Cincunri Sakia: Agustus 2022

Rabu, 31 Agustus 2022

EU's eastern states threaten to stem flow of Russians across borders - Financial Times

Eastern EU states bordering Russia have threatened to adopt “national measures” to slash the number of Russian citizens entering their countries and the bloc’s free-travel Schengen zone if the EU fails to agree on a collective approach.

The threat from the five member states came ahead of a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers on Wednesday to debate the issue, which has sharply divided the 27-member EU as it seeks to continue punishing Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

In a joint statement seen by the Financial Times, Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania demanded that the European Commission propose “respective measures on visas” that would “decisively decrease the flow of Russian citizens into the European Union and the Schengen area”.

“Until such measures are in place on the EU level, we will consider setting up temporary measures on the national level in order to address imminent public security issues related to the increased influx of Russian citizens across our borders,” they said.

The threat raises the stakes for Wednesday’s debate as Brussels seeks to maintain unity among its members while also continuing to punish Russia for its war against Ukraine.

“It is our national competence under the principle of national security to decide the issues of entry to our soil,” Estonia’s foreign minister Urmas Reinsalu told reporters as he arrived at the meeting.

About 700,000 Russians have entered the five countries since the onset of President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February. Most of them are tourists who use the border states as a gateway to travel to western EU countries for holidays.

“We believe that this could become a serious threat to public security,” the five countries said in the joint statement that also underlined the need to maintain “exceptions for dissidents as well as other humanitarian cases”.

“We need to continue to support opponents of the Putin regime and provide them with opportunities to leave Russia,” the statement added.

Countries such as Germany and France are opposed to any ban and have cautioned against “far-reaching restrictions on our visa policy”. They have instead called for the bloc to “closely scrutinise visa applications lodged by Russian nationals for potential security risks”.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat who chairs the foreign minister’s meeting, said on Wednesday that the bloc “cannot afford to appear to be disunited”.

“We know that there are different positions among different member states,” he said. “I will be working for a united position, a common position.”

Short of consensus on a ban, foreign ministers will use the meeting in Prague to agree instead on a suspension of a 2007 visa facilitation agreement with Moscow, which will make Russian visas more expensive, require more supporting documentation and entail longer waiting times.

The five countries said this suspension was “a necessary first step” but that it would not deter them from seeking more stringent measures to reduce the numbers of Russians entering their countries.

Latvia’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said Riga would wait to see the outcome of the meeting to “see how we are going to proceed”.

Russia has condemned suggestions of a possible visa ban as “completely devoid of reason”.

The Kremlin has vowed to retaliate against the EU if the bloc goes ahead with plans to restrict visas for Russian citizens in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said “yet another portion of hostile actions against our citizens will demand our counter-reaction, if it occurs”, according to Interfax.

He did not specify what measures Russia would take and said they would depend on how far the EU went. “There’s nothing good about this. Their people will also have to deal with inconveniences when they come here. This is yet another spiral of this irrational Russophobian attitude towards our country.”

Additional reporting Max Seddon in Riga

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2022-08-31 07:56:40Z
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Selasa, 30 Agustus 2022

Kherson: 'Heavy fighting' as Ukraine seeks to retake Russian-held region - BBC

A Ukrainian soldier fires a machine gun. File photo

Fierce battles have been reported as Ukraine tries to retake the Russian-occupied southern Kherson region - but military experts have told the BBC it "won't happen quickly".

"Heavy fighting is continuing, our soldiers are working around the clock," said Vitaliy Kim, who heads the neighbouring Mykolaiv region.

Ukraine earlier said it had broken through Russia's first line of defence.

But Russia said Ukrainian troops had been defeated during a failed attack.

The defence ministry in Moscow also said there had been heavy casualties among the Ukrainian forces, but the claims by both Ukraine and Russia have not been independently verified.

Kherson became the first major Ukrainian city to fall into Russian hands in the opening days of Moscow's invasion that began on 24 February.

Top Ukrainian military officials have been tight-lipped about giving too many details about its reported counter-offensive, urging the wider public to be patient.

