International

Allies turn off Russian energy, Ukraine fears 300 dead in theatre

Published

2 years ago

March 25, 2022

Provided by AFP :Images of destruction in Ukraine's besieged city of Mariupol

The United States and EU announced Friday a new drive to wean Europe off Russian gas imports and so choke off the billions in revenues that are fuelling Moscow’s ruinous war against Ukraine.

A clearer scale of the ruin emerged from Ukraine’s besieged port city of Mariupol, which a month into the invasion now resembles scenes of Russian cities razed by the Nazis in World War II.

Authorities said some 300 civilians may have died in a Russian air strike on a theatre-turned-bomb shelter last week, in what would be the invasion’s single bloodiest attack.

After a trio of summits in Brussels, US President Joe Biden warned that NATO would “respond” if Russia’s Vladimir Putin resorts next to chemical weapons as part of his aggression against a Western-leaning democracy.

“The nature of the response would depend on the nature of the use,” Biden said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused Biden of seeking to “divert attention”, and also denied Ukrainian claims that Russia had broken international law by dropping incendiary phosphorus bombs on civilians.

Biden and EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen announced a joint energy task force in Brussels, before he headed to the eastern Polish town of Rzeszow, a mere 80 kilometres (50 miles) from Ukraine.

Taken together, Western sanctions are “draining Putin’s resources to finance this atrocious war”, von der Leyen told reporters alongside Biden.

READ ALSO:

On the battlefield, Moscow said it had destroyed Ukraine’s largest remaining military fuel depot, at Kalynivka near the capital Kyiv, using sea-borne cruise missiles.

‘Bodies lying there’

Fireballs leapt into the air from the storage facility, while a smaller fire blazed from a severed fuel line and a huge plume of black smoke rose over the site, AFP reporters at the scene said.

“Fortunately, there were no casualties,” a security guard said at a checkpoint near the depot, asking not to be identified.

But in the east, Russian strikes targeting a medical facility in Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv killed four civilians and wounded several others, police said.

“I had gone out looking for bread. There were explosions. When I came back there were four bodies lying there, with relatives crying by their side,” 71-year-old Mykola Hladkiy told AFP.

Several residents said cluster munitions were used, and AFP journalists saw large fires after other strikes in Kharkiv.

NATO, European Union and G7 leaders in Brussels shied away from impassioned demands by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for more advanced weapons systems to take the fight to the invaders.

He underlined the toll inflicted by incessant Russian bombardment of cities such as the southern port of Mariupol — where authorities said a horrifying picture was emerging from the Drama Theatre.

Up to 1,000 civilians were said to be sheltering in the theatre when it was flattened by a Russian bomb last week. Ukraine said efforts to dig people out of the ruins were hampered by relentless bombardment.

“From eyewitnesses, information is emerging that about 300 people died in the Drama Theatre of Mariupol following strikes by a Russian aircraft,” Mariupol city hall wrote on Telegram.

Ukraine re-occupying towns

Zelensky says nearly 100,000 people are trapped without food, water or power in the besieged city.

Addressing the EU summit late Thursday by video feed, he thanked countries including Poland and Estonia for their support, noted German backing came “a little later” — and singled Hungary out for censure.

“You have to decide for yourself who you are with,” Zelensky told Hungary’s right-wing populist leader Viktor Orban, who has close ties to Moscow.

“Listen, Viktor, do you know what’s going on in Mariupol?” he added.

While Mariupol is now a charred ruin, Western defensive systems including shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles have helped Ukraine’s armed forces hold their line.

“Ukrainian counter-attacks, and Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, has allowed Ukraine to re-occupy towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres (22 miles) east of Kyiv,” Britain’s defence ministry said in a daily update.

After several rounds of sanctions banished Russia from much of Western finance, Ukraine’s EU allies broadened their economic offensive to energy, which largely powers European homes and industry.

Biden and von der Leyen said the United States would strive to help supply Europe with an extra 15 billion cubic metres of liquefied natural gas this year — replacing one-third of supplies from Russia.

Germany, Moscow’s biggest customer in Europe, said it would halve Russian oil imports by June and end all coal deliveries by the autumn.

“The first important milestones have been reached to free us from the grip of Russian imports,” Economy Minister Robert Habeck said.

