North Korea promises another attempt at spy satellite launch - Reuters

SEOUL, June 1 (Reuters) - North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, leader Kim Jong Un's sister, said her country would soon put a military spy satellite into orbit and promised Pyongyang would increase its military surveillance capabilities, state media KCNA reported on Thursday.

"It is certain that (North Korea's) military reconnaissance satellite will be correctly put on space orbit in the near future and start its mission," Kim, a powerful government official in her own right, said in an English-language statement carried by KCNA.

Her remarks came after the failure of a North Korean satellite launch on Wednesday.

It may take weeks or more to resolve the problems that caused the rocket's failure, a South Korean lawmaker said on Wednesday, citing the South's intelligence agency.

In a rare admission of a North Korean setback, KCNA reported that the Chollima-1 rocket, carrying a military reconnaissance satellite known as "Malligyong-1", crashed into the sea after an accident.

KCNA also published on Thursday images of what it said was the new rocket lifting off from a coastal launch pad. The white-and-gray rocket had a bulbous nose, apparently for carrying a satellite or other cargo.

The photos confirmed that the rocket is a new design, said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

"The launch used the new coastal launch pad they've built at Tongchang-ri, so we might see a larger space launch vehicle use the traditional gantry that has seen some work recently," he added.

U.S.-based monitors, including 38 North and the Center for Strategic and International Studies, reported that commercial satellite imagery showed significant activity at the main pad after Wednesday's launch.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it could be presumed from North Korea's state media photos that the rocket was launched from a new pad.

South Korea has dispatched ships and aircraft to recover parts from the space launch vehicle, the military said.

Wednesday's launch was widely criticized, including by South Korea, Japan and the United States.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any launch by Pyongyang using ballistic missile technology breaches Security Council resolutions, a spokesperson said.

In her statement, Kim said the criticisms of the launch were "self-contradiction" as the U.S. and other countries have already launched "thousands of satellites."

"The U.S. is a group of gangsters who would claim that even if the DPRK launches a satellite ... it is illegal and threatening," she said, using the initials of North Korea's official name.

In a separate statement carried by KCNA, North Korea's vice foreign minister Kim Son Gyong criticized U.S.-led military drills in the region including a multinational anti-proliferation naval drill.

Reporting by Hyunsu Yim and Josh Smith; Additional reporting by Soo-hyang Choi; Editing by Chris Reese, Grant McCool and Gerry Doyle

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
June 01, 2023 at 09:50AM
https://ift.tt/BWZAaob

North Korea promises another attempt at spy satellite launch - Reuters
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

Ukraine war: Children die in new missile attack on Kyiv - BBC

Reuters

By Patrick Jackson & Oliver Slow

BBC News

Two children and an adult died, and more than a dozen people were injured, in a new night-time missile attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials say.

Russia has been subjecting the Ukrainian capital to regular aerial attack with missiles and drones.

The latest attacks occurred in the eastern Desnyanskyi and Dniprovskyi districts.

Ukrainian officials said details of the dead and injured were based on preliminary information.

One of the children killed was between 5 and 6 years old, while the other was 12 or 13, the Kyiv city military administration wrote on Telegram. Both were in Desnyanskyi district.

The attack was the fourth this week, and comes after 17 attacks were launched on the Ukrainian capital throughout May - most took place at night, although at least one occurred during the day.

Images shared by military authorities showed teams of rescuers attending to people, as well as damaged buildings.

In a number of early morning posts on Telegram, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a "series of explosions" had taken place in the city, and that rescuers had been dealing with fallen debris and fires.

He said 14 people had been injured - nine of whom were taken to hospital.

Meanwhile, Russian-backed officials in the occupied part of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region said five people had been killed and 19 injured by Ukrainian shelling at a poultry farm on Wednesday.

In recent weeks, Russia - which launched its full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022 - has been using kamikaze drones as well as a range of cruise and ballistic missiles to attack targets in Ukraine.

Kyiv has been heavily targeted, and analysts believe Moscow is trying to deplete and damage Ukraine's air defences ahead of a long-expected counter-offensive, which the Ukrainian government has been planning for months.

KMVA

Reuters

Related Topics

• Russia-Ukraine war
• Kyiv
• Russia
• Ukraine

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
June 01, 2023 at 10:37AM
https://ift.tt/Xw2p58E

Ukraine war: Children die in new missile attack on Kyiv - BBC
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

Russia-Ukraine war live: Three killed in Kyiv as Russia launches fresh overnight strikes - The Guardian

From 2h ago

At least three people have been killed, including two children, after Russia launched another overnight wave of strikes on the Ukrainian capital, city officials have said.