On Tuesday, Ukraine's Operational Command "South" reported that "positional battles" continued.

It said three key bridges across the Dnipro River had been hit again to make sure they were impassable. In recent weeks, Ukraine has also been using US-supplied Himars precision rocket systems to target makeshift Russian pontoon bridges, as well as command posts and ammunition depots.

This is widely seen as part of a targeted effort to cut off Russian troops on the right (western) bank of the river, making it virtually impossible to send troops and weapons resupplies.

However, officials in Kyiv have been cautioning against any expectations of a quick win, describing the offensive as a slow grinding down of the enemy.

Several military experts interviewed by the BBC seem to agree with this.

"The long-term trend is the gradual weakening of the Russian military capability and the gradual strengthening of the Ukrainian capability with Western help," said Sir Alex Younger, a former head of Britain's MI6 Secret Intelligence Service.

He said the Kherson counter-offensive was "all about the urge of Ukraine to demonstrate they can get on the front foot and in turn underpin the resolve of Ukraine and its backers into what is going to be a difficult winter".

Justin Bronk, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi) defence think tank, told the BBC he believed Ukraine would continue with strikes using Himars as they were proving so successful at cutting off Russian supply lines.

Moving forward, though, Mr Bronk said he expected to see more of an "attritional strategy" by Ukraine, "pushing [Russia] on a broad front, trying to force Russian morale to break and inflict casualties".

Meanwhile, Ukrainian military expert Mykhaylo Zhyrokhov told the BBC: "We shouldn't be expecting a cavalry attack, because the general staff of Ukraine's armed forces doesn't want street fighting [in the Kherson city] - that would result in heavy casualties."

"The Ukrainian strategy is to squeeze the enemy out," he said, warning that this "won't happen quickly".

"It's like a situation with a cornered rat that needs to be offered a way out. Ukraine's military should aim to provide the Russian troops with such a withdrawal route, otherwise [the Russians troops] would be fighting until the last soldier."

"The window of opportunity is until mid-October because after that the mainly field roads in the region will become impassable" because of mud and slush, Mr Zhyrokhov said.

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2022-08-30 17:39:10Z
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Senin, 29 Agustus 2022

Last member of uncontacted Amazon tribe dies in Brazil - Sky News

The last member of an uncontacted Amazon tribe in Brazil has died.

Known as "The Man of the Hole," the indigenous man had lived in isolation in Brazil's Rondonia state for 26 years, according to the non-profit organisation Survival International.

The man, who was thought to be around 60 years old, was given the moniker for his habit of digging deep holes to trap animals or hide in.

An official from Brazil's indigenous protection agency, FUNAI, found his dead body in a hammock outside his straw hut on Tuesday.

There were no signs of struggle or violence.

FUNAI said the man died of natural causes and his body will undergo a forensic examination by the federal police.

The rest of his tribe had been killed in a series of attacks from the 1970s onwards, mainly carried out by cattle ranchers who wanted to expand their land.

Fiona Watson, research and advocacy director at Survival International, commented on the news of his death: "No outsider knew this man's name, or even very much about his tribe - and with his death the genocide of his people is complete.

"For this was indeed a genocide - the deliberate wiping out of an entire people by cattle ranchers hungry for land and wealth."

She added: "He symbolised both the appalling violence and cruelty inflicted on indigenous peoples worldwide in the name of colonisation and profit, but also their resistance.

"We can only imagine what horrors he had witnessed in his life, and the loneliness of his existence after the rest of his tribe were killed, but he determinedly resisted all attempts at contact, and made clear he just wanted to be left alone."

Footage of the unknown man taken showing him hacking away at a tree with an axe was released by FUNAI in 2018.

Survival International said his abandoned campsites showed he planted crops such as corn, papaya and bananas and made his houses of straw and thatch.

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2022-08-29 18:24:04Z
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Pakistan floods: One third of country is under water - minister - BBC

Image shows man wading through flooded street

One-third of Pakistan has been completely submerged by historic flooding, its climate minister says.

