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Ukraine in mind, US frantic to avert Mideast showdown at UN

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President Joe Biden pauses as he answers a reporter's question about Ukraine after speaking about the May jobs report, June 3, 2022, in Rehoboth Beach, Del. (AP)
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Updated 20 February 2023
AP
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Ukraine in mind, US frantic to avert Mideast showdown at UN

  • “The secretary underscored the urgent need for Israelis and Palestinians to take steps that restore calm and our strong opposition to unilateral measures that would further escalate tensions,” the statements said
Updated 20 February 2023
AP

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration is scrambling to avert a diplomatic crisis over Israeli settlement activity this week at the United Nations that threatens to overshadow and perhaps derail what the US hopes will be a solid five days of focus on condemning Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made two emergency calls on Saturday from the Munich Security Conference, which he is attending in an as-yet unsuccessful bid to avoid or forestall such a showdown. It remained unclear whether another last-minute intervention might salvage the situation, according to diplomats familiar with the ongoing discussions who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Without giving details, the State Department said in nearly identical statements that Blinken had spoken to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from Munich to “reaffirm the US commitment to a negotiated two-state solution and opposition to policies that endanger its viability.”
“The secretary underscored the urgent need for Israelis and Palestinians to take steps that restore calm and our strong opposition to unilateral measures that would further escalate tensions,” the statements said.
Neither statement mentioned the proposed UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate halt to Israeli settlements. The Palestinians want to bring that resolution to a vote on Monday. And neither statement gave any indication as to how the calls ended.
But diplomats familiar with the conversations said that in his call to Abbas, Blinken reiterated an offer to the Palestinians for a US package of incentives to entice them to drop or at least delay the resolution.
Those incentives included a White House meeting for Abbas with President Joe Biden, movement on reopening the American consulate in Jerusalem, and a significant aid package, the diplomats said.
Abbas was noncommittal, the diplomats said, but also suggested he would not be amenable unless the Israelis agreed to a six-month freeze on settlement expansion on land the Palestinians claim for a future state.
Blinken then called Netanyahu, who, according to the diplomats, was similarly noncommittal about the six-month settlement freeze. Netanyahu also repeated Israeli opposition to reopening the consulate, which was closed during President Donald Trump’s administration, they said.
The US and others were hoping to resolve the deadlock on Sunday, but the diplomats said it was unclear if that was possible,
The drama arose just ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which will be the subject of special UN General Assembly and Security Council sessions on Thursday and Friday.
The US opposes the Palestinian resolution and is almost certain to veto it. Not vetoing would carry considerable domestic political risk for Biden on the cusp of the 2024 presidential race and top House Republicans have already warned against it.
But the administration also fears that using its veto to protect Israel risks losing support at the world body for measures condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Senior officials from the White House, the State Department and the US Mission to the UN have already engaged frantic but fruitless diplomacy to try to persuade the Palestinians to back down. The dire nature of the situation prompted Blinken’s calls on Saturday, the diplomats said.
The Biden administration has already said publicly that it does not support the resolution, calling it “unhelpful.” But it has also said the same about recent Israeli settlement expansion announcements.
UN diplomats say the USwants to replace the Palestinian resolution, which would be legally binding, with a weaker presidential statement, or at least delay a vote on the resolution until after the Ukraine war anniversary.
The Palestinian push comes as Israel’s new right-wing government has reaffirmed its commitment to construct new settlements in the West Bank and expand its authority on land the Palestinians seek for a future state.
Israel captured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The United Nations and most of the international community consider Israeli settlements illegal and an obstacle to ending the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.
Ultranationalists who oppose Palestinian statehood comprise a majority of Israel’s new government, which has declared settlement construction a top priority.
The draft resolution, circulated by the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council, would reaffirm the Security Council’s “unwavering commitment” to a two-state solution with Israel and Palestine living side-by-side in peace as democratic states.
It would also reaffirm the UN Charter’s provision against acquiring territory by force and reaffirm that any such acquisition is illegal.
Last Tuesday, Blinken and the top diplomats from Britain, France, Germany and Italy condemned Israel’s plans to build 10,000 new homes in existing settlements in the West Bank and retroactively legalize nine outposts. Netanyahu’s Cabinet had announced the measure two days earlier, following a surge in violence in Jerusalem.
In December 2016, the Security Council demanded that Israel “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.” It stressed that halting settlement activities “is essential for salvaging the two-state solution.”
That resolution was adopted after President Barack Obama’s administration abstained in the vote, a reversal of the United States’ longstanding practice of protecting its close ally Israel from action at the United Nations, including by vetoing Arab-supported resolutions.
The draft resolution before the council now is much shorter than the 2016 document, though it reiterates its key points and much of what the US and Europeans already said last week.
Complicating the matter for the US, the Security Council resolution was introduced and is supported by the UAE, an Arab partner of the United States that has also normalized relations with Israel, even as it has taken a tepid stance on opposing Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
The US will be looking to the UAE and other council members sympathetic to the Palestinians to vote in favor of resolutions condemning Russia for invading Ukraine and calling for a cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of all Russian forces.

