World
Mamata calls for staging sit-in against eviction notice to Amartya Sen
India’s West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has directed state ministers to stage a sit-in outside Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's home in Santiniketan to protest the Visva-Bharati University's eviction notice, reports NDTV.
During a cabinet meeting, Mamata instructed the ministers to organize a demonstration with folk artists, cultural programs, and not move from the location even if bulldozers were sent to take over the property, it said.
Education Minister Bratya Basu and Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim will join MSME Minister Chandranath Sinha, the local MLA, who will lead the protest.
She had also previously announced that she would start a sit-in in Santiniketan over the issue.
Visva-Bharati had sent an eviction notice to Mr Sen, who is holding 1.38 acres of land on the Santiniketan campus.
The university alleges that this is more than his legal entitlement of 1.25 acres, while Mr Sen has maintained that most of the land he owns was bought by his father from the market.
Singer Kabir Suman and painter Subhaprasanna will join the program on May 6 and 7, according to the official, who quoted the Chief Minister.
Russia says it foiled an alleged drone attack on Kremlin
Russian authorities accused Ukraine on Wednesday of attempting to attack the Kremlin with two drones overnight in an effort to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin decried the alleged attack attempt as a "terrorist act" and said Russian military and security forces stopped the drones before they could strike.
In a statement carried by Russian state-run news agencies, it said no casualties took place.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti that Putin wasn't in the Kremlin at the time and was working from the Novo-Ogaryovo residence.
The Kremlin added that Putin was safe and his schedule was unchanged.
There were no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities. The Kremlin didn't present any evidence from the reported incident, and its statement included few details.
Tass quoted the statement as saying that the Kremlin considered the development to be a deliberate attempt on Putin's life ahead of the Victory Day that Russia celebrates on May 9.
Kremlin spokesman Peskov said a military parade would take place as scheduled that day.
Russia retains the right to respond "when and where it sees fit," the Tass report said, quoting the statement.
Iran's president holds rare meeting with Assad in Syria
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi Wednesday met Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus in a bid to boost cooperation between the two allies, state media reported.
Tehran has been a main backer of Assad's government since an uprising turned into a full-blown war in March 2011 and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide in his favor.
Iran has sent scores of military advisers and thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to fight on Assad's side. With the help of Russia and Iran, Syrian government forces have controlled large parts of the country in recent years.
In an interview with pan-Arab television channel Al-Mayadeen, Raisi called for reconstruction efforts and for refugees who fled the country's war to return to the country.
Raisi, who is a leading a high-ranking political and economic delegation in a two-day visit to Syria, was received on arrival at Damascus International Airport Wednesday by Syrian Economy Minister Samer al-Khalil.
“Syria’s government and people have gone through great hardship," Syrian state media quoted Raisi telling Assad during the meeting. "Today, we can now say that you have overcome all these problems and were victorious despite the threats and sanctions imposed against you.”
He is also set to visit the Sayida Zeinab and Sayida Ruqayya shrines, both holy sites in Shiite Islam, as well as the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, a monument dedicated to Syrian soldiers killed in battle.
The last Iranian president to visit Syria was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2010.
The Iranian president's visit comes as some Arab countries, including regional powerhouses Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been opening up to Assad and their foreign ministers have visited Damascus in recent weeks. Syria’s foreign minister also visited the Saudi capital of Riyadh in April, the first such visit since the two countries cut relations in 2012.
In March, Iran and Saudi Arabia, a main backer of Syrian opposition fighters, reached an agreement in China to re-establish diplomatic relations and reopen embassies after seven years of tensions.
The reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely to have positive effects on regional states where the two countries fought proxy wars, including Syria.
Syria was widely shunned by Arab governments over Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters and the breakdown in relations culminated with Syria being ousted from the Arab League in 2011. The conflict has since killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million.
“America and its allies failed on all fronts against the resistance, and could not achieve any of their goals,” Iran’s new ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari told Iran’s state news agency on Tuesday.
Like Syria, Iran is under western sanctions, which alongside decades of mismanagement, has plunged its national currency to new lows. Months of anti-government protests failed to unseat ruling clerics and return to the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which lifted sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.
