China backs Putin as tension over war soars

China backs Putin as tension over war soars
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a patriotic concert at the luzhniki stadium in moscow on Wednesday. (AFP)
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Updated 23 February 2023

China backs Putin as tension over war soars

China backs Putin as tension over war soars
  • Biden rallies NATO allies in east

JEDDAH: China vowed a stronger partnership with Russia on Wednesday and US President Joe Biden rallied NATO allies in eastern Europe amid soaring global tensions before the anniversary of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin told a huge state-organized patriotic rally in Moscow that Russia was fighting for its “historical” lands in Ukraine, and its soldiers were “fighting heroically, courageously, bravely — we are proud of them.”
In Ukraine, school classes moved online for the rest of the week for fear of an upsurge in Russian missile attacks a year on from the Feb. 24 invasion.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the highest ranking Chinese official to visit Russia since the invasion, told Putin that Beijing was ready to enhance ties. A time of crisis called for Russia and China “to continuously deepen our comprehensive strategic partnership,” he said.
Putin said he was looking forward to a visit to Moscow by Chinese President Xi Jinping and a deeper partnership. Xi is expected to make a “peace speech” on Friday, but Kyiv says there can be no talk of peace while Russian troops are in Ukraine.

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“This unprovoked and criminal Russian war against Ukraine, Europe and the democratic world must end with the cleansing of the entire Ukrainian land from Russian occupation and solid guarantees of the long-term security for our state, the whole of Europe and the entire world,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
Russia is due to begin military exercises with China in South Africa on Friday and has sent a frigate equipped with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles.

Russian aggression in Ukraine had changed the security situation in Europe, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a meeting in Warsaw of nine eastern NATO members. Biden said Washington was committed to defending every inch of the alliance’s territory.
“You are the front line of our collective defense,” the president told the summit of countries that joined the Western military alliance after being aligned with Moscow during the Cold War.
Most are now among the strongest supporters of military aid to Ukraine and in a joint declaration called for an NATO presence on its eastern flank.
Biden said the invasion had tested the world but Washington and its allies had shown they would defend democracy. He rejected Russia’s assertion that the West was seeking to control or destroy Russia, and accused Moscow of crimes against humanity.
 


Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning

Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning
Updated 19 sec ago

Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning

Sixty Afghan girls hospitalized after school poisoning
KABUL: Around 60 Afghan girls were hospitalized after being poisoned at their school in northern Afghanistan, police said on Monday.
The poisoning, which targeted a girls’ school in the Afghan province of Sar-e Pol, comes after intense scrutiny of girls’ education in the war-torn nation since the Taliban took over and barred most teenage female students and after a wave of poison attacks on girls’ schools in neighboring Iran.
“Some unknown people entered a girls’ ... school in Sancharak District .. and poisoned the classes, when the girls come to classes they got poisoned,” said Den Mohammad Nazari, Sar-e-Pol’s police spokesperson, without elaborating on which substance was used or who was thought to be behind the incident.
Nazari said the girls had been taken to ho.spital but were in “good condition.” No one had been arrested.
In neighboring Iran, poisoning incidents at girls’ schools sickened an estimated 13,000 mostly female students since November.
During Afghanistan’s previous foreign-backed government, several poisoning attacks, including suspected gas attacks, on girls’ schools had taken place.
The Taliban administration has prevented most female students from attending highschool and university since taking over in 2021, sparking condemnation from international governments and many Afghans. Taliban authorities have kept primary schools open for girls, up until the age of around 12 and say they are in favor of female education under certain conditions.

Fighter jets chase small plane in Washington area before it crashes in Virginia

Fighter jets chase small plane in Washington area before it crashes in Virginia
After several hours first responders found no one alive the Virginia State Police said in a statement. (AFP)
Updated 05 June 2023

Fighter jets chase small plane in Washington area before it crashes in Virginia

Fighter jets chase small plane in Washington area before it crashes in Virginia
  • The jet fighters created a sonic boom over the US capital as they pursued the errant Cessna Citation

WASHINGTON: The United States scrambled F-16 fighter jets in a supersonic chase of a light aircraft with an unresponsive pilot that violated airspace around Washington DC and later crashed into the mountains of Virginia, officials said.

No survivors were found at the crash site, Virginia state police said.

The jet fighters created a sonic boom over the US capital as they pursued the errant Cessna Citation, officials said, causing consternation among people in the Washington area.

Four people were onboard the Cessna, a source familiar with the matter said. A Cessna Citation can carry seven to 12 passengers.

After several hours first responders reached the crash site but found no one alive, the Virginia State Police said in a statement.

The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware.

Encore owner John Rumpel told the Washington Post his daughter, a grandchild and her nanny were on board.

“We know nothing about the crash,” the Post quoted Rumpel as saying. “We are talking to the FAA now,” he added before ending the call.

The US military attempted to contact the pilot, who was unresponsive, until the Cessna crashed near the George Washington National Forest in Virginia, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.

The Cessna appeared to be flying on autopilot, another source familiar the matter said.

