen shooting from a footbridge, providing them with an elevated vantage point and the protection of waist-high concrete walls.
The largest IED was found after the gunbattle near the footbridge in the trunk of the son’s car, which had been left draped with the flags.
Authorities have charged Akram with 59 offenses, including 15 counts of murder, 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder in relation to the wounded survivors and one count of committing a terrorist act.
The antisemitic attack at the start of the eight-day Hanukkah celebration was Australia’s worst mass shooting since a lone gunman killed 35 people in Tasmania state in 1996.
The New South Wales government introduced draft laws to Parliament on Monday that Premier Chris Minns said would become the toughest in Australia.
The new restrictions would include making Australian citizenship a condition of qualifying for a firearms license. That would have excluded Sajid Akram, who was an Indian citizen with a permanent resident visa.
Sajid Akram also legally owned six rifles and shotguns. A new legal limit for recreational shooters would be a maximum of four guns.
Police said a video found on Naveed Akram’s phone shows him with his father expressing “their political and religious views and appear to summarise their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack.”
The men are seen in the video “condemning the acts of Zionists” while they also “adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State,” police said, using another term for the Daesh Group.
Video shot in October shows them “firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner” on grassland surrounded by trees, police said.
“There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months,” police allege.
An impromptu memorial that grew near the Bondi Pavilion after the massacre, as thousands of mourners brought flowers and heartfelt cards, was removed Monday as the beachfront returned to more normal activity. The Sydney Jewish Museum will preserve part of the memorial.
Victims’ funerals continued Monday with French national Dan Elkayam’s service held in the nearby suburb of Woollahra, at the heart of Sydney’s Jewish life. The 27-year-old moved from Paris to Sydney a year ago.
The health department said 12 people wounded in the attack remained in hospitals on Monday.
