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Ukraine brands Russia ‘terrorist state’ to open hearings in case against Russia at top UN court
A top Ukrainian diplomat called Russia a "terrorist state" Tuesday as he opened his country's case against Moscow at the United Nations' highest court and accused Russia of blowing up a major dam in southern Ukraine.
Anton Korynevych was addressing judges at the International Court of Justice in a case brought by Kyiv against Russia linked to Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea and arming of rebels in eastern Ukraine in the years before Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Ukraine wants the world court to order Moscow to pay reparations for attacks in the regions, including for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 that was shot down by Russia-backed rebels on July 17, 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
ALso Read: Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of ecological disaster
Korynevych said that with Moscow unable to beat Ukraine on the battlefield, "it targets civilian infrastructure to try to freeze us into submission. Earlier today, just today, … Russia blew up a major dam located in Nova Kakhovka, causing significant civilians evacuations, harsh ecological damages and threatening the safety of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Russia's actions are the actions of a terrorist state, an aggressor."
Four days of hearings in the court's ornate, wood-paneled Great Hall of Justice are opening against a backdrop of Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II. Ukraine and Russia are trading accusations of blame for the damage to the Kakhovka dam and hydroelectric power station, which are located in a part of Ukraine that Moscow controls.
Meanwhile, in The Hague, lawyers for Kyiv were presenting legal arguments to support their case Tuesday, followed by Russia on Thursday. Each side has another opportunity next week to present evidence. Judges are expected to take months to issue a judgment.
"The Russian Federation has contempt for international law," Korynevych said. "Over the last 16 months, the world has woken up to this dark reality."
The case is one of several legal proceedings against Russia linked to Ukraine.
Also Read: Russia launched 'largest drone attack' on Ukrainian capital before Kyiv Day; 1 killed
In a separate case brought by Ukraine in the immediate aftermath of Russia's illegal invasion, the world court issued a preliminary order calling on Russia to stop hostilities — a legally binding ruling that Moscow ignored.
In that case, Kyiv is arguing that Russia violated the 1948 Genocide Convention by falsely accusing Ukraine of committing genocide and using that as a pretext for the Feb. 24, 2022, invasion. Moscow argues that the court does not have jurisdiction.
A few kilometers (miles) away at the International Criminal Court, judges have issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of deporting and illegally transferring children from Ukraine. Russia is not a member of the court and does not recognize its jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, a Dutch domestic court last year convicted two Russians and a pro-Moscow Ukrainian for their roles in downing MH17 and sentenced them in their absence to life imprisonment. Ukraine also has another case against Russia at the International Court of Justice over its invasion last year, and the Netherlands and Ukraine are suing Moscow at the European Court of Human Rights over MH17.
Also Read: Russia says drones damage Moscow buildings in pre-dawn attack, blames Ukraine
Russia has always denied involvement in the downing of the passenger jet that was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down by a Soviet-era missile over eastern Ukraine.
Tuesday's hearing is in a case Kyiv brought in 2017 related to Russia arming rebels in eastern Ukraine and restricting the rights of ethnic Tatars and other minorities following its annexation of Crimea in 2014.
In a preliminary ruling, the court ordered Russia to stop limiting "the ability of the Crimean Tatar community to conserve its representative institutions."
Ukraine accuses Russia of destroying major dam near Kherson, warns of ecological disaster
Ukraine on Tuesday accused Russian forces of blowing up a major dam and hydroelectric power station in a part of southern Ukraine that Moscow controls, sending water gushing from the breached facility and threatening what officials called an "ecological disaster" due to possible massive flooding. Officials from both sides in the war ordered hundreds of thousands of residents downriver to evacuate.
Russian officials countered that the Kakhovka dam, on the Dnipro river, was damaged by Ukrainian military strikes in the contested area.
The fallout could have broad consequences: Flooding homes, streets and businesses downstream; depleting water levels upstream that help cool Europe's largest nuclear power plant; and draining supplies of drinking water to the south in Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed.
Also Read: Russia claims Ukraine is launching major attacks; Kyiv accuses Moscow of misinformation
The dam break added a complex new element to Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine, now in its 16th month. Ukrainian forces were widely seen to be moving forward with a long-anticipated counteroffensive in patches along more than 1,000-kilometers of frontline in the east and south of Ukraine.
Ukraine's nuclear operator Energoatom said in a Telegram statement that the blowing up of the dam "could have negative consequences" for the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is Europe's biggest, but wrote that for now the situation is "controllable."
The U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency wrote on Twitter that its experts were closely monitoring the situation at the plant, and there was "no immediate nuclear safety risk" at the facility.
Ukrainian authorities have previously warned that the dam's failure could unleash 18 million cubic meters (4.8 billion gallons) of water and flood Kherson and dozens of other areas where hundreds of thousands of people live.
The World Data Center for Geoinformatics and Sustainable Development, a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization, estimated that nearly 100 villages and towns would be flooded. It also reckoned that the water level would start dropping only after 5-7 days.
