FRANKFURT, Germany: A German military base was sealed off for several hours Wednesday as authorities investigated suspected sabotage while a NATO air base in the country faced an attempted trespassing incident, officials said.
The Bundeswehr base in Cologne-Wahn was locked down because of “a suspicion of an attempted intrusion and a suspicion of sabotage,” defense ministry spokesman Col. Arne Collatz told reporters in Berlin.
A hole was discovered in a fence near drinking water storage facilities, the military’s territorial command said on X.
The perpetrators had not been found and the site’s water was being checked as a precaution. The base re-opened later in the day, it added.
Der Spiegel magazine reported that soldiers and civilians on the Bundeswehr base had been advised not to drink the tap water over concerns that the water supply “may be contaminated.”
The Cologne-Wahn base, located near Cologne-Bonn airport, houses several military and civilian facilities of the German armed forces as well as aircraft used by Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ministers for government travel.
The base is also an important hub for military support for Ukraine. Ukrainian soldiers regularly fly home from there, via Poland, after receiving training in Germany, Der Spiegel added.
A NATO base in the western German town of Geilenkirchen meanwhile faced an attempted trespassing incident late Tuesday, the military alliance said in a statement.
An individual attempted to enter the base but was stopped and sent away, a spokesman said, adding that a “routine” sweep of the site and people there was conducted afterwards. Police are investigating the incident.
Following the lockdown at the Cologne-Wahn base, the NATO site also increased its security level and conducted routine checks of its water supply but added it had no concerns with the safety of its supply.
The base, home to NATO AWACS reconnaissance aircraft, was not sealed off and continued operating at full capacity, the spokesman said.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius told Der Spiegel that the authorities “reacted quickly” at both sites by sealing off access, alerting investigators and ordering laboratory analyzes to check for possible contamination.
“These incidents show we must remain vigilant,” he added.
Marcus Faber, a German lawmaker from the liberal FDP party and chairman of parliament’s defense committee, told Bild daily that with the two incidents coming so close together “one can assume that an enemy actor wants to demonstrate his sabotage skills.”
Germany — a key ally of Kyiv — has been on high alert for sabotage and attacks on military facilities in the country in the wake of Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
In April, investigators arrested two German-Russian men on suspicion of spying for Russia and planning attacks in Germany — including on US army facilities — to undermine military support for Ukraine.
Military, NATO bases in Germany hit by security scares
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Military, NATO bases in Germany hit by security scares
- Perpetrators had not been found and the site’s water was being checked as a precaution
World leaders to gather at UN as crises grow and conflicts rage
- Gaza war, soaring Mideast tensions, Sudan’s civil war and the grinding Russian-Ukraine war are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of UNGA 2024
- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three”
NEW YORK CITY: World leaders will descend on the United Nation’s New York HQ from Sunday for the organization’s annual signature gathering against an explosive backdrop of raging wars, growing populism and diplomatic deadlock.
The war in Gaza, soaring Middle East tensions, famine conditions in Sudan’s civil war and the grinding conflict in Ukraine are among the rancorous issues on the agenda of the presidents and prime ministers attending the General Assembly’s high-level week — the UN’s showpiece event.
But UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres insisted this week that the world would be able to “avoid moving to World War Three.”
“What we are witnessing is a multiplication of conflicts and the sense of impunity,” Guterres said at a briefing.
The gathering “could not come in a more critical and more challenging moment,” said Washington’s UN envoy Linda Thomas-Greenfield.
“The list of crises and conflicts that demand attention and action only seem to grow and grow... it’s easy to fall into cynicism.
“But we can’t afford to do that.”
It is unclear what if anything the grand gathering, the World Cup of diplomacy, can achieve for the millions mired in conflict and poverty globally.
With Israel’s leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian, due to attend, “Gaza will obviously be the most prominent of these conflicts in terms of what leaders are saying,” said Richard Gowan of the International Crisis Group.
He suggested the set piece diplomatic speeches and posturing would “not actually make a great deal of difference to events on the ground.”
The war in Gaza began after Hamas’s attack on Israel on October 7, which ultimately resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
More than 41,272 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since the war began, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. The UN has acknowledged these figures as reliable.
Fears are high that the conflict could boil over into Lebanon, where a series of deadly explosions apparently targeted Hezbollah’s communications this week. Israel has yet to comment.
The action in New York begins Sunday with a “Summit of the Future,” Guterres’ flagship attempt to get ahead of challenges that will face the world in coming years.
World leaders, expected to include India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will attend to adopt a pact on how to confront the most pressing issues going forward.
Despite intense negotiations and Guterres calling on leaders to show “courage,” the draft text has been panned by observers as badly lacking in ambition.
“One of the risks, and it’s more than a risk, (is) that the Summit of the Future may look like the summit of the past, and in the best-case scenario, the summit of the present,” said another diplomat.”
Guterres insists the summit has value, saying that “international challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them.”
“We see out of control, geopolitical divisions and runaway conflicts, not least in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and beyond, runaway climate change, runaway inequalities... and our institutions simply can’t keep up,” he said.
