Russia, Ukraine swap 206 POWs in UAE-brokered deal

Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) react after a swap, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, at an unknown location in Ukraine September 13, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 14 September 2024
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Russia, Ukraine swap 206 POWs in UAE-brokered deal

  • Russian troops freed in Saturday’s swap were captured during Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region
  • Announcement comes just three weeks after Russia and Ukraine swapped 115 prisoners of war each

Moscow: Russia said Saturday it swapped 103 Ukrainian soldiers held captive for an equal number of Russian POWs in an exchange deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates.
The Russian troops freed in Saturday’s swap were captured during Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk region, which began on 6 August, according to the Russian defense ministry.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Ukrainian side.
“As a result of the negotiation process, 103 Russian servicemen captured in the Kursk region were returned from territory controlled by the Kyiv regime,” the Russian defense ministry said.
“In return, 103 Ukrainian army prisoners of war were handed over.”
“At present, all Russian servicemen are on the territory of the Republic of Belarus, where they are being provided with the necessary psychological and medical assistance, as well as an opportunity to contact their relatives,” the ministry added.
Despite ongoing hostilities, Russia and Ukraine have managed to swap hundreds of prisoners throughout the two-and-half-year conflict, often in deals brokered by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia or Turkiye.
The announcement comes just three weeks after Russia and Ukraine swapped 115 prisoners of war each in an exchange deal also mediated by the UAE.


Ukraine says destroyed army transport plane in Russia

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Ukraine says destroyed army transport plane in Russia

KYIV: Kyiv said Monday its forces had destroyed a Russian military transport plane stationed at an airfield deep inside Russian territory over the weekend, the latest Ukrainian claim of an attack behind Moscow’s lines.
Ukraine has stepped up attacks inside Russian territory in recent months, targeting military sites and energy facilities, aiming to upend Russian military logistics.
Kyiv’s military intelligence agency said it had destroyed the Tu-134 transport aircraft overnight between Saturday and Sunday at a military airfield in the Orenburg region, which lies around 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine.
“These Soviet-built airplanes are used mainly to transport leadership of the Russian defense ministry,” the Defense Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine said on social media.
The agency posted footage of what Ukraine said was an arson attack, showing a blaze burning inside an aircraft, but it did not provide details of how the alleged attack was carried out.
There was no immediate comment on the specific claims from Moscow.
Since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has detained hundreds of people for alleged sabotage and arson attacks on military, railway and other infrastructure sites.

EU condemns all attacks on UN missions, foreign policy chief Borrell says

Updated 18 min 36 sec ago
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EU condemns all attacks on UN missions, foreign policy chief Borrell says

  • Israel has disputed some UN accounts of incidents involving UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were providing “human shields” for Hezbollah militants

AMSTERDAM: The European Union condemns all attacks against United Nations missions, the union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a response to targeting of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, by the Israel Defense Forces.
“Such attacks against UN peacekeepers constitute a grave violation of international law and are totally unacceptable. These attacks must stop immediately,” Borrell said in a statement on behalf of the EU published Sunday night.
“The EU condemns all attacks against UN missions,” Borrell said.
“It expresses particularly grave concern regarding the attacks by the Israeli Defense Forces against UNIFIL, which left several peacekeepers wounded.”
Israel has disputed some UN accounts of incidents involving UNIFIL peacekeepers in Lebanon, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they were providing “human shields” for Hezbollah militants during an upsurge in hostilities.
In his statement, Borrell said “all actors” in the conflict have the obligation to ensure the safety and security of UN personnel and property.
“We urgently await explanations and a thorough investigation from the Israeli authorities about the attacks against UNIFIL, which plays a fundamental role in the stability of South Lebanon,” he said.


