Ukraine’s Zelensky hosts talks with UN chief, Turkey leader

Ukraine’s Zelensky hosts talks with UN chief, Turkey leader
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan meets with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Lviv, Ukraine August 18, 2022. (Reuters)
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Updated 18 August 2022

Ukraine’s Zelensky hosts talks with UN chief, Turkey leader

Ukraine’s Zelensky hosts talks with UN chief, Turkey leader
  • At the meetings, Turkey agreed to help rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure, including roads and bridges
  • Zelensky asked Guterres to seek UN access to Ukrainian citizens deported to Russia

LVIV, Ukraine: Turkey’s president and the UN chief met with Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky on Thursday in a high-stakes bid to ratchet down a war raging for nearly six months, boost desperately needed grain exports and secure Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant. But little progress was reported.
The gathering, held far from the front lines in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, near the Polish border, marked the first visit to Ukraine by Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan since the outbreak of the war, and the second by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Erdogan has positioned himself as a go-between in efforts to stop the fighting. While Turkey is a member of NATO — which backs Ukraine in the war — its wobbly economy is reliant on Russia for trade, and it has tried to steer a middle course between the two combatants.
At the meetings, Turkey agreed to help rebuild Ukraine’s infrastructure, including roads and bridges, and Zelensky asked Guterres to seek UN access to Ukrainian citizens deported to Russia, according to the Ukrainian president’s website. Zelensky also requested UN help in freeing captured Ukrainian soldiers and medics.
On the battlefield, meanwhile, at least 17 people were killed and 42 wounded in heavy Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Ukrainian authorities said.
Russia’s military claimed that it struck a base for foreign mercenaries in Kharkiv, killing 90. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side.
Heightening international tensions, Russia deployed warplanes carrying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to the country’s Kaliningrad region, an enclave surrounded by two NATO countries, Lithuania and Poland.
The three leaders’ agenda included the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the complex, and the fighting has raised fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
Zelensky has demanded that Russian troops leave the plant and that a team from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency be allowed in.
Zelensky and the UN chief agreed Thursday on arrangements for an IAEA mission to the plant, according to the president’s website. But it was not immediately clear whether the Kremlin would consent to the proposed terms. As for a pullout of troops, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said that would leave the plant “vulnerable.”
Concerns about the plant mounted Thursday when Russian and Ukrainian authorities accused each other of plotting to attack the site and then blame the other side.
Earlier this month, Erdogan met in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the fighting. And last month, Turkey and the UN helped broker agreements clearing the way for Ukraine to export 22 million tons of corn and other grain stuck in its Black Sea ports since Russia invaded Feb. 24. The agreements also sought to clear roadblocks to exports of Russian food and fertilizer to world markets.
The war has significantly worsened the global food crisis because Ukraine and Russia are major suppliers of grain. Developing countries have been hit particularly hard by shortages and high prices, and the UN has declared several African nations in danger of famine.
Yet even with the deal, only a trickle of Ukrainian grain exports has made it out. Turkey said more than 622,000 tons of grain have been shipped from Ukrainian ports since the deal was reached.
At a news conference Thursday in Lviv, Guterres touted the success of the grain export agreements but added, “There is a long way to go before this will be translated into the daily life of people at their local bakery and in their markets.”
The discussions about an overall end to the war that has killed untold thousands and forced over 10 million Ukrainians to flee their homes were not expected to yield anything substantive.
In March, Turkey hosted talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, but the effort to end the hostilities failed, with the two sides blaming each other.
Erdogan has engaged in a delicate balancing act, maintaining good relations with both Russia and Ukraine. Turkey has provided Ukraine with drones, which have played a significant role in the fighting, but it has refrained from joining Western sanctions against Russia over the war.
Turkey is facing a major economic crisis, with official inflation near 80 percent, and is increasingly dependent on Russia for trade and tourism. Russian gas covers 45 percent of Turkish energy needs, and Russia’s atomic agency is building Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.
Sinan Ulgen of the Istanbul-based EDAM think tank characterized Turkey’s diplomatic policy as being “pro-Ukraine without being anti-Russia.”
“Turkey believed that it did not have the luxury to totally alienate Russia,” Ulgen said.


