NAIROBI, Kenya: Unknown gunmen attacked the home of Kenya's Deputy President William Ruto on Saturday seriously injuring a policeman, less than two weeks before the country votes in high-stakes polls, two security sources told AFP.
Ruto was not home during the attack. An officer from the elite police General Service Unit (GSU) seriously injured, a security official who was not authorised to speak to the press said.
"There are armed people who staged the attack and have shot the GSU officer and stolen his gun," the official said.
Security forces are trying to establish if there are still attackers in the deputy president's "expansive" home near the town of Eldoret, some 312 km northwest of the capital Nairobi, a senior police officer said.
"More security personnel have been deployed and a security operation is ongoing," the officer said.
The attack occurred despite the round-the-clock presence of guards from the GSU's top-notch reconnaissance unit.
A spokesman for Ruto declined to comment but the security official said the deputy president had left the house shortly before the attack to attend a rally alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate who faces a tight re-election contest on Aug. 8 against longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga.
Ruto's home sits in Kenya's western Rift Valley area, the flashpoint for an outbreak of election violence after the disputed 2007 polls that killed 1,100 people and tarnished Kenya's image as a regional beacon of safety and stability.
According to opinion polls, this year's election will be close and tensions have been rising.
Odinga has repeatedly claimed the government is scheming to steal the election, while Kenyatta has accused Odinga of trying to delay the polls.
Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of threats and voter intimidation in Naivasha, a flashpoint town in 2007 and one of the potential hotspots in this year's election.
In the Rift Valley, hate speech flyers have been circulating and some local residents have already left their homes.
The 2007 bloodshed haunted both Ruto and Kenyatta long after it ended, when the International Criminal Court put both on trial for orchestrating the violence.
Those charges were later dropped, with ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda blaming a relentless campaign of victim intimidation for making a trial impossible.
Unknown gunmen attack Kenya deputy president's home
Unknown gunmen attack Kenya deputy president's home
Modi calls for quick end to Ukraine conflict in meeting with Putin
- ‘We believe that disputes should only be resolved peacefully. We totally support efforts to quickly restore peace and stability’
- Narendra Modi visited Kyiv in August and Moscow in July in an effort to encourage talks
The three-day gathering, held amidst tight security in the city of Kazan, is the biggest international event in Russia since the Ukraine conflict began in 2022, with Putin seeking to build an alliance aimed at challenging the West’s “hegemony.”
“We have been in constant touch over the conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” Modi told Putin after the two shook hands and embraced.
“We believe that disputes should only be resolved peacefully. We totally support efforts to quickly restore peace and stability,” the Indian leader added.
Putin hailed what he called Russia and India’s “privileged strategic partnership” and vowed to build ties further.
New Delhi has walked a diplomatic tightrope since the Ukraine conflict began, pledging humanitarian support for Kyiv while avoiding explicit condemnation of Russia’s offensive.
Modi visited Kyiv in August and Moscow in July in an effort to encourage talks, as India cast itself as a potential mediator.
Some two dozen other leaders are to attend the summit, including Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
The main issues on the agenda include Putin’s idea for a BRICS-led payment system to rival SWIFT, an international financial network that Russian banks were cut off from in 2022, and the escalating conflict in the Middle East.
The Kremlin has touted the BRICS summit as a diplomatic triumph that shows Western attempts to isolate Moscow over the Ukraine conflict have failed.
The United States has dismissed the idea that BRICS could become a “geopolitical rival” but has expressed concern over Moscow flexing its diplomatic muscle as the Ukraine conflict rages.
Moscow has steadily advanced on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine this year while strengthening ties with China, Iran and North Korea — three of Washington’s adversaries.
By gathering BRICS leaders in Kazan, the Kremlin “aims to show that not only is Russia not isolated, it has partners and allies,” Moscow-based political analyst Konstantin Kalachev told AFP.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Putin in 2023 over the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine, and the Russian leader abandoned plans to attend the previous summit in ICC member South Africa.
This time, the Kremlin wants to show an “alternative to Western pressure and that the multipolar world is a reality,” Kalachev said, referring to Moscow’s efforts to shift power away from western nations.
In televised talks, Putin told Modi the leaders in Kazan “should take a number of important decisions, aimed at further improving the organization’s activities.”
Putin will also meet Xi and the leaders of South Africa and Egypt on Tuesday, followed by separate talks with Erdogan and Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is on his first trip to Russia since April 2022 to attend the summit. He will sit down with Putin on Thursday, according to the Kremlin, for talks that have been criticized by Kyiv.
Ahead of the summit, AFP journalists in Kazan reported heightened security and a visible police presence.
The surrounding Tatarstan region, which is some 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the border with Ukraine, has previously been hit by long-range Ukrainian drone attacks.
Movement around the city center is being limited, residents advised to stay home, and university students moved out of dormitories, local media reported.
The West believes Russia is using BRICS to expand its influence and promote its own narratives about the Ukraine conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned other countries could feel emboldened if Putin wins on the battlefield in Ukraine.
Starting with four members when it was established in 2009, BRICS has since expanded to include other emerging nations such as South Africa, Egypt and Iran.
But the group is rife with internal divisions, including between key members India and China.
