JAKARTA: At least seven international flights from Indonesia’s resort island Bali have been canceled, an airport official said Friday, after a volcano in the archipelago nation’s east erupted, shooting dark ash eight kilometers into the sky and forcing thousands to evacuate.
Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-meter (5,587-foot) twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, erupted for 11 minutes and nine seconds late Thursday, authorities said, raising the volcano’s alert status to the highest level.
As of 9:45 a.m. (0145 GMT) Friday, “seven international flights had been canceled, six of them are Jetstar flights bound to Australia and one Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur,” Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport spokesman, Andadina Dyah, said in a statement.
Several other flights — both domestic and international, including to Thailand, Singapore and Australia — have been delayed, it said.
The local government has declared a 14-day emergency and established a command post to coordinate response efforts, the country’s disaster agency spokesman (BNPB), Abdul Muhari, said in a statement on Friday.
Abdul added that more than 4,700 residents have been evacuated as of Friday and called on those remaining to find a safe location.
“The people are asked to remain in safe locations and follow directives from the regional government,” Abdul said.
The local airport in Maumere, on Flores, the closest to the volcano, has not been affected by the ash, according to the transportation ministry.
“The ash column was observed grey to black with thick intensity,” Indonesia’s volcanology agency said in a statement about the eruption, which began at around 11:00 p.m. on Thursday.
Volcanic ash from the eruption blanketed several nearby villages on Friday.
At least two people were injured, including a man whose roof collapsed under volcanic debris, a local official said.
The agency warned residents of the risk of volcanic mudflows due to heavy rainfall.
The long eruption prompted the country’s geological agency to raise the volcano’s alert level to the highest of the four-tiered system.
Authorities imposed an exclusion zone between seven and eight kilometers (four to five miles) around the volcano, the agency added.
In November, Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted multiple times, killing nine people, canceling scores of international flights to the tourist island of Bali and forcing thousands to evacuate.
Laki-Laki, which means “man” in Indonesian, is twinned with a calmer volcano named after the Indonesian word for “woman.”
Indonesia, a vast archipelago nation, experiences frequent seismic and volcanic activity due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
Flights canceled, thousands evacuated after Indonesia volcano eruption
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Flights canceled, thousands evacuated after Indonesia volcano eruption
- Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki, a 1,703-meter twin-peaked volcano on the tourist island of Flores, erupted for 11 minutes and nine seconds late Thursday
- Several other flights – both domestic and international, including to Thailand, Singapore and Australia – have been delayed
Trial of former President Sarkozy sheds light on France’s back-channel talks with Libya’s Qaddafi
During the trial, Sarkozy has said he has “never ever betrayed” families of victims
PARIS: The monthslong trial of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy over the alleged illegal financing of his 2007 presidential campaign is shedding light on France’s back-channel talks with the government of then-Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi.
Family members of terrorist attacks sponsored by Qaddafi’s regime have told the court they suspect that Sarkozy was willing to sacrifice the memories of their loved ones in order to normalize ties with Libya almost two decades ago.
French prosecutors on Thursday requested a seven-year prison sentence for the 70-year-old former leader. Sarkozy, who was president from 2007 to 2012, has denied all wrongdoing.
The trial, which started in January, is to continue until April 8, with Sarkozy’s lawyers to plead on the last day. The verdict is expected at a later date.
Some key moments in the trial have focused on talks between France and Libya in the 2000s, when Qaddafi was seeking to restore diplomatic ties with the West. Before that, Libya was considered a pariah state for having sponsored attacks.
French families of victims of a 1989 plane bombing told the court about their shock and sense of betrayal as the trial questioned whether promises possibly made to Qaddafi’s government were part of the alleged corruption deal.
The Lockerbie and UTA flight bombings
In 1988, a bomb planted aboard a Pam Am flight exploded while the plane was over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 270 people from 21 countries, including 190 Americans.
The following year, on Sept. 19, 1989, the bombing of UTA flight 772 over Niger killed 170 people, including 54 French nationals on board, after an in-flight explosion caused by a suitcase bomb.
Both French and US investigations have tied both bombings to Libya, whose government had engaged in long-running hostilities with the US and other Western governments.
Now, families of victims are wondering whether French government officials close to Sarkozy promised to forget about the bombings in exchange for business opportunities with the oil-rich nation and possibly, an alleged corruption deal.
“What did they do with our dead?” Nicoletta Diasio, the daughter of a man who died in the bombing, has told the court, saying she wondered if the memories of the victims “could have been used for bartering” in talks between France and Libya.
