Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

Firefighters tackle a blaze after a Russian aerial bomb struck a multi-story residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday Sept. 15, 2024. (AP)

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Updated 15 September 2024

Reuters

September 15, 2024 18:01

Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

Firefighters tackle a blaze after a Russian aerial bomb struck a multi-story residential building in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday.

Zelensky said 3 other guided bombs had struck villages in Kharkiv region, where population centers have been a frequent target of Russian attacks near Russian border

Updated 15 September 2024

Reuters

September 15, 2024 18:01

KYIV: A Russian-guided bomb struck a multi-story apartment building on Sunday in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, triggering a fire and injuring at least 41 people, the region’s governor said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the latest attack underscored the need for Ukraine’s Western partners to provide weapons and air defense systems and permission to use weaponry on targets deep inside Russia to save lives.
Oleh Syniehubov, governor of Kharkiv region in northeastern Ukraine, said on Telegram that rescue operations were proceeding, with 12 people in hospital, three in serious condition. He said residents could be trapped under rubble.
Syniehubov posted photos of heavy damage to the top four of five storys of the building, with smoke and fire billowing out of blown-out windows.
Zelensky, in his nightly video address, said three other guided bombs had struck villages in Kharkiv region, where population centers have been a frequent target of Russian attacks near the Russian border.
Russia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the apartment building but has denied intentionally targeting civilians despite having killed thousands of them since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.
Zelensky called for rapid decisions on long-range strikes “in order to destroy Russian military aviation right where it is based. These are obvious, logical decisions.
“Every Russian strike of this nature, every instance of Russian terror, like today in Kharkiv...this proves that there must be long-range capability and it must be sufficient.”
He said appropriate decisions were expected in the first instance from the United States, France, Germany and Italy, “those whose decisiveness can help save lives.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the West would be directly fighting with Russia if it allowed Ukraine to strike Russian territory with Western-made long-range missiles.

Topics: Kharkiv

Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone

Updated 28 sec ago

March 11, 2025 01:27

Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone

Rubio’s social media post Monday said that review was now “officially ending,” with some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs eliminated

Updated 28 sec ago

March 11, 2025 01:27

WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday the Trump administration had finished its six-week purge of programs of the six-decade-old US Agency for International Development and he would move the 18 percent of aid and development programs that survived under the State Department.
Rubio made the announcement in a post on X, in one of his relatively few public comments on what has been a historic shift away from US foreign aid and development, executed by Trump political appointees at State and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency teams.
Rubio thanked DOGE and “our hardworking staff who worked very long hours to achieve this overdue and historic reform” in foreign aid.
In another final step in the breakup of USAID, the Trump administration on Monday gave USAID staffers abroad until April 6 to move back to the United States if they want to do so on the government’s tab, according to a USAID email sent to staffers and seen by The Associated Press. Staffers say the deadline gives them scant time to pull children from school, sell homes or break leases, and, for many, find somewhere to live after years away from the United States.
President Donald Trump on Jan. 20 issued an executive order directing a freeze of foreign assistance funding and a review of all of the tens of billions of dollars of US aid and development work abroad. Trump charged that much of foreign assistance was wasteful and advanced a liberal agenda.
Rubio’s social media post Monday said that review was now “officially ending,” with some 5,200 of USAID’s 6,200 programs eliminated.
Those programs “spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio wrote.
“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18 percent of programs we are keeping ... to be administered more effectively under the State Department,” he said.
Democratic lawmakers and others call the shutdown of congressionally funded programs illegal, saying such a move requires Congress’ approval.
USAID supporters said the sweep of the cuts made it difficult to tell what US efforts abroad the Trump administration actually supports.
“The patterns that are emerging is the administration does not support democracy programs, they don’t support civil society ... they don’t support NGO programs,” or health or emergency response, said Andrew Natsios, the USAID administrator for Republican former President George W. Bush.
“So what’s left”?” Natsios asked.
A group of former US diplomats, national security figures and others condemned what it said was an opaque, partisan and rushed review process and urged Congress to intervene.
“The facts show that life-saving programs were severely cut, putting millions of people in allied countries at risk of starvation, disease and death,” while giving Russia, China and other adversaries opportunities to gain influence abroad as the US retreats, the group, the US Global Leadership Coalition, said.
The Trump administration gave almost no details on which aid and development efforts abroad it spared as it mass-emailed contract terminations to aid groups and other USAID partners by the thousands within days earlier this month. The rapid pace, and the steps skipped in ending contracts, left USAID supporters challenging whether any actual program-by-program reviews had taken place.
Aid groups say even some life-saving programs that Rubio and others had promised to spare are in limbo or terminated, such as those providing emergency nutritional support for starving children and drinking water for sprawling camps for families uprooted by war in Sudan.
Republicans broadly have made clear they want foreign assistance that would promote a far narrower interpretation of US national interests going forward.
The State Department in one of multiple lawsuits it is battling over its rapid shutdown of USAID had said earlier this month it was killing more than 90 percent of USAID programs. Rubio gave no explanation for why his number was lower.
The dismantling of USAID that followed Trump’s order upended decades of policy that humanitarian and development aid abroad advanced US national security by stabilizing regions and economies, strengthening alliances and building goodwill.
In the weeks after Trump’s order, one of his appointees and transition team members, Pete Marocco, and Musk pulled USAID staff around the world off the job through forced leaves and firings, shut down USAID payments overnight and terminated aid and development contracts by the thousands.
Contractors and staffers running efforts ranging from epidemic control to famine prevention to job and democracy training stopped work. Aid groups and other USAID partners laid off tens of thousands of their workers in the US and abroad.
Lawsuits say the sudden shutdown of USAID has stiffed aid groups and businesses that had contracts with it totaling billions of dollars.
The shutdown has left many USAID staffers and contractors and their families still overseas, many of them awaiting back payments and travel expenses to return home. The administration is offering extensions on the 30-day deadline for staffers to return, but workers are skeptical enough USAID staffers remain on the job to process requests.
In Washington, the sometimes contradictory orders issued by the three men — Rubio, Musk and Marocco — overseeing the USAID cuts have left many uncertain who was calling the shots and fueled talk of power struggles.
Musk and Rubio on Monday, as Trump had last week, insisted relations between the two of them were smooth.
“Good working with you,” Musk tweeted in response to Rubio’s announcement.

