Mercenary chief Prigozhin starts exile in Belarus, Putin praises Russian troops

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Founder of Wagner private mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin. (REUTERS)
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This video grab taken from handout footage posted late on June 24, 2023 on the Telegram channel @rstv01 shows a military vehicle of Wagner Group waiting for Yevgeny Prigozhin to leave the headquarters of the Russian southern military district in Rostov. (AFP)
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Updated 28 June 2023
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Mercenary chief Prigozhin starts exile in Belarus, Putin praises Russian troops

  • Lukashenko hailed Prigozhin as a "heroic guy" who had been shaken by the deaths of many of his men in Ukraine
  • "He was pressured and influenced by those who led the assault squads (in Ukraine) and saw these deaths," Lukashenko said

MOSCOW: Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin flew into exile in Belarus on Tuesday under a deal that ended a brief mutiny by his fighters, as President Vladimir Putin praised his armed forces for averting a civil war.
A plane linked to Prigozhin was shown on a flight tracking service taking off from the southern Russian city of Rostov early on Tuesday and landing in Belarus.
“I see Prigozhin is already flying in on this plane,” state news agency BELTA quoted Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko as saying. “Yes, indeed, he is in Belarus today.”
In Moscow, Putin sought to reassert his authority after the mutiny led by Prigozhin in protest against the Russian military’s handling of the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian authorities also dropped a criminal case against his Wagner Group mercenary force, state news agency RIA reported, apparently fulfilling another condition of the deal brokered by Lukashenko late on Saturday that defused the crisis.
Prigozhin, a former Putin ally and ex-convict whose mercenaries have fought the bloodiest battles of the Ukraine war and taken heavy casualties, had earlier said he would go to neighboring Belarus at the invitation of Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin and an acquaintance of the Wagner chief.
Ukraine hopes the chaos caused by the mutiny attempt will undermine Russian defenses as Ukraine presses a counteroffensive to recapture occupied territory in the south and east.
There was little news about progress on the battlefield on Tuesday, but two Russian missiles struck a restaurant in the eastern city of Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region. Andriy Yermak, head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration, said on Telegram that four people were killed and 42 injured, including a child.
The building was reduced to a twisted web of metal beams. “None of the glass, windows or doors are left. All I see is destruction, fear and horror,” Valentyna, 64, said.
Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians since launching what it terms a “special military operation” in Ukraine in February 2022.

’YOU HAVE STOPPED CIVIL WAR’
Early on Tuesday, flight tracking service Flightradar24’s website showed an Embraer Legacy 600 jet, bearing identification codes that match a plane linked to Prigozhin in US sanctions documents, descending near the Belarus capital Minsk.
It first appeared on the tracking site above Rostov, the southern Russian city that Prigozhin’s fighters captured during the mutiny.
Prigozhin was seen on Saturday night smiling and high-fiving bystanders as he rode out of Rostov in the back of an SUV after ordering his men to stand down. He has not yet been seen in public in Belarus.
Putin meanwhile told some 2,500 Russian security personnel at a ceremony on a square in the Kremlin complex in Moscow that the people and the armed forces stood together in opposition to the rebel mercenaries.
“You have saved our motherland from upheaval. In fact, you have stopped a civil war,” he said.
Putin was joined by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, whose dismissal had been one of the mutineers’ main demands.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news briefing on Tuesday the deal ending the mutiny was being implemented.
Russian leaders have tried to convey that the situation is returning to normal. Peskov dismissed the idea that Putin’s grip on power had been shaken by the mutiny, calling such thoughts “hysteria.”

DEMONSTRATION OF PROTEST
Prigozhin, 62, said he launched the mutiny to save his group after being ordered to place it under command of the defense ministry, which he has cast as ineffectual in the war in Ukraine.
His fighters halted their campaign on Saturday to avert bloodshed after nearly reaching Moscow, he said. “We went as a demonstration of protest, not to overthrow the government of the country,” Prigozhin said in an audio message on Monday.
Lukashenko said on Tuesday that his country offered Wagner fighters an abandoned military base. “Please — we have a fence, we have everything — put up your tents,” Lukashenko said, according to BELTA.
The prospect of Wagner establishing a base in Belarus was greeted with alarm by some of its neighbors. Latvia and Lithuania called for NATO to strengthen its eastern borders in response, and Polish President Andrzej Duda described the move a “negative signal.”
Lithuania’s President Gitanas Nauseda said deployment of Wagner fighters in Belarus would destabilize neighboring countries.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after a meeting with leaders of seven NATO countries in the Hague that the alliance “sent a clear message to Moscow and Minsk that NATO is there to protect every ally, every inch of NATO territory.”
Washington, which has given Ukraine more than $10 billion in military assistance, announced $500 million in new aid including vehicles and munitions, according to a Pentagon statement.

