G20 statement to show ‘most’ members strongly condemn Russia’s Ukraine war: US

 An officer stands guard ahead of the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, November 13, 2022. (REUTERS)
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An officer stands guard ahead of the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, November 13, 2022. (REUTERS)
A worker is seen through a G20 logo as he cleans the media center of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. (AP)
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A worker is seen through a G20 logo as he cleans the media center of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2022. (AP)v
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Updated 15 November 2022

G20 statement to show ‘most’ members strongly condemn Russia’s Ukraine war: US

 An officer stands guard ahead of the G20 summit in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia, November 13, 2022. (REUTERS)
  • The official would not say how many countries would not join the condemnation, nor how diplomats would craft the non-unanimous declaration within the document, which is issued by all member countries

NUSA DUA, Indonesia: The G20 will issue an end-of-summit statement in which “most” members will strongly condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine, a senior US official said Tuesday in Bali.
“I think you’re going to see most members of the G-20 make clear that they condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, that they see Russia’s war in Ukraine as the root source of immense economic and humanitarian suffering in the world,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The statement, to be issued at the end of the summit this week in Bali, will show that the G20 is “really isolating Russia” — a member of the group of the world’s biggest economies.
The official would not say how many countries would not join the condemnation, nor how diplomats would craft the non-unanimous declaration within the document, which is issued by all member countries.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered a devastating and so far largely failing invasion of Ukraine nine months ago, has not joined other leaders in Bali. Russia is represented at the summit by his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
With Russia objecting even to the use of the word “war” to describe its attempt to subjugate neighboring Ukraine, there has been intense speculation over how — or if — G20 countries would respond to the crisis in a collective manner.
The US official said nevertheless, “Russia’s war of aggression ... is being condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
The statement, said the official, “speaks in very clear terms.”

 


Australian soldier charged over Afghan killing freed on bail

Australian soldier charged over Afghan killing freed on bail
Updated 15 sec ago

Australian soldier charged over Afghan killing freed on bail

Australian soldier charged over Afghan killing freed on bail
  • Oliver Schulz had been in custody since his arrest last week on the war crime of murder
  • Helmet camera footage allegedly shows Schulz shoot man from Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province three times
SYDNEY: A former elite soldier charged with murder for allegedly killing an unarmed man in Afghanistan was released on bail Tuesday by a magistrate who concluded he would face danger from Muslim extremists in prison.
Oliver Schulz, 41, had been in custody since his arrest in rural New South Wales state last week on the war crime of murder.
His lawyer Phillip Boulten applied for bail in Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court on Monday, arguing the former Special Air Service Regiment trooper faced serious risks to his personal safety from Muslim extremists in the prison system and had to be segregated from other inmates.
“Wherever this man is going to be held in prison, he is likely to have to mix with people in prison who sympathize with the Taliban or with other Islamic extremist groups,” Boulten said.
Magistrate Jennifer Atkinson granted the request, agreeing the risks posed to him while behind bars were too great.
“It’s possible to infer that there may be some people being held there who may take an adverse position in relation to what was said to be the accused’s behavior both as a member of the (Australian Defense Force) and also on the day the incident allegedly occurred,” Atkinson told the court.
Schulz had been held at a maximum-security prison in Goulburn, 200 kilometers southwest of Sydney. Most of New South Wales’ worst convicted terrorists are held at Goulburn.
Helmet camera footage aired by Australian Broadcasting Corp. in 2020 that was shot in Afghanistan’s Uruzgan Province in 2012 will form part of the prosecution case.
The footage allegedly shows Schulz shoot local man Dad Mohammad three times as he lay on his back in a wheat field with his hands and knees raised. His father later made a complaint to the Australian Defense Force alleging his son had been shot in the head.
Atkinson said that because of the murder allegation, Schulz would be in a “very difficult if not dangerous environment” in custody and correctional staff could not be available 24 hours a day to supervise him.
“I am of the view that the position the accused finds himself in could be worse than other persons who are on remand given the particular security risks to his person,” she said.
Schulz would also have difficulties giving advice to his lawyers and accessing confidential material under strict conditions due to national security concerns surrounding the case if he were forced to do so behind bars, Atkinson said.
The court has suppressed the names of the town and region where Schulz lives to protect his family from threats.
After footage of the Afghanistan shooting was broadcast nationally, the then-Defense Minister Linda Reynolds referred the allegation to the Australian Federal Police.
Schulz was suspended from duty in 2020 and later discharged from the Australia Defense Force on medical grounds.
Schulz, who was awarded the Commendation for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan, is the first former or serving Australian Defense Force member to face a war crime charge of murder under domestic law.
He faces a potential life sentence in prison if convicted.
He is among 19 current and former Australian special forces soldiers who a war crimes investigation found could face charges for illegal conduct in Afghanistan.
A military report released in 2020 after a four-year investigation found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and civilians.
More than 39,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan during the 20 years until the 2021 withdrawal, and 41 were killed there.