A clinic and an adjacent home were struck by falling debris in Kyiv’s eastern Desnyan district, the city’s military administration said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Another four people were injured and taken to hospital.

Debris also fell on the nearby district of Dnipro, according to the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko.

In total 14 people were injured in the attack with nine hospitalised and another five treated at the scenes, he said.

Wires are also posting new photos from the Russian city of Shebekino in the Belgorod border region, which Russian officials say was shelled for the fourth time this week by Ukrainian forces.

Some analysis here from the Institute for the Study of War on the recent attacks on Russian territory. The US-based think tank says official responses from Moscow “remain likely insufficient to satisfy the Russian ultranationalist information space’s desire for escalation in the war”.

Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, who has evacuated children from border areas, has called on Russian forces to capture Kharkiv in order to create a barrier between Belgorod and Ukraine.

But Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov refused to comment on Gladkov’s statements earlier this week and on Wednesday said that Moscow did not plan to declare martial law following Tuesday’s drone attack on Moscow.

The think tank adds:

Former Russian officer and ardent nationalist Igor Girkin criticized Peskov, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu for their reluctance to address attacks against Russian territory.

Russian milbloggers have complained about the lack of Russian military escalation to secure border areas in Belgorod and Kursk oblasts since at least September 2022, often criticizing the Kremlin for underreacting to attacks against Russian territory and failing to fully dedicate itself to the war effort.

The evacuations and Peskov’s comments are largely consistent with Putin’s unwillingness and inability to meaningfully escalate the war short of full-scale general and economic mobilization, as ISW has previously assessed.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, says the city of Shebekino has also been shelled overnight.

In a Telegram post, Vyacheslav Gladkov said “shelling by the Armed Forces of Ukraine went on for an hour”. Two people were injured, he said.

He also said the Russian air defences in the region had worked. The Guardian is not able to verify the attack, which would be the fourth time Ukrainian artillery has shelled Shebekino this week.

Another image from the overnight strikes has come through on the wires, courtesy of Kyiv’s military administration, this time of the clinic in Desnyan which officials say was heavily damaged.

The night’s attack was launched by ground-based missile systems, Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv military administration has said in a Telegram post.

All targets detected were destroyed by Ukraine’s air defences, he said and casualties were caused by falling debris. An update on the type and number of missiles used in the strike would be given later by the Air Force, he said.

In Desnyan district three people including two children were killed and up to 10 others injured when debris fell on a clinic and an adjacent multi-storey residential building, he said.

In Dnipro district a residential building was damaged, parked cars caught fire and debris fell on to a roadway.

The all-clear has been given in Kyiv, about an hour after air raid sirens sounded.

It’s still not clear whether the attack involved drones or missiles. Reuters reports:

Discussions on social media suggested it was a missile attack, given the short time between the declaration of the air raid alert and the impact.

The first images are coming in from the latest Russian strike on Kyiv. This shot from Kyiv’s military administration shows a residential building damaged by falling debris in the city’s Desnyan district, where three people including two children have died.

As we wait for more information from Kyiv to come in, here’s a bit of context. The past week has marked the first time that Moscow has come in for a large-scale drone attack since it launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Nobody was injured in Tuesday’s raid by more than 30 drones but they were part of a series of drone strikes and sabotage operations behind enemy lines that have intensified in recent weeks ahead of a much anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

The attack on Moscow came as Russia has launched an increasing number of attacks on Kyiv, including a rare daytime raid on Tuesday, over the past month.

The attacks appear to be an effort to exhaust Ukraine’s air defences.

At least three people have been killed, including two children, after Russia launched another overnight wave of strikes on the Ukrainian capital, city officials have said.

A clinic and an adjacent home were struck by falling debris in Kyiv’s eastern Desnyan district, the city’s military administration said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Another four people were injured and taken to hospital.

Debris also fell on the nearby district of Dnipro, according to the mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko.

In total 14 people were injured in the attack with nine hospitalised and another five treated at the scenes, he said.

Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.

Kyiv has once again been hit by Russian strikes overnight, with at least three people killed and another four injured so far, according to the city’s military administration. Falling debris hit a clinic in the city’s Desnyan district as well as an adjacent house. Two of the dead were children, according to the city’s mayor, Vitaliy Klitschko.

