KYIV: Russian President Vladimir Putin approved budget plans, raising 2025 military spending to record levels as Moscow seeks to prevail in the war in Ukraine.
Around 32.5 percent of the budget posted on a government website Sunday has been allocated for national defense, amounting to 13.5 trillion rubles (over $145 billion), up from a reported 28.3 percent this year.
Lawmakers in both houses of the Russian parliament, the State Duma and Federation Council had already approved the plans in the past 10 days.
Russia’s war on Ukraine, which started in Feb. 2022, is Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II and has drained the resources of both sides.
Kyiv has been getting billions of dollars in help from its Western allies, but Russia’s forces are bigger and better equipped, and in recent months the Russian army has gradually been pushing Ukrainian troops backward in eastern areas.
On the ground in Ukraine, three people died in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson when a Russian drone struck a minibus on Sunday morning, Kherson regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said. Seven others were wounded in the attack.
Meanwhile, the number of wounded in Saturday’s missile strike in Dnipro in central Ukraine rose to 24, with seven in serious condition, Dnipropetrovsk regional Gov. Serhiy Lysak said. Four people were killed in the attack.
Moscow sent 78 drones into Ukraine overnight into Sunday, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, 32 drones were destroyed during the overnight attacks. A further 45 drones were “lost” over various areas, likely having been electronically jammed.
In Russia, a child was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, according to regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight into Sunday in four regions of western Russia: 20 over the Bryansk region, seven over the Kaluga region, and one each over the Smolensk and Kursk regions.
Putin signs off record Russian defense spending
https://arab.news/m8txu
Putin signs off record Russian defense spending
- Around 32.5% of the budget has been allocated for national defense
- Lawmakers had already approved the plans in the past 10 days
Myanmar declares week of mourning as quake toll passes 2,000
- The figure was a sharp rise compared to the 1,002 announced just hours earlier, highlighting the difficulty of confirming casualties over a widespread region
- In neighboring Thailand, the death toll rose to 17 after the quake rocked the greater Bangkok area, home to around 17 million people, and other parts of the country
MANDALAY: Myanmar declared a week of national mourning on Monday over the country’s devastating earthquake, as the death toll passed 2,000 and hopes faded of finding more survivors in the rubble of ruined buildings.
National flags will fly at half-mast until April 6 “in sympathy for the loss of life and damages” from Friday’s massive quake, the ruling junta said in a statement.
The junta also announced a minute’s silence on Tuesday, to begin at 12:51:02 p.m. (0621 GMT) — the precise time the 7.7-magnitude quake struck.
People should stop where they are to pay tribute to the victims, the junta said, while media should halt broadcasting and show mourning symbols, and prayers will be offered at temples and pagodas.
The announcement came as the tempo and urgency of rescue efforts wound down in Mandalay, one of the worst-affected cities and the country’s second-largest, with more than 1.7 million inhabitants.
“The situation is so dire that it’s hard to express what is happening,” said Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of Mandalay’s Sajja North mosque.
People prepared to camp out in the streets across Mandalay for a fourth successive night, either unable to return to ruined homes or nervous about the repeated aftershocks that rattled the city over the weekend.
Some have tents but many, including young children, have been bedding down on blankets in the middle of roads, trying to keep as far from buildings as possible for fear of falling masonry.
The junta said Monday that 2,056 have now been confirmed, with more than 3,900 people injured and 270 still missing, but the toll is expected to rise significantly.
Three Chinese nationals are among the dead, China’s state media said, along with two French people, according to the foreign ministry in Paris.
At least 19 deaths have been confirmed hundreds of kilometers away in Thailand’s capital Bangkok, where the force of the quake caused a 30-story tower block under construction to collapse.
Mandalay’s 1,000-bed general hospital has been evacuated, with hundreds of patients being treated outside.
Patients lay on gurneys in the hospital car park, many with only a thin tarpaulin rigged up to shield them from the fierce tropical sun.
Relatives did their best to comfort them, holding hands or waving bamboo fans over them.
