JOHANNESBURG: South Africa’s government has recalled Monday its ambassador and diplomatic mission to Israel in condemnation of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling it a “genocide.”
The government also threatened action against the Israeli ambassador to South Africa over his recent remarks on the African country’s stance on the Israel-Hamas war. No further details were given about the remarks.
The war broke out after the Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on Oct.7, leaving over 1,400 people dead. More than 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
“The South African government has decided to withdraw all its diplomats in Tel Aviv for consultation,” said minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni. She added the cabinet noted the “disparaging remarks of the Israeli ambassador to South Africa about those who are opposing the atrocities and genocide of the Israeli government” and that the department of international relations has been instructed to “take the necessary measures within the diplomatic channels and protocols to deal with (his) conduct.”
Ntshavheni also said the position of the Israeli ambassador in the country was “untenable.”
Pro-Palestinian protesters — who have been staging demonstrations by the US Consulate in Johannesburg and Israeli embassies in Pretoria and Cape Town — have called on the South African government to expel the Israeli ambassador.
International relations minister Naledi Pandor, who on Monday hosted her Ukraine counterpart Dmytro Kuleba, said the South African officials would be recalled from Tel Aviv to give the government a detailed briefing about the situation in the region.
“We need to have this engagement with our officials because we are extremely concerned at the continued killing of children and innocent civilians in the Palestinian territory and we believe the nature of response by Israel has become one of collective punishment,” said Pandor.
Pandor said she had discussed the strengthening of bilateral ties with her Ukraine counterpart, including meetings held by at least seven African leaders who visited Moscow and Kyiv earlier this year to propose a peace plan.
“We are one of the few countries around the regions of the world that are able to speak to both Ukraine, as well as Russia.”
The South African government, led by the ruling African National Congress party which has close ties to Palestine, has called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and for aid to be allowed into the bombarded enclave.
South Africa is among other countries to recall their ambassadors to Israel to protest the military operations in Gaza, including Chile, Colombia Honduras. Bolivia severed diplomatic ties with the country.
Israel criticized the Latin American countries last week and called on Colombia and Chile to “explicitly condemn the Hamas terrorist organization.
South Africa recalls ambassador, diplomatic mission to Israel
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South Africa recalls ambassador, diplomatic mission to Israel
- The cabinet said it noted the remarks of the Israeli ambassador to South Africa about those opposing the atrocities and genocide of the Israeli government
Migrant dies attempting to cross Channel to UK: French authorities
LILLE: A migrant died Sunday in an attempt to cross the Channel to Britain, a death that comes on top of two deadly boat sinkings in the past 10 days, French officials said.
The man, an Indian citizen, had set off from the beach of Tardinghen in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France.
“The vessel, which was in very poor condition, deflated immediately after leaving the beach” at around 5:30 am (0430 GMT) the local prefecture said in a statement.
Not all the passengers had life jackets, but most on board were able to swim back to shore.
One man “of Indian nationality, around 40 years old, was in cardio-respiratory arrest” and could not be revived by emergency services, the prefecture added.
Sunday’s death brings the total on the France-Britain route across the Channel to at least 56 in 2024, already more than any previous year with two months remaining.
Two men and a woman were killed on Wednesday when their boat was wrecked around two kilometers offshore near port city Calais.
The previous week, a four-month-old baby had died after a boat disintegrated.
And three migrants were hospitalized Friday after suffering injury or hypothermia in attempted crossings.
“We can’t bear any more of this migration policy. As far as we’re concerned, that’s what’s responsible” for the deaths, said Axel Gaudiant, coordinator of migrant aid association Utopia 46 in Calais.
Britain and France have worked together for years to prevent people departing northern France in small boats.
Over 29,000 migrants have made it across the Channel since the start of 2024, according to the British Home Office, the UK’s equivalent of an interior ministry.
Putin says Moscow will respond if West helps Ukraine to strike deep into Russia
- Putin says defense ministry exploring responses
- Russia has changed nuclear doctrine
- Putin says NATO would have to help strikes by Ukraine
MOSCOW: President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that Russia’s defense ministry was working on different ways to respond if the United States and its NATO allies help Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with long-range Western missiles.
The 2-1/2-year-old Ukraine war has triggered the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the depths of the Cold War, and Russian officials say the war is now entering its most dangerous phase.
Russia has been signalling to the United States and its allies for weeks that if they give permission to Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory with Western-supplied missiles, then Moscow will consider it a major escalation.
Putin said on Sept. 12 that Western approval for such a step would mean “the direct involvement of NATO countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine” because NATO military infrastructure and personnel would have to be involved in the targeting and firing of the missiles.
Putin said that it was too early to say exactly how Russia would react to such a move but that Moscow would have to respond accordingly and different options were being examined.
“(The Russian defense ministry) is thinking about how to respond to the possible long-range strikes on Russian territory, it will offer a range of responses,” Putin told Russian state TV’s top Kremlin reporter, Pavel Zarubin.
With Russia advancing at the fastest rate in eastern Ukraine since the first months of the invasion, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been pleading with the West to allow Kyiv to fire deep into Russia with Western missiles.
Hitting Russia
The United States has not said publicly if it will allow Ukraine to strike Russia, but some US officials are deeply skeptical that doing so would make a significant difference in the war.
Ukrainian forces already strike deep into Russia on a regular basis with long-range drones.
Putin, who ordered thousands of troops into Ukraine in 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine, casts the war as a battle between Russia and the declining West, which he says ignored Russia’s interests after the 1991 Soviet collapse.
Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin unleashed an imperial-style war against its smaller neighbor and have repeatedly said that if Russia wins the war then autocratic countries across the world will be emboldened.
