Russian guided bomb hits apartment building in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, injures 10

Russian guided bomb hits apartment building in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, injures 10
A view of damage after a Russian guided bomb struck a five-story apartment block in Kharkiv, Ukraine on October 3, 2024. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via REUTERS)
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Russian guided bomb hits apartment building in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, injures 10

Russian guided bomb hits apartment building in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, injures 10
  • President Zelensky said the strike underscored the need for more help from Ukraine’s Western backers
  • Russia denies targeting civilians, but has regularly struck towns and cities behind the front line

A Russian guided bomb struck a five-story apartment block in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, late on Wednesday, starting fires and injuring at least 10 people, local officials said.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the strike, the latest in a long series of attacks on the city, underscored the need for more help from Ukraine’s Western backers. He pointed to Iran’s strike on Israel as an example of allies working together.
He said that in order to stop Russian strikes, “Ukraine must receive the necessary, and most importantly, sufficient help from the world, from our partners.
“Every leader knows exactly what needs to be done. It’s important to be decisive,” Zelensky said in a posting on the Telegram messaging app.
Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said the bomb hit between the third and fourth floors of the building in the city’s Saltivka district.
“Several floors have been destroyed. An apartment by apartment search is under way. People could be under the rubble,” Syniehubov said in a video posted online.
Pictures posted online showed cars ablaze outside the apartment block and firefighters making their way through smoke rubble to get inside the building.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov put the injury toll at 10, including a three-year-old child. He said guided bombs had struck two city districts.
Located 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border, Kharkiv has been a frequent target of Russian forces throughout the more than 2-1/2-year-old war.
In Kyiv, the head of the capital’s military administration said fragments from a downed Russian drone damaged an apartment building in one of the capital’s eastern districts. There was no indication of any casualties.
Russia denies targeting civilians, but has regularly struck towns and cities behind the front line.
In his nightly video address, Zelensky referred to the help the United States and other partners provide Israel to fend off attacks.
“Every time in the Middle East, during criminal Iranian strikes, we see how the international coalition acts together,” he said, echoing comments he made during an April raid launched by Iran on Israel.
Zelensky also issued the latest of a series of calls for more help to be agreed at a meeting this month in Germany devoted to providing Ukraine with military assistance. US President Joe Biden is to attend the meeting.


Mexican soldiers open fire on migrants, killing six

Mexican soldiers open fire on migrants, killing six
Updated 54 min 38 sec ago
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Mexican soldiers open fire on migrants, killing six

Mexican soldiers open fire on migrants, killing six

MEXICO CITY: Mexican soldiers killed six migrants when they opened fire on a group of 33 migrants traveling in a pick-up truck that had tried to evade a military patrol, the defense ministry announced in a statement on Wednesday.

Another 10 migrants were injured in the incident on Tuesday evening, the ministry added, from the group which included Egyptian, Nepalese, Cuban, Indian and Pakistani nationals.

The ministry said in a statement the incident took place just before 9 p.m. on Tuesday while the patrol traveled on a highway near the town of Huixtla, some 40 km (25 miles) from Tapachula, by the Guatemalan border.

The pick-up truck was followed by two vehicles similar to those used by criminal groups in the area, it said, and soldiers reported hearing explosions after which two officers opened fire.

In its statement, the defense ministry said the two soldiers were removed from their posts and reported to the federal prosecutors for corresponding legal actions, while a military tribunal carries out its own investigation.

It said it reaffirmed “its commitment to act in strict accordance with the rule of law, under a policy of zero-impunity, and is ready to help the civil authorities to shed light on the facts,” the statement said.

The ministry added that it was coordinating with the foreign ministry to coordinate with the corresponding embassies.

Tapachula, in southern Chiapas state, is an entry point into Mexico for many migrants making the arduous journey toward the United States, many fleeing violence and poverty.

Chiapas has also seen clashes this year between the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) and Sinaloa Cartel. In July, the turf wars sent some 600 people fleeing across the border into Guatemala.


Thousands rally in Armenia, demanding PM’s resignation over his handling of standoff with Azerbaijan

Thousands rally in Armenia, demanding PM’s resignation over his handling of standoff with Azerbaijan
Updated 03 October 2024
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Thousands rally in Armenia, demanding PM’s resignation over his handling of standoff with Azerbaijan

Thousands rally in Armenia, demanding PM’s resignation over his handling of standoff with Azerbaijan
  • Protesters accused PM Pashinyan of making unnecessary territorial concessions to Baku
  • Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars — in 2020 and the 1990s — over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region

YEREVAN: Thousands rallied on Wednesday in Armenia’s capital, demanding Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation over his handling of the decades-long standoff with Azerbaijan.
Despite a weeks-long wave of protests led in the spring by the charismatic Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, Pashinyan’s position held firm.
Chanting “Nikol (Pashinyan) traitor!” several thousand anti-government protesters rallied Wednesday in Yerevan’s central Republic Square, outside government headquarters, watched by a heavy police presence, according to an AFP reporter at the scene.
The rally was held days after Galstanyan vowed to renew street protests, which he promised would “guarantee” Pashinyan’s departure.

