Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck
Updated 02 November 2024
AFP
Kyiv: Ukraine said on Saturday Kyiv had come under heavy drone attack overnight, as fresh explosions were heard in the capital and other regions were struck.
“Unfortunately, the attack by Russian drones caused damage and casualties in various districts of Kyiv,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
He said that the “constant terrorist attacks on Ukrainian cities prove that the pressure on Russia and its accomplices is not enough.”
AFP reporters heard new explosions in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon amid an air raid alert.
In the morning Ukraine’s air force said it had shot down 39 out of 71 drones launched from Russia overnight.
The drones targeted the Kyiv region surrounding the capital, the Sumy border region as well as the central Kirovograd and Poltava regions.
Twenty-one drones were lost and five returned to Russia, the air force said, adding that the drone attack was continuing.
The air force said debris from downed drones had damaged houses and blocks of flats in four regions including Kyiv, Sumy and the Black Sea Odesa region.
Kyiv’s military administration said that debris from air defenses shooting down drones fell in six districts of the capital, damaging blocks of flats and cars and sparking several fires in buildings that were extinguished.
A policeman was injured, the administration said.
In the Kyiv region outside the capital, an 82-year-old woman suffered head wounds from shrapnel, officials said.
In a village near the southern city of Kherson, a 40-year-old woman was pulled dead from rubble after Russian troops fired artillery and four were injured including three children, the governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.
The health ministry said that a hospital in Kherson was struck, damaging two wards and a laboratory.
The medics and patients were uninjured as they had taken shelter.
Ukraine’s military commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrsky warned on Saturday that his troops on the ground were “holding back one of the most powerful Russian offensives since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.”
Russia’s Lavrov signals readiness to use any means in Ukraine conflict
Updated 12 sec ago
Reuters
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in an interview broadcast on Thursday, said the use of a hypersonic missile in the Ukraine war sought to make the West understand that Moscow was ready to use any means to ensure no “strategic defeat” would be inflicted on Moscow. “The message is that you, I mean the US and the allies of the US, who also provide these long-range weapons to the Kyiv regime — they must understand that we would be ready to use any means not to allow them to succeed in what they call a strategic defeat of Russia,” Lavrov told US journalist Tucker Carlson. Lavrov also said it was a “very serious mistake” for anyone in the West to presume that Russia had no red lines or that they were “being moved again and again.”
House rejects Democratic effort to force release of Matt Gaetz ethics report
Updated 06 December 2024
AP
WASHINGTON: The House shut down Democrats’ efforts Thursday to release the long-awaited ethics report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, pushing the fate of any resolution to the yearslong investigation of sexual misconduct allegations into further uncertainty. The nearly party-line votes came after Democrats had been pressing for the findings to be published even though the Florida Republican left Congress and withdrew as President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Republicans have argued that any congressional probe into Gaetz ended when he resigned from the House. Speaker Mike Johnson also requested that the committee not publish its report, saying it would be a terrible precedent to set. While ethics reports have previously been released after a member’s resignation, it is extremely rare. Shortly before the votes took place, Rep. Sean Casten, D-Illinois, who introduced one of the bills to force the release, said that if Republicans reject the release, they will have “succeeded in sweeping credible allegations of sexual misconduct under the rug.” Gaetz has repeatedly denied the claims. Earlier Thursday, the Ethics panel met to discuss the Gaetz report but made no decision, saying in a short statement that the matter is still being discussed. It’s unclear now whether the document will ever see the light of day as lawmakers only have a few weeks left before a new session of Congress begins. It’s the culmination of weeks of pressure on the Ethics committee’s five Republicans and five Democrats who mostly work in secret as they investigate allegations of misconduct against lawmakers. The status of the Gaetz investigation became an open question last month when he abruptly resigned from Congress after Trump’s announcement that he wanted his ally in the Cabinet. It is standard practice for the committee to end investigations when members of Congress depart, but the circumstances surrounding Gaetz were unusual, given his potential role in the new administration. Rep. Michael Guest, R-Mississippi, the committee chairman, said Wednesday that there is no longer the same urgency to release the report given that Gaetz has left Congress and stepped aside as Trump’s choice to head the Justice Department. “I’ve been steadfast about that. He’s no longer a member. He is no longer going to be confirmed by the Senate because he withdrew his nomination to be the attorney general,” Guest said. The Gaetz report has also caused tensions between lawmakers on the bipartisan committee. Pennsylvania Rep. Susan Wild, the top Democrat on the panel, publicly admonished Guest last month for mischaracterizing a previous meeting to the press. Gaetz has denied any wrongdoing and said last year that the Justice Department’s separate investigation against him into sex trafficking allegations involving underage girls ended without federal charges. His onetime political ally Joel Greenberg, a fellow Republican who served as the tax collector in Florida’s Seminole County, admitted as part of a plea deal with prosecutors in 2021 that he paid women and an underage girl to have sex with him and other men. The men were not identified in court documents when he pleaded guilty. Greenberg was sentenced in late 2022 to 11 years in prison.