North Korea set to blow up cross-border roads with South amid drone row, Seoul says

Updated 14 October 2024
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North Korea set to blow up cross-border roads with South amid drone row, Seoul says

  • North Korean troops were working under camouflage on the roads on its side of the border near the west and east coasts

SEOUL: North Korea is getting ready to blow up roads that cross the heavily militarised border with South Korea, Seoul said on Monday, amid an escalating war of words after the North accused its rival of sending drones over its capital Pyongyang.
North Korean troops were working under camouflage on the roads on its side of the border near the west and east coasts that are likely preparations to blow up the roads, possibly as early as on Monday, South Korea’s military spokesman said.
Last week, North Korea’s Army said it would completely cut roads and railways connected to South Korea and fortify the areas on its side of the border, state media KCNA reported.
Separately, North Korea on Friday accused South Korea of sending drones to scatter a “huge number” of anti-North leaflets over Pyongyang, in what it called a political and military provocation that could lead to armed conflict.
Lee Sung-jun, a spokesman for the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined on Monday to answer questions over whether the South Korean military or civilians flew the drones.
In further statements over the weekend, North Korea warned of a “horrible disaster” if South Korean drones were again found to be flying over Pyongyang. On Sunday, it said it has put eight fully armed artillery units at the border “on standby to open fire.”
South Korea’s military has said its refusal to answer questions on the drones is because addressing what the North has alleged would be to get drawn into a tactic by Pyongyang to fabricate excuses for provocations.
South Korea has sought to boost its anti-drone defenses since 2022, Lee said, when five North Korean drones entered its airspace and flew over the capital Seoul for several hours.
Lee Kyoung-haing, an expert in military drone operations at Jungwon University, said civilians would have no trouble getting drones with ranges of 300 km, the round trip from the South to Pyongyang, with light payloads such as leaflets.
On Sunday, North Korea’s defense ministry said the drones, which it said were detected over Pyongyang on three days earlier this month, were the kind that required a special launcher or a runway and it was impossible a civilian group could launch them.
The two Koreas are still technically at war after their 1950-53 war ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
The cross-border links are remnants of periods of rapprochement between the countries including a 2018 summit between the leaders when they declared there would be no more war and a new era of peace had opened.
North Korea has reintroduced heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone border buffer and restored guard posts, after the two sides declared a 2018 military agreement aimed at easing tensions no longer valid.


Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine

Updated 14 October 2024
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Russia says more than 30,000 evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine

  • Ukrainian forces turned the tables against aggressor Russia by launching an incursion into the Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since

KYIV: Some 30,415 people including nearly 8,000 children have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine due to shelling and attacks, Russia’s human rights commissioner said in remarks published on Monday.
Tatyana Moskalkova, the commissioner, told news outlet Argumenty I Fakty in an interview that the evacuees have been placed in nearly 1,000 temporary accommodation centers across Russia.
Ukraine, subjected to an invasion from Russia since February 2022, has retaliated with shelling and other attacks on Russia’s border regions, with the military saying the strikes target infrastructure key to Moscow’s war effort.
Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region in August, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since.
Moskalkova said she had received appeals regarding more than 1,000 Russian citizens from Kursk, whose whereabouts are unknown and who were said to have been taken by Ukrainian forces.
Reuters could not independently verify Moskalkova’s reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Both sides deny targeting or imprisoning civilians but thousands have died in the war, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Moskalkova also told the news outlet that she has visited more than 2,000 Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia and that similar visits with Russian prisoners have been conducted by her counterpart in Ukraine.


Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

Updated 14 October 2024
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Malaysia’s eviction of sea nomads casts light on precarious lives

SEMPORNA, Malaysia: Patches of palm thatch entwined with a few forlorn stilts sticking out of the emerald waters in a Malaysian marine park off the island of Borneo are the only traces remaining of the homes of hundreds of sea nomads.
Robin, one of those left homeless among a community that inspired the fictional ‘Metkayina’ tribe in the 2022 film ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’, took to a boat with his children to flee the Malaysian officials who razed their home.
“I don’t know where to go now,” he told Reuters from the deck of a wooden houseboat festooned with drying clothes, where he lives with a cousin and their eight children after the demolition drive razed structures deemed illegal.
His indigenous sea-faring community, known as the Bajau Laut, is famed for the ability to dive underwater for lengthy periods unassisted by equipment.

