Russia says any British military role in Ukraine under new 100-year deal would be worrying

British PM Keir Starmer and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy shake hands after a signing ceremony in Kyiv, Ukraine, on January 16, 2025. (REUTERS)
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Updated 18 January 2025
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Russia says any British military role in Ukraine under new 100-year deal would be worrying

  • Starmer said that the landmark century-long agreement commits the two sides to cooperate on defense
  • While Starmer was meeting with Zelensky in Kyiv, debris from intercepted Russian drones fell in at least four districts of the capital

MOSCOW: Russia said on Friday that any placement of British military assets in Ukraine under a new 100-year partnership agreement between Kyiv and London would be of concern to Moscow.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked about the possibility of Britain setting up military bases in Ukraine under the agreement announced on Thursday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“Given that Britain is a NATO country, the advancement of its military infrastructure toward our borders is certainly a rather worrying element. In any case, it will be necessary to further analyze what will happen,” Peskov said.
At Thursday’s talks in Kyiv, Zelensky said he had spoken to Starmer about Kyiv’s desire for Western peacekeeping troops to be deployed in Ukraine if the war with Russia ended.
Asked if Britain would contribute troops, Starmer said in an interview with Sky News that he had discussed this with Zelensky and other allies and Britain would “play our full part.”
Peskov said Moscow also took a “negative” view of the prospect of British cooperation with Ukraine in the Sea of Azov, which he described as Russia’s “internal sea.”
The Azov Sea is bordered by southwest Russia, parts of southern Ukraine that Russia has seized in the war, and the Crimean peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The landmark agreement

Starmer said that the landmark century-long agreement commits the two sides to cooperate on defense — especially maritime security against Russian activity in the Baltic Sea, Black Sea and Sea of Azov — and on technology projects including drones, which have become vital weapons for both sides in the war. The treaty also includes a system to help track stolen Ukrainian grain exported by Russia from occupied parts of the country.

The announcement came days before Donald Trump is sworn in as US president with skepticism of America’s military burden in Europe and what he says is a plan to end the continent’s biggest conflict since World War II.
“We are with you not just today or tomorrow, for this year or the next, but for 100 years — long after this terrible war is over and Ukraine is free and thriving once again,” Starmer told Zelensky during a visit to Kyiv, promising that the UK would “play our part” in guaranteeing Ukraine’s post-war security.
While Starmer was meeting with Zelensky at the presidential palace, debris from Russian drones shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses fell in at least four districts of Kyiv, according to city administration chief Tymur Tkachenko. One was close to the Baroque presidential palace where the two men met.
Starmer said that the drones were “a reminder” of what the Ukrainian people are up against and their resolve.
Starmer’s unannounced visit is his first trip to Ukraine since he took office in July, though he said that it was his seventh meeting with Zelensky.
The Italian defense chief was also in Kyiv on Thursday, two days after Germany’s defense minister visited and three days after Zelensky talked by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The flurry of diplomatic activity came in the days leading up to Trump’s inauguration on Monday, which is expected to bring a departure from the outgoing US administration’s pledge to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes to defeat Russia. Trump has also indicated that he wants Europe to shoulder more of the burden for helping Ukraine.