3.7 million refugees

In Poland, Biden will meet members of the US 82nd Airborne Division, part of NATO’s increasingly muscular deployment to its eastern flank.

He will also receive a briefing on the dire humanitarian situation in Ukraine, which nearly 3.7 million people have fled, mostly to Poland.

The UN believes that more than half of Ukraine’s children have already been driven from their homes, “a grim milestone that could have lasting consequences for generations to come”, according to Unicef chief Catherine Russell.

In the flashpoint town of Irpin on Kyiv’s north-western outskirts, little Daria played with her dinosaur mittens as a yellow evacuation bus took her family and others away. It was her fourth birthday on Thursday.

“We were planning some candles and a cake, but we had to leave it there,” said Daria’s mother Susanna Sopelnikova, 29, holding her tightly on her lap.

“We stayed in the basement for about three weeks, then we decided to leave,” said Sopelnikova, as Daria’s six-year-old brother Yehor sat silently next to their father Anatolii to the distant boom of shelling.

After the Putin regime imposed an information blackout on its “special military operation”, most Russians are unaware of the true picture of fighting in Ukraine.

But an exhibition of 24 shocking images opened on Friday at a train station in Lithuania used by Russians transiting from the exclave of Kaliningrad.

On some of the pictures, exhibited at the height of the carriage windows, an inscription read: “Today, Putin is killing the peaceful population of Ukraine. Do you approve of this?”

AFP

Up Next

Ukraine ‘disappointed’ in NATO, as Biden visits U.S. troops in Poland

Don't Miss

U.S. imposes sanctions targeting North Korea’s missile program

International

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

Published

13 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

Scammers stole more than $3.4 billion from older Americans last year, according to an FBI analysis issued Tuesday, indicating a spike in losses caused by increasingly sophisticated criminal tactics used to deceive the vulnerable into giving up their life savings.

Losses from scams reported by Americans over the age of 60 increased 11% last year compared to the previous year, according to the FBI.

Investigators are warning of an increase in brazen bank account-draining operations that entail deploying couriers in person to collect cash or gold from victims.

“It can have a devastating impact on older Americans who lack the ability to go out and make money,” said Deputy Assistant Director James Barnacle of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “People lose all their money. Some people become destitute.”

Last year, the FBI received more than 100,000 complaints from victims of scammers over the age of 60, with over 6,000 individuals losing more than $100,000.

It comes after a significant increase in reported losses by older Americans in the two years following the 2020 coronavirus epidemic, when people were confined to their homes and easier to reach over the phone.

Barnacle stated that investigators are finding organised, transnational criminal enterprises targeting older Americans through a variety of schemes, such as romance scams and investment frauds.

READ ALSO:

Last year, the most common type of fraud reported by older individuals was tech support scams, in which scammers impersonate technical or customer care staff over the phone.

In one such scam, which authorities say is becoming more popular, criminals impersonate technology, banking, and government officials to convince victims that foreign hackers have infiltrated their bank accounts and that they should transfer their funds to a new account that the scammers secretly control.

According to the FBI, between May and December, there was an increase in scammers utilising live couriers to steal money from victims who were fooled into believing their accounts had been hijacked.

In those circumstances, scammers inform victims that their bank accounts have been compromised and that they must sell their possessions for cash or purchase gold or other precious metals to secure their savings. The fraudsters then arrange for a courier to collect it in person.

“A lot of the fraud schemes ask victims to send money via a wire transfer or a cryptocurrency transfer. When the victim is reluctant to do that, they’re given an alternative,” Barnacle said. “And so the bad guy will use courier services.”

According to prosecutors, an 81-year-old Ohio man shot and killed an Uber driver who he believed was attempting to rob him after receiving fraudulent phone calls earlier this month.

The man had been receiving calls from someone claiming to be an officer from the local court and demanding money.

The Uber driver had been instructed to get a package from the man’s residence, a request that officials believe was made by the same hoax caller or an accomplice.

The enormous losses to older Americans are most likely an underestimate. Only roughly half of the more than 880,000 complaints submitted to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Centre last year included information about the victim’s age.

Scammers steal over $3.4bn from older Americans – FBI report

International

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Published

14 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Violent skirmishes broke out on Wednesday on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) between pro-Palestinian protesters and a group of counter-demonstrators, a live video coverage by a US broadcaster revealed.