Protest leader Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan addresses demonstrators in Yerevan's Republic Square on Oct. 2, 2024 to demand Prime Minister Pashinyan's resignation. (AFP)

The cleric has accused Pashinyan of making unnecessary territorial concessions to Baku.
“Our struggle will continue as long as evil remains in power in Armenia,” he told the crowd.
“I call on all political forces to join us, as new disasters, new losses lie ahead.”
Protesters then marched toward the offices of Armenia’s public broadcaster, to demand live air time.
Armenia’s interior ministry said in a statement it would use force against protesters should they attempt to break into the broadcaster’s offices.
“It’s not easy getting rid of Pashinyan’s government, but we can’t give up hope,” said one demonstrator, 64-year-old Sveta Sargsyan. “We need a government that will defend every centimeter of Armenian soil.”
Another protester, Karen Hovhannisyan, 55, said: “We can’t put up with Pashinyan’s rule any longer, he is flat-out pushing anti-Armenian policies.”

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars — in 2020 and the 1990s — over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku recaptured last year from Armenian separatists who had controlled it for three decades.
Nearly all its ethnic Armenians — more than 100,000 people — fled Karabakh in the aftermath and in May Pashinyan returned to Azerbaijan control over four border villages that it had seized decades earlier.
Galstanyan has previously sought to launch an impeachment process against Pashinyan, and even temporarily stepped down from his religious post to run for prime minister.
But he is not eligible to hold the office under Armenian law because he has dual citizenship — Armenian and Canadian — and opposition parties do not have enough seats in parliament to launch impeachment procedures.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have said a comprehensive peace deal to end their long-standing animosity is within reach, but the talks have so far failed to achieve a breakthrough.
 


Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’

Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’
Updated 03 October 2024
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Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’

Prosecutors lay out new evidence in Trump election case, accuse him of having ‘resorted to crimes’
  • New filing seeks to convince judge that the offenses charged in the indictment are private, rather than official, acts
  • It narrows the scope of the prosecution charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden
  • New filing follows Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump laid the groundwork to try to overturn the 2020 election even before he lost, knowingly pushed false claims of voter fraud and “resorted to crimes” in his failed bid to cling to power, according to a newly unsealed court filing from prosecutors that lays out fresh details from the landmark criminal case against the former president.
The filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s team offers the most comprehensive view to date of what prosecutors intend to prove if the case charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the election reaches trial. Though a months-long congressional investigation and the indictment itself have chronicled in stark detail Trump’s efforts to undo the election, the new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who while losing his grip on the White House “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”
“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being alerted that his vice president, Mike Pence, was in potential danger after a crowd of violent supporters stormed the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges wouldn’t be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.
The filing was submitted, initially under seal, following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office, narrowing the scope of the prosecution charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
The purpose of the brief is to convince US District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the offenses charged in the indictment are private, rather than official, acts and can therefore remain part of the indictment as the case moves forward. Chutkan permitted a redacted version to be made public.
“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” Smith’s team wrote, adding, “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called the brief “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional” and repeated oft-stated allegations that Smith and Democrats were “hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power.”
“The release of the falsehood-ridden, Unconstitutional J6 brief immediately following Tim Walz’s disastrous debate performance is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine American Democracy and interfere in this election.”
The filing includes details of conversations between Trump and Pence, including a private lunch the two had on Nov. 12, 2020, in which Pence “reiterated a face-saving option” for Trump, telling him, “don’t concede but recognize the process is over,” according to prosecutors.
In another private lunch days later, Pence urged Trump to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024.
“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Trump told him, according to the filing.
But Trump “disregarded” Pence “in the same way he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states — including those in his own party — who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false,” prosecutors wrote.
Trump’s “steady stream of disinformation” in the weeks after the election culminated in his speech at the Ellipse on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, in which Trump “used these lies to inflame and motivate the large and angry crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification proceeding,” prosecutors wrote.


