MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said his Turkish counterpart, Tayyip Erdogan, had proposed reviving contacts on Black Sea shipping but that he had not yet had time to study the documents.
Putin told Russian state television that Erdogan had “once again renewed these proposals to continue contacts related to shipping in the Black Sea, (and) on some other issues.”
Putin met Erdogan at the BRICS summit in the Russian city of Kazan as well as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“To be honest, I haven’t even had time to read the materials that our Turkish partners and friends have given us,” Putin said. “Well, let’s see. We have never refused this.”
Turkiye and the United Nations helped mediate the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022 that had allowed the safe Black Sea export of nearly 33 million metric tonnes of Ukraine grain.
Russia withdrew from the agreement in July 2023, complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced serious obstacles.
Turkiye and Guterres have repeatedly tried to get merchant shipping sailing more freely though the Black Sea, which in some areas has been turned into a naval war zone since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The advance of Moscow’s forces, which control just under a fifth of Ukraine, has underlined Russia’s vast superiority in men and materiel as Ukraine pleads for more weapons from the Western allies that have been supporting it.
When asked if he felt that the war might become some sort of frozen conflict along the lines of Korea or Cyprus, Putin said: “Any outcome should be in favor of Russia, I speak bluntly, without any hesitation, and should proceed from the realities that are taking shape on the battlefield,” Putin said.
Russia controls about one fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea which it annexed in 2014, about 80 percent of the Donbas — a coal-and-steel zone comprising the Donetsk and Luhansk regions — and over 70 percent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.
“We are not going to make any concessions here, there will be no trades,” Putin said. “We are ready to make these compromises, we are reasonable. But I don’t want to go into details right now, because there are no substantive negotiations.”
He said that Ukraine had already twice rejected Russian ceasefire initiatives but that Russian forces were advancing along the front.
Putin to look at Black Sea shipping proposals from Turkiye’s Erdogan
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Putin to look at Black Sea shipping proposals from Turkiye’s Erdogan
- Turkiye and the United Nations helped mediate the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal struck in July 2022
- The agreement allowed the safe Black Sea export of nearly 33 million metric tonnes of Ukraine grain
Blinken sees ‘real urgency’ for ‘diplomatic resolution’ in Lebanon
- Jordan’s foreign minister calls for pressure on Israel to end ‘ethnic cleansing’ during meeting with Blinken
LONDON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken pledged Friday to work with “real urgency” for a diplomatic resolution in Lebanon and urged Israel to spare civilians, but stopped short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.
“We have a sense of real urgency in getting to a diplomatic resolution and the full implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, such that there can be real security along the border between Israel and Lebanon,” Blinken said after meeting Lebanon’s prime minister in London, referring to calls for the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Jordan’s foreign minister on Friday called for pressure on Israel to end “ethnic cleansing,” in strong remarks as he met in London.
Deploring the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza, Ayman Safadi told Blinken: “We do see ethnic cleansing taking place, and that has got to stop.”
Ex-wife of Muhammad Ali in Afghanistan: Taliban govt
- During the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, public executions in sports stadiums were common
- Khalilah Camacho-Ali is opening a stadium in a country where women are barred from sport
Kabul: A former wife of legendary US boxer Muhammad Ali arrived in the Afghan capital, a Taliban government official said Friday, to reportedly open a stadium in a country where women are barred from sports.
The head of the Taliban government’s sports directorate, Ahmadullah Wasiq, told AFP that Khalilah Camacho-Ali, who was married to the boxer for a decade from 1967, had arrived in Kabul.
State media cited the directorate as saying she was in the city “to build a sports stadium to be named ‘Pirozi’ (victory in Dari) and a sports association named after Muhammad Ali.”
Born Belinda Boyd in 1950 in the United States, Camacho-Ali, like her world champion boxer ex-husband, converted to Islam after they married.
Muhammad Ali himself visited Kabul in 2002, a year after the US forces overthrew the first Taliban government, visiting a girls’ school in his role as a United Nations peace ambassador.
Since the Taliban government came to power in Afghanistan in 2021, they have imposed a strict interpretation of Islamic law, with women bearing the brunt of restrictions the United Nations have called “gender apartheid,” including blocking women from participating in sports.
During the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001, public executions in sports stadiums were common.
Public corporal punishment has continued since their return to power and at least two public executions have been held in a sports stadium.
The authorities have recently set restrictions on combat sports as well, saying free fighting such as in Mixed Martial Arts was un-Islamic.
Camacho-Ali is a martial artist, as well as an actress and author, according to her website.
Ali was born Cassius Clay in the southeastern state of Kentucky and is known as both a sporting great and for his role in fighting for civil rights for African Americans. He died in 2016.
China to offer Taliban tariff-free trade as it inches closer to isolated resource-rich regime
- Kabul has also asked China to allow it to be a part of $62 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
- The project connects China’s resource-rich Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar
BEIJING: China will offer the Taliban tariff-free access to its vast construction, energy and consumer sectors, Beijing’s envoy to Afghanistan said on Thursday, as the ailing resource-rich but diplomatically-isolated regime looks to build up its markets.
Beijing has sought to develop its ties with the Taliban since they took control of Afghanistan in 2021, but like all governments has refrained from formally recognizing the group’s rule amid international concern over its human rights record and those of women and girls.