Also Read: Ukraine keeps up pressure following Russian declaration of victory in Bakhmut
A total collapse in the dam would wash away much of the left bank and a severe drop in the reservoir has the potential to deprive the nuclear plant of crucial cooling, as well as dry up the water supply in northern Crimea, according to the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Working Group, an organization of environmental activists and experts documenting the war's environmental effects.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior advisor to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said that "a global ecological disaster is playing out now, online, and thousands of animals and ecosystems will be destroyed in the next few hours."
Videos posted online began testifying to the spillover. One showed floodwaters inundating a long roadway; another showed a beaver scurrying for high ground from rising waters.
Zelenskyy called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis, Ukrainian officials said.
The Ukrainian Interior Ministry called for residents of 10 villages on the Dnipro's right bank and parts of the city of Kherson downriver to gather essential documents and pets, turn off appliances, and leave, while cautioning against possible disinformation.
Also Read: Blinken says no Ukraine cease-fire without a peace deal that includes Russia's withdrawal
The Russian-installed mayor of occupied Nova Kakhovka, Vladimir Leontyev, said it was being evacuated as water poured into the city.
Ukraine controls five of the six dams along the Dnipro, which runs from its northern border with Belarus down to the Black Sea and is crucial for the entire country's drinking water and power supply.
Footage from what appeared to be a monitoring camera overlooking the dam that was circulating on social media purported to show a flash, explosion and breakage of the dam.
Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said in a video posted to Telegram shortly before 7 a.m. that "the Russian army has committed yet another act of terror," and warned that water will reach "critical levels" within five hours.
The Kakhovska dam was completely destroyed, Ukraine's state hydro power generating company wrote in a statement: "The station cannot be restored." Ukrhydroenergo also claimed that Russia blew up the station from inside the engine room.
Leontyev, the Russian-appointed mayor, said Tuesday that numerous strikes on the Kakhovka hydroelectric plant destroyed its valves, and "water from the Kakhovka reservoir began to uncontrollably flow downstream." Leontyev added that damage to the station was beyond repair, and it would have to be rebuilt.
Energoatom, the nuclear operator, wrote that the Kakhovka reservoir, where water levels are "rapidly decreasing," was necessary "for the plant to feed the turbine condensers and ZNPP safety systems," the statement said.
"Currently the station cooling pond is full: as of 8 am, the water level is at 16.6 meters, and this is enough for the needs of the station," it said.
Ukraine and Russia have previously accused each other of targeting the dam with attacks, and last October Zelenskyy predicted that Russia would destroy the dam in order to cause a flood.
Authorities, experts and residents have for months expressed concerns about water flows through — and over — the Kakhovka dam.
In February, water levels were so low that many feared a meltdown at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, whose cooling systems are supplied with water from the Kakhovka reservoir held up by the dam.
By mid-May, after heavy rains and snow melt, water levels rose beyond normal levels, flooding nearby villages. Satellite images showed water washing over damaged sluice gates.
Error in signaling system led to train crash that killed 275 people in India, official says
The derailment in eastern India that killed 275 people and injured hundreds was caused by an error in the electronic signaling system that led a train to wrongly change tracks and crash into a freight train, officials said Sunday.
Authorities worked to clear the mangled wreckage of the two passenger trains that derailed Friday night in Balasore district in Odisha state in one of the country’s deadliest rail disasters in decades.
An Odisha government statement revised the death toll to 275 after a top state officer put the number at over 300 on Sunday morning. The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to reporters.
Jaya Verma Sinha, a senior railway official, said the preliminary investigations revealed that a signal was given to the high-speed Coromandel Express to run on the main track line, but the signal later changed, and the train instead entered an adjacent loop line where it rammed into a freight loaded with iron ore.
Read: India’s deadly train crash renews questions over safety as government pushes railway upgrade
The collision flipped Coromandel Express’s coaches onto another track, causing the incoming Yesvantpur-Howrah Express from the opposite side also to derail, she said.
The passenger trains, carrying 2,296 people, were not overspeeding, she said. Trains that carry goods are often parked on an adjacent loop line so the main line is clear for a passing train.
Verma said the root cause of the crash was related to an error in the electronic signaling system. She said a detailed investigation will reveal whether the error was human or technical.
The electronic interlocking system is a safety mechanism designed to prevent conflicting movements between trains. It also monitors the status of signals that tell drivers how close they are to a next train, how fast they can go and the presence of stationary trains on the track.
Read more: No more survivors found after India train crash kills over 280, injures 900; Modi heads to site
“The system is 99.9% error free. But 0.1% chances are always there for an error,” Verma said. To a question whether the crash could be a case of sabotage, she said “nothing is ruled out.”
On Sunday, a few shattered carriages, mangled and overturned, were the only remnants of the tragedy. Railway workers toiled under the sun’s glare to lay down blocks of cement to fix the broken tracks. A crew with excavators was removing mud and the debris to clear the crash site.
At one of the hospitals nearly 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the site, survivors spoke of the horror of the moment of the crash.
Pantry worker Inder Mahato could not remember the exact sequence of events, but said he heard a loud bang when the Coromandel Express crashed into the freight. The impact caused Mahato, who was in the bathroom, to briefly lose consciousness.
Read: India train crash: some Bangladeshis suffered minor injuries, says deputy high commission
Moments later when he opened his eyes, he saw through the door that was forced open people writhing in pain, many of them already dead. Others were frantically trying to get out from the twisted wreckage of his rail car.