 


How did killing at Sikh temple lead to Canada and India expelling each other’s diplomats?

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How did killing at Sikh temple lead to Canada and India expelling each other’s diplomats?

  • India rejects Ottawa’s allegations it is involved in killing of Sikh separatist in Canada 
  • Hardeep Singh Nijjar was local leader in movement to create independent Sikh homeland 

NEW DELHI: Relations between India and Canada are at a low point as the countries expelled each other’s top diplomats over an ongoing dispute about the killing of a Sikh activist in Canada.

Canada said it had identified India’s top diplomat in the country as a person of interest in an assassination plot and expelled him and five other diplomats Monday. India has rejected the accusations as absurd, and its foreign ministry said it was expelling Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in response.

It’s the latest in an escalating dispute over the June 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar.

What is the dispute about?

Nijjar was fatally shot in his pickup truck in June 2023 after he left the Sikh temple he led in the city of Surrey, British Columbia. An Indian-born citizen of Canada, he owned a plumbing business and was a leader in a movement to create an independent Sikh homeland, which is banned in India.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in September 2023 there were credible allegations that India’s government had links to the killing. India denied the allegations at the time but said Nijjar was involved in “terrorism.”

How did relations get to this point?

Canada expelled an Indian diplomat over the dispute last year, and in response India expelled a Canadian diplomat and froze consular services for Canadians for nearly two months.

Tensions boiled over again in May, when Canadian police said they had arrested three Indian nationals accused of involvement in Nijjar’s killing and were “investigating if there are any ties to the government of India.” India rejected the allegations, saying Canada had a “political compulsion” to blame India.

What changed on Monday?

Now, Canada says that India’s top diplomat in the country is a person of interest in the killing, and that police have uncovered evidence of an intensifying campaign against Canadian citizens by agents of the Indian government.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said it had found evidence of the involvement of Indian agents “in serious criminal activity in Canada,” including links “to homicides and violent acts” and interference in Canada’s democratic processes, among other things.

Meanwhile, Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, tied the Indian officials to Nijjar’s assassination and said Canada had gathered “ample, clear and concrete evidence which identified six individuals as persons of interest in the Nijjar case.”

She said India had been asked to waive diplomatic immunity and cooperate in the investigation but refused.

In a statement Monday, India’s foreign ministry said that the Canadian government “has not shared a shred of evidence” with the Indian government, “despite many requests from our side.” The ministry also called the accusations part of “a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains.”

Who was Nijjar?

Nijjar was a local leader in what remains of a once-strong movement to create an independent Sikh homeland known as Khalistan. The Khalistan movement is banned in India, but has support among the Sikh diaspora, particularly in Canada.

India designated Nijjar a terrorist in 2020, and at the time of his death was seeking his arrest for alleged involvement in an attack on a Hindu priest in India.

New Delhi’s anxieties about Sikh separatist groups in Canada have long been a strain on the relationship, but the two countries have maintained strong defense and trade ties, and share strategic concerns over China’s global ambitions. However, India has increasingly accused Canada of giving free rein to Sikh separatists.


Son of Singapore’s founding PM Lee Kuan Yew says plans to demolish family home

Updated 37 min 40 sec ago
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Son of Singapore’s founding PM Lee Kuan Yew says plans to demolish family home

  • Lee Kuan Yew’s three children were split on what to do with their father’s home after his death in 2015
  • Lee Hsien Yang says the single-story bungalow should be demolished in accordance with their father’s wishes