Pope recovering well from surgery but to skip Sunday blessing

Pope recovering well from surgery but to skip Sunday blessing
Updated 58 min 34 sec ago

Pope recovering well from surgery but to skip Sunday blessing

Pope recovering well from surgery but to skip Sunday blessing
  • Chief surgeon Sergio Alfieri said the 86-year-old had agreed with doctors to stay there for at least all of next week
  • Francis underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia on Wednesday

ROME: Pope Francis’ recovery from surgery is going well but doctors advised him not to deliver his Sunday blessing from a hospital balcony to avoid strain on his abdomen.
Briefing reporters at the Gemelli hospital on Saturday, chief surgeon Sergio Alfieri also said the 86-year-old had agreed with doctors to stay there for at least all of next week.
Francis underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia on Wednesday.
“Only three days have passed. We asked the Holy Father to be prudent and avoid the strain (of standing at the balcony),” Alfieri said. “Each time he gets out of bed and sits in an armchair puts stress on the abdominal walls.”
A mesh prosthetic was inserted into the abdominal wall to help it heal and doctors want it to settle and attach properly to avoid another operation if it breaks, he added.
“You can understand how that would not be pleasing for him, and for me,” Alfieri joked.

PORTUGAL, MONGOLIA TRIPS STILL ON SCHEDULE
Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the pope would say Sunday’s traditional noon Angelus prayer in his hospital suite and the faithful could say it at the same time.
Alfieri said the pope was taken off intravenous tubes on Friday and had started a semi-liquid diet. All medical parameters were within the norm, there were no cardiac problems and complete healing of the abdominal scars would take about three months, he added.
The Vatican said blood test results were good and chest X-rays showed no problems.
Francis had part of one lung removed because of an illness when he was 21-year-old in his native Argentina.
Doctors had said after the operation that the pope should have no limitations on travels and other activities after recovery. He has trips to Portugal on Aug. 2-6 for World Youth Day and to visit the Shrine of Fatima, and to Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4, one of the remotest places he will have visited.
Bruni reiterated that all audiences had been canceled until June 18 but after that the pope’s schedule would remain for now.
The pope traditionally takes all of July off, with the Sunday blessings being his only public appearance, so he will have the entire month to rest before the Portugal trip.


Indonesia set to deport Australian surfer who apologized for drunken rampage

Indonesia set to deport Australian surfer who apologized for drunken rampage
Updated 10 June 2023

Indonesia set to deport Australian surfer who apologized for drunken rampage

Indonesia set to deport Australian surfer who apologized for drunken rampage
  • Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, 23, from Queensland, was detained in late April on Simeulue Island, a surf resort
  • Police accused him of going on a drunken rampage that left a fisherman with serious injuries

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s authorities were set to deport on Saturday an Australian surfer who apologized for attacking several people while drunk and naked in the deeply conservative Muslim province of Aceh.
Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, 23, from Queensland, was detained in late April on Simeulue Island, a surf resort, after police accused him of going on a drunken rampage that left a fisherman with serious injuries.
Risby-Jones was released from prison on Tuesday after he went through a restorative justice process, apologized for the attack and agreed to pay compensation to the fisherman. That allowed him to avoid going to court and facing a possible charge of assault that could have landed him up to five years in prison.
His lawyer, Idris Marbawi, said the two sides agreed that Risby-Jones would pay the fisherman’s family for hospital fees and a traditional peace ceremony. The total payment was 300 million rupiah ($20,000). The fisherman underwent surgery in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, for broken bones and an infection in his legs.
“Risby-Jones is the first foreigner to successfully resolve a case through restorative justice in Aceh province,” Marbawi said. “He deeply regretted what happened and vowed to return to Indonesia for surfing.”
After his release, Risby-Jones stayed at an immigration detention center. He was due to depart for Melbourne on Saturday evening, Marbawi said.
Footage of his release on Tuesday showed Risby-Jones being escorted by officers to a bus after hugging and saying goodbye to several prison wardens.
“It’s been a long time coming and I’m feeling amazing and super happy and grateful,” he said. “Everyone has been very nice and accommodated me well. Thank you.”
Violent acts by foreigners are rare in Aceh, the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that practices Shariah, a concession made by the central government in 2001 as part of efforts to end a decades-long war for independence.


