SYDNEY: Australia said on Friday it had offered compensation to Save the Children staff after “regretting” relying on allegations the charity had encouraged asylum-seekers held on the Pacific island of Nauru to harm themselves.
Save the Children welcomed the confidential financial settlement, but said it still had concerns about those living on Nauru, where two refugees set themselves on fire this week.
One of them died, while the second was in a critical condition in hospital in Australia.
“We’ve always believed Nauru is a ticking time bomb and you can’t leave people stranded on a tiny tropical island for three years, remove all hope and expect that they will be OK,” the charity’s policy director Mat Tinkler told AFP.
Australia sends asylum-seekers arriving by boat to Nauru or Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. They are denied resettlement in Australia even if they are genuine refugees and are returned to their home countries if they wish.
The compensation relates to an incident in October 2014 when 10 Save the Children workers were stopped from working at the detention center on Nauru. Nine were subsequently deported.
At the time, the immigration department cited allegations that Save the Children’s staff had “orchestrated protest activity, coached and encouraged self-harm of detainees” to cast doubt on Australia’s tough immigration policy.
Two independent reviews into the allegations were critical of the government’s decision to have the charity’s staff removed from Nauru.
The department on Friday acknowledged that monetary compensation would not make up for the damage the allegations had made to the British-founded charity’s reputation.
The department said it “regrets the way in which... the allegations relied on by the department... may have led other NGOs and members of the public to question the integrity of SCA (Save the Children Australia) as a provider of government services or, to the extent that it may be relevant, as a child rights organization.”
Australia compensates aid group after Nauru claims
Australia compensates aid group after Nauru claims
Russia says ‘derailed’ Kyiv’s war plans after uproar over test strike
- Vladimir Putin says the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a ‘global’ nature
- NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike
That assessment for next year came after a Russian drone attack at night on the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed two civilians and wounded a dozen more in an attack with new cluster munitions, local authorities said.
Putin announced the missile launch in a defiant address late on Thursday, saying the conflict in Ukraine had taken on a “global” nature, while hinting at strikes on Western countries.
In a meeting with military commanders, Russian defense minister Andrei Belousov said Moscow’s advance had “accelerated” in Ukraine and “ground down” Kyiv’s best units.
“We have, in fact, derailed the entire 2025 campaign,” Belousov said of the Ukrainian army in a video published by the Russian defense ministry.
The attack, which apparently targeted an aerospace manufacturing plant in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, sparked immediate condemnation from Kyiv’s allies.
China, which has thrown its political clout behind the Kremlin, reiterated calls for “calm” and “restraint” by all parties after Russia confirmed the new missile strike.
“All parties should remain calm and exercise restraint, work to de-escalate the situation through dialogue and consultation, and create conditions for an early ceasefire,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told a regular briefing.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz meanwhile, on Friday described Russia’s deployment of the medium-range missile as a “terrible escalation.”
NATO and Ukraine will hold talks next week in Brussels over the strike, according to diplomats.
Ambassadors from countries in the NATO-Ukraine Council will hold talks on Tuesday. The meeting was called by Kyiv following the Dnipro strike, officials said.
The Russian attack came after Ukraine recently fired US- and UK-supplied missiles at Russian territory for the first time, escalating already sky-high tensions over the conflict, which is nearly in its third year.
Washington said it had granted Kyiv permission to fire long-range weapons at Russian territory as a response to the Kremlin’s deployment of thousands of North Korean troops on Ukraine’s border.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a strong response from world leaders to Russia’s use of the new missile, which he said proved Moscow “does not want peace.”
In Kyiv, Oleksandra, a 30-year-old resident working in the media, said the Russian strike was a sign of desperation within the Kremlin.
“You could have launched a missile that is less expensive and have the same result. As long as this missile does not carry a nuclear payload, there is nothing to fear about,” she said.
Russian troops have been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine for months, capturing a string of small towns and villages from overstretched Ukrainian soldiers lacking manpower and artillery.
In the city of Sumy, authorities said a Russian drone had struck a residential neighborhood. Emergency services distributed images showing rescue workers retrieving the bodies of the dead from the rubble.
Sumy lies across the border from Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops captured swathes of territory after launching a major ground offensive in August.
The head of the Sumy region, Volodymyr Artyukh, said Russia had deployed a drone with modified munitions that were equipped with shrapnel, describing the weapons as being “used to kill people, not to destroy buildings.”