During the trial, Sarkozy has said he has “never ever betrayed” families of victims. “I have never traded their fate for any compromise, nor pact of realpolitik,” he said.
Libya’s push to restore ties with the West
Libya was long a pariah state for its involvement in the 1980s bombings.
In 2003, it took responsibility for both the 1988 and 1989 plane bombings and agreed to pay billions in compensation to the victims’ families.
Qaddafi also announced he was dismantling his nuclear weapons program, which led to the lifting of international sanctions against the country.
Britain, France and other Western countries sought to restore a relationship with Libya for security, diplomatic and business purposes.
In 2007, Sarkozy welcomed Qaddafi to Paris with honors for a five-day official visit, allowing him to set up a bedouin tent near the Elysee presidential palace. Many French people still remember that gesture, feeling Sarkozy went too far to please a dictator.
Sarkozy said during the trial he would have preferred to “do without” Qaddafi’s visit at the time but it came as a diplomatic gesture after Libya’s release of Bulgarian nurses who were imprisoned and facing death sentences for a crime they said they did not commit.
Bulgarian nurses
On July 24, 2007, under an accord partially brokered by first lady Cecilia Sarkozy and EU officials, Libya released the five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor.
The medics, who had spent over eight years in prison, faced death sentence on charges they deliberately infected hundreds of children with the AIDS virus in the late 1990s — an allegation they denied.
The release of the medics removed the last major obstacle to Libya’s rejoining the international community.
Sarkozy traveled to the capital, Tripoli, for talks with Qaddafi the day after the medics were returned to Bulgaria on a French presidential plane.
In court has spoken of his “pride to have saved those six persons.”
“If you did not discuss with Qaddafi, you’d not get the release of the nurses,” he said.
Libya’s spy chief at heart of questions
Accused of masterminding the attack on UTA Flight 772, Qaddafi’s brother-in-law and intelligence chief Abdullah Al-Senoussi was convicted in absentia to a life sentence by a Paris court in 1999 for the attack.
An international arrest warrant was issued for him and five other suspects.
Financial prosecutors have accused Sarkozy of having promised to lift the arrest warrant targeting Al-Senoussi in exchange for alleged campaign financing.
In 2005, people close to Sarkozy, who was at the time the interior minister, including his chief of staff Claude Guéant and junior minister Brice Hortefeux, traveled to Tripoli, where they met with Al-Senoussi.
Both Guéant and Hortefeux have told the court that it was a “surprise” meeting they were not aware of beforehand.
Al-Senoussi told investigative judges that millions of dollars were provided to support Sarkozy’s campaign. Accused of war crimes, he is now imprisoned in Libya.
Sarkozy has strongly denied that.
Qaddafi’s son accusations
Qaddafi’s son, Seif Al-Islam, told the French news network RFI in January that he was personally involved in giving Sarkozy 5 million dollars in cash.
Seif Al-Islam sent RFI radio a two-page statement on his version of events. It was the first time he talked to the media about the case since 2011.
He said Sarkozy initially “received $2.5 million from Libya to finance his electoral campaign” during the 2007 presidential election, in return for which Sarkozy would “conclude agreements and carry out projects in favor of Libya.”
He said a second payment of $2.5 million in cash was handed over without specifying when it was given.
According to him, Libyan authorities expected that in return, Sarkozy would end a legal case about the 1989 UTA Flight 771 attack — including removing his name from an international warrant notice.
Sarkozy strongly denied those allegations.
“You’ll never find one Libyan euro, one Libyan cent in my campaign,” he said at the opening of the trial in January. “There’s no corruption money because there was no corruption.”
Sarkozy turning his back to Qaddafi
The Libyan civil war started in February 2011, with army units and militiamen loyal to Qaddafi opposing rebels.
Sarkozy was the first Western leader to take a public stance to support the rebellion.
On Feb. 25, 2011, he said the violence by pro-Qaddafi forces was unacceptable and should not go unpunished. “Qaddafi must go,” he said at the time.
On March 10 that year, France was the first country in the world to recognize the National Transitional Council as the legitimate government of Libya.
“That was the Arab Spring,” Sarkozy told the court. “Qaddafi was the only dictator who had sent (military) aircrafts against his people. He had promised rivers of blood, that’s his expression.”
Muammar Qaddafi was killed by opposition fighters in Oct. 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.
