Russian missiles kill 36 in Ukraine, gut Kyiv children’s hospital

Children wait near the site of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. Russian missiles have killed several people and struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, authorities say. (AP)
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Children wait near the site of Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. Russian missiles have killed several people and struck a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, authorities say. (AP)
Medical staff provide assistance to local residents injured during a missile attack in Kyiv on July 8, 2024. Russia launched more than 40 missiles at several cities across Ukraine on July 8, 2024 in an attack that killed at least 20 people people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv, officials said. (AFP)
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Medical staff provide assistance to local residents injured during a missile attack in Kyiv on July 8, 2024. Russia launched more than 40 missiles at several cities across Ukraine on July 8, 2024 in an attack that killed at least 20 people people and smashed into a children’s hospital in Kyiv, officials said. (AFP)
An injured man talks on the phone after Russia’s missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine killed at least 20 people and injured more than 50 on Monday, officials said, with one missile striking a large children’s hospital in the capital, Kyiv, where emergency crews searched rubble for casualties. (AP)
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An injured man talks on the phone after Russia’s missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine killed at least 20 people and injured more than 50 on Monday, officials said, with one missile striking a large children’s hospital in the capital, Kyiv, where emergency crews searched rubble for casualties. (AP)
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Updated 08 July 2024
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Russian missiles kill 36 in Ukraine, gut Kyiv children’s hospital

Russian missiles kill 36 in Ukraine, gut Kyiv children’s hospital
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched dozens of missiles toward five towns and cities

KYIV: Russia struck cities across Ukraine on Monday with a missile barrage that killed three dozen people and ripped open a children’s hospital in Kyiv, an assault condemned as a ruthless attack on civilians.
Dozens of volunteers including hospital staff and rescue workers dug through debris from the Okhmatdyt paediatric hospital in a desperate search for survivors after the rare day-time bombardment, AFP journalists on the scene saw.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched dozens of missiles toward five towns and cities, in the south and east of the country, as well as the capital.
Ukrainian officials said 33 people were killed and another 137 wounded in the wave of 38 missiles. Three more were killed by Russian fire in Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.
The air force said air defense systems had downed 30 projectiles.
Zelensky called for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council over the barrage and urged Ukraine’s allies to deliver “a stronger response to the blow that Russia has once again delivered on our population, on our land and on our children.”
The UN condemned the “unconscionable” Russian strikes while the EU slammed Moscow for “ruthlessly” targeting civilians and the French foreign ministry called the bombardment of a children’s hospital “barbaric.”
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau described the attack as “abhorrent.”
Kyiv said the children’s hospital had been struck by a Russian cruise missile with components produced in NATO member countries and announced a day of mourning in the capital.
Russia hit back claiming the extensive missile damage in Kyiv was caused by Ukrainian air defense systems.
Moscow said its forces had struck their “intended targets,” which it added were only defense industry and military installations.
Medical staff acted quickly to move patients and personnel to the facility’s basement after air raid sirens rang out over Kyiv on Monday.
“For some reason, we always thought that Okhmatdyt was protected,” said Nina, a 68-year-old hospital employee.
“We were 100 percent sure that they would not hit here,” she told AFP, as she described the frantic rush as staff moved children with IV drips to the bunker.
Officials in Kyiv said the attack had also damaged several residential buildings and an office block in Kyiv where AFP reporters saw cars on fire and shredded trees in charred courtyards.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said three of its electrical substations had been destroyed or damaged in Kyiv. Russian strikes on electricity infrastructure have already halved Ukrainian generation capacity in recent weeks compared to one year ago.
Russian forces have repeatedly targeted the capital with massive barrages since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and the last major attack on Kyiv with drones and missiles was last month.
The emergency services said 22 people were killed in Kyiv on Monday, including at both medical facilities hit in the attack and that another 72 had been wounded.
In Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rig, which has been repeatedly targed by Russian bombardment, the strikes killed at least 10 and wounded over 41, officials there said.
In Dnipro, a city of around one million people in the same region, one person was killed and six more were wounded, the region’s governor said, when a high rise residential building and petrol station were hit.
And in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russian forces have taken a string of villages in recent weeks, the regional governor said three people were killed in Pokrovsk — a town that had a pre-war population of around 60,000 people.
“This shelling targeted civilians, hit infrastructure, and the whole world should see today the consequences of terror, which can only be responded to by force,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, wrote on social media.
Zelensky and other officials in Kyiv have been urging Ukraine’s allies to send more air defense systems, including Patriots, to the war-battered country to help fend off deadly Russian aerial bombardment.
“Russia cannot claim ignorance of where its missiles are flying and must be held fully accountable for all its crimes,” Zelensky said in another post on social media.


US military ready to carry out lawful orders of next administration, Pentagon chief says

Updated 6 sec ago
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US military ready to carry out lawful orders of next administration, Pentagon chief says

US military ready to carry out lawful orders of next administration, Pentagon chief says
“The US military will also continue to stand apart from the political arena;,” Austin wrote

WASHINGTON: US Défense Secretary Lloyd Austin told troops that the Pentagon was committed to an orderly transition to the incoming administration of Donald Trump, adding that the military would not get involved in politics and was ready to carry out “all lawful orders.”
“The US military will also continue to stand apart from the political arena; to stand guard over our republic with principle and professionalism; and to stand together with the valued allies and partners who deepen our security,” Austin wrote in a memo to troops that was sent out on Wednesday night.

