MOSCOW: Russia cannot comment on Donald Trump’s idea for ending the war in Ukraine because Moscow does not know what it involves, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
Trump said last week during a debate against President Joe Biden that if he won the November US election, he would have the war settled before he took office in January.
“This is not Trump’s first statement on this, and he has made statements along these lines before. Without knowing the essence of what this is about, we cannot comment on it,” Peskov told reporters.
The Kremlin has said that any peace plan for Ukraine proposed by a possible future Trump administration would have to reflect the reality on the ground, where its forces control nearly a fifth of Ukraine, but that President Vladimir Putin was open to talks. Ukraine says Russia’s terms for ending the war amount to a demand for its
surrender.
Trump has not said how he would go about ending the war, now well into its third year. In last week’s debate, he said Russia would not have invaded Ukraine in February 2022 if there had been a “real president” in the US who was respected by Putin.
Biden said Trump had “no idea what the hell he’s talking about.”
Kremlin says it can’t comment on Trump’s idea for ending war in Ukraine
https://arab.news/w4cmj
Kremlin says it can’t comment on Trump’s idea for ending war in Ukraine
- Former president said last week during a debate against Joe Biden that if he won the November US election, he would have the war settled before he took office in January
Indian mother delivers baby on boat as her river island is inundated by floodwaters
The couple had left their home on Phuliamari Char, one of the islands in the river, after it was inundated by floodwaters, taking shelter on a nearby island known as Chars
MORIGAON, India: A blue tarp covered a mother and her newborn daughter from the incessant rain on their boat journey. Jahanara Khatoon, 25, had just given birth on the boat on their way to a health care center, surrounded by the raging floodwaters of the Brahmaputra River.
“I am very happy,” said her husband, Kamaluddin, who was also on the boat. “My wife wanted a boy, but Allah has given me a girl and I’m very satisfied. I don’t want to have any more children.”
The couple had left their home on Phuliamari Char, one of the islands in the river, after it was inundated by floodwaters, taking shelter on a nearby island known as Chars.
Increased rainfall in the region blamed on climate change has made the Brahmaputra River — already known for its powerful, unpredictable flow — even more dangerous for those who live near it or on the more than 2,000 islands in it.
India, and Assam state in particular, is seen as one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate change because of increasingly intense rain and floods, according to a 2021 report by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a New Delhi-based climate think tank.
Khatoon and Kamaluddin earn their living as farmers on their island in Assam state’s Morigaon district.
A medical team was visiting flooded Chars to aid those who needed medical help, especially pregnant women. The team convinced Khatoon to travel with them to the nearest medical facility across the river.
The baby couldn’t wait for Khatoon to get to the health care center. As her labor progressed, the team on the boat quickly got to work, holding up a tarp to protect from the rain as they helped with the delivery.
Within 10 minutes the baby emerged to shouts of celebration.
Diluwara Begum, an auxiliary nurse and midwife, lifted the newborn and whispered prayers into her ears.
“This was my first time helping deliver a baby on a boat. It was a very different feeling. It feels good.” she said.
The family has named the baby Karima, which means “Giving.”
Belarus frees 10 political prisoners but 1,400 remain, rights group says
- The rare pardon still leaves some 1,400 people behind bars for political activity
- Human rights group Viasna said it knew of three women and seven men who had been freed
MINSK: Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko has freed at least 10 political prisoners, rights campaigners said on Thursday, including a veteran opposition figure suffering from cancer.
But the rare pardon still leaves some 1,400 people behind bars for political activity, most of them arrested after peaceful mass protests in 2020 and convicted on a range of charges related to alleged extremism.
Human rights group Viasna said it knew of three women and seven men who had been freed.
The only one named so far by relatives is Ryhor Kastusiou, 67, a former opposition party leader and presidential candidate. He was arrested in 2021 and sentenced the following year to 10 years in a penal colony after being convicted of plotting against the government to seize power. Following his arrest, he was diagnosed with cancer.
Activists said their happiness at the releases was bitter-sweet.
“This is a very great joy, of course, almost childlike. But it is joy through tears — there is anger too for what people have to go through,” said Inna Kovalenok, a representative of a relatives’ group that campaigns for the release of prisoners.
Andrei Stryzhak, head of an organization called Bysol that raises funds to support political prisoners and their families, said it was a delusion to think the authorities had become more humane.
“To believe that something has suddenly changed in the minds of those who torture, rape and kill for the sake of maintaining power is a dangerous fantasy bordering on treason and crime,” he posted on Telegram.
Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, this week announced an amnesty to mark the 80th anniversary of Belarus’s liberation from the Nazis in World War Two. State news agency Belta said it was expected to apply to about 7,850 prisoners including minors, pregnant women, pensioners and people suffering from tuberculosis or cancer.
Those convicted of crimes against the state or extremist and terrorist activities were excluded, but Lukashenko signalled there would be some exceptions for those who were seriously ill.
