Putin says Ukraine trying to destabilize Russia with Kursk offensive

Update Putin says Ukraine trying to destabilize Russia with Kursk offensive
Ukrainian servicemen sitting in a military vehicle drive past a destroyed building by shelling in the Sumy region, near the border with Russia, on August 11, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (File/AFP)
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Updated 12 August 2024
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Putin says Ukraine trying to destabilize Russia with Kursk offensive

Putin says Ukraine trying to destabilize Russia with Kursk offensive
  • Ukraine sent troops into Russia last week in its biggest cross-border operation since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022

KYIV/MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday that Ukraine was trying to undermine Russian stability with its incursion into the south of the country, but it would not succeed.

“The losses of the Ukrainian armed forces are increasing dramatically for them, including among the most combat-ready units, units that the enemy is transferring to our border,” Putin told a televised meeting with top security officials and regional governors.

“The enemy will certainly receive a worthy response, and all the goals facing us will, without a doubt, be achieved.”

Two Russian regions bordering Ukraine ordered more evacuations on Monday as Moscow battled to contain an unprecedented push onto its territory.

Ukraine sent troops into Russia last week in its biggest cross-border operation since Moscow launched its invasion in February 2022 and the most significant by a foreign army since World War II.

Authorities in the Kursk region announced they were widening their evacuation area to include Belovsky district, home to some 14,000 people. The neighboring Belgorod region said it was evacuating its border district of Krasnoyaruzhsky.

“For the health and security of our population, we’re beginning to move people who live in Krasnoyaruzhsky to safer places,” Belgorod region governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

The assault on Kursk had already led to 76,000 people being ordered out.

A top Ukrainian official said over the weekend that the operation was aimed at stretching Russian troops and destabilizing the country after months of slow Russian advances across the frontline.

The assault appeared to catch the Kremlin off guard. Russia’s army rushed in reserve troops, tanks, aviation, artillery and drones in a bid to quash it.

But the army on Sunday conceded that Ukraine had penetrated up to 30 kilometers (20 miles) into Russian territory in places.

In a briefing, the defense ministry said it had “foiled attempts” by Ukraine’s forces to “break through deep into Russian territory” using armored vehicles.

But it said some forces were near the villages of Tolpino and Obshchy Kolodez, some 25 kilometers and 30 kilometers from the Russia-Ukraine border.

A Ukrainian security official said, on condition of anonymity, that “the aim is to stretch the positions of the enemy, to inflict maximum losses and to destabilize the situation in Russia as they are unable to protect their own border.”

The Ukrainian official said thousands of Ukrainian troops were involved in the operation.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Monday that its air defense systems had destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones — including 11 over the Kursk region.

On Sunday, each country blamed the other for a fire at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. Both sides — and the UN’s nuclear watchdog — said there was no sign of a nuclear leak.

“No impact has been reported for nuclear safety,” said the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has experts at the site. Kyiv and Moscow said there had been no rise in radiation levels.

In a later statement, the IAEA said it had requested “immediate access to the cooling tower to assess the damage.”

A Moscow-installed official, Vladimir Rogov, said the blaze has been “completely extinguished” in a Telegram post Monday.

The plant’s Russian-installed operator said on Monday that it was working normally following the incident and that all six reactors remained in “cold shutdown.”

Russia’s emergency situations ministry said on Sunday that over 44,000 residents in the Kursk region have applied for financial assistance, TASS news agency reported.

At an aid center in Moscow, 28-year-old midwife Daria Chistopolskaya was critical of the response.

“I think that the state does not care enough about such people, and people themselves should help each other in these kinds of situations,” she said.

Russia’s rail operator organized emergency trains from Kursk to Moscow, around 450 kilometers away, for those fleeing.

“It’s scary to have helicopters flying over your head all the time,” said Marina, refusing to give her surname, who arrived by train in Moscow on Sunday. “When it was possible to leave, I left.”

Kursk regional governor Alexei Smirnov conceded on Sunday that the situation was “difficult.”

Across the border in Ukraine’s Sumy region, AFP journalists on Sunday saw dozens of armored vehicles daubed with a white triangle — the insignia apparently being used to identify Ukrainian military hardware deployed in the attack.

At an evacuation center in the regional capital of Sumy, 70-year-old retired metal worker Mykola, who fled his village of Khotyn some 10 kilometers from the Russian border, welcomed Ukraine’s push into Russia.

“Let’s let them find out what it’s like,” he said. “They don’t understand what war is. Let them have a taste of it.”

Analysts think Kyiv may have launched the assault to try to relieve pressure on its troops in other parts of the front line.

But the Ukrainian official said: “Their pressure in the east continues, they are not pulling back troops from the area,” even if “the intensity of Russian attacks has gone down a little bit.”