Debris also fell on the capital’s Dnipro district, where another person was injured according to Klitschko.

Other key developments:

• The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has said a negotiated peace in Ukraine may have to be prioritised over putting Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, on trial for war crimes. In a speech in Bratislava, he said: “If in a few months to come, you have a window for negotiation with the existing Russian political power, the question you will have is an arbitrage between a trial and a negotiation. And you will have to negotiate with the leaders you have, de facto, even if the day after you will have to judge them in front of international justice ... Otherwise you can put yourselves just in an impossible situation where you say ‘I want you to go to jail but you are the only ones I can negotiate with’.”

• Macron also urged Nato to offer Ukraine “tangible and credible” security assurances, arguing that it was in the west’s interests to do so as Kyiv “is today protecting Europe”. Leaders will meet in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in July to discuss Nato membership for Ukraine.

• The US has announced a new $300m arms package for Ukraine, including air defence systems and tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, but warned Kyiv that US weaponry should not be used for attacks within Russia. “We have been very clear with the Ukrainians privately – we’ve certainly been clear publicly – that we do not support attacks inside Russia,” said National Security Council spokesman John Kirby.

• A German government spokesperson has said Ukraine has the right to attack Russian territory as it qualifies as self-defence. In an interview with German news website Deutsche Welle, Steffen Hebestreit said: “International law allows Ukraine to carry out strikes on the territory of Russia for the purpose of self-defence.”

• Russia does not plan to declare martial law after Tuesday’s large-scale drone strike on Moscow, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has said. The Kremlin’s comments came after several leading Russian officials and pro-war figures including Chechen ruler Ramzan Kadyrov urged Putin to respond to the drone attacks by declaring a state of total war.

• Russia said Ukrainian artillery hit the Russian town of Shebekino on the Ukrainian border for a third time this week, injuring four people, while drones attacked two oil refineries 65-80km east of Russia’s biggest oil export terminals. Russian officials did not attribute blame for the drone attacks and said a fire at one of the terminals was put out.

• The UN has proposed that Kyiv, Moscow and Ankara start preparatory work for the transit of Russian ammonia through Ukraine as it tries to salvage a deal allowing safe Black Sea grain exports, a source close to the talks has told Reuters. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address accused Russia of blocking all activity at the port of Pivdennyi, with 1.5 million tonnes of agricultural products unable to move.

• Only 500 people are left in Bakhmut, the city in the east of Ukraine that has been subject to heavy fighting in the last year, according to its mayor. The figure from Oleksii Reva, reported by the Ukrainian news agency UNIAN, is a tiny fraction of its prewar population of 70,000.

• Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, has said he has asked prosecutors to investigate “crimes” committed by senior Russian defence officials before and during the invasion of Ukraine.

• An Iraqi citizen fighting with Wagner was killed in Ukraine in early April, the first confirmed case of someone from the Middle East dying in the conflict, Prigozhin told Reuters. Abbas Abuthar Witwit died on April 7, a day after arriving at a Wagner hospital in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk, the RIA FAN news site also reported.

• Russia claimed it destroyed Ukrainian naval forces’ last major warship, the Yuri Olefirenko, which it said was stationed in the southern port of Odesa. The Russian air force said it attacked the ship on 29 May. Ukraine has not commented.

• Analysis from the Kyiv Post suggests about 90% of the 500 missiles and drones launched by Russia in May in attacks on Ukraine failed, to the cost of $1.7bn. It said 533 of them were destroyed by the Ukrainian air force, including 401 Shahed-136 drones that cost about $20,000 each.

• The Russian security council deputy chair, Dmitry Medvedev, said Britain was Moscow’s “eternal enemy”. Any British officials who facilitated the war in Ukraine could be considered legitimate military targets, he said.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
June 01, 2023 at 09:53AM
https://ift.tt/qFybsfR

Russia-Ukraine war live: Three killed in Kyiv as Russia launches fresh overnight strikes - The Guardian
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

In Canada, each cigarette will get a warning label: 'poison in every puff' - The Associated Press

TORONTO (AP) — Canada will soon become the first country in the world where warning labels must appear on individual cigarettes.

