Zelensky calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam

Zelensky calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam
This file photo taken in May 2022 shows a view of the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, Kherson Oblast, amid the ongoing Russian military action in Ukraine. (AFP)
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Updated 21 October 2022

Zelensky calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam

Zelensky calls on West to warn Russia not to blow up dam
  • Zelenskiy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the huge Nova Kakhovka dam and were planning to blow it up
  • "Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack”

KHERSON, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the West to warn Russia not to blow up a huge dam that would flood a swath of southern Ukraine.
The call comes as his forces prepare to push Moscow’s troops from Kherson in one of the war’s most important battles.
In a television address, Zelensky said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the huge Nova Kakhovka dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir that dominates much of southern Ukraine, and were planning to blow it up.
“Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster,” he said.
Russia accused Kyiv earlier this week of rocketing the dam and planning to destroy it, in what Ukrainian officials called a sign that Moscow might blow it up and blame Kyiv. Neither side produced evidence to back up their allegations.
The vast Dnipro bisects Ukraine and is several km wide in places. Bursting the dam could send a wall of water flooding settlements below it, toward the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces hope to recapture in a major advance.
It would also wreck the canal system that irrigates much of southern Ukraine, including Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014.
The alarm has echoes of a World War Two disaster at another huge dam further upriver, which Ukrainian historians say was dynamited by Soviet sappers as their troops retreated, causing floods that swept away villages and killed thousands of people.
Zelensky called on world leaders to make clear that blowing up the dam would be treated “exactly the same as the use of weapons of mass destruction,” with similar consequences to those threatened if Russia uses nuclear or chemical weapons.
’DIFFICULT DECISIONS’
One of the most important battles of the eight-month-old war is coming to a head near the dam as Ukrainian forces advance along the river’s west bank, aiming to recapture Kherson city and encircle thousands of Russian troops.
Ukraine has imposed an information blackout from the Kherson front, but Russia’s commander Sergei Surovikin said this week that the situation in Kherson was “already difficult” and Russia was “not ruling out difficult decisions” there.
Ukrainian troops manning a section of the front north of Kherson on Friday said there had been a noticeable reduction in recent weeks in shellfire from Russian positions in a tree line that sweeps across an expanse of fallow fields, some 4 km away. The drop off in shooting and an absence of Russian armor movement in the sector, they said, indicated the Russians were short of ammunition and equipment. The only sign of fighting was the occasional crump of an exploding shell in the distance.
“They’ve been shooting less starting about three weeks ago,” said Myhailo, 42, who like other soldiers deployed with him withheld his last name. “And their drones are less active.”
“It’s probably been about a month there’s been less shelling,” agreed Sasha, 19. “This has to finish at some point. Their ammunition can’t last forever.”
The Kremlin on Friday sidestepped a question about whether or not President Vladimir Putin had given an order for Russian forces to withdraw from Kherson.
Ukraine’s armed forces general staff said up to 2,000 newly-mobilized Russians had arrived in the region “to replenish losses and strengthen units on the contact line.”
Russian-installed occupation officials have begun what they say is the evacuation of tens of thousands of civilians across the river from towns on the west bank. They accused Kyiv of shelling a ferry overnight, killing at least four civilians. Ukraine said it had fired at a barge but only after a curfew when no civilians should have been out.
As Russian forces have faced setbacks on the battlefield since September, Putin has escalated the war. Last month he ordered the call-up of hundreds of thousands of reservists, announced the annexation of Russian-occupied territory and repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons to protect Russia.
This month, he began a campaign of attacks using cruise missiles and Iranian drones to knock out Ukraine’s power supply ahead of winter. Kyiv and the West say that amounts to deliberate targeting of civil infrastructure and a war crime.
Moscow has acknowledged targeting energy infrastructure but denies targeting civilians, saying the aim of its “special military operation” is to degrade Ukraine’s military.
Since Thursday, Ukrainians have experienced countrywide calls to reduce electricity consumption and some blackouts, which the authorities say are necessary to fix power stations damaged in the attacks.
The United States said on Thursday that Iranian troops were in Crimea and had helped fly the drones to attack Ukraine.
“We can confirm that Russian military personnel based in Crimea have been piloting Iranian UAVs and using them to conduct kinetic strikes across Ukraine, including in strikes against Kyiv in recent days,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told a briefing.
Iran has denied supplying the drones, as has Moscow, although many have been shot down and recovered making their provenance clear.
“Iran and Russia, they can lie to the world, but they certainly can’t hide the facts, and the fact is this: Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.


How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America
Updated 9 min 50 sec ago

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America

How an expat Egyptian got elected by focusing on America
  • Egyptian-American Bolingbrook Illinois Mayor Mary Basta says connecting with local community paves the way for a better understanding of Arab immigrants with Middle Eastern roots

CHICAGO: An Egyptian-American immigrant successful in US political and activism life says that the key to countering pro-Israel propaganda is to make a direct connection with Americans and educate them on the truth about the Middle East conflict.