Just weeks before the US presidential election, Putin changed Russia’s
nuclear doctrine
in what the Kremlin said was an attempt to signal Russia’s concern over Western discussions about missile strikes from Ukraine.
Asked if the West had heard Russia’s warnings, Putin told Zarubin: “I hope they have heard. Because, of course, we will have to make some decisions for ourselves, too.”
Putin said that only NATO officers would be able to fire such weapons into Russia and that they would need to use Western satellite data for targeting the weapons so the question is really “whether they will allow themselves to strike deep into Russian territory or not. That is the question.”
US officials say the United States is not seeking to escalate the conflict.
How a new US president will approach the war is unclear: former US president Donald Trump has said he will end the Ukraine war while Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris says she will continue to support Ukraine.
Taiwan reports Chinese ‘combat patrol’ after Beijing slams US arms deal
- The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties
TAIPEI/BEIJING: Taiwan’s defense ministry said on Sunday that Chinese warplanes and warships had carried out another “combat patrol” near the island, after Beijing threatened to take countermeasures in response to a $2 billion arms sale package by the United States.
The United States is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself despite the lack of formal diplomatic ties, to the constant anger of Beijing.
The Pentagon said on Friday the United States had approved a potential $2 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, including the delivery for the first time to the island of an advanced air defense missile system battle-tested in Ukraine.
Taiwan’s defense ministry said it had detected 19 Chinese military aircraft, including Su-30 fighter jets, carrying out a “joint combat readiness patrol” around Taiwan in conjunction with Chinese warships starting on Sunday morning.
It said the Chinese aircraft flew in airspace to the north, center, southwest and east of Taiwan, and that Taiwanese forces were dispatched to keep watch.
China’s defense ministry did not answer calls seeking comment outside normal office hours.
China stages such patrols around Taiwan several times a month, but this was the first since Beijing held a new round of full-blown war games near the island this month.
In a statement late on Saturday, China’s foreign ministry said it strongly condemned and firmly opposed the latest US weapons sales and had lodged “solemn representations” with Washington.
China urges the United States to immediately stop arming Taiwan and stop its dangerous moves that undermine peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait, it added.
“China will take resolute countermeasures and take all measures necessary to firmly defend national sovereignty, security and territorial integrity,” the ministry said, without elaborating.
China has over the past five years stepped up its military activities around democratically governed Taiwan, whose government rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims.
Taiwan’s government has welcomed the new arms sale, the 17th to the island under US President Joe Biden’s administration.
“In the face of China’s threats, Taiwan is duty-bound to protect its homeland, and will continue to demonstrate its determination to defend itself,” Taiwan’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, responding to the arms sale.
Russia launches drone attack on Kyiv for second night, Ukraine says
Russia launched a multi-wave drone attack on Kyiv for the second straight night, the military administration of the Ukrainian capital said on Sunday.
“It seems that now every night, without long breaks, the Russian armed forces attack the peaceful city of Kyiv,” Serhiy Popko, head of the military administration said on Telegram messaging app.
“Last night, the enemy made another attack on the capital.”
He added that Russia launched around 10 drones in several waves, from different directions and at different heights, but Ukrainian air defense units destroyed all of the weapons on their approach to the city.
No injuries or major damage were reported, Popko added. He said that the Air Force will release data on the full-scale of the overnight attack on Ukraine later on Sunday.
Meanwhile, Moscow's defence ministry said on Sunday that Russia shot down 51 Ukrainian drones from above several regions, including near the border.
Eighteen were intercepted in the Tambov region, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and 16 in the area of the border town Belgorod, the ministry said in a statement on Telegram.
The others were shot down in the regions of Oryol, Briansk, Lipetsk and Voronej.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia started with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Russia’s drone attack on Kyiv on Saturday killed one and damaged high-rise residential building.
Death toll in Philippine storm rises to 100
MaANLA: Rescuers in the Philippines were diving into a lake and scouring isolated villages on Sunday to locate dozens of missing people as the death toll from Tropical Storm Trami hit 100.
Trami, which rammed into the Philippines on October 24, was among the deadliest storms to hit the Southeast Asian country this year.
According to the national disaster agency, it forced more than half a million people to flee their homes and at least 36 people remain missing.
Police in the hardest-hit Bicol region have recorded 38 deaths, most due to drowning.
“We are still receiving many calls and we are trying to save as many people as we can,” Bicol regional police director Andre Dizon told AFP.
“Hopefully, there will be no more deaths.”
Dizon added that “many residents” in the region’s Camarines Sur province are still trapped on roofs and the upper floors of their homes.
The death toll in Batangas, south of Manila, has risen to 55, provincial police chief Jacinto Malinao told AFP.
Two were reported dead in separate incidents of electrocution and drowning in Cavite province, police said.
Five more bodies were recovered in other provinces, bringing the total to 100, according to an AFP tally based on official police and disaster agency sources.
“A higher death toll is possible in the coming days since rescuers can now reach previously isolated places,” Edgar Posadas of the Civil Defense Office told AFP.
The police, coast guards and a Marines diving team were searching on Sunday for a family of seven at Taal Lake in Batangas.
“The waters from the mountains hit their home in Balete town, causing it to be swept away with them possibly inside,” Malinao, the provincial police chief, said.
Most of the deaths in Batangas have been attributed to rain-induced landslides.
More than 20 bodies were pulled from heaps of mud, boulders and fallen trees, while police said at least another 20 people in the province are still missing.
“We will continue searching until all bodies are retrieved,” Malinao said.
The national disaster agency said Sunday that about 560,000 people had been displaced by floods, which submerged hundreds of villages in swaths of the northern Philippines.
About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year, damaging homes and infrastructure and killing dozens of people.
A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.
