FSB says killed Ukraine ‘saboteurs’ trying to enter Russia

FSB says killed Ukraine ‘saboteurs’ trying to enter Russia
Four saboteurs who attempted to penetrate the territory of the Bryansk region from Ukraine (AFP)
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Updated 26 December 2022

FSB says killed Ukraine ‘saboteurs’ trying to enter Russia

FSB says killed Ukraine ‘saboteurs’ trying to enter Russia
  • Saboteurs were carrying foreign weapons and “improvised explosive devices.”

MOSCOW: Russia’s FSB security service said on Monday that a four-person Ukrainian “sabotage group” had been “liquidated” while trying to enter Russia’s Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, on Sunday, Russian news agencies reported.
“As a result of a clash on December 25, four saboteurs who attempted to penetrate the territory of the Bryansk region from Ukraine were destroyed,” state-owned RIA news agency quoted an FSB statement as saying.
The FSB said the alleged saboteurs were armed with foreign-made guns and four improvised explosive devices.
There was no immediate comment on the incident from Ukraine.


Flood-hit Pakistanis still waiting on promised rebuild

Flood-hit Pakistanis still waiting on promised rebuild
Updated 38 min 47 sec ago

Flood-hit Pakistanis still waiting on promised rebuild

Flood-hit Pakistanis still waiting on promised rebuild
  • The monsoon deluges of last summer submerged a third of the country, killing 1,700 people and displacing eight million more

DADU: Noor Bibi lost her mother, her daughter and the roof over her head in the catastrophic floods that drowned Pakistan last summer.
One year later she remains homeless, living with the remnants of her family in spartan tents marking where the village of Sohbat Khosa was gutted by the deluge in southern Sindh province.
Noor, a farm worker approaching her 60s, prays for “someone with righteous thoughts that will help us build some good houses in an elevated place.”
“If it flooded again, we would not bear such big losses,” she told AFP.
But government pledges to rebuild flood-ravaged swathes of Pakistan so they are resilient to future extreme weather have largely failed to materialize.
The monsoon deluges of last summer submerged a third of the country, killing 1,700 people and displacing eight million more.
Climate change is making those seasonal rains heavier and more unpredictable, scientists say, raising the urgency of flood-proofing the country.
A failure to do so will be most acutely felt by the poor, who tend to live in the most vulnerable areas.


Here in Dadu district, which was heavily flooded, no rehabilitation is visible. Rare pieces of public infrastructure remain in disrepair and housing reconstruction is left to locals or NGOs.
In January, Islamabad announced a “Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Framework” valued at $16.3 billion, but it remains confined to paper.
International donors have also pledged $9 billion, but most of the cash will come in the form of loans.
Villagers’ crops were swept away in the floods, depriving them of livelihoods that might have allowed them to pave their own way to recovery.
With pooled funds, the residents of Sohbat Khosa only raised enough for a toilet and water tank.
Their best hope is the Alkhidmat Foundation, a Pakistani NGO, which plans to build around 30 new homes.
“The government seems to not exist here, and if anything is done by the government, that is only corruption,” said Ali Muhammad, a coordinator for Alkhidmat in Dadu.
Pakistan is currently mired in dual political and economic crises that have brought all public initiatives to a standstill.
But decades of entrenched corruption and mismanagement are also to blame.
“Building back better is expensive, and the amount of damage is colossal,” Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told AFP.
He said he “can’t speak to what the federal government has done,” but in Sindh province, controlled by his party, “we’ve started a couple of initiatives.”
“One is the financing of the reconstruction of houses, through NGOs and charity organizations,” he said.
However, Alkhidmat, like two other NGOs interviewed by AFP, has not received any public money and relies entirely on private funds.


Thanks to Alkhidmat’s efforts, a few dozen homes have been built in the district, but it’s nowhere near the two million damaged or destroyed in the floods.
The village of Bari Baital, submerged until November, is expected to eventually host 80 houses built by the foundation — far too few for its thousands of inhabitants.
To resist future rains they are raised on brick pillars, and built with reinforced roofs and water-resistant cement.
“People are completely unaware of climate change,” said village teacher Imtiaz Ali Chandio.
All they know is that their village has been a “passage for floods for centuries,” he said.
But moving is not an option, meaning the scenario will likely soon be repeated.
“Where else could we go?” asked Abdulrahim Brohi, who already weathered catastrophic floods in 2010. “Everything of ours is here.”
“Somewhere else people won’t accept us,” added Brohi, who estimates his age to be between 50 and 60. “We don’t have resources to rebuild our houses here, so how can we afford land somewhere else?“


