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KYIV: The Ukrainian military said on Tuesday it shot down 48 out of 79 drones and two missiles launched by Russia overnight.
The air force said the location of 30 other drones had been lost, while another had returned to Russia.
TBILISI: Almost every night since pro-EU protests erupted in Georgia last week, young husband-and-wife duo Mamuka Matkava and Gogona Parkaia have been working flat out to feed their fellow demonstrators.
Each night the couple, one a musician and the other an artist, spend three to four hours cooking dozens of mchadi, a traditional cornbread native to their home region of Mingrelia in western Georgia, in their small flat in a quiet residential neighborhood of the capital Tbilisi.
Adding to each piece a slice of salty Georgian sulguni cheese, they dish out the snacks to protesters gathered on Tbilisi’s central Rustaveli Avenue, the epicenter of the protests. Many protesters stay out until morning amid lengthy standoffs with riot police armed with water cannon and tear gas.
The South Caucasus country of 3.7 million has been gripped by crisis since the Georgian Dream party, returned to power in an October election the opposition says was tainted by fraud, said last week it was halting European Union accession talks until 2028, abruptly freezing a long-standing national goal of EU membership that is written into Georgia’s constitution.
Georgian Dream says the protests represent an attempt to stage a violent revolution by pro-EU opposition parties.
Like many young Georgians, Gogona sees the question of EU membership as existential for her country, which gained independence at the Soviet Union’s break-up in 1991, but has under Georgian Dream deepened ties with Russia, which continues to support two breakaway Georgian regions.
“The most important thing is that we need to avoid becoming part of Russia,” she said.
“We need a friend who can protect us from the power of Russia, you know? Because we are a very small country, and by ourselves, we cannot do anything.”
For Gogona, who runs a YouTube channel with husband Mamuka, there is an added responsibility. She is pregnant, and says that helping feed protesters allows her to take a stand without risking her unborn child at protests that often turn violent, and at which over 300 people have been detained.
“I don’t just feel responsible for myself right now. I feel responsible for my child,” she said.
GENERATION GAP
Younger Georgians have been numerous at pro-EU rallies that have flared up periodically since the spring, when Georgian Dream introduced a law on “foreign agents” that domestic and foreign critics say is draconian and Russian-inspired.
In contrast to their elders, few younger Georgians have visited Russia, or speak its language, having grown up in a period when Moscow imposed a stringent visa regime on Georgians that was only lifted last year.
Born and raised in a country where EU and Georgian flags fly together outside government buildings, and enjoying visa-free travel to the EU’s Schengen Zone, Georgia’s Generation Z tend toward pro-Western views.
They see the current protests as a seminal moment in the history of Georgia, which was ruled from Russia for around 200 years, and fought and lost a brief war with its huge neighbor in 2008.
Twenty-year-old politics student Nini came to Wednesday night’s protest with classmates from one of Tbilisi’s private universities, most of which have suspended studies amid mass student walk-outs.
Like many rally-goers, she carried a gas mask slung around her neck in case of a police crackdown.
She said: “As a student, and as a Georgian, just a citizen, I feel like it’s my obligation to stand with my people, with my fellow Georgians when there is such a critical situation in our country.”
Nini said that her peers, who grew up online and often speak fluent English, took their pro-Western cues from their parents’ and grandparents’ bitter experiences of Georgia’s turbulent history since independence.
“We don’t want to go back into the past. We’re not going back.”
For expectant mother Gogona, her unborn child only adds to the significance of the current moment.
“We don’t want our children to have to protest in their life. We want them to have freedom and the opportunity to choose their own way,” she said.
“We just want them to be in a free country, you know?”
MOSCOW: Russia on Thursday ordered the Polish consulate in Saint Petersburg to close in retaliation for the Poland shutting the Russian consulate in the Polish city of Poznan, the foreign ministry said.
Poland announced it was closing the Russian consulate in Poznan in October, accusing Moscow of “sabotage” attempts in the country and its allies.
