KYIV: President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Thursday a set of measures to protect Ukraine’s energy system, including protection for plants coming under Russian fire and the development of alternative renewable energy sources.
“Life in Ukraine must be preserved and that includes in particular energy security,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Russia pounded Ukraine’s energy system in the first winter of the war, launched in February 2022, and renewed its assault on energy targets last March as Ukraine was running low on stocks of Western air defense missiles.
Drone and missile strikes have knocked out half of energy generating capacity since March, according to official accounts.
Attacks overnight on Thursday hit four regions and cut power to more than 218,000 consumers, the Energy Ministry said.
Zelensky outlined plans to minimize the effects of such attacks, including a program of developing solar energy and energy storage facilities and a schedule for critical infrastructure sites to come up with alternative energy sources.
The work, he said, must be completed before winter and the increased energy demand associated with the change in seasons.
Zelensky said the government would “continue to work on creating new energy generation and new decentralized energy capacities.” Also planned was “the construction of new balanced and manoeuvrable capacities for energy.”
“This process is quite challenging in wartime conditions, but we must implement it just as we have already implemented many difficulty projects,” he said.
And work was proceeding, Zelensky said, on measures to protect existing energy sites.
Russia says energy infrastructure is a legitimate military target and denies targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
Zelensky calls for measures to preserve Ukraine’s energy system
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Zelensky calls for measures to preserve Ukraine’s energy system
- “Life in Ukraine must be preserved and that includes in particular energy security,” Zelensky said
- Drone and missile strikes have knocked out half of energy generating capacity since March
France votes in snap polls as far-right eyes historic win
- Most polls show that National Rally is on course to win the largest number of seats in the National Assembly
PARIS: French people vote on Sunday in high-stakes snap parliamentary elections which could alter France’s trajectory and see the far-right party of Marine Le Pen take power in a historic first.
With Russia’s war against Ukraine in its third year and energy and food prices much higher, support for the anti-immigration and euroskeptic National Rally (RN) party has surged despite President Emmanuel Macron’s pledges to prevent its ascent.
Polling stations open across mainland France for the first round of elections at 8:00 am (0600 GMT) and close 12 hours later, immediately followed by projections that usually predict the result with a degree of accuracy.
Voters in France’s overseas territories that span the globe cast ballots earlier in the weekend. Some 49 million French are eligible to vote.
Elections for the 577 seats in the National Assembly are a two-round process. The shape of the new parliament will become clear after the second round, a week later, on July 7.
Most polls show that National Rally is on course to win the largest number of seats in the National Assembly, parliament’s lower house, although it remains unclear if the party will secure an outright majority.
A high turnout is predicted and final opinion polls have given the RN between 35 percent and 37 percent of the vote, against 27.5-29 percent for the left-wing New Popular Front alliance and 20-21 percent for Macron’s centrist camp.
If the RN obtains an absolute majority, RN party chief Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 28-year-old protege with no governing experience, could become prime minister in a tense “cohabitation” with Macron.
On Monday, Macron plans to convene a government meeting to decide the further course of action, government sources told AFP.
France is heading for a year of political chaos and confusion with a hung Assembly, said Mujtaba Rahman, Europe head at Eurasia Group, a risk consultancy.
“There is no precedent in recent French politics for such an impasse,” Rahman said.
Macron’s decision to call snap elections after the RN’s strong showing in European Parliament elections this month stunned friends and foes and sparked uncertainty in Europe’s second-biggest economy.
The Paris stock exchange suffered its biggest monthly decline in two years in June, dropping by 6.4 percent, according to figures released on Friday.
In an editorial, French daily Le Monde said it was time to mobilize against the far right.
“Yielding any power to it means nothing less than taking the risk of seeing everything that has been built and conquered over more than two and a half centuries gradually being undone,” it said.
Wielding mops and buckets, several activists of the Femen feminist collective dressed as cleaners on Saturday demonstrated bare-breasted at the Trocadero in Paris, chanting slogans against the extreme right.