In 2015, Iran’s currency was trading at 32,000 rials to the dollar when it signed a nuclear accord with world powers. In February it hit a record low of 600,000.
The Iranian president's visit also comes a week after its Minister for Road and Urban Development Mehrdad Bazrpash met Assad in Damascus, where he delivered a message from the Iranian president supporting the expansion of economic relations between the two countries, according to Iran’s state news agency.
Iran’s military presence in Syria been a major concern for Israel, which has vowed to stop Iranian entrenchment along its northern border. Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets in government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years — but rarely acknowledges them. Since the beginning of 2023, Syrian officials have attributed a dozen strikes on Syrian territory to Israel, the latest of which came early Tuesday and put the international airport of the northern city of Aleppo out of service.
Indian no-frills air carrier Go First files for bankruptcy
No-frills Indian air carrier Go First filed for bankruptcy and suspended its flights for three days starting Wednesday, causing hardships for thousands of fliers.
A statement on the carrier’s website on Tuesday said the cancellations were caused by operational reasons. "A full refund will be issued to the original mode of payment shortly,” the statement said.
In a message to employees on Tuesday, airline chief Kaushik Khona said Pratt & Whitney had failed to supply it with replacements for faulty aircraft engines, the Press Trust of India news agency said. Pratt and Whitney, an American aerospace manufacturer with global operations, had no immediate comment.
Khona said the carrier was doing everything possible to navigate the situation with utmost care and concern for all staff.
Go First had an average of 30,000 daily domestic flyers in March, so the disruption in flights is expected to affect about 90,000 passengers, media reports said.
The airline is owned by India’s Wadia group.
India’s Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindi said the government was helping the beleaguered airline.
“Go First has been faced with critical supply chain issues with regard to its engines. The government has been assisting the airline in every possible manner,” he said.
The Indian Express daily said the company's trouble with engines has forced it to ground half of its fleet of about 60 aircraft.
S. Korean, Japanese officials meet ahead of leaders' summit
Senior South Korean and Japanese officials on Wednesday discussed strengthening relations and coordinating responses to North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats in a meeting in Seoul ahead of a summit between the countries’ leaders.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will host on Sunday Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in their second summit since March. The two U.S. allies have been working to repair relations strained by historical grievances and tighten security cooperation to cope with North Korean nuclear threats.
The talks between South Korean National Security Adviser Cho Tae-yong and his Japanese counterpart, Takeo Akiba, were focused on the trilateral security cooperation with Washington and encouraging further global efforts to stem North Korean attempts to evade U.N. Security Council sanctions to fund its nuclear arms program.
Cho and Akiba also discussed facilitating the economic and cultural exchanges and aligning their broader strategies for the Indo-Pacific region, according to Yoon's office.
They later participated in a broader meeting with economic and security officials that discussed issues related to supply chain resiliency, climate change and emerging technologies, Yoon’s office said.
The summit on Sunday follows Yoon’s state visit to Washington last week where he and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed to strengthen nuclear deterrence to prevent North Korean aggression.
Yoon, Biden and Kishida are also planning to hold a trilateral summit next month at the Group of Seven meetings in Hiroshima, where North Korea is expected to be among the major topics along with Russia’s war on Ukraine and China’s assertive foreign policy.
North Korea has test-fired around 100 missiles since the start of 2022 as it continues to use the United States’ expanding military exercises with South Korea and Japan as a pretext to accelerate its weapons development.
The weapons North Korea tested this year include intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland and shorter-range weapons potentially targeting South Korea and Japan. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has punctuated the tests with threats to preemptively use his nuclear weapons in a broad range of scenarios where the North may perceive its leadership as under threat.
North Korea’s intensified testing activity and threats of nuclear conflict have pulled Seoul and Tokyo closer together following years of bickering over history. During the summit in Tokyo in March, Yoon and Kishida vowed to rebuild their security and economic relations that had declined over disputes linked to Japan’s brutal rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.