Russia says will ‘respond’ after Iceland embassy closure

Russia says will ‘respond’ after Iceland embassy closure
Updated 10 June 2023

Russia says will ‘respond’ after Iceland embassy closure

Russia says will ‘respond’ after Iceland embassy closure
  • "All of Reykjavik's anti-Russian actions will inevitably prompt a response," the Russian foreign ministry said
  • Iceland on Friday said it would suspend work at its embassy in Moscow as of August 1 and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik

MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it would “respond” after Iceland became the first country to suspend its embassy operations in Moscow.
“All of Reykjavik’s anti-Russian actions will inevitably prompt a response,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, accusing Iceland of “ruining” relations between the countries.
“We will take this unfriendly decision into account when we establish our relations with Iceland in the future,” the ministry added.
Iceland on Friday said it would suspend work at its embassy in Moscow as of August 1 and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik.
“The current situation simply does not make it viable for the small foreign service of Iceland to operate an embassy in Russia,” Foreign Minister Thordis Gylfadottir said.
In a symbolic move, staff could be seen taking down the Icelandic flag hanging from the side of the embassy in Moscow on Friday.
The Icelandic foreign ministry stressed that the decision “does not constitute a severance of diplomatic relations.”
But since commercial, cultural and political ties with Russia were “at an all-time low,” maintaining embassy operations in Moscow was “no longer justifiable,” it said.
The Nordic country has had an embassy in Moscow since 1944 which became a symbolic East-West meeting point toward the end of the Cold War.


Rains unleashed by typhoon worry thousands of people fleeing restive Philippine volcano

Rains unleashed by typhoon worry thousands of people fleeing restive Philippine volcano
Updated 10 June 2023

Rains unleashed by typhoon worry thousands of people fleeing restive Philippine volcano

Rains unleashed by typhoon worry thousands of people fleeing restive Philippine volcano
  • More than 6,000 villagers have been forced to leave rural communities within a 6-kilometer radius of Mayon volcano’s crater

BONGA, Philippines: Thousands of people who fled their homes in the central Philippines to escape a restive volcano have to contend with another threat that’s complicating the ongoing evacuations: monsoon rains that could be unleashed by an approaching typhoon.
More than 6,000 villagers have been forced to leave rural communities within a 6-kilometer radius of Mayon volcano’s crater in northeastern Albay province. Thousands more need to be moved to safety from the permanent danger zone, officials said.
Others living outside the perimeter have packed their bags and voluntarily left with their children for evacuation centers in Albay, which was placed under a state of calamity on Friday to allow more rapid disbursement of emergency funds in case a major eruption unfolds.
Authorities raised the alert level for the volcano on Thursday after superheated streams of gas, debris and rocks cascaded down its upper slope, indicating activity below the surface that could precede a hazardous eruption within days or weeks.
A key tourist draw for its picturesque conical shape, the 2,462-meter Mayon is one of the country’s most active volcanoes. It last erupted violently in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of villagers.
Authorities warned that Typhoon Guchol, which is approaching the Philippines from the Pacific but is projected to skirt the archipelago, may still dump heavy rains — an unwelcome news for those living near Mayon’s slopes.
“There’s a typhoon and floodwaters may rush down Mayon and swamp this village. That’s one of our fears,” Villamor Lopez, a house painter, said.
He sat worriedly with his relatives clinging to their bags of clothes, rice in pouches and bottles of drinking water on a pickup truck hauling villagers from Daraga town in Albay to an emergency shelter several kilometers (miles) away.
Other residents chatted on a roadside near a chapel, still undecided whether to leave.
A loudspeaker in their laid-back community of low-slung rural houses and narrow dirt alleys warned people to prepare to evacuate anytime if the situation worsens. In the overcast sky above them, the volcano laid hidden by thick rainclouds.
Village leader Dennis Bon, who was preparing to drive Lopez and others to the shelter, said he would not risk waiting until the last minute.
“We have children, persons with disabilities and elderly residents here,” Bon said, before he drove off.
Albay Gov. Edcel Greco Lagman and Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian said they were prepared if monsoon rains were to trigger mudflows and rockfalls.
“We will still make sure that we will have no casualties from any compounded calamities,” Lagman said.
Despite growing worries among many villagers, those who have survived Mayon’s eruptions over decades were taking the latest threats in stride.
In Bonga village near the volcano, a few men gingerly took a bath in a stream of spring water flowing down Mayon’s lush foothills and washed two motorcycles near boulders as big as cars that had rolled down years ago during past eruptions.
They shrugged and smiled when asked if the volcano’s new rumblings had struck fear.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the area around the ocean rim where tectonic plates meet that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A long-dormant volcano, Mount Pinatubo, blew its top north of Manila in 1991 in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing hundreds of people.