SINGAPORE: The youngest child of Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew said on Tuesday he would apply to demolish the statesman’s home in line with his wishes, following the death of Lee’s daughter last week.
Lee Kuan Yew’s three children, one of whom is Singapore’s third Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, were split on what to do with their father’s home after his death in 2015, in a public spat that saw the siblings estranged.
Eldest son Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped down as Singapore’s prime minister earlier this year, thought it should be up to the government to decide what to do with the property, including potentially retaining it as a heritage landmark.
However his sister, Lee Wei Ling, who died on Oct. 9, and younger brother Lee Hsien Yang say the single-story bungalow, built in 1898 in central Singapore, should be demolished in accordance with their father’s wishes.
“After my sister’s passing, I am the only living executor of my father Lee Kuan Yew’s estate,” Lee Hsien Yang wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.
“In his will, he wished for the house to be demolished ‘immediately after’ Wei Ling moved out of the house. It is my duty to carry out his wishes to the fullest extent of the law.”
He said he would apply to demolish the house and planned to build a small private dwelling to be retained by the family, adding that it was time for the government to approve the demolition.
The office of current prime minister Lawrence Wong did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lee Kuan Yew told the Straits Times newspaper in 2011 that he wanted the house demolished because it would “become a shambles” if it were opened to the public, and he hoped its removal would improve land values in the neighborhood.
In 2018, a ministerial committee set up to consider the future of the house laid out three options, and said the decision would be left to a future government.
The options were to retain the property by gazetting it as a national monument or for conservation, retain the basement dining room which has the greatest historical significance and tear down the rest of the property, or allow the property to be fully demolished for redevelopment.
At that time, Lee Hsien Loong said he accepted the committee’s conclusion and the range of options laid out.


China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan

Updated 15 October 2024
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China deploys record 125 warplanes in large-scale military drill in warning to Taiwan

  • The military drills come four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day
  • Taiwan’s Defense Ministry deploys warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready

TAIPEI: China employed a record 125 aircraft, as well as its Liaoning aircraft carrier and ships, in large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan and its outlying islands Monday, simulating the sealing off of key ports in a move that underscores the tense situation in the Taiwan Strait, officials said.
China made clear it was to punish Taiwan’s president for rejecting Beijing’s claim of sovereignty over the self-governed island.
The drills came four days after Taiwan celebrated the founding of its government on its National Day, when Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te said in a speech that China has no right to represent Taiwan and declared his commitment to “resist annexation or encroachment.”
“This is a resolute punishment for Lai Ching-te’s continuous fabrication of ‘Taiwan independence’ nonsense,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said 90 of the aircraft, including warplanes, helicopters and drones, were spotted within Taiwan’s air defense identification zone. The single-day record counted aircraft from 5:02 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Shipping traffic was operating as normal, the ministry said.
Taiwan remained defiant. “Our military will definitely deal with the threat from China appropriately,” Joseph Wu, secretary-general of Taiwan’s security council, said at a forum in Taipei, Taiwan’s capital. “Threatening other countries with force violates the basic spirit of the United Nations Charter to resolve disputes through peaceful means.”
Taiwan’s Presidential Office also called on China to “cease military provocations that undermine regional peace and stability and stop threatening Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.”
A map aired on China’s state broadcaster CCTV showed six large blocks encircling Taiwan indicating where the military drills were being held, along with circles drawn around Taiwan’s outlying islands.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said the six areas focused on key strategic locations around and on the island.
China deployed its Liaoning aircraft carrier for the drills, and CCTV showed a J-15 fighter jet taking off from the deck of the carrier.
China’s People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command spokesperson Senior Captain Li Xi said Monday evening that the drill was successfully completed.
Li said the navy, army air force and missile corps were all mobilized for the drills, which were an integrated operation. “This is a major warning to those who back Taiwan independence and a signifier of our determination to safeguard our national sovereignty,” Li said in a statement on the service’s public media channel.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said at a daily briefing that China did not consider relations with Taiwan a diplomatic issue, in keeping with its refusal to recognize Taiwan as a sovereign state.
“I can tell you that Taiwan independence is as incompatible with peace in the Taiwan Strait as fire with water. Provocation by the Taiwan independence forces will surely be met with countermeasures,” Mao said.
Taiwan’s Defense Ministry said it deployed warships to designated spots in the ocean to carry out surveillance and stand at ready. It also deployed mobile missile and radar groups on land to track the vessels at sea. It said as of Monday morning, they had tracked 25 Chinese warplanes and seven warships and four Chinese government ships, though it did not specify what types of ships they were.
On the streets of Taipei, residents were undeterred. “I don’t worry, I don’t panic either, it doesn’t have any impact to me,” Chang Chia-rui said.
Another Taipei resident, Jeff Huang, said: “Taiwan is very stable now, and I am used to China’s military exercises. I have been threatened by this kind of threats since I was a child, and I am used to it.”
The US, Taiwan’s biggest unofficial ally, called China’s response to Lai’s speech unwarranted. “This military pressure operation is irresponsible, disproportionate, and destabilizing,” Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement. “The entire world has a stake in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait, and we continue to see a growing community of countries committed to peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”
“We call on (Beijing’s government) to act with restraint and to avoid any further actions that may undermine peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and in the broader region,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
China held similar large-scale exercises after Lai was inaugurated in May. Lai continues the eight-year rule of the Democratic Progressive Party that rejects China’s demand that it recognize Taiwan is a part of China.
China also held massive military exercises around Taiwan and simulated a blockade in 2022 after a visit to the island by Nancy Pelosi, who was then speaker of the US House of Representatives. China routinely states that Taiwan independence is a “dead end” and that annexation by Beijing is a historical inevitability. China’s military has increased its encircling of Taiwan’s skies and waters in the past few years, holding joint drills with its warships and fighter jets on a near-daily basis near the island.
Also on Monday, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office announced it was sanctioning two Taiwanese individuals, Puma Shen and Robert Tsao, for promoting Taiwanese independence. Shen is the co-founder of the Kuma Academy, a nonprofit group that trains civilians on wartime readiness. Tsao donated $32.8 million to fund the academy’s training courses. Shen and Tsao are forbidden to travel to China, including Hong Kong.
Taiwan was a Japanese colony before being unified with China at the end of World War II. It split away in 1949 when Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists fled to the island as Mao Zedong’s Communists defeated them in a civil war and took power.