The meeting, which was the first formal summit hosted by Japan since 2011, came after Yoon’s government took a major step toward improving ties by announcing plans to use South Korean funds to compensate Koreans who were enslaved by Japanese companies during the colonial period.
The plan, which doesn’t require Japanese contributions, aims to end a row stemming from South Korean court rulings in 2018 that ordered Japanese companies to offer reparations to the forced laborers. Those rulings irked Japan, which insists all compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty that normalized relations.
Yoon’s push to mend ties with Tokyo has triggered criticism from some forced labor victims and his political rivals, who demand direct Japanese compensation. But Yoon has defended his moves, saying closer ties with Japan are critical for dealing with a slew of regional challenges, especially North Korea.
Japan’s Trade Ministry said last week that it started procedures to restore preferential trade status for South Korea, days after Seoul took a similar step for Tokyo and requested reciprocity. The countries in 2019 had downgraded each other’s trade status amid an erosion of ties caused by the forced labor rulings.
Fire rages at Russian oil depot; Zelenskyy visits Finland
A massive blaze broke out at an Russian oil depot, local officials said Wednesday, while the Kremlin's forces used 26 Iranian-made drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine as the war stretched into its 15th month.
The developments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an unannounced visit to the Finnish capital, Helsinki, for a one-day summit with Nordic leaders, as he pushes Ukraine’s Western allies to provide Kyiv with more military support.
The Nordic countries have been among Ukraine’s strongest backers.
“The war is ... a turning point for our entire continent,” said Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, one of the summit attendees. “Here in the north, we have a more unpredictable and aggressive Russian neighbor, and it is important that we discuss together how to face this new situation.”
The oil depot erupted in flames in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, located east of the Russian-held Crimean Peninsula, according to Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev.
He didn’t say what caused the fire, which was described as extremely difficult to put out. But some Russian media outlets said it was likely caused by a Ukrainian drone attack overnight. There was no official comment on that possibility.
Local residents heard an explosion shortly before the fire erupted, Russian news site Baza said.
Military analysts reckon Ukraine is targeting supply lines in the Russian rear as Kyiv gears up for a possible counteroffensive amid improving weather conditions and as it receives large amounts of weapons and ammunition from its Western allies.
Explosions have also derailed a Russian freight train and hit a Russian airfield in recent days. Analysts say the attacks may be perpetrated by Ukrainian saboteurs.
At the same time, anticipating a Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russian forces are focused on destroying logistical routes and centers of Ukraine’s armed forces, Kyiv military officials say.
Meanwhile, explosions were heard in Kyiv and elsewhere during the night as Ukrainian air defenses shot down 21 of the Russian drones, Ukraine’s Air Force Command said.
No damage or casualties were reported in the third attempt in six days by the Kremlin's forces to hit Kyiv.
But three people died and five were wounded when a supermarket in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson came under fire on Wednesday.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, the attack on the “only operating hypermarket in Kherson” happened at around 11 a.m. local time.
A round-the-clock curfew is to be introduced in Kherson from 8 p.m. on Friday through 6 a.m. on Monday, Kherson Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin announced.
“During these 58 hours, it is forbidden to move around or stay on the streets of the city. Also, the city will be closed for entry and exit,” Prokudin said.
The measure is necessary, he said in a video on social media, “so that law enforcement officers can do their job and not put you in danger,” but did not provide further details.
Both Russia and Ukraine reportedly have experienced ammunition shortages after a winter of long-range shelling and missile strikes as the conflict became bogged down in a war of attrition.
Ukraine's government has been pressing its allies to give it more as officials consider when and how they might start trying to drive Russian forces out of the Ukrainian territory they have occupied.
The U.S. plans to send Ukraine about $300 million in additional military aid, including an enormous number of artillery rounds, howitzers, air-to-ground rockets and ammunition, U.S. officials said late Tuesday.
The new package includes Hydra-70 rockets, which are unguided rockets that are fired from aircraft. It also includes an undisclosed number of rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, mortars, howitzer rounds, missiles and Carl Gustaf anti-tank rifles.
The weapons will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks, so they can go quickly to the front lines, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the aid has not yet been formally announced.
