KYIV/SIVERSK: Russia has stepped up a powerful assault on Soledar in eastern Ukraine, officials in Kyiv said, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by the Wagner contract militia around the salt mining town and nearby fronts.
Soledar, in the industrial Donbas region, lies a few miles from Bakhmut, where troops from both sides have been taking heavy losses in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
Ukrainian forces repelled an earlier attempt to take the town but a large number of Wagner Group units quickly returned, deploying new tactics and more soldiers under heavy artillery cover, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Monday on the Telegram messaging app.
“The enemy literally step over the corpses of their own soldiers, using massed artillery, MLRS systems and mortars,” Malyar said.
Russia’s defense ministry did not mention either Soledar or Bakhmut in a regular media briefing on Monday, a day after facing criticism for an apparently false claim of a missile strike on a temporary Ukrainian barracks.
Wagner was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Drawing some recruits from Russia’s prisons and known for uncompromising violence, it is active in conflicts in Africa and has taken a prominent role in Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.
Prigozhin has been trying to capture Bakhmut and Soledar for months at the cost of many lives on both sides. He said on Saturday its significance lay in a network of cavernous mining tunnels below the ground, which can hold big groups of people as well as tanks and other war machines.
Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said fighting in Bahkmut and Soledar is “the most intense on the entire frontline,” with little advancement by either side in the freezing conditions.
“So many (pro-Russian fighters) remain on the battlefield ... either dead or wounded,” he said on YouTube.
“They attack our positions in waves, but the wounded as a rule die where they lie, either from exposure as it is very cold or from blood loss. No one is coming to help them or to collect the dead from the battlefield.”
Reuters could not immediately verify battlefield reports.
NO BUILDINGS INTACT
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in nightly video remarks on Monday that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction.
He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land is covered with Russian corpses.
“Thanks to the resilience of our soldiers in Soledar, we have won for Ukraine additional time and additional strength,” Zelensky said. He did not spell out what he meant by gaining time or strength.
But Ukrainian officials, led by the commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy, have warned that Russia is preparing fresh troops for a new, major offensive on Ukraine, possibly on the capital Kyiv.
Zelensky also appears to be banking on securing more, sophisticated weapons from Ukraine’s Western partners to beat off attacks and eventually expel Russian troops.
On Monday, he pressed on with diplomatic efforts, speaking to Petr Fiala, Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, current chair of the 27-member European Union.
“I am certain that our soldiers at the front will get these weapons and equipment. Very soon,” he said.
France, Germany and the United States all pledged last week to send armored fighting vehicles, fulfilling a long-standing Ukrainian request. Britain is considering supplying Ukraine with tanks for the first time, Sky News reported, citing a Western source. Britain’s Defense Ministry did not comment.
Iran could be contributing to war crimes in Ukraine by providing drones to Russia, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.
The United States has imposed sanctions on companies and people it accused of producing or transferring Iranian drones used by Russia. The White House said last week it is considering ways to target Iran’s production of the unmanned weaponized aircraft through sanctions and export controls.
WAVES OF ATTACK
Military analysts say the strategic military benefit for Russia of capturing Bakhmut and Soledar would be limited.
Taras Berezovets, a Ukrainian journalist, political commentator and officer in the Ukrainian army, said capturing Soledar made little sense, except as a personal victory for Prigozhin, however it would be easier to take than Bakhmut.
“It’s his personal war,” Berezovets said on YouTube.
A US official has said Prigozhin is eyeing the salt and gypsum from the mines, believed to extend over 100 miles underground and contain auditorium-scale caverns.
Berezovets said Ukrainian troops fighting in Bakhmut and Soledar say attacks come in waves of small groups, no more than 15, with the first wave usually wiped out. The pro-Russian forces retrench and leave white ribbons for the next wave to follow.
“The complexity of fighting in cities like Bakhmut and Soledar is that it is hard to determine who is with you and who is the enemy,” he said.
In an evacuee center in nearby Kramatorsk, Olha, 60, said she had fled Soledar after moving from apartment to apartment as each was destroyed in tank battles.
“There isn’t one house left intact. Apartments were burning, breaking in half,” said Olha, who gave only her first name.
Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s Soledar leaves battlefield strewn with corpses — Zelensky
https://arab.news/9c6q7
Fierce fighting in Ukraine’s Soledar leaves battlefield strewn with corpses — Zelensky
- Zelensky says no walls left standing in Soledar
- Wagner Group sending waves of fighters, Ukraine says
South Korea’s Yoon shuns questioning as security tightened after court rampage
- Security being beefed up at the Seoul Detention Center where Yoon Suk Yeol is being held as a pre-trial inmate
- Constitutional Court is holding an impeachment trial to decide whether to permanently remove him from office
Authorities said security was being beefed up at the Seoul Detention Center where Yoon is being held as a pre-trial inmate and at the Constitutional Court which is holding an impeachment trial to decide whether to permanently remove him from office.