North Korea blows up parts of inter-Korean road on its side of border, Seoul says

Updated 15 October 2024
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North Korea blows up parts of inter-Korean road on its side of border, Seoul says

  • South Korea’s military had ramped up surveillance and its readiness in response

SEOUL: North Korea has blown up sections of an inter-Korean road on its side of the heavily militarised border between the two Koreas, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday.
At around midday, some parts of the road north of the military demarcation line dividing the countries were blown up, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a message sent to media.
South Korea’s military had ramped up surveillance and its readiness in response, it said. Seoul had warned on Monday that Pyongyang was getting ready to blow up the roads.
Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been increasing amid an escalating war of words after the North accused its rival of sending drones over the country’s capital Pyongyang.
North Korea on Friday said the drones had scattered a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets over the city, in what it called political and military provocation that could lead to armed conflict.
A spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff declined on Monday to answer questions over whether the South Korean military or civilians had flown the alleged drones.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had overseen on Monday a meeting with defense and security officials to discuss how to respond to the “enemy’s serious provocation that violated the sovereignty of the DPRK,” state media KCNA reported. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.


US warns Iran to stop plotting against Trump

Updated 15 October 2024
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US warns Iran to stop plotting against Trump

  • Biden briefed regularly on threats, directs team to address Iranian plotting
  • Iran denies plotting, cites US interference in its affairs
  • White House warns of severe consequences for any attack on US citizens

WASHINGTON: The United States has warned the Iranian government to stop all plotting against Republican Donald Trump and said that Washington would view any attempt on his life as an act of war, a US official said on Monday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said US President Joe Biden has been briefed regularly on the threats and directed his team to address Iranian plots against Americans.
At Biden’s direction, top US officials have sent messages to the highest levels of the Iranian government warning Tehran to cease all plotting against Trump and former US officials, the official said.
The Iranians have been told that Washington would view it as an act of war if any attempt was carried out against Trump’s life, the official said.
Iran has denied interfering in US affairs. Tehran, in turn, says Washington has interfered in its affairs for decades, citing events ranging from a 1953 coup against a prime minister to the 2020 killing of its military commander in a US drone strike.
In January 2020, Trump ordered a US air strike that killed Iran’s then-top military commander, Qassem Soleimani, after receiving intelligence that Soleimani was planning imminent attacks on US diplomats and armed forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Trump, a Republican, is now seeking a return to the White House after losing the 2020 election to Biden. Trump is now in a battle against Vice President Kamala Harris in the race for the Nov. 5 election.
His campaign said on Sept. 24 that Trump was briefed by US intelligence officials on the alleged threat from Iran.
The White House said the United States has been closely tracking Iranian threats against Trump for years and it warned of “severe consequences” if Tehran was to attack any US citizen. “We consider this a national and homeland security matter of the highest priority, and we strongly condemn Iran for these brazen threats. Should Iran attack any of our citizens, including those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences,” said White House National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett.
He said “appropriate agencies are continuously and promptly providing the former president’s security detail with evolving threat information.”
“Additionally, President Biden has reiterated his directive that the United States Secret Service should receive every resource, capability, and protective measure required to address those evolving threats to the former president,” Savett said.