Blinken, Lammy arrive in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s leaders

Update Blinken, Lammy arrive in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s leaders
Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a joint press conference with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy in the Locarno room at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in London, Britain. (File/Reuters)
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Updated 12 September 2024
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Blinken, Lammy arrive in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s leaders

Blinken, Lammy arrive in Kyiv for talks with Ukraine’s leaders
  • The top US diplomat, who is traveling to Ukraine alongside Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy, said he will use his visit to hear directly from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky

WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his British counterpart David Lammy arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday for a series of meetings with senior government officials including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Blinken and Lammy pulled into Kyiv's main train station ahead of a busy schedule that comes at a crucial time in the war, with Kyiv urging its allies to allow it to strike deeper into Russian territory with Western weapons.
"I think it’s a critical moment for Ukraine in the midst of what is an intense fall fighting season with Russia continuing to escalate its aggression," Blinken said in London at a news conference with Lammy on Tuesday. 
“I think it’s a critical moment for Ukraine in the midst of what is an intense fall fighting season with Russia continuing to escalate its aggression,” Blinken said in London at a news conference with Lammy.
Zelensky has been pleading for Western countries to supply longer-range missiles and to lift restrictions on using them to hit targets such as military airfields inside Russia.
On the battlefield more than 2-1/2 years since the invasion, Ukrainian forces are being stretched by a better armed and more numerous foe, as they try to fend off creeping Russian gains in the east where Moscow is focusing its attacks.
In a bid to seize back some of the initiative and divert Russian forces, Kyiv sent troops into Russia on an audacious large-scale cross-border incursion last month, but Moscow’s troops have continued to inch forward in the east.
The visit also comes a day after Blinken in London said Russia has received ballistic missiles from Iran and will likely use them in Ukraine within weeks, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatens wider European security.
The deepening military cooperation between Iran and Russia is a threat for all of Europe, Blinken said, and added that Washington had privately warned Iran that providing ballistic missiles to Russia would be “a dramatic escalation.” The US issued sanctions on Iran later on Tuesday over the transfer.
Blinken declined to say whether Washington will allow Ukraine to use long-range weapons deep inside Russia but said multiple factors went into the consideration of this decision rather than just looking at it as a weapons system.
“It’s not just the system itself that counts. You have to ask: Can the Ukrainians effectively use it, and sometimes that requires significant training, which we’ve done. Do they have the ability to maintain it?,” Blinken said.
Zelensky has long pushed back against allies who have supplied long-range weapons but told Kyiv they cannot use them deep inside Russia for fear of instigating a direct conflict between the West and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.
Thousands of civilians have died in the war, which Russia started with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022. Millions of Ukrainians have also been displaced, while their cities and villages have become piles of rubble.
Russia has escalated its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, while Ukraine has also sent hundreds of long-range attack drones deep into Russian territory.
Later this month, Zelensky travels to the United States and will present a plan to President Joe Biden and his two potential successors in Novembers election that he hopes will bring the end of the war closer.


French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy

French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy
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French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy

French PM lays out plan for stricter immigration policy
“We no longer have satisfactory control over our migration policy,” Barnier said
“As a result, no longer are we meeting our integration objectives in a satisfactory manner“

