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Zelensky visits Kharkiv in show of support for city pounded by Russian strikes

Zelensky visits Kharkiv in show of support for city pounded by Russian strikes
Destroyed resort compound is seen from above after a Russian rocket attack near Kharkiv on May 19, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 24 May 2024
Reuters
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Zelensky visits Kharkiv in show of support for city pounded by Russian strikes

Zelensky visits Kharkiv in show of support for city pounded by Russian strikes
  • The Ukrainian leader met senior military leaders in the city and traveled to the site of a major printing house a day after it was destroyed
  • “I also received updates on defense operations, particularly in the Vovchansk area, as well as the recovery of damaged energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said on X
Updated 24 May 2024
Reuters
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KHARKIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukraine’s northeastern city of Kharkiv on Friday as it faces intensified Russian air attacks amid an offensive push by Moscow’s forces into the north of the surrounding region.
The Ukrainian leader met senior military leaders in the city and traveled to the site of a major printing house a day after it was destroyed in a Russian missile attack that killed at least seven people.
“Today I am in Kharkiv... I also received updates on defense operations, particularly in the Vovchansk area, as well as the recovery of damaged energy infrastructure,” Zelensky said on X.
Russian forces launched a cross-border assault on May 10, driving toward the border town of Vovchansk on one line of attack and pushing toward the village of Lyptsi on the other.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s top commander, said on Thursday that Russian forces were locked in street fighting in Vovchansk and that they had moved onto a defensive footing near Lyptsi.
Russia says it wants to set up a “buffer” zone in the region in what it calls a response to Kyiv’s shelling of Russian border regions such as Belgorod. Russia frequently launches air strikes on Ukraine from the region of Belgorod.
The assault opened a new front in the war in what Kyiv said was an effort to divert its outnumbered troops from the east where the fiercest fighting is taking place.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city which lies some 30 km from the border with Russia, and the surrounding region have faced daily missile, drone and guided bomb strikes for months.
Most of the energy infrastructure has been severely damaged in the city, which is still home to around 1.3 million people.
“The entire city and region of Kharkiv deserve our support, gratitude, and respect,” Zelensky said.

Topics: Russia-Ukraine Conflict Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Kharkiv

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Fire breaks out at a Spanish nursing home, killing at least 10 people

Fire breaks out at a Spanish nursing home, killing at least 10 people
Updated 24 sec ago
AP
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Fire breaks out at a Spanish nursing home, killing at least 10 people

Fire breaks out at a Spanish nursing home, killing at least 10 people
  • Authorities were alerted of the blaze early Friday morning in Villa Franca de Ebro
  • Fire took place just weeks after devastating flash floods in Valencia killed more than 200 people
Updated 24 sec ago
AP
MADRID: At least 10 people died in a blaze at a nursing home in Zaragoza, Spain, before firefighters managed to extinguish it, local authorities reported on Friday.
Authorities were alerted of the blaze early Friday morning in Villa Franca de Ebro, about 30 minutes from the northeastern city.
The cause of the fire was not yet known, local media reported.
Jorge Azcon, head of the regional government of Aragon, whose capital city is Zaragoza, confirmed the deaths and said on X, formerly Twitter, that all government events in the region were canceled for the day.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez also expressed his shock over the fire and deaths.
The fire took place just weeks after devastating flash floods in Valencia killed more than 200 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The floods were the worst natural disaster in Spain’s recent history.

South Korean opposition leader handed suspended jail term

South Korean opposition leader handed suspended jail term
Updated 24 min 42 sec ago
AFP
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South Korean opposition leader handed suspended jail term

South Korean opposition leader handed suspended jail term
  • Case concerns statements Lee Jae-myung made on the campaign trail, when he narrowly lost to incumbent President Yoon Suk Yeol in 2022
Updated 24 min 42 sec ago
AFP