The ICRC’s UN representative Laetitia Courtois said it was vital that conflict was tackled “right now,” not as “an objective for the next generation.”
The summit will be followed by the high-level week at which the UN’s 193 members will address each other, kicking off with Brazil.
That will be followed by the United States, with President Joe Biden due to speak — likely on ceasefire talks in Gaza, among other issues.
The leaders of China and Russia will be absent as in past years, but Britain’s Keir Starmer, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be present.
Zelensky was the star attraction in 2023, but one diplomat said he would struggle to stay in the spotlight this year as he presents his “plan for victory.”
Ahead of the gala events, a security ring of steel was being erected around the UN’s riverfront HQ and local people and businesses braced for traffic paralysis caused by the endless VIP motorcades and street closures.
How two Colombians wound up in a Russian prison after fighting in Ukraine
- Jose and Alexander were going home to Colombia after fighting with the Ukrainian army against invading Russian forces
- They were in Venezuela on the last leg of their journey home when they vanished, leading to speculation Venezuela authorities handed them over to Russia
POPAYAN, Colombia: “Mom, I’m on my way. Save me some sancocho!“
The last time Otilia Ante, 78, heard from her son Alexander, he was telling her to put aside some of the hearty meat and corn stew on which he was raised in southwestern Colombia.
Alexander, 47, was in neighboring Venezuela at the time, on a circuitous route home from Ukraine where he had fought invading Russian forces with the army there.
But he and his Colombian brother-in-arms Jose Medina, 36, never made it onto the last leg of their long journey back from the battlefield.
The pair vanished on July 18 in Venezuela, a staunch ally of Russia, just before their connecting flight to the Colombian capital Bogota.
The next time their families saw the men was in a video released by Russia’s FSB security service on August 30, showing them being led down a corridor in prison garb with their hands cuffed behind their backs before being interrogated.
Moscow accuses the pair of acting as mercenaries, a crime punishable in Russia by up to 15 years in prison.
Jose’s wife Cielo Paz said seeing the images left her “heartbroken.”
Describing the anxious wait for news about his fate, she said she and the couple’s seven-year-old daughter “feel as if we’re also imprisoned.”
Jose and Alexander hail from Colombia’s southwestern Cauca department, the epicenter of a decades-old conflict involving the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas and drug gangs.
The pair met on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine, 11,000 kilometers (some 6,800 miles) from home, in a battalion counting many foreigners, which suffered heavy losses.
After fighting through the grueling Ukrainian winter into spring, they asked to be discharged.
The men’s families deny they were guns-for-hire, insisting they were recruited by the Ukrainian government and not a private contractor.
Colombia has one of Latin America’s largest armies and a growing pool of ex-soldiers acting as mercenaries.
About 50 Colombians have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022, according to Colombian government figures.
Jose and Alexander were paid $3,000 a month to fight alongside Ukrainian forces — almost ten times the basic salary of a Colombian soldier.
After 14 years in the army, Alexander, who is married with a daughter, went to work as a cash-in-transit driver. He was laid off after failing an eye test.
After for months of unemployment, he decided to enlist again, this time in Ukraine.
“His plan was to go there and (earn enough money to) get his mother out of this neighborhood,” Alexander’s brother Arbey told AFP, describing the district of Popayan as “very dangerous.”
He said recruiters had assured the Colombians they would not be deployed on the frontlines.
“I think they were deceived,” he said.
“My love, here we are in Caracas,,” Jose wrote in his last WhatsApp message to Cielo from Caracas international airport.
“He was on his way home,” she told AFP at their Popayan home, which Jose was planning to finish building with his earnings.
Arbey said Alexander and Jose chose to fly through Venezuela because “the tickets were cheaper” and the pair were unaware of developments in the increasingly isolated Latin American state.
Venezuela was then in the midst of a high-stakes presidential campaign.
Incumbent strongman Nicolas Maduro claimed victory despite polling station results published by the opposition appearing to show a clear victory for their man.
Russia is one of just a handful of countries to have recognized Maduro’s victory, leading to speculation the Venezuelan strongman handed over the Colombians as thanks.
Bogota last week issued its first statement on the matter, saying merely it had requested information from Moscow about their “legal status, location and health status.”
It added a third Colombian, Miguel Angel Cardenas was also being held, without giving details.
The men have been assigned a lawyer but their families say they have been unable to communicate with their state-appointed defender.
Holding up a picture of Jose in uniform, his daughter Alison told AFP he meant “nearly everything” to her.
“Give him back to me,” she appealed.
US broadcast regulator rejects Trump call to pull ABC licenses over presidential debate
- Jessica Rosenworcel said "the Commission does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage"
WASHINGTON: The chair of the Federal Communications Commission rejected former US President Donald Trump’s suggestion that Walt Disney-owned ABC should lose its broadcast licenses over the network’s moderating Sept. 10 presidential debate.
“The First Amendment is a cornerstone of our democracy. The Commission does not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage,” FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said on Thursday.