Putin suggests putting Ukraine under UN-sponsored external governance, boasts battlefield gains
- Putin reaffirmed his claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose term expired last year, lacks the legitimacy to sign a peace deal
- He added that such external governance is just “one of the options,” without elaborating
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed Friday to put Ukraine under external governance under the UN aegis as part of efforts to reach a peaceful settlement, a blustery statement that reflected the Kremlin leader’s determination to achieve his war goals.
Speaking to the crew of a Russian nuclear submarine in televised remarks broadcast early Friday, Putin reaffirmed his claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose term expired last year, lacks the legitimacy to sign a peace deal.
Under Ukraine’s constitution it is illegal for the country to hold national elections while it’s under martial law.
Putin claimed that any agreement that is signed with the current Ukrainian government could be challenged by its successors and said new elections could be held under external governance.
“Under the auspices of the United Nations, with the United States, even with European countries, and, of course, with our partners and friends, we could discuss the possibility of introduction of temporary governance in Ukraine,” Putin said, adding that it would allow the country to “hold democratic elections, to bring to power a viable government that enjoys the trust of the people, and then begin negotiations with them on a peace treaty.”
He added that such external governance is just “one of the options,” without elaborating.
‘They’re playing for time’
Putin’s remarks came hours after the conclusion of a summit hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron that considered plans to deploy troops to Ukraine to cement an eventual peace deal. Macron said “several” other nations want to be part of the force alongside France and Britain.
Russia has warned it wouldn’t accept any troops from NATO members as part of a prospective peacekeeping force.
Macron and other participants of the Paris summit on Thursday accused Russia of only pretending to want a negotiated settlement.
“They are playing games and they’re playing for time,” said UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “We can’t let them drag this out while they continue prosecuting their illegal invasion.”
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a tentative U.S-brokered deal to pause strikes on energy infrastructure, but quickly accused each other of violations, underscoring the challenges to negotiating a broader peace.
Drone attacks continue
Russia launched 163 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine late Thursday, according to the Ukrainian air force, which said that 89 of them were downed and 51 more jammed.
The drones damaged multiple residential buildings and injured a 19-year-old in Zaporizhzhia, regional head Ivan Fedorov said. In Poltava, drones damaged warehouses, administrative building, and a high-voltage transformer, according to regional head Volodymyr Kohut.
Damage to buildings and infrastructure facilities was also reported by the authorities in the Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipro and Mykolaiv regions.
Ukraine’s state-run gas company, Naftogaz, said Friday that its facilities came under Russian fire without specifying its time and location.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian forces struck a gas metering station in Sudzha in the Kursk region with US-made HIMARS rockets, completely destroying the facility. It said another Ukrainian strike on an energy facility in Russia’s Bryansk region led to a power cutoff, and added that air defenses downed 19 Ukrainian drones that attempted to strike an oil refinery in Saratov.
The ministry said the continuing strikes show that Kyiv’s pledge of adherence to a US-proposed halt on strikes on energy facilities was just “another ruse by Zelensky to prevent the collapse of Ukrainian defenses and to restore military potential with the help of European allies.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy assets was a sign that Zelensky can’t control his military.
“The Ukrainian armed forces aren’t following orders from the country’s leadership and are continuing attempts to strike Russia’s energy infrastructure,” Peskov said in a conference call with reporters.
He said that Russia will continue sticking to the halt on strikes on energy facilities but reserves the right to opt out of the deal if violations continue.
‘Strictly adhering to agreements’
Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s claims of Ukrainian strikes on energy facilities as fake, aimed at “discrediting Ukraine and the diplomatic efforts of Ukraine and its partners.”
“We emphasize that the Ukrainian Defense Forces are strictly adhering to the agreements reached with partners to stop strikes on energy facilities,” the General Staff said, emphasizing that the military only has struck Russia’s military targets.
It also accused Russia of violating the “energy ceasefire,” saying that it has struck energy infrastructure in the city of Kherson and Poltava region of Ukraine over the last 24 hours.
“The Russian tactic of dragging out the war remains unchanged,” Ukraine’s General Staff said.
While Ukraine has agreed to a full, 30-day ceasefire that US President Donald Trump has proposed, Putin has made a complete ceasefire conditional on a halt of arms supplies to Kyiv and a suspension of Ukraine’s military mobilization — demands rejected by Ukraine and its Western allies.
Russia’s battlefield gains
Russian troops have made slow but steady gains in several sectors of the more than 1,000-kilometer (over 620-mile) frontline, and Zelensky warned Thursday that Russia was trying to drag out talks in preparation for bigger offensives.