For hours, Mahato, 37, remained stuck in the train’s bathroom, before rescuers scaled up the wreckage and pulled him out.
“God saved me,” he said, lying on the hospital bed while recuperating from a hairline fracture in his sternum. “I am very lucky I am alive.”
Mahato’s friends weren’t so lucky. Four of them died in the crash, he said.
Meanwhile, many desperate relatives were struggling to identify the bodies of their loved ones because of the gruesomeness of the injuries. Few others were searching hospitals to check whether their relatives were alive.
Read: Indian railways minister says signaling system error led to crash that killed over 300 people
In the same hospital where Mahato was recovering from his injuries, Bulti Khatun roamed outside the premises in a dazed state, holding an identity card of her husband who was onboard the Coromandel Express and traveling to southern Chennai city.
Khatun said she visited the morgue and other hospitals to look for him, but was unable to find him.
“I am so helpless,” she said, sobbing.
Fifteen bodies were recovered on Saturday evening and efforts continued overnight with heavy cranes being used to remove an engine that settled on top of a rail car. No bodies were found in the engine and the work was completed on Sunday morning, said Sudhanshu Sarangi, director-general of fire and emergency services in Odisha.
Read more: India train accident: 2 Bangladeshis receiving treatment in hospital, says deputy high commissioner
The crash occurred at a time when Prime Minister Narendra Modi is focusing on the modernization of the British colonial-era railroad network in India, which has become the world’s most populous country with 1.42 billion people. Despite government efforts to improve safety, several hundred accidents occur every year on India’s railways, the largest train network under one management in the world.
Modi visited the crash site on Saturday and talked to rescue officials. He also visited a hospital to inquire about the injured, and spoke to some of them.
Modi told reporters he felt the pain of the crash victims. He said the government would do its utmost to help them and strictly punish anyone found responsible.
In 1995, two trains collided near New Delhi, killing 358 people in one of the worst rail accidents in India. In 2016, a passenger train slid off the tracks between the cities of Indore and Patna, killing 146 people.
Most such accidents in India are blamed on human error or outdated signaling equipment.
Read more: Indian officials end rescue work for 2 wrecked passenger trains that killed over 300 people
About 22 million people ride 14,000 trains across India every day, traveling on 64,000 kilometers (40,000 miles) of track.
Russia says it thwarted attack in Donetsk; unclear if this was start of Ukrainian counteroffensive
Russia's Defense Ministry announced early Monday its forces had thwarted a large Ukrainian attack in the eastern province of Donetsk, though it's unclear if this was the start of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The ministry, in a rare early morning video, said its forces pushed back a “large scale” Ukrainian assault on Sunday at five points in southern Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia illegally annexed last fall.
“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defenses in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front,” said the ministry’s spokesman, Igor Konashenkov. “The enemy did not achieve its tasks. It had no success.”
Konashenkov said 250 Ukrainian personnel were killed, and 16 Ukrainian tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armored combat vehicles were destroyed.
Ukraine didn’t comment, and often waits until the completion of its military operations to confirm its actions, imposing news blackouts in the interim. It was unclear why the Russian Defense Ministry waited until Monday morning to announce the attack, which it said started Sunday morning.
For months, Ukrainian officials have spoken of plans to launch a spring counteroffensive to reclaim territory Russia has occupied since invading Feb. 24, 2022, as well as the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014. But they’ve given confusing signals about what would constitute a counteroffensive — preliminary, limited attacks to weaken Russian forces and military facilities or a full-fledged simultaneous assault across the entire 1,100-kilometer (684-mile) front line. At least two factors have been at play in timing the counteroffensive: awaiting improvement of ground conditions for troop and equipment movement after the winter, and deployment of more advanced Western weapons and training of Ukrainian troops to use them.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said Ukraine used six mechanized and two tank battalions in the attack, and it released a video claiming to show destruction of some of the equipment in a field.
In a rare specific mention of the presence of Russia’s top military leaders in battlefield operations, the spokesman said the chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, “was at one of the forward command posts.”
Announcing Gerasimov's direct involvement could be a response to criticism by some Russian military bloggers and mercenary group head Yevgeny Prigozhin that Russia’s military brass hasn’t been visible enough at the front or taken sufficient control or responsibility for their country’s military operations in Ukraine.
Elsewhere on the battlefield, Ukrainian authorities said Sunday a Ukrainian man rushed to his home outside the central city of Dnipro in hopes of rescuing his family, only to find his 2-year-old daughter dead and wife seriously wounded as he helped pull them from the rubble of their apartment destroyed in one of Russia's latest airstrikes of the war.
Writing on Telegram after the body of the girl, Liza, was recovered, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that at least 500 Ukrainian children have been killed in the war. The United Nations says that around 1,000 other Ukrainian children have been wounded, and thousands of others have been forcibly deported to Russia.
Zelenskyy said: “Russian weapons and hatred continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day," adding that “many of them could have become famous scholars, artists, sports champions, contributing to Ukraine’s history."
“We must hold out and win this war!” he said. “All of Ukraine, all our people, all our children, must be free from the Russian terror!”
Liza was killed when a Russian missile landed Saturday night in a yard next to her apartment building while she was home with her mother, said Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk. The girl's father rushed home from work.