The move was first announced last year by Health Canada and is aimed at helping people quit the habit. The regulations take effect Aug. 1 and will be phased in. King-size cigarettes will be the first to feature the warnings and will be sold in stores by the end of July 2024, followed by regular-size cigarettes, and little cigars with tipping paper and tubes by the end of April 2025.

“This bold step will make health warning messages virtually unavoidable,” Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett said Wednesday.

The warnings — in English and French — include “poison in every puff,” “tobacco smoke harms children” and “cigarettes cause impotence.”

Health Canada said the strategy aims to reduce tobacco use below 5% by 2035. New regulations also strengthen health-related graphic images displayed on packages of tobacco.

Bennett’s statement said tobacco use kills 48,000 Canadians every year.

Doug Roth, chief executive of the Heart & Stroke charity, said the bold measure will ensure that dangers to lung health cannot be missed.

The Canadian Cancer Society said the measure will reduce smoking and the appeal of cigarettes, thus preventing cancer and other diseases.

Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, said health messaging will be conveyed in every puff and during every smoke break. Canada, he added, will have the best tobacco health warning system in the world.

Tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship are banned in Canada and warnings on cigarette packs have existed since 1972.

In 2001, Canada became the first country to require tobacco companies to include picture warnings on the outside of cigarette packages and include inserts with health messages.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
June 01, 2023 at 05:22AM
https://ift.tt/tmRo9FS

In Canada, each cigarette will get a warning label: 'poison in every puff' - The Associated Press
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

Russia reports attacks on oil refineries and town near border with Ukraine - Reuters

• Summary
• Companies

• Five killed in Luhansk village -Moscow-backed official
• Four hurt by Ukrainian shelling of border town -governor
• Refinery strikes latest attacks on Russian infrastructure

MOSCOW/KYIV, May 31 (Reuters) - Russia said Ukrainian artillery hit a Russian town for a third time this week and drones struck two oil refineries in an uptick in attacks on Russian territory as Ukraine prepares a Western-backed push to end Moscow's invasion.

Inside Ukraine, Russian-installed officials said five people had been killed in Ukrainian army shelling of a Russian-occupied village in the east, where Russia has fought months of bloody and inconclusive battles to try to seize more territory.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine on the Russian reports, in a week when the two countries accused each other of spreading terror in their capitals with air strikes.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in Ukraine and towns and cities laid to waste since Moscow's forces invaded 15 months ago, but Tuesday marked only the second time Moscow had come under direct fire - from a flurry of drones - although oil and military facilities elsewhere in Russia have been hit.

In the Russian town of Shebekino on the Ukrainian border, two of four wounded people were hospitalised and shells damaged an apartment building, four homes and a school as well as power lines, Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Later, Gladkov told Russian television there had been more Ukrainian shelling of Shebekino and a fire had broken out at an industrial site.

Both sides say they are targeting the buildup of each other's forces and military equipment ahead of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, which it says will come in days or weeks, to try to drive Russian forces out of eastern and southern regions.

Away from the front lines of the conflict, the United Nations was trying to salvage a deal allowing safe Black Sea grain exports.

To that end, the U.N. has made a "mutually beneficial" proposal that Ukraine, Russia and Turkey begin preparatory work for the transit of Russian ammonia through Ukraine, a source close to the talks said on Wednesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, accused Russia of blocking all activity at the port of Pivdennyi, with 1.5 million tonnes of agricultural products unable to move.

"... the blockade of one port in Ukraine poses extremely serious risks for different nations, particularly those with relations that Russia tries to use for speculative purposes."

The U.N. and Turkey brokered the Black Sea Grain Initiative between Moscow and Kyiv last July to help tackle a global food crisis aggravated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a leading grain exporter.

ARTILLERY FIRE INTENSIFIES IN BAKHMUT

Russian-installed officials in Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region - one of four Moscow claims to have annexed - said Ukraine had killed five people and wounded 19 in a rocket attack on a farm in the village of Karpaty.

In the fiercely contested eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Russia was replacing Wagner private army troops with regular forces - paratroops and motorised rifle units - but intensifying its artillery shelling, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday night.

"The days to come will show whether the rotation strengthens or weakens them," Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern grouping of troops, told Ukrainian television.

Russia's defence ministry said it had pushed Ukrainian forces back around two settlements in Donetsk province, part of a 1,000-km (620-mile) front line that has barely moved despite months of fighting that has cost tens of thousands of lives.

Reuters was not able to verify either side's reports.