Putin declared in overnight remarks that the Russian troops have “gained steam” and “are holding strategic initiative all along the line of contact.”
He noted that Russia is open to a peaceful settlement, but emphasized the need to “remove root causes that led to the current situation.”
“We certainly need to ensure Russia’s security for a long historic perspective,” he said.
Putin has demanded that Kyiv withdraw its forces from the four regions Moscow has partially seized. He also wants Ukraine to renounce joining NATO, sharply cut its army and legally protect Russian language and culture to keep the country in Moscow’s orbit.
Russian officials also have said that any prospective peace deal should involve unfreezing Russian assets in the West and lifting other US and European Union sanctions. The Trump administration has said it would consider potential sanctions relief.
WHO readying medical supplies for ‘huge’ Myanmar quake
- WHO is coordinating its earthquake response from its Geneva headquarters “because we see this as a huge event” spokeswoman Margaret Harris said
- She said the WHO would also be concentrating on getting in essential medicines
GENEVA: The WHO said it had triggered its emergency management system in response to Friday’s “huge” earthquake in Myanmar and was mobilizing its logistics hub in Dubai to prepare trauma injury supplies.
The World Health Organization is coordinating its earthquake response from its Geneva headquarters “because we see this as a huge event” with “clearly a very, very big threat to life and health,” spokeswoman Margaret Harris told a media briefing.
“We’ve activated our logistics hub to look particularly for trauma supplies and things like external fixators because we expect that there will be many, many injuries that need to be dealt with,” Harris said.
She said the WHO would also be concentrating on getting in essential medicines, while the health infrastructure in Myanmar itself might be damaged.
Harris said that due to recent experience with the 2023 Turkiye-Syria earthquakes, “we know very well what you need to send in first.”
The UN health agency already has a special cell to deal with Myanmar, which has been rocked by fighting between numerous ethnic rebel groups and the army.
And by chance, the WHO had done an assessment in recent weeks of the best ways to get supplies into Myanmar.
“We are ready to move in — but now we have to know exactly where, what and why. It’s information from the ground that’s really critical right now,” said Harris.
From dabke to digital: How South Koreans mobilize for Palestine
- More than 230 groups are part of Urgent Action by Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine
- Creativity of their campaigns is an inherent trait of South Korea’s civic activism in the 21st century
SEOUL: From one-man protests to mass demonstrations, performances and literature, South Koreans are increasingly raising awareness on Palestine, with activists outdoing each other in creative expression as the solidarity movement quickly grows.
Advocacy for Palestine has been present in South Korea for several decades, but it has never been as prominent as it is now. While it began to gain some traction in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, only a handful of activists were involved.
“It was difficult to mobilize back then. Sometimes we had just two members, usually five,” Deng Ya-ping, leader of BDS Korea — a group affiliated with the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement — told Arab News.
Korean civil society groups used to get together to denounce Israel, but only in response to particular incidents.
“When the situation was over, the groups would return to advocating for their own agendas,” Deng said.
“But now, because the massacre and genocide have been going on for the past 15 months and it’s becoming serious, so many groups — to new magnitudes — have been collaborating to show solidarity.”
It started out as marches in downtown Seoul and soon evolved into a multifaceted awareness campaign as Israel’s response to the attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in October 2023 reached a genocidal scale.
More than 230 civil society groups have joined together as Urgent Action by Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine, transforming what was once a little-known cause into a dynamic and visible movement that incorporates diverse advocacy methods.
Every day, members of the movement choose one person to hold a banner reading “Stop Genocide” in front of the Israeli Embassy in Seoul and encourage passersby to call for an end to Israel’s onslaught, massacres, and occupation of Palestine.
They also host readathons of Palestinian literature, screen documentaries exposing the realities of life under Israeli occupation, organize meetings with Palestinian refugees, and learn about Palestine’s culture, as they perform the dabke — a traditional dance and a symbol of Palestinian resistance and identity.
Social media has played a major role in amplifying these efforts. A recent Instagram campaign went viral after Korean activists filmed themselves posing as Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, who remained defiant to the end. The footage released by Israeli forces showed Sinwar with severe injuries and one hand severed, but still fighting the combat drone they had sent to kill him.
The creativity displayed by the Palestine solidarity movement is an inherent trait of South Korea’s civic activism.
“South Korea’s demonstration culture has become highly creative in the 21st century. This is also reflected in the Palestinian solidarity movement here,” said Eom Han-jin, sociology professor at Hallym University in Chuncheon.