According to the UCLA student publication Daily Bruin, supporters of Israel attempted to knock down a pro-Palestinian protest campsite on campus.

Police were responding to UCLA Chancellor Gene Block’s call for assistance, said Zach Seidl, Los Angeles Deputy Mayor of Communications, on X.

READ ALSO:

The October 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas terrorists from Gaza, followed by an Israeli offensive on the Palestinian territory, has sparked the largest outpouring of US student action since the 2020 anti-racism rallies.

Aerial footage from KABC, an ABC affiliate, showed people using sticks or poles attacking wooden planks set up as a temporary barricade to defend pro-Palestinian protesters, some of whom held placards or umbrellas.

Late on Tuesday, New York City police detained scores of pro-Palestinian activists holed up in an academic building on Columbia University’s campus in New York and dismantled a protest encampment that the Ivy League school had attempted to destroy for nearly two weeks.

Gaza: Protesters clash at UCLA, police arrest pro-Palestine demonstrators at Columbia University

Reuters

International

UN warns Israel assault on Gaza’s Rafah on ‘immediate horizon’

Published

17 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Trends Admin

United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres

UN warns Israel assault on Gaza’s Rafah on ‘immediate horizon’

UNITED NATIONS, April 30 (Reuters) – The United Nations on Tuesday warned that an Israeli assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip was “on the immediate horizon” and that “incremental” progress by Israel on aid access to the enclave could not be used to prepare for or justify an operation.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for states with influence over Israel “to do everything in their power” to prevent an Israeli assault on Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1.2 million displaced Gaza Palestinians are sheltering.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Tuesday to go ahead with a long-promised assault, whatever the response by Hamas to latest proposals for a halt to fighting in the nearly seven-month-long war and a return of Israeli hostages.

“The world has been appealing to the Israeli authorities for weeks to spare Rafah, but a ground operation there is on the immediate horizon,” said U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths in a statement. “The simplest truth is that a ground operation in Rafah will be nothing short of a tragedy beyond words.”

Israel pledged nearly a month ago to improve aid access to the enclave of 2.3 million people after U.S. President Joe Biden demanded steps to alleviate the humanitarian crisis, saying the U.S. could place conditions on support if Israel did not act.

Guterres told reporters that there had been “incremental progress” toward averting “an entirely preventable, human-made famine” in northern Gaza, but much more was urgently needed.

READ ALSO:

“These improvements in bringing more aid into Gaza cannot be used to prepare for or justify a full-blown military assault on Rafah,” Griffiths said.

Guterres specifically called on Israel to follow through on its promise to open two crossings to the north.

“A major obstacle to distributing aid across Gaza is the lack of security for humanitarians and the people we serve. Humanitarian convoys, facilities and personnel, and the people in need must not be targets,” Guterres told reporters.

NO ALTERNATIVE TO LAND

A U.N.-backed report in March said famine was imminent and likely by May in northern Gaza, and could spread across the enclave by July. Guterres said the most vulnerable in the north “are already dying of hunger and disease.”

When asked what leverage the U.S. could use over its ally Israel to boost aid access and avert a Rafah assault, Guterres said: “It is very important to put all possible pressure in order to avoid what would be an absolutely devastating tragedy.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he will discuss with Netanyahu on Wednesday measures that Israel still needs to take to increase the flow of aid into Gaza.

“I strongly encourage the government of Israel and the Hamas leadership to reach now an agreement,” Guterres said. “Without that, I fear the war, with all its consequences both in Gaza and across the region, will worsen exponentially.”

The U.N. is in talks with the U.S. about a floating pier it is constructing to allow maritime aid deliveries to Gaza from Cyprus. Guterres said: “We welcome aid delivery by air and sea, but there is no alternative to the massive use of land routes.”

Israel’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Jonathan Miller said last week that Israel continued “to elevate and step up” its aid support and that there had been substantial results with a “dramatic increase” in the volume of aid over the past several months.

Israel is retaliating against Hamas in Gaza over an Oct. 7 surprise attack on southern Israel led by the militant group.

Israel says about 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 people were taken hostage in the assault. Gaza health authorities say Israel has killed more than 34,000 people in its offensive in Hamas-run Gaza since then.