SEOUL: A South Korean court handed the country’s opposition leader a suspended prison sentence Friday for violating election laws — a ruling that may prevent him from running in the next presidential election.
The Seoul Central District Court found Lee Jae-myung, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, guilty and handed him a suspended one-year jail term, a court spokesperson told AFP.
The case concerns statements Lee made on the campaign trail, when he narrowly lost to incumbent President Yoon Suk Yeol in 2022.
Prosecutors had asked for a two-year prison sentence, saying Lee made a false statement in a TV interview in December 2021 that made people think he did not know Kim Moon-ki, a key figure in a controversial development project.
Kim had been found dead days earlier, although police found no evidence of foul play.
Lee was also accused of lying during a parliamentary hearing in 2021 in connection with another controversial development in Seongnam, where he was previously mayor.
The court ruled that the fact Lee made false statements on TV “greatly amplified their impact and reach,” it said in the written verdict.
Supporters wept outside the court after the verdict was announced, and Lee immediately vowed to appeal.
“The verdict is very difficult to accept,” he said.
If it is upheld on appeal, Lee will be stripped of his parliamentary seat and prohibited from running for public office for the next five years — which would include the 2027 presidential election.
Lee is seen as a leading contender in South Korea’s upcoming presidential election, due for early 2027, but the 60-year-old faces a slew of legal cases.
His other trials relate to corruption involving the Seongnam development project, an illegal $8 million cash transfer to North Korea, and pressuring a former mayoral secretary to provide false court testimony in his favor.
A former child factory worker who suffered an industrial accident as a teenage school drop-out, Lee rose to political stardom partly by playing up his rags-to-riches tale.
But his bid for the top office has been overshadowed by a series of scandals. He has also faced scrutiny due to persistent rumors linking him to organized crime.
At least five individuals connected to Lee’s various scandals, including late official Kim, have been found dead, many in what appeared to be suicides.
In January, Lee was stabbed in the neck by an attacker — who said he wanted to prevent him from “becoming president.”
Despite strict legal time limits, Lee’s cases are moving slowly through the courts, and public, acrimonious, drawn-out appeals could cause “considerable chaos in the political landscape,” Shin Yul, professor of political science at Myongji University, said.
“The Democratic Party is set to significantly escalate its attacks on the ruling party,” in a bid to convince the public their leader is not guilty, he said.
“However, it is also probable that the South Korean public will not be entirely supportive of Lee Jae-myung. Once a one-year prison sentence is issued, most people are now likely perceive him as guilty.”

Topics: Lee Jae-myung South Korea

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Sri Lankan president’s coalition wins majority in snap election

Sri Lankan president’s coalition wins majority in snap election
Updated 43 min 38 sec ago
Reuters
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Sri Lankan president’s coalition wins majority in snap election

Sri Lankan president’s coalition wins majority in snap election
  • Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s National People’s Power coalition won 137 seats of 196 for which direct elections were held
Updated 43 min 38 sec ago
Reuters

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s leftist coalition won a thumping victory in a snap general election, gaining power to push through his plans to fight poverty in the island nation recovering from a financial meltdown.

Dissanayake’s Marxist-leaning National People’s Power (NPP) coalition won 137 seats of 196 for which direct elections were held, a two-thirds majority, Friday’s ballot counting showed. Local media projected its tally would cross 150 in the 225-member parliament after more seats are distributed under a proportional seat distribution system.

That would give Dissanayake sweeping powers to even abolish the contentious executive presidency as he has planned.

While the clear mandate strengthens political stability in the South Asian country, some uncertainty on policy direction remains due to Dissanayake’s promises to try and tweak the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rescue program that bailed the country out of its economic crisis, analysts said.

Dissanayake, a political outsider in a country dominated by family parties for decades, comfortably won the island’s presidential election in September.

But his coalition had just three seats in parliament before Thursday’s snap election, prompting him to dissolve it and seek a fresh mandate.

The NPP secured almost 62 percent or almost 7 million votes in Thursday’s election, up from the 42 percent Dissanayake won in September, indicating that he had drawn more widespread support including from minorities and built on his victory.

“We see this as a critical turning point for Sri Lanka. We expect a mandate to form a strong parliament, and we are confident the people will give us this mandate,” Dissanayake said after casting his vote on Thursday.

“There is a change in Sri Lanka’s political culture that started in September, which must continue.”

Voters directly elect 196 members to parliament from 22 constituencies under a proportional representation system. The remaining 29 seats will be distributed according to the island-wide proportional vote obtained by each party.

TENTATIVE ECONOMIC RECOVERY

Celebrations were largely muted, with the exception of a few NPP loyalists who lit fireworks on the outskirts of the capital, Colombo.

