US arms flow to Ukraine again as the Kremlin mulls a ceasefire proposal

US arms flow to Ukraine again as the Kremlin mulls a ceasefire proposal
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Updated 12 March 2025
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US arms flow to Ukraine again as the Kremlin mulls a ceasefire proposal

US arms flow to Ukraine again as the Kremlin mulls a ceasefire proposal
  • The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks Tuesday with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift in its stance
  • Zelensky said the 30-day ceasefire would allow the sides “to fully prepare a step-by-step plan for ending the war, including security guarantees for Ukraine”

KYIV: US arms deliveries to Ukraine resumed Wednesday, officials said, a day after the Trump administration lifted its suspension of military aid for Kyiv in its fight against Russia’s invasion, and officials awaited the Kremlin’s response to a proposed 30-day ceasefire endorsed by Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it’s important not to “get ahead” of the question of responding to the ceasefire, which was proposed by Washington. He told reporters that Moscow is awaiting “detailed information” from the US and suggested that Russia must get that before it can take a position. The Kremlin has previously opposed anything short of a permanent end to the conflict and has not accepted any concessions.
US President Donald Trump wants to end the three-year war and pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to enter talks. The suspension of US assistance happened days after Zelensky and Trump argued about the conflict in a tense White House meeting. The administration’s decision to resume military aid after talks Tuesday with senior Ukrainian officials in Saudi Arabia marked a sharp shift in its stance.
Trump said “it’s up to Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to agree to the ceasefire.
“And hopefully we can get a ceasefire from Russia,” Trump said Wednesday in an extended exchange with reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Micheál Martin, the prime minster of Ireland. “And if we do, I think that would be 80 percent of the way to getting this horrible bloodbath” ended.
The US president again made veiled threats of hitting Russia with new sanctions.
“We can, but I hope it’s not going to be necessary,” Trump said.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the American delegation to Saudi Arabia, where Ukraine consented to the US ceasefire proposal, said Washington will pursue “multiple points of contacts” with Russia to see if President Vladimir Putin is ready to negotiate an end to the war. He declined to give details or say what steps might be taken if Putin refuses to engage.
The US hopes to see Russia stop attacks on Ukraine within the next few days as a first step, Rubio said at a refueling stop Wednesday in Shannon, Ireland, on his way to talks in Canada with other Group of Seven leading industrialized nations.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News that national security adviser Mike Waltz spoke Wednesday with his Russian counterpart.
She also confirmed that Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, will head to Moscow for talks with Russian officials. She did not say with whom Witkoff planned to meet. A person familiar with the matter said Witkoff is expected to meet with Putin later his week. The person was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Ukraine says ceasefire would allow time for planning end to war
Zelensky said the 30-day ceasefire would allow the sides “to fully prepare a step-by-step plan for ending the war, including security guarantees for Ukraine.”
Technical questions over how to effectively monitor a truce along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, where small but deadly drones are common, are “very important,” Zelensky told reporters Wednesday in Kyiv.
Arms deliveries to Ukraine have already resumed through a Polish logistics center, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Poland announced Wednesday. The deliveries go through a NATO and US hub in the eastern Polish city of Rzeszow that’s has been used to ferry Western weapons into neighboring Ukraine about 70 kilometers (45 miles) away.
The American military help is vital for Ukraine’s shorthanded and weary army, which is having a tough time keeping Russia’s bigger military force at bay. For Russia, the American aid spells potentially more difficulty in achieving war aims, and it could make Washington’s peace efforts a tougher sell in Moscow.
The US government has also restored Ukraine’s access to unclassified commercial satellite pictures provided by Maxar Technologies through a program Washington runs, Maxar spokesperson Tomi Maxted told The Associated Press. The images help Ukraine plan attacks, assess their success and monitor Russian movements.
In other developments, officials acknowledged Wednesday that Kyiv no longer has any of the longer-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS, missiles.
According to a US official and a Ukrainian lawmaker on the country’s defense committee, Ukraine has run out of the ATACMs. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide military weapons details.
The US official said the US provided fewer than 40 of those missiles overall and that Ukraine ran out of them in late January. Senior US defense leaders, including the previous Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, had made it clear that only a limited number of the ATACMs would be delivered and that the US and NATO allies considered other weapons to be more valuable in the fight.
Russian officials are wary about the US-Ukraine talks
Russian lawmakers signaled wariness about the prospect of a ceasefire.
“Russia is advancing (on the battlefield), so it will be different with Russia,” senior Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev noted in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
“Any agreements (with the understanding of the need for compromise) should be on our terms, not American,” Kosachev wrote.
Lawmaker Mikhail Sheremet told the state news agency Tass that Russia “is not interested in continuing” the war, but at the same time Moscow “will not tolerate being strung along.”
The outcome of the Saudi Arabia talks “places the onus on Washington to persuade Moscow to accept and implement the ceasefire,” said John Hardie, a defense analyst and deputy director of the Russia program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based research institute.
“Moscow will present itself as cooperative, but may push for agreement on basic principles for a final peace deal before agreeing to a ceasefire,” he said.
“Russia may also insist on barring Western military aid to Ukraine during the ceasefire and on Ukraine holding elections ahead of a long-term peace agreement.”
Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, reported Wednesday that the service’s chief, Sergei Naryshkin, spoke on the phone Tuesday with CIA Director John Ratcliffe.
The two discussed cooperation “in areas of common interest and the resolution of crisis situations,” according to a statement by the SVR.


