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KYIV: The US envoy for the war in Ukraine Keith Kellogg said on Friday he had “extensive and positive” discussions on Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Kellogg said on X he also had talks with Zelensky’s “talented national security team” while on his visit to the Ukrainian capital.
BERLIN: Germany’s interior minister claimed victory for her outgoing government in its battle against irregular immigration, saying deportations were up and asylum claims down in an apparent center-left pitch to be part of the next ruling coalition.
Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat, remains as acting minister until her party and the election-winning conservatives agree on a new coalition deal, with how to handle immigration the sharpest dividing line between the would-be partners.
Conservative leader Friedrich Merz, seeking to win back voters his Christian Democrats (CDU) lost to the far right, pledged during the campaign to turn away at the borders people with the wrong documents. The SPD opposes this hard-line approach, saying it violates European Union law.
“Migration policy isn’t something for jokers, but a management assignment you have to work on seriously,” Faeser said in a statement asserting that outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government had run a successful migration policy.
While the number of asylum claims halved over the past two years, she said, the number of people illegally present in Germany who were then repatriated had risen 55 percent and the number of skilled workers who had immigrated legally had risen by 77 percent.
“The numbers speak for themselves,” she said. “Today we are a country that invests more in integration and is more attractive to talented and qualified workers from the world over.”
Talks between the two parties last week went into a second round after leaders acknowledged the drafts prepared so far fell far short of what was needed for a government program. Merz has said he wants to form a government by Easter.
FAR RIGHT RISES IN POLLS
Merz, the likely next chancellor, won the February 23 election but with a poorer-than-expected 28.5 percent of the vote. That left the SPD as Merz’s only possible partner if he sticks to his pledge not to cooperate with the runner-up far-right AfD party, or form an unstable three-way coalition as Scholz did.
Leaked drafts of coalition negotiating positions show the parties far apart on immigration policy. The conservatives demand more powers to expel and turn away migrants, while the SPD is focusing on integration of migrants and steps to recruit foreign skilled workers for labor-short German industries.
Concerns that commitments on migration and fiscal rigour could be watered down under the next government have preoccupied right-wing voters in particular — the AfD has gained three points in the polls since the election while the conservatives have lost three.
A series of deadly street attacks during the election campaign, blamed in some cases on foreigners illegally present in Germany, ensured the contest was dominated by a raw and angry debate over migration.
“We must carry out the migration debate without rancour, always in the awareness that we’re talking about people here,” said Faeser, who could stay on as interior minister or in another senior cabinet role if a conservative-SPD “grand coalition” comes to fruition.
MANDALAY, Myanmar: Just after sunrise on Saturday, a satellite set its long-range camera on the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, not far from the epicenter of Friday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Southeast Asian country’s second-largest city.
The mission was to capture images that, combined with artificial intelligence technology, could help relief organizations quickly assess how many buildings had collapsed or were heavily damaged and where helpers most needed to go.
At first, the high-tech computer vision approach wasn’t working.
“The biggest challenge in this particular case was the clouds,” said Microsoft’s chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres. “There’s no way to see through clouds with this technology.”
The clouds eventually moved and it took a few more hours for another satellite from San Francisco-based Planet Labs to capture the aerial pictures and send them to Microsoft’s philanthropic AI for Good Lab. By then it was already about 11 p.m. Friday at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington. A group of Microsoft workers was ready and waiting for the data.
The AI for Good lab has done this kind of AI-assisted damage assessment before, tracking Libya’s catastrophic flooding in 2023 or this year’s wildfires in Los Angeles. But rather than rely on a standard AI computer vision model that could run any visual data, they had to build a customized version specific to Mandalay.
“The Earth is too different, the natural disasters are too different and the imagery we get from satellites is just too different to work in every situation,” Lavista Ferres said. For instance, he said, while fires spread in fairly predictable ways, “an earthquake touches the whole city” and it can be harder to know in the immediate aftermath where help is needed.
Once the AI analysis was complete, it showed 515 buildings in Mandalay with 80 percent to 100 percent damage and another 1,524 with between 20 percent and 80 percent damage. That showed the widespread gravity of the disaster, but, just as important, it helps pinpoint specific locations of damage.
“This is critical information for teams on the ground,” Lavista Ferres said.
