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Ukraine says latest Russian assault on Bakhmut beaten back

Ukrainian servicemen walk on the road toward their base near the frontline in the Donetsk region on February 4, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (AFP)
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Updated 05 February 2023
AFP

Ukraine says latest Russian assault on Bakhmut beaten back

Updated 05 February 2023
AFP

KYIV: Ukraine fought off a fresh Russian assault on the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, its leaders said Saturday, as it endured a fresh wave of shelling in the disputed Donetsk region.
Officials meanwhile recovered the bodies of two British volunteers, killed trying to help evacuate people from the eastern warzone.
And the southern city of Odesa suffered a massive power cut affecting half a million households after an accident at a war-damaged electrical substation.
“This week, the Russian occupation forces threw all their efforts into breaking through our defense and encircling Bakhmut, and launched a powerful offensive in the Lyman sector,” said Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar.
“But thanks to the resilience of our soldiers, they did not succeed.”
Ukraine’s border guard service reported that its soldiers had stopped the latest attack, killing four and wounding seven of the opposing forces.
Russia unleashed a fresh wave of bombardment across the eastern front lines Saturday morning. Ukrainian officials reported shelling in the Chernigiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv Lugansk, Donetsk and Mykolaiv regions.
In his evening address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation was getting tougher.

Russia, he said, was “throwing more and more of its forces at breaking down our defense.”
“It is very difficult now in Bakhmut, Vugledar, Lyman and other areas,” he added, referring to the frontline cities in the east of the country.
France, Italy and the United States on Friday all promised fresh deliveries of weapons to Ukraine.
Germany’s leader said in an interview Sunday there was agreement that weapons supplied by the West would not be used to attack Russian territory.
“There is a consensus on this point,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview with the weekly Bild am Sonntag.
Kyiv, while expressing its gratitude for the pledged weapons, is already pressing for more, including fighter jets.

2 British rescuers killed

Officials in Kyiv said Saturday that the bodies of the two Britons killed while trying to help people evacuate from the eastern warzone had been recovered in a prisoner swap.
Chris Parry, 28, and Andrew Bagshaw, 47, were undertaking voluntary work in Soledar, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, when their vehicle was reportedly hit by a shell.

Their bodies were returned to Ukraine authorities as part of a wider exchange, in which Kyiv got 116 prisoners and Russia 63.
“We managed to return the bodies of the dead foreign volunteers,” said Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, naming them as the two British men.
Concern had grown about their fates after the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, which helped capture Soledar from Ukrainian forces, said on January 11 that one of the missing men’s bodies had been found there.
Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin had also published online photographs of passports that appeared to belong to Parry and Bagshaw, which he claimed were found with the corpses.
On Friday, news emerged of the death of an American medic killed in Bakhmut when his evacuation vehicle was hit by a missile.
Global Outreach Doctors, with whom he was working, said 33-year-old Pete Reed was a former US Marine Corps rifleman who also worked as a paramedic.
The Odesa power cut hit hundreds of thousands of people.
“As of today, almost 500,000 customers have no electricity supply,” said Maksym Marchenko, of the Odesa regional administration. Energy Minister Herman Galushchenko said that came to “about a third of consumers” there.
“The situation is complex, the scale of the accident is significant,” Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said on messaging app Telegram.
Ukrenergo, the country’s energy operator, reported an accident at a substation supplying both the city and the region of Odesa.
The power network there had been gradually degraded by repeated Russian bombardment in recent months, it added: “As a result, the reliability of power supply in the region has decreased.”

More embargo on Russian products

On Sunday, Russia faces a fresh turn of the sanctions screw, with an embargo on ship deliveries of its refined oil products.
The European Union, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and Australia will cap the price of Moscow’s refined oil products.
Already in December, the EU imposed an embargo on Russian crude oil coming into the bloc by sea and — with its G7 partners — imposed a $60-per-barrel cap on Russian crude exports to other parts of the world.
The new embargo and price caps starting Sunday will target Russian refined oil products such as petrol, diesel and heating fuel arriving on ships.
The Kremlin has warned that the measures will destabilize world markets.

Topics: Russia invasion in Ukraine Bakhmut Donetsk

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UN, humanitarian agencies revise budget for Afghan aid plan down to $3.2 billion

Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

UN, humanitarian agencies revise budget for Afghan aid plan down to $3.2 billion

  • Aid officials and diplomats have warned of potential decline in funding to Afghanistan due to Taliban restrictions on female workers
  • UN development agency in April predicted Afghan economy would contract, inflation would rise if there were a 30% drop in aid
Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

The United Nations and humanitarian agencies have revised the budget for Afghanistan's aid plan for 2023 to $3.2 billion, down from $4.6 billion earlier in the year, the UN humanitarian office said on Monday.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement that a "changing operating context" in the wake of Taliban administration restrictions on female aid workers had contributed to the revised plan.

Taliban authorities have issued several orders barring many Afghan female NGO and United Nations employees from being able to work, which aid agencies have warned would severely hamper delivery in the religiously conservative nation.