Germany’s Merz calls for western unity on Ukraine on eve of peace talks

Germany’s Merz calls for western unity on Ukraine on eve of peace talks
Updated 57 min 33 sec ago
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Germany’s Merz calls for western unity on Ukraine on eve of peace talks

Germany’s Merz calls for western unity on Ukraine on eve of peace talks
  • Merz said the West could not accept a dictated peace for Ukraine or a submission to the status quo achieved by Russian military forces
  • “Such a ceasefire can open a window in which peace negotiations become possible“

BERLIN: Germany’s new Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday urged the West not to be divided on Ukraine and said he was working to ensure unity between allies in Europe and the United States on how to end the war.

In his first major speech to parliament since taking office last week, Merz said the West could not accept a dictated peace for Ukraine or a submission to the status quo achieved by Russian military forces.

He was speaking a day before Ukrainian and Russian delegates could meet for peace talks in Istanbul, more than three years after the start of the deadliest conflict in Europe since World War Two.

After winning elections in February, Merz has promised to give Germany a bigger role on the global stage and beef up its military through more defense spending. Though he has publicly castigated US President Donald Trump’s administration as an unreliable ally, in Wednesday’s speech he thanked Trump for his support in pushing for a ceasefire in Ukraine.

“Such a ceasefire can open a window in which peace negotiations become possible,” he told parliament.

“It is of paramount importance that the political West does not allow itself to be divided, and therefore I will make every effort to continue to achieve the greatest possible unity between our European and American partners.”

“This terrible war and its outcome will not only determine the fate of Ukraine,” he added. “The outcome of this war will determine whether law and order will continue to prevail in Europe and the world, or whether tyranny, military force, and the sheer right of the strongest will prevail.”

Still, strengthening the German military is a top priority, Merz said.

“The government will provide all the financial resources that the Bundeswehr needs in order to become the strongest conventional army in Europe,” he said.

In his speech, Merz took blunt aim at Russia, accusing it of involvement in state-sponsored killings and poisoning in European cities, cyberattacks and the destruction of infrastructure, including undersea cables.

Merz was speaking as German prosecutors announced the arrest of three Ukrainians for their suspected involvement in the shipment of exploding parcels, after a series of fires at European courier depots pointed to suspected Russian sabotage.

Security officials told Reuters the exploding parcels were part of a test run for a Russian plot to trigger explosions on cargo flights to the United States. Russia has denied this and other accusations by Western countries of sabotage plots.

The growing closeness between Russia and China was also concerning, Merz added.

In a wide-ranging speech, Merz also rattled through his government’s policy priorities, from boosting growth in Europe’s largest economy to hardening its stance on migration. He stressed the latter would be done within the parameters of EU agreements, seeking to dispel fears that Germany would act unilaterally.