REFINERIES HIT

Drones attacked two oil refineries 40-50 miles (65-80 km) east of Russia's biggest oil export terminals on Wednesday, according to Russian officials, who did not attribute blame. They said a fire at one of the terminals was later put out.

Ukrainian drones struck wealthy districts of Moscow on Tuesday and two people were injured, according to the Russian capital's mayor. The Kremlin said Moscow's air defences worked effectively but had room for improvement.

Russia's ambassador to Washington accused it of encouraging Ukraine to attack. The White House said it does not know who carried out the Moscow drone strikes but reiterated that the U.S. does not support attacks inside Russia.

The United States, Britain and Germany are among Western nations to have supplied arms to Ukraine on condition it uses them to defend itself and retake Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia, which they say launched an unprovoked war of conquest.

The White House on Wednesday announced the latest in a series of U.S. aid packages for Ukraine that includes up to $300 million worth of air defence systems and ammunition.

Russia says it is waging a "special military operation" to neutralise a threat from Kyiv's moves towards the West.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Pavel Polityuk, Tom Balmforth, Max Hunder, Olena Harmash, Valentyn Ogirenko, Gleb Garanich and Ron Popeski; writing by Philippa Fletcher, Mark Heinrich and Grant McCool; Editing by Sharon Singleton, William Maclean and Diane Craft

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
June 01, 2023 at 05:35AM
https://ift.tt/aU5xT2b

Russia reports attacks on oil refineries and town near border with Ukraine - Reuters
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

Outrage as Brazil law threatening Indigenous lands advances in congress - The Guardian

Indigenous leaders and environmentalists in Brazil have voiced horror and indignation after lawmakers approved controversial legislation which opponents fear will strike a devastating blow to Indigenous communities and isolated tribes.

Members of Brazil’s conservative-dominated lower house overwhelmingly endorsed bill number 490 on Tuesday night, by 283 votes to 155.

“You will have Indigenous blood on your hands,” the Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá told its rightwing backers as leftwingers took to the podium to protest by smothering their hands in the red dye of annatto seeds.

Critics say the legislation, which now moves to the senate, poses a series of profound threats to Indigenous communities and the environment:

It potentially opens the door to road-building, mining, dam construction, agricultural projects and the use of genetically modified crops on protected Indigenous lands, as well as authorizing contact with isolated Indigenous groups in certain circumstances.

It would allow the government to reclaim land from Indigenous communities whose “cultural traits” are deemed to have changed.

Perhaps most damagingly, the legislation would also invalidate Indigenous claims to lands such groups could not prove they physically occupied on the day Brazil’s constitution was enacted in October 1988. Activists say that “time limit trick” could scupper scores of legitimate claims for the delimitation of Indigenous lands, from groups who had already been evicted from their ancestral lands or whose presence had yet to be recognized at the cut-off date.

The Climate Observatory watchdog said Brazil’s parliament had witnessed “its most shameful day since the 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff” – a “show of lies, hatred and racism” which signaled the environmental chaos caused by former president Jair Bolsonaro was far from over.

Lawmakers had sent “a clear message to the country and the world: Bolsonaro is gone but the extermination [of Indigenous communities and the environment] continues,” the Climate Observatory added.

Sarah Shenker, a campaigner at human rights group Survival International, said: “This catastrophic bill is the most serious attack on Indigenous rights in decades … Hundreds of Indigenous territories home to over a million Indigenous people could be destroyed.”

She added: “There are many examples of uncontacted tribes whose existence and location was not yet officially confirmed by government in October 1988 … so if [this] was approved it could be used by anti-Indigenous politicians who are desperate to steal [such territories].”

When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to Brazil’s presidency in January there was optimism South America’s largest country was entering a new era of sustainable development, environmental protection and respect for Indigenous rights. Lula named the veteran environmentalist Marina Silva as his environment minister and created a ministry for Indigenous peoples run by the Indigenous activist Sônia Guajajara. “We are going to reverse all of the injustices committed against Indigenous peoples,” Lula vowed in his inaugural address, claiming Brazil had a “historic debt” to such groups.

But the rowdy congressional debate that preceded the approval of Bill 490 brought such hopes crashing back down to earth and revealed a starkly divided country.

A succession of white, mostly male lawmakers took the microphone to claim they were supporting the legislation because they considered themselves Indigenous defenders who wanted to help such groups integrate into mainstream society. Many were staunch supporters of Bolsonaro and members of the powerful ruralista bloc linked to agribusiness which boasts 302 of the 513 seats in the lower house and 42 of 81 senators.