Turkiye, a NATO member with complex ties to Moscow and the West, announced in September that it wanted to join the bloc.
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled a planned trip to the summit at the last minute after suffering a head injury that caused a minor brain hemorrhage.
Ukraine not asking West for nuclear weapons: Zelensky
- Ukraine leader also says prospect of peace talks with Russia ‘depends’ on the outcome of next month’s US presidential election
KYIV: Ukraine is not requesting nuclear weapons from Western partners to defend itself against Russia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a meeting with journalists under embargo until Tuesday.
“We are not asking for nuclear weapons to be given to us,” Zelensky said, a few days after suggesting Kyiv would seek either NATO membership or nuclear arms.
Zelensky also said the prospect of peace talks with Russia “depends” on the outcome of next month’s US presidential election.
Asked whether he thought Moscow was ready for negotiations with Kyiv, Zelensky told journalists in comments released Tuesday: “First of all, it depends on the elections in the United States. I think they will be watching the policy of the United States.”
EU lawmakers approve new $38 billion loan for Ukraine
- Kyiv is desperate for funds as it seeks to prop up its economy, equip its military and keep its electricity grid functioning this winter
- The EU loan is part of a bigger $50 billion initiative agreed by G7 powers in June
STRASBOURG, France: The European Parliament on Tuesday voted to hand war-torn Ukraine a loan of up to $38 billion (35 billion euros) backed by profits from frozen Russian assets.
Kyiv is desperate for funds as it seeks to prop up its economy, equip its military and keep its electricity grid functioning this winter after intense bombardments by Moscow’s forces.
The European Union loan — which was approved by an overwhelming majority of lawmakers — is part of a bigger $50 billion initiative agreed by G7 powers in June.
The EU is the first of the G7 powers to announce how much it is putting forward as its share of the plan and is still waiting for the United States and others to do their part.
EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said other G7 countries are expected to unveil their contributions at a Washington meeting on Friday.
EU officials say the size of the bloc’s loan was up to 35 billion euros, but could decrease depending on how much other countries put forward.
The EU has frozen roughly $235 billion of Russian central bank funds since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the vast bulk of immobilized Russian assets worldwide.
About 90 percent of the funds in the EU are held by international deposit organization Euroclear, based in Belgium.
The G7 plan seeks to leverage interest earned on the assets to get more funds to Ukraine and will replace an existing EU scheme that funneled $1.7 billion to Kyiv in July.
There has been a delay in implementing the G7 loan as the United States had sought guarantees from the EU that the Russian assets would remain frozen.
Currently, EU members have to agree every six months to extend the asset freeze.
Hungary rejected a proposal to extend that period to 36 months, arguing it wants to wait until after the US presidential election in November.
The latest EU loan comes on top of roughly 120 billion euros of support that officials say the EU and its member states have provided to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion.
Myanmar rescuers find 8 more bodies after boat sinks
- The boat had been carrying mostly students returning to southern Myeik city after a two-week break when it went down on Sunday
YANGON: Myanmar rescuers recovered eight more bodies, including three children, on Tuesday after an overloaded boat carrying around 90 people sank off the country’s southern coast, a local resident told AFP.
The boat had been carrying mostly students returning to southern Myeik city after a two-week break when it went down on Sunday.
Eleven bodies had been recovered as of Monday.
Rescuers found “eight more dead bodies today, including three children,” a resident of Kyauk Kar village, where the boat had set out, told AFP on Tuesday.
The five others were students aged between 18 and 20, he said, asking for anonymity to talk to the press.
Local media reported around 60 people had been rescued and eight were still missing.
Boat accidents are common in Myanmar, a country with rudimentary transport and weakly enforced safety regulations.
Vessels ferrying people along the coastline and rivers are often dangerously overcrowded, and accidents can have staggering death tolls. It can also take several days for all bodies to be retrieved.
Singapore blocks foreign-linked websites, warns against ‘hostile’ disinformation
- The move comes as Singapore prepares for elections to be held before November next year
- Two of the websites use domain names closely related or similar to legitimate Singapore-linked websites
SINGAPORE: Singapore on Tuesday blocked access to 10 websites linked to foreign actors which the government said could be used to mount “hostile” disinformation campaigns against the city-state.
The move comes as Singapore prepares for elections to be held before November next year.
“These 10 inauthentic websites have been observed to masquerade as Singapore websites by spoofing or using terms associated with Singapore in their domain name and incorporating familiar local features and visuals,” the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said in a statement.
“They also carried content on Singapore, some of which were generated by artificial intelligence. These are common tactics used by malicious foreign actors: build websites which can attract a local following, that may subsequently be used as platforms to mount HICs,” it said, referring to hostile information campaigns.
Two of the websites use domain names closely related or similar to legitimate Singapore-linked websites.
They carried content “that may mislead their audience into thinking that the content is reflective of official positions or local sentiments,” MHA said.
Seven of the websites utilize the word “Singapore” or associated terms in their domain name and publish content related to the country.
The 10th presents itself as a Singapore news website, carrying mostly articles that we “were likely to have been written” using AI tools.
“These 10 inauthentic websites could potentially be used by foreign actors to mount HICs against Singapore, and it is in the public interest to issue directions... to disable access to them for users in Singapore,” MHA said.