 

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The science behind the powerful earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand

Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters
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The science behind the powerful earthquake in Myanmar and Thailand

  • Myanmar lies on boundary between two tectonic plates, is one of world’s most seismically active countries
  • Friday’s event was “probably the biggest” to hit Myanmar’s mainland in three quarters of a century, experts said 
Updated 10 sec ago
Reuters

SINGAPORE: A powerful earthquake of magnitude 7.7 centered in the Sagaing region near the Myanmar city of Mandalay caused extensive damage in that country and also shook neighboring Thailand on Friday.

How vulnerable is Myanmar to earthquakes?

Myanmar lies on the boundary between two tectonic plates and is one of the world’s most seismically active countries, although large and destructive earthquakes have been relatively rare in the Sagaing region.

“The plate boundary between the India Plate and Eurasia Plate runs approximately north-south, cutting through the middle of the country,” said Joanna Faure Walker, a professor and earthquake expert at University College London.
She said the plates move past each other horizontally at different speeds. While this causes “strike slip” quakes that are normally less powerful than those seen in “subduction zones” like Sumatra, where one plate slides under another, they can still reach magnitudes of 7 to 8.

Why was Friday’s quake so damaging?
Sagaing has been hit by several quakes in recent years, with a 6.8 magnitude event causing at least 26 deaths and dozens of injuries in late 2012.
But Friday’s event was “probably the biggest” to hit Myanmar’s mainland in three quarters of a century, said Bill McGuire, another earthquake expert at UCL.
Roger Musson, honorary research fellow at the British Geological Survey, told Reuters that the shallow depth of the quake meant the damage would be more severe. The quake’s epicenter was at a depth of just 10 km (6.2 miles), according to the United States Geological Survey.
“This is very damaging because it has occurred at a shallow depth, so the shockwaves are not dissipated as they go from the focus of the earthquake up to the surface. The buildings received the full force of the shaking.”
“It’s important not to be focused on epicenters because the seismic waves don’t radiate out from the epicenter — they radiate out from the whole line of the fault,” he added.

How prepared was Myanmar?

The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program said on Friday that fatalities could be between 10,000 and 100,000 people, and the economic impact could be as high as 70 percent of Myanmar’s GDP.
Musson said such forecasts are based on data from past earthquakes and on Myanmar’s size, location and overall quake readiness.
The relative rarity of large seismic events in the Sagaing region — which is close to heavily populated Mandalay — means that infrastructure had not been built to withstand them. That means the damage could end up being far worse.
Musson said that the last major quake to hit the region was in 1956, and homes are unlikely to have been built to withstand seismic forces as powerful as those that hit on Friday.
“Most of the seismicity in Myanmar is further to the west whereas this is running down the center of the country,” he said.
 