“The father was on duty, and as I was told, he personally cleared the rubble and pulled out his wife and his daughter. Just imagine the scale of this tragedy," Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, reporting on the rescue that lasted until early Sunday. The girl's mother was hospitalized under intensive care.
Zelenskyy said five children were among 25 people wounded in Saturday’s attack, which damaged two residential buildings.
The mother of one of the children sat amid broken concrete, twisted metal, children's toys and clothes near her apartment building and described what happened.
“I was running from the electrical station across the traffic," Alyona Serednyak recalled. “I was running home. My child was alone at home. We tried to pull my child from under the cage on the window.”
She said they managed to free him and he was hospitalized.
Russian drone and cruise missile strikes on Sunday targeted multiple areas of the country, including the capital, Kyiv.
The Ukrainian air force updated earlier figures and said air defenses downed six of eight Shahed self-exploding drones and four of six cruise missiles fired.
Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said two missiles struck a military air base in Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine's Kyrovohrad province. He didn't report damage.
Russia's Defense Ministry said the military destroyed Ukrainian warplanes and ammunition depots in strikes on Ukrainian airfields, but didn't give further specifics.
The Russian military has reported attacks in recent days on Ukrainian air defense batteries, air bases, troop and ammunition depots, military production factories and battlefield positions. While Ukrainian officials refrain from announcing the launch of their much-anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim more Russian-occupied territory, the pace of military activity suggests the operation may be underway.
Ukrainian forces maintained pressure on Russian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow claimed control of last month after the war's longest and bloodiest battle.
Elsewhere, Russians fighting alongside Ukrainian forces declared they had launched new attacks on Russia's Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. One of the groups, the Russian Volunteer Corps, released videos Sunday showing a purported raid and offering to exchange prisoners with Russian authorities. The Associated Press couldn't independently verify the videos' authenticity.
Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov responded to the prisoner exchange offer in a video of his own, saying he was skeptical that the captives are still alive, but that he was open to a meeting to discuss a swap. The Russian Volunteer Corps said in a video posted later that no meeting had occurred, and that the Russian prisoners would be turned over to Ukrainian forces, which have periodically swapped prisoners with Russia in one of the few areas of cooperation.
Gladkov also reported more Ukrainian shelling Sunday of the border district of Shebekino and neighboring areas. He said at least two people were killed and multiple people wounded on Saturday. Russia's Defense Ministry said the country's forces repelled an attempted incursion in the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka.
Some observers see attacks in Belgorod, which prompted Russian authorities to evacuate thousands of residents, as part of Ukraine's efforts to distract Moscow and stretch its forces to help the counteroffensive succeed.
In Crimea, regional leader Sergei Aksenov reported a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Dzhankoi early Sunday. He claimed that five of the attacking drones were shot down and four others jammed and forced to land, adding that there were no casualties.
Global Covid-19 cases now close to 690 million
The overall number of global Covid-19 cases is gradually nearing 690 million.
According to the latest global data, the total Covid-19 case count is 689,905,359, while the death toll reached 6,887,328 this morning.
Read: South Korea to lift quarantine mandate for COVID-19 and end testing recommendation for travelers
The US has reported 107,137,340 Covid-19 cases so far, while 1,165,733 people have died from the virus in the country — both highest counts globally.
India on Sunday logged 202 new cases of Covid-19, bringing the active cases down to 3,343 from 3,502, according to the Union health ministry. The death toll has increased to 5,31,880 with two deaths and the case tally was recorded at 4,49,91,582, the data showed.
France and Germany have registered 40,098,413 and 38,428,685 Covid-19 cases so far, occupying the third and fourth positions in the world number-wise, and 167,373 and 174,352 people have died in the European countries, as per Worldometer.
Covid-19 situation in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported 68 more Covid-19 cases in the 24 hours till Sunday morning.
With the new numbers, the country's total caseload rose to 2,039,639, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Read: CAAB lifts Covid-19 restrictions on international air travel
However, the official death toll from the disease remained unchanged at 29,448 as no new fatalities were reported.
The daily Covid-19 test positivity increased to 7.64 percent from Saturday’s 6.11 percent as 892 samples were tested.
China defends buzzing American warship in Taiwan Strait, accuses US of provoking Beijing
China's defense minister defended sailing a warship across the path of an American destroyer and Canadian frigate transiting the Taiwan Strait, telling a gathering of some of the world's top defense officials in Singapore on Sunday that such so-called "freedom of navigation" patrols are a provocation to China.
In his first international public address since becoming defense minister in March, Gen. Li Shangfu told the Shangri-La Dialogue that China doesn't have any problems with "innocent passage" but that "we must prevent attempts that try to use those freedom of navigation (patrols), that innocent passage, to exercise hegemony of navigation."
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the same forum Saturday that Washington would not "flinch in the face of bullying or coercion" from China and would continue regularly sailing through and flying over the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea to emphasize they are international waters, countering Beijing's sweeping territorial claims.