Former student shoots dead 3 children, 3 adults at Tennessee Christian school

Former student shoots dead 3 children, 3 adults at Tennessee Christian school
Updated 52 min 42 sec ago

Former student shoots dead 3 children, 3 adults at Tennessee Christian school

Former student shoots dead 3 children, 3 adults at Tennessee Christian school
  • The motive was not immediately known, but the suspect had drawn detailed maps of the school
  • Drake identified the suspect as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a resident of the Nashville area

NASHVILLE, Tennessee: A heavily armed 28-year-old fatally shot three children and three adult staffers on Monday at a private Christian school the suspect once attended in Tennessee’s capital city before police killed the assailant, authorities said.
The motive was not immediately known, but the suspect had drawn detailed maps of the school, including entry points for the building, and left behind a “manifesto” and other writings that investigators were examining, Police Chief John Drake told reporters.
The latest in an epidemic of deadly mass gun violence that has come to routinely terrorize even the most cherished of US institutions unfolded on a warm spring morning at The Covenant School, whose students consist mostly of elementary school-age children.
Drake identified the suspect as Audrey Elizabeth Hale, 28, a resident of the Nashville area, and referred to the assailant by female pronouns. The chief said the suspect identified as transgender but provided no further clarity.
The Tennessean newspaper cited a police spokesperson as saying Hale used he/him pronouns. Hale used male pronouns on a LinkedIn page that listed recent jobs in graphic design and grocery delivery.
Police later released a school video showing the assailant blasting through glass doors with gunfire and roaming the halls, pointing a semi-automatic rifle. Hale wore a black vest over a white T-shirt, camouflage pants and a backwards red baseball cap in a video that showed only the shooter in the frame.
Addressing an early evening news conference, Drake said police were working on a theory about what may have precipitated the shooting and would “put that out as soon as we can.” He said the suspect had no known prior criminal history.
In a subsequent NBC News television interview, Drake said investigators believed the shooting stemmed from “some resentment” the suspect harbored “for having to go to that school” as a younger person.
The police chief did not specify the nature of such presumed resentment, or whether it had anything to do with the suspect’s gender identity or the Christian orientation of the school. Drake said the school was singled out for attack but the individual victims were targeted at random.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department began receiving calls at 10:13 a.m. of a shooter at the school, and arriving officers reported hearing gunfire coming from the building’s second floor, police spokesperson Don Aaron told reporters.
Two officers from a five-member team shot the assailant in a lobby area, and the suspect was pronounced dead by 10:27 a.m.
“The police department response was swift,” Aaron said.
Police said the suspect was armed with two assault-type guns and a 9 mm pistol.
The victims were identified as Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs, and William Kinney, all age 9, along with staffers Mike Hill, 61, a school custodian, Cynthia Peak, 61, a substitute teacher, and Katherine Koonce, 60, listed on the Covenant website as “head of school.”
The Covenant School, founded in 2001, is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville with about 200 students, according to the school’s website. It serves preschool through sixth graders and held an active shooter training program in 2022, WTVF-TV reported.