Flood of support

Kyiv’s allies have rushed to flood Ukraine with as much support as possible before Trump’s inauguration, with the aim of putting Ukraine in the strongest position possible for any future negotiations to end the full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Ukrainians worry that Trump’s plan will demand unpalatable concessions, such as giving up territory. Zelensky has also said that he wants security guarantees to deter Russia from invading again in the future.
“We must look at how this war could end, the practical ways to get a just and lasting peace … that guarantees your security, your independence and your right to choose your own future,” Starmer said at a joint news conference.
Zelensky said that the two leaders had discussed an idea floated by Macron for Western troops to monitor a future ceasefire, but said that it’s “a bit too early to talk about details.”
Starmer left the door open to UK participation, telling Ukraine’s leader that “we will work with you and all of our allies on steps that would be robust enough to guarantee Ukraine’s security.”
“Those conversations will continue for many months ahead,” Starmer said.
Zelensky has previously discussed a potential peacekeeping force with Baltic countries, France and Poland. But he said that it could only be part of the security solution and noted that “we do not consider security guarantees without the United States.”
Starmer agreed that Washington’s role in Ukraine is “vital.” The United States is the biggest provider of military support and advanced weaponry to the country.
“We will continue to work with the US on this,” Starmer said.
Starmer said that in 2025, the UK will give Ukraine “more military support than ever before.” He said that his country has already committed 3 billion pounds ($3.6 billion) for military aid this year, including 150 more artillery barrels and a UK-designed mobile air defense system named Gravehawk. The UK has pledged 12.8 billion pounds ($15.6 billion) in military and civilian aid since the war broke out.
During the daylong visit, Starmer and Zelensky laid flowers at a wall of remembrance for those killed in the war. The wall outside St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, a Kyiv landmark, is covered in photos of the slain, stretching for a city block. It has become a place of pilgrimage for families paying tribute to their lost loved ones.
Starmer also visited a Kyiv hospital specializing in burns treatment and an exhibition of drone technology.
As the grinding war nears the three-year mark, both Russia and Ukraine are pushing for battlefield gains before possible peace talks. Ukraine has started a second offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, where it is struggling to hang onto a chunk of territory it captured last year, and has stepped up drone and missile attacks on weapons sites and fuel depots inside Russia.
Moscow is slowly taking territory at the cost of high casualties along the 600-mile (1,000-kilometer) front line in eastern Ukraine and launching intense barrages at Ukraine’s energy system, seeking to deprive Ukrainians of heat and light in the depths of winter. A major Russian ballistic and cruise missile attack on regions across Ukraine on Wednesday compelled authorities to shut down the power grid in some areas.
 


Bangladesh’s Yunus says will step down after polls

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Bangladesh’s Yunus says will step down after polls

  • Yunus has long said elections will be held before June 2026, but says the more time the interim administration had to enact reforms, the better

LONDON: Bangladesh interim leader Mohammed Yunus said Wednesday that there was “no way” he wanted to continue in power after elections he has announced for April, the first since a mass uprising overthrew the government.

The South Asian nation of around 170 million people has been in political turmoil since a student-led revolt ousted then-Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, ending her 15-year rule.

Speaking in London, Yunus, asked if he himself was seeking any political post, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said there was “no way,” waving his hands in the air for emphasis.

“I think none of our Cabinet members would like to do that, not only me,” he said.

Yunus was answering questions after speaking at London’s foreign policy think tank Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

He also said he wanted to unveil a “big package” of proposals next month that he dubbed a “July Charter” — one year on since the students launched the demonstrations that toppled Hasina.

The aim of the package, he added, was to overhaul democratic institutions after Hasina’s tenure.

“We want to say goodbye to the old Bangladesh and create a new Bangladesh,” Yunus said.

The charter is being drafted by a government “consensus commission,” talking to political parties to “find that which are the recommendations they will accept,” he added.

Yunus has long said elections will be held before June 2026, but says the more time the interim administration had to enact reforms, the better.

But after political parties jostling for power repeatedly demanded he fix a timetable, he said earlier this month that elections would be held in April 2026.

“Our job is to make sure that the transition is managed well, and that people are happy when we hand over power to the elected government,” he said.

“So we want to make sure that the election is right, that is a very critical factor for us. If the election is wrong, this thing will never be solved again.”

Yunus is also expected to meet in London with Tarique Rahman, acting chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is widely seen as likely to sweep the elections.

Rahman, 59, the son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, has lived in London since 2008 after being sentenced in absentia under Hasina — convictions since quashed.

He is widely expected to return to Dhaka to lead the party in polls.