“Guided by the principle of reciprocity, three diplomatic staff members of the consulate general of the Republic of Poland in Saint Petersburg have been declared persona non grata,” Moscow’s foreign ministry said.
It said the consulate must close and its staff leave Russia by January 10, 2025.
Poland responded that it would close all the Russian consulates on its soil if “terrorism” it blamed on Moscow carried on.
“If acts of diversion and terrorism continue, I will close down the rest of the Russian consulate presence in Poland,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters after Moscow announced the closure of the Saint Petersburg consulate.
Tensions between Russia and NATO member Poland have escalated since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, with both sides expelling dozens of diplomats.
Poland is a staunch ally of Kyiv and has been a key transit point for Western arms heading to the embattled country since the conflict began.
It has accused Russia of being behind espionage and sabotage attempts on its territory.
In one of the largest espionage trials, Poland last year convicted 14 citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine of preparing sabotage on behalf of Moscow as part of a spy ring.
They were found guilty of preparing to derail trains carrying aid to Ukraine, and monitoring military facilities and critical infrastructure in the country.
NEW DELHI: A new US-Indian satellite is set to be launched in March next year, India’s science minister said in parliament, updating lawmakers on the first Earth-mapping joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organization.
A collaboration agreement between ISRO and NASA was signed in 2014, with a targeted launch of the NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar, or NISAR, project in 2024.
The satellite’s reflector, however, which is one of the main NASA contributions to the joint mission, had to undergo corrections, Science Minister Jitendra Singh told Parliament members on Wednesday.
“The Radar Antenna Reflector was delivered to ISRO by NASA in October 2024, which is reintegrated with the satellite and currently undergoing necessary tests,” Singh said in a written reply to a parliamentary query.
“Also, due to the eclipse season, the conditions are not conducive for deployment of NISAR’s boom and the Radar Antenna Reflector. In view of the aforementioned factors, NISAR is now likely to be launched during March 2025.”
The reflector is a key component of NISAR, and at 12m in diameter it will be the largest radar antenna of its kind ever launched into space.
It will focus transmitted and received microwave signals to and from the Earth’s surface, allowing the satellite to scan nearly all of the planet’s land and ice surfaces every week.
The data will provide a picture of how Earth’s surface moves horizontally and vertically.
“The information will be crucial to better understanding everything from the mechanics of Earth’s crust to which parts of the world are prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions,” the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which leads the US component of the project, said in last month’s mission update.
“The mission will be able to detect surface motions down to fractions of an inch. In addition to monitoring changes to Earth’s surface, the satellite will be able to track the motion of ice sheets, glaciers, and sea ice, and map changes to vegetation.”
The data is expected to help researchers better understand changes in the Earth’s surface and will also capture changes in its forest and wetland ecosystems.
Estimated to cost $1.5 billion, the NISAR mission is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO, with the US providing also the mission’s L-band radar, while the S-band radar is made in India.
The S-band radar is useful for monitoring crop structure and the roughness of land and ice surfaces, while the L-band instrument can penetrate denser forest canopies. Both sensors can see through clouds and collect data day and night.
The NISAR project marks the first time the Indian and US space agencies have cooperated on hardware development for Earth mapping.
Its launch will further add to India’s status as an emerging space superpower, following last year’s successful launch of Aditya-L1 — the country’s first solar observation mission, and the world’s second after the US Parker Solar Probe launched in 2021.
Also in 2023, ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 moon rover made history by landing on the lunar surface, making India the first country to land near the lunar south pole and the fourth to land on the moon — after the US, the Soviet Union and China.
WASHINGTON: Afghanistan’s economy is showing modest signs of growth after two years of severe contraction, the World Bank said this week.
In its latest development update issued late Wednesday, the financial institution said modest GDP growth of 2.7 percent was driven by private consumption. The partial recovery, coupled with falling food prices, helped to gradually improve household welfare.
Before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy relied heavily on foreign aid and corruption was rife. Their takeover three years ago sent the economy into a tailspin, as billions in international funds were frozen, and tens of thousands of highly skilled Afghans fled the country and took their money with them.