"The recent bans on Afghan women working for... NGOs and the UN have added yet another layer of complexity to what is already an incredibly challenging protection environment, and further constrained the operational capacity of partners," the UN statement said.

Afghanistan remains one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, the statement added, with more than two-thirds of the population in need of humanitarian assistance.

Some humanitarian officials and diplomats have warned of a potential decline in funding to the war-ravaged nation due to the Taliban restrictions on female workers and donor governments assessing competing global crises and economic priorities.

It was not clear how much of the revised budget would be funded by foreign donors.

Global humanitarian appeals often fall short of the total amount requested. In 2022, the humanitarian response plan was budgeted at $4.4 billion and received around $3.2 billion. The UN says the number of people in need has grown since last year.

The United Nations' development agency in April predicted Afghanistan's economy would contract and inflation would rise if there were a 30% drop in aid.

Topics: Afghanistan United Nations

US, India agree roadmap for defense industry cooperation

Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

US, India agree roadmap for defense industry cooperation

  • Landmark deal seen boosting Indian defense manufacturing, envisages greater technological cooperation
  • US keen to wean India from dependence on Russia, also seeking counterbalance to China in Asian region
Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

NEW DELHI: India and the United States have concluded a roadmap for defense industry cooperation for the next few years, the two countries said on Monday, a landmark move expected to bolster New Delhi’s defense manufacturing ambitions.
Washington is working to deepen ties with India and sees stronger military-to-military and technology ties with the world’s largest democracy as a key counterweight to China’s dominance in the region.
It is also seeking to wean New Delhi away from its traditional dependence on Russia for defense supplies.
The roadmap was finalized at a meeting between visiting US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh.
The agreement comes weeks before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Washington on June 22 for an official state visit and holds talks with President Joe Biden.
The roadmap is considered significant as Washington maintains strict controls over what domestic military technology can be shared or sold to other countries.

TECHNOLOGY COOPERATION

The move aims to change the “paradigm” for defense sector cooperation between the two countries, the US Embassy in New Delhi said in a statement.
It will “fast-track technology cooperation and co-production in areas such as air combat and land mobility systems, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, munitions, and the undersea domain,” it said.
The roadmap includes specific proposals that could provide India access to cutting-edge technologies, it said, adding that Austin and Singh also pledged to review regulatory hurdles impeding closer industry-to-industry cooperation.
India, the world’s largest arms importer, depends on Russia for nearly half its military supplies, but has also increasingly diversified its sources to buy from the US, France and Israel, among others.
New Delhi also wants global defense manufacturers to partner with Indian companies and produce arms and military equipment in India for local consumption as well as exports.
The Biden administration is set to sign off on a deal that will allow General Electric Co. to produce in India jet engines powering Indian military aircraft.
Austin said he and Singh had discussed ways to increase information sharing and new initiatives to improve maritime cooperation, including in the undersea domain.
The US-India defense partnership matters, he told reporters, because “we face a rapidly changing world.”
“We see bullying and coercion from the People’s Republic of China, Russian aggression against Ukraine that seeks to redraw borders by force and threatens national sovereignty, as well as transnational challenges such as terrorism, climate change.
“So democracies must now rally together around not just our common interests but also our shared values,” Austin said.

Topics: United States India US Defense

UK to house hundreds more migrants on barges, Sunak says

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak travels aboard Border Force cutter 'HMC Seeker' during a visit to the English Channel.
Updated 05 June 2023
AP

UK to house hundreds more migrants on barges, Sunak says

  • Two more barges will house about 1,000 migrants, Sunak said, alongside one that’s set to be docked in Portland in southern England within the next two weeks
Updated 05 June 2023
AP

LONDON: The UK government will house hundreds more asylum-seekers on barges, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Monday, as he unveiled the latest migration figures that he said showed that his plans to crack down on small boat crossings on the English Channel are working.
Two more barges will house about 1,000 migrants, Sunak said, alongside one that’s set to be docked in Portland in southern England within the next two weeks. The move is meant to help save millions in taxpayers’ money currently spent to house asylum-seekers in hotels across the country.
Sunak told reporters that compared to the same time last year, the number of people making the dangerous sea crossing on small vessels from northern France to the southern English coast so far this year has decreased by a fifth. He suggested that the UK was doing better than other countries in Europe, where he said unauthorized migrant crossings have increased by a third over the same period.
Figures from the Home Office show that about 7,600 people were detected crossing the English Channel so far this year, compared with almost 10,000 last June. However, it is difficult to tell whether the decrease was linked to Sunak’s government’s policies or other factors such as weather conditions. The summer months typically see much higher numbers making the journey.
Sunak also said that the number of Albanian migrants arriving by small boats has fallen by almost 90 percent, and that a deal with Albania has seen 1,800 asylum-seekers turned back.
Many of the asylum-seekers arriving in the UK each year hail from conflict zones, including Afghanistan and Syria, though a large number come from Albania, which Sunak’s government describes as a “safe” country.
Sunak has made “Stop the Boats” his flagship policy since he took office in October. His government is pushing through a controversial migration bill that seeks to dramatically curb migrants’ ability to seek asylum in the UK Critics, including the UN refugee agency, have decried it as unethical and unworkable, and some say it breaks international law.