The Samagi Jana Balawegaya party of opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, the main challenger to Dissanayake’s coalition, won 35 seats and the New Democratic Front, backed by previous President Ranil Wickremesinghe, won just three seats.

Sri Lanka typically backs the president’s party in general elections, especially if voting is held soon after a presidential vote.

The president wields executive power but Dissanayake still required a parliamentary majority to appoint a fully-fledged cabinet and deliver on key promises to cut taxes, support local businesses, and fight poverty.

A nation of 22 million, Sri Lanka was crushed by a 2022 economic crisis triggered by a severe shortage of foreign currency that pushed it into a sovereign default and caused its economy to shrink by 7.3 percent in 2022 and 2.3 percent last year.

Boosted by a $2.9 billion bailout program from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy has begun a tentative recovery, but the high cost of living is still a critical issue for many, especially the poor.

Dissanayake also aims to tweak targets set by the IMF to rein in income tax and free up funds to invest in welfare for the millions hit hardest by the crisis.

But investors worry his desire to revisit the terms of the IMF bailout could delay future disbursements, making it harder for Sri Lanka to hit a key primary surplus target of 2.3 percent of GDP in 2025 set by the IMF.

“The country has given a clear mandate politically. The key question would be if this is at the cost of economic policy,” said Raynal Wickremeratne, co-head of research at Softlogic Stockbrokers in Colombo.

“I think with this majority they may try to negotiate a bit more on the (IMF) targets as well,” he said. “A continuation of the current reform program on a broader extent would be positive for the country.”

Topics: Sri Lanka

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Wars, looming Trump reign set to dominate G20 summit

Wars, looming Trump reign set to dominate G20 summit
Updated 15 November 2024
AFP
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Wars, looming Trump reign set to dominate G20 summit

Wars, looming Trump reign set to dominate G20 summit
  • G20 leaders gather in Brazil on Monday for a G20 summit set to be dominated by differences over wars in the Middle East and UkrainE
Updated 15 November 2024
AFP
RIO DE JANEIRO:G20 leaders gather in Brazil on Monday for a G20 summit set to be dominated by differences over wars in the Middle East and Ukraine, and implications of Donald Trump’s White House return.
Security considerations — always high at such meetings — were elevated further after a failed bomb attack late Wednesday outside Brazil’s Supreme Court in Brasilia.
Police were probing the two blasts as a possible “terrorist act” committed by a Brazilian perpetrator, whose death was the sole casualty.
The summit venue is in Rio de Janeiro, in the city’s stunning bayside museum of modern art, which is the epicenter of a massive police deployment designed to keep the public well away.
Brazil’s leftwing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will be using the opportunity to highlight his position as a leader championing Global South issues while also being courted by the West.
That role will be tested in the months and years ahead as Latin America and other regions navigate “America First” policies promised by Donald Trump when he becomes US president in January.
At this G20, it will be outgoing President Joe Biden who will represent the world’s biggest economy, but as a lame duck the other leaders will be looking beyond.
Just before the Rio summit, on Sunday, Biden will make a stop in Brazil’s Amazon to underline the fight against climate change — another issue that Trump is hostile toward.


The G20 meet is happening at the same time as the UN’s COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan — and as the world experiences dramatic climate phenomena, including in Brazil where flooding, drought and forest fires have taken heavy tolls.
At the last G20, in India, the leaders called for a tripling of renewable energy sources by the end of the decade, but without explicitly calling for an end to the use of fossil fuels.
One invited leader who declined to come to Rio is Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said his presence could “wreck” the gathering.
Putin denied an International Criminal Court warrant out against him, for Russia’s actions in Ukraine, was a factor in his decision. His foreign minister will represent Russia in Rio.
China’s President Xi Jinping, however, will be attending, and will even extend his stay after the summit to make an official visit to Brasilia on Wednesday.
China is Brazil’s biggest trading partner, and the two countries have been touting themselves as mediators to help end Russia’s war in Ukraine, so far without success.
That conflict, along with Israel’s offensives in Gaza and Lebanon, will loom large at the summit.
“We are negotiating with all the countries on the final declaration’s passages about geopolitics... so that we can reach consensual language on those two issues,” Brazil’s chief diplomatic official for the G20, Mauricio Lyrio, said.
Those conflicts will be “the elephant in the room,” Flavia Loss, international relations specialist at the School of Sociology and Politics of Sao Paulo (FESPSP), told AFP.
But that should not prevent Brazil from finding consensus on issues that it has made priorities under its G20 presidency, she said, such as the fight against hunger or taxing the world’s super-rich.
Lula, heading up Latin America’s biggest economy, set out his line in May when he said: “A lot of people insist on dividing the world between friends and enemies. But the more vulnerable are not interested in simplist dichotomies.”
The Rio G20 summit will open on Monday with Lula officially launching a “Global Alliance against Hunger and Poverty.”
The initiative aims to rally nations and international bodies to free up financing for that campaign, or to replicate programs that have previously had success.
And on the issue of taxing billionaires, the G20 countries already declared a desire to cooperate to bring that about, as set out by their finance ministers who met in Rio in June.
It remained to be seen, though, whether the leaders at the summit would pursue that goal, and on what terms.
Following the summit, Brazil hands over the G20 presidency to South Africa.