The Ukrainian official said he expected Russia would “in the end” stop the incursion.

Ukraine was bracing for a large-scale retalliatory missile attack, including “on decision-making centers” in Ukraine, the official said.


Global diabetes rate has doubled in last 30 years — study

Global diabetes rate has doubled in last 30 years — study
Updated 19 sec ago
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Global diabetes rate has doubled in last 30 years — study

Global diabetes rate has doubled in last 30 years — study
  • Diabetes affected around 14 percent of all adults worldwide in 2022, compared to seven percent in 1990
  • More than 800 million people are now diabetic, compared to less than 200 million in 1990, Lancet study says 

PARIS: The percentage of adults suffering from diabetes across the world has doubled over the past three decades, the biggest rises coming in developing countries, a study said Wednesday.
The serious health condition affected around 14 percent of all adults worldwide in 2022, compared to seven percent in 1990, according to the new analysis in The Lancet journal.
Taking into account the growing global population, the team of researchers estimated that more than 800 million people are now diabetic, compared to less than 200 million in 1990.
These figures include both main types of diabetes. Type 1 affects patients from a young age and is more difficult to treat because it is caused by an insulin deficiency.
Type 2 mainly affects middle-aged or older people who lose their sensitivity to insulin.
Behind the global numbers, national figures varied widely.
The rate of diabetes stayed the same or even fell in some wealthier countries, such as Japan, Canada or Western European nations such as France and Denmark, the study said.
“The burden of diabetes and untreated diabetes is increasingly borne by low-income and middle-income countries,” it added.
For example, nearly a third of women in Pakistan are now diabetic, compared to less than a tenth in 1990.
The researchers emphasized that obesity is an “important driver” of type 2 diabetes — as is an unhealthy diet.
The gap between how diabetes is treated in richer and poorer countries is also widening.
Three out of five people aged over 30 with diabetes — 445 million adults — did not receive treatment for diabetes in 2022, the researchers estimated.
India alone was home to almost a third of that number.
In sub-Saharan Africa, only five to 10 percent of adults with diabetes received treatment in 2022.
Some developing countries such as Mexico are doing well in treating their population — but overall the global gap is widening, they said.
“This is especially concerning as people with diabetes tend to be younger in low-income countries and, in the absence of effective treatment, are at risk of life-long complications,” said senior study author Majid Ezzati of Imperial College London.
Those complications include “amputation, heart disease, kidney damage or vision loss — or in some cases, premature death,” he said in a statement.


Indonesian president says he will safeguard sovereignty in South China Sea

Indonesian president says he will safeguard sovereignty in South China Sea
Updated 27 min 6 sec ago
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Indonesian president says he will safeguard sovereignty in South China Sea

Indonesian president says he will safeguard sovereignty in South China Sea
  • Indonesia's foreign ministry earlier stressed that Indonesia does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea despite signing a maritime deal with Beijing last weekend

JAKARTA: Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said he would “always safeguard our sovereignty” when asked about the issue of the South China Sea, adding partnerships are better than conflicts and that “we respect all powers.”
Prabowo’s comments, made while he was in Washington on Wednesday, came after his foreign ministry stressed that Indonesia does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea despite signing a maritime deal with Beijing last weekend.
Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian nations over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries.
“We respect all powers, but we will always safeguard our sovereignty. But I choose to always find possibilities of a partnership,” said Prabowo, who has repeatedly said he will pursue a non-aligned foreign policy.
“Partnerships are better than conflicts,” he told reporters.
Prabowo, who is on his first trip since taking office last month, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on the weekend. A maritime development deal signed by China and Indonesia said they had reached common understanding “on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.”
That wording sparked concern in Indonesia, with analysts saying it could be interpreted as a change in Jakarta’s long-held stance as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea, and risked compromising Indonesia’s sovereign rights to exploit resources in its EEZ.
Prabowo did not directly refer to the joint statement in his comments to reporters, but said he had discussed the South China Sea with US President Joe Biden in a meeting the day before.
Prabowo will also travel to Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and Brazil for the G20 summit.