Yoon became the first incumbent South Korean president to be arrested last week over his short-lived declaration of martial law on Dec. 3.
On Sunday, he was formally processed for detention, including having his mugshot taken, after a court approved a warrant, citing concern the suspect could destroy evidence.
Following the midnight ruling, angry Yoon supporters stormed the Seoul Western District Court building early on Sunday destroying property and clashing with police who were at times overpowered by a mob wielding broken barricades to attack them.
Police are planning to arrest 66 people for trespass, obstruction of official duty and assaulting police officers, Yonhap News Agency reported.
Other offenders were still being identified and police will also take legal action against them, acting Justice Minister Kim Seok-woo told a parliament judiciary committee.
Acting President Choi Sang-mok expressed deep regret over the “illegal violence” at the court building and also urged police to enforce the law strictly to prevent a repeat of what happened on Sunday.
LIVESTREAMED INTRUSION
Hundreds of protesters, some blasting fire extinguishers at lines of police, broke through a cordon to enter the court building soon after the 3 a.m. ruling on Sunday to approve the detention of Yoon.
Some of them were seen in video footage roaming halls where the offices of judges were located calling out the name of the judge who approved the warrant.
At least one judge’s chamber was broken into by force, Chun Dae-yup, the head of the National Court Administration, said.
Several of those involved livestreamed the intrusion on YouTube, with footage showing protesters trashing the court and chanting Yoon’s name. Some streamers were caught by police during their broadcasts.
Yoon’s refusal to appear for questioning on Monday at the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO), which is leading the criminal probe, comes after he has repeatedly refused to cooperate with the investigation.
His lawyers have argued that his arrest on Wednesday and the warrant issued for his detention are illegal because they were backed by a court that is in the wrong jurisdiction and the CIO itself has no legal authority to conduct the probe.
Insurrection, the crime that Yoon may be charged with, is one of the few that a South Korean president does not have immunity from and is technically punishable by death. South Korea, however, has not executed anyone in nearly 30 years.
Yoon said through his lawyers that he found Sunday’s rampage at the court “shocking and unfortunate,” calling on people to express their opinions peacefully.
In the statement, Yoon also said he understood many were feeling “rage and unfairness,” asking police to take a tolerant position.
Trump returning to power after unprecedented comeback, emboldened to reshape American institutions
- Business tycoon Trump overcame impeachments, criminal indictments and a pair of assassination attempts to win another term in the White House
- Trump to jumpstart deportations, increase fossil fuel development and reduce civil service protections for government workers after inauguration
WASHINGTON: Donald Trump, who overcame impeachments, criminal indictments and a pair of assassination attempts to win another term in the White House, will be sworn in as the 47th president on Monday, taking charge as Republicans assume unified control of Washington and set out to reshape the country’s institutions.
Trump is expected to act swiftly after the ceremony, with executive orders already prepared for his signature to jumpstart deportations, increase fossil fuel development and reduce civil service protections for government workers, promising that his term will bring about “a brand new day of American strength and prosperity, dignity and pride.”
Frigid weather is rewriting the pageantry of the day. Trump’s swearing-in was moved indoors to the Capitol Rotunda — the first time that has happened in 40 years — and the inaugural parade was replaced by an event at a downtown arena. Throngs of Trump supporters who descended on the city to watch the inaugural ceremony on the West Front of the Capitol from the National Mall will be left to find somewhere else to view the festivities.
“God has a plan,” said Terry Barber, 46, who drove nonstop from near Augusta, Georgia, to reach Washington. “I’m good with it.”
When Trump takes the oath of office at noon, he will realize a political comeback without precedent in American history. Four years ago, he was voted out of the White House during an economic collapse caused by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic. Trump denied his defeat and tried to cling to power. He directed his supporters to march on the Capitol while lawmakers were certifying the election results, sparking a riot that interrupted the country’s tradition of the peaceful transfer of power.
But Trump never lost his grip on the Republican Party, and was undeterred by criminal cases and two assassination attempts as he steamrolled rivals and harnessed voters’ exasperation with inflation and illegal immigration.
Now Trump will be the first person convicted of a felony — for falsifying business records related to hush money payments — to serve as president. He will pledge to “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution from the same spot that was overrun by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. He’s said that one of his first acts in office will be to pardon many of those who participated in the riot.
Eight years after he first entered the White House as a political newcomer, Trump is far more familiar with the operations of federal government and emboldened to bend it to his vision.
He has promised retribution against his political opponents and critics, and placed personal loyalty as a prime qualification for appointments to his administration.