But the impoverished country could offer a wealth of mineral resources to boost Beijing’s supply chain security although it risks becoming a haven for militant groups threatening China’s Xinjiang region and huge investments in neighboring Pakistan.
Selling Afghanistan’s lithium, copper and iron deposits to feed China’s enormous battery and construction industries would help the Taliban prop up their economy, which the UN says has “basically collapsed,” and provide a much needed revenue stream as the country’s overseas central bank reserves remain frozen.
“China will offer Afghanistan zero-tariff treatment for 100 percent tariff lines,” Zhao Xing, Chinese ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote on his official X account late on Thursday, above a photo of him meeting acting deputy prime minister Abdul Kabir.
Afghanistan exported $64 million worth of goods to China last year, according to Chinese customs data, close to 90 percent of which was shelled pine nuts, but the Taliban government has said it is determined to find foreign investors willing to help it diversify its economy and profit from its minerals wealth.
The country exported no commodities to China last year, the data shows, but Zhao has regularly posted photos of him meeting Taliban officials responsible for mining, petroleum, trade and regional connectivity since his appointment last September.
“In the Horn of Africa, China’s Special Envoy Xue Bing said that the best way to resolve security and terrorism challenges is through economic development. I think they are bringing that same mindset to Afghanistan,” said Eric Orlander, co-founder of the China-Global South Project.
“I don’t buy the whole strategic minerals line that we hear in Washington about how China is eyeing Afghanistan’s vast lithium reserves,” Orlander added, citing the cost and security challenges involved in extracting them.
“(China’s) answer to everything is build a road, and from that economic development will lead to peace and harmony.”
Several Chinese companies operate in Afghanistan, including the Metallurgical Corp. of China Ltd, which has held talks with the Taliban administration over plans for a potentially huge copper mine, and was highlighted in an August feature in Chinese state media on Chinese companies rebuilding Afghanistan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping at a Beijing summit for more than 50 African leaders in September announced that from Dec. 1 goods entering his country’s $19 trillion economy from “the least developed countries that have diplomatic relations with China” would not be subject to import duties, without giving details.
The policy was then repeated on Wednesday by vice commerce minister Tang Wenhong at a press conference in Beijing on the preparations for upcoming China’s annual flagship import expo.
Lin Jian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson, confirmed on Friday the policy would apply to Afghanistan, adding it would promote mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation.
The Afghanistan embassy in Beijing did not respond to a request for comment.
Last October, Afghanistan’s acting commerce minister told Reuters the Taliban wanted to formally join Xi’s flagship “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative.
Kabul has also asked China to allow it to be a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a $62 billion connectivity project connecting China’s resource-rich Xinjiang region to Pakistan’s Arabian Sea port of Gwadar.
4 astronauts return to Earth after being delayed by Boeing’s capsule trouble
- A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachutes before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast
A SpaceX capsule carrying the crew parachuted before dawn into the Gulf of Mexico just off the Florida coast after undocking from the International Space Station mid-week.
The three Americans and one Russian should have been back two months ago. But their homecoming was stalled by problems with Boeing’s new Starliner astronaut capsule, which came back empty in September because of safety concerns. Then Hurricane Milton interfered, followed by another two weeks of high wind and rough seas.
SpaceX launched the four — NASA’s Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps, and Russia’s Alexander Grebenkin — in March. Barratt, the only space veteran going into the mission, acknowledged the support teams back home that had “to replan, retool and kind of redo everything right along with us ... and helped us to roll with all those punches.”
Their replacements are the two Starliner test pilots Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, whose own mission went from eight days to eight months, and two astronauts launched by SpaceX four weeks ago. Those four will remain up there until February.
The space station is now back to its normal crew size of seven — four Americans and three Russians — after months of overflow.
Four killed in militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir
- Separatist militants have fought Indian forces for decades, with thousands killed in territory
- At least nine Indian soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July
SRINAGAR: At least four people, including two soldiers, were killed when militants ambushed an army vehicle in India’s restive Kashmir on Thursday night, officials said, the fourth attack in the region in a fortnight and the second this week.
The attacks come close on the heels of a government formed by an opposition alliance taking over in the territory where separatist militants have fought security forces for decades and thousands of people have been killed.
At least nine soldiers were killed in two separate militant attacks in the region in July.
Thursday’s attack occurred in the Bota Pathri area near Kashmir’s border with Pakistan, officials said, adding that two army porters were also killed in the incident and three soldiers injured.
“A massive search operation has been launched against the militants responsible for the attack...Additional reinforcements have been sent to the area,” said an army official who declined to be named.
Security forces are using drones and helicopters to scan the forest in the region where the incident occurred, a senior police officer said.
The People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), which Indian authorities say is an offshoot of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-E-Mohammed, claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement circulating on social media.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of the statement.
Authorities closed Gulmarg town’s cable car — a popular tourist attraction that lies about 12 km(7 miles) from the spot of the attack — following the incident.
Around one million people use the cable car annually.
“The shutdown is a precautionary measure to ensure the safety of tourists and staff,” a senior official said.
At least six migrant workers and a doctor were shot dead in another attack in Kashmir this week when militants opened fire near a tunnel construction site.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, in a post on X, termed the “recent spate of attacks” in the region “a matter of serious concern.”
Kashmir is claimed in full but ruled in part by both India and Pakistan and the 2019 revocation of its special status, which saw it being split into two federally administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, led to the countries downgrading ties.
