NEW YORK: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cautioned last month that Russia would manufacture a pretext for invading Ukraine. He also warned that Moscow would fabricate allegations about chemical or biological weapons to justify violent attacks against the Ukrainian people.
“The world is watching Russia do exactly what we warned it would,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, told fellow members of the Security Council on Friday.
The emergency meeting was called by the Russian delegation after allegations from Moscow that its troops had uncovered evidence of US-funded biological-weapon programs in Ukraine, including documents it said confirmed the development of “biological weapons components.”
The Russian defense ministry claimed that the US “planned to organize work on pathogens of birds, bats and reptiles in Ukraine in 2022.”
During Friday’s meeting, Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia repeated accusations by the ministry that Washington is supporting military-related biological research in Ukraine and Georgia with the goal of creating “bio-agents capable of selectively targeting different ethnic populations.”
Thomas-Greenfield said the Russian delegation called the Security Council meeting with the sole aim of legitimizing disinformation and deceiving the world in an attempt to justify “President (Vladimir) Putin’s war of choice against the Ukrainian people.”
She also accused China of spreading disinformation in support of Russia’s claims.
“I will say this once: Ukraine does not have a biological-weapons program,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “There are no Ukrainian biological-weapons laboratories supported by the United States — not near Russia’s border or anywhere.”
She added that Ukraine owns and operates its own public-health laboratories to detect and diagnose diseases, including COVID-19.
“The United States has assisted Ukraine to do this safely and securely,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “This is work that has been done proudly, clearly and out in the open. This work has everything to do with protecting the health of people. It has absolutely nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with biological weapons.”
Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN’s disarmament chief, told members of the council that no evidence has been found to support the Russian claims of biological-weapons development in Ukraine.
Thomas-Greenfield also accused Russia of long maintaining its own biological-weapons program, in violation of international law, and having a well-documented history of using such weapons.
She highlighted as evidence of this the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny by Russian operatives, and Moscow’s continued support of President Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria and its efforts to “shield it from accountability when the UN and the (Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons) have confirmed that Assad has repeatedly used chemical weapons over the past several years.”
The US envoy said her country is deeply concerned that Russia’s call for the Security Council meeting is a “potential false flag effort in action.”
A false flag operation is an action performed with the aim of disguising the true culprit and instead blame another.
“Russia has a track record of falsely accusing other countries of the very violations that Russia itself is perpetrating,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “And (we) have serious concerns that Russia may be planning to use chemical or biological agents against the Ukrainian people.
“The intent behind these lies seems clear and it is deeply troubling. We believe Russia could use chemical or biological agents for assassinations, as part of a staged or false-flag incident, or to support tactical military operations.
“From the beginning, our strategy to counter Russia’s tactics has been to share what we know with the world, transparently — and, candidly, we have been right more often than we’d like.”
She vowed not to allow Russia to “get away with lying to the world or staining the integrity of the Security Council by using this forum as a venue for legitimizing Putin’s violence.”
Russia has attacked homes, schools, orphanages and hospitals, Thomas-Greenfield said.
“Their forces are laying Ukrainian cities under siege,” she added. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians now don’t have access to electricity for heat, or drinking water to stay alive. Russia is the aggressor here.”
She stressed that despite Moscow’s efforts to spread disinformation, it cannot “paint over” newspaper stories or “cover up” the work of the Ukrainian and international journalists on the ground in the country who are reporting the reality of civilian suffering and deaths.
Meanwhile, the Russian media alleged that a pregnant woman pictured being carried on a stretcher while a hospital in Mariupol was evacuated after a Russian attack was an actress.
“Even Russia’s own citizens are tiring of such lies,” said Thomas-Greenfield. “Russian athletes are writing ‘no war’ on their shoes and on TV cameras. Russian citizens are marching in the streets and protesting Putin’s war of choice. And even Russian state-TV pundits — Putin’s own propaganda arm — have called for Putin to stop the military action.”
Thomas-Greenfield again called on the Russian president to end this “unprovoked, unconscionable war against the Ukrainian people.”