“We’re trying to do what we can here. We are trying our best,” said one medic, who asked to remain anonymous.
The sticky heat has exhausted rescue workers and accelerated body decomposition, which could complicate identification.
But traffic began returning to the streets of Mandalay on Monday, and restaurants and street vendors resumed work.
Hundreds of Muslims gathered outside a destroyed mosque in the city for the first prayer of Eid Al-Fitr, the holiday that follows the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan.
The challenges facing the Southeast Asian country of more than 50 million people were immense even before the earthquake.
Myanmar has been ravaged by four years of civil war sparked by a military coup in 2021, with its economy shattered and health care and infrastructure badly damaged.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the quake a top-level emergency as it urgently sought $8 million to save lives, while the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies has launched an appeal for more than $100 million.
International aid and rescue teams have been arriving after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing made an exceptionally rare appeal for foreign assistance.
In the past, isolated Myanmar’s ruling generals have shunned foreign assistance, even after major natural disasters.
Junta spokesman Zaw Min Tun thanked key allies China and Russia for their help, as well as India, and said the authorities were doing their best.
“We are trying and giving treatment to injured people and searching for missing ones,” he told journalists.
But reports have emerged of the military carrying out air strikes on armed groups opposed to its rule, even as Myanmar grapples with the quake’s aftermath.
One ethnic minority armed group told AFP on Sunday that seven of its fighters were killed in an aerial attack soon after the quake, and there were reports of more air strikes on Monday.
Myanmar’s raging civil war, pitting the military against a complex array of anti-coup fighters and ethnic minority armed groups, has displaced around 3.5 million people.
In Bangkok, diggers continued to clear the vast pile of rubble at the site of the collapsed building.
Officials say they have not given up hope of finding more survivors in the wreckage, where 12 deaths have been confirmed and at least 75 people are still unaccounted for.
Thousands of Filipino Muslims gather in Manila for Eid festivities
- Muslims constitute about 10 percent of the Philippines’ majority Catholic population
- Philippines will observe April 1 as a national holiday to mark Eid Al-Fitr
MANILA: Manila’s Filipino Muslim community gathered at one of the capital region’s largest parks on Monday for Eid Al-Fitr prayers, followed by family picnics to mark the end of Ramadan.
In the predominantly Catholic Philippines, Muslims make up around 10 percent of the country’s population of over 120 million.
While most of them live on the island of Mindanao and the Sulu archipelago in the country’s south, Manila is also home to more than 173,000 Filipino Muslims.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. last month declared April 1 a national holiday for the first of the two main holidays observed in Islam.
But like many others across the Islamic world, Filipino Muslims upheld the tradition of morning Eid prayers on Monday, with 15,000 people gathering at the Quezon Memorial Circle.
“Eid Al-Fitr is a huge celebration among the Muslim community, especially here in the Philippines, and the culmination of the sacrifice that we had for the holy month of Ramadan,” Aleem Guiapal, a government official who is originally from Cotabato City, told Arab News.
“What makes Eid Al-Fitr special is the level of spirituality that we achieved for almost 30 days.”
Families were central to the occasion, and many took their young children along to share meals and play at the park in Metro Manila.
“We consider Eid Al-Fitr as a family day and, at the same time, a day to celebrate the ending of the month of Ramadan,” Lucman bin Usman said.
“We came here so that the children can play and also to really feel the Eid spirit and also the festivities.”
For Aida Villegas, who is originally from Zamboanga, the morning visit to the park was only the beginning of Eid festivities.
“Everyone is (welcome) to come here, and there’s a playground. So, it’s a really good spot for the families, and then there’s a bazaar,” she said, referring to a halal bazaar of food and clothes organized by the local government.
“Families come here during Eid to pray, eat, play, shop and then we go back home, and we do house to house. It doesn’t end here.”