Devastating flash floods have washed away roads, homes and crops - leaving a trail of deadly havoc across Pakistan.

"It's all one big ocean, there's no dry land to pump the water out," Sherry Rehman said, calling it a "crisis of unimaginable proportions."

At least 1,136 people have died since the monsoon season began in June, according to officials.

The summer rain is the heaviest recorded in a decade and is blamed by the government on climate change.

"Literally, one-third of Pakistan is underwater right now, which has exceeded every boundary, every norm we've seen in the past," Ms Rehman told AFP news agency.

"We've never seen anything like this," the minister added.

Of those who are known to have died, 75 were in the past 24 hours alone, officials said on Monday, adding that the death toll is expected to rise.

Speaking to the BBC, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari said one-third of those killed are believed to be children.

"We're still coming to grips with the extent of the damage," he added.

Officials estimate that more than 33 million Pakistanis - one in seven people - have been affected by the historic flooding.

Heavy waters in the country's northern Swat Valley have swept away bridges and roads, cutting off entire villages.

Thousands of people living in the mountainous area have been ordered to evacuate - but even with the help of helicopters, authorities are still struggling to reach those who are trapped.

"Village after village has been wiped out. Millions of houses have been destroyed," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Sunday after flying over the area in a helicopter.

Those who managed to escape have been crowded into one of many makeshift camps across the country.

"Living here is miserable. Our self-respect is at stake," flood victim Fazal Malik told AFP from a school that was being used to home some 2,500 evacuees in the north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Provinces like Sindh and Balochistan are the worst affected but mountainous regions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have also been badly hit.

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This year's record monsoon is comparable to the devastating floods of 2010 - the deadliest in Pakistan's history - which left more than 2,000 people dead.

There is also growing concern about the looming cost of building back from this disaster, and Pakistan's government has appealed for financial help from aid agencies, friendly countries and international donors.

"A very early, preliminary estimate is that it is big, it is higher than $10bn (£8.5bn)," Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal told Reuters.

Almost half of the country's cotton crop has been washed away and vegetable, fruit, and rice fields have sustained significant damage, he added.

But Mr Sharif said the resumption of a loan by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), worth around $1.2bn (£1bn) over the coming year, would be of major assistance in reviving the economy.

The programme, which Pakistan entered into in 2019, had been suspended earlier this year after Islamabad failed to meet targets set by the lender.

On Saturday the UK government announced it had allocated up to £1.5m ($1.8m) for the flood relief efforts.

Speaking separately, Queen Elizabeth II said said was "deeply saddened to hear of the tragic loss of life and destruction" caused by the flooding.

"The United Kingdom stands in solidarity with Pakistan as it embarks on its recovery," she added.

A rice farmer near the south-eastern city of Sukkur in the Sindh province, told AFP news agency that his fields had been devastated by the flooding.

"Our crop spanned over 5,000 acres on which the best quality rice was sown and is eaten by you and us," 70-year-old Khalil Ahmed said. "All that is finished."

Sindh is so inundated with water that emergency workers are struggling to reach those in need of help.

"There are no landing strips or approaches available... our pilots find it difficult to land," a Pakistani military official told AFP.

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2022-08-30 00:31:42Z
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Ukraine says counter-offensive against Russian forces near Kherson has begun - Financial Times

Ukraine said it had launched a counter-offensive against Russian forces near the city of Kherson, in a shift that has forced the Russian military to shift resources to the southern part of the country, according to a top White House official.

A senior Ukrainian government adviser confirmed Kyiv had begun a major operation aimed at retaking the strategically important southern city that was captured by Russian forces early in the war.

“The next phase of the counteroffensive is beginning,” the adviser said. “It started with massive attacks on Russian military infrastructure and logistics.”

The long-anticipated assault on Russia’s forces is aimed at recapturing territory Moscow seized in the early weeks of president Vladimir Putin’s invasion, when troops swarmed in from the Crimean peninsula to the south.