US denounces Russian claims of Ukrainian biological weapons as a ‘false flag’
https://arab.news/9vfke
US denounces Russian claims of Ukrainian biological weapons as a ‘false flag’
- American envoy told UN Security Council that Moscow has a track record of falsely accusing others of the very crimes it is guilty of itself
- The emergency meeting was called by Russia after allegations by the Kremlin that Washington is funding biological-weapons labs in Ukraine
37 months in prison for ex-CIA analyst Asif Rahman who leaked docs on Israeli strike
- Rahman worked for CIA since 2016, held top secret security clearance
- Rahman was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia in November last year
WASHINGTON: A former CIA analyst who leaked top secret US intelligence documents about Israeli military plans for a retaliatory strike on Iran was sentenced to 37 months in prison this week, the Justice Department said.
Asif Rahman, 34, who worked for the Central Intelligence Agency since 2016 and held a top secret security clearance, was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia in November last year.
In January, Rahman pleaded guilty at a federal courthouse in Virginia to two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
He faced a potential sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Iran unleashed a wave of close to 200 ballistic missiles on Israel on October 1 in retaliation for the killings of senior figures in the Tehran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups.
Israel responded with a wave of strikes on military targets in Iran in late October.
According to a court filing, on October 17 Rahman printed out two top secret documents “regarding a United States foreign ally and its planned kinetic actions against a foreign adversary.”
He photographed the documents and used a computer program to edit the images in “an attempt to conceal their source and delete his activity,” it said.
Rahman then transmitted the documents to “multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them” before shredding them at work.
The documents, circulated on the Telegram app by an account called Middle East Spectator, described Israeli preparations for a possible strike on Iran but did not identify any actual targets.
According to The Washington Post, the documents, generated by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, described aviation exercises and movements of munitions at an Israeli airfield.
The leak led Israeli officials to delay their retaliatory strike.
One passenger reportedly survived India plane crash
- Indian media widely reported the survivor Vishwash Kumar Ramesh had been sitting in seat 11A
- BBC spoke to his cousin in the city of Leicester, Ajay Valgi, who reported that Ramesh had called his family to say he was “fine”
AHMEDABAD: The miracle report of a lone survivor from a London-bound passenger plane that crashed Thursday in the Indian city of Ahmedabad with 242 on board offered a glimmer of hope.
Indian rescue teams with sniffer dogs clawed through smoldering wreckage through the night searching for clues for what had caused the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London’s Gatwick Airport to explode in a blazing fireball soon after takeoff from the western city of Ahmedabad.
Bodies from Air India’s flight 171 were lifted out of the torn fuselage, as well as being pulled out of the charred buildings of the medical staff hostel that the airplane smashed into, killing several there too.
The death toll currently stands at 260, police said.
But hours after police said that there “appears to be no survivor in the crash,” officials reported the initially seemingly impossible account that one man had walked out alive.
“One survivor is confirmed,” Dhananjay Dwivedi, principal secretary of Gujarat state’s health department, told AFP.
The person was being treated in hospital, he added without further details.
India’s Home Minister Amit Shah, who visited the crash site and then the hospital, said he was “pained beyond words by the tragic plane crash” in Ahmedabad, the main city in Gujarat state, where Shah is a lawmaker.
But he also told reporters he had heard the “good news of the survivor” and was speaking to them “after meeting him.”
Indian media widely reported the survivor had been sitting in seat 11A, after videos shared on social media showed a man — in a bloodied t-shirt and limping, but walking toward an ambulance.
He shared a boarding card that named him as Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, a 40-year-old British national, one of 53 UK citizens on board.
AFP was not able to confirm the reports, but the BBC spoke to his cousin in the city of Leicester, Ajay Valgi, who reported that Ramesh had called his family to say he was “fine.”
Britain’s Press Association news agency also spoke to his brother, Nayan Kumar Ramesh, 27, also in Leicester.
“He said, I have no idea how I exited the plane,” his brother told PA.