Explosions kill 1 man outside Brazil’s Supreme Court and force justices to evacuate

Explosions kill 1 man outside Brazil’s Supreme Court and force justices to evacuate
Updated 14 November 2024
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Explosions kill 1 man outside Brazil’s Supreme Court and force justices to evacuate

Explosions kill 1 man outside Brazil’s Supreme Court and force justices to evacuate
  • Local media reported that the blasts took place with 20 seconds between the first and the second explosions

SAO PAULO: Two explosions outside Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday killed a man and forced the justices and staff to evacuate the building in the capital of Brasilia.
The court said in a statement that two very strong blasts were heard at about 7:30 p.m. local time, shortly after Wednesday’s session finished. It added that all the justices and staff left the building safely after the incident.
Local firefighters confirmed that one man died at the scene, but did not identify him.
Celina Leão, the lieutenant governor of Brazil’s federal district, recommended that Congress be closed on Thursday to avoid new risks. She said police believe the man who died caused the explosions.
“It could have been a lone wolf, like others we’ve seen around the world,” Leão said in a news conference. “We are considering it as a suicide because there was only one victim. But investigations will show if that was indeed the case.”
Leão added only forensics will be able to identify the body, which remained outside the Supreme Court for two hours after the incident.
Local media reported that the blasts took place with 20 seconds between the first and the second explosions.
The incident took place in Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza, an area where Brazil’s main government buildings, including the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, are located.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was not in the neighboring presidential palace at the time of the blasts, said spokesman José Chrispiniano.
Police blocked all access to the area and the presidential security bureau was conducting a sweep of the grounds around the presidential palace.
Brazil’s federal police said it is investigating and did not provide a motive.
The Supreme Court in recent years has become a target for threats by far-right groups and supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro due to its crackdown on the spread of false information. In particular, Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been a focus for their ire.
Lula’s spokesman said the leftist leader is in a meeting at the presidential residence with federal police chief Andrei Rodrigues, and Supreme Court Justices de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin.
Earlier, another explosion was heard in the parking lot of Brazil’s Congress. Police said the blast apparently came out of a car, but no one was injured. Leão said authorities have already identified who is the owner of the car, but added the two incidents can only be linked after the investigations.


A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi

A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi
Updated 14 November 2024
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A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi

A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi
  • With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” says analyst
  • President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display

LIMA, Peru: If things had gone differently last week, US President Joe Biden could have arrived at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru on Thursday projecting confidence and pledging his successor’s cooperation with eager Latin American partners. No longer.
Just as in 2016, the last time that Peru’s capital Lima hosted APEC, Donald Trump’s election victory has pulled the rug out from under a lame-duck Democrat at the high-profile summit attended by over a dozen world leaders.
The renewed prospect of Trump’s “America First” doctrine hampers Biden’s ability to reinforce the United States’ profile on his first presidential trip to South America, experts say, leaving China and its leader, Xi Jinping, to grab the limelight in America’s proverbial backyard.
President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display. Total investment is expected to top $3.5 billion over the next decade.
“This isn’t the way the US had hoped to participate in the summit,” said Margaret Myers, the director of the China and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. “All eyes are going to be on the port, what Xi says about it and how he articulates relations across the Pacific.”
With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” Myers added.
Sitting 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Lima, the Chancay megaport — once a serene fishing village — is perhaps the clearest sign of Latin America’s reorientation. The Chinese shipping and logistics giant Cosco holds a 60 percent stake in the project it developed with Peruvian partner, Volcan.
“With this port, we’re looking at the entire Pacific coast, from the United States and Canada all the way to Chile,” Peruvian Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer told The Associated Press in his office on Monday. “The shipping business is being transformed.”
Peruvian Economy Minister José Arista said in June during a visit to China that the country’s neighbors — Brazil, Colombia, Chile — are “making constant trips to and from to see how they can modify their supply chain to use this port,” which will cut shipping time to Beijing by 10 days.
China’s trade with the region ballooned 35-fold from 2000 to 2022, reaching nearly $500 billion, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the region’s exports came from South America and were concentrated in five products: soybeans, copper and iron ore, oil and copper cathodes.
At the same time, China’s diplomatic engagement in the region has become more effective, with Xi visiting 11 Latin American countries since becoming president, according to Xinhua, China’s main state news agency. Brazil, host of the G20 summit, and Peru will bestow the rare honor of a full state visit to Xi this month, but not to Biden.
The misguided notion that Latin America must choose between its two largest trading partners is “a strategic defeat” for the US, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Washington-based Council of the Americas.
“The idea that China is somehow a better partner is increasingly being heard around the region and I think Xi wants to solidify that and amplify that,” Farnsworth said.
Roughly a decade after China poured billions of dollars into building power plants, roads, airports and other infrastructure that saddled some developing countries with unserviceable debt, few expect Beijing to direct more massive loans to Latin America through its Belt and Road Initiative. But deeper cooperation on other infrastructure is possible, particularly renewable energy and telecommunications, said the Boston University Bulletin.
The US has appealed to Latin American governments to reject telecoms investment, particularly opposing Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that it argues could open the door to Chinese government spying. Similarly, US officials have raised concerns over the Chancay port’s possible dual-use by Beijing’s navy in the Pacific — a prospect dismissed by Chinese officials.
China “is working to exploit insecurity in our hemisphere,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Southern Command headquarters in Florida this week, adding that the Asian giant is leveraging the need for investment in the Americas to advance its “malign agenda.”
Despite its objections to Chinese influence, the US hasn’t shown the ability or willingness to build infrastructure like Chancay’s megaport, experts note.
Even when the US government has worked to ensure competitive bidding in Latin American massive public works projects, American companies have refrained from participating, said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program.
A Kamala Harris administration wouldn’t have changed that, but a Democratic victory would have enabled Biden to speak in Lima with authority about US collaboration to come, such as building regional supply chains, Gedan said.
In sharp contrast to Biden’s alliance-building approach, Trump has vowed to protect American interests and promised more of the same unilateralist action the world saw in his first term when he staked out a combative stance against foreign competitors and deepened the US trade war with China.
In 2022, Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to help integrate the economies of the region and enable the US to counterbalance China. But last year, on the campaign trail, Trump said he would kill the trade pact if he were to win the 2024 election and return to the White House — in the same way, he pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership immediately after taking office in 2017.
In the years since, US clout in South America has diminished while China’s has grown, said Farnsworth, recalling how the last time Lima hosted APEC in 2016, the shock of Trump’s victory sucked the energy out of then-President Barack Obama’s delegation.
Peru’s top diplomat insists that the US hasn’t ceded its dominant voice guiding discussions about trade at gatherings such as APEC — and doubted that it will, even under Trump.
“I’m not sure that Trump will go against these types of multilateral contexts just because he is worried about the American people,” Schialer said. “He knows that the US is too important for the world. We have to sit down and have a nice dialogue and see how we can face these challenges together.”
Biden will hold talks Saturday with Xi on the sidelines of APEC, according to the US president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The White House has been working for months to arrange a final meeting between Xi and Biden before the Democrat leaves office in January.
Meantime, in the wake of Trump’s win and China’s port opening in Peru, analysts expect the hard-nosed competition between the US and China to overshadow APEC.
“The Chinese love the idea of outmaneuvering the US in its near-abroad,” Gedan said. “Xi will luxuriate in this dynamic of being able to arrive with a big delegation, (...) to inaugurate this transformational port and suck all the air out of the room when his American counterpart is very weak politically. That is significant to China.”
 


Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures

Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures
Updated 14 November 2024
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Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures

Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures
  • On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and shame”

PARIS: Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel. The event, intended to raise funds for the Israeli military, included Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich among its invited guests.
The demonstrations came on the eve of a high-stakes soccer match at France’s national stadium against the Israeli national team, overshadowed by tensions around the wars in the Middle East. Authorities in Paris announced that more than 4,000 police officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for the game.
Smotrich, a vocal advocate of Israeli settlements, had been expected to attend Wednesday’s gala, dubbed “Israel is Forever,” which was planned by an association of the same name. The group’s stated goal is to “mobilize French-speaking Zionist forces.”
After days of growing criticism of the event, Smotrich’s office confirmed Wednesday that the minister would not travel to Paris to participate.
But the invitation to Smotrich drew sharp criticism from local associations, unions and left-wing political parties, prompting two protests in the French capital. The minister, a hard-line settler leader, has been accused of inflaming tensions in the West Bank and drew international condemnations this week by saying he hopes the election of Donald Trump will clear the way for Israeli annexation of the West Bank — a step that would extinguish Palestinian statehood dreams.
The French Foreign Ministry called Smotrich’s remarks “contrary to international law” and counterproductive to efforts to reduce regional tensions.
“France reiterates its commitment to the implementation of the two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, which is the only prospect for a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
Critics also pointed at Nili Kupfer-Naouri, president of the “Israel is Forever” association, who sparked outrage in 2023, after the Israel-Hamas war started, when she tweeted that “no civilian in Gaza was innocent.”
On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and shame.”
“Imagine if an association were hosting a gala for Hezbollah or Hamas — there’s no way the police would allow that,” said Melkir Saib, a 30-year-old protester. “The situation is just unfair.”
The march was largely peaceful, but some demonstrators broke windows at a McDonald’s along the route.
A separate group, including Jewish leftist organizations opposed to racism and antisemitism, gathered near the Arc de Triomphe chanting slogans against the gala and Smotrich.
French authorities defended the event, with Paris police chief Laurent Nunez stating that the gala posed “no major threat to public order.”
The protests came days after tensions flared in Paris and Amsterdam related to the conflicts in the Mideast. A massive “Free Palestine” banner was displayed during a Paris Saint-Germain Champions League match against Atletico Madrid, while violence broke out in Amsterdam last week targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club.