New Zealand also said it was increasing its support for Ukraine by adding another year to the deployment of about 100 military personnel who, among other tasks, have been helping train Ukrainian troops in Britain on operating howitzers.
New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said it will also donate an additional $3.3 million toward Ukrainian humanitarian, refugee and legal justice efforts. He said New Zealand has spent about $50 million on financial and military support to Ukraine since the war began.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard seizes tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard seized a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the strategic Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, the second-such capture by Tehran in under a week amid heightened tensions over its nuclear program.
The taking of the oil tanker Niovi renewed concerns about Iran threatening maritime traffic in the strait, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all crude passes. It also comes amid the disappearance of a crude oil tanker in southeast Asia believed to be carrying Iranian crude oil amid reports it may have been seized by the U.S.
The U.S. Navy published pictures of a dozen Guard vessels swarming the tanker. Those ships “forced the oil tanker to reverse course and head toward Iranian territorial waters off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran,” the Navy said.
“Iran’s actions are contrary to international law and disruptive to regional security and stability,” the 5th Fleet said in a statement. “Iran’s continued harassment of vessels and interference with navigational rights in regional waters are unwarranted, irresponsible and a present threat to maritime security and the global economy.”
Iran's semiofficial Tasnim news agency, believed to be close to the Guard, reported the paramilitary force had seized a tanker it described as a “violator,” without elaborating.
Shipping registries show the Niovi as managed by Smart Tankers of Piraeus, Greece. A woman who answered the phone at the firm declined to immediately comment on the seizure.
Last week, Iran seized an oil tanker carrying crude for Chevron Corp. of San Ramon, California. amid wider tensions between Tehran and the U.S. over its nuclear program. The Advantage Sweet had 23 Indians and one Russian on board.
Iran has accused the Advantage Sweet of colliding with another vessel, while offering no evidence to support its claim. Iran has offered a variety of unsupported claims in the past when seizing foreign-flagged ships amid tensions with the West.
The taking of the two tankers in under a week comes amid the disappearance of the Marshall Island-flagged Suez Rajan, which had been in the South China Sea off Singapore for over a year after a report alleged it to smuggling sanctioned Iranian crude oil. Tracking data for the Suez Rajan last showed it off East Africa, moving in a direction that could take it to the Americas.
The Financial Times, as well as the maritime intelligence firm Ambrey, both have reported the Suez Rajan was seized on order of American authorities. The ship's manager has not responded to queries from The Associated Press about the status of the ship. U.S. officials also have not commented.
The seizure by Iran of the two ships in the last week was the latest in a string of ship seizures and explosions to roil the region.
The incidents began after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Also, the U.S. Navy has blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers in 2019, as well as for a fatal drone attack on an Israeli-linked oil tanker that killed two European crew members in 2021.
Tehran denies carrying out the attacks, but a wider shadow war between Iran and the West has played out in the region’s volatile waters. Iranian tanker seizures have been a part of it since 2019. The last major seizure before recent days came when Iran took two Greek tankers in May 2022 and held them until November.
Teenage boy kills 8 children, guard at school in Belgrade
A teenage boy opened fire at a school in Serbia's capital Wednesday, killing eight children and a school guard, police said. Six more children and a teacher were injured and hospitalized.
Police identified the shooter by his initials, K.K., and said he had opened fire with his father's gun. He was arrested in the school yard, police said. A statement identified him as a student at the school in central Belgrade who was born in 2009.
Police said they received a call about the shooting at the Vladislav Ribnikar primary school around 8:40 a.m. Primary schools in Serbia have eight grades, starting with first grade.
“I was able to hear the shooting. It was non-stop," a student who was in a sports class downstairs when the gunfire erupted. “I didn’t know what was happening. We were receiving some messages on the phone.”
Unlike in the United States, mass shootings in Serbia and in the wider Balkan region are extremely rare; none were reported at schools in recent years. In the last mass shooting, a Balkan war veteran in 2013 killed 13 people in a central Serbian village.