Child labor ‘may continue for centuries at current pace’

Updated 18 sec ago
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Child labor ‘may continue for centuries at current pace’

  • One of the main factors, free compulsory education, not only helps minors escape child labor, but also protects children from vulnerable or indecent conditions of employment when they grow up, she said

NEW YORK: Nearly 138 million children were still working in the world’s fields and factories in 2024, the UN said on Wednesday, warning that given the slow pace of progress, eliminating child labor could be delayed by “hundreds of years.”
Ten years ago, upon adopting the so-called Sustainable Development Goals, the world’s countries set themselves the ambitious target of putting an end to child labor by 2025.
“That timeline has now come to an end. But child labor has not,” UNICEF and the International Labor Organization said in a joint report.
Last year, according to data published every four years, 137.6 million children aged 5-17 were working, or around 7.8 percent of all children in that age group.
The figure is equivalent to twice the total population of France.

FASTFACT

Last year, 137.6 million children aged 5-17 were working, or around 7.8 percent of all children in that age group. The figure is equivalent to twice the total population of France.

This nevertheless represents a drop since 2000, when 246 million children were forced to work, often to help their impoverished families.
After a worrying rise between 2016 and 2020, the trend has now reversed, with 20 million fewer children working in 2024 than four years prior.
“Significant progress” has been recorded in reducing the number of children forced into labor, UNICEF chief Catherine Russell said.
“Yet far too many children continue to toil in mines, factories, or fields, often doing hazardous work to survive.”
According to the report, nearly 40 percent of the 138 million child laborers were employed in 2024 doing particularly hazardous work “likely to jeopardize their health, safety, or development.”
Despite some rays of hope, “we must not be blindsided by the fact that we still have a long way to go before we achieve our goal of eliminating child labor,” ILO Director-General Gilbert Houngbo said.
At the current rate of reduction, “it will take hundreds of years,” said UNICEF expert Claudia Cappa.
Even if countries quadruple the pace of progress recorded since 2000, “we will already be in 2060,” she added.
Progress for the youngest children is particularly slow, the report found. Last year, nearly 80 million children aged five to 11 were working — about 8.2 percent of all children in that age group.
And yet the societal elements that reduce child labor are well-known, according to Cappa.
One of the main factors, free compulsory education, not only helps minors escape child labor, but also protects children from vulnerable or indecent conditions of employment when they grow up, she said.
Another, she added, is “universalizing social protection” as a way to offset or ease burdens on families and vulnerable communities.
But global funding cuts “threaten to roll back hard-earned gains,” UNICEF’s Russell said.
According to the report, agriculture is the sector making the most use of child labor (61 percent of all cases), followed by domestic work and other services (27 percent) and industry (13 percent, including mining and manufacturing).
Sub-Saharan Africa remains the hardest hit, with around 87 million child laborers.
Asia-Pacific has seen the greatest progress, with the number of working children falling from 49 million in 2000 to 28 million in 2024.

 


UK to trim asylum backlog, saving ‘$1.3 billion a year’

Updated 7 min 23 sec ago
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UK to trim asylum backlog, saving ‘$1.3 billion a year’

LONDON: Britain’s Labour government pledged to cut a backlog in asylum applications and end “the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers,” saving £1 billion ($1.3 billion) annually, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves announced on Wednesday.
“Funding that I have provided today ... will cut the asylum backlog, hear more appeal cases and return people who have no rights to be here, saving the taxpayer a billion pounds a year,” Reeves said in her Spending Review that sets out Treasury expenditure and savings over the next few years.
The number of UK asylum seekers has risen sharply in recent years, with tens of thousands of applications waiting to be decided, according to official figures.
Labour, which came to power last July, has set about tackling the situation.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer has started formal talks with unspecified countries to create “return centers” outside the UK for those who have exhausted all legal avenues to remain in the country.
The number of asylum seekers in the UK tripled to 84,200 in 2024 from an average of 27,500 between 2011 and 2020.
In 2022, there were approximately 13 asylum applications per 10,000 people in the UK, compared with 25 applications per 10,000 people in the EU at the same time.
Some 11 percent of migrants in the UK were asylum seekers or refugees in 2023 — almost twice as high as the 2019 figure of six percent.
The number of people crossing the Channel in makeshift boats, a route that virtually did not exist before 2018, has meanwhile increased sharply in recent years.
In 2024, the largest group of asylum seekers hailed from Pakistan, followed by Afghanistan.
In previous years, they came mainly from Syria and Iran.