“The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region,” the statement said, adding that NORAD aircraft also used flares to the pilot’s attention.

A US official said the fighters did not cause the crash.

The Cessna took off from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Elizabethton, Tennessee, and was bound for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, about 80 km east of Manhattan, the FAA said in a statement, adding that it and the National Transportation Safety Board would investigate.

According to Flight Aware, the plane appeared to reach the New York area, then made nearly a 180-degree turn.

Incidents involving unresponsive pilots are not unprecedented. Golfer Payne Stewart died in 1999 along with four others after the aircraft he was in flew thousands of miles with the pilot and passengers unresponsive. The plane eventually crashed in South Dakota with no survivors.

In the case of Stewart’s flight, the plane lost cabin pressure, causing the occupants to lose consciousness because of oxygen deprivation.

Similarly, a small US private plane with an unresponsive pilot crashed off the east coast of Jamaica in 2014 after veering far off course and triggering a US security alert including a fighter jet escort.

On Sunday, the sonic boom rattled many people in the Washington area who took to Twitter to report hearing a loud noise that shook the ground and walls. Several residents said they heard the noise as far away as northern Virginia and Maryland.


China says warship crossing in front of US destroyer was ‘safe’

China says warship crossing in front of US destroyer was ‘safe’
Updated 05 June 2023

China says warship crossing in front of US destroyer was ‘safe’

China says warship crossing in front of US destroyer was ‘safe’

BEIJING: The maneuver of a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait during an encounter with a US destroyer was completely reasonable, legal, professional and “safe,” a spokesperson at China’s foreign ministry said at a press conference on Monday.
The US Navy on Sunday released a video of what it called an “unsafe interaction” in the Taiwan Strait, in which a Chinese warship crossed in front of a US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday.


Shootout between Pakistani troops and insurgents in border region kills 2 soldiers, 2 militants

Shootout between Pakistani troops and insurgents in border region kills 2 soldiers, 2 militants
Updated 05 June 2023

Shootout between Pakistani troops and insurgents in border region kills 2 soldiers, 2 militants

Shootout between Pakistani troops and insurgents in border region kills 2 soldiers, 2 militants
  • The shootout took place late Sunday in North Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province

PESHAWAR: Pakistani troops and militants exchanged fire in a northwestern region along the border with Afghanistan in a shootout that killed two soldiers and two militants, the army said Monday.
The shootout took place late Sunday in North Waziristan, a district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that is a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP.
According to an army statement, two militants were also wounded and troops seized a cache of weapons at the site. A search operation was underway in the area, it said.
Although the Pakistani military claims it has cleared North Waziristan of militants, occasional attacks and shootouts continue, raising concerns that the Pakistani Taliban are regrouping in the area.
Though a separate group, the TTP remains a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seizing power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021, during the last weeks of the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from the country after two decades of war.
The takeover emboldened the TTP. They unilaterally ended a cease-fire agreement with the Pakistani government last November and have since stepped up their attacks in the country.

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Bangladesh power cuts may last two more weeks on fuel shortages

Bangladesh power cuts may last two more weeks on fuel shortages
Updated 05 June 2023

Bangladesh power cuts may last two more weeks on fuel shortages

Bangladesh power cuts may last two more weeks on fuel shortages
  • Bangladesh has suffered under severe power shortages since April as a searing heatwave spiked demand for electricity
  • The power losses threaten Bangladesh’s crucial apparel sector that accounts for more than 80 percent of its exports and supplies retailers

DHAKA: Bangladesh could face power cuts for two more weeks, its power minister said late on Sunday, as higher electricity consumption because of rising temperatures has caused a fuel shortfall for generation plants.
Bangladesh has suffered under severe power shortages since April as a searing heatwave spiked demand for electricity and then a deadly cyclone cut off supplies of natural gas to fuel plants. The country has also curtailed imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), its main power generation fuel, after record high prices in the second half of 2022 made the fuel too expensive.
“This condition may remain for another two weeks,” Nasrul Hamid, minister of state for power, energy and mineral resources told reporters.
“This problem is happening because we are not able to ensure an adequate supply of coal and gas,” Hamid said.
The power losses threaten Bangladesh’s crucial apparel sector that accounts for more than 80 percent of its exports and supplies retailers such as Walmart, Gap Inc, H&M , VF Corp, Zara and American Eagle Outfitters .
The loss of those exports will exacerbate issues around its dollar reserves, which have plunged by nearly a third in the 12 months to end of April to a seven-year low, and limited its ability to pay for fuel imports.
Hamid said the country’s power sector officials had been working to avert fuel shortfalls over the last two months, but higher consumption was making the task harder.
An impending shutdown of a key coal-fired power unit from Tuesday because of a fuel shortage over the next few days could further worsen the situation, a senior official from the power ministry said.
“Only rain can give us some relief as power demand decreases when it rains,” said the official, who declined to be identified as he is not authorized to speak to the media.
The frequent power cuts have also drawn criticism from opposition parties.”“The entire country is almost without electricity. People are getting sick in extreme heat,” said Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, a senior leader of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party