Kyiv slams Pope’s ‘white flag’ call, vows no surrender to Russia

People waves Ukrainian flags before Pope Francis Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, March 10, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 10 March 2024
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Kyiv slams Pope’s ‘white flag’ call, vows no surrender to Russia

  • Ukraine says Moscow has launched missile attacks on the northeastern Kharkiv region and sent attack drones across the center and south of the country

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine on Sunday angrily rejected Pope Francis’s call to negotiate with Russia two years into its invasion, vowing “never” to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should “have the courage to raise the white flag.”
The row over his comments came as officials in Ukraine said Russian shelling in the east had killed three people Sunday. A strike on a residential building in the eastern town of Myrnograd wounded a dozen more people, said Kyiv.
Ukraine also said Moscow launched missile attacks on the northeastern Kharkiv region and sent attack drones across the center and south of the country.
Russia, meanwhile, said one woman was killed in Ukrainian shelling of a border village.
The pope’s comments this weekend fueled anger in Kyiv this weekend after he said in an interview that Ukraine should negotiate with Russia, which has seized large swathes of its territory in the offensive.
“Our flag is a yellow and blue one. This is the flag by which we live, die, and prevail. We shall never raise any other flags,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
He was responding to the Pope’s interview to Swiss broadcaster RTS in which the Catholic leader raised the prospect of surrender — two years after Kyiv has battled Russian forces on its territory.
“I believe that the strongest are those who see the situation, think about the people, and have the courage to raise the white flag and negotiate,” Pope Francis said in an interview conducted in early February and broadcast on Saturday.
Ukrainian officials compared the statement to some of the Catholic church collaborating with Nazi Germany during World War II.
“At the same time, when it comes to the white flag, we know this Vatican strategy from the first half of the 20th century,” Kuleba said, calling on the Holy See to “avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to the Vatican, Andrii Yurash, went further, comparing the Pope’s negotiation suggestion to talking to Adolf Hitler:
“(The) lesson is only one — if we want to finish war, we have to do everything to kill (the) Dragon!,” he said on social media.
After the interview aired, Francis offered fresh prayers for “martyred Ukraine,” as Vatican officials said his call was simply intended to end fierce fighting.
Some Western diplomats joined the criticism.
“Russia is the aggressor and breaks international law! Therefore Germany asks Moscow to stop the war, not Kyiv!,” said Bernhard Kotsch, Germany’s envoy to the Vatican.
Kuleba said Kyiv hoped Francis would visit his war-torn country after more than two years of battling its bigger neighbor.
In Ukraine itself, officials reported the latest deaths.
“Three people died as a result of today’s shelling in the Donetsk region,” said the head of the embattled region, Vadym Filashkin, on social media.
He said rescuers pulled out two bodies “from under the rubble of a house” in the town of Dobropillya, which he said Russia attacked with Iranian-made Shahed drones at night.
A 66-year-old man was also killed in the frontline town of Chasiv Yar, Filashkin said.
Further south, a Russian night-time strike on the east Ukrainian town of Myrnograd wounded a dozen people, Kyiv said. Myrnograd lies in the Donetsk region around 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the frontline with Russian forces.
Kyiv also said it had shot down more than two dozen Iranian-made Shahed attack drones launched by Russia across central and southern regions, including the Kyiv region.
Russia on Sunday said Ukrainian shelling killed a woman in the border village of Kulbaki, 10 kilometers (six miles) from Ukraine in the Kursk region.
“As a result of a direct hit from a shell, a residential building caught fire and a local woman died. Her husband had extensive burns and is now receiving qualified medical care,” Kursk governor Roman Starovoyt said.
In Moscow-occupied Ukraine, Russian-installed official Denis Pushilin said Kyiv had shelled a bread factory at night in the city of Gorlovka, wounding four workers.


Organizers of Expo 2020 Dubai open World Fair US

Updated 55 min 57 sec ago
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Organizers of Expo 2020 Dubai open World Fair US

  • The weeks-long event in Chicago will be the first in a nationwide series
  • ‘Every pavilion tells a story, and every guest becomes part of it,’ organizer tells Arab News

CHICAGO: The organizers of Expo 2020 Dubai launched a three-week World Fair US in Chicago this week, saying it offers the same high-level experience of culture, food, entertainment and traditions from around the world.

