Russian forces repel three Ukrainian counter attacks in Russia’s Kursk border region

Russian troops repelled three counter attacks by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region bordering Ukraine, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday. (AFP/File)
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Updated 22 February 2025
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Russian forces repel three Ukrainian counter attacks in Russia’s Kursk border region

  • Russia has been fighting to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk since August

MOSCOW: Russian troops repelled three counter attacks by Ukrainian forces in Russia’s western Kursk region bordering Ukraine, the Russian defense ministry said on Saturday.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Russia has been fighting to eject Ukrainian forces from Kursk since August, when Kyiv’s troops staged a lightning incursion over the border and seized a chunk of Russian territory.


EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief

The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, said.
Updated 5 sec ago
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EU must be more assertive with Israel: Ex-foreign policy chief

  • Josep Borrell: Europe has been ‘relegated to the sidelines’ in mediating conflict
  • Country ‘carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since end of Second World War’

LONDON: The EU must adopt a more assertive posture against Israel over its violations of international law in Gaza, Josep Borrell, the bloc’s former foreign policy chief, has said.

In an article for Foreign Affairs magazine, Borrell argued that the EU has a “duty” to intervene over the humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave, The Guardian reported.

Rather than relying on the US to bring an end to the war, Europe must launch its own plan, he said.

The article was co-authored with Kalypso Nicolaidis, a Franco-Greek academic who has advised the EU.

“Europe can no longer afford to linger at the margin. The EU needs a concerted plan,” the two authors said.

“Not only is Europe’s own security at stake, but more important, European history imposes a duty on Europeans to intervene in response to Israel’s violations of international law.

“Europeans cannot stay the hapless fools in this tragic story, dishing out cash with their eyes closed.”

Borrell’s successor, Kaja Kallas, said last week that it was “very clear” Israel had breached its human rights commitments during its war on Gaza.

However, the “concrete question” remains the choice of action EU member states can agree on in response, she added.

Last month, 17 EU member states, in protest against Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to Gaza, triggered a review of the bloc’s association agreement with Israel, which covers trade and other cooperation.

Borrell last month accused Tel Aviv of “carrying out the largest ethnic-cleansing operation since the end of the Second World War.”

Europe’s inconsistent response to the humanitarian crisis can be partly explained by the reluctance of some countries — including Germany, Hungary and Austria — to take action against Israel for historical reasons, Borrell and Nicolaidis wrote.

Yet there are ways for other EU member states to take action without requiring a continent-wide consensus, they said, highlighting the EU’s financial leverage and the utility of European programs for Israel, including the Erasmus student exchange scheme.

EU member states could also invoke Article 20 of the EU’s treaty to “allow for at least nine member states to come together to utilize certain foreign policy tools not related to defense,” they wrote.

“Because such an action has never been taken before, those states would have to explore what (it) … would concretely allow them to do,” the Foreign Affairs article said.

The EU has been rendered ineffective in applying pressure due to disunity, the two authors said, arguing that the bloc should act as a powerful mediator in the Middle East.

“Some EU leaders cautiously backed the International Criminal Court’s investigations, while others, such as Austria and Germany, have declined to implement its arrest warrants against Israeli officials,” they wrote.

“And because EU member states, beginning with Germany and Hungary, could not agree on whether to revisit the union’s trade policy with Israel, the EU continues to be Israel’s largest trading partner.

“As a result, the EU, as a bloc, has been largely relegated to the sidelines, divided internally and overshadowed in ceasefire diplomacy by the US and regional actors such as Egypt and Qatar. Shouldn’t the EU also have acted as a mediator?”


Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says

Updated 22 min 59 sec ago
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Ukraine on track to withdraw from Ottawa anti-personnel mines treaty, lawmaker says

KYIV: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a decree on the country’s withdrawal from the Ottawa Convention, which bans the production and use of anti-personnel mines, a senior Ukrainian lawmaker said on Sunday.
Ukraine ratified the convention in 2005 and a parliamentary decision is needed to withdraw from the treaty.
The document is not yet available on the website of the president’s office.
“This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded. Russia is not a party to this Convention and is massively using mines against our military and civilians,” Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukraine parliament’s committee on national security, defense and intelligence, said on his Facebook page.
“We cannot remain tied down in an environment where the enemy has no restrictions,” he added, saying that the legislative decision must definitively restore Ukraine’s right to effectively defend its territory.
Russia has intensified its offensive operations in Ukraine in recent months, using significant superiority in manpower.
Kostenko did not say when the issue would be debated in parliament.


Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: minister

Updated 24 min 12 sec ago
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Air India plane crash probe looking at all angles: minister

  • All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12
  • Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source said after the crash that the toll was 38

NEW DELHI: An Indian aviation minister on Sunday said investigators were probing “all angles” behind an Air India crash when asked by media about possible sabotage.

All but one of the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner were killed when it crashed in the western city of Ahmedabad on June 12.

Authorities have identified 19 others who died on the ground, but a police source told AFP after the crash that the toll was 38.

India’s minister of state for civil aviation, Murlidhar Mohol, said the investigation was looking at “all angles” when asked specifically about possible “sabotage,” in an interview with Indian news channel NDTV.

“It has never happened before that both engines have shut off together,” Mohol said earlier in the interview, in reference to theories by some experts of possible dual-engine failure.

The minister added that until the investigation report is published, it would be premature to comment on the cause.

The team appointed to investigate the crash started extracting data from the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders this week, in an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the disaster.

Air India has said that the plane was “well-maintained” and that the pilots were accomplished flyers.


Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

Updated 46 min 57 sec ago
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Germany seeks Israeli partnership on cyberdefense, plans ‘cyber dome’

BERLIN: Germany is aiming to establish a joint German-Israeli cyber research center and deepen collaboration between the two countries’ intelligence and security agencies, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Sunday.
Germany is among Israel’s closest allies in Europe, and Berlin has increasingly looked to draw upon Israel’s defense expertise as it boosts its military capabilities and contributions to NATO in the face of perceived growing threats from Russia and China.
“Military defense alone is not sufficient for this turning point in security. A significant upgrade in civil defense is also essential to strengthen our overall defensive capabilities,” Dobrindt said during a visit to Israel, as reported by Germany’s Bild newspaper.
Dobrindt, who was appointed by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz last month, arrived in Israel on Saturday.
According to the Bild report, Dobrindt outlined a five-point plan aimed at establishing what he called a “Cyber Dome” for Germany, as part of its cyberdefense strategy.
Earlier on Sunday, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Soeder called for the acquisition of 2,000 interceptor missiles to equip Germany with an “Iron Dome” system similar to Israel’s short-range missile defense technology.


French minister calls for extension of EU-US trade talks

Updated 29 June 2025
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French minister calls for extension of EU-US trade talks

  • Progress in the negotiations between the huge trading partners remains unclear
  • US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that deadlines on some countries negotiating in good faith could be extended

PARIS: France’s finance minister has called for extending EU-US trade talks beyond the July 9 deadline in order to secure a better agreement.
US President Donald Trump has set the deadline for the trade talks, warning that failure to reach agreement could trigger higher US tariffs on goods from cars to pharmaceuticals.
Progress in the negotiations between the huge trading partners remains unclear. European officials are increasingly resigned to a 10 percent “reciprocal” tariff imposed by Washington in April being the baseline in any deal, sources familiar with the talks have told Reuters.
“I think that we are going to strike a deal with the Americans,” French Finance Minister Eric Lombard told newspaper La Tribune Dimanche in an interview published on Sunday.
“Regarding the deadline, my wish is for another postponement. I would rather have a good deal than a bad deal on July 9,” he said.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said earlier this month that deadlines on some countries negotiating in good faith could be extended.
French President Emmanuel Macron said following an EU summit on Thursday that France wants a quick and pragmatic trade deal with the United States but would not accept unbalanced terms.
EU leaders discussed a new US proposal at the summit but the European Commission did not reveal the content of the offer.
Lombard said that energy could form part of a trade deal, with the EU potentially increasing its imports of US gas to replace flows from Russia.