US woman released by Taliban in Afghanistan

Updated 3 min 2 sec ago
AFP
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US woman released by Taliban in Afghanistan

  • Hall was detained in Feb. along with Peter and Barbie Reynolds, in their 70s
  • Group was traveling to British couple’s home in central Bamiyan province
Updated 3 min 2 sec ago
AFP

WASHINGTON: An American woman has been freed by the Taliban in Afghanistan after she, two Britons and their Afghan translator were detained earlier this year, Washington’s former envoy to Kabul, Zalmay Khalilzad, said Saturday.
“American citizen Faye Hall, just released by the Taliban, is now in the care of our friends, the Qataris in Kabul, and will soon be on her way home,” Khalilzad, who has been part of a US delegation working on Taliban hostage releases, wrote on X.
While at the Qatari embassy in Kabul, Hall “has been confirmed in good health after undergoing a series of medical checks,” said a source with knowledge of the release.
She was released on Thursday following a court order and with logistical support from Qatar, the source added.

Hall, who has been identified by the Taliban’s interior ministry as Chinese-American, was detained in February along with Peter and Barbie Reynolds, who are in their 70s, as they traveled to the British couple’s home in central Bamiyan province.
Their Afghan translator was additionally arrested.
Taliban officials have refused to detail the reasons for their arrest, but one report said Hall had been detained on charges of using a drone without authorization.
In his announcement, Khalilzad posted a picture of Hall smiling with Qatar representatives ahead of her departure from Afghanistan.
Khalilzad had been in the Afghan capital earlier this month on a rare visit by US officials to meet Taliban authorities, accompanying US hostage envoy Adam Boehler.
Following their visit, the Taliban government announced the release of US citizen George Glezmann after more than two years of detention, in a deal brokered by Qatar.
He and Hall are among several Americans to be released from Taliban custody this year.
In January, two Americans detained in Afghanistan — Ryan Corbett and William McKenty — were freed in exchange for an Afghan fighter, Khan Mohammed, who was convicted of narco-terrorism in the United States.
At least one other US citizen, Mahmood Habibi, is still held in Afghanistan.
The British couple detained with Hall remain in Taliban custody.
Their daughter has expressed grave fears for her father’s health and appealed to the Taliban authorities to free them.
The Reynolds, who married in Kabul in 1970, have run school training programs in the country for 18 years.
They remained in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021 when the British embassy withdrew its staff.
The government in Kabul is not recognized by any country, but several, including Russia, China and Turkiye, have kept their embassies open in the Afghan capital.
Qatar, too, has maintained diplomatic channels with the Taliban and has facilitated negotiations for the release of US hostages.
Since US President Donald Trump’s reelection, the Kabul government has expressed hopes for a “new chapter” with Washington.

Topics: Afghanistan Taliban

Pentagon chief says US will ensure ‘deterrence’ across Taiwan Strait

Updated 55 min 13 sec ago
AFP
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Pentagon chief says US will ensure ‘deterrence’ across Taiwan Strait

  • Beijing has stepped up military pressure in recent years around Taiwan
Updated 55 min 13 sec ago
AFP

Tokyo: The United States will ensure “robust, ready and credible deterrence” in the Asia-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday, calling Chinese actions “aggressive and coercive.”
Speaking in Japan, Hegseth also stopped short of publicly calling on Tokyo to increase military spending, saying he trusted the close US ally to “make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed.”
“America is committed to sustaining robust, ready and credible deterrence in the Indo-Pacific, including across the Taiwan Strait,” Hegseth said, using Washington’s term for the Asia-Pacific region.
“Japan would be on the frontlines of any contingency we might face in the western Pacific and we stand together in support of each other,” he told reporters after talks with Japanese counterpart Gen Nakatani.
“That is why today Minister Nakatani and I talked about the severe and urgent security environment around Japan, and we discussed what we are going to do about it.”
Beijing has stepped up military pressure in recent years around Taiwan, including near-daily air incursions, and has not ruled out using force to bring the island under its control.

