World
Ukraine's nuclear plant partly goes offline amid fighting
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Saturday that the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine was disconnected to its last external power line but was still able to run electricity through a reserve line amid sustained shelling in the area.
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said in a statement that the agency's experts, who arrived at Zaporizhzhia on Thursday, were told by senior Ukrainian staff that the fourth and last operational line was down. The three others were lost earlier during the conflict.
But the IAEA experts learned that the reserve line linking the facility to a nearby thermal power plant was delivering the electricity the plant generates to the external grid, the statement said. The same reserve line can also provide backup power to the plant if needed, it added.
“We already have a better understanding of the functionality of the reserve power line in connecting the facility to the grid,” Grossi said. “This is crucial information in assessing the overall situation there.”
In addition, the plant's management informed the IAEA that one reactor was disconnected Saturday afternoon because of grid restrictions. Another reactor is still operating and producing electricity both for cooling and other essential safety functions at the site and for households, factories and others through the grid, the statement said.
Read:Fighting goes on near Ukraine nuclear plant; IAEA on site
The Zaporizhzhia facility, which is Europe's largest nuclear plant, has been held by Russian forces since early March, but its Ukrainian staff are continuing to operate it.
The Russian-appointed city administration in Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia plant is located, blamed an alleged Ukrainian shelling attack on Saturday morning for destroying a key power line.
“The provision of electricity to the territories controlled by Ukraine has been suspended due to technical difficulties,” the municipal administration said in a post on its official Telegram channel. It wasn't clear whether electricity from the plant was still reaching Russian-held areas.
Vladimir Rogov, a member of the Kremlin-appointed regional administration said on Telegram that a shell had struck an area between two reactors. His claims couldn't be immediately verified.
Over the past several weeks, Ukraine and Russia have traded blame over shelling at and near the plant, while also accusing each other of attempts to derail the visit by IAEA experts, whose mission is meant to help secure the site. Grossi said their presence at the site is “a game changer.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that Ukrainian troops launched another attempt to seize the plant late Friday, despite the presence of the IAEA monitors, sending 42 boats with 250 special forces personnel and foreign “mercenaries” to attempt a landing on the bank of the nearby Kakhovka reservoir.
The ministry said that four Russian fighter jets and two helicopter gunships destroyed about 20 boats and the others turned back. It added that the Russian artillery struck the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the Dnieper River to target the retreating landing party.
The ministry claimed that the Russian military killed 47 troops, including 10 “mercenaries” and wounded 23. The Russian claims couldn’t be independently verified.
The plant has repeatedly suffered complete disconnection from Ukraine’s power grid since last week, with the country’s nuclear energy operator Enerhoatom blaming mortar shelling and fires near the site.
Local Ukrainian authorities accused Moscow of pounding two cities that overlook the plant across the Dnieper river with rockets, also an accusation they have made repeatedly over the past weeks.
Read:UN inspectors arrive at Ukraine nuclear plant amid fighting
In Zorya, a small village about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Zaporizhzhia plant, residents on Friday could hear the sound of explosions in the area.
It’s not the shelling that scared them the most, but the risk of a radioactive leak in the plant.
“The power plant, yes, this is the scariest,” said Natalia Stokoz, a mother of three. "Because the kids and adults will be affected, and it’s scary if the nuclear power plant is blown up.”
Oleksandr Pasko, a 31-year-old farmer, said “there is anxiety because we are quite close.” Pasko said that the Russian shelling has intensified in recent weeks.
During the first weeks of the war, authorities gave iodine tablets and masks to people living near the plant in case of radiation exposure.
Recently, they’ve also distributed iodine pills in Zaporizhzhia city, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the plant.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered to take the role of “facilitator” on the issue of the Zaporizhzhia plant, in a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, according to a statement from the Turkish presidency.
The Ukrainian military on Saturday morning reported that Russian forces overnight pressed their stalled advance in the country’s industrial east, while also trying to hold on to areas captured in Ukraine’s northeast and south, including in the Kherson region cited as the target of Kyiv’s recent counteroffensive.
It added that Ukrainian forces repelled around a half-dozen Russian attacks across the Donetsk region, including near two cities singled out as key targets of Moscow’s grinding effort to capture the rest of the province. The Donetsk region is one of two that make up Ukraine’s industrial heartland of the Donbas, alongside Luhansk, which was overrun by Russian troops in early July.