That same day, as a U.S. guided-missile destroyer and a Canadian frigate were intercepted by a Chinese warship as they transited the strait between the self-governed island of Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory, and mainland China. The Chinese vessel overtook the American ship and then veered across its bow at a distance of 150 yards (about 140 meters) in an "unsafe manner," according to the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Additionally, the U.S. has said a Chinese J-16 fighter jet late last month "performed an unnecessarily aggressive maneuver" while intercepting a U.S. Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea, flying directly in front of the plane's nose.
Those and previous incidents have raised concerns of a possible accident occurring that could lead to an escalation between the two nations at a time when tensions are already high.
Li suggested the U.S. and its allies had created the danger, and should instead should focus on taking "good care of your own territorial airspace and waters."
"The best way is for the countries, especially the naval vessels and fighter jets of countries, not to do closing actions around other countries' territories," he said through an interpreter. "What's the point of going there? In China we always say, 'Mind your own business.'"
In a wide-ranging speech, Li reiterated many of Beijing's well-known positions, including its claim on Taiwan, calling it "the core of our core interests."
He accused the U.S. and others of "meddling in China's internal affairs" by providing Taiwan with defense support and training, and conducting high-level diplomatic visits.
"China stays committed to the path of peaceful development, but we will never hesitate to defend our legitimate rights and interests, let alone sacrifice the nation's core interests," he said.
"As the lyrics of a well-known Chinese song go: 'When friends visit us, we welcome them with fine wine. When jackals or wolves come, we will face them with shotguns.'"
In his speech the previous day, Austin broadly outlined the U.S. vision for a "free, open, and secure Indo-Pacific within a world of rules and rights."
In the pursuit of such, Austin said the U.S. was stepping up planning, coordination and training with "friends from the East China Sea to the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean" with shared goals "to deter aggression and to deepen the rules and norms that promote prosperity and prevent conflict."
Li scoffed at the notion, saying "some country takes a selective approach to rules and international laws."
"It likes forcing its own rules on others," he said. "Its so-called 'rules-based international order' never tells you what the rules are and who made these rules."
By contrast, he said, "we practice multilateralism and pursue win-win cooperation."
Li is under American sanctions that are part of a broad package of measures against Russia — but predate its invasion of Ukraine — that were imposed in 2018 over Li's involvement in China's purchase of combat aircraft and anti-aircraft missiles from Moscow.
The sanctions, which broadly prevent Li from doing business in the United States, do not prevent him from holding official talks, American defense officials have said.
Still, he refused Austin's invitation to talk on the sidelines of the conference, though the two did shake hands before sitting down at opposite sides of the same table together as the forum opened Friday.
Austin said that was not enough.
"A cordial handshake over dinner is no substitute for a substantive engagement," Austin said.
The U.S. has noted that since 2021 — well before Li became defense minister — China has declined or failed to respond to more than a dozen requests from the U.S. Defense Department to talk with senior leaders, as well as multiple requests for standing dialogues and working-level engagements.
Li said that "China is open to communications between our two countries and also between our two militaries," but without mentioning the sanctions, said exchanges had to be "based on mutual respect."
"That is a very fundamental principle," he said. "If we do not even have mutual respect, than our communications will not be productive."
He said that he recognized that any "severe conflict or confrontation between China and the U.S. will be an unbearable disaster for the world," and that the two countries need to find ways to improve relations, saying they were "at a record low."
"History has proven time and again that both China and the United States will benefit from cooperation and lose from confrontation," he said.
"China seeks to develop a new type of major-country relationship with the United States. As for the U.S. side, it needs to act with sincerity, match its words with deeds, and take concrete actions together with China to stabilize the relations and prevent further deterioration," Li said.
With oil prices slumping, OPEC+ producers weigh more production cuts
The major oil-producing countries led by Saudi Arabia and Russia are wrestling with whether to make another cut in supply to the global economy as the OPEC+ alliance struggles to prop up sagging oil prices that have been a boon to U.S. drivers and helped ease inflation worldwide.
The 23-member group is meeting Sunday at OPEC headquarters in Vienna after sending mixed signals about possible moves. Saudi Arabia, dominant among the oil cartel's members, has warned speculators that they might get burned by betting on lower prices. Russia, the leader of the non-OPEC allies, has indicated no change to output is expected.
The decision comes amid uncertainty about when the slow-growing global economy will regain its thirst for fuel for travel and industry, and with producers counting on oil profits to bolster their coffers.
Oil prices have fallen even after OPEC+ slashed 2 million barrels per day in October, angering U.S. President Joe Biden by threatening higher gasoline prices a month before the midterm elections. Then, several OPEC members led by the Saudis made a surprise cut of 1.16 million barrels a day in April.
International benchmark Brent crude climbed as high as $87 per barrel but has given up its post-cut gains and been loitering below $75 per barrel in recent days. U.S. crude has dipped below $70.
Those lower prices have helped U.S. drivers as the summer travel season kicks off, with prices at the pump averaging $3.55, down $1.02 from a year ago, according to auto club AAA. Falling energy prices also helped inflation in the 20 European countries that use the euro drop to the lowest level since before Russia invaded Ukraine.
The U.S. recently replenished its Strategic Petroleum Reserve — after Biden announced the largest release from the national reserve in American history last year — in an indicator that U.S. officials may be less worried about OPEC cuts than in months past.