Indonesia develops AI system to help diagnose malaria

Indonesia develops AI system to help diagnose malaria
Updated 14 May 2025
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Indonesia develops AI system to help diagnose malaria

Indonesia develops AI system to help diagnose malaria
  • Indonesia’s malaria cases may be as high as 1.1m in 2024, WHO estimates show
  • AI-powered system could help reach patients in remote areas, Indonesian researchers say

JAKARTA: Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency is developing an artificial intelligence-powered system to help diagnose malaria under the country’s efforts to eliminate the disease by 2030.

Indonesia recorded over half a million malaria cases in 2024, but due to the lack of testing, the World Health Organization estimates that the actual number was at least twice higher.

“Our main goal is to create a computer-aided diagnosis system that can automatically recognize malaria status from blood smear images,” Anto Satriyo Nugroho, head of AI and cyber security at Indonesia’s national research agency, or BRIN, said in a statement.

Such a system would speed up confirmation of malaria, which to date is mostly done through microscopic examination.

“We are optimistic that sustainable AI research and development will create an important tool for diagnosis that will contribute significantly to eliminating malaria in Indonesia,” Nugroho added.

AI applications are rapidly gaining in popularity, including in medical care to improve disease diagnosis, treatment selection and clinical laboratory testing.

In 2020, a study published in Nature showed researchers from Google Health, and universities in the US and UK, reporting on an AI model that reads mammograms with fewer false positives and false negatives than human experts.

That algorithm has since been released for commercial use globally.

In Indonesia, BRIN researchers have been working with various local and foreign universities, the WHO as well as other UN agencies to speed up the country’s efforts in eliminating malaria.

An AI-powered system also opens up possibilities for remote diagnostics, which would enable healthcare workers to reach and assess patients in outlying areas.

Malaria is endemic in eastern parts of Indonesia, with around 90 percent of cases reported from the easternmost province of Papua, where healthcare access remains low due to challenging terrain and limited resources. 

“With the massive potential to increase accuracy in diagnosis and improve efficiency in healthcare services in endemic areas, BRIN is optimistic that AI technology will become a strategic partner in managing malaria cases nationally,” BRIN stated.

“AI cannot work on its own. Collaboration between tech experts and biomedical researchers is an absolute requirement for this technology to be reliable.”


New campaign against Israel-linked brands gains ground in India

New campaign against Israel-linked brands gains ground in India
Updated 14 May 2025
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New campaign against Israel-linked brands gains ground in India

New campaign against Israel-linked brands gains ground in India
  • First BDS-focused rally took place in the country last month
  • Campaigners say Indians join when they realize Palestinians are under colonial occupation

New Delhi: There were only a handful of students at the first BDS India rally last month, but the movement is now gaining ground across the country as more people are willing to join efforts to boycott products and companies linked to Israel.

While many grassroots groups have been organizing in India to protest Israel’s deadly onslaught on Gaza that began in October 2023, it is only recently that the efforts began to focus on advancing the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign.

The first such protest took place in Hyderabad on April 5 and similar rallies and public awareness meetings have since been held in 10 other Indian cities.

“For the last two months, we have been actively promoting the BDS movement in India ... we have been going to different neighborhoods, campuses, working-class areas and we are seeing that the common masses are very receptive,” Sreeja Dontireddy, BDS India coordinator, told Arab News on Wednesday.

“We began with maybe five to 10 people in each city or team. Now that number has definitely grown to much more than that, to around 20-25. And different people come to different campaigns. The teams are constantly growing because more and more people are volunteering to be part of the campaign.”

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement is a global campaign launched in 2005 to pressure Israel to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights.

It calls for the boycott of Israeli goods and institutions, divestment from companies complicit in violations of Palestinian rights, as well as sanctions against the Israeli state. BDS is inspired by the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and its goal is to end the occupation of Palestinian land and uphold the right of return for Palestinian refugees to their homeland.

Support for Palestine has always been an important part of India’s foreign policy even before Indian independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Many years before the establishment of Israel, Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of India’s freedom movement, had opposed a Jewish nation-state in Palestine, deeming it inhumane and wrong.