Separately, the British military confirmed in its regular update Saturday morning that Ukrainian forces were conducting “renewed offensive operations” in the south of Ukraine, advancing along a broad front west of the Dnieper and focusing on three axes within the Russian-occupied Kherson region.
“The operation has limited immediate objectives, but Ukraine’s forces have likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise; exploiting poor logistics, administration and leadership in the Russian armed forces,” the U.K. defense ministry tweeted.
Russian shelling killed an 8-year-old child and wounded at least four others in a southern Ukrainian town close to the Kherson region, Ukrainian officials said.
Crash threat over Mississippi skies ends with pilot's arrest
An airport worker who knew how to take off but not land stole a small airplane Saturday and threatened to crash it into a Walmart, circling for five hours over unnerved Mississippians before ending the flight safely in a soybean field where police arrested him.
Cory Wayne Patterson, 29, was uninjured after the rough landing shortly after posting a goodbye message to his parents and sister on Facebook, authorities said at a news conference. The message said he “never actually wanted to hurt anyone."
After an anxious morning of watching the plane's meandering path overhead, Tupelo Mayor Todd Jordan called the resolution “the best case scenario.”
No one was injured.
Patterson was employed fueling planes at the Tupelo Regional Airport, giving him access to the twin-engine Beechcraft King Air C90A, police Chief John Quaka said.
It was not immediately known why, shortly after 5 a.m., the 10-year Tupelo Aviation employee took off in the fully fueled plane. Fifteen minutes later, Patterson called a Lee County 911 dispatcher to say he planned to crash the plane into a Tupelo Walmart, Quaka said. Officers evacuated people from the Walmart and a nearby convenience store.
Read: Officials: At least 2 die after planes collide in California
“This is more likely a crime of opportunity,” said Quaka, adding that the airport's tower is not staffed until 6 a.m.
Police negotiators were able to make contact during the flight and convince Patterson to land, but he didn't know how. He was coached by a private pilot into nearly landing at the Tupelo airport but he aborted the attempt at the last minute and resumed the flight, authorities said.
A negotiator re-established contact around 10 a.m., and learned Patterson had landed in a field and was uninjured, Quaka said. The plane landed near Ripley, Mississippi, about about 85 miles (140 kilometers) southeast of Memphis, Tennessee, and about 45 miles (70 kilometers) northwest of Tupelo.
“There’s damage but believe it or not, the aircraft is intact,” the chief told reporters.
Patterson, whose Facebook page said he is from Shannon, was charged with grand larceny and making terroristic threats. Quaka said federal authorities also could bring charges. Police said Patterson is not believed to be a licensed pilot but has some flight instruction.
Jordan said Patterson contacted family members during the flight. The mayor said he hopes Patterson “will get the help he needs.”
“Sorry everyone. Never wanted to actually hurt anyone. I love my parents and sister this isn’t your fault. Goodbye,” read Patterson's Facebook message posted at about 9:30 a.m.
Peter Goelz, former managing director at the National Transportation Safety Board, said the vulnerability of small airports, which cater to small planes and corporate jets, has worried security experts for years.
“If you’ve got a trained pilot who can get in and grab a business jet, you’ve got a pretty lethal weapon there,” he said.
Read: Plane catches fire after landing at Miami airport, 3 injured
Ripley resident Roxanne Ward told The Associated Press she had been tracking the plane online and went to her father-in-law’s house with plans to go into the basement for safety. She said she heard the thud as the plane hit the ground on her father-in-law’s property.
She and others got onto four-wheelers to ride over.
“As soon as it crashed, police were there and waiting,” said Ward, who watched from a distance. “Police coaxed him out. They yelled at him, ‘Arms in the air.’” She said the pilot got out of the plane without resisting police.
Michael Canders, director of the Aviation Center at Farmingdale State College in New York, called the incident “a wake-up call” for general aviation airports and their staff.
The Transportation Security Administration requires annual training emphasizing a “see something, say something” approach to try and prevent a scenario like what police believe occurred in Tupelo — an employee with access to aircraft, Canders said.