Experts, however, have repeatedly warned of the number of weapons left over in the country after the wars of the 1990s. They also note that decades-long instability stemming from the conflicts as well as the ongoing economic hardship could trigger such outbursts.
Local media footage from the scene showed commotion outside the school as police removed the suspect, whose head was covered as officers led him to a car parked in the street.
The student who heard the shooting, who was identified only by her initials, E.M., because of her age, described the suspect as a “quiet guy” who “looked nice.”
“He was having good grades, but we didn’t know much about him,” the student added. “He was not so open with everybody. Surely i wasn’t expecting this to happen. ”
Milan Milosevic, who said his daughter was in a history class when the shooting took place, told N1 television that he rushed out when he heard what had happened.
“I asked where is my child but no one could tell me anything at first,” he said. “Then she called and we found out she was out.”
“He (the shooter) fired first at the teacher and then the children who ducked under the desks,” Milosevic quoted his daughter as saying. “She said he was a quiet boy and a good student.”
Police sealed off the blocks around the school, in the center of Belgrade.
258 million people in 58 countries faced acute food insecurity in 2022: UN
More than a quarter-billion people in 58 countries faced acute food insecurity last year due to conflicts, climate change, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine, according to a report published Wednesday.
The Global Report on Food Crises, an alliance of humanitarian organizations founded by the U.N. and European Union, said people faced starvation and death in seven of those countries: Somalia, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Haiti, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen.
The report found that that the number of people facing acute food insecurity and requiring urgent food aid — 258 million — had increased for the fourth consecutive year, a “stinging indictment of humanity’s failure” to implement U.N. goals to end world hunger, said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
While the increase last year was due in part to more populations being analyzed, the report also found that the severity of the problem increased as well, “highlighting a concerning trend of a deterioration.”
Rein Paulsen, director of emergencies and resilience for the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, said an interplay of causes was driving hunger. They include conflicts, climate shocks, the impact of the pandemic and consequences of Russia's war in Ukraine that has had an impact on the global trade in fertilizers, wheat, maize and sunflower oil.
The impact has been most acute on the poorest countries that are dependent on food imports. “Prices have increased (and) those countries have been adversely affected,” Paulsen said.
He called for a “paradigm shift” so that more funding is spent investing in agricultural interventions that anticipate food crises and aim to prevent them.
“The challenge that we have is the disequilibrium, the mismatch that exists between the amount of funding money that’s given, what that funding is spent on, and the types of interventions that are required to make a change,” he said.
Acute food insecurity is when a person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.
12 die in explosion, helicopter crash during Chinese holiday
At least nine people were killed in an explosion at a Chinese petrochemical plant and three others died in a helicopter crash during the country's May Day holiday.
Rescuers recovered the bodies of the nine workers killed in the explosion Monday at the Zhonghua Group plant in an industrial zone in the city of Liaocheng in the northern province of Shandong. One person remained missing and another was hospitalized with injuries, the zone’s management committee said in a notice Wednesday. An interdepartmental task force has been set up to investigate the cause of the blast, the committee said.
On Tuesday afternoon, a small civilian-use helicopter crashed outside the northwestern city of Xi’an, killing all three people on board, state media reported. No information was given on the identities of the victims or the cause of the crash.
Meanwhile, two earthquakes in the country's southwest on Tuesday and Wednesday caused minor damage and slightly injured 10 people.
Work generally stops during the five-day May Day holiday, which ended Wednesday, during which tens of millions of Chinese flock to tourist sites.
Despite improvements, industrial safety remains a major issue in China. Accidents are blamed largely on poor oversight and a sometimes cavalier approach to safety regulations. Industries that are major sources of employment and tax revenue are often given a pass on infractions.
In February, 53 miners were killed in the collapse of a massive open pit coal mine in the northern region of Inner Mongolia, leading to numerous arrests, and four people were detained over a fire at an industrial trading company in central China in November that killed 38 people.
The central government has pledged stronger safety measures since an explosion in 2015 at a chemical warehouse in the northern port city of Tianjin killed 173 people, most of them firefighters and police officers. In that accident, a number of local officials were accused of having taken bribes to ignore safety violations.