Three generations of an indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community family spend their evening together at their stilt house built over the sea in Semporna, Malaysia, on August 20, 2024. (REUTERS)

They have lived in the area for centuries, but are still seen as migrants by the authorities, since most of them lack basic paperwork to prove their names, ages and nationality.
Sometimes known as Sama Bajau elsewhere in Southeast Asia, many face impoverished, precarious lives and are denied access to health, education or financial services without such documents.
“We can’t buy food because our gold pawn tickets were damaged during the demolition,” said Robin’s cousin, Indasaini. “We have no money. The children are sick and we don’t have money to buy medicine.”
Malaysian authorities must take a more compassionate approach and consult the community before evictions or resettlements, said Vilashini Somiah, an anthropologist at the University of Malaya.
“These programs do not work because there’s no consultation with them in which you recognize the community as people,” she said, referring to previous efforts.
Many sea nomads settled around islands in the Tun Sakaran Marine Park, popular with divers and tourists off Malaysia’s eastern state of Sabah, but a crackdown on cross-border crime since June has demolished hundreds of homes.

A general view of stilt houses of the indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community in Semporna, Malaysia. (Reuters)

Another reason for the drive was national security concerns, as the waters of the Sulu archipelago between Sabah and the southern Philippines are a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf, a militant group notorious for piracy and kidnapping that is linked to Islamic State.
Like many undocumented Bajau Laut, Robin goes by one name and does not know his exact age. But he said he can trace his family’s history in the area, with his grandparents buried on an islet in the government-protected park.
To earn his livelihood, Robin said he used to fish and gather wood from the islands to sell on the mainland, but has been unable to do so since he was evicted.

Growing scrutiny
Reuters was unable to verify Robin’s account, but state officials confirmed the campaign to remove intruders from protected areas of the park in the Semporna district.
“The Sabah government will take all necessary action to help,” Hajjiji Noor, the state’s chief minister, told Reuters, adding that authorities had found another coastal area in Semporna to resettle the community.

Houseboats of the indigenous seaborne Bajau Laut community anchor in the waters of Semporna, Malaysia, on August 20, 2024. (REUTERS)

A fifth of the roughly 28,000 Bajau Laut identified by the government in Sabah are Malaysian citizens, though analysts believe the figure could be higher.
The state has an estimated 1 million undocumented residents, including stateless indigenous communities and economic migrants from neighboring Philippines and Indonesia.
The evictions of the Bajau Laut come amid growing scrutiny of Malaysia’s treatment of migrants. In March, New York-based Human Rights Watch said authorities had detained about 45,000 undocumented people since May 2020.
The move has sparked outrage and debate in Malaysia, with some activists calling for citizenship for the community to ensure better protection, though some voiced concern over national security.
Bilkuin Jimi Salih, 20, a Bajau Laut youth born in Sabah, said a Malaysian identity document was key to securing better education and job opportunities.
“I had many ambitions ... to become a policeman, a soldier, but I can’t because I don’t have documents,” said Bilkuin, who now teaches at Iskul Sama DiLaut, a non-government body that educates stateless children.
His efforts to build a career were hampered by the lack of a birth certificate and identity card, he added.
“It’s costly to take a pregnant woman to hospital, and that’s how I realized why I wasn’t born in a hospital,” he added. “My family was too poor to afford it.”
Winning citizenship may be difficult, however, Vilashini said, in view of the community’s disputed origins and a lengthy history of squabbles over resources between undocumented people and the residents of one of Malaysia’s poorest states.
She urged the authorities to better engage with the community to resolve the issue, adding, “It has to be consensual, it has to be respectable.”
Without documents, life feels truly unfair, Bilkuin said. “We want to have documents so that ... our children won’t experience what we’ve been through.”