“This very thing is discussed in the course, the potential for somebody gaining access and intent on damage,” he said. “It’s dependent on all of those who work at an airport. If you see someone you don't recognize or some unusual activity, you’re supposed to report that.”
An online flight tracking service showed the plane's swirling path through the sky early Saturday.
Leslie Criss, a magazine editor who lives in Tupelo, woke up early and was watching the situation on TV and social media. Several of her friends were outside watching the plane circle overhead.
“I've never seen anything like this in this town,” Criss told AP. “It's a scary way to wake up on a Saturday morning."
Goelz said the FAA and Department of Homeland Security would likely examine the incident and issue guidance focused on tightening up security, a potentially costly prospect.
“For an airport like Tupelo, for them to crank up security for Saturday morning at 5 a.m., when their tower doesn’t open until 6 — that’s expensive,’’ Goelz said. “They’re not going to have the funds unless the feds are going to provide it.’’
The airplane drama unfolded as tens of thousands of college football fans were headed to north Mississippi for Saturday football games at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and Mississippi State University in Starkville. Tupelo is between those two cities.
Jane and Daniel Alsup stood out in their front yard near where the plane landed and watched it circle low over the pine and oak trees.
“He left for a while, then we heard him come back. Just a few seconds later, we heard a big old ‘flump’ and he landed out in the soybean field,” Jane Alsup said.
Daniel Alsup said the plane landed on the other side of some trees, so they did not see it hit the ground.
“This was the best place it could have happened,” he said of the rural landing site.
Border patrol: 9 migrants die crossing swift Texas river
Officials on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border searched for more victims Saturday after at least nine migrants died while trying to cross the rain-swollen Rio Grande, a dangerous border-crossing attempt in an area where the river level had risen by more than 2 feet in a single day.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials discovered the victims near Eagle Pass, Texas, on Thursday, following days of heavy rains. U.S. officials recovered six bodies, while Mexican teams recovered three, according to a CBP statement. It is one of the deadliest drownings on the U.S.-Mexico border in recent history.
The river, which was a little more than 3 feet (90 centimeters) deep at the start of the week, reached more than 5 feet (1.5 meters) on Thursday, and the water was flowing five times faster than usual, according to the National Weather Service.
The CBP said U.S. crews rescued 37 others from the river and detained 16 more, while Mexican officials took 39 migrants into custody.
CBP did not say what country or countries the migrants were from and did not provide any additional information on rescue and search operations. Local agencies in Texas that were involved have not responded to requests for information.
Read: Boat carrying Haitian migrants sinks off Bahamas, killing 17
Among the bodies recovered from the river by Mexican authorities was a man and a pregnant woman, although their nationalities were unknown, said Francisco Contreras, a member of Civil Protection in the Mexican border state of Coahuila. No details were released about the third body found.
The Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, is fast becoming the busiest corridor for illegal crossings. Agents stopped migrants nearly 50,000 times in the sector in July, with Rio Grande Valley a distant second at about 35,000. Eagle Pass is about 140 miles (225 kilometers) southwest of San Antonio.
Chief Patrol Agent Jason Owens of the Del Rio sector said that despite dangerous currents from recent rainfall, Border Patrol agents in the sector continue to encounter groups as large as 100 or 200 people trying to cross the Rio Grande each day.
“In an effort to prevent further loss of life, we are asking everyone to please avoid crossing illegally,” Owens said in a statement.
Among the reasons the area has become popular for migrants in recent years is that it is not as strongly controlled by cartels and is perceived to be somewhat safer, said Stephanie Leutert, director of Central America and Mexico Policy Initiative at the University of Texas' Center for International Security and Law.
“It might be a different price. It might be seen as safer. It might keep you out of cities that are notoriously dangerous," Leutert said. “Those cities (in the Del Rio sector) definitely have had a reputation as being safer than say, Nueva Laredo."
The area draws migrants from dozens of countries, many of them families with young children. About six of 10 stops in the Del Rio sector in July were migrants from Venezuela, Cuba or Nicaragua. The region also has been a popular crossing point for migrants from Haiti, thousands of whom have been stuck in border towns since 2016, when the Obama administration abruptly halted a policy that initially allowed them in on humanitarian grounds.
