KURCHATOV: UN nuclear agency chief Rafael Grossi said after visiting Russia’s Kursk nuclear power plant on Tuesday that there was a risk of a nuclear accident and the situation was serious.
“The danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,” Grossi told reporters, referring to the fact that fighting is taking place in the surrounding Kursk region.
Russia says the plant has been repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian forces that are just 40 km (25 miles) away after carving out a slice of Russian territory this month. Ukraine has yet to respond to the accusations.
Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a news conference that the plant was extremely fragile because it had no protective dome.
He said the site was currently still operating very close to normal conditions, but this meant that the situation regarding its security was even more serious.
Russian state nuclear company Rosenergoatom said Grossi had been able to satisfy himself that the plant’s Number Three reactor was working at planned capacity, while its fourth reactor has been undergoing scheduled maintenance since Sunday. He was also shown a new reactor block that is under construction, it said.
IAEA chief warns of risk of nuclear accident at Russian plant in Kursk region
https://arab.news/wqve9
IAEA chief warns of risk of nuclear accident at Russian plant in Kursk region
- “The danger or possibility of a nuclear accident has emerged near here,” Grossi told reporters
- Russia says the plant has been repeatedly attacked by Ukrainian forces that are just 40 km (25 miles) away after carving out a slice of Russian territory this month
Lawsuit challenges Trump administration’s ending of protections for Somalis
- The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
BOSTON: Immigrant rights advocates filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to stop US President Donald Trump’s administration from next week ending legal protections that allow nearly 1,100 Somalis to live and work in the United States. The lawsuit, brought by four Somalis and two advocacy groups, challenges the US Department of Homeland Security’s decision to end Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, whom Trump has derided in public remarks. Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in January announced that TPS for Somalis would end on March 17, arguing that Somalia’s conditions had improved, despite fighting continuing between Somali forces and Al-Shabab militants. The plaintiffs, who include the groups African Communities Together and Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, in the lawsuit filed in Boston federal court argue the move was procedurally flawed and driven by a discriminatory, predetermined agenda.
The lawsuit cites a series of statements Trump has made describing Somalis as “garbage” and “low IQ people” who “contribute nothing.”
The plaintiffs said the administration is ending TPS for Somalia and other countries due to unconstitutional bias against non-white immigrants, not based on objective assessments of country conditions.
“The termination of TPS for Somalia is racism masking as immigration policy,” Omar Farah, executive director at the legal group Muslim Advocates, said in a statement.
DHS did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said TPS was “never intended to be a de facto amnesty program.”
TPS is a form of humanitarian immigration protection that shields eligible migrants from deportation and allows them to work. Under Noem, DHS has moved to end TPS for a dozen countries, sparking legal challenges. The administration on Saturday announced plans to pursue an appeal at the US Supreme Court in order to end TPS for over 350,000 Haitians. It also wants the high court to allow it to end TPS for about 6,000 Syrians.
SOMALI COMMUNITY TARGETED
Somalia was first designated for TPS in 1991, with its latest extension in 2024. About 1,082 Somalis currently hold TPS, and 1,383 more have pending applications, according to DHS. Somalis in Minnesota in recent months had become a target of Trump’s immigration crackdown, with officials pointing to a fraud scandal in which many people charged come from the state’s large Somali community. The Trump administration cited those fraud allegations as a basis for a months-long immigration enforcement surge in Democratic-led Minnesota, during which about 3,000 immigration agents were deployed, spurring protests and leading to the killing of two US citizens by federal agents.
In November, Trump announced he would end TPS for Somalis in Minnesota, and a month later said he wanted them sent “back to where they came from.”
The US Department of State advises against traveling to Somalia, citing crime and civil unrest among numerous factors.