Omar Al-Taha, CEO of ElectroMed Group — which supervised the construction of Expo 2020 Dubai — told Arab News that the fair in Chicago will be the first in a series of events planned for cities across the US.

He said the opening on Monday, at the SeatGeek Stadium and Fairgrounds in the Chicago suburb of Bridgeview, Illinois, was “well attended,” and the fair will continue until July 28.

“We’re featuring six pavilions representing the cultures, food and entertainment from countries in … Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America and South America,” he added.

“The vendors have been selected for their authenticity, quality, and their passion for sharing their culture through cuisine.”

Al-Taha said he used the same criteria in Bridgeview as for Expo 2020 Dubai, adding: “World Fair US is about more than just a celebration — it’s about connections and experience. We wanted to create a space where people of every background can come together, learn from each other, and just enjoy the beauty of being human.

“In the Middle East pavilion, for example, participants will be able to not only enjoy Arab food and entertainment, but also products and crafts presented by dozens of vendors.”

SeatGeek Stadium, which can accommodate 28,000 visitors, hosts professional sports competitions, concert performances and fairs.

“We believe we can use this event to create an even larger ongoing event. We want to do this in different states around the country,” Al-Taha said.

“Chicago was our first choice … because it’s the land of many cultures. We didn’t need to bring vendors from outside ... Chicago has so many cultures and great diversity. This is the right place to start this.”

The World Fair US food court features local chefs and small businesses offering traditional dishes from across the globe, Al-Taha said.

“Every pavilion tells a story, and every guest becomes part of it. Whether you’re eating something new for the first time, dancing to a rhythm you’ve never heard, or just watching your kids’ eyes light up — we built this for you,” he added.

There is a fireworks display every Friday and Saturday night.


ICC seeks arrest of Taliban leaders over persecution of women

The ICC on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity.
Updated 5 min 18 sec ago
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ICC seeks arrest of Taliban leaders over persecution of women

  • Taliban had “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, ICC judges said

THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity for persecuting women and girls.

Judges said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani of committing gender-based persecution.

“While the Taliban have imposed certain rules and prohibitions on the population as a whole, they have specifically targeted girls and women by reason of their gender, depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms,” the court said in a statement.

The Taliban had “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy and family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion, ICC judges said.

“In addition, other persons were targeted because certain expressions of sexuality and/or gender identity were regarded as inconsistent with the Taliban’s policy on gender.”

The court said the alleged crimes had been committed between August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, and continued until at least January 20, 2025.

The ICC, based in The Hague, was set up to rule on the world’s worst crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It has no police force of its own and relies on member states to carry out its arrest warrants — with mixed results.

In theory, this means anyone subject to an ICC arrest warrant cannot travel to a member state for fear of being detained.

After sweeping back to power in August 2021, the Taliban authorities pledged a softer rule than their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.

But they quickly imposed restrictions on women and girls that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid.”

Edicts handed down by Akhundzada, who rules by decree from the movement’s birthplace in southern Kandahar, have squeezed women and girls from public life.

The Taliban government barred girls from secondary school and women from university in the first 18 months after they ousted the US-backed government, making Afghanistan the only country in the world to impose such bans.

Authorities imposed restrictions on women working for non-governmental groups and other employment, with thousands of women losing government jobs — or being paid to stay home.

Beauty salons have been closed and women blocked from visiting public parks, gyms and baths as well as traveling long distances without a male chaperone.

A “vice and virtue” law announced last summer ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home.

When requesting the arrest warrants in January, chief prosecutor Karim Khan said Afghan women and girls were facing “an unprecedented, unconscionable and ongoing persecution by the Taliban.”

“Our action signals that the status quo for women and girls in Afghanistan is not acceptable,” he added.

Khan warned at the time he would soon be seeking additional warrants for other Taliban officials.


Muslims overlooked with faith ‘ignored’ in UK care system, warns new report

Updated 08 July 2025
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Muslims overlooked with faith ‘ignored’ in UK care system, warns new report

  • Think tank Equi calls for child welfare reform to recognize faith identity and unlock support from British Muslim communities

LONDON: A new report from leading think tank Equi is warning that a crucial factor in the conversation around child welfare in the UK is being systematically overlooked: the role of faith.

The UK’s care system is facing a deepening crisis, with over 107,000 children currently in care and the number of available foster carers and adopters falling sharply.