The sector, which extends 245 miles (395 kilometers) along the Río Grande, has been especially dangerous because river currents can be deceptively fast and change quickly. Crossing the river can be challenging even for strong swimmers.
“There are places when the water levels are down where you could wade across, but when the river is up it's extremely dangerous, especially if you're carrying kids or trying to help someone who is not a strong swimmer," Leutert said.
In a news release last month, CBP said it had discovered bodies of more than 200 dead migrants in the sector from October through July.
Read: 51 migrants die after trailer abandoned in San Antonio heat
This year is on track to break last year’s record for the most deaths on the U.S.-Mexico border since 2014, when the U.N. International Organization for Migration began keeping record. The organization has tallied more than 4,000 deaths on the border since 2014, based on news reports and other sources, including 728 last year and 412 during the first seven months of this year, often from dehydration or drowning. June was the fourth-deadliest month on record, with 138 fatalities.
The Border Patrol has not released official tallies since 2020.
In June, 53 migrants were found dead or dying in a tractor-trailer on a back road in San Antonio in the deadliest documented tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.
“The whole journey speaks to the desperation of people," Leutert said. “They know that crossing the river is dangerous. They know that hiking through ranchland is dangerous. They know that crossing Mexico as a foreigner is dangerous. But they’re willing to do this because what they’re leaving behind is, to them, a worse possibility than facing risk and trying for a better opportunity in the U.S."
Some of the busiest crossings on the border — including Eagle Pass and Yuma, Arizona — were relatively quiet two years ago and now largely draw migrants from outside Mexico and Central America’s ‘Northern Triangle’ countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Mexico has agreed to take migrants from the ‘Northern Triangle’ countries, as well as its own nationals, if they are expelled from the United States under Title 42, the pandemic rule in effect since March 2020 that denies rights to seek asylum on grounds of preventing the spread of COVID-19.
People from other countries are likely to be released into the United States on humanitarian parole or with notices to appear in immigration court because the U.S. has difficulty flying them home due to costs, strained diplomatic relations or other considerations. In the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector, which includes Eagle Pass, only one of every four stops in July were processed under the pandemic rule, compared to about half across the rest of the border, according to government figures.
Venezuelans were by far the most common nationality encountered by Border Patrol agents in the Del Rio sector in July, accounting for 14,120 of 49,563 stops, or nearly three in 10. They were followed by Cubans, who were stopped 10,275 times, and then by Mexicans, Hondurans, Nicaraguans and Colombians, in that order.
As more people crossed into South Texas in the 2010s, Brooks County became a death trap for many migrants who tried walking around a Border Patrol highway checkpoint in the town of Falfurrias, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of the border. Smugglers dropped them off before the checkpoint and made arrangements to pick them up on the other side, but some perished on the way from dehydration.
The Baboquivari Mountains in Arizona and ranches in Texas’ Brooks County still draw Border Patrol agents and grief-stricken families hoping to rescue migrants or, if not, find corpses, but the deceptively strong currents around the Texas towns of Eagle Pass and Del Rio have become increasingly dangerous as the area has become one of the most popular spots to enter the United States illegally.
Not all victims are migrants. In April this year, the body of a Texas guardsman was recovered from the Rio Grande. He had jumped in to try to help a migrant who was struggling in the water.
Over 6.4 million in 'dire need' after unprecedented Pakistan floods
The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Pakistan is unprecedented, with a third of the country under water, the UN said Friday.
More than 33 million people, 15 percent of the total Pakistani population, have been affected, Dr Palitha Mahipala, the World Health Organization (WHO) representative in the country, said. "More than 6.4 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid."
In the past few weeks, record monsoon rains dumped more than five times the 30-year average for rainfall in some provinces, killing more than 1,200 people and injuring over 6,000 since June.
As rains continue and flooding is likely to worsen over the coming days, there is an urgent need to scale up disease surveillance, restore damaged health facilities, and ensure sufficient medicines and health supplies to affected communities.
Read: Pakistan fatal flooding has hallmarks of warming
"Affected people have told our staff on the ground about their traumatic and scarring experiences as rain and floodwaters swept away their possessions in minutes," Matthew Saltmarsh, spokesperson for the UN refugee agency, said.