Separately, thousands of people joined an LGBT Pride march in Paris, with some carrying placards targeting the far-right.
“I think it’s even more important right now to fight against hatred in general, in all its forms,” said 19-year-old student Themis Hallin-Mallet.
Many have pointed to a spike in hate speech, intolerance and racism during the charged campaign. A video of two RN supporters verbally assaulting a black woman has gone viral in recent days.
Macron has deplored “racism or anti-Semitism.”
Macron apparently hoped to catch political opponents off guard by presenting voters with a crucial choice about France’s future, but observers say he might have lost his gamble.
Support for Macron’s centrist camp has collapsed, while left-wing parties put their bickering aside to form the New Popular Front, in a nod to an alliance founded in 1936 to combat fascism.
Analysts say Le Pen’s years-long efforts to clean up the image of a party co-founded by a former Waffen SS member have been paying off. The party has promised to bolster purchasing power, curb immigration and boost law and order.
“Victory is within our grasp, so let’s seize this historic opportunity and get out and vote!” Le Pen wrote on social media platform X on Friday.
Under Macron, France has been one of Ukraine’s main Western backers since Russia invaded in 2022.
But Le Pen and Bardella have said they would scale down French support for Ukraine by ruling out the deployment of ground troops and long-range missiles.
A defiant Macron has stood by his decision to call the elections, while warning voters that a win by the far right or hard left could spark a “civil war.”
He has insisted he will serve out the remainder of his second term until 2027, no matter which party wins.
Nigeria’s northeast risks mass hunger as UN funding dwindles
- UN's OCHA says 2.8 million people in 3 Nigerian regions ravaged by Islamist insurgency face hunger during during the lean season
- OCHA launched a $306 million appeal, warning of “catastrophic” consequences of food insecurity without immediate intervention
ABUJA: The United Nations humanitarian agency is struggling to secure funding to combat severe food insecurity in Nigeria’s insurgency-hit northeast, raising fears of mass hunger and deaths, its resident coordinator warned.
In April, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) launched a $306 million appeal alongside Nigeria on behalf of 2.8 million people in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, regions ravaged by a 15-year Islamist insurgency, during the lean season, a period of peak food scarcity.
OCHA chief Mohamed Malick Fall told Reuters that, despite an initial $11 million commitment from Nigeria and another $11 million from the UN’s central pool, the target remained far off due to reluctance among international donors.
“We are far from where we want to be. That is something we are confronted by even beyond the lean season which is that we have noticed that humanitarian assistance to Nigeria is shrinking,” Fall said in an interview on Thursday.
Fall anticipates receiving only $300 million in the best-case scenario, a significant drop from the $500 million secured last year. He attributed the decline to the economic impact of COVID-19 on major donors.
Competition from new global crises has also diverted attention and resources.
“Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan have all emerged in the past two years which makes it difficult to maintain the same pace of funding,” Fall said.
The situation is further exacerbated by Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation, with inflation exceeding 33 percent and food prices soaring above 40 percent.
OCHA warns of “catastrophic” consequences of food insecurity in Nigeria’s northeast without immediate intervention.
UNICEF data from April already shows more than 120,000 children admitted for treatment of severe acute malnutrition in the region, exceeding the entire year’s target of around 90,000.
“The cost of inaction has many folds with the most pressing being an excess mortality among children,” Fall said.
Ivory Coast receives first life-saving malaria vaccines
- The mosquito-borne disease kills four people a day in the country, mostly small children, according to health officials
- The R21/Matrix-M vaccine has been authorized by Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic
ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast this week received its first vaccines against malaria, a disease that kills four people a day in the country, mostly small children, the government said Saturday.
A total of 656,600 doses have been received, which will “initially vaccinate 250,000 children aged between 0 and 23 months” in 16 regions, the government said.