Prized by tourists for its scenic mountain vistas, the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan was also hit hard by last year’s floods.
Hundreds of hotels, restaurants, businesses and homes perched on the banks of the Swat river were swept away as ferocious waters were funnelled down the ravine.
To prevent a repeat of the disaster, authorities have “imposed a complete ban on the construction of any sort of building on the river,” said Irfanullah Khan Wazir, Swat’s deputy commissioner.
Nonetheless, in Bahrain, a small resort town once half underwater, the government’s writ is so weak that builders are riding roughshod over the ban.
A number of shops, restaurants and hotels have been renovated or rebuilt just meters from the coursing water. Even the mosque has been rebuilt on the same spot where it was heavily damaged.
“People are doing illegal construction on weekend nights, but [authorities] are not paying any heed — their silence is baffling,” said hotel manager Zafar Ali.
His own property is under construction 20 meters (65 feet) from the river, in a zone he says is authorized.
It is now protected by a flood wall twice the height of the previous one. Economic considerations also prevented them from relocating away from their waterfront vantage.
“Tourists want to be able to open their windows and see the river outside,” Ali said. “Those built further away struggle to cover their expenses.”
Locals in Swat also condemned the inaction of authorities. The main road following the river has been reopened, but whole sections of tarmac remain torn away.
Compensation schemes have been limited to certain people who lost their homes. They are granted 400,000 rupees ($1,400), nowhere near enough to rebuild.
Muhammad Ishaq, a tailor in Bahrain, built his house near the river for easy access to the water. He watched as his home was swallowed by the floods, and has since been forced to move in with his father further up the mountainside.
Life there is harsher, he told AFP, but even if he manages to rebuild, he knows he “will have to stay away from the river.”


South Korea’s Yoon says alliance with US ‘nuclear-based’

South Korea’s Yoon says alliance with US ‘nuclear-based’
Updated 06 June 2023

South Korea’s Yoon says alliance with US ‘nuclear-based’

South Korea’s Yoon says alliance with US ‘nuclear-based’
  • Upgrade in alliance in the face of North Korea’s growing military threat
  • North Korea this year test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile

SEOUL: South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Tuesday he has upgraded the country’s alliance with the United States to one that is “nuclear-based” in the face of North Korea’s growing military threat.
Yoon was referring to his talks with US President Joe Biden in April on Washington’s willingness to give Seoul more insight into its nuclear planning in the event of potential conflict with nuclear-armed North Korea.
“North Korea is enhancing its nuclear and missile capabilities, and has legislated the use of nuclear weapons,” Yoon said in a speech marking South Korea’s Memorial Day.
At their summit in Washington, the two leaders agreed to strengthen the so-called US extended deterrence, which envisions the use of US nuclear weapons to defend the South.
“The South Korea-US alliance has now been elevated to ‘nuclear-based’ alliance,” Yoon said.
North Korea this year test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile and last week attempted to launch its first spy satellite, although the rocket and the payload plunged into the sea.
North Korea made a rare and swift admission of the launch’s failure but vowed to try again and put a satellite in orbit to increase its military surveillance capabilities.
The launch was widely condemned as violating UN Security Council resolutions that ban the use of ballistic missile technology by the North.
Pyongyang has rejected the ban as an infringement of its sovereign right to self-defense and space development.
While Yoon characterized his talks with Biden as an agreement to use US nuclear weapons in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack, Biden reiterated a pledge “to make every effort to consult” with allies on the use of a nuclear weapon.
Yoon did not elaborate further on the subject and devoted most of his Memorial Day speech to honoring those who had made sacrifices in defense of the country.
South Korea’s military has been undertaking a salvage operation at sea off the west coast to recover a substantial segment of the rocket launched by the North on May 31.


Deputy governor of northern Afghan province killed in car bomb attack

Deputy governor of northern Afghan province killed in car bomb attack
Updated 53 min 42 sec ago

Deputy governor of northern Afghan province killed in car bomb attack

Deputy governor of northern Afghan province killed in car bomb attack

KABUL: The deputy governor of Afghanistan’s northern Badakhshan province was killed by a car bomb on Tuesday, the provincial spokesperson said.
“Nissar Ahmad Ahmadi, with his driver, has been killed and six civilians were injured,” said Mahzudeen Ahmadi, the head of the information office of Badakshan, a province in the far north of the country that shares a border with China and Tajikistan.
It was not clear who was behind the bombing, which was the first known major blast or attack on a Taliban official in Afghanistan in several weeks.
The Taliban administration has been carrying out raids against members of Daesh, which had claimed several major attacks in urban centers.
The Daesh has also targeted Taliban administration officials, including claiming the killing of the governor of northern Balkh province in an attack on his office in March.


Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of widespread flooding

Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of widespread flooding
Updated 06 June 2023

Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of widespread flooding

Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of widespread flooding
  • Both sides blamed the other for destroying the dam
  • President Volodymyr Zelensky called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis

KYIV, Ukraine: Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Russia controls, sending water gushing from the breached facility and risking massive flooding. Ukrainian authorities ordered hundreds of thousands of residents downriver to evacuate.
Russian officials countered that the Kakhovka dam was damaged by Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area.
The fallout could have broad consequences: Flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe’s largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.
The dam break added a complex new element to Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month, as Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000-kilometers of frontline in the east and south of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the blowing up of the dam “could have negative consequences for the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant,” near the dam, but at the moment situation is “controllable.”
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency wrote on Twitter that its experts were closely monitoring the situation at the plant, and there was “no immediate nuclear safety risk” at the facility.
According to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, a total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the left bank and a severe drop in the reservoir has the potential to deprive the nuclear plant of crucial cooling, as well as dry up the water supply in northern Crimea.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said that “a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours.”
Videos posted online began testifying to the spillover: One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway, another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.
Zelensky called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis, Ukrainian officials said.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the river’s right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.
The Russian-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said the strikes were “a very serious terrorist act” said Moscow-appointed authorities are “preparing for the worst consequences” — though stopping short of urging an evacuation of city residents.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply.
Footage from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. that “the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror,” and warned that water will reach “critical levels” within five hours.
The Kakhovska dam was completely destroyed, Ukraine’s state hydro power generating company wrote in a statement: “The station cannot be restored.” Ukrhydroenergo also claimed that Russia blew up the station from inside the engine room.
Leontyev, the Russian-appointed mayor, said Tuesday that numerous strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves, and “water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream.” Leontyev added that damage to the station was beyond repair, and it would have to be rebuilt.
Energoatom, the nuclear operator, wrote that the Kakhovka reservoir, where water levels are “rapidly decreasing,” is necessary “for the plant to feed the turbine condensers and ZNPP safety systems,” the statement said.
“Currently the station cooling pond is full: as of 8 am, the water level is at 16.6 meters, and this is enough for the needs of the station,” it said.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelensky predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.
Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through — and over — the Kakhovka dam.
In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.
By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro River, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country’s drinking water and power supply. The Kakhovka dam — the one furthest downstream — is controlled by Russian forces.


Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally
Updated 06 June 2023

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally

Federal monitor: Too many people in New York City are stopped, searched and frisked illegally
  • NYPD ‘s Neighborhood Safety Teams were engaging in ‘unconstitutional policing’ by stopping and frisking too many people without justification

NEW YORK: New York City’s reliance on the tactic known as “stop and frisk” as part of a new initiative to combat gun violence is harming communities of color and running afoul of the law, a court-appointed federal monitor reported Monday.
Monitor Mylan Denerstein said the NYPD ‘s Neighborhood Safety Teams — special units deployed in the past 14 months to seize guns in high-crime areas — were engaging in “unconstitutional policing” by stopping and frisking too many people without justification.
In one police precinct, Denerstein said, only 41 percent of stops, 32 percent of frisks and 26 percent of searches were lawful.
The Neighborhood Safety Teams, a replacement for the anti-crime units that the NYPD disbanded in 2021, operate in 34 areas that account for 80 percent of the city’s violent crime — largely communities of color. Of the people the teams have stopped, Denerstein said, 97 percent are Black or Hispanic.
A spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams said city officials “have serious concerns” with Denerstein’s methodology and that they only learned of her findings after news outlets reported on them.
The spokesperson, Fabien Levy, said shootings have fallen since the Neighborhood Safety Teams were created.
Officers assigned to the units “have enhanced training and oversight to ensure we are not only keeping New Yorkers safe, but protecting their civil liberties as well,” Levy said, adding that “any unconstitutional stop is unacceptable, and we will strive to do better for New Yorkers every day.”
Denerstein said she began her review after Adams announced in March 2022 that the NYPD was deploying Neighborhood Safety Teams in some precincts to combat gun violence. Team members, wearing modified uniforms and driving unmarked cars, conduct stops, frisks and searches in their assigned neighborhoods.
“Unfortunately, the results are disappointing,” Denerstein wrote.
Despite their training and experience, officers assigned to Neighborhood Safety Teams “overall appear to be stopping, frisking, and searching individuals at an unsatisfactory level of compliance. Too many people are stopped, frisked, and searched unlawfully.”
In 2013, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD had violated the civil rights of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers with stop and frisk, which was part of an effort to get guns and drugs off the street by frequently stopping and searching people on the street.
US District Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled the stops were a form of indirect racial profiling. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, once a champion of the tactic, has since apologized for its use.
Since the ruling, the department claimed a sharp drop in stops, reporting an average of around 11,730 per year from 2016 to 2022, compared with a high of nearly 686,000 stops in 2011.
Black and Hispanic people continue to be the targets of the vast majority of stops, accounting for 89 percent of all stops in 2022, according to NYPD data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union.