Topics: USAID Marco Rubio

Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies

Updated 18 min 6 sec ago

AFP

March 11, 2025 01:19

Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies

“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright says

Updated 18 min 6 sec ago

AFP

March 11, 2025 01:19

HOUSTON: The US energy secretary vowed Monday to reset federal energy policy to favor fossil fuels and deprioritize climate change as industry leaders gathered at their biggest event since President Donald Trump returned to office.
In the conference’s opening session, Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited the Trump administration’s moves to cut red tape that is delaying oil projects and promote liquefied natural gas exports as examples of a pivot away from policies pursued under former president Joe Biden.
“The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” Wright told a packed auditorium for the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) conference.
Since returning to Washington seven weeks ago, Trump and his team have overhauled the existing economic order at a dizzying pace, launching trade wars against allies and hollowing government agencies the president and his allies dislike.
Trump made energy policy a central part of his agenda with his day-one “Unleashing American Energy” executive order, promising during his inaugural address to “end the Green New Deal” in favor of “that liquid gold under our feet.”
But Mark Brownstein, senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, said Wright’s tone was “long on rhetoric,” adding, “at some point the administration needs to get off the campaign stump speech and get on with the business of governing.”
Brownstein described many CERA attendees as uncertain about investments, not only because of Trump’s shifting position on energy and climate change, but also the nearly daily pivots on tariffs.
“The energy industry is a capital-intensive business and what they need to deploy capital at scale is certainty and consistency,” Brownstein told AFP.
CERA’s opening day coincided with deep stock market losses after Trump over the weekend refused to rule out a US recession.
Protesters held boisterous demonstrations outside the event in Houston. Advocacy group Oil Change International blasted the oil industry for pollution near industrial facilities and for fossil fuel investments that are worsening climate change.
Energy played a key supporting role in Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, in which he pointed to higher gasoline prices as a reason more production was needed, embodied by his slogan: “Drill, baby, drill.”
Trump’s January 20 executive order represents a potentially wide-ranging attack on tax incentives which had been embraced by energy companies to advance billions of dollars of energy transition projects.
These projects were connected to laws enacted under Biden to mitigate climate change.
Some pundits think Trump will stop short of actions canceling existing projects where workers have been hired, including many in conservative districts.
Appearing just after Wright, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth warned that “swinging from one extreme to the other” on policy is “not the right policy approach in a long cycle industry like this.”
Wirth welcomed Trump’s executive orders on permitting reform, but said “we need to see some of this stuff put into legislation so that it’s more durable and it’s not at risk of being swung back in another direction by a future administration” with different priorities.
Wright downplayed the upheaval on trade policy after his remarks, noting Trump dropped many of his most impactful tariffs in his first term.
It’s “too early to say on tariffs, but I feel quite confident having a smart businessman every day working for America writ large, not an interest group or a particular industry,” Wright said. “I’m pretty optimistic about the outcome.”
Wright said there were “vigorous” closed-door debates about tariffs within the administration, rejecting the idea that there was ideological uniformity on the issue.
He also suggested the Trump administration wouldn’t challenge all Biden administration renewable energy projects, saying that while he wouldn’t have picked some of the same projects for loans, “we inherit a loan book... and we follow the rule of law.”