White House’s Sullivan, Zelensky aide discuss improving Ukraine’s war position
Updated 06 December 2024
Reuters
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, discussed on Thursday improving Kyiv’s position in its war with Russia and ensuring it enters any future negotiations from a position of strength, a White House spokesperson said.
7.0 earthquake off Northern California prompts brief tsunami warning
Updated 06 December 2024
AP
SAN FRANCISCO: A 7.0 magnitude earthquake shook a large area of Northern California on Thursday, knocking items off grocery store shelves, sending children scrambling under desks and prompting a brief tsunami warning for 5.3 million people along the US West Coast. The quake struck at 10:44 a.m. west of Ferndale, a small city in coastal Humboldt County, about 130 miles (209 km) from the Oregon border, the US Geological Survey said. It was felt as far south as San Francisco, some 270 miles (435 km) away, where residents felt a rolling motion for several seconds. It was followed by multiple smaller aftershocks. There were no immediate reports of major damage or injury. The tsunami warning was in effect for roughly an hour. It was issued shortly after the temblor struck and covered nearly 500 miles (805 km) of coastline, from the edge of California’s Monterey Bay north into Oregon. “It was a strong quake, our building shook, we’re fine but I have a mess to clean up right now,” said Julie Kreitzer, owner of Golden Gait Mercantile, a store packed with food, wares and souvenirs that is a main attraction in Ferndale. “We lost a lot of stuff. It’s probably worse than two years ago. I have to go, I have to try and salvage something for the holidays because it’s going to be a tough year,” Kreitzer said before hanging up. The region — known for its redwood forests, scenic mountains and the three-county Emerald Triangle’s legendary marijuana crop — was struck by a 6.4 magnitude quake in 2022 that left thousands of people without power and water. The northwest corner of California is the most seismically active part of the state since it’s where three tectonic plates meet, seismologist Lucy Jones said on the social media platform BlueSky. Shortly after the quake, phones in Northern California buzzed with the tsunami warning from the National Weather Service that said: “A series of powerful waves and strong currents may impact coasts near you. You are in danger. Get away from coastal waters. Move to high ground or inland now. Keep away from the coast until local officials say it is safe to return.” Numerous cities urged people to evacuate to higher ground as a precaution, including Eureka. In Santa Cruz, authorities cleared the main beach, taping off entrances with police tape. Aerial footage showed cars bumper-to-bumper heading to higher ground Thursday morning on California highways 1 and 92 in the Half Moon Bay area south of San Francisco. “I thought my axles had fallen apart,” said Valerie Starkey, a Del Norte County supervisor representing Crescent City, a town of fewer than 6,000 near the Oregon border. “That’s what I was feeling ... ‘My axles are broken now.’ I did not realize it was an earthquake.” Cindy Vosburg, the executive director for the Crescent City-Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce, said she heard alarms sound just before shaking began and the city’s cultural center downtown started to creak. “The earthquake seemed to go on for quite a few seconds. It was a rolling earthquake,” Vosburg said. “Just as it would start to subside, the building would roll again.” Vosburg, a former resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and the Central Valley, said it was the strongest earthquake she felt since the 1989 Loma Prieta quake struck Northern California. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he has signed off on a state of emergency declaration to quickly move state resources to impacted areas along the coast. State officials were concerned about damages in the northern part of the state, Newsom said. White House Spokesperson Jeremy Edwards said President Joe Biden was briefed on the earthquake and that FEMA officials are in touch with their state and local counterparts in California and Oregon. Crews in Eureka, the biggest city in the region, were assessing if there was any major damage from the quake, Eureka Mayor Kim Bergel said. Bergel, who works as a resource aid at a middle school, said lights were swaying and everyone got under desks. “The kids were so great and terrified. It seemed to go back and forth for quite a long time,” she said. Some children asked, “Can I call my mom?“ The students were later sent home. In nearby Arcata, students and faculty were urged to shelter in place at California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt. The campus in was not in the tsunami hazard zone and after inspections, “all utilities and building systems are normal and operational,” the university said in a statement. Humboldt County Sheriff William Honsal said residents experienced some cracks in their homes’ foundations, as well as broken glass and windows, but nothing severe. There also have been no major infrastructure problems, building collapses or roadway issues, and no major injuries or deaths have been reported, he said. Honsal said he was in his office in the 75-year-old courthouse in downtown Eureka when he felt the quake. “We’re used to it. It is known as ‘earthquake country’ up here,” he said. “It wasn’t a sharp jolt. It was a slow roller, but significant.” Michael Luna, owner of a Grocery Outlet in Eureka, said that besides a few items falling off shelves, the store on Commercial Street was unscathed by the earthquake. “We didn’t have any issues but a couple of deodorants fall off.... I think the way the earthquake rumbled this time, it was a good thing for our store because the last earthquake was a huge mess,” he said. They evacuated customers and closed their doors temporarily until officials lifted the tsunami warning, he said, rushing off the phone to attend to a growing line of customers at check-out. The San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, known as BART, stopped traffic in all directions through the underwater tunnel between San Francisco and Oakland, and the San Francisco Zoo’s visitors were evacuated. Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska, said the computer models indicated that this was the type of earthquake that was unlikely to cause a tsunami and gauges that monitor waves then confirmed it, so forecasters canceled the warning. This quake was a strike-slip type of temblor that shifts more horizontally and is less prone to cause tsunamis, unlike the more vertical types, said National Weather Service tsunami program manager Corina Allen in Washington state. The California Geological Survey says the state’s shores have been struck by more than 150 tsunamis since 1800, and while most were minor, some have been destructive and deadly. On March 28, 1964, a tsunami triggered by a powerful earthquake in Alaska smashed into Crescent City hours later. Much of the business district was leveled and a dozen people were killed. More recently, a tsunami from a 2011 earthquake in Japan caused about $100 million in damages along the California coast, much of it in Crescent City.
US neighbors balk at Trump plan for deported migrants
Updated 06 December 2024
AFP
WASHINGTON: The Bahamas on Thursday said it had rejected a proposal from the incoming Trump administration to receive deported migrants, with Mexico and Panama also stressing they would only take back their own citizens.
Donald Trump’s team has drawn up a list of countries to which it wants to deport undocumented migrants when their home countries refuse to accept them, according to NBC News.
Sources told the television network that the countries that are being considered include the Bahamas, Grenada, Panama and the Turks and Caicos Islands.
But the Bahamas — an island nation in the Atlantic Ocean — said it had “reviewed and firmly rejected” the plan from the US president-elect, who campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants.
Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis’s office said in a statement that his government had received a proposal from the Trump transition team “to accept deportation flights of migrants from other countries.”
“Since the Prime Minister’s rejection of this proposal, there has been no further engagement or discussions with the Trump transition team,” the statement added.
The Panamanian foreign ministry said it had received no such proposal from the Trump team, officially or unofficially.
“What is more, under international law we are under no obligation to take in deportees who are not Panamanian,” it said in a statement.
Panama wants to have good relations with the United States but “the foreign ministry believes clearly that our main mission is to protect the interests of Panama.”
The Turks and Caicos also said it would not accept deportees.
“Turks and Caicos, like all nations, has the sovereign right to determine who may reside within its borders,” Immigration Minister Arlington Musgrove told the Miami Herald.
“The unilateral imposition of third-country deportation policies, such as those reportedly under consideration by the incoming Trump administration, is fundamentally at odds with international norms and legal standards,” Musgrove told the newspaper.
Mexico’s new President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country has an agreement with the Biden administration under which non-Mexicans crossing into the United States from Mexico without papers are sent directly back to their countries of origin, and she hopes this will continue with Trump.
“Of course, we show solidarity with all people but our main function is to take in Mexicans and we hope to have an agreement with the Trump administration in case there are these deportations,” she said.
Trump’s team made no immediate comment Thursday on the proposal reported by NBC, which appeared to reveal one part of how the incoming president plans to enact radical migration reform when in office.
The deportation plan could mean that migrants are permanently displaced in countries to which they have no links.
It is not clear if the migrants would be allowed to work — or what pressure Trump may apply to get countries to agree, NBC said.
The US government has struggled for years to manage its southern border with Mexico, and Trump on the campaign trail targeted concerns by claiming a migrant “invasion” is underway.
At rallies, he repeatedly railed against undocumented immigrants, accusing them of rape and murder and attacking those who “poison the blood” of the United States.
He has vowed to tackle migrant gangs using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 — which allows the federal government to round up and deport foreigners belonging to enemy countries.
Trump also promoted the fictitious story that Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets.
The incoming president last month said he was bringing back hard-line immigration official Tom Homan to oversee the country’s borders.
Homan led immigration enforcement during part of Trump’s first administration.
A British plan to deport its asylum seekers to Rwanda was dropped earlier this year when the Labour Party took power under Keir Starmer after ousting the Conservatives.