Microsoft cautioned that it “should serve as a preliminary guide and will require on-the-ground verification for a complete understanding.” But in the meantime, the tech company has shared the analysis with aid groups such as the Red Cross.
Planet Labs says its satellites — it has 15 of them orbiting the Earth — have now photographed roughly a dozen locations in Myanmar and Thailand since Friday’s quake.
JAKARTA/MANILA: Indonesia and the Philippines on Tuesday sent rescue teams to assist Myanmar, where the death toll from a huge earthquake has passed 2,700.
Rescuers and aid workers have been struggling to reach victims and find survivors after the 7.7-magnitude quake struck at midday on Friday near Myanmar’s second-largest city, Mandalay, destroying scores of buildings and ancient cultural sites.
In the wake of the disaster, neighboring Southeast Asian countries have rallied to send humanitarian assistance to Myanmar.
Indonesia dispatched a 53-member search and rescue team on Tuesday, after on Monday sending a smaller group and 12 tonnes of humanitarian aid comprising tents, food and logistical supplies.
“The earthquake has caused massive suffering. As of today the death toll stands at around (2,700), but there are still plenty of people who must be saved,” Suharyanto, the head of Indonesia’s National Disaster Mitigation Agency, said during a send-off ceremony in Jakarta.
The strongest earthquake to hit Myanmar in more than a century damaged critical infrastructure and communication, further hampering relief efforts in a country that was already facing a humanitarian crisis from an ongoing civil war.
Death toll from the quake has reached 2,719 and is expected to rise, Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing said in a televised address on Tuesday, adding that about 4,500 people were injured and more than 400 were missing.
Friday’s earthquake was also felt in Thailand, where the death toll stands at 21.
The Philippines has dispatched the first batch of a 91-member emergency team, which includes members of the Philippine Air Force, the Department of Health, and the Bureau of Fire Protection, to help with search and rescue efforts.
The remainder of the group will depart on Wednesday for a two-week deployment to Myanmar, the Philippine Air Force said in a statement.
“Bringing with them essential search and rescue equipment and medical supplies, these personnel are ready to perform life-saving operations, provide medical assistance, and deliver critical aid throughout the mission,” the PAF said.
Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos and Singapore have sent their own teams to Myanmar to assist with the ongoing search and rescue operations, which have reportedly been slowed because of a lack of heavy machinery, forcing many to search for survivors by hand in daily temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius.
Malaysia, which chairs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, said that countries from the region are working closely to support Myanmar.
“These deployments reflect ASEAN’s united response and commitment to standing together in times of hardship,” Malaysia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
VATICAN CITY: A chest X-ray has confirmed a “slight improvement” in Pope Francis’s lungs as he recovers from five weeks in hospital with life-threatening pneumonia, the Vatican said on Tuesday.
The 88-year-old Catholic leader left Rome’s Gemelli hospital on March 23 after a stay in which doctors said he had almost died twice, returning to the Vatican for a convalescence of at least two months.
The Vatican press office said a chest X-ray carried out in recent days confirmed a “slight improvement” in his pulmonary infection.
Improvements were also reported in his motor skills, voice and breathing. Although he continues to use oxygen through a cannula, the Argentine pontiff can remove it for short periods.
His doctors previously said that with double pneumonia the lungs are damaged and the respiratory muscles are strained, so it can take time for the voice to return to normal.
Francis remains in the Santa Marta guesthouse, taking part in mass every morning in the chapel on the second floor where he has lived since becoming head of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics in March 2013.
He has had no visits beyond his doctors and closest associates, the Vatican said, adding that his morale remained “good.”
The Argentine pope missed his seventh successive Angelus prayer on Sunday and there is no word on whether he will make an appearance this weekend, although another briefing is due on Friday.
The Vatican has also declined to say how the pope will participate in upcoming events for Easter, the holiest period in the Christian calendar, although it has included on its schedule the traditional “Urbi et Orbi” blessing on Easter Sunday – which only a pope can deliver.
Francis has been largely out of the public eye since he was admitted to hospital on February 14.
On the day he left the Gemelli, he appeared in a wheelchair on a hospital balcony, waving his hands from his lap to the hundreds of pilgrims gathered below to greet him.
He spoke a few words in a weak voice, saying through a microphone: “Thank you, everyone.”
He then noted a woman below with yellow flowers, and added: “Well done.”
Francis then was spotted being driven away from the hospital, a cannula in his nose.
