Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine/node/2577063/world
Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
Activists unfold a giant flag of the Donetsk People’s Republic, to mark the Flag Day in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, on October 25, 2024, amid the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict. (AFP)
Russian state media says Moscow spirited a US citizen working for it out of Ukraine
The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns”
Updated 28 October 2024
Reuters
MOSCOW: Russian state media said on Monday that Moscow’s forces fighting in Ukraine had successfully extracted a US citizen from eastern Ukraine who had secretly helped them target Ukraine for at least two years.
State media published a picture of the purported American in civilian clothing embracing a group of what looked like Russian special forces wearing combat uniforms. His face was blurred out in the photograph.
Reuters was unable to independently confirm the Russian reports which cited Moscow’s forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine as saying they were calling the American “Kenneth M.”
The US embassy in Moscow said it could not comment “due to privacy concerns.”
Russian media cast the man as “The Quiet American” after the 1955 novel by Graham Greene which tells the story of early US involvement in Vietnam through the adventures of a British journalist and an American agent.
Russian forces in the Donetsk region were quoted as saying that Russian special forces and army units had spirited the American out of eastern Ukraine and that he had been supplying Russia with “valuable intelligence” for two years.
Russian media said he had supplied information that had allowed the Russian military to “execute precision strikes against the enemy.”
“The life of the rescued American is not in danger,” Rusisan-backed forces in Donetsk were cited as saying. “The issue of granting political asylum and becoming a citizen of Russia is being resolved.”
Hague court lays fresh charges against ex-Kosovo leader Thaci
Updated 29 sec ago
Thaci “has been charged with three counts of obstruction of official persons in performing official duties,” said a statement released by prosecutors Thaci resigned from the presidency in late 2020
PRISTINA: Prosecutors with a special international court in The Hague on Friday charged Kosovo’s former president Hashim Thaci, who is on trial for war crimes, with obstruction and contempt of court. Thaci “has been charged with three counts of obstruction of official persons in performing official duties, four counts of violating secrecy of proceedings and four counts of contempt of court,” said a statement released by prosecutors. A separate statement by the Kosovo Specialists Chambers (KSC) in The Hague said “the indictment charges the accused with offenses related to alleged unlawful efforts to influence witness testimonies in the Thaci et al war crimes trial.” The KSC is a court located in The Hague to prosecute mainly former Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) fighters for war crimes. Among them is former KLA commander Thaci, who dominated Kosovo’s politics after it declared independence from Serbia in 2008 and rose to become president of the tiny country. Thaci resigned from the presidency in late 2020 to face war crimes and crimes against humanity charges, and has pleaded not guilty.
‘We love our food’: Malaysians cheer as breakfast culture joins UNESCO list
Malaysia’s breakfast traditions recognized on Intangible Cultural Heritage list
This is the first time Malaysia has received UN recognition related to gastronomy
Updated 06 December 2024
Kanyakumari Damordaran
KUALA LUMPUR: For many Malaysians, breakfast has always been the highlight of the day — and now, it is also a source of pride after gaining a place on UNESCO’s cultural heritage list.
The UN body voted on Thursday to include Malaysia’s breakfast culture, “a living heritage related to the traditional dietary practices,” on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The recognition was immediately welcomed by the Ministry of Culture as a “historic milestone” as it was Malaysia’s first UNESCO entry related to food and gastronomy. It also drew delighted responses from all those from whom breakfast is an integral part of family and social life.
Heng Wei Boon, a 47-year-old engineer, still remembers the food his mother used to prepare when he was growing up in Penang. The usual menu was half-boiled eggs with toast, porridge, or noodle soup. All three dishes until now remain his breakfast favorites until now.
“It did not matter if it was a school day. If it is, breakfast is at 6.30 a.m. If not, it’s around 7:45 or 8 a.m,” he said.
“It is a meal to start the day and here in Malaysia, we take it very seriously.”
From home kitchens to kopitiams — traditional coffee houses — to roadside stalls and office cafeterias, the first meal of the day is like a ritual in all of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic communities.
“I grew up in a kampung (village) neighborhood, in the city, and back then, sometimes, some of the moms took turns making breakfast for the kids ... It was such a fun time, and it is a memory so many of us cherish and still talk about,” Nur Natasha Siraj, a 35-year old pharmacist in the Klang Valley told Arab News.