PARIS: French Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Tuesday said that France needed a stricter immigration and integration policy as he laid out his government priorities to parliament.
The conservative premier’s plan to tighten immigration policies and border controls is emblematic of the rightward shift in French politics following this summer’s legislative elections that resulted in a hung parliament.
“We no longer have satisfactory control over our migration policy,” Barnier said.
“As a result, no longer are we meeting our integration objectives in a satisfactory manner,” the 73-year-old told French parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly.
France has a long tradition of welcoming refugees and immigrants.
But a rise in the number of asylum seekers, a chronic affordable housing shortage and a cost-of-living crisis have worsened social tensions.
Speaking in parliament, Barnier vowed to be “ruthless” with people-traffickers, who he said “exploit misery and despair” and encourage migrants to illegally cross the Channel and the Mediterranean.
“We also want to better control our borders,” Barnier added, citing the example of Germany, which has recently tightened controls in response to several suspected Islamist attacks.
“For as long as necessary, France will continue to re-establish controls at its own borders, as permitted by European rules and as Germany has just done,” Barnier said.
By introducing tougher policies, France would be able to “integrate those we choose to welcome into our country in a proper and dignified manner,” the prime minister added.
Barnier delivered his speech following the recent rape and murder of a 19-year-old Paris student, which has further inflamed French debate on immigration after a Moroccan was named as the suspected attacker.
Prosecutors have said the 22-year-old suspect had been the subject of an expulsion order, while France’s far right has been accused of seeking to exploit the tragedy.
The prime minister said his government would seek to facilitate “the exceptional extension” of a detention period for undocumented migrants in order to better enforce expulsion orders.
“We issue more than 100,000 orders to leave the country, but tens of thousands of illegal immigrants remain on our territory,” Barnier added.
France routinely issues deportation orders, but only around seven percent of them are enforced, compared to 30 percent across the European Union.
Barnier on Tuesday said that the hot-button issue should be approached with humanity.
“Immigration is an issue that we must look at with lucidity and confront with pragmatism,” he added.
Every year, France receives more than 150,000 asylum applications and two-thirds are rejected, Barnier said, adding he wanted the government to process such requests more quickly.
Critics have accused Barnier of pandering to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party, which could decide the fate of his minority government.
Last December, France passed a controversial immigration law.
The bill was hardened to gain the support of the RN and other right-wing MPs.
But the country’s highest constitutional authority censured most of the new amendments which were dropped before President Emmanuel Macron signed it into law.
On Tuesday, Le Pen said she wanted Barnier’s government to draft a “restrictive” new immigration law that would include measures previously struck down by the Constitutional Council.
“We will remain the tireless and vigilant guardians of the interests of France and the French people,” Le Pen, who hopes to succeed Macron in a 2027 election, said in parliament.

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
Updated 01 October 2024
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‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market

‘Everything black’: Russian strike kills six at Kherson market
  • Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge
  • Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region

KHERSON, Ukraine: When Russian artillery pounded a market in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, a safe was blown from the windowsill of the pharmacy where Anya works, hitting her in the head.
She believes it was a stroke of luck.
“The safe hit me and saved me at the same time, because on the other side of the safe there were a lot of holes,” she told AFP, suggesting the metal box had shielded her from other projectiles that had been blasted toward her.
Six people were killed by the Russian strike, which hit a market in the city of Kherson around 9:00 am (0600 GMT), according to the regional prosecutor’s office.
It was the latest attack on a city that has borne the brunt of Moscow’s war for more than two and a half years.
Captured in the first weeks of the invasion in early 2022, residents that stayed there spent more than eight months living under Russian occupation.
In September 2022, Moscow claimed to have annexed the entire Kherson region, despite not having full control over it.
Facing military setbacks and stretched resources, it then withdrew its forces from Kherson city, the regional capital, in November 2022, retreating across the Dnipro river.
The waterway now serves as a de facto front line snaking through southern Ukraine — one that puts Kherson well within reach of Russian artillery stationed on the opposite bank.
Deadly strikes are frequent and locals live on edge.
“Everything happened very quickly. We didn’t understand anything. We only heard an explosion. It went dark, there was dust and something hit me on the head,” said Anya, recalling the blast.
She had stuck a plaster to her forehead where the safe had struck her.
When an AFP video journalist arrived at the market after the strike, debris and broken glass were strewn across the ground and pools of blood were congealing under the autumn sun.
Crates of fruit and vegetables lay on the pavement, abandoned as their sellers fled for cover.
“All those people who suffered, they worked here,” Anya told AFP. “They were our clients, people we knew.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine abandon the entire Kherson region — as well as parts of Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Lugansk that Ukraine still controls — as a precondition to peace talks
Kherson local Gennady was in a hardware kiosk when the artillery hit.
“I didn’t even notice I’d fallen to the floor,” he told AFP.
“Everything here was black. And what was outside — I was afraid to go out.”


Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder

Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder
Updated 01 October 2024
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Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder

Indian doctors resume strike over colleague’s rape and murder
  • The discovery of the 31-year-old’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in August rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women
  • Protesting Indian doctors had briefly returned to limited work in emergency departments last month but later decided at a union meeting to cease work again

KOLKATA: Indian doctors in Kolkata said on Tuesday they had resumed a strike to protest against the brutal rape and murder of a colleague because their demands for hospital safety improvements had not been met.
The discovery of the 31-year-old’s bloodied body at a state-run hospital in the eastern city in August rekindled nationwide anger at the chronic issue of violence against women.
Doctors briefly returned to limited work in emergency departments last month but decided at a union meeting to cease work again.
Union spokesman Aniket Mahato said the West Bengal state government had failed to deliver on its promises to upgrade lighting, CCTV cameras and other security measures in hospitals.
“The state government has failed to provide safety and security in the workplace,” he told AFP.
Mahato said doctors would return to the streets on Tuesday night to insist the government meet its pledges and to demand justice for their murdered colleague.
Tens of thousands of ordinary Indians joined in the protests following the August attack, which focused anger on the lack of measures for female doctors to work without fear.
One man has been detained over the murder but the West Bengal government has faced public criticism for its handling of the investigation.
Authorities sacked the city’s police chief and top health ministry officials.
India’s Supreme Court ordered a national task force last month to examine how to bolster security for health care workers, saying the brutality of the killing had “shocked the conscience of the nation.”
The gruesome nature of the attack drew comparisons with the 2012 gang rape and murder of a young woman on a Delhi bus, which also sparked weeks of nationwide protests.


Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood

Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood
Updated 01 October 2024
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Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood

Kashmir votes in final round of regional polls as Modi promises statehood
  • Modi’s government scrapped Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood in 2019
  • He promised to restore it during election campaign in the region last month

NEW DELHI: Voters in Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir went to the polls on Tuesday in the final round of local elections, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to restore the region’s statehood.

Modi’s government brought Kashmir under New Delhi’s direct control in 2019, after it repealed Article 370 of the constitution — which granted the region its semi-autonomy — and downgraded it from a state to a federally administrated territory.

The three-phase polls that started last month are the first in this political setting.

The election has been held in three stages from Sept. 18 to choose a 90-member local assembly. The result will be announced next week.

More than 9 million Kashmiris were registered to vote. In the first phase, the turnout was in excess of 61 percent, and in the second, 57 percent — relatively high for the region traditionally known for boycotting elections.

“The motivation is that the people want their statehood back,” Subhash Chandra Sharma, and advocate in Jammu, which was the last area to cast ballot votes, told Arab News.

“There is a strong resentment among the people that Article 370 was wrongly abrogated. Jammu people are feeling the pinch of losing the special constitutional status.”

Indian-controlled Jammu and Kashmir is part of the larger Kashmiri territory, which has been the subject of international dispute since the 1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.

Both countries claim Kashmir in full and rule in part. The Indian-controlled region is predominantly Muslim and has for decades witnessed outbreaks of separatist insurgencies to resist control from the government in New Delhi.

After the scrapping of Kashmir’s autonomy and statehood, a series of administrative changes followed, with the Indian government removing protections on land and jobs for the local population, which many likened to attempts at demographically altering the region.

The promise to restore the statehood was given by Modi last month as he visited Kashmir’s main city, Srinagar, to campaign for his party in the local election. He said that he has pledged in parliament that “Jammu and Kashmir will again be a state” and that only his Bharatiya Janata Party “will fulfill this commitment.”

Kashmir has been without a local government since 2018 when Modi’s Hindu-nationalist party brought down a coalition government elected in 2014, forcing the assembly to dissolve.

“So far, as the voting is concerned, I feel the BJP will not perform well in the Kashmir region and even in the Hindu-dominated Jammu region their performance would go down,” Sharma said.