 


2 Chinese aircraft carriers are operating in the Pacific for the first time. Why?

Updated 11 June 2025
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2 Chinese aircraft carriers are operating in the Pacific for the first time. Why?

  • Two Chinese aircraft carriers operating together for the first time in the Pacific fuel concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders
  • China routinely sends coast guard vessels, warships and warplanes to areas around the disputed East China Sea islands, but never east of the second-island chain until now

TOKYO: Japan this week confirmed that two Chinese aircraft carriers have operated together for the first time in the Pacific, fueling Tokyo’s concern about Beijing’s rapidly expanding military activity far beyond its borders.
Carriers are considered critical to projecting power at a distance. China routinely sends coast guard vessels, warships and warplanes to areas around the disputed East China Sea islands, but now it is going as far as what’s called the second-island chain that includes Guam — a US territory. A single Chinese carrier has ventured into the Pacific in the past, but never east of that chain until now.
Here’s what to know about the latest moves by China, which has the world’s largest navy numerically.
What happened?
Japan’s Defense Ministry said the two carriers, the Liaoning and the Shandong, were seen separately but almost simultaneously operating near southern islands in the Pacific for the first time. Both operated in waters off Iwo Jima, about 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) south of Tokyo, Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said Monday.
The Liaoning also sailed inside Japan’s exclusive economic zone of Minamitorishima, the country’s easternmost island. There was no violation of Japanese territorial waters. Still, Nakatani said Japan has expressed “concern” to the Chinese embassy.
Both carriers had warplanes take off and land. Late Wednesday, Japan’s Defense Ministry said a Chinese J-15 fighter jet that took off from the Shandong on Saturday chased a Japanese P-3C aircraft on reconnaissance duty in the area and came within an “abnormally close distance” of 45 meters (50 yards).
The Chinese jet on Sunday crossed 900 meters (980 yards) in front of the Japanese P-3C, the ministry said, adding it has strongly requested China to take measures to prevent such an “abnormal approach” that could cause accidental collisions.
Why is Japan worried?
China’s military buildup and expanding area of activity have raised tensions in the region.
The Chinese carriers sailed past the first-island chain, the Pacific archipelago off the Asian mainland that includes Japan, Taiwan and part of the Philippines. The Liaoning reached farther to the second-island chain, a strategic line extending to Guam, showing China also can challenge Japan’s ally, the United States.
“China apparently aims to elevate its capability of the two aircraft carriers, and to advance its operational capability of the distant sea and airspace,” Nakatani said.
The defense minister vowed to further strengthen Japan’s air defense on remote islands.
Japan has been accelerating its military buildup especially since 2022, including counter-strike capability, with long-range cruise missiles as deterrence to China.
What does China want?
China’s navy on Tuesday confirmed the deployments, calling it part of routine training in the western Pacific “to test their capabilities in far seas protection and joint operations.” It said the deployment was in compliance with international laws and not targeted at any country.
China is pursuing a vast military modernization program including ambitions of a true “blue-water” naval force capable of operating at long ranges for extended periods.
Beijing has the world’s largest navy numerically but lags far behind the United States in its number of aircraft carriers. China has three, the US 11.
Washington’s numerical advantage allows it to keep a carrier, currently the USS George Washington, permanently forward-deployed to Japan.
The Pentagon has expressed concern over Beijing’s focus on building new carriers. Its latest report to Congress on Chinese defense developments noted that it “extends air defense coverage of deployed task groups beyond the range of land-based defenses, enabling operations farther from China’s shore.”
What are the carriers’ abilities?
The two Chinese carriers currently in the western Pacific employ the older “ski-jump” launch method for aircraft, with a ramp at the end of a short runway to assist planes taking off. China’s first carrier, the Liaoning, was a repurposed Soviet ship. The second, the Shandong, was built in China along the Soviet design.
Its third carrier, the Fujian, launched in 2022 and is undergoing final sea trials. It is expected to be operational later this year. It is locally designed and built and employs a more modern, electromagnetic-type launch system like those developed and used by the US
All three ships are conventionally powered, while all the US carriers are nuclear powered, giving them the ability to operate at much greater range and more power to run advanced systems.
Satellite imagery provided to The Associated Press last year indicated China is working on a nuclear propulsion system for its carriers.
Any other recent concerns?
In August, a Chinese reconnaissance aircraft violated Japan’s airspace off the southern prefecture of Nagasaki, and a Chinese survey ship violated Japanese territorial waters off another southern prefecture, Kagoshima. In September, the Liaoning and two destroyers sailed between Japan’s westernmost island of Yonaguni — just east of Taiwan — and nearby Iriomote, entering an area just outside Japan’s territorial waters where the country has some control over maritime traffic.
China routinely sends coast guard vessels and aircraft into waters and airspace surrounding the Japanese-controlled, disputed East China Sea islands to harass Japanese vessels in the area, forcing Japan to scramble jets.
Tokyo also worries about China’s increased joint military activities with Russia, including joint operations of warplanes or warships around northern and southwestern Japan in recent years.