Lukashenko, in power since 1994, staged a violent crackdown in 2020 to suppress mass protests following an election that the opposition and Western governments said he had heavily rigged.
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who ran against him in that election and now leads the opposition in exile, welcomed the release of some prisoners but said more were still being detained.
“Political trials & arrests continue without a break in #Belarus,” Tsikhanouskaya posted on X. “Repression doesn’t stop for a day & we won’t stop our fight for freedom.”
Tsikhanouskaya’s husband Syarhei is among the best known prisoners, along with Nobel Peace Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and Maria Kolesnikova, a protest leader who tore up her passport in September 2020 to thwart the security services from expelling her from the country by forcing her to cross into Ukraine.
Sweden says three citizens given death sentences in Iraq over shooting
- Sweden does not have the death penalty and opposes its use in all circumstances
STOCKHOLM: Three Swedish citizens have been sentenced to death in Iraq over their involvement in a shooting and a fourth may also face the same punishment over a separate crime, the Swedish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
The government summoned Iraq’s charge d’affaires last month to protest the death sentence against one of the three involved in the shooting.
Sweden does not have the death penalty and opposes its use in all circumstances.
The foreign ministry said it had now received confirmation that two more Swedes have been convicted in relation to the same crime, and received the death penalty.
“The information we have received on the death penalties is extremely serious and we are working to ensure the sentences will not be carried out,” the foreign ministry said in an emailed statement.
In June, the Daily Aftonbladet reported that the men had been involved in the shooting of another Swedish citizen in Iraq in January.
The ministry said it had received a report that a fourth Swede was given a death sentence for a different, drug-related crime, but that it could not confirm the information.
Germany summons Turkish ambassador over right-wing ‘wolf’ goal celebration
- Turkish football player’s “wolf salute” goal celebration considered by Germany as racist due to its far-right associations
BERLIN: Turkiye’s ambassador to Germany has been summoned over a Turkish football player’s “wolf salute” goal celebration, the German foreign ministry said on Thursday, ramping up a diplomatic spat amid reports that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will come to Berlin this weekend.
European soccer’s governing body UEFA opened an investigation into the Turkish center back Merih Demiral’s celebration after scoring in a Tuesday evening European Championship match. Germany condemned the gesture as racist due to its far-right associations.
Turkiye’s foreign ministry said UEFA’s probe was unacceptable and that German authorities’ approach to Demiral “involved xenophobia.”
The ministry had summoned Germany’s ambassador to Ankara over the dispute, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Wednesday.
German and Turkish media reported on Thursday that Erdogan now planned to come to Berlin on Saturday for Turkiye’s game against the Netherlands.
Erdogan changed his schedule to attend the game, NTV and other Turkish media reported on Thursday.
He was scheduled to attend a summit of Organization of Turkic States (OTS) in Azerbaijan on Saturday.
The gesture made by the player is linked to the “Grey Wolves,” an ultra-nationalist youth branch of Turkiye’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), an ally of Erdogan’s ruling AK Party.
The wolf salute is not banned in Germany.
However, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on X that “using the European Football Championship as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable.”
France to deploy more police to prevent trouble after Sunday election
- Sunday’s second round will determine whether Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) secures a parliamentary majority
PARIS: Some 30,000 police will be deployed across France late on Sunday following the high-stakes runoff of a parliamentary election to ensure there is no trouble, a minister said, as two candidates said they had been victims of attacks on the campaign trail.
Sunday’s second round will determine whether Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) secures a parliamentary majority for the first time and forms the next government in France, the euro zone’s second-largest economy.
The campaign has been marred by political tensions but also some violence, and government spokeswoman Prisca Thevenot said she and her team had been attacked by a small group of youths on Wednesday evening while out putting up campaign posters.
While Thevenot herself was not harmed, her deputy and a party activist were injured by the unidentified group of about 10 youths who were defacing campaign posters, Thevenot told Le Parisien newspaper.
An RN candidate in Savoie, Marie Dauchy, also said she had been attacked by a shopkeeper at a market on Wednesday.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said four people had been arrested in relation to the attack on Thevenot’s team.
Darmanin said he would be “very careful” about security on Sunday evening, when the election’s results will be announced.
Some 5,000 of the 30,000 police deployed that evening will be located in Paris and its surroundings, and they will “ensure that the radical right and radical left do not take advantage of the situation to cause mayhem,” he told France 2 TV.
A poll on Wednesday suggested efforts by mainstream parties to block the far right from reaching an absolute majority might work.
The Harris Interactive poll for Challenges magazine showed the anti-immigration, euroskeptic RN and its allies would get just 190 to 220 seats in the 577-strong assembly, while the center-right Republicans (LR) would win 30 to 50 seats. This could rule out the possibility of a far-right minority government supported by part of the LR parliamentary group.
The poll was published after more than 200 candidates across the political spectrum withdrew their candidacies to clear the path for whoever was best placed to defeat the RN candidate in their district, in a process known as the “republican front.”
However, much uncertainty remains, including whether voters will go along with these efforts to block the RN.