But while Ramesh’s reported survival offered a chance of hope, stories also flooded in of heartbreaking loss: elderly parents going to visit children in Britain, or family returning home.
Air India is organizing relief flights — one from the capital New Delhi and another from financial hub Mumbai — to Ahmedabad for “the next of kin of passengers and Air India staff,” the information ministry said in a statement.
They will have to take part in the grim task of identifying the bodies, many of which were reported to have been badly burned.
The plane, which was full of fuel as it took off for a long-haul flight to London, exploded into a burst of orange flame, videos of the crash showed.
Dwivedi, the health official, said DNA collection facilities had been set up at BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad.
“DNA testing arrangements have been made,” he told reporters.
“Families and close relatives of the flight passengers, especially their parents and children, are requested to submit their samples at the location so that the victims can be identified at the earliest.”
Air India crash adds to Boeing’s recent troubles
- Air India tragedy is first fatal crash since the Dreamliner went into service in 2009
- Cause of accident still unknown but comes after series of setbacks for the manufacturer
The crash of a Boeing 787 passenger jet in India minutes after takeoff on Thursday is putting the spotlight back on a beleaguered manufacturer though it was not immediately clear why the plane crashed.
The Air India 787 went down in the northwestern city of Ahmedabad with more than 240 people aboard shortly after takeoff, authorities said. It was the first fatal crash since the plane, also known as the Dreamliner, went into service in 2009, according to the Aviation Safety Network database. Boeing shares fell more than 5 percent in pre-market trading.
The 787 was the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter, recharge faster and can hold more energy than other types of batteries. In 2013 the 787 fleet was temporarily grounded because of overheating of its lithium-ion batteries, which in some cases sparked fires.
737 Max
The Max version of Boeing’s best-selling 737 airplane has been the source of persistent troubles for Boeing after two of the jets crashed. The crashes, one in Indonesia in 2018 and another in Ethiopia in 2019, killed 346.
The problem stemmed from a sensor providing faulty readings that pushed the nose down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.
Last month, the Justice Department reached a deal to allow Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading US regulators about the Max before the two crashes.
Worries about the plane flared up again after a door plug blew off a Max operated by Alaska Airlines, leading regulators to cap Boeing’s production at 38 jets per month.
Financial woes
Boeing posted a loss of $11.8 billion in 2024, bringing its total losses since 2019 to more than $35 billion.
The company’s financial problems were compounded by a strike by machinists who assemble the airplanes plane at its factories in Renton and Everett, Washington, which halted production at those facilities and hampered Boeing’s delivery capability.
For the first three months of 2025, Boeing reported a narrower loss of $31 million compared with the previous year. CEO Kelly Ortberg said Boeing made progress on stabilizing operations during the quarter.
Orders and deliveries
The stepped-up government scrutiny and the workers’ strike resulted in Boeing’s aircraft deliveries sliding last year.
Boeing said it supplied 348 jetliners in 2024, which was a third fewer than the 528 that it reported for the previous year.
The company delivered less than half the number of commercial aircraft to customers than its main rival Airbus, which reported delivering 766 commercial jets in 2023.
Still, Boeing’s troubles haven’t turned off airline customers from buying its jets. Last month the company secured big orders from two Middle Eastern customers. The deals included a $96 billion order for 787 and 777X jets from Qatar, which it said was the biggest order for 787s and wide body jets in the company’s.
Air India crash leaves UK’s Indian community ‘deeply shocked’
- MP who campaigned to open direct flights between Ahmedabad, London praises Gujarati community
- Former PM Rishi Sunak, who recently watched IPL final in the city, sends prayers to families of victims
LONDON: The Indian community in the UK has been left in deep shock after an Air India airplane bound for London Gatwick crashed in Ahmedabad on Thursday.
The Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner carrying 242 people burst into flames when it hit buildings in Gujarat state’s largest city shortly after takeoff.
Among those on board were 53 British passengers and 169 Indian nationals, many of whom would have been on their way to visit relatives in the UK.
The former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he and his wife Akshata Murty were “deeply shocked and distressed” by the tragedy.