The Saudis, on the other hand, need sustained high oil revenue to fund ambitious development projects aimed at diversifying the country's economy. The International Monetary Fund estimates the kingdom needs $80.90 per barrel to meet its envisioned spending commitments, which include a planned $500 billion futuristic desert city project called Neom.
That may have been one motivation behind Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman's warning to speculators that they will be "ouching" if they keep betting on lower oil prices.
Bin Salman's pointed comment isn't necessarily a prelude to a cut at Sunday's meeting, said James Swanston, Middle East and North Africa economist at Capital Economics.
"Our expectation is that OPEC+ will stick with current output quotas," he said, adding that "there have been signs that the government may be readying to live with lower oil prices and running budget deficits."
On top of that, Russia may find current prices to its liking because its oil is finding eager new customers in India, China and Turkey. Western sanctions over the war in Ukraine have forced Russian oil to sell at discounts of around $53 to $57 per barrel.
At those prices, Moscow's shipments avoid triggering the $60 price cap imposed by the Group of Seven major democracies to try to limit oil profits flowing into Russia's war chest. The price ceiling allows the world's No. 3 oil producer to keep supplying non-Western customers to avoid a global shortage that would drive up prices for everyone.
Insurers and shipping companies largely based in Western countries are barred from handling Russian oil if it is priced above the cap. Russia has found ways to evade the limits through "dark fleet" tankers, which tamper with transponders showing their locations or transfer oil from ship to ship to disguise its origin.
An OPEC+ "production cut could push the price of Russian oil above the G7 price cap of $60 per barrel, which would make it difficult to transport and thus to sell the oil," commodity analyst Carsten Fritsch at Commerzbank wrote in a research note. "Russia appears to be doing good business at the current price level."
The International Energy Agency said in its April oil market report that Russia has not completely followed through on its announcement to extend a voluntary cut of 500,000 barrels per day through the end of the year.
In fact, Russia's total exports of oil and refined products such as diesel fuel rose in April to a post-invasion high of 8.3 million barrels per day. That is in spite of a near-total boycott from the European Union, formerly Russia's biggest customer.
Analysts say OPEC+ faces conflicting pressures. A cut could support prices or send them higher, with demand expected to pick up later this year.
"The impact of higher oil prices on the global economy will weigh heavily on the ministers' minds," said Jorge Leon, senior vice president of oil market research at Rystad Energy. "High oil prices would fuel inflation in the West right when central banks are starting to see inflation gradually recede."
"This could prompt central banks to continue increasing interest rates, a detrimental move for the global economy and oil demand," Leon wrote in a research note.
Inside the penal colonies: A glimpse at life for political prisoners swept up in Russia's crackdowns
When Alexei Navalny turns 47 on Sunday, he'll wake up in a bare concrete cell with hardly any natural light.
He won't be able to see or talk to any of his loved ones. Phone calls and visits are banned for those in "punishment isolation" cells, a 2-by-3-meter (6 1/2-by-10-foot) space. Guards usually blast patriotic songs and speeches by President Vladimir Putin at him.
"Guess who is the champion of listening to Putin's speeches? Who listens to them for hours and falls asleep to them?" Navalny said recently in a typically sardonic social media post via his attorneys from Penal Colony No. 6 in the Vladimir region east of Moscow.
He is serving a nine-year term due to end in 2030 on charges widely seen as trumped up, and is facing another trial on new charges that could keep him locked up for another two decades. Rallies have been called for Sunday in Russia to support him.
Navalny has become Russia's most famous political prisoner — and not just because of his prominence as Putin's fiercest political foe, his poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin, and his being the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary.
He has chronicled his arbitrary placement in isolation, where he has spent almost six months. He's on a meager prison diet, restricted on how much time he can spend writing letters and forced at times to live with a cellmate with poor personal hygiene, making life even more miserable.
Most of the attention goes to Navalny and other high-profile figures like Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was sentenced last month to 25 years on treason charges. But there's a growing number of less-famous prisoners who are serving time in similarly harsh conditions.
Memorial, Russia's oldest and most prominent human rights organization and a 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, counted 558 political prisoners in the country as of April — more than three times the figure than in 2018, when it listed 183.
The Soviet Union's far-flung gulag system of prison camps provided inmate labor to develop industries such as mining and logging. While conditions vary among modern-day penal colonies, Russian law still permits prisoners to work on jobs like sewing uniforms for soldiers.
In a 2021 report, the U.S. State Department said conditions in Russian prisons and detention centers "were often harsh and life threatening. Overcrowding, abuse by guards and inmates, limited access to health care, food shortages and inadequate sanitation were common in prisons, penal colonies, and other detention facilities."
Andrei Pivovarov, an opposition figure sentenced last year to four years in prison, has been in isolation at Penal Colony No. 7 in northern Russia's Karelia region since January and is likely to stay there the rest of this year, said his partner, Tatyana Usmanova. The institution is notorious for its harsh conditions and reports of torture.
The 41-year-old former head of the pro-democracy group Open Russia spends his days alone in a small cell in a "strict detention" unit, and is not allowed any calls or visits from anyone but his lawyers, Usmanova told The Associated Press. He can get one book from the prison library, can write letters for several hours a day and is permitted 90 minutes outdoors, she said.