French prime minister says aid boat activists exploiting Gaza suffering

Updated 11 June 2025
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French prime minister says aid boat activists exploiting Gaza suffering

  • Rima Hassan, a member of European Parliament, is among four French activists still detained in Israel
  • French activits will be deported from Israel on Thursday or Friday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X Wednesday

PARIS: France’s prime minister, Francois Bayrou, on Wednesday accused French activists who sailed on a Gaza-bound aid boat of capitalizing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for political attention.
The activists — who hoped to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in war-torn Gaza — included Rima Hassan, a member of European Parliament from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party who is of Palestinian descent.
She is among four French activists still detained in Israel, after Israeli forces intercepted the Madleen sailboat and its 12 crew members in international waters off the besieged Palestinian territory on Monday.
They will be deported from Israel on Thursday or Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X Wednesday.
Another four, who are not French, were also taken into custody.
The remaining four, including two French citizens and Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately after being banned from Israel for 100 years.
LFI leader in parliament Mathilde Panot accused the prime minister of failing to condemn Israel’s actions.
“These activists obtained the effect they wanted, but it’s a form of instrumentalization to which we should not lend ourselves,” Bayrou responded in the National Assembly.
It’s “through diplomatic action, and efforts to bring together several states to pressure the Israeli government, that we can obtain the only possible solution” to the conflict, he added.
Barrot also rejected Panot’s criticism, saying “the admirable mobilization” of French officials had made a rapid resolution of the situation possible “despite the harassment and defamation that they have been subjected to.”
France and Saudi Arabia are co-hosting a UN meeting later this month in New York on steps toward recognizing a Palestinian state and reaching a so-called two-state solution to the conflict.
Immediate ceasefire
Barrot had told parliament earlier the priority in Gaza should be “an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, as well as immediate, unimpeded and massive humanitarian aid access to abridge the suffering of civilian populations.”
“In no way whatsoever do the gesticulations of Ms Rima Hassan, her instrumentalization of the suffering of Gazans, help to achieve these goals,” he added.
He said the French consul had visited all four French activists in Israeli detention.
The Israeli ambassador in Paris earlier said the Israeli authorities aimed to put them on to a plane back home “as soon as possible.”
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, whose entire population the United Nations has warned is at risk of famine.