“Now, as a working adult, taking that time for breakfast — to sit and share a meal to start my day — is an important part of my routine, as it is for many Malaysians. The boomers in my hospital would never not go for breakfast and even give us a scolding for missing breakfast. Not so much because they care about our health, but because it is our time to check in with one another and bond before the rush of the day begins.”
A screengrab from a 2023 clip by Malaysia's Department of National Heritage shows a food vendor serving nasi lemak. (UNESCO)
Her favorite breakfast item was nasi lemak — fragrant rice cooked in coconut milk and with pandan leaves, accompanied by sambal chili sauce and various garnishes like fresh cucumber slices, fried anchovies, roasted peanuts, and boiled or fried eggs.
Traditionally served in banana leaves, it is one of the most popular staples.
Mahalakshmi Sundarasekaran, a Kuala Lumpur vendor who sells nasi lemak and idli — savory Indian rice cakes — runs out of her menu items within two hours from opening her stall in the morning.
“People are always in a good mood when having breakfast. I enjoy seeing that. I am glad Malaysia got recognized for this,” she said.
“We, Malaysians, love our food, give it to us three times a day, five times a day, we will eat. But there’s something about breakfast. A good breakfast to start your day ... This recognition is so appropriate.”
Other iconic breakfast items include roti canai — a flaky, crispy South Indian flatbread served with lentil or meat curry — and mi soto, a soup dish that combines broth spiced with turmeric, ginger and lemongrass, and thick yellow noodles.
Sulaiman Ramly, who owns a mi soto stall in Kota Bharu in the northern state of Kelantan, told Arab News that breakfast was a “reset time” for Malaysians.
“It is when they set their bearings for the day. For someone like me who sells breakfast for a living, I know that a good meal to start your day sets the tone for the whole day,” he said.
“In Malaysia, there is no shortage of good food and especially not of good breakfast.”
DUBAI: Indonesian medics volunteering at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in north Gaza said they were forced by Israeli troops to leave the area on Friday, days after arriving with emergency assistance.
Like the rest of Gaza’s north, the Kamal Adwan Hospital has been cut from any supplies since early October, enduring multiple Israeli strikes and a siege and running out of fuel, among other essentials.
Five volunteers from the Indonesian nongovernmental organization Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, or MER-C, arrived in the facility on Dec. 1 and were the first emergency medical team to reach it in 60 days.
They were forced to leave on Friday morning following two warnings, Dr. Faradina Sulistiyani, a surgeon from the MER-C, said in a video clip upon arrival in Gaza City.
“We walked from Kamal Adwan until Salah Al-Din Street,” she said. “They are bombing the hospital now.”
Most of the hospital’s doctors have been detained by Israeli soldiers in raids since late October.
The Indonesian team, comprising Sulistiyani, another surgeon, an obstetrician, and two nurses, were the only ones able to perform surgeries in the past days, the hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, said in a statement after their departure.
“No surgeons are left,” he said, as he reported scores of casualties from Friday’s attacks.
“Medical supplies are running out, and there are hundreds of victims.”
From the Kamal Adwan Hospital, the Indonesian team walked to the nearby Indonesia Hospital — a facility that was funded and opened by MER-C in 2016. Heavily damaged by Israeli strikes last year, the hospital partly reopened in June. It has been targeted again since October.
Video footage shared by MER-C shows the Indonesian medics sheltering in the facility, amid strikes hitting the building.
“We have evacuated from the Kamal Adwan Hospital, now at Indonesia Hospital. God willing, we’ll walk to Salah Al-Din,” one of the volunteers said in the clip. “Dr. Hussam and other local medical staff remained in Kamal Adwan.”
When they reached Salah Al-Din Road, the main highway of the Gaza Strip, they were picked up by a Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulance.
“There were still people walking some 300 meters behind us,” Kamal Putra Pratama, a nurse from the team, said in a video from the car. “Hopefully the people who were in Kamal Adwan, the sick people, can be evacuated.”
One of the last functioning health centers in north Gaza, the Kamal Adwan Hospital has been hit multiple times since the start of Israel’s war on the Palestinian enclave in October last year.
The hospital’s intensive care unit director Ahmad Al-Kahlut was killed in an air strike late last month.
The Israeli military has killed at least 44,600 people and injured more than 105,000. The real death toll is believed to be much higher, with estimates published by medical journal The Lancet indicating that, as of July, it could be more than 186,000.