Over the past two months, Ukraine has carried out dozens of strikes on Russian supply lines and infrastructure supporting Moscow’s occupation of the region.

Crucial to that effort is Ukraine’s deployment of western weaponry such as US-made Himars — truck-mounted guided missile launchers that have an attack range of up to 80km. This has greatly increased Ukraine’s ability to strike far behind enemy lines.

Ukraine’s Centre for Strategic Communication and Information Security wrote on Twitter that the country’s armed forces had “breached the occupiers’ first line of defence near Kherson”, the only provincial capital Russia has captured since Putin ordered the invasion in February.

“Ukraine has a real chance to get back its occupied territories, especially considering the very successful use of western weapons by the Ukrainian army,” it added.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, John Kirby, the co-ordinator for strategic communications at the White House National Security Council, said Ukraine’s move was already having an effect.

“Regardless of the size, scale and scope of this counter-offensive that they’ve talked about today, they have already had an impact on Russia’s military capabilities,” Kirby said.

“The Russians have had to pull resources from the east simply because of reports that the Ukrainians might be going more on the offence in the south,” he added. “They’ve had to deplete certain units from certain areas in the east and the Donbas.”

Kherson, a mostly flat province on the delta where the Dnipro river flows into the Black Sea, has strategic importance for Russia as a “land bridge” to Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on Telegram that the country’s military was “grinding down the enemy” as “Kherson lay ahead”.

Russian officials have played down the extent of Ukraine’s counterattack around Kherson, amid conflicting claims about its scale.

Sergei Aksyonov, the Moscow-appointed governor of Crimea, wrote on Telegram that reports of the counterattack were “the latest fake [news] from Ukrainian propaganda” and claimed Kyiv’s forces were in fact “taking extremely severe losses on the southern front as well as all the others”.

But in a sign that Ukraine was getting closer to big population centres, a senior official installed by Russia in Nova Kakhovka, a city east of Kherson, told state newswire RIA Novosti that he had ordered civilians to be evacuated into bomb shelters.

Air raid sirens and explosions could be heard in the city, Ukrainian television reported, citing local residents. Pro-Ukrainian channels on Telegram posted photos of what they said was a destroyed market following artillery strikes.

However, the governor of the neighbouring Ukraine-held region of Mykolayiv wrote in a Telegram post that several civilians had been killed in heavy shelling, an indication of Moscow’s capacity to push back against Ukrainian forces.

Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defence minister and chair of the Centre for Defense Strategies think-tank, said Kyiv “certainly plans to return to Kherson in the very near future”.

He added: “It’s a complex task including multiple forces, tactical activities, which had needed patience and time to prepare.”

Ukraine has in recent months regularly shelled the bridges at Kherson and Nova Kakhovka, which link Russia’s occupying forces to supply lines on the eastern side of the Dnipro.

However, some Ukrainian officials also urged caution around the offensive. One reason is that Russia has doubled its troop presence in the region since Kyiv began talking about a possible counter-attack about a month ago.

At the time, about 13 Russian battalion tactical groups were stationed in the Kherson region. This number has now risen to roughly 30, according to Rochan, an independent military consultancy based in Poland.

Kirby noted that this wouldn’t be the first time Ukrainian forces were going on the attack against Russian forces since the conflict began in February, including in areas surrounding Kyiv and Kharkiv.

“The idea of going on the offence is not new to Ukrainians, and they have been taking the fight to the Russians inside their country,” he said. “In fact, with some of the assistance that they’ve gotten from US weapons as well as others, such as Himars, they’ve been able to actually strike behind Russian lines and put the Russians more on defence.”

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2022-08-29 18:21:16Z
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Pakistan floods: One third of country is under water - minister - BBC

One-third of Pakistan has been completely submerged by historic flooding, its climate minister says.

Devastating flash floods have washed away roads, homes and crops - leaving a trail of deadly havoc across Pakistan.

"It's all one big ocean, there's no dry land to pump the water out," Sherry Rehman told AFP, adding it had created a "crisis of unimaginable proportions."