New York waits... and waits... for expected Trump indictment

New York waits... and waits... for expected Trump indictment
Updated 28 March 2023

New York waits... and waits... for expected Trump indictment

New York waits... and waits... for expected Trump indictment
  • The probe centers on $130,000 paid weeks before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier

NEW YORK: Nine days after Donald Trump announced he was about to be arrested over a hush-money payment to a porn star, the world still awaits what would be one of the most famous police mugshots in history.
The Republican former US president, who has never been shy about grabbing the limelight, sent newsrooms in the United States and beyond into a spin on March 18 when he announced he was three days away from being brought before a New York judge.
Trump, it turned out, had bad information or was simply guessing, and his equally baseless claim a week later that the case had been dropped altogether was greeted with due incredulity.
The prosecutors may not be marching to Trump’s tune but legal analysts genuinely expect the 76-year-old billionaire — who is running again for the White House — to be read his Miranda rights any day now.
A grand jury — a panel of citizens with broad investigative powers that works with prosecutors — reconvened Monday in Manhattan, where they reportedly heard from the former publisher of the National Enquirer, a central player in the hush money payment scheme.
The probe centers on $130,000 paid weeks before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels to stop her from going public about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier.
Trump’s ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, who has testified before the grand jury, told Congress in 2019 that he made the payment on Trump’s behalf and was later reimbursed.
Prosecutors say the checks were not properly registered, which might normally result in a misdemeanor charge of falsifying business records.
But that could be upgraded to a felony if the district attorney can persuade the grand jury that the payment and the suspect accounting were part of a cover-up, intended to benefit Trump’s election campaign by burying the scandal.
There are strict laws about how much candidates can contribute to their own election bid, and secretly funneling money toward campaign coffers can lead to jail terms of several years.
Criminal charges of any level would be uncharted territory in the United States, which has never indicted a sitting or former president.
If the jury votes to indict Trump, Manhattan’s chief local prosecutor is obliged to comply with their decision and announce it to the public.
Accused by Trump and the former president’s allies in the House of Representatives of a political “witch hunt,” prosecutor Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat, has hit back at Republican “interference” in the investigation.
Trump staged his first official campaign rally in Texas on Saturday, brushing off his potential indictment — denying the tryst with Daniels as he railed against multiple criminal probes threatening his 2024 bid for the White House.
“I think they’ve already dropped the case,” Trump told reporters aboard his plane home to Florida, according to political website Axios.
“It’s a fake case. Some fake cases, they have absolutely nothing.”

 


India’s parliament adjourned after protests over Gandhi expulsion

India’s parliament adjourned after protests over Gandhi expulsion
Updated 28 March 2023

India’s parliament adjourned after protests over Gandhi expulsion

India’s parliament adjourned after protests over Gandhi expulsion
  • The conviction stemmed from a remark made during the 2019 election campaign when Gandhi had asked why “all thieves have Modi as (their) common surname”

NEW DELHI: India’s parliament was adjourned twice on Monday after lawmakers held rowdy protests and threw paper at the speaker following the expulsion from the house of top opposition figure Rahul Gandhi.
Gandhi lost his parliamentary seat on Friday after being convicted in a case that critics say shows how the rule of law is under threat in the world’s largest democracy under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The speaker called off proceedings less than a minute after opposition MPs wearing black erupted in shouting, some of them throwing bits of paper at him.
“I want to run the House with dignity,” Speaker Om Birla said.
The session resumed several hours later only to be abandoned again after about 10 minutes as opposition MPs chanted anti-Modi slogans and waved “Democracy in danger” placards.
It was the latest in a string of stoppages in recent weeks in India’s often raucous parliament among lawmakers representing India’s 1.4 billion people.
Opposition MPs have been demanding a probe into potential links between Modi and the business empire of tycoon Gautam Adani, which has been hit by allegations of accounting fraud.
Debates have also descended into shouting matches over comments made by Gandhi in Britain in early March that Indian democracy is “under attack.”
Opposition lawmakers from different parties also staged protests in New Delhi on Monday, the latest in a series of recent demonstrations.
Piyush Goyal, trade minister and a member of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Monday accused the opposition of “cheap politics” and “trying to mislead people.”
Gandhi “has no right to consider himself above the law of the country,” Goyal told reporters.