In a landmark publication titled “Faith, Family and the Care System: A Missed Connection?”, Equi has argued that while ethnicity and culture are often factored into decisions about care placements, faith continues to be neglected, with damaging consequences for children’s emotional stability and sense of identity.

Drawing on polling conducted in partnership with Savanta, as well as interviews and case studies from across the UK, the report set out the urgent need for faith-literate reform of the child welfare system.

“Faith isn’t just a personal belief for many children, it’s a source of identity, resilience and stability. Our care system needs to reflect that,” said Prof. Javed Khan, one of the leading voices behind the report.

The research highlighted the experiences of British Muslim communities, showing that faith can play a powerful role in supporting vulnerable children, both by helping to prevent family breakdown and by fostering strong networks of informal and kinship-based care.

Despite making up 10 percent of under-18s in England, Muslim children account for less than 5 percent of those in care. It is a disparity Equi said reflected both strong community-based care and the challenges Muslim families face in engaging with the formal care system.

According to the findings, British Muslims are 66 percent more likely than the general public to provide informal care or financial support to children at risk of entering care.

Over 5,500 Muslim heritage children are currently in formal kinship care arrangements, with thousands more supported informally, a contribution estimated to save the state more than £220 million ($298 million) each year.

This strong culture of kinship care, rooted in Islamic teachings around the responsibility to care for orphaned children (“yateem”), is seen by the report authors as an underappreciated asset within the national care framework.

However, Equi said British Muslims who want to contribute more formally to the care system face significant barriers.

While members of the community are 63 percent more likely than the general population to consider fostering or adoption, nearly 60 percent report fears of discrimination.

Many point to cultural misunderstandings, bias in assessment processes and a lack of faith-sensitive placements as major deterrents.

Faith is also closely tied to children’s sense of self and well-being, the report argues.

More than 70 percent of British Muslims — and 40 percent of the wider public — said faith played a key role in shaping their identity during childhood.

Yet current government policy fails to take religious background into account during care placements, following the removal of faith matching guidance in 2014.

Equi links this omission to increased identity conflict, emotional distress and instability in care arrangements.

Young people from faith backgrounds leaving care are also highlighted as being especially vulnerable to isolation. The report calls for faith-based mentoring schemes and transitional housing to support care leavers as they navigate adulthood and reconnect with their communities.

In response to the findings, Equi called on the government to embed faith literacy throughout the care system.

Among its recommendations are recording children’s faith heritage in care records, incorporating religious identity into placement decisions, offering culturally sensitive therapeutic care, and working in partnership with faith-based charities to recruit and support carers.

The report also urges local authorities to expand fostering capacity, particularly for sibling groups and multigenerational households, and to ensure clear legal and financial guidance is provided to kinship carers.

“This report isn’t just about British Muslims, it’s about the 40 percent of children for whom faith is part of who they are,” said Khan.

“It’s not about bringing faith into policymaking in an ideological sense. But, rather, it’s a wake-up call that ignoring faith ignores people’s lived realities. It harms vulnerable children’s sense of belonging and increases instability in care placements. The system must become more inclusive, fair and ultimately more effective.”

With rising pressure on the UK’s care system and a shrinking pool of carers, Equi’s report presented a timely and compelling case for unlocking underused community resources and building a more resilient, culturally competent and cost-effective model of care, it said.


Israel eyes deeper economic ties with India, finalizing investment protection deal

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich walks to visit the Damascus Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City.
Updated 08 July 2025
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Israel eyes deeper economic ties with India, finalizing investment protection deal

  • India has become in recent years one of Israel’s most important trade partners globally, volume of trade and investments between two countries expected to increase

JERUSALEM: Israel and India are finalizing an investment protection agreement and expect to sign it in the coming months, Israel’s Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and the ministry’s chief economist Shmuel Abramzon discussed the issue, which it did not elaborate on, and other economic matters with Indian Ambassador to Israel J.P. Singh.
“Deepening economic ties with India is one of the goals I have set,” Smotrich said after the meeting in Jerusalem, calling India a “true friend of Israel.” An investment protection agreement is a treaty in which countries aim to reduce the perceived risk of investing in each other, such as by offering protections against unfair treatment or removing restrictions on transferring capital and profits.
India, the ministry noted, has become in recent years one of Israel’s most important trade partners globally and especially in Asia, and the volume of trade and investments between the two countries is expected to increase sharply in the coming years in light of their strengthening diplomatic and security relations.
Bilateral trade between India and Israel in 2024 came to almost $4 billion.
“In recent years, we have witnessed a strengthening of economic ties between us, including in the fields of defense exports and infrastructure,” Smotrich said.
“The potential for further strengthening our economic cooperation is immense. It can leverage our shared technological capabilities, India’s demographic scale, and the geo-strategic position of both countries.”