Other inmates are prohibited from making eye contact with Pivovarov in the corridors, contributing to his "maximum isolation," she said.
"It wasn't enough to sentence him to a real prison term. They are also trying to ruin his life there," Usmanova added.
Pivovarov was pulled off a Warsaw-bound flight just before takeoff from St. Petersburg in May 2021 and taken to the southern city of Krasnodar. Authorities accused him of engaging with an "undesirable" organization -– a crime since 2015.
Several days before his arrest, Open Russia had disbanded after getting the "undesirable" label.
After his trial in Krasnodar, the St. Petersburg native was convicted and sentenced in July, when Russia's war in Ukraine and Putin's sweeping crackdown on dissent were in full swing.
He told AP in a letter from Krasnodar in December that authorities moved him there "to hide me farther away" from his hometown and Moscow. That interview was one of the last Pivovarov was able to give, describing prison life there as "boring and depressing," with his only diversion being an hour-long walk in a small yard. "Lucky" inmates with cash in their accounts can shop at a prison store once a week for 10 minutes but otherwise must stay in their cells, he wrote.
Letters from supporters lift his spirits, he said. Many people wrote that they used to be uninterested in Russian politics, according to Pivovarov, and "only now are starting to see clearly."
Now, any letters take weeks to arrive, Usmanova said.
Conditions are easier for some less-famous political prisoners like Alexei Gorinov, a former member of a Moscow municipal council. He was was convicted of "spreading false information" about the army in July over antiwar remarks he made at a council session.
Criticism of the invasion was criminalized a few months earlier, and Gorinov, 61, became the first Russian sent to prison for it, receiving seven years.
He is housed in barracks with about 50 others in his unit at Penal Colony No. 2 in the Vladimir region, Gorinov said in written answers passed to AP in March.
The long sentence for a low-profile activist shocked many, and Gorinov said "authorities needed an example they could showcase to others (of) an ordinary person, rather than a public figure."
Inmates in his unit can watch TV, and play chess, backgammon or table tennis. There's a small kitchen to brew tea or coffee between meals, and they can have food from personal supplies.
But Gorinov said prison officials still carry out "enhanced control" of the unit, and he and two other inmates get special checks every two hours, since they've been labeled "prone to escape."
There is little medical help, he said.
"Right now, I'm not feeling all that well, as I can't recover from bronchitis," he said, adding that he needed treatment for pneumonia last winter at another prison's hospital ward, because at Penal Colony No. 2, the most they can do is "break a fever."
Also suffering health problems is artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko, who is detained amid her ongoing trial following her April 2022 arrest in St. Petersburg, also on charges of spreading false information about the army. Her crime was replacing supermarket price tags with antiwar slogans in protest.
Skochilenko has a congenital heart defect and celiac disease, requiring a gluten-free diet. She gets food parcels weekly, but there is a weight limit, and the 32-year-old can't eat "half the things they give her there," said her partner, Sophia Subbotina.
There's a stark difference between detention facilities for women and men, and Skochilenko has it easier in some ways than male prisoners, Subbotina said.
"Oddly enough, the staff are mostly nice. Mostly they are women, they are quite friendly, they will give helpful tips and they have a very good attitude toward Sasha," Subbotina told AP by phone.
"Often they support Sasha, they tell her: 'You will definitely get out of here soon, this is so unfair here.' They know about our relationship and they are fine with it. They're very humane," she said.
There's no political propaganda in the jail and dance music blares from a radio. Cooking shows play on TV. Skochilenko "wouldn't watch them in normal life, but in jail, it's a distraction," Subbotina said.
She recently arranged for an outside cardiologist to examine Skochilneko and since March has been allowed to visit her twice a month.
Subbotina gets emotional when she recalled their first visit.
"It is a complex and weird feeling when you've been living with a person. Sasha and I have been together for over six years — waking up with them, falling asleep with them — then not being able to see them for a year," she said. "I was nervous when I went to visit her. I didn't know what I would say to Sasha, but in the end, it went really well."
Still, Subbotina said a year behind bars has been hard on Skochilenko. The trial is moving slowly, unlike usually swift proceedings for high-profile political activists, with guilty verdicts almost a certainty.
Skochilenko faces up to 10 years if convicted.
Emirati hosts want UN climate talks to deliver ‘game-changing results,’ with big oil at the table
A senior United Arab Emirates official says the Gulf nation wants the U.N. climate summit it's hosting later this year to deliver "game-changing results" for international efforts to curb global warming, but doing so will require having the fossil fuel industry at the table.
Environmental campaigners have slammed the presence of oil and gas lobbyists at previous rounds of talks, warning that their interests are opposed to the goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions — caused to a large degree by the burning of fossil fuels. Last month scores of U.S. and European lawmakers called for the summit's designated chair, Sultan al-Jaber, to be replaced over his links to the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Company.
The issue complicates already-delicate negotiations ahead of the Nov. 30 - Dec. 12 meeting in Dubai, known as COP28. Preliminary talks starting next week in Bonn, Germany, will show whether the incoming UAE presidency can overcome skepticism among parties and civil society groups about its ability to shepherd almost 200 nations toward a landmark deal.