He has pledged to go further and move faster in enacting his agenda than during his first term, and already the country’s political, business and technology leaders have realigned themselves to accommodate Trump. Democrats who once formed a “resistance” are now divided over whether to work with Trump or defy him. Billionaires have lined up to meet with Trump as they acknowledge his unrivaled power in Washington and ability to wield the levers of government to help or hurt their interests.
Trump has pledged to bring quick change to the country by curtailing immigration, enacting tariffs on imports and rolling back Democrats’ climate and social initiatives.
Long skeptical of American alliances, his “America First” foreign policy is being watched warily at home and abroad as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will soon enter its third year and a fragile ceasefire appears to be holding in Gaza after more than 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.
Trump, who spent Saturday and Sunday night at Blair House across from the White House, will begin Monday with a prayer service at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Then he and his wife Melania will be greeted at the executive mansion by President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden for the customary tea. It’s a stark departure from four years ago, when Trump refused to acknowledge Biden’s victory or attend his inauguration.
The two men and their spouses will head to the Capitol in a joint motorcade ahead of the swearing-in.
Vice President-elect JD Vance will be sworn-in first, taking the oath read by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh on a bible given to him by his great-grandmother. Trump will follow, using both a family bible and the one used by President Abraham Lincoln at his 1861 inauguration as Chief Justice John Roberts administers his oath.
The inaugural festivities began Saturday, when Trump arrived in Washington on a government jet and viewed fireworks at his private golf club in suburban Virginia. On Sunday, he laid a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery and rallied his supporters at Washington’s downtown Capital One Arena.
A cadre of billionaires and tech titans who have sought to curry favor with Trump and have donated handsomely to his inaugural festivities, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, will be in attendance.
Also present will be the head of TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social media app deemed a national security risk by the US Trump has promised to lift an effective ban on TikTok through one of many executive orders expected to be issued on Monday as the new president attempts to show quick progress.
At his Sunday rally, Trump teased dozens of coming executive actions, promising that “by the time the sun sets” on Monday he will have signed executive orders involving border security and immigration policy, including a revival of Trump’s first-term effort to shut down access to many new entries under what’s called Title 42 emergency provisions.
Others orders are expected to allow more oil and gas drilling by rolling back Biden-era policies on domestic energy production and rescind Biden’s recent directive on artificial intelligence.
More changes are planned for the federal workforce. Trump wants to unwind diversity, equity and inclusion programs known as DEI, require employees to come back to the office and lay the groundwork to reduce staff.
“Expect shock and awe,” said Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
“What I’ve been urging the president, and my colleagues, to do is stay laser-focused on delivering on our promises,” Cruz said. “And that’s what I expect that we’re going to do.”
With control of Congress, Republicans are also working alongside the incoming Trump administration on legislation that will further roll back Biden administration policies and institute their own priorities.
“The president is going to come in with a flurry of executive orders,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana “And we are going to be working alongside the administration and in tandem.”
Australia foreign minister says Quad in Washington shows ‘iron-clad’ commitment
- The grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US was formed amid shared concerns about China’s growing power
- Australia's FM is expected to discuss the AUKUS defense technology partnership with the US and Britain
SYDNEY: Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong met her Indian and Japanese counterparts in Washington and said the invitation for Quad foreign ministers to attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration showed an “iron-clad commitment” to close cooperation in the Indo Pacific region.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio appears on track for confirmation as Trump’s secretary of state on Monday, clearing the way for a meeting of Quad foreign ministers the following day, people familiar with the matter previously said.
The grouping of Australia, India, Japan and the US was formed amid shared concerns about China’s growing power.
“It’s a demonstration of the collective commitment of all countries to the Quad, an iron-clad commitment in this time where close cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is so important,” Wong said on Sunday of the foreign ministers’ invitation to Washington.
Wong said she would also meet Rubio and other members of the Trump administration, adding the US alliance was critical to Australia’s defense and economic prosperity. Wong is expected to discuss the AUKUS defense technology partnership with the US and Britain, a decades-long plan to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia.
She told reporters in Washington that Australia was “on a pathway of increasing defense expenditure.”
“Our focus is very much on how do we continue to deliver on AUKUS, because we do believe that capability is so important for deterrence, which is the way in which you can secure peace,” she said.
Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a radio interview on Monday that AUKUS would see Australia make a significant funding contribution to the American industrial base to speed up US production rates of Virginia class submarines. (Reporting by Kirsty Needham, Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Anti-poverty group says billionaires’ wealth soared in 2024 as the elites prepare for another Davos
- Oxfam International also predicts at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade
- OxFam’s research adds weight to a warning by outgoing President Joe Biden last week of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people”
DAVOS, Switzerland: Billionaires’ wealth grew three times faster in 2024 than the year before, a top anti-poverty group reported on Monday as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepared for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
Oxfam International, in its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting, also predicts at least five trillionaires will crop up over the next decade. A year ago, the group forecast that only one trillionaire would appear during that time.