Torrential monsoon rainfall has caused the River Indus to overflow, submerging land for tens of kilometres wide, according to recent images from the European Space Agency.
Crops and livestock have been lost, having a significant impact on both livelihood and nutrition of afflicted communities.
Pakistan, which is already facing political and economic turmoil, has been thrown into the front line of the human-induced climate crisis. The South Asian country of 220 million people faced dramatic weather conditions this year, from record heatwaves to deadly floods.
Pakistan is home to more glaciers than anywhere outside the polar areas. Global warming makes the country more vulnerable to sudden outbursts of melting glacier water, according to the Meteorological Department in Islamabad.
With no immunity, Sri Lanka’s Rajapaksa faces legal troubles
Sri Lanka’s ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who returned home after seven weeks in exile following protests over economic hardships, could face legal action over forced disappearances of activists now that he has been stripped of constitutional immunity, a lawyer said Saturday.
Rajapaksa flew to Colombo around midnight Friday from Thailand and was escorted under military guard to his new home in the capital.
He has no pending court cases because he was protected by constitutional immunity as president. A corruption case against him during his time as a top defense official was withdrawn soon after he was elected in 2019.
However, Rajapaksa will be served a summons next week to appear at the Supreme Court, where his immunity from testifying on the forced disappearance of two young political activists is challenged, said lawyer Nuwan Bopage, who represents the victims’ families. He said Rajapaksa fled the country when he was about to be served a summons in July.
The disappearances took place 12 years ago soon after the end of the country’s long civil war when Rajapaksa was a powerful official at the Defense Ministry under the presidency of his older brother.
At the time, Rajapaksa was accused of overseeing abduction squads that whisked away rebel suspects, critical journalists and activists, many of them never to be seen again. He has previously denied any wrongdoing.
Rajapaksa escaped from his official residence when tens of thousands of people, angry over economic hardships when the country slipped into bankruptcy and faced unprecedented shortages of basic supplies, stormed the building on July 9. Days later, he, his wife and two bodyguards flew about a military plane to the Maldives. A day later he went to Singapore, and later Thailand.
Sri Lanka has run out of dollars for imports of key supplies, causing an acute shortage of essentials like food items, fuel and critical medicine.
The foreign currency shortage has led the country to default on its foreign loans. Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt exceeds $ 51 billion of which $ 28 billion must be repaid by 2027.
Read: Sri Lanka’s ousted president Rajapaksa returns home
The International Monetary Fund on Thursday agreed to provide Sri Lanka $ 2.9 billion over four years, subject to management approval that will come only if the island nation’s creditors give assurances on debt restructuring.
Economic difficulties led to monthslong street protests, which eventually led to the collapse of the once-powerful Rajapaksa family that had controlled the affairs of the country for the most part of the last two decades. Before Rajapaksa resigned after fleeing, his older brother stepped down as prime minister and three other close family members quit their Cabinet positions.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over from Rajapaksa, has since cracked down on protests and dismantled their main camp opposite the president’s office.
Some protesters said they were not opposed to his return as long as he faces justice.
“Whether he is president or not, he is a citizen of Sri Lanka and he has the right to live in this country,” said Wijaya Nanda Chandradeva, a retired government employee who had voted for Rajapaksa and then participated in protests to oust him. He said Rajapaksa should be given necessary protection if there is a threat to his safety.
“I reject him because we elected him and he proved himself to be unsuitable,” said Chandradeva.
Bhavani Fonseka of the Center for Policy Alternatives, an independent think tank, said although Rajapaska is not going to be seen favorably, “the anger we saw in July has diminished. But there are still many questions about his role in the economic crisis and the call for accountability is still there.”
Rescued dolphins swim free from Indonesia sanctuary
Three bottlenose dolphins were released into the open sea in Indonesia Saturday after years of being confined for the amusement of tourists who would touch and swim with them.
As red and white Indonesian flags fluttered, underwater gates opened off the island of Bali to allow Johnny, Rocky and Rambo to swim free.
The trio were rescued three years ago from their tiny pool in a resort hotel to which they had been sold after spending years performing in a traveling circus.
They regained their health and strength at the Bali sanctuary , a floating pen in a bay that provided a gentler, more natural environment.