Bibo Nunes, a congressman from Bolsonaro’s rightwing Liberal party (PL), voiced outrage that nearly 14% of Brazil’s territory was in the hands of Indigenous people who represented only 0.4% of the population. “What’s the logic? Explain it to me, you lefties!” Nunes bellowed.

Leftist politicians countered that the legislation would endanger Indigenous lives as well as the global struggle against climate change given the crucial role Indigenous communities have in protecting the Amazon rainforest.

“This is a bill of death, backwardness and regression … This is a crime against Indigenous people,” said Juliana Cardoso, a congresswoman from Lula’s Worker’s party (PT).

But such arguments were ignored and the bill passed easily.

Guajajara told activists to remain mobilized in the face of what she called “a serious attack on Indigenous people and the environment”. “We will remain steadfast and united, as we always have been,” Lula’s Indigenous minister said in a video message.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
May 31, 2023 at 09:55PM
https://ift.tt/X4qTzn7

Outrage as Brazil law threatening Indigenous lands advances in congress - The Guardian
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/HQqSBEK

Outrage as Brazil law threatening Indigenous lands advances in congress - The Guardian

Indigenous leaders and environmentalists in Brazil have voiced horror and indignation after lawmakers approved controversial legislation which opponents fear will strike a devastating blow to Indigenous communities and isolated tribes.

Members of Brazil’s conservative-dominated lower house overwhelmingly endorsed bill number 490 on Tuesday night, by 283 votes to 155.

“You will have Indigenous blood on your hands,” the Indigenous congresswoman Célia Xakriabá told its rightwing backers as leftwingers took to the podium to protest by smothering their hands in the red dye of annatto seeds.

Critics say the legislation, which now moves to the senate, poses a series of profound threats to Indigenous communities and the environment:

It potentially opens the door to road-building, mining, dam construction, agricultural projects and the use of genetically modified crops on protected Indigenous lands, as well as authorizing contact with isolated Indigenous groups in certain circumstances.

It would allow the government to reclaim land from Indigenous communities whose “cultural traits” are deemed to have changed.

Perhaps most damagingly, the legislation would also invalidate Indigenous claims to lands such groups could not prove they physically occupied on the day Brazil’s constitution was enacted in October 1988. Activists say that “time limit trick” could scupper scores of legitimate claims for the delimitation of Indigenous lands, from groups who had already been evicted from their ancestral lands or whose presence had yet to be recognized at the cut-off date.

The Climate Observatory watchdog said Brazil’s parliament had witnessed “its most shameful day since the 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff” – a “show of lies, hatred and racism” which signaled the environmental chaos caused by former president Jair Bolsonaro was far from over.

Lawmakers had sent “a clear message to the country and the world: Bolsonaro is gone but the extermination [of Indigenous communities and the environment] continues,” the Climate Observatory added.

Sarah Shenker, a campaigner at human rights group Survival International, said: “This catastrophic bill is the most serious attack on Indigenous rights in decades … Hundreds of Indigenous territories home to over a million Indigenous people could be destroyed.”

She added: “There are many examples of uncontacted tribes whose existence and location was not yet officially confirmed by government in October 1988 … so if [this] was approved it could be used by anti-Indigenous politicians who are desperate to steal [such territories].”

When Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned to Brazil’s presidency in January there was optimism South America’s largest country was entering a new era of sustainable development, environmental protection and respect for Indigenous rights. Lula named the veteran environmentalist Marina Silva as his environment minister and created a ministry for Indigenous peoples run by the Indigenous activist Sônia Guajajara. “We are going to reverse all of the injustices committed against Indigenous peoples,” Lula vowed in his inaugural address, claiming Brazil had a “historic debt” to such groups.

But the rowdy congressional debate that preceded the approval of Bill 490 brought such hopes crashing back down to earth and revealed a starkly divided country.

A succession of white, mostly male lawmakers took the microphone to claim they were supporting the legislation because they considered themselves Indigenous defenders who wanted to help such groups integrate into mainstream society. Many were staunch supporters of Bolsonaro and members of the powerful ruralista bloc linked to agribusiness which boasts 302 of the 513 seats in the lower house and 42 of 81 senators.