OxFam’s research adds weight to a warning by outgoing President Joe Biden last week of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people.” The group’s sharp-edged report, titled “Takers Not Makers,” also says the number of people in poverty has barely budged since 1990.
The World Economic Forum expects to host some 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials, and civic group leaders at its annual meeting in the Alpine village of Davos.
What’s the worry about? ... The ‘new aristocracy’
President-elect Donald Trump, who visited Davos twice during his first term and was set to take the oath of office on Monday, is expected to take part in the forum’s event by video on Thursday. He has long championed wealth accumulation — including his own — and counts multibillionaire Elon Musk as a top adviser.
“What you’re seeing at the moment is a billionaire president taking oaths today, backed by the richest man. So this is pretty much the jewel in the crown of the global oligarchies,” Amitabh Behar, executive director of Oxfam International, said in an interview, referring to Trump and Musk.
“It’s not about one specific individual. It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit,” he added.
Like Biden’s call for making billionaires “begin to pay their fair share” through the US tax code, Oxfam — a global advocacy group — called on governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality and extreme wealth, and to “dismantle the new aristocracy.”
The group called for steps like the break-up of monopolies, capping CEO pay, and regulation of corporations to ensure they pay “living wages” to workers.
How are the poorest faring?
Many investors racked up strong gains in 2024, with strong performances for top tech companies and stock-market indexes like the S&P 500, as well as the price of gold and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Oxfam said billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion last year, or roughly $5.7 billion a day, three-times faster than in 2023. The number of billionaires rose by 204 to 2,769, and the 10 richest men saw their wealth rise nearly $100 million a day on average, it said.
Citing World Bank data, the group pointed to lingering poverty, saying the number of people living on less than $6.85 per day has “barely changed” since 1990. Oxfam used Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List” as of end-November for data on the ultra-rich.
By contrast, at least four new billionaires were “minted” every week in 2024, and three-fifths of billionaire wealth comes from inheritance, monopoly power or “crony connections,” it said.
On average, Oxfam said, low- and middle-income countries are spending nearly half their national budgets on debt repayments. It also noted that life expectancy in Africa is just under 64 years of age, compared to over 79 years in Europe.
Will it be business as usual at Davos again this year?
Despite the growing gap between the über rich and the poor, the annual Davos confab, which formally begins on Tuesday, will likely focus this year again on making money and doing deals, with strongman leaders on the rise in some Western countries and progressive causes like diversity and climate change waning in the business world.
The continued rise of artificial intelligence as a tool for business to reap greater efficiencies will also again be a central theme in Davos, despite worries in many sectors that AI could upend many white-collar jobs and displace workers in an array of industries.
Trump’s return for a second term will likely be on many lips in Davos, as will lingering conflicts, including wars in Ukraine and Sudan, along with hopes for a continuation of a ceasefire that began on Sunday between Hamas and Israel, pausing their devastating 15-month war in Gaza.
Forum organizers last week issued a survey conducted among 900 experts for “Global Risks Report,” which found that conflicts between countries was the top concern, followed by extreme weather, economic confrontation, misinformation and disinformation, and “societal polarization” — a nod to the gap between rich and poor.
As in past years, protesters calling for more economic equality, taxing the rich and pressing other demands took to the streets. Some blocked roads to Davos, snarling traffic in places and delaying trips for some attendees to the event, which runs through Friday.
Venezuelan opposition chief urges parliamentary election boycott
CARACAS: Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado called Sunday for a boycott of 2025 parliamentary elections after last year’s presidential vote widely considered to have been stolen by Nicolas Maduro.
Much of the international community disputes Maduro’s claim to victory in July 28 elections the opposition says it can prove were won by its candidate Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia.
“Going to vote again and again without respecting the results is not defending the (right to) vote, it is distorting the popular will,” Machado, who is in hiding, said in a video published on social media.
Venezuela is set to go to the polls this year to elect members of parliament, governors and mayors. No date has been set.
This comes as the United States, European Union, G7 and several democratic neighbors have refused to recognize Maduro’s claim to have won re-election to a third six-year term in last year’s vote.
The 62-year-old was sworn in on January 10 even as Washington offered a $25 million reward for Maduro’s arrest and sanctions were increased.
The opposition says its tally of results from the July vote showed a clear victory for 75-year-old Gonzalez Urrutia, who went into exile in Spain in September after a crackdown on dissent.
In 2020, the opposition boycotted parliamentary elections, having won a majority in the legislature five years earlier.
Maduro’s allies regained control of parliament and passed increasingly oppressive laws since then, according to rights groups.
The opposition had also boycotted 2018 presidential elections in which Maduro claimed re-election to a second term that was also rejected by most of the international community.