EU envoys fail to agree 15th package of sanctions on Russia, diplomats say
Two member states blocked the passage over a disagreement about extending the time given to European companies disinvesting from Russia, diplomats said
EU members will come back to the package later
Updated 06 December 2024
Reuters
BRUSSELS: Representatives of European Union countries failed on Friday to approve a 15th package of sanctions on Russia, which included an extension for the Czech Republic to import Russian oil-based products coming mainly through Slovakia, diplomats said.
Two member states blocked the passage over a disagreement about extending the time given to European companies disinvesting from Russia, diplomats said. EU members will come back to the package later.
The package also includes sanctions on tankers carrying Russian oil.
Within the package was a debate on extending an EU exemption allowing the Czechs to continue importing diesel and other products derived from Russian oil and made in a Slovak refinery.
While the Czechs have said they were not looking for an extension allowing the import of Russian oil-based fuels, Slovakia has sought to keep the arrangement, which expired on Thursday, in place.
Slovak refiner Slovnaft, owned by Hungary’s MOL , is a significant exporter of diesel made from Russian oil to the Czech Republic. Czech officials have said an extension for six months could be accepted.
The 27-nation EU banned most oil imports from Russia after the country’s full-scale
invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
But the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary gained exemptions to sanctions because of a lack of other supply.
However, the Czech Republic has been upgrading a pipeline from Italy to Germany to transport more oil that way and wean itself completely off Russian crude by the second half of 2025.
EU and South America countries conclude Mercosur trade deal
Agreement will create a sprawling free-trade zone of more than 700 million people
France, which opposes the deal, says the agreement would bring unfair competition for agriculture
Updated 06 December 2024
AFP
MONTEVIDEO: The EU and four South American countries have concluded a huge, but controversial trade deal that is opposed by France and many European farmers, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday.
“This is a win-win agreement,” von der Leyen said in Uruguay, where she was attending a summit of the Mercosur bloc involved in the deal, which also includes Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.
The agreement would create a sprawling free-trade zone of more than 700 million people.
She called the agreement — nearly a quarter of a century in the making — “a truly historic milestone” that builds trade bridges at a time when “strong winds are blowing in the opposite direction, toward isolation and fragmentation.”
But the European farmers’ group COPA-COGECA immediately reiterated its opposition to the agreement and called for a “flash” protest in Brussels on Monday.
EU countries and the European Parliament “must now firmly challenge the terms of this agreement,” the umbrella organization said.
While negotiations have concluded, the EU-Mercosur deal still needs to be greenlit by at least 15 of the European Union’s 27 member nations representing 65 percent of the EU population, as well as the European Parliament.
France, which has been rocked by successive protests by farmers saying the agreement would bring unfair competition, has tried to forge a blocking minority of EU countries.
Poland has rallied to France’s side, and Italian government sources say Rome believes “the conditions are not met” to back the deal. The Netherlands and Austria have also expressed reservations.
France’s minister for trade, Sophie Primas, said that von der Leyen’s announcement “regards only her.”
“Today is not the end of the story.... This only commits the commission, not the (EU) member states,” she said in a statement to AFP.
But Germany, desperate to open more trade opportunities amid gloom for its manufacturing sector, had strongly come out in favor of the EU-Mercosur deal, as had Spain.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz reacted to the announcement from von der Leyen — a former German defense minister — by saying on X that “an important hurdle” had been overcome.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez hailed a “historic agreement with Mercosur to establish an unprecedented economic bridge between Europe and Latin America.”
The broad outlines of a deal were agreed back in 2019 but it was never ratified amid concerns over the impact of Brazilian farming on climate change, among other factors.
Von der Leyen nodded to that preoccupation, saying: “The EU-Mercosur agreement reflects our steadfast commitment to the Paris Agreement (on fighting climate change) and to the fight against deforestation.”
She said efforts being made by the government of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to protect the Amazon “are welcome, and they are necessary — but preserving the Amazon is a shared responsibility of all humanity.”
She also singled out European farmers, telling them: “We have heard you, listened to your concerns, and we are acting on them. This agreement includes robust safeguards to protect your livelihoods.”
The deal, once ratified, would allow the EU to export cars, machinery and pharmaceutical products more easily to South America.
In return, Brazil and its neighbors would be able to sell meat, sugar, rice, honey, soybeans and other products to Europe with fewer restrictions.
The treaty aims to eliminate most import taxes between the EU and Mercosur to create a vast free-trade area of more than 700 million consumers.
Sources familiar with the negotiations told AFP the deal would include changes to “several chapters,” including government contracts, services, intellectual property and the environment.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday had repeated a warning to von der Leyen that the agreement was “unacceptable in its current state.”