The FCC, an independent federal agency, does not license broadcast networks, but issues them to individual broadcast stations that are renewed on a staggered basis for eight-year periods.
Trump has repeatedly complained about how ABC moderators handled the September 10 presidential debate, calling them "dishonest" and partial to his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
He said Linsey Davis and David Muir fact-checked him three times for every instance that they corrected Harris.
Appearing on "Fox & Friends" the morning after the debate, Trump repeated his accusations against the two debate moderators and demanded that ABC be punished.
"They ought to take away their license for the way they did that," he said.
Turkiye in new bid to revive Somalia-Ethiopia talks
ISTANBUL: Turkiye will hold separate talks with Horn of Africa rivals Somalia and Ethiopia to ease tensions before a new round of Ankara-hosted talks, the foreign minister said on Thursday.
Relations between Mogadishu and Addis Ababa have soured dramatically since Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal in January with the breakaway Somali region of Somaliland.
The memorandum of understanding gives Ethiopia — one of the world’s biggest landlocked countries — access to the sea, but Somalia has condemned it as an assault on its sovereignty.
Turkiye, which has been conducting shuttle diplomacy between Ethiopian and Somalian foreign ministers since the summer, mediated two rounds of talks in July and August.
The third round, which was supposed to take place on Tuesday, was canceled as Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara would rather meet them separately before another round of talks.
“Because there are some lessons we learned from the previous two rounds of talks,” Fidan told the Anadolu news agency.
Fidan said he would directly talk to the two parties to “bring their positions closer” and help them reach a deal.
Under the Jan. 1 deal with Addis Ababa, Somaliland agreed to lease 20 km of its coast for 50 years to Ethiopia, which wants to set up a naval base and a commercial port.
Somaliland has said Ethiopia would give it formal recognition in return, although Addis Ababa has never confirmed this.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate of 4.5 million people, unilaterally declared independence in 1991, but the international community has never recognized the move. Addis Ababa had access to a port in Eritrea until the two countries went to war between 1998 and 2000. Since then, Ethiopia has sent most of its sea trade through Djibouti.
Fidan said he was hopeful about a deal between the two rivals.
“I believe we have brought the parties closer to a certain degree. Hopefully, we will continue this ... I am hopeful,” he said.
Russia attacks Ukraine geriatric center and power grid
- Moscow says it is advancing in eastern Ukraine
- Ukraine faces winter power shortfall, IEA says
KYIV: Russian forces hit a geriatric center in the Ukrainian city of Sumy and targeted its energy sector in a new wave of airstrikes on Thursday, killing at least one civilian, Ukrainian officials said.
A UN monitoring body said attacks on the power grid probably violated humanitarian law while the International Energy Agency said in a report that Ukraine’s electricity supply shortfall in the critical winter months could reach about a third of expected peak demand.
During a daytime strike on the northern city of Sumy, a Russian guided bomb hit a five-story building, regional and military officials said.
One person was killed and 12 wounded, the interior ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said rescue teams were checking to see whether people were trapped under rubble.
Images from the site shared alongside the ministry’s post showed elderly patients evacuated from the damaged building lying on the ground on carpets and blankets.
In his nightly video address, Zelensky said that Russia had launched 90 guided bomb attacks in the past 24 hours
He also said that Ukraine’s forces had “managed to diminish the occupiers’ assault potential in Donetsk region,” though the situation remained difficult in areas subjected to the heaviest attacks, near the cities of Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had captured the village of Heorhiivka, east of Kurakhove.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s military, in an afternoon report, referred to the village as one of several engulfed by fighting. Popular Ukrainian military blog DeepState said the village was in Russian hands.
Overnight, Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down all 42 drones and one of four missiles launched since Russia invaded Ukraine more than 2-1/2 years ago.
Russian forces have pummelled the energy system in the Sumy region in multiple strikes this week, reducing power in some areas and forcing authorities to use back-up power systems.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said power cuts had been in force in 10 regions due to airstrikes and technological reasons.
In a sign of its concern, the European Union said a fuel power plant was being dismantled in Lithuania to be rebuilt in Ukraine, and that electricity exports would also be increased.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said Russia’s attacks violated international humanitarian law by jeopardizing essential services, including water and heating, while also threatening public health, education and the economy, according to the report.
Kyiv says targeting energy system is a war crime, and the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for four Russian officials and military officers for the bombing of civilian power infrastructure.
Moscow says power infrastructure is a legitimate military target and dismisses the charges as irrelevant.
Sumy a frequent target
Moscow has repeatedly attacked the Sumy region, which borders Russia’s Kursk region, the site of a major Ukrainian incursion in which Kyiv says it seized over 100 settlements. Russian shelling killed three people near Krasnopillia in the Sumy region on Wednesday evening, local prosecutors said. More shelling on Thursday wounded two people and damaged a medical institution, they added.
Russia has taken back two more villages in Kursk, a senior commander said on Thursday, adding that Russian forces were also advancing in eastern Ukraine.
Zelensky, however, said the incursion into Kursk region had succeeded in diverting nearly 40,000 Russian troops to the area.