Lincoln O’Barry, who worked with the Indonesian government to set up the Umah Lumba Rehabilitation, Release and Retirement Center, said dolphins are wild animals that should live free.
“It was an incredibly emotional experience to see them go,” O’Barrry said.
The center was initiated in 2019 by the Bali Forestry Department and the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry. “Umah lumba” means “dolphin” in Indonesian.
For some time after the gates opened, the dolphins looked at the opening, uncertain of their next move. But after about an hour, they were on their way, sometimes jumping over choppy waves.
The Associated Press watched their release through an online livestream. O’Barry is documenting the release with drones and underwater footage for a film.
The Indonesian government supported the dolphins’ rescue, working with Dolphin Project, founded by Lincoln’s father Ric O’Barry, who was also at the release.
Ric O’Barry had been the dolphin trainer for the 1960s TV show “Flipper,” but later came to see the toll exacted on the animals. He has since devoted his life to returning dolphins to the wild.
Center workers clapped as the dolphins swam out. Wahyu Lestari, rehabilitation coordinator at the center, said she was a bit sad to see them go.
“I’m happy they are free, and they are going back to their family,” she said. “They should be in the wild because they are born in the wild.”
The freed dolphins will be monitored out at sea with GPS tracking for a year. They can return for visits to the sanctuary, although it’s unclear what they will do. They may join another pod, stay together, or go their separate ways.
Dolphins in captivity are carted from town to town, kept in chlorinated water, held in isolation or forced to interact with tourists, often leading to injuries.
Read: Sick dolphin calf improves with tube-fed milk, helping hands
Johnny, the oldest dolphin, had teeth that were worn down to below the gum line when he was rescued in 2019. Earlier this year, dentists provided him with dolphin-style dental crowns so that he can now clamp down on live fish.
Johnny was the first of the three dolphins to swim out to sea.
Ric and Lincoln O’Barry have spent half a century working on saving dolphins from captivity in locations from Brazil to South Korea and the U.S. Saturday’s release was their first in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government’s decision to rescue the dolphins followed a decade-long public education campaign that included billboards, artwork, school programs and a drive asking people not to buy tickets to dolphin shows.
A government minister was at hand to raise the gate at the sanctuary Saturday.
Lincoln O’Barry said the Indonesian sanctuary will continue to be used for other captive dolphins. Similar sanctuaries are in the works in North America and Europe, as more dolphin shows close. With virtual reality and other technology, appreciation of nature doesn’t have to involve a zoo or a dolphin show, he said.
Yet dolphin shows are still popular in China, the Middle East and Japan.
In Japan, the father and son have drawn attention to the dolphin hunt in the town of Taiji, documented in the 2010 Oscar-winning film “The Cove.” Every year, fishermen frighten and corral dolphins into a cove, capture some to sell to dolphin shows and kill others for food.
Whale and dolphin meat is considered a delicacy in Japanese culinary tradition. But Taiji has prompted protests by conservationists for years, including some Japanese.
The three dolphins released in Indonesia were soon miles (kilometers) away in the waters. But before their departure, they circled around the sanctuary.
“They turned back around and came back to us one more time, almost to say thank you and good-bye. And then they headed straight out to open ocean and disappeared,” Lincoln O’Barry said.
“Where they head next, we don’t know. But we wish them a good long life.”
Indonesia hikes fuel prices by 30%, cuts energy subsidies
Fuel prices increased by about 30% across Indonesia on Saturday after the government reduced some of the costly subsidies that have kept inflation in Southeast Asia’s largest economy among the world’s lowest.
Indonesians have been fretting for weeks about a looming increase in the price of subsidized Pertalite RON-90 gasoline sold by Pertamina, the state-owned oil and gas company. Long lines of motorbikes and cars snaked around gas stations as motorists waited for hours to fill up their tanks with cheaper gas before the increase took effect on Saturday.
The hike — the first in eight years — raised the price of gasoline from about 51 cents to 67 cents per liter and diesel fuel from 35 cents to 46 cents.
President Joko Widodo said the decision to increase the fuel prices was his last option as the country’s energy subsidy had tripled this year to 502 trillion rupiah ($34 billion) from its original budget, triggered by rising global prices of oil and gas.