French court hands Le Pen five-year election ban
- Including 56-year-old Le Pen, nine figures from her National Rally party were convicted
- Twelve assistants were also convicted of concealing a crime
PARIS: A French court on Monday sentenced far-right leader Marine Le Pen to a five-year ban on running for office with immediate effect, throwing into doubt her bid to stand for president in 2027.
She was also given a four-year prison term but will not go to jail, with two years of the term suspended and the other two to be served outside jail with an electronic bracelet, the court ruled.
Including 56-year-old Le Pen, nine figures from her National Rally (RN) party were convicted over a scheme where they took advantage of European Parliament expenses to employ assistants who were actually working for the party.
Twelve assistants were also convicted of concealing a crime, with the court estimating the scheme was worth €2.9 million ($3.1 million).
All the RN officials including Le Pen were banned from running for office, with the judge specifying that the sanction should come into force with immediate effect even if an appeal is lodged.
“The court took into consideration, in addition to the risk of reoffending, the major disturbance of public order if a person already convicted... was a candidate in the presidential election,” said presiding judge Benedicte de Perthuis.
Three-time presidential candidate Le Pen, who scented her best-ever chance of winning the French presidency in 2027 when President Emmanuel Macron cannot stand again, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
She left the courtroom after her conviction and this sanction were announced, but before the judge announced the prison sentence, an AFP correspondent said.
She is due to give a primetime TV interview to broadcaster TF1 on Monday evening.
Le Pen had said in a piece for the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that the verdict gives the “judges the right of life or death over our movement.”
With her RN emerging as the single largest party in parliament after the 2024 legislative elections, Le Pen believed she has the momentum to finally take the Elysee in 2027 on the back of public concern over immigration and the cost of living.
Polls predicted that she would easily top the first round of voting and make the second round two-candidate run-off.
The reaction from Moscow to the verdict was swift. “More and more European capitals are going down the path of violating democratic norms,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“Je suis Marine!” (“I am Marine“), wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, one of her main allies in the EU, on X in support.
Waiting in the wings is her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, just 29, who is not under investigation in the case.
Bardella, reacting to the verdict, said French democracy was being “executed” with the “unjust” verdict.
In a documentary broadcast by BFMTV late on Sunday, Le Pen for the first time explicitly gave her blessing to Bardella becoming president.
“Of course he has the capacity to become president of the republic,” she said.
But there are doubts even within the party over the so-called “Plan B” and whether he has the experience for a presidential campaign.
Le Pen took over as head of the then-National Front (FN) in 2011 but rapidly took steps toward making the party an electoral force and shaking off the controversial legacy of its co-founder and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year and who was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.
She renamed it the National Rally and embarked on a policy known as “dediabolization” (de-demonization) with the stated aim of making it acceptable to a wider range of voters.
Prosecutors accused the party of easing pressure on its own finances by using all of the 21,000-euro monthly allowance to which MEPs were entitled to pay “fictitious” parliamentary assistants, who actually worked for the party in France.
“It was established that all these people were actually working for the party, that their MEP had not assigned them any tasks,” said the judge.
Given her current popularity, even some opponents have expressed discomfort over the prospect of Le Pen not making it to the starting line of an election.
“There are a very significant number of our fellow French citizens who identify with Marine Le Pen’s words and her struggle, and personally I would be very upset, to put it mildly, if she were unable to run to represent them,” France’s former EU commissioner Thierry Breton told French television at the weekend.
Bangladeshi capital revives centuries-old procession for Eid Al-Fitr
- Dhaka’s tradition of Eid parades can be traced back to the late 18th century
- Colorful procession featured a marching band, huge figurines, cavalry parade
DHAKA: Tens of thousands of Bangladeshis joined a festive and colorful Eid Al-Fitr procession in Dhaka on Monday, as city officials aim to bring back the centuries-old tradition marking the end of Ramadan.
The event, which began in the capital’s Agargaon area and culminated at the National Parliament Building in the city center, featured a marching band, larger-than-life figurines and a cavalry parade.
Monday’s festivities were reminiscent of Dhaka’s Eid celebrations in the 18th century, when its governors, known as Naib Nazim, would lead vibrant parades snaking through the streets of the capital.