Topics: Chris Wright climate change trump administration

Homeland Security overhauls its asylum phone app. Now it’s for ‘self-deportation’

Updated 27 min 16 sec ago

March 11, 2025 01:04

Homeland Security overhauls its asylum phone app. Now it’s for ‘self-deportation’

Moments after Trump took office, the earlier version of the app, CBP One, stopped allowing migrants to apply for asylum, and tens of thousands of border appointments were canceled

Updated 27 min 16 sec ago

March 11, 2025 01:04

The Trump administration has unveiled an overhauled cellphone app once used to let migrants apply for asylum, turning it into a system that allows people living illegally in the US to say they want to leave the country voluntarily.
The renamed app, announced Monday and now called CBP Home, is part of the administration’s campaign to encourage “self-deportations, ” touted as an easy and cost-effective way to nudge along President Donald Trump’s push to deport millions of immigrants without legal status.
“The app provides illegal aliens in the United States with a straightforward way to declare their intent to voluntarily depart, offering them the chance to leave before facing harsher consequences,” Pete Flores, the acting commissioner for USCustoms and Border Protection, said in a statement.
Moments after Trump took office, the earlier version of the app, CBP One, stopped allowing migrants to apply for asylum, and tens of thousands of border appointments were canceled.
More than 900,000 people were allowed in the country on immigration parole under CBP One, generally for two years, starting in January 2023.
The Trump administration has repeatedly urged migrants in the country illegally to leave.
“The CBP Home app gives aliens the option to leave now and self deport, so they may still have the opportunity to return legally in the future and live the American dream,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said on the social platform X. “If they don’t, we will find them, we will deport them, and they will never return.”
Experts wondered how many people without legal status would register for what has long been known as “voluntary departure,” or what the government hopes to gain from the new app.
“I’m not sure what their intentions are,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, associate policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. “But they’re creating a bit of a culture of fear around immigration right now,” from highly publicized ICE arrests to sending immigrants to a detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The new app, she said, could be part of that “targeted public relations campaign” to urge more people to leave the US
Some people living in the US illegally chose to leave even before Trump’s inauguration, though it’s unclear how many.
But earlier mass crackdowns on illegal immigration — most famously a quasi-military operation in the mid-1950s that Trump has repeatedly praised — also drove many immigrants who were in the US legally to leave.

Topics: US Customs and Border Protection asylum migrants Homeland Security

UK calls for stability and progress in Syria amid surge of violence in the country

Updated 10 March 2025

Arab News

March 10, 2025 23:23

UK calls for stability and progress in Syria amid surge of violence in the country

British Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer describes reports of significant civilian casualties as ‘deeply concerning,’ reaffirms UK commitment to Syria’s transition
Britain working ‘as quickly as possible’ to verify reports of the violence and identify culprits; urges interim authorities to uphold their commitment to protect all Syrians

Updated 10 March 2025

Arab News

March 10, 2025 23:23

LONDON: The UK called on Monday for interim authorities in the Syrian Arab Republic to take urgent action to address a surge of violence in the country, including reports of significant civilian casualties in coastal areas.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer described recent events as “deeply concerning,” as he reaffirmed Britain’s commitment to supporting Syria’s transition after the fall of Bashar Assad in December.

Falconer said the UK was working “as quickly as possible” to verify reports of the latest violence and identify those responsible. He urged the interim government in Damascus to uphold its commitment to protect all Syrians, and to set out a clear plan for transitional justice.

“This is a critical moment for Syria,” Falconer told MPs. “The interim authorities must demonstrate their intent to promote stability and to govern in the interests of all Syrians.”

Since Assad fled Syria, the UK has been pushing for an inclusive, Syrian-led political process to establish a representative, non-sectarian government.

Falconer welcomed the steps taken so far by the interim president, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, including the formation of a transitional government and the National Dialogue conference that took place on Feb. 25. However, he stressed that further action is required to unify factions in Syria and develop a clear road map for governance.