Despite facing criticism from human rights groups, Modi has largely been courted by Western governments which see India, this year’s host of the Group of 20 economies, as a bulwark against China and potential player on the Ukraine war.
“Respect for the rule of law and judicial independence is a cornerstone of any democracy, and we’re watching Mr.Gandhi’s case in Indian courts,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said, steering clear of condemning the opposition leader’s expulsion.
“We engage with the government of India on our shared commitment to democratic values, including, of course, freedom of expression,” Patel told reporters in Washington.
Gandhi, 52, is the leading face of the opposition Congress party, once the dominant force of Indian politics, and is the scion of India’s most famous political dynasty.
But Congress has for years been repeatedly crushed in elections by Modi’s BJP and its nationalist appeals to India’s Hindu majority.
The lower house of parliament ruled Gandhi ineligible to sit as an MP on Friday, a day after he was sentenced to two years for defamation. He is appealing.
The conviction stemmed from a remark made during the 2019 election campaign when Gandhi had asked why “all thieves have Modi as (their) common surname.”
His comments were portrayed as a slur against the prime minister and against all those with the same surname, which is associated with the lower rungs of India’s caste hierarchy.
A BJP spokesman said Thursday the court acted with “due judicial process” in arriving at its ruling in the case, one of several Gandhi is facing.
Legal action has been widely deployed against opposition party figures and institutions seen as critical of the Modi government during its nine years in power.
Domestic and international media have also come under growing pressure. Last month, tax inspectors raided the local offices of Britain’s BBC.
The Editors Guild of India said the raids demonstrated a “trend of using government agencies to intimidate or harass press organizations that are critical of government policies.”
On Saturday, Gandhi, who recently completed a walk across India that was hailed as a success by commentators, said he would “do whatever I have to do to defend the democratic nature of this country.”

 


UN Security Council rejects Russian demand for Nord Stream probe

In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, on Sept. 28, 2022. (AP)
In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, on Sept. 28, 2022. (AP)
Updated 28 March 2023

UN Security Council rejects Russian demand for Nord Stream probe

In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, a leak from Nord Stream 2 is seen, on Sept. 28, 2022. (AP)
  • Russia said it had been left out of investigations launched by Sweden, Germany and Denmark, all of which have rejected the accusation

UNITED NATIONS, United States: The UN Security Council on Monday rejected a Moscow-drafted resolution calling for an independent inquiry into the sabotage last year of the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Germany.
Western countries have blamed the explosions under the Baltic Sea last September on Russia, but the Kremlin has accused the West of sabotage.
The resolution got three votes, with China and Brazil backing Russia and the other 12 members abstaining.
The resolution called for the creation of a commission to “conduct comprehensive, transparent and impartial international investigation of all aspects of the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, including identification of its perpetrators, sponsors, organizers and accomplices.”
Russia said it had been left out of investigations launched by Sweden, Germany and Denmark, all of which have rejected the accusation.
“We have serious and very well-founded doubt as to the objectiveness and transparency of national investigations conducted by some European states,” said Russian envoy Vassily Nebenzia.
He pointed to “increasing suspicions” that the three probes aimed “not to shed light on what happened with the acts of sabotage, but rather to hide evidence and to clean up the crime scene.”
“I think that after today’s vote, suspicion as to who is behind the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream is just obvious,” he added.
Several members assured the three countries conducting the investigations of their confidence, and denounced what they dismissed as an attempt by Russia to divert attention from its invasion of Ukraine.
“It was an attempt to discredit the work of ongoing national investigations and prejudice any conclusions they reached that do not comport to Russia’s predetermined and political narrative,” said Deputy US ambassador Robert Wood.
A previous version of the resolution seen by AFP stressed that the sabotage had taken place after “repeated threats to the Nord Stream by the leadership of the United States” but the line was subsequently omitted.
Nearly six months after the explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, the responsibility for the attack remains a mystery.
The White House has flatly rejected a self-published report by veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that US Navy divers helped by Norway planted explosives on the pipelines last June and detonated them three months later.
The New York Times pointed to a “pro-Ukrainian group” opposed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing US intelligence sources.