Afghan’s exports remained stable in 2023-24 but imports surged, creating a widening trade deficit, according to the World Bank. This deficit, exacerbated by dependence on imports for essential goods like fuel, food and machinery, could pose a risk to the country’s economic stability.
Faris Hadad-Zervos, the World Bank’s country director for Afghanistan, said long-term growth prospects required tapping into the substantial potential of the domestic private sector and improving the overall business environment.
“Key to this is increased investment, providing access to finance to small businesses, and supporting educated and skilled women entrepreneurs so their businesses can thrive,” said Hadad-Zervos. “Without this, the country risks prolonged stagnation with limited prospects for sustainable development.”
The update comes days after media reports that the Taliban have ordered educational institutions to stop providing medical training to women and girls. The Taliban have neither confirmed the order nor responded to the reports.
On Thursday, the head of the UN children’s agency UNICEF said she was deeply alarmed by the reported restrictions.
UNICEF was determining the veracity of these differing accounts and welcomed efforts to address the issue, said the agency’s executive director Catherine Russell.
If confirmed, this ban was expected to immediately halt the medical education of thousands of women and jeopardize women and girls’ access to health care, she added.
“It would not only further limit the ability of women to contribute to society and earn an income but would also have far-reaching consequences for the health of the Afghan population. Lives would be lost,” she warned.
MANILA, Philippines: Philippine police officials said Thursday they are checking reports that a kidnapped American died after being shot twice while resisting his Oct. 17 abduction by gunmen in the country’s south.
Elliot Onil Eastman, 26, from Vermont, was shot twice with an M16 rifle while trying to fight off his four kidnappers, who posed as police officers, in the coastal town of Sibuco in Zamboanga del Norte province, police said.
The kidnappers dragged him to a motorboat and sped off, according to earlier police reports.
A massive search for Eastman and his abductors led to the arrest of a number of suspects, but he has not been found. Three suspects were killed in a gunbattle with police in the south last month.
Regional police spokesperson Lt. Col. Ramoncelio Sawan said investigators received information from a relative of one of the suspects that Eastman died due to gunshot wounds in the thigh and abdomen while being taken away by his abductors.
The kidnappers decided to throw his body into the sea after he died, the relative said. The information about Eastman’s death was later corroborated by a key suspect in the kidnapping who was arrested recently, and his sworn statement has been submitted to government prosecutors, Sawan said.
Criminal complaints of kidnapping have been filed against several suspects, he said.
“We are constrained to believe that he has died. All of the information that we have points to that,” Sawan said. But he added that without the victim’s body, “we’re still leaving a little bit of hope that it may not be the case” and police would continue their investigation.
Philippine police have informed Eastman’s Filipino wife and the US Embassy in Manila about his reported death, Sawan said.
The embassy said it’s aware of the police report and is coordinating with Philippine authorities, but did not comment further due to privacy considerations.
Eastman traveled out of the Philippines and returned to Sibuco to attend his wife’s graduation when he was kidnapped. He had been posting Facebook videos of his life in Sibuco, a poor, remote coastal town, where the suspects spotted him, police earlier said.
They said the suspects appeared to be common criminals who did not belong to any Muslim rebel groups which have been accused of ransom kidnappings in the past.
Security problems have long hounded the southern Philippines, the homeland of a Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
The southern third of the Philippines has bountiful resources but has long been hamstrung by poverty, insurgencies and outlaws.
A 2014 peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, has considerably eased widespread fighting in the south. Relentless military offensives have weakened smaller armed groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, reducing kidnappings, bombings and other violence.
The Abu Sayyaf has targeted Americans and other Western tourists and missionaries, most of whom were freed after ransoms were paid. A few were killed, including American Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded on the southern island of Basilan, and a US missionary, Martin Burnham, who was killed while Philippine army forces were trying to rescue him and his wife, Gracia Burnham, in 2002 in a rainforest near Sibuco.