Sunak and Murty were in Ahmedabad earlier this month to watch the Indian Premier League cricket final at the Narendra Modi Stadium.
Sunak said on X: “There is a unique bond between our two nations and our thoughts and prayers go out to the British and Indian families who have lost loved ones today.”
The High Commission of India in London said it was “deeply saddened by the tragic crash,” and that “thoughts and prayers are with all those affected by this devastating incident.”
It urged those affected to follow official updates from India’s civil aviation ministry and added that High Commission staff would assist the next of kin of the victims in the UK.
With the UK and India’s deep historic, political and trade ties, the Indian community in the UK is thought to number around 1.8 million. At least 600,000 are part of the diaspora from Gujarat, the state where the Air India plane crashed.
MP Bob Blackman, whose constituency of Harrow East is home to one of the largest Gujarati communities in the UK, said almost all the Indian nationals on board would have been on their way to visit relatives in Britain.
“The community is shocked by what’s happened,” he told BBC radio. “A third of my constituents come from Gujarat originally, and they will all have family and friends there. It’s a very close community and so they’ll all be affected by this.”
Blackman had campaigned to get direct flights set up between Ahmedabad and the UK.
The route was among the promises made by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who is from Gujarat — during a visit to the UK in 2015. Air India finally opened the route to Gatwick in 2023.
Blackman said: “It’s taken a long time to get these flights underway and that’s also what makes it even more of a tragedy: that one of these should crash and so many people have unfortunately lost their lives as a result.”
The MP praised the Gujarati community in the UK, saying that wherever they go throughout the world they bring improvements to education and the economy.
He added: “They’re hard-working people who look after their families and make sure everyone is protected, so when something like this happens it's a tragedy that’s felt by the whole community.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the scenes of the crash in Ahmedabad as “devastating.”
He added: “My thoughts are with the passengers and their families at this deeply distressing time.”
King Charles III said he was “desperately shocked” by the tragedy.
“Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathy are with the families and friends of all those affected by this appallingly tragic incident across so many nations, as they await news of their loved ones,” he said.
The crash comes a month after the UK and India signed a trade deal in the latest boost to their historic economic ties.
The accident stunned the business community operating between the two countries.
The UK India Business Council said it was deeply saddened by the crash.
“Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all those affected by this tragedy,” it said.
The UK branch of the Friends of India Society International said: “Our heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of those on board.”
Student who stabbed Labour MP in east London in 2010 to be freed from prison, says Parole Board
- Roshonara Choudhry was 21 when sentenced to a minimum of 15 years for stabbing Stephen Timms twice in the stomach
- Choudhry, now 36, participated in programs to understand her extreme beliefs, behavior was ‘exemplary,’ says panel
LONDON: A student who attempted to murder Labour MP Stephen Timms in May 2010 can be released from prison following a Parole Board decision.
Roshonara Choudhry was 21 when she was sentenced to a minimum of 15 years for stabbing Timms twice in the stomach, and was also charged with two counts of possessing an offensive weapon.
Choudhry, a former King’s College London student, was radicalized after watching lectures by an Al-Qaeda cleric, and her attack was believed to have been the first Al-Qaeda-inspired attempt to assassinate a politician on British soil.
Choudhry attacked the East Ham MP, the minister of state for social security and disability in the current UK government, while he held a constituency surgery at the Beckton Globe community center in east London. Following her arrest, she told police the stabbing was “punishment” and “to get revenge for the people of Iraq.”
During a Parole Board hearing on May 20, a panel decided to release her from prison. It added that her imprisonment “was no longer necessary for the protection of the public.”
Choudhry, now 36, participated in programs while in prison to understand her extreme beliefs, and her behavior was described by the panel as “exemplary.”
It added: “Ms Choudhry was assessed as having shown a very high level of insight and understanding of herself.
“She would no longer be likely to be influenced by other people with strong negative views, having developed the ability to critically evaluate information and to seek help from professionals if she needs it.”
The panel recommended Choudhry’s release on license, with conditions to live at a designated address, follow a curfew, and avoid contact with Timms.