Mary Basta, who came to America from Egypt in the 1970s at the age of five, pursued a career in hospitality in Nashville, Tennessee, but quickly found herself rising in local politics to become the mayor of the 16th-largest city in Illinois, a state that has 1,456 cities.

Basta told Arab News on Wednesday (June 7) that she achieved her meteoric rise in American politics by focusing on “American interests” first before focusing on the interests of her former homeland Egypt — though not forgetting that heritage either.

“Egyptians and Middle Eastern in general is a little bit unique. We have a hard time because we can’t let go. We always carry the burden on our shoulders of where we are from and the issues that we face. We underwent a revolution and we changed two presidents. And you are always carrying that and you always feel like this is my home, this is my country and my culture and what can I do to help. But for us, we have lots of different issues that we encounter here. Both, one, we aren’t pure Americans so therefore you always feel you have to work harder. You have to achieve more. And then from our family, you always have to be this engineer, or doctor, dentist or this lawyer, because anything else you haven’t been successful in your life,” Basta said.

“So, there are definitely some high benchmarks that we instill in ourselves, and our families instill in us, and trying to live up to those expectations is very hard, while still trying to maintain our traditions and our cultures. Some people hold on to those like they are holding on to life, and some people are glad to get rid of them as soon as possible. So, it is hard to navigate between being true to yourself, your culture, as well as what we are thinking and where your current situation is. It’s not always when in Rome do as the Romans do. Sometimes you have to do as the Greeks do.”

Basta told Arab News that she and her family came to the Chicago suburb of Bolingbrook in 2003 to find a better life, volunteering to assist the local schools and local government to help her children.

Less than 16 years later, Basta entered local politics — what she prefers to call “public service” — serving as a volunteer on several Bolingbrook commissions, including the powerful Zoning Board, which oversees community and business expansion.

She quickly was named chairwoman. Soon after, in 2019, she was named by the city’s mayor and board to fill a vacancy as one of the village’s six trustees. Within a year, after the mayor left office, in 2020, her board colleagues elected her as mayor. And the following year, in 2021, was elected by a majority of the village’s 75,000 residents to a four-year term as the mayor, which she is now serving.

Basta said that her rapid rise in politics, which dwarfs the decades-long efforts of other Arab Americans to enter politics, is different because she focused her attention first on serving the residents of Bolingbrook rather than dedicating her life to changing the politics of the Middle East more than 9,000 miles away.

“This will always be home to my children, where I can say Egypt is my home or even Nashville, but Bolingbrook will be where my kids were born and where they grew up and where they graduated from. So I want that to be a place that they are proud of to bring their kids back here, even grandkids, and say this is where I grew up, this is where I was born, this is my soccer field, this is my school. For that to be something to be proud of it takes effort and it takes work and it takes long-term planning and thinking. So, putting the right people in place, putting the right policies in place, and then watching them getting carried out from that point,” Basta said.

“It’s not about me, it is about we. It’s not what I want but it’s what is better for the community.”

Basta said that running for American political office is much like running a business. It takes “a thick skin” to withstand the criticism, as well as a local focus on the community that elected you. She said that she did face the same discrimination and stereotype “bullying” many Arabs, Christian and Muslims have faced, but she persevered.

“Today’s kids have not seen bullying until you see a little foreign girl growing up in a very white, I am going to use the term redneck, portion of Nashville, Tennessee. So, I definitely know what bullying is. I definitely felt it growing up as being someone who is different. Not just in the way that I looked but also in the culture. As you know, Middle Eastern culture is very different from that in the US, especially for females,” Basta said.

Basta made her comments during an appearance on “The Ray Hanania Radio Show,” broadcast Wednesday May 31 live in Detroit and Washington D.C. on the US Arab Radio Network and sponsored by Arab News.

You can listen to the radio show’s podcast by visiting ArabNews.com/rayradioshow.


Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab
Updated 10 June 2023

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab

Somalia security forces end hotel siege claimed by Al-Shabab
  • Rebels have been waging an insurgency against the government for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels

MOGADISHU: Somali security forces brought to an end the siege of a hotel in the capital Mogadishu, state media said Saturday, after the Islamist Al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The rebels, affiliated with Al-Qaeda, have been waging an insurgency against the internationally backed federal government for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels, which tend to host high-ranking Somali and foreign officials.
The security forces “shot and killed” rebels who carried out “the desperate terrorist attack on the Pearl Beach... in Mogadishu,” SNTV reported on Saturday.
It added that security forces had rescued “many civilians from inside the hotel” and “shot and killed” those responsible.
Security and intelligence sources confirmed the end of the attack to AFP on condition of anonymity.
Witnesses reported hearing gunfire and explosions at the hotel on Lido beach.
“I was near the Pearl Beach restaurant when (a) heavy explosion occurred in front of the building,” witness Abdirahim Ali said.
“I have managed to flee but there was heavy gunfire afterwards and the security forces rushed to the area.”
Yaasin Nur was at the restaurant and said it was “full of people as it was recently renovated.”
“I’m worried because there are several of my colleagues who went there and two of them are not responding to their phones,” he said.
Several ambulances were also parked nearby, an AFP journalist saw.
Al-Shabab has been driven out of Somalia’s main towns and cities but retains power in large swathes of rural areas, and continues to carry out attacks against security and civilian targets, including in the capital.
In August 2020, Al-Shabab launched a large-scale attack on the Elite, another hotel at Lido beach popular with officials, killing 10 civilians and a police officer.
It took security forces four hours to regain control over the site in that attack.
The latest attack at Lido beach highlights the endemic security problems in the Horn of Africa country as it struggles to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters.
Last year, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud launched an “all-out war” against Al-Shabab, rallying Somalis to help flush out members of the jihadist group he described as “bedbugs.”
His pledge came after 21 people were killed and 117 others were wounded in an Al-Shabab siege on a Mogadishu hotel in August 2022 that lasted 30 hours.
The attack raised serious questions about the security forces, who failed to protect a heavily guarded administrative district.
In October 2022, twin car bombings in Mogadishu killed 121 people and injured 333, in the country’s deadliest attack in five years.
The army and militias known as “macawisley” have in recent months retaken swathes of territory in the center of the country in an operation backed by the African Union mission ATMIS and US air strikes.
But Al-Shabab fighters killed 54 Ugandan peacekeepers in an attack on an African Union base in the southern town of Bulo Marer last month.


No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK
Updated 10 June 2023

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK

No injuries after planes collide on ground at Tokyo’s Haneda airport – NHK
  • Incident led to the closure of one of four runways at the airport

TOKYO: Some flights were delayed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Saturday after two planes appeared to have collided on the ground near a taxiway, public broadcaster NHK reported, citing Japan’s transport ministry.
No injuries occurred, NHK said, but the incident led to the closure of one of four runways at the airport at about 11 a.m. (0200 GMT).
The broadcaster showed footage of Eva Airways and Thai Airways jets on the ground.
Part of the wing of the Thai Airways plane looked to be broken, and what appeared to be fragments could be seen near the runway.
Japan’s transport ministry did not respond immediately to a request for comment.


US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
Updated 10 June 2023

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reschedules postponed Beijing visit for June 18
  • First trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China next week, rescheduling a visit that was canceled in February after a saga over a suspected surveillance balloon, US officials said Friday.
Blinken is expected to arrive in Beijing on June 18, the first trip by a top US diplomat to China since his predecessor Mike Pompeo in October 2018, US officials said on condition of anonymity.
The State Department has not officially announced his travel. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby recently said the United States would announce travel by senior officials “in the near future” without giving details.
Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met in Bali in November and agreed to try to stop high tensions from soaring out of control, including by sending Blinken to Beijing.
Blinken abruptly canceled a trip scheduled in early February after the United States said it detected — and later shot down — a Chinese surveillance balloon flying over the US mainland, drawing fury from US lawmakers and denials by Beijing.
But the two sides have more recently looked again to keep tensions in check including with an extensive, closed-door meeting between Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan and top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi in Vienna last month.
Tensions have risen sharply between the world’s two largest economies in recent years, especially over Taiwan, the self-governing democracy that Beijing claims and has not ruled out seizing by force.
The two countries are also at odds over China’s increasingly assertive posture in the region and over trade and human rights.
Biden, however, has looked to limited areas for cooperation with China, such as climate change, in contrast with the more fully adversarial position adopted at the end of the administration of his predecessor Donald Trump.


UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack
Updated 10 June 2023

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack

UN peacekeeper killed, 8 seriously injured in northern Mali attack
  • Mali, ruled by a military junta since a 2020 coup against an elected president, has faced destabilizing attacks by armed extremist groups since 2013

UNITED NATIONS: Attackers killed one UN peacekeeper and seriously injured eight others Friday in Mali’s northern Timbuktu region, an area where extremists continue to operate, the United Nations said.

The peacekeepers were part of a security patrol that was targeted first by an improvised explosive device and then by direct fire in the town of Ber, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The United Nations joins the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, El-Ghassim Wane, in srongly condemning the attack, Dujarric said.
Mali has been ruled by a military junta since a 2020 coup against an elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita. It has faced destabilizing attacks by armed extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group since 2013.
In 2021, France and its European partners engaged in the fight against extremists in Mali’s north withdrew from the country after the junta brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group.
The United States warned Mali’s military government in April that it would be “irresponsible” for the United Nations to continue deploying its more than 15,000 peacekeepers unless the western African nation ends restrictions, including on operating reconnaissance drones, and carries out political commitments toward peace and elections in March 2024.
The warning came as the UN Security Council considers three options proposed by Secretary-General António Guterres for the peacekeeping mission’s future: increase its size, reduce its footprint, or withdraw troops and police and turn it into a political mission. Its current mandate expires on June 30.
Dujarric said the peacekeeper killed on Friday was the ninth to die in Mali this year.
“This tragic loss is a stark reminder of the risks that peacekeepers in Mali and other places around the world face while tirelessly working to bring stability and peace to the people of Mali,” he said.