Indian commandos kill 10 Maoist rebels
- More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement
- Gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency
RAIPUR, India: Indian security forces gunned down at least 10 Maoist rebels on Friday during a firefight, police said, as New Delhi steps up efforts to crush the long-running armed conflict.
More than 10,000 people have died in the decades-long insurgency waged by the Naxalite movement, who say they are fighting for the rights of marginalized Indigenous people of India’s remote and resource-rich central regions.
The gunbattle took place in a remote forested area of Chhattisgarh state, the heartland of the insurgency.
“Dead bodies of 10 Maoists have been recovered so far,” Vivekanand Sinha, chief of the state police’s anti-Maoist operations, said.
Sinha said the police recovered several automatic weapons from the rebels.
India’s home minister Amit Shah this year issued an ultimatum to the insurgents to surrender or face an “all-out assault.”
A crackdown by security forces has killed over 200 rebels this year, an overwhelming majority in Chhattisgarh, according to government data.
India has deployed tens of thousands of security personnel to battle the Maoists across the insurgent-dominated “Red Corridor,” which stretches across central, southern and eastern states but has shrunk dramatically in size.
India has pumped millions of dollars into infrastructure development in remote areas and claims to have confined the insurgency to 45 districts in 2023, down from 96 in 2010.
The conflict has seen a number of deadly attacks on government forces over the years. Twenty-two police and paramilitaries were killed in a gunbattle with the far-left guerrillas in 2021.
Sixteen commandos were also killed in the western state of Maharashtra in a bomb attack that was blamed on the Maoists in the lead-up to national elections in 2019.
Second Australian dies after suspected Laos alcohol poisoning
- A total of six foreign tourists have now died of suspected methanol poisoning in a backpacker hotspot in northern Laos
SYDNEY: A second young Australian tourist has died after apparently ingesting tainted alcohol while on holiday in Laos, Canberra’s foreign minister said Friday.
“All Australians will be heartbroken by the tragic passing of Holly Bowles,” Penny Wong said in a statement. “Just yesterday, Holly lost her best friend, Bianca Jones.”
“I know tonight all Australians will be holding both families in our hearts,” the foreign minister added.
A total of six foreign tourists have now died of suspected methanol poisoning in a backpacker hotspot in northern Laos.
They were from Australia, Britain, Denmark and the United States.
Many of the victims were in their teens or early twenties and fell sick after a night out in Vang Vieng.
Australian officials are now pressing Laotian authorities for a full and transparent investigation into what happened.
Alcohol tainted with methanol is suspected to be the cause of death.
Methanol is a toxic alcohol used in industrial and household products like antifreeze, photocopier fluids, de-icers, paint thinner, varnish and windshield wiper fluid.
Despite being toxic to humans, it is sometimes used in cheaply made home brew.
At least 10 killed in Afghanistan attack, interior ministry says
- It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack
KABUL: At least 10 people were killed by gunmen in Afghanistan’s northern Baghlan province, Interior Ministry Spokesperson Abdul Mateen Qaniee said on Friday.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack.
The Taliban took over the country in 2021 and vowed to restore security to the war-torn nation. Attacks have continued, many of them claimed by the local arm of the militant Daesh group.
In September, 14 people were killed and six others injured in an attack claimed by Daesh in central Afghanistan.
China urges ICC to take ‘objective’ position after Netanyahu arrest warrant
- Warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant ‘for crimes against humanity and war crimes’
- China, like Israel and the United States, is not a member of the International Criminal Court
BEIJING: China urged the International Criminal Court on Friday to remain objective and fair after it issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“China hopes the ICC will uphold an objective and just position (and) exercise its powers in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said at a regular press conference in response to a question about the court’s warrant for Netanyahu.
The ICC issued warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed between October 8, 2023, and May 20 this year.
It said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe the pair bore “criminal responsibility” for using starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally attacking civilians.
Netanyahu denounced the move as anti-Semitic and the court’s accusations as “absurd and false.”
China, which like Israel and the United States is not a member of the ICC, said it “supports any efforts by the international community on the Palestinian issue that are conducive to achieving fairness and justice and upholding the authority of international law.”
Lin also accused the United States of “double standards” in response to a question about the US opposition to the court’s pursuit of Netanyahu, but its support for a warrant against Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
“China consistently opposes certain countries only use international law when it suits them... and engaging in double standards,” Lin said.
US President Joe Biden has condemned the warrants against Israeli leaders, calling them “outrageous.”