“The Eid parade in Dhaka is considered a tradition of this city. This tradition began in the late 18th century and continued until the first quarter of the 19th century,” Muntasir Mamun, a former history professor at Dhaka University, told Arab News.
“The Naib Nazim used to ride on an elephant and lead the colorful parade, followed by their soldiers and associates … This Eid parade tradition was at its peak during the early 19th century … The people used to observe this parade standing on both sides of the streets and rooftops.”
PHOTOS: Eid Al-Fitr 2025: Muslim faithful celebrate end of Ramadan
As the procession became a tradition during a transition period following the decline of the Mughal Empire, the grand events were known to have taken elements from that era, including in costumes and displays.
The annual parades eventually tapered off during British rule but took place at least once while Bangladesh was under Pakistan, Mamun said.
This year’s procession marks the revival of the centuries-old tradition, as the government in Dhaka is planning to turn it into an annual event.
“We want Dhaka to have its own story. The Muslims of Dhaka and the culture of Dhaka will be the essence of this story,” Mohammed Azaz, an administrator at the Dhaka North City Corporation, told Arab News.
“Here, the Muslims have a 400-year-old history and culture. With this Eid parade, we want to revive the Bengal Muslims’ history, culture and tradition … That’s why we organized the parade in accordance with the style of the Mughals.”
As the beating of the drums and sounds of trumpets filled the busy streets of Dhaka on Monday morning to mark Eid Al-Fitr, city residents were beaming with pride and excitement.
“I just came here after offering the Eid prayer … It’s a unique experience for me,” local resident Nikita Begum told Arab News after the event.
“It’s very energetic and refreshing to experience … such a colorful Eid parade … Different types of music are being played here, and it creates an amusing environment for people of all ages. I liked it a lot.”
China’s FM heads to Moscow for talks in visit overshadowed by Ukraine crisis
- Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, in comments consistent with China’s position, emphasized Beijing’s assertions of neutrality in the Ukraine conflict
BEIJING: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Monday was traveling to Moscow for talks with his counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in a visit overshadowed by Western moves over Ukraine.
Wang is scheduled to meet with Lavrov on Tuesday, days after Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle to a limited ceasefire after US President Donald Trump spoke with the two countries’ leaders. It remains to be seen when such a truce might take effect, how long it might last and what targets would be off-limits.
Trump lashed out at both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday, expressing frustration with the Russian and Ukrainian leaders. Although Trump insisted to reporters that “we’re making a lot of progress,” he acknowledged that “there’s tremendous hatred” between the two men. He said he was “angry, pissed off” that Putin questioned Zelensky’s credibility.
Trump’s comments, which have typically been positive toward Putin, also came amid signs of a fracture between the US and its NATO allies, including Canada, with whom it is also involved in a trade war.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun, in comments consistent with China’s position, emphasized Beijing’s assertions of neutrality in the Ukraine conflict.
“We always believe that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable way out of the crisis. China’s cooperation with Russia does not target a third party and should not be affected by any third party,” Guo told reporters at a daily briefing.
China did not mention Ukraine in its announcement of Wang’s trip, saying only that the two countries “continue to deepen back-to-back strategic coordination and expand practical cooperation across various fields,” as well as “upholding the basic norms governing international relations.”
“The Chinese side is ready to take this visit as an opportunity to work with the Russian side ... on international and regional issues of common concern,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying.
China has provided strong diplomatic support for Russia in the more than three years since it launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor, along with an economic lifeline through the trade in energy and consumer goods. However, it has not knowingly provided Russia with weapons or military expertise and has put forward a vague peace plan that was swiftly dismissed by most observers.
Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un expressed his unwavering support for Russia’s war in Ukraine during a meeting with a top Russian security official in Pyongyang on Friday. That came after South Korean intelligence assessment in late February that North Korea had likely sent additional troops to Russia after its forces suffered heavy casualties fighting Ukrainian forces.