But a change in the Indian government’s stance has been visible over the past few years. During Israel’s deadly campaign in Gaza, India has even supplied it with weapons.

“Our country’s government might directly or indirectly support Israel, but that doesn’t mean that the people of India also must do so ... when we explain to them that this is a liberation struggle and Palestine is fighting for its independence, they are very receptive,” Dontireddy said.

“The people of Palestine are relentlessly fighting with whatever means they have. And this is a source of inspiration and awe for all of us. And it is our duty to stand by them. And BDS offers something operative to do in that instance, and it allows us also to create a tangible effect that will affect and injure the sort of hegemony that Israel enjoys.”

BDS India activists have been raising awareness about companies and products that have links to Israel. They approach people individually, in local neighborhoods, share their product lists with shopkeepers and have some of them place boycott-related stickers and materials on their displays.

They also organize rallies in front of international outlets featured on global boycott lists.

“People are clearly angry about what is happening in Palestine. They really want to do something,” said Swapnaja Limkar, a member of the BDS India movement in Pune.

“Initially, there were like 10 people. After a month or so, we have about 200 people in every protest. We have organized some boycott protests outside Starbucks, outside Domino’s Pizza, and are campaigning every day. We have gathered around 200 people who are in support of Palestine in Pune right now.”

The most recent BDS India protests took place on May 10 in front of Domino’s outlets in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad, Patna and Vijayawada.

“Not only physically, but also on social media, people have shown presence as well as support in larger numbers,” said Akriti Chaudhary from BDS India in Delhi.

“The movement has been growing steadily, and more and more people are joining the campaign ... we have suffered 200 years of colonialism. No one can understand better than us what it means. That’s why the Palestinian issue resonates with us, and we need to stand with the people of Palestine in this hour of crisis, as they face an existential threat from Zionist Israel.”


Kremlin blasts potential EU deployment of French nuclear bombers

Kremlin blasts potential EU deployment of French nuclear bombers
Updated 14 May 2025
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Kremlin blasts potential EU deployment of French nuclear bombers

Kremlin blasts potential EU deployment of French nuclear bombers
  • Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, possesses about 4,000 warheads and views France’s nuclear deterrence as a potential threat to its national security
  • The French president floated the idea during a TV appearance on Tuesday

MOSCOW: The possible deployment of French nuclear bombers across the EU will not enhance security on the continent, the Kremlin said Wednesday, after French President Emmanuel Macron said he was ready to discuss the issue.
“The proliferation of nuclear weapons on the European continent is something that will not add security, predictability, or stability to the European continent,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
The French president floated the idea during a TV appearance on Tuesday, comparing it to the United States’s nuclear umbrella policy that guarantees Washington would reciprocate if its allies come under nuclear attack.
“The Americans have the bombs on planes in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkiye,” Macron told TF1 television.
“We are ready to open this discussion. I will define the framework in a very specific way in the weeks and months to come.”
France is the EU’s only nuclear-armed nation.
Amid Russia’s offensive on Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s calls on Europe to take more of the burden for its own defense, discussion is growing over extending Paris’s nuclear deterrent to the rest of the 27-member bloc.
Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, possesses about 4,000 warheads and views France’s nuclear deterrence as a potential threat to its national security.
“At present, the entire system of strategic stability and security is in a deplorable state for obvious reasons,” Peskov added.
Amid his offensive on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has several times threatened nuclear escalation, drawing rebukes from the West over “reckless” rhetoric.


‘Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama

‘Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama
Updated 14 May 2025
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‘Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama

‘Albania belongs in EU,’ von der Leyen tells re-elected PM Rama
  • EU and French leaders congratulated Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Wednesday after his party’s electoral victory

BRUSSELS: EU and French leaders congratulated Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama Wednesday after his party’s electoral victory, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen hailing his “great progress toward our Union.”
“Let’s keep working closely together on EU reforms. Albania belongs in the EU!” von der Leyen said on X. French President Emmanuel Macron also hailed Rama’s win, writing on X: “France will always stand alongside Albania on its European path.”