“The violence over the weekend demonstrates that more needs to be done to bring Syria’s different groups together,” he said. “We urge the interim authorities to urgently establish a clear process and timeline for the next phase of the transition.”

UK authorities remain engaged in high-level diplomatic discussions with Syria’s new leaders and international partners in an effort to prevent further conflict, counter security threats, including terrorism, and oversee the destruction of the Assad regime’s stockpiles of chemical weapons.

The British government has said it is also focused on supporting economic recovery in Syria, including the lifting of some sanctions to enable the delivery of humanitarian aid, while maintaining targeted measures against those responsible for past repression.

Falconer said the UK has allocated more than £62 million ($79.8 million) in additional humanitarian assistance since December to help provide essential aid such as food, healthcare and education through UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations.

“The humanitarian situation in Syria remains dire for millions of people,” he added. “Over 16 million are in need of assistance and we will continue to support those in need where it is safe to do so.”

Falconer reaffirmed Britain’s long-term commitment to Syrian stability: “This is a critical, fragile moment for Syria. The country faces significant challenges as it transitions after almost 14 years of conflict.

“Stability in Syria is firmly in our interests. The UK remains committed to the people of Syria and will continue to stand with them in building a more stable, free and prosperous future.”

Topics: Fall of Assad Syria UK

Trump says pro-Palestinian campus protester ‘first arrest of many to come’

Members of the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group, including Sueda Polat, second from left, and Mahmoud Khalil, (C).

Updated 10 March 2025

AFP

March 10, 2025 19:09

Trump says pro-Palestinian campus protester ‘first arrest of many to come’

Mahmoud Khalil was arrested by immigration officials over the weekend
Trump threatened further action against other campus protesters, some of whom he alleged without evidence to be “paid agitators”

Updated 10 March 2025

AFP

March 10, 2025 19:09

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Monday that the detention of a leader of pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University in New York is “the first arrest of many to come.”
“We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump Administration will not tolerate it,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
Mahmoud Khalil, one of the most prominent faces of the university’s protest movement that erupted last year in opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza, was arrested by immigration officials over the weekend.
The Department of Homeland Security said the action was taken “in support of President Trump’s executive orders prohibiting anti-Semitism, and in coordination with the Department of State.”
Khalil, a Columbia graduate, held a permanent residency green card at the time of his arrest, according to the Student Workers of Columbia union.
Trump threatened in his post further action against other campus protesters, some of whom he alleged without evidence to be “paid agitators.”
“We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country — never to return again,” he wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemned Khalil’s arrest, calling it “unprecedented, illegal, and un-American.”
“The government’s actions are obviously intended to intimidate and chill speech on one side of a public debate,” said Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project, in a statement.
The arrest also prompted an outcry from the United Nations, with the spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres saying Monday “it is crucial to underscore the importance of respecting the right of freedom of expression and the right to peaceful assembly everywhere.”
US campuses including Columbia’s were rocked by student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. The demonstrations ignited accusations of anti-Semitism.
Protests — some of which turned violent and saw campus buildings occupied and lectures disrupted — pitted students protesting Israel’s conduct against pro-Israel campaigners, many of whom were Jewish.

Topics: War on Gaza Columbia University Mahmoud Khalil

Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

British PM urged to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles as Russia continues to hit civilian targets

Russian forces take over village in eastern Ukraine, TASS says

Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone

Secretary of State Rubio says purge of USAID programs complete, with 83 percent of agency’s programs gone

Judge orders Trump administration to speed payment of USAID and State Dept. debts

Hundreds of US diplomats join letter to Rubio to protest dismantling of USAID

Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies

Trump’s energy chief vows reversal of Biden climate policies

US President Donald Trump ‘unpredictable’: Greenland PM

Homeland Security overhauls its asylum phone app. Now it’s for ‘self-deportation’

Homeland Security overhauls its asylum phone app. Now it’s for ‘self-deportation’

Lawyers sue to block Trump administration from sending 10 migrants to Guantanamo Bay

Trump cancels protection for 500,000 Haitian migrants

UK calls for stability and progress in Syria amid surge of violence in the country

UK calls for stability and progress in Syria amid surge of violence in the country

Syria’s government signs breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in northeast

EU official cites reports accusing Assad regime of mass killings in Syria

Trump says pro-Palestinian campus protester ‘first arrest of many to come’

Trump says pro-Palestinian campus protester ‘first arrest of many to come’

Trump denies reported Musk-Rubio clash in cabinet meeting

US immigration agents arrest Palestinian activist who helped lead Columbia University protests

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Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

Russian bomb strikes Kharkiv apartment building, 41 injured, official says

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