Bibo Nunes, a congressman from Bolsonaro’s rightwing Liberal party (PL), voiced outrage that nearly 14% of Brazil’s territory was in the hands of Indigenous people who represented only 0.4% of the population. “What’s the logic? Explain it to me, you lefties!” Nunes bellowed.

Leftist politicians countered that the legislation would endanger Indigenous lives as well as the global struggle against climate change given the crucial role Indigenous communities have in protecting the Amazon rainforest.

“This is a bill of death, backwardness and regression … This is a crime against Indigenous people,” said Juliana Cardoso, a congresswoman from Lula’s Worker’s party (PT).

But such arguments were ignored and the bill passed easily.

Guajajara told activists to remain mobilized in the face of what she called “a serious attack on Indigenous people and the environment”. “We will remain steadfast and united, as we always have been,” Lula’s Indigenous minister said in a video message.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
May 31, 2023 at 09:55PM
https://ift.tt/QrZjYwp

Outrage as Brazil law threatening Indigenous lands advances in congress - The Guardian
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/29YkEcX

Russia, Ukraine fail to embrace IAEA plan to protect nuclear plant - Reuters

WASHINGTON, May 30 (Reuters) - Neither Russia nor Ukraine committed to respect five principles laid out by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi on Tuesday to try to safeguard Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Grossi, who spoke at the U.N. Security Council, has tried for months to craft an agreement to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear accident from military activity like shelling at Europe's biggest nuclear power plant.

His five principles included that there should be no attack on or from the plant and that no heavy weapons such as multiple rocket launchers, artillery systems and munitions, and tanks or military personnel be housed there.

Grossi also called for off-site power to the plant to remain available and secure; for all its essential systems to be protected from attacks or sabotage; and for no actions that undermine these principles.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog's chief described the situation at Zaporizhzhia as "extremely fragile and dangerous," adding that "military activities continue in the region and may well increase very considerably in the near future."

While Russia said it would do all it could to protect the power plant, which it has occupied for more than a year, it did not explicitly commit to abide by Grossi's five principles.

"Mr. Grossi's proposals to ensure the security of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant are in line with the measures that we've already been implementing for a long time," Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said.

Ukraine's ambassador to the U.N., Sergiy Kyslytsya, said the principles "must be complemented with the demand of full demilitarization and deoccupation of the station."

Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling that has repeatedly downed power lines vital to cooling the reactors, which are shut down but which need a constant supply of electricity to keep the nuclear fuel inside cool and prevent a possible meltdown.

Grossi described Tuesday's meeting as "a step in the right direction," and said the IAEA would reinforce its staff at Zaporizhzhia and track compliance with the principles.

Western powers accused Russia, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, of putting Zaporizhzhia at risk, with the United States demanding that Russia remove its weapons and civil and military personnel from the plant.

"It is entirely, entirely within Moscow's control to avert a nuclear catastrophe and to end its war of aggression against Ukraine," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said.

Russia denies that it has military personnel at the power plant and it describes the war, which has killed thousands and reduced cities to rubble, as a "special military operation" to "denazify" Ukraine and protect Russian speakers.

Ukraine calls it an imperialist land grab prompted by its quest for closer relations with the West after a long history of domination by Moscow.

Reporting By Daphne Psaledakis and Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
May 31, 2023 at 04:34AM
https://ift.tt/UXPF2lT

Russia, Ukraine fail to embrace IAEA plan to protect nuclear plant - Reuters
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/29YkEcX

NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters - Reuters

• Summary

• Serbs reject new ethnic Albanian mayors after vote boycott
• KFOR says around 25 peacekeeping soldiers injured
• US rebukes Kosovo for imposing mayors in mainly Serb area

LEPOSAVIC, Kosovo, May 29 (Reuters) - Around 25 NATO peacekeeping soldiers defending three town halls in northern Kosovo were injured in clashes with Serb protesters on Monday, while Serbia's president put the army on the highest level of combat alert.

KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission to Kosovo, condemned the violence.

"While countering the most active fringes of the crowd, several soldiers of the Italian and Hungarian KFOR contingent were the subject of unprovoked attacks and sustained trauma wounds with fractures and burns due to the explosion of incendiary devices," it said in a statement.

Hungary's defense minister Kristof Szalay-Bobrovniczky said that 7 Hungarian soldiers were seriously injured and that they will be taken to Hungary for treatment. He said 20 soldiers were injured. Italian soldiers were also injured in clashes.