Xi, Biden attend Asia-Pacific summit, prepare to meet

Xi, Biden attend Asia-Pacific summit, prepare to meet
Updated 15 November 2024
AFP
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Xi, Biden attend Asia-Pacific summit, prepare to meet

Xi, Biden attend Asia-Pacific summit, prepare to meet
  • Joe Biden and Xi Jinping are due to hold a face-to-face meeting Saturday
  • APEC brings together 21 economies that jointly represent about 60% of world GDP
Updated 15 November 2024
AFP

LIMA: US President Joe Biden and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will attend the first day of an Asia-Pacific leaders’ summit Friday ahead of a face-to-face meeting under a cloud of diplomatic uncertainty cast by Donald Trump’s election victory.
Biden and Xi are due to hold talks Saturday, in what a US administration official said will probably be the last meeting between the sitting leaders of the world’s largest economies before Trump is sworn in in January.
With the Republican president-elect having signaled a confrontational approach to Beijing for his second term, the bilateral meeting will be a closely watched affair.
Xi and Biden arrived in Lima Thursday along with other world leaders for a two-day heads-of-state meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) grouping.
APEC, created in 1989 with the goal of regional trade liberalization, brings together 21 economies that jointly represent about 60 percent of world GDP and over 40 percent of global commerce.
The summit program was to focus on trade and investment for what proponents dubbed inclusive growth.
But uncertainty over Trump’s next moves now clouds the agenda — as it does for the COP29 climate talks underway in Azerbaijan, and a G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next week.
On Thursday, APEC ministers, including US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, held their own meeting behind closed doors in Lima to set the tone for the summit to follow.
Trump announced this week he will replace Blinken with Senator Marco Rubio, a China hawk.
The summit will also be attended by Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia and Indonesia, among others.
President Vladimir Putin of APEC member Russia will not be present.
Trump’s “America First” agenda is based on protectionist trade policies, increased domestic fossil fuel extraction, and avoiding foreign conflicts.
It threatens alliances Biden has built on issues ranging from the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East to climate change and commerce.
The Republican president-elect has threatened tariffs of up to 60 percent on imports of Chinese goods to even out what he says is an imbalance in bilateral trade.
China is grappling with a prolonged housing crisis and sluggish consumption that can only be made worse by a new trade war with Washington.
But economists say punitive levies would also harm the American economy, and others further afield.
China is an ally of Western pariahs Russia and North Korea, and is building up its own military capacity while ramping up pressure on Taiwan, which it claims as part of its territory.
It is also expanding its reach into Latin America through infrastructure and other projects under its Belt and Road Initiative.
Xi on Thursday inaugurated South America’s first Chinese-funded port, in Chancay, north of Lima, even as a senior US official warned Latin American countries to be vigilant when it comes to Chinese investment.
Biden, meanwhile, will on Friday meet Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol — key US allies in Asia.
Traveling with Biden, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the partner nations will announce the creation of a secretariat to ensure their alliance “will be an enduring feature of American policy.”
China isn’t the only country in Trump’s economic crosshairs.
The incoming US leader has threatened tariffs of 25 percent or more on goods coming from Mexico — another APEC member — unless it stops an “onslaught of criminals and drugs” crossing the border.
Peru has deployed more than 13,000 members of the armed forces to keep the peace in Lima as transport workers and shop owners launched three days of protests against crime and perceived government neglect.

Topics: APEC Xi Jinping Joe Biden US China

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