Nepalese grapple with loss after deadly floods

Nepalese grapple with loss after deadly floods
Updated 02 October 2024
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Nepalese grapple with loss after deadly floods

Nepalese grapple with loss after deadly floods

KATHMANDU: Bishworaj Khadka, a cook in Lalitpur, could hear the Nakhu River becoming louder and louder as he sat with his wife and daughter- in-law in their house situated at the river’s edge. It hadn’t stopped raining for about 12 hours and the swollen river was getting dangerously close.

When they felt the first reverberations through the living room floor, the family rushed out the door. The rest is a blur in Bishow- raj’s mind. He had only managed to stuff some money into his pocket. Barely 15 minutes later, the house caved in before their eyes.

Bishowraj took his family to his brother’s place, farther up from the river’s edge.

It was the morning of Saturday, Sept. 28, and the rain would continue for another day, causing landslides and floods in areas surrounding Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital. More than 200 people were dead in the worst flooding to hit the region in five decades. Over 10 inches of rainfall fell in the Kathmandu Valley in two days, nearly 20 percent of the monthly average.

The Bagmati River in Kathmandu inundated low-lying areas, damaging temporary shelters and forcing daily wage squatters to seek safety away from the raging waters. Some of the urban dwellings were covered foot deep in mud and and debris of broken tree limbs and damaged buildings.

By Monday, the sun was out and Bishowraj and his wife Sharmila went back to what remained of their home to try and salvage whatever they could. The damage was extensive and Sharmila tried hard to find some cooking utensils that were intact.


UN spokesman decries Israel’s ban on top leader, denies Guterres was favoring Hamas

UN spokesman decries Israel’s ban on top leader, denies Guterres was favoring Hamas
Updated 12 min 16 sec ago
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UN spokesman decries Israel’s ban on top leader, denies Guterres was favoring Hamas

UN spokesman decries Israel’s ban on top leader, denies Guterres was favoring Hamas
  • Foreign Minister Katz earlier accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of being biased against Israel
  • UN spokesman Dujarric strongly disagreed, saying Guterres has condemned “over and over again the terror attacks”
  • Guterres has accused Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians in its nearly yearlong military response to the Hamas attacks in Gaza

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations on Wednesday called Israel’s ban on Secretary-General Antonio Guterres entering the country a political statement by its foreign minister and stressed that the world body’s contacts with Israel will continue “because they have to.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz deeming the UN chief “persona non grata” is also “one more attack on the United Nations staff that we’ve seen from the government of Israel.”
Israel’s accusations of UN bias and antisemitism date back decades, but the rift has intensified since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks in the country’s south killed about 1,200 people and launched the war in Gaza. Israel’s offensive against the militant group has killed over 41,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not say how many were fighters but that a little more than half were women and children.
An Israeli ground incursion in Lebanon and other attacks against Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group also backed by Iran, and an Iranian missile strike against Israel on Tuesday have threatened to plunge the Middle East into all-out war. The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Wednesday on the Middle East.
Guterres didn’t respond to a question about the ban as he headed to the meeting, where he demanded a halt to the escalation of “tit-for-tat violence” that he warned is leading people in the Middle East “straight over the cliff.”
Earlier in the day, Katz accused Guterres of being biased against Israel and claimed the UN chief never condemned the Hamas attacks and sexual violence committed by its fighters.

Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz. (AFP/File)

Dujarric strongly disagreed, saying Guterres has condemned “over and over again the terror attacks, the acts of sexual violence and other horrors that we’ve seen.”
But the Israeli government strongly objected to the secretary-general’s phrase in his initial condemnation that said Hamas’ attack didn’t happen “in a vacuum.”
Israel also has accused staff from the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees, called UNRWA — the key provider of assistance in Gaza, of being Hamas members and participating in the Oct. 7 attacks and has curtailed their activities.
The UN’s internal watchdog has been investigating those Israeli allegations. UNRWA said Monday that a top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon was an employee who had been suspended since allegations of his ties to the militant group emerged in March.
UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini has accused Israel of trying to destroy its operations. The agency provides education, health care, food and other services to several million Palestinians and their families.
Guterres also has accused Israel of “collective punishment” of Palestinians in its nearly yearlong military response to the Hamas attacks in Gaza, saying he has not seen so much death and destruction during his seven years as secretary-general.
Dujarric said that in his 24 years at the UN, there have been UN staff declared persona non grata by a country but that he didn’t know of a secretary-general being banned.
He stressed that the United Nations has never recognized the concept being applied to UN staff.
Under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the practice applies to a country declaring a diplomat persona non grata — not an international organization.
“We continue our contacts with Israel at the operational level and other levels, because we need to,” Dujarric said.