Okinawa base
Japan and the United States are each other’s top foreign investors, and 54,000 US military personnel are stationed in Japan — mostly in Okinawa, east of Taiwan.
But Trump’s “America First” approach could mean weakening the US commitment for security in the region as well as more pressure — like in Europe — on allies to spend more.
Hegseth said that he “did not talk specific numbers” about defense spending in his talks with Nakatani and Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.
“We’re confident that Japan will make the correct determination of what capabilities are needed inside our alliance to make sure we are standing shoulder to shoulder,” he said.
“They have been a model ally, and we have no doubt that will continue. But we also both recognize everybody needs to do more.”
Japan has been shedding its strict pacifist stance, moving to obtain “counterstrike” capabilities and doubling military spending to the NATO standard of two percent of GDP.
But Washington could ask it to do more, with Trump’s nominee for a key Pentagon policy position, Elbridge Colby, calling for defense spending of three percent of GDP.
Nakatani said Sunday that he told Hegseth that spending should be “implemented based on Japan’s own judgment and responsibility.”
“I also explained Japan has continuously been working on a drastic strengthening of out defense capability... on which we received understanding from the US side,” he said.
Hegseth said the Tokyo meetings “affirmed the extraordinary strength of America’s alliance with Japan.”
“President Trump has also made it very clear, and we reiterate, we are going to put America first. But America first does not mean America alone,” he added.
“America and Japan stand firmly together in the face of aggressive and coercive actions by the Communist Chinese.”

Topics: US Taiwan

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Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘war crime’ with military hospital strike

Updated 30 March 2025
AFP
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Ukraine accuses Russia of ‘war crime’ with military hospital strike

  • The latest deadly strikes come as US President Donald Trump’s administration pushes for a speedy end to the more than three-year war, holding talks with both Russia and Ukraine
Updated 30 March 2025
AFP

KYIV: Ukraine accused Russia of committing a “war crime” during its weekend attack on the city of Kharkiv, as the US-backed ceasefire efforts continue to prove elusive.
Six strikes hit the northeastern border city overnight Saturday into Sunday, wounding personnel undergoing treatment at a military hospital and killing at least two people in a residential building, according to Ukrainian officials.
A spokesperson for the Kharkiv regional prosecutor’s office, Dmytro Chubenko, confirmed two deaths and said another 30 people were wounded, including children.
According to the emergency medical services, the “massive attack” reduced one home to a fiery ruin and damaged other houses, office buildings, cars and garages.
The Ukrainian army said that a military hospital building and nearby residential buildings “were damaged by a Shahed drone.”
“According to preliminary reports, there are casualties among the military personnel who were undergoing treatment at the medical center,” it added.
Kyiv does not typically reveal information on military casualties and did not say how many soldiers were wounded.
It accused Russia of having carried out a “war crime” and “violating the norms of international humanitarian law.”
'Real pressure'
The latest deadly strikes come as US President Donald Trump’s administration pushes for a speedy end to the more than three-year war, holding talks with both Russia and Ukraine.
Moscow has rejected a joint US-Ukrainian proposal for an unconditional and full ceasefire, while Ukraine has accused Russia of dragging out talks with no intention of halting its offensive.
“For too long now, America’s proposal for an unconditional ceasefire has been on the table without an adequate response from Russia,” Zelensky said in his evening address on Saturday.
“There could already be a ceasefire if there was real pressure on Russia,” he added, thanking those countries “who understand this” and have stepped up sanctions pressure on the Kremlin.
Both Moscow and Kyiv agreed to the concept of a Black Sea truce following talks with US officials earlier this week, but Russia said the deal would not enter into force until the West lifted certain sanctions.
Rapprochement between Washington and Moscow since Trump’s return to office and his threats to stop supporting Kyiv have bolstered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s confidence.
On the battlefield, his defense ministry claimed Saturday to have captured two Ukrainian villages: Shchebraki in the southern Zaporizhzhia region and Panteleimonivka in the eastern Donetsk region.
Putin has meanwhile called for a “transitional administration” as part of the peace process, reiterating his long-standing desire to oust Zelensky and install a more Moscow-friendly government in Kyiv.
Putin, in power for 25 years and repeatedly elected in votes with no competition, has repeatedly questioned Zelensky’s “legitimacy” as Ukrainian president, after his initial five-year mandate ended in May 2024.
Under Ukrainian law, elections are suspended during times of major military conflict, and Zelensky’s domestic opponents have all said no ballots should be held until after the conflict.