The EU presidency says Europe must rearm within 5 years

Updated 08 July 2025
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The EU presidency says Europe must rearm within 5 years

  • Russia has been accused of acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and fake news campaigns – largely to weaken European support for Ukraine

BRUSSELS: Russia could pose a credible security threat to the European Union by the end of the decade and defense industries in Europe and Ukraine must be ramped up within five years in preparation, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned on Tuesday.
In a speech to the European Parliament marking the launch of Denmark’s six-month term as holder of the EU presidency, Frederiksen lamented that “cutting our defense spending in the past 30 years was a huge mistake.”
European officials have warned that President Vladimir Putin could soon try to test NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee — the pledge that an attack on any one ally would be met with a collective response from all 32. Most of the allies are EU countries.
Russia has been accused of acts of sabotage, cyberattacks and fake news campaigns – largely to weaken European support for Ukraine – and while Europe is not at war, it is not at peace either, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said.
“Strengthening Europe’s defense industry is an absolute top priority, and we have to be able to defend ourselves by 2030 at the latest,” Frederiksen told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France. “Never, ever should we allow Europe to be put in a position again where we cannot defend ourselves.”
Many European leaders insist they have heard the Trump administration’s warning that American security priorities now lie elsewhere – in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific – but Europe’s effort to arm is moving only slowly.
When NATO’s ambitions are not enough
At a key summit last month, NATO leaders endorsed a statement saying: “Allies commit to invest 5% of GDP annually on core defense requirements as well as defense- and security-related spending by 2035 to ensure our individual and collective obligations.”
That historic pledge will require them to spend tens of billions of euros (dollars) more over the coming decade, not five years. Spain – NATO’s lowest spender with 1.28% of GDP last year – quickly branded the target “unreasonable.”
Belgium has cast doubt over whether it will make the grade. Slovenia is considering a referendum. Heavyweights France and Italy are mired in economic woes and will struggle to get there too.
Money spent on military support to Ukraine can now be included in NATO’s defense calculations, but even that will not hike the GDP military spend by much.
The EU’s Readiness 2030 plan
With the threat of Russian aggression in mind, the EU’s executive branch has come up with a security plan. It hinges on a 150-billion-euro ($176 billion) loan program that member countries, Ukraine and outsiders like Britain could dip into.
It aims to fill gaps that the U.S. might leave. Spending priorities for joint purchase include air and missile defense systems, artillery, ammunition, drones, equipment for use in cyber and electronic warfare, and “strategic enablers” like air-to-air refueling and transport.
On Tuesday, 15 EU countries were permitted to take advantage of another measure — a “national escape clause” — to allow them to spend more on defense without breaking the bloc’s debt rules.
Beefing up Ukraine ’s defense industry is also a pillar. The country produces arms and ammunition faster and more cheaply than its EU partners. Kyiv estimates that 40% more of its industrial capacity could be exploited if Europe were to invest.
Still, ambition is one thing, and the reality another.
“Things are not moving fast enough to be able to defend ourselves in 5 years,” Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told reporters last week. “It’s a huge, huge challenge to reach that goal.”
On the need to take risks
A big part of the problem is that governments and the defense industry are stuck in old ways of thinking and neither wants to take a risk, even with Europe’s biggest land war in many decades still raging in its fourth year.
“You cannot expect industry to invest in production capacity if you don’t have long-term orders,” said Joachim Finkielman, the director of Danish Defense and Security Industries.
“If you need to build new factories, if you need to engage a larger workforce, you need to make sure that you have that,” he told The Associated Press on Friday.
Demand for 155mm artillery shells is a typical example, Finkielman said. “When you see the kinds of orders that have been placed around Europe, it is two to three years out in time,” he said, while industry needs five to 10 years’ worth of orders to take a chance.
Finkielman said that if governments and industries in Britain, France, Germany and Italy start to move, “the rest will follow.”