Although the number of malaria-related deaths has fallen from 3,222 in 2017 to 1,316 in 2020 in Ivory Coast, the disease “remains the leading cause of medical consultations,” according to the Ministry of Health.
The R21/Matrix-M vaccine has been authorized by Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic.
The Ivorian government is also distributing mosquito nets and is spraying insecticide in endemic areas.
Malaria causes fever, headaches and chills, and can become serious or even fatal if left untreated.
In 2022, it caused more than 600,000 deaths worldwide, 95 percent of them in Africa, and 80 percent of them in children under the age of 5, according to the WHO.
The vaccine is the second malaria vaccine that the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended for children and is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII).
18 killed, 42 injured in multiple Nigeria suicide attacks: emergency services
- Attackers separately targetted a wedding, a funeral and hospital in Borno state, says emergency official Barkindo Saidu
- 19 of the injuries were deemed serious and among the victims were children and pregnant women
KANO, Nigeria: At least 18 people were killed and 19 seriously wounded in a string of suicide attacks in northeastern Nigeria on Saturday, emergency services said.
In one of three blasts in the town of Gwoza, a female attacker with a baby strapped to her back detonated explosives in the middle of a wedding ceremony, according to a police spokesman.
The other attacks in the border town across from Cameroon targeted a hospital and a funeral for victims of the earlier wedding blast, authorities said.
At least 18 people were killed and 42 others injured in the attacks, according to the Borno State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).
“So far, 18 deaths comprising children, men, females and pregnant women” have been reported, said Barkindo Saidu, the head of the agency, in a report seen by AFP.
Nineteen “seriously injured” people were taken to the regional capital Maiduguri, while 23 others were awaiting evacuation, Saidu said in the report.
A member of a militia assisting the military in Gwoza said two of his comrades and a soldier were also killed in another attack on a security post, though authorities did not immediately confirm this toll.
Boko Haram militants seized Gwoza in 2014 when the group took over swathes of territory in northern Borno.
The town was taken back by the Nigerian military with help from Chadian forces in 2015 but the group has since continued to launch attacks from mountains near the town.
Boko Haram has carried out raids, killing men and kidnapping women who venture outside the town in search of firewood and acacia fruits.
The violence has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million in Nigeria’s northeast.
The conflict has spread to neighboring Niger, Cameroon and Chad, prompting the formation of a regional military coalition to fight the militants.
UK Reform leader Farage speech interrupted by banner mocking Putin views
- Farage is seeking election as a lawmaker, or member of parliament (MP), in Clacton-on-Sea, which is nine miles from Walton on the Naze
LONDON: A speech being delivered by Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, was interrupted late Saturday when a banner of Russian President Vladimir Putin descended from the ceiling at an election rally.
Campaign group Led by Donkeys, which opposes Farage’s views, said it was responsible for the stunt at the Columbine Center, at Walton on the Naze in southeast England, and posted a video of the unveiling on X.
That showed the banner slowly unfurling behind a speaking Farage, revealing a smiling Putin giving a thumbs-up sign, along with the words “I (heart emoji) Putin.”
Led By Donkeys said on X: “Nigel Farage says Putin is the world leader he ‘admires the most’ and blames the West for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
That was a reference to comments Farage made earlier this month when he said the eastward expansion of the European Union and NATO had provoked Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
The remarks, made in an interview with the BBC, drew strong criticism across the British political spectrum ahead of a July 4 national election in which Farage’s party is predicted to win millions of votes.
On seeing the banner, Farage said: “Who put that up there,” adding: “Someone at the Columbine Center needs to get the sack.”
The audience then started chanting: “Rip it down.”
Reuters has sought comment from Reform UK.
Farage is seeking election as a lawmaker, or member of parliament (MP), in Clacton-on-Sea, which is nine miles from Walton on the Naze.
On Friday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he was hurt and angry that a supporter of Reform UK had been recorded making a racial slur about him, saying it was too important for him not to speak out.