“The government has tried its best as I really want fuel prices to remain affordable,” Widodo told a televised address announcing the fuel hike. “The government has to make decisions in difficult situations.”
He said that the flow of subsidies to the public was not well targeted — about 70% of subsidies were benefiting middle and upper classes — and the government decided instead to increase social assistance.
Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati said authorities were monitoring the impact on inflation and economic growth of the rise in fuel price.
Inflation has been relatively modest with the shock being mostly absorbed through a budget bolstered by energy subsidies. Inflation hit 4.6% in August as Bank Indonesia, the central bank, has said it would reassess the inflation outlook in response to the government fuel price policy.
Read: Strong undersea quake causes panic in western Indonesia
Indrawati said in a separate news conference that the government would provide 150,000 rupiah ($10) cash handouts to cushion the impact of the fuel price increase on 20.6 million poor families until the year end. The total cost of the handouts will be 12.4 trillion rupiah, which will be reallocated from the budget for energy subsidies.
She said the government will also spend 9.6 trillion rupiah ($644 million) on salary assistance to about 16 million low paid workers, and 2.17 trillion rupiah ($145 million) will go to subsidizing transport costs, particularly for motorcycle taxi drivers and fishermen.
“We hope this can reduce pressure of rising prices and help reduce poverty,” Indrawati said.
The government has subsidized fuel for decades in Indonesia, the vast archipelago nation of more than 270 million people.
Fuel prices are a politically sensitive issue that could trigger other price hikes and risk student protests. In 1998, an increase in prices sparked riots that helped topple longtime dictator Suharto.
Gorbachev’s marriage, like his politics, broke the mold
When Mikhail Gorbachev is buried Saturday at Moscow’s Novodevichy Cemetery, he will once again be next to his wife, Raisa, with whom he shared the world stage in a visibly close and loving marriage that was unprecedented for a Soviet leader.
“They were a true pair. She was a part of him, almost always at his side,” then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany said at Raisa’s funeral in 1999, where Gorbachev wept openly. “Much of what he achieved is simply unimaginable without his wife.”
Gorbachev’s very public devotion to his family broke the stuffy mold of previous Soviet leaders, just as his openness to political reform did.
“He loved a woman more than his work. I think he wouldn’t have been able to embrace her if his hands were stained with blood,” wrote Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, editor of Russia’s leading independent newspaper, Novaya Gazeta. Co-owned by Gorbachev, it was forced to shut under official pressure after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We should always remember,” Muratov continued, “he loved a woman more than his work, he placed human rights above the state and he valued peaceful skies more than personal power.”
Gorbachev’s open attachment to his family also stands in stark contrast to the secrecy that surrounds the private life of Russia’s current leader, President Vladimir Putin.
For her part, Raisa Gorbacheva cut a bold figure for Soviet first ladies — more visible, with a direct way of speaking, a polished manner and fashionable clothes. A sociologist by training, she had met Mikhail at a Moscow university where they both studied.
“One day we took each other by the hand and went for a walk in the evening. And we walked like that for our whole life,” Gorbachev told Vogue magazine in 2013. Raisa accompanied him on his travels, and they discussed policy and politics together.
Her confident demeanor and prominent public role didn’t sit well with many Russians, who had also soured on Gorbachev and blamed his policies for the subsequent breakup of the Soviet Union. The couple won sympathy, however, in 1999, when it was revealed that Raisa was dying of leukemia. Her husband spoke daily with television reporters, and the sometimes lofty-sounding politician of old was suddenly seen as an emotional, grieving family man.
For more than two decades after she was gone, Gorbachev kept Raisa’s memory alive and embraced his status as a lonely widower.
He released a CD of seven romantic songs, “Songs for Raisa,” in 2009 on which he sang along with well-known Russian musician and guitarist Andrei Makarevich. Sales went to the charities Raisa had founded. A few years later, he published a book dedicated to her, “Alone with Myself.”
Their marriage even became the subject of a popular play in Moscow in 2021, “Gorbachev.” Its point was one noteworthy for Russia: that the country’s leader was a human being who prioritized family, friends and personal obligations. One scene recounted a key moment in Gorbachev’s career when he returned to Moscow after the failed communist coup against him in 1991. Raisa had had a stroke, and instead of immediately stepping back onto the political stage, he went to the hospital to be with her.