Germany arrests a US citizen over accusations of spying for China

Germany arrests a US citizen over accusations of spying for China
Updated 7 min 2 sec ago
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Germany arrests a US citizen over accusations of spying for China

Germany arrests a US citizen over accusations of spying for China
  • The suspect, who was only identified as Martin D., was arrested in Frankfurt
  • His home was being searched

BERLIN: Germany’s federal prosecutor office said it arrested an American citizen on Thursday who allegedly spied for China.
The office said that the suspect, who was only identified as Martin D., was arrested in Frankfurt and that his home was being searched.
The accused, who until recently worked for the US Armed Forces in Germany, is strongly suspected of having agreed to act as an intelligence agent for a foreign secret service.
Earlier this year, he contacted Chinese government agencies and offered to transmit sensitive information from the US military to a Chinese intelligence service, according to an investigation by Germany’s domestic intelligence service.
He had obtained the information in question in the course of his work in the US army, the prosecutor’s statement said, without giving any further information.


Zelensky tells European summit ‘peace through strength’ is needed now

Zelensky tells European summit ‘peace through strength’ is needed now
Updated 17 min 40 sec ago
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Zelensky tells European summit ‘peace through strength’ is needed now

Zelensky tells European summit ‘peace through strength’ is needed now
  • Zelensky said that concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin were unacceptable

KYIV: An approach of “peace through strength” is needed urgently as Europe confronts the danger posed by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told leaders at the European Political Community summit in Budapest on Thursday.
Zelensky said that concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin were unacceptable for Ukraine and suicidal for Europe.


US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal: official

US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal: official
Updated 20 min 53 sec ago
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US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal: official

US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal: official
  • The prosecution has the opportunity to appeal the decision, but it was not immediately clear if they would do so

WASHINGTON: A US military judge has reinstated plea agreements for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, an official said Thursday, three months after the deals were scrapped by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
The agreements — which are understood to take the death penalty off the table — had triggered anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and Austin said that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.
“I can confirm that the military judge has ruled that the pretrial agreements for the three accused are valid and enforceable,” the US official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The prosecution has the opportunity to appeal the decision, but it was not immediately clear if they would do so.
The plea deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices were announced in late July in a step that appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should rest with him given its significance.
He subsequently told journalists that “the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”
Much of the legal jousting surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after 9/11 — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.


India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution

India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution
Updated 31 min 27 sec ago
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India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution

India’s Hindus bathe in holy river defiled by pollution
  • Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking Yamuna waters to pray
  • A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna ‘more of a toxic waterway than a river’

NEW DELHI: Sweeping aside thick toxic scum, thousands of Hindu devotees ignored court warnings Thursday against bathing in the sacred but sewage-filled Yamuna river, a grim display of environmental degradation in India’s capital.
Thousands celebrated the festival of Chhath Puja for the Hindu sun god Surya, entering the stinking waters to pray as the evening rays set in the sky.
A parliamentary report in February called the Yamuna “more of a toxic waterway than a river,” saying the foam clouds were formed from a potent chemical soup including laundry detergent and phosphates from fertilizers.
“Please understand you will fall sick,” a high court order said Wednesday, Indian media reported, restricting ritual bathing on health grounds. “We can’t allow you to go into the water.”
But housewife Krishnawati Devi, 45, said she was not worried.
“I believe the waters of the river are pure and blessed by the sun god himself,” she said. “Nothing will happen to me — god will take care of everything.”
Hindu faithful ignored the order, with women wrapped in fine saris and heavy jewelry wading into the grey waters.
White foam swirled around their feet. In places, it was so thick it looked like the river had frozen.
“Chhath is a festival of unflinching faith,” said Avinash Kumar, 58, a government office worker. “We can also offer prayers at home but it doesn’t feel the same as praying in the river.”
Others thumped drums and sang.
New Delhi’s authorities have poured in anti-foaming agents to disperse the froth, and used nets to sweep the scum away — but it has done nothing to clean the fetid water itself.
“It stinks, but it’s ok,” said 14-year-old schoolgirl Deepa Kumari. “What is important is that we get to celebrate in the river with our people.”
Rituals in the days-long festival culminate at dawn on Friday.
“I don’t bother about the pollution,” said Pooja Prasad, 20, a student. “The mother goddess will take care of all our troubles,” she added.
The sprawling megacity of some 30 million people is also smothered in poisonous smog — fueled by burning crop fields and vehicle exhaust fumes.
Levels of fine particulate matter — dangerous microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants that enter the bloodstream through the lungs — have this week surged beyond 50 times the World Health Organization recommended daily maximum.
“Toxi-city,” broadcasters dubbed the capital.
City authorities have declared repeated efforts to clean the river.
From an icy source of a Himalayan glacier, the Yamuna feeds into the mighty Ganges, flowing more than 3,100 kilometers (1,925 miles) to the sea in the Bay of Bengal.
But barely 400 kilometers into that journey, the water passing New Delhi is already effectively dead.
The parliamentary report warned of an “excessive presence of heavy metals” and cancer-causing pollutants ranging from arsenic to zinc, from everything from batteries to pesticides.
“Contamination... transform it into a carrier of untreated industrial waste, garbage, agricultural run-off and municipal waste,” the report read.
“This has a profound effect on the well-being of the people.”
Government statistics say 80 percent of the pollution load is raw sewage, far exceeding permissible levels for bathing.
Some of the faithful have traditionally drunk the water.
Levels fluctuate, but in one spot in 2021 in south Delhi, fecal bacteria levels exceeded maximum health regulations by 8,800 times.
But many say they are frustrated at the situation.
“The river is sacred to us, but all the filth from the industrial belt nearby is being pumped into it,” added Kumar.
“Every year they say they are going to clean it, but nothing ever happens.”