Topics: Ukraine-Russia war

Aftershocks rattle Mandalay as rescuers search for survivors in Myanmar quake

Updated 30 March 2025
AP
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Aftershocks rattle Mandalay as rescuers search for survivors in Myanmar quake

  • Myanmar's junta said at least 1,644 people were killed, more than 3,400 injured, and at least 139 more missing
  • The junta issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid on Friday, indicating the severity of the calamity
Updated 30 March 2025
AP

MANDALAY, Myanmar: Residents scrambled desperately through collapsed buildings Sunday searching for survivors as aftershocks rattled the devastated city of Mandalay, two days after a massive earthquake killed more than 1,600 people in Myanmar and at least 11 in neighboring Thailand.
The initial 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
The tremors collapsed buildings, downed bridges and buckled roads, with mass destruction seen in the city of more than 1.7 million people.
As dawn broke Sunday, tea shop owner Win Lwin picked his way through the remains of a collapsed restaurant on a main road in his neighborhood, tossing bricks aside one by one.
“About seven people died here” when the quake struck Friday, he told AFP. “I’m looking for more bodies but I know there cannot be any survivors.
“We don’t know how many bodies there could be but we are looking.”

About an hour later, a small aftershock struck, sending people scurrying out of a hotel for safety, following a similar tremor felt late Saturday evening.
Truckloads of firemen gathered at one of Mandalay’s main fire stations to be dispatched to sites around the city.
The night before, rescuers had pulled a woman out alive from the wreckage of a collapsed apartment building, with applause ringing out as she was carried by stretcher to an ambulance.
Myanmar’s ruling junta said in a statement Saturday that at least 1,644 people were killed and more than 3,400 injured in the country, with at least 139 more missing.
But with unreliable communications, the true scale of the disaster remains unclear in the isolated military-ruled state, and the toll is expected to rise significantly.
Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing issued an exceptionally rare appeal for international aid on Friday, indicating the severity of the calamity.
Previous military governments have shunned foreign assistance, even after major natural disasters.
Myanmar has already been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021.
Anti-junta fighters in the country have declared a two-week partial ceasefire in quake-affected regions starting Sunday, the shadow “National Unity Government” said in a statement.
The government in exile said it would “collaborate with the UN and NGOs to ensure security, transportation, and the establishment of temporary rescue and medical camps” in areas that it controls, according to the statement, which was released on social media.
Aid agencies have warned that Myanmar is unprepared to deal with a disaster of this magnitude.
Some 3.5 million people were displaced by the raging civil war, many at risk of hunger, even before the quake struck.

Across the border in Thailand, rescuers in Bangkok worked Sunday to pluck out survivors trapped when a 30-story skyscraper under construction collapsed after the Friday earthquake.
At least 11 people have been killed in the Thai capital, with dozens more still trapped under the immense pile of debris where the skyscraper once stood.
Bangkok authorities were expected to release another statement at 9 am (0200 GMT), with fears of a further toll increase.
Workers at the site used large mechanical diggers in an attempt to find victims still trapped on Sunday morning.
Sniffer dogs and thermal imaging drones have also been deployed to seek signs of life in the collapsed building, close to the Chatuchak weekend market popular among tourists.
Authorities said they would be deploying engineers to assess and repair 165 damaged buildings in the city on Sunday.
 

Topics: Myanmar Earthquake Mandalay

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