"Our leadership have been very clear to me and our team and our president that they don't want just another COP that's incremental," said Majid al-Suwaidi, who as director-general of the summit plays a key role in the diplomatic negotiations. "They want a COP that is going to deliver real, big, game-changing results because they see, just like all of us, that we're not on track to achieve the goals of Paris."
Governments agreed eight years ago in the French capital to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) — ideally no more than 1.5C (2.7F). With average global temperatures already about 1.2C (2.2F) above pre-industrial levels, experts say the window to meet the more ambitious target is closing fast and even the less stringent goal would be missed if emissions aren't slashed sharply soon.
"We need to have everybody at the table discussing with us about how to deliver that," al-Suwaidi told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.
"We need to have oil and gas, we need to have industry, we need to have aviation, we need to have shipping, we need to have all the hard to abate sectors," he said, adding: "We need all those who can to deliver what they can, regardless of who they are."
Al-Suwaidi pushed back against the idea that the fossil fuel industry would undermine meaningful talks on emissions cuts the way they have done in the past through disinformation campaigns and keeping quiet their own knowledge about climate change.
"There's no doubt in my mind that the position of the sector has completely changed and that they are engaging with us in an active conversation," he said.
Asked whether the talks might consider a phaseout of fossil fuels, proposed last year by nations most vulnerable to climate change, al-Suwaidi said the presidency wouldn't preclude such conversations.
"We welcome any kind of discussion," the UAE's former ambassador to Spain said. "But the parties are the ones who will decide what that discussion is and where we land."
So far, the summit's designated chair al-Jaber has emphasized the need to cut emissions, rather than end fossil fuel use itself. It's prompted fears that he might seek loopholes for untested carbon-capture technologies and so-called offsets — both aimed at reducing current levels of carbon dioxide in the air — that experts say distract from the need to end the release of greenhouse gases.
A report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier this year called for a nearly two-thirds cut in carbon emissions by 2035, warning that failure to do so greatly increases the risk of droughts, flooding, sea-level rise and other short- and long-term disasters.
Al-Suwaidi, who also has a background in the oil and gas sector, said the UAE leadership is acutely aware of the existential threat global warming poses — including to their own sun-rich but water-poor nation — and is committed to shifting from fossil fuels toward renewable energy such as wind and solar.
"We want to be part of this new economy," he said. "We're a country that's running head first into this future."
Al-Suwaidi said agreeing a global goal for ramping up renewable energy in Dubai could send a positive message to those anxious about the transformation required to stop climate change.
"Rather than talking about what we're stopping people from doing, let's talk about how we're helping them to take up solutions ... that are going to help us to address the emissions problem we have," he said.
The talks in Dubai will also see countries conduct the first 'global stocktake' of efforts to tackle climate change since Paris in 2015. The results are meant to inform a new round of commitments by nations to cut emissions and address the impacts of global warming.
Poor nations are also demanding rich countries make good on pledges for vast financial support, an issue that has often caused major disagreements at past meetings.
"We need the developing world to leapfrog into this new climate system and we need to support that transition for them," said al-Suwaidi. "Finance is going to be really fundamental at COP28."
This will require rich countries, including the Group of Seven major economies, who are historically responsible for a large chunk of global emissions, to step up, he said.
"They have the technology. They have the know-how. They have the financial ability. We need them to take that leadership role and show us seriousness about addressing this challenge."
Regulation must to control AI for surveillance, disinformation: rights experts
Regulation of the space has become urgent as Artificial intelligence (AI)-powered spyware and disinformation is on the rise, according to UN-appointed independent rights experts.
The Human Rights Council-appointed experts in a statement on Friday said that new technologies, such as artificial intelligence-based biometric surveillance systems, are increasingly being used "in sensitive contexts" without people's knowledge or consent.
“Urgent and strict regulatory red lines are needed for technologies that claim to perform emotion or gender recognition,” said the experts, who include Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.
They condemned the already “alarming” use and impacts of spyware and surveillance technologies on the work of human rights defenders and journalists, “often under the guise of national security and counter-terrorism measures”.
They also called for regulation to address the lightning-fast development of generative AI that’s enabling mass production of fake online content which spreads disinformation and hate speech.
The experts emphasized the need to take precautions to make sure that these systems do not expose individuals and communities to more human rights abuses, including through the expansion and abuse of intrusive surveillance practices that violate the right to privacy, enable the commission of serious human rights abuses, such as forced disappearances, and facilitate discrimination.
They also expressed concern about respect for freedoms of expression, thought, peaceful protest, and for access to essential economic, social and cultural rights, and humanitarian services.
“Specific technologies and applications should be avoided altogether where the regulation of human rights complaints is not possible,” the experts said.
“Regulation is urgently needed to ensure transparency, alert people when they encounter synthetic media, and inform the public about the training data and models used,” the experts said.
The experts reiterated their calls for caution about digital technology use in the context of humanitarian crises, from large-scale data collection – including the collection of highly sensitive biometric data – to the use of advanced targeted surveillance technologies.
“We urge restraint in the use of such measures until the broader human rights implications are fully understood and robust data protection safeguards are in place,” they said.
Special Rapporteurs and other rights experts are all appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, are mandated to monitor and report on specific thematic issues or country situations, are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work.