Topics: UK migrants Barges

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Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning

Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning

  • Poisoning, which targeted girls’ school in Afghan province of Sar-e Pol, comes after intense scrutiny of girls’ education
  • In neighboring Iran, poisoning incidents at girls’ schools sickened estimated 13,000 mostly female students since November
Updated 05 June 2023
Reuters

KABUL: Around 60 Afghan girls were hospitalized after being poisoned at their school in northern Afghanistan, police said on Monday.
The poisoning, which targeted a girls’ school in the Afghan province of Sar-e Pol, comes after intense scrutiny of girls’ education in the war-torn nation since the Taliban took over and barred most teenage female students and after a wave of poison attacks on girls’ schools in neighboring Iran.
“Some unknown people entered a girls’ ... school in Sancharak District .. and poisoned the classes, when the girls come to classes they got poisoned,” said Den Mohammad Nazari, Sar-e-Pol’s police spokesperson, without elaborating on which substance was used or who was thought to be behind the incident.
Nazari said the girls had been taken to ho.spital but were in “good condition.” No one had been arrested.
In neighboring Iran, poisoning incidents at girls’ schools sickened an estimated 13,000 mostly female students since November.
During Afghanistan’s previous foreign-backed government, several poisoning attacks, including suspected gas attacks, on girls’ schools had taken place.
The Taliban administration has prevented most female students from attending highschool and university since taking over in 2021, sparking condemnation from international governments and many Afghans. Taliban authorities have kept primary schools open for girls, up until the age of around 12 and say they are in favor of female education under certain conditions.

US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China 

Updated 05 June 2023
AP 

US defense secretary discusses upgrading ties with India to counter China 

  • Lloyd Austin’s visit comes as India strengthens its domestic defense industry by acquiring new technologies 
  • Secretary Austin and his Indian counterpart explored ways of building resilient supply chains, New Delhi says 
Updated 05 June 2023
AP 

NEW DELHI: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday discussed upgrading partnership with India, a major arms buyer, and set a roadmap for cooperation for the next five years as both countries grapple with China’s economic rise and increased belligerence, officials said. 

Austin’s visit comes as India strengthens its domestic defense industry by acquiring new technologies and reducing reliance on imports, particularly from Russia, its largest supplier of military hardware despite the ongoing war in Ukraine. 

Austin and his Indian counterpart, Rajnath Singh, explored ways of building resilient supply chains, a statement from India’s Defense Ministry said. They decided “to identify opportunities for the co-development of new technologies and co-production of existing and new systems and facilitate increased collaboration between defense startup ecosystems of the two countries.” 

They also discussed regional security issues given their shared interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, it said. 

“I’m returning to India to meet with key leaders for discussions about strengthening our Major Defense Partnership. Together, we’re advancing a shared vision for a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Austin tweeted after his arrival in New Delhi on Sunday. 

Austin, who is on his second visit to India, was expected to lay the groundwork for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington on June 22, which has fueled speculation about a possible announcement of defense contracts. 

India is looking to buy 18 armed high-altitude long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicles from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. for an estimated $1.5 billion to $2 billion, said Rahul Bedi, a defense analyst. The UAVs would likely be deployed along its restive borders with China and Pakistan and in the strategic Indian Ocean region, Bedi said. 

Indian media reports said a joint production and manufacture of combat aircraft engines, infantry combat vehicles, howitzers and their precision ordnance were discussed last month in Washington at a meeting of the US-India Defense Policy Group. 

Austin arrived in New Delhi from Singapore, where he attended the Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual forum bringing together top defense officials, diplomats and leaders. Austin lobbied for support for Washington’s vision of a “free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights” as the best course to counter increasing Chinese assertiveness in the region. 

China’s Defense Minister Gen. Li Shangfu said at the conference that the US has been “deceiving and exploiting” Asia-Pacific nations to advance its own self-interests to preserve “its dominant position.” 

Li suggested that Washington has been holding on to alliances that are “remnants of the Cold War” and establishing new pacts, like the AUKUS agreement with Britain and Australia and the Quad grouping with Australia, India and Japan, “to divide the world into ideologically-driven camps and provoke confrontation.” 

India is trying a balancing act in its ties with Washington and Moscow, and has been reducing its dependence on Russian arms by also buying from the US, France, Germany and other countries. 

The US defense trade with India has risen from near zero in 2008 to over $20 billion in 2020. Major Indian purchases from the United States included long-range maritime patrol aircraft, C-130 transport aircraft, missiles and drones. 

Experts say up to 60 percent of Indian defense equipment comes from Russia, and New Delhi finds itself in a bind at a time when it is facing a 3-year-old border standoff with China in eastern Ladakh, where tens of thousands of soldiers are stationed within shooting distance. Twenty Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops died in a clash in 2020. 

Topics: US India

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