Read: Mikhail Gorbachev, who steered Soviet breakup, dead at 91
“I was not married to the country — Russia or the Soviet Union,” Gorbachev wrote in his memoirs. “I was married to my wife, and that night I went with her to the hospital.”
At the Moscow cemetery, a life-size statue of Raisa has stood for many years now over the grave intended for them both.
The Gorbachevs had a daughter, Irina, two granddaughters and a great-granddaughter. Despite his attachment to family, Gorbachev lived out his life in Russia while they live in Germany.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a businessman in the early post-Soviet days who now lives in exile in London, tweeted this week that one of Gorbachev’s great strengths was his ability to wash away “awe of the person on the throne,” and that his attention to family was part of that.
“With this he changed my life. And also by his attitude toward Raisa Maximovna — a second important lesson,” Khodorkovsky said, using Gorbacheva’s patronymic. “He went to her. Rest in peace.”
Global food prices dip for fifth month
Global food prices dropped for a fifth straight month in August, but were still eight percent higher than a year ago, according to the UN food and agriculture agency.
The cost of food has been one of the biggest contributors to inflation around the world.
FAO's latest global food price index, published Friday, shows that the prices of five commodities – cereals, vegetable oil, dairy, meat and sugar – were lower in August than in July.
The index, which measures the monthly change in international prices of a basket of food commodities, averaged 138.0 points last month, down nearly two percent from July, though 7.9 percent above the value a year before.
The decline in cereal prices reflected improved production prospects in North America and Russia and the resumption of exports from Black Sea ports in Ukraine.
A landmark agreement to unblock Ukraine's grain exports amid the ongoing war was signed in July by the country, Russia, Türkiye and the UN.
Read: UN food price index dropped in July for fourth month
Rice prices on average held steady during August, while quotations for coarse grains, such as maize, rose marginally.
Vegetable oil prices fell 3.3 percent, which is slightly below the August 2021 level. The FAO attributed this to the increased availability of palm oil from Indonesia, due to lower export taxes, and the resumption of sunflower oil shipments from Ukraine.
Although dairy prices saw a two percent drop, they remained 23.5 percent higher than in August 2021.
The price of cheese increased for the tenth consecutive month, though milk prices eased following expectations of increased supplies from New Zealand, even amid projections of lower production in Western Europe and the US.
The price of meat dropped by 1.5 percent but remained just over eight percent higher than the value last August.
International quotations for poultry fell amid elevated export availability, and bovine meat prices declined due to weak domestic demand in some top exporting countries while pig meat quotations rose.
Sugar prices also hit their lowest level since July 2021, largely due to high export caps in India and lower ethanol prices in Brazil.
The FAO also issued its global cereal production forecast for this year, which projects a decline of nearly 40 million tonnes or 1.4 percent from the previous year.
The bulk of this decline mainly concerns coarse grains, with maize yields in Europe expected to drop 16 percent below their five-year average level due to the exceptionally hot and dry weather conditions affecting the continent.
However, the UN agency expects there will be a negligible drop in worldwide wheat production resulting from expected record harvests in Russia and conducive weather conditions in North America.
Global rice production is also expected to decline by 2.1 percent from the all-time high reached in 2021.
India: 4 killed, 24 hurt in bus-truck collision
Four people were killed and at least 24 others injured when a speedy truck crashed into a commuter bus parked along a busy highway in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh on Saturday.
The accident occurred near Mahungupur village in Uttar Pradesh's Barabanki district, some 30 kms from state capital Lucknow, this morning.
"The double-decker bus carrying 60 migrant workers from Nepal to the western Indian state of Goa was parked along the highway following a tyre puncture. Unable to spot the bus, the truck driver hit the vehicle from behind," a police officer told the local media.
The impact of the crash left the bus driver, who was replacing the punctured tyre, and three passengers dead on the spot. "The 24 other injured occupants of the bus have been hospitalised," the officer said.
Local TV channels reported, quoting health officials, that six of the injured passengers were shifted to a government hospital in Lucknow after their condition at Barabanki district hospital worsened.
"A probe has been ordered into the accident," the police officer said.
Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are often blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws.
Also read: Two killed, 15 hurt in Bagerhat bus accident
The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.