French stabbing suspect charged with attempted murder as injured toddlers remain hospitalized

French stabbing suspect charged with attempted murder as injured toddlers remain hospitalized
Updated 10 June 2023

French stabbing suspect charged with attempted murder as injured toddlers remain hospitalized

French stabbing suspect charged with attempted murder as injured toddlers remain hospitalized

PARIS: French judges on Saturday handed preliminary charges of attempted murder to a man suspected of stabbing four young children and two adults in a French Alps park.
The suspect is a 31-year-old Syrian refugee with permanent residency in Sweden. 
The lead prosecutor, Line Bonnet-Mathis, said the man was presented to investigating judges in the lakeside town of Annecy on Saturday and handed the charges. He is in custody pending further investigation.
The prosecutor says the victims are no longer in life-threatening condition after Thursday’s attack.
The six victims came from four different countries: France, Britain, the Netherlands and Portugal. The children are between 22 months and 3 years old. 
Police detained the suspect in the lakeside park in the town of Annecy after bystanders — notably, a Catholic pilgrim who repeatedly swung at the attacker with his backpack — sought to deter him.
The motive behind Thursday’s savage attack, in and around a playground, remained unexplained. The prosecutor said it didn’t appear to be terrorism-related.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the victims and their families, first responders and witnesses Friday.
Macron said two young French cousins who were the most critically injured have stabilized, and doctors were “very confident.”
The wounded British girl “is awake, she’s watching television,” Macron added. A wounded Dutch girl also has improved and a critically injured adult — who was both knifed and wounded by a shot that police fired as they detained the suspected attacker — is regaining consciousness, Macron said.
The seriously injured adult was treated in Annecy. Portugal’s foreign ministry said he is Portuguese and “now out of danger.” He was wounded “trying to stop the attacker from fleeing from the police,” it said. The second injured adult was discharged from a hospital, his left elbow bandaged.
The pilgrim, Henri, a 24-year-old who is on a nine-month walking and hitchhiking tour of France’s cathedrals, said he’d been setting off to another abbey when the horror unfolded in front of him. The attacker slashed at him, but Henri held his ground and used a weighty backpack he was carrying to swing at the assailant.
Henri’s father said his son “told me that the Syrian was incoherent, saying lots of strange things in different languages, invoking his father, his mother, all the Gods.”
The suspect’s profile fueled renewed criticism from far-right and conservative politicians about French migration policies. But authorities noted that the suspect entered France legally, because he has permanent residency status in Sweden. Sweden and France are both members of the EU and Europe’s border-free travel zone.
He applied for asylum in France last year and was refused a few days before the attack, on the grounds that he had already won asylum in Sweden in 2013, the French interior minister said.