Qazi Insha Shakeel, a homemaker, also from Jammu, said that people “feel the loss” of their region’s special status and statehood.

“If we elect our leader, then that leader without power would be meaningless,” she told Arab News. “Statehood is important to restore the power of the elected representatives so that they can address our grievances.”

For others, such as Aijaz Ahmad, a business professional from Srinagar, the election also meant a chance for the regain part of its agency.

“(To) vote is the only option for us to save our dignity,” he said.

“Without statehood, our elected representatives are powerless, and this election will hold no meaning.”


Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100

Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100
Updated 01 October 2024
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Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100

Former US president Jimmy Carter turns 100
  • No longer regularly appearing in public, the Democratic ex-president will spend his birthday in the home he and his late wife Rosalynn had built in Plains in the 1960s
  • President Joe Biden, in a video posted on his official X account, hailed Carter as a “beloved friend” and “one of the most influential statesmen” in US history

PLAINS, United States: Jimmy Carter celebrated his 100th birthday on Tuesday — the first ever US president to reach the century mark and another extraordinary milestone for the one-time peanut farmer who found his way to the White House.
Carter’s longevity — he began hospice care at his home in Plains, Georgia, more than 19 months ago — has defied all expectations.
No longer regularly appearing in public, the Democratic ex-president will spend his birthday in the home he and his late wife Rosalynn had built in Plains in the 1960s.
It will include a lunch with some 20 members of his extended family, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
President Joe Biden, in a video posted on his official X account, hailed Carter as a “beloved friend” and “one of the most influential statesmen” in US history.
“Your hopeful vision of our country, your commitment to a better world and your unwavering belief in the power of human goodness continues to be a guiding light for all of us,” he said.
First Lady Jill Biden’s office said a display would be set up on the White House lawn with the message “Happy Birthday President Carter.”
Beyond serving as president for a single term from 1977 to 1981, Carter worked as a global mediator, rights activist and elder statesman, founding the well-respected Carter Center in 1982 to pursue his vision of world diplomacy.
His presidency included the 1978 Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, establishment of diplomatic relations with China following a rapprochement initiated by president Richard Nixon, and return of control of the Panama Canal to Panama.
But his administration hit numerous snags, including the Iran hostage crisis and a renewed oil crisis in 1979-1980, which saw Ronald Regan sweep into power in a landslide.
“We are thrilled that the president from this little town is going to be the only president to ever live to be 100 years old,” Jill Stuckey, superintendent of the National Park Service’s Jimmy Carter historical site and longtime family friend, told AFP.
She spoke from Plains High School, where Carter graduated in 1941 and which now serves as the visitor center for the national park that features sites from his early life, including the nearby peanut farm where he grew up.
On Tuesday, the school will hold an evening concert and also a naturalization ceremony for 100 new US citizens.
A devout Baptist and self-described “born-again” Christian, Carter is remembered for a moralistic streak, but also his civility, admired even by detractors across the aisle.
“Healthy habits and his faith are a lot of the reasons why he is still with it today,” Stuckey said, referencing Carter’s penchant for fresh food and exercise.
According to family, Carter remains keenly interested in politics and was highly motivated to make it to 100 and to vote in the November election for fellow Democrat Kamala Harris.
“He will be voting by mail-in ballot,” Stuckey told AFP, adding “he’s always been very politically active, and nothing has changed with that respect.”
In Plains, like in many rural places with strong evangelical Christian leanings, far more yard signs support Republican Donald Trump than Harris.
But it is also not uncommon to see a sign celebrating Carter’s centennial birthday next to one supporting Trump.
Carl Lowell, who has lived in Plains since infancy, said he tries not to get involved in politics because it is “so divisive” right now.
Like most residents of Plains, the 59-year-old retired firefighter is linked to Carter in various ways — he says his grandfather helped build the Carters’ house and that he himself even went dove hunting with him once.
“Jimmy’s a good man, he’s a godly man, and that’s what people like about him,” he said.