"What is happening is absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible," Italy's Giorgia Meloni said in a statement. "It is vital to avoid further unilateral actions on the part of the Kosovar authorities and that all the parties in question immediately take a step back to ease the tensions."

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that 52 Serbs were injured, three of them seriously.

Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani accused Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic of destabilising Kosovo.

"Serb illegal structures turned into criminal gangs have attacked Kosovo police, KFOR (peacekeeping) officers & journalists. Those who carry out Vucic's orders to destabilise the north of Kosovo, must face justice," Osmani tweeted.

Vucic accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of creating tensions. He called on Serbs in Kosovo to avoid clashes with NATO soldiers.

The tense situation developed after ethnic Albanian mayors took office in northern Kosovo's Serb majority area after elections the Serbs boycotted - a move that led the U.S. and its allies to rebuke Pristina on Friday.

In Zvecan, one of the towns, Kosovo police - staffed by ethnic Albanians after Serbs quit the force last year - sprayed pepper gas to repel a crowd of Serbs who broke through a security barricade and tried to force their way into the municipality building, witnesses said.

Serb protesters in Zvecan threw tear gas and stun grenades at NATO soldiers. Serbs also clashed with police in Zvecan and spray-painted NATO vehicles with the letter "Z", referring to a Russian sign used in war in Ukraine.

In Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, U.S. peacekeeping troops in riot gear placed barbed wire around the town hall to protect it from hundreds of angry Serbs.

Later in the day protesters threw eggs at a parked car belonging to the new Leposavic mayor.

Vucic, who is the commander-in-chief of the Serbian armed forces, raised the army's combat readiness to the highest level, Defence Minister Milos Vucevic told reporters.

"This implies that immediately before 2:00 p.m. (1200 GMT), the Serbian Armed Forces' Chief of the General Staff issued additional instructions for the deployment of the army's units in specific, designated positions," Vucevic said, without elaborating.

NATO peacekeepers also blocked off the town hall in Zubin Potok to protect it from angry local Serbs, witnesses said.

Igor Simic, deputy head of the Serb List, the biggest Belgrade-backed Kosovo Serb party, accused Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti of fuelling tensions in the north.

"We are interested in peace. Albanians who live here are interested in peace, and only he (Kurti) wants to make chaos," Simic told reporters in Zvecan.

TEAR GAS

Serbs, who comprise a majority in Kosovo's north, have never accepted its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia and still see Belgrade as their capital more than two decades after the Kosovo Albanian uprising against repressive Serbian rule.

Ethnic Albanians make up more than 90% of the population in Kosovo as a whole, but northern Serbs have long demanded the implementation of an EU-brokered 2013 deal for the creation of an association of autonomous municipalities in their area.

Serbs refused to take part in local elections in April and ethnic Albanian candidates won the mayoralties in four Serb-majority municipalities - including North Mitrovica, where no incidents were reported on Monday - with a 3.5% turnout.

Serbs demand that the Kosovo government remove ethnic Albanian mayors from town halls and allow local administrations financed by Belgrade resume their work.

On Friday, three out of the four ethnic Albanian mayors were escorted into their offices by police, who were pelted with rocks and responded with tear gas and water cannon to disperse the protesters.

The United States and its allies, which have strongly backed Kosovo's independence, rebuked Pristina on Friday, saying imposing mayors in Serb-majority areas without popular support undercut efforts to normalise relations.

Kurti defended Pristina's position, tweeting after a weekend phone call with the European Union's foreign policy chief: "Emphasized that elected mayors will provide services to all citizens."

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic told RTS it was "not possible to have mayors who have not been elected by Serbs in Serb-majority municipalities".

After meeting Kurti, U.S. ambassador to Kosovo Jeffrey Hovenier told reporters: "We are concerned about reports today about violence against official property."

"We've seen pictures of graffiti against KFOR cars and police cars, we've heard about attacks on journalists, we condemn that, that is not appropriate response."

Reporting by Fatos Bytici; Additional reporting by Miodrag Draskic and Angelo Amante in Rome; Writing by Ivana Sekularac and Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Giles Elgood and Mark Potter

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Adblock test (Why?)

World - Latest - Google News
May 30, 2023 at 07:08AM
https://ift.tt/p49gs8y

NATO soldiers injured in Kosovo clashes with Serb protesters - Reuters
World - Latest - Google News
https://ift.tt/YulJ6cn