“Towards the end of the 1990s, South Korea had already become a democracy, so it had the capability to focus on not only domestic issues, but issues that occur in other regions. The Palestine issue was one of the major international solidarity movements at the time, and people in Korea started to take interest in the Israeli occupation and atrocities in 2000 … Then, the US invaded Iraq, and South Korea sent troops, making it a major agenda for social movements.”
As people who have also experienced colonial occupation, Koreans feel a sense of connection to Palestinians, which has lately been fueled by the influx of foreign workers and students from Palestine and the Middle East who share their stories firsthand.
What strengthens the movement further is the current situation in Korea as well.
“As anti-government protests intensify, the pro-Palestine movement has become part of this larger wave of resistance,” Eom said.
“Unlike in other countries where activism is focused around Middle Easterners and people who sympathize with them, a very diverse set of groups have been collaborating and advocating in South Korea.”
By blending digital advocacy with cultural and grassroots activism, the South Korean movement has attracted a broad and varied base of supporters.
“I was shocked when I saw children being killed and hospitals being attacked,” said Kim Seok-gyu, a 22-year-old observer of the movement.
“I was dumbfounded, because how can they (Israelis) possibly do something like this in the 21st century?”
He is not alone. A recent study by Hankook Research found that 62 percent of its respondents felt more sympathetic toward the Palestinian cause. Support for Israel, on the other hand, has plummeted.
Joo Jeon-ja, a 30-year-old not affiliated with any activist group, has been joining the protests they organize.
“In the news, I have seen little children being killed by the Israelis. I just couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought I had to act,” she said.
“I can’t make large donations or go help the kids, so I just want to do my best from what I can. That is why I participate. I plan to participate more often in the future.”
Joo is also trying to get more people involved.
“I want to bring more people to the protests with me in the future,” she said.
“I realized that collective efforts are important in making a change. It is voices like ours that (can) … make a real difference. And that is what I strive to do.”
Another driving force behind the solidarity movement’s expansion is student activism, which engages especially the younger generations.
Unlike their US counterparts, who have largely relied on mass demonstrations and sit-ins, South Korean students have diversified their activism by running advocacy booths, collecting signatures for petitions, and hosting discussion forums. Online campaigns, inter-university collaborations, and hashtag movements have also gained traction.
One of the organizations is Yalla Yonsei at Yonsei University, one of Seoul’s top institutions.
“There are student groups like ours across several universities in Seoul. We often collaborate on events. For example, there is Soobak (‘watermelon’ in Korean) at the Seoul National University, and we sometimes hold educational seminars with them,” said Lim Jae-kyung.
“I want to keep doing what we are doing in order to give support to the people suffering in Palestine. It is those people who are really suffering. The hardships we go through here are nothing compared to what the people are feeling there. There is not much we can do from Korea, but we will keep on fighting.”
UN’s food aid body warns of crisis as funding cut by 40%
- Despite the generosity of many governments and individuals, WFP is ‘experiencing a steep decline in funding across its major donors’
The WFP said that despite the generosity of many governments and individuals, it is “experiencing a steep decline in funding across its major donors.”
“Right now, the organization is facing an alarming 40 percent drop in funding for 2025, as compared to last year,” the Rome-based agency said in statement.
It added: “The severity of these cuts, combined with record levels of people in need, have led to an unprecedented crisis for tens of millions across the globe reliant on food aid.”
It did not name any individual country, but the United States, by far the WFP’s biggest donor, has dramatically cut its aid funding since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Other countries have also cut overseas aid, including Germany, the second biggest development aid donor behind the United States, and the UK, which is instead boosting defense spending.
“WFP is prioritizing countries with the greatest needs and stretching food rations at the frontlines,” said Rania Dagash-Kamara, WFP Assistant Executive Director for Partnerships and Innovation.
“While we are doing everything possible to reduce operational costs, make no mistake, we are facing a funding cliff with life-threatening consequences.”
The WFP highlighted 28 of its most critical operations which it said were facing severe funding constraints and “dangerously low food supplies” through to August.
They include Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, South Sudan, Chad, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Uganda, Niger, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Mali, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Haiti, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Ukraine, Malawi, Burundi, Ethiopia, the Palestinian territories, Central African Republic, Jordan, and Egypt.
The WFP had Thursday warned it had only two weeks’ worth of food left in Gaza, where “hundreds of thousands of people” are at risk of severe hunger and malnutrition.
