World
Pakistan's ex-PM Khan says his party to quit all assemblies
Pakistan's former premier Imran Khan said Saturday his party was quitting the country's regional and national assemblies, as he made his first public appearance since being wounded in a gun attack earlier this month.
Khan, a former cricket star turned politician, was ousted in a no-confidence vote in Parliament in April. He is now in the opposition and has been demanding early elections, claiming his ouster was illegal and orchestrated by Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif, with the U.S. government’s help. Sharif and Washington have dismissed the allegations and the current government says the next polls will be held as scheduled in 2023.
Khan launched a protest march late last month from the eastern city of Lahore toward Islamabad as part of his campaign for early polls, but stepped down from personally leading the convoy after he was wounded by a gunman who opened fire at his vehicle. One of Khan’s supporters was killed and 13 were wounded in the attack. The gunman was arrested.
On Saturday night, in Rawalpindi city near Islamabad, Khan rejoined the protest march.
He told tens of thousands of his cheering supporters that his Tehreek-e-Insaf party was leaving all regional and national assemblies and getting out of this "corrupt system.”
His party resigned from the national assembly en masse in April ahead of a vote to elect a new prime minister, although most of the resignations have yet to be accepted. Khan's stronghold is in the northwest province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and leaving the Punjab assembly would hand power to his rivals.
The politician spoke for more than an hour, including references to the Sufi mystic Rumi, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the seventh-century Shiite leader Imam Hussain.
Toward the end of his speech, he did a U-turn on his demand for snap elections, saying his party would win the polls scheduled for nine months' time. He also said he would no longer march on the capital.
Read more: Pakistan’s politics of FIR registrations
“They (government) cannot deal with a march in Islamabad, they can call as many police as they want, but they cannot stop the hundreds of thousands from entering Islamabad,” said Khan. "We could have created a situation like Sri Lanka. I have decided against marching on Islamabad because I don’t want there to be anarchy in the country. I don't want to cause any harm to this country."
After months of protests over an economic crisis that has led to shortages of essentials such as food and medicine, thousands of Sri Lankans stormed the president’s residence in July, forcing then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee and later resign.
Khan said he will meet his chief ministers and parliamentary party and announce the timing of the exit.
The rally came days after the appointment of a new army chief, Asim Munir, who ran the country's spy agency during Khan's term in office but was fired without an explanation from the then-premier.
Munir replaces Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, who Khan has also accused of playing a role in his ouster. Bajwa denies the allegation.
Read more: Imran Khan far better actor than Shahrukh and Salman, says Pakistani politician
Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari described Khan's Saturday night rally as a “facesaving flopshow.”
He said in a tweet: “Unable to pull revolution crowds, failed at undermining appointments of new chiefs, frustrated, resorts to resignation drama.”
1 dead, up to 12 missing in landslide on Italian island
Heavy rainfall triggered a massive landslide early Saturday on the southern Italian resort island of Ischia that destroyed buildings and swept parked cars into the sea, leaving at least one person dead and up to 12 missing.
The body of a woman was pulled from the mud, the Naples prefect Claudio Palomba, told a news conference.
With raining continuing to fall, rescuers were working gingerly with small bulldozers to pick through some six to seven meters (yards) of mud and detritus in the search for possible victims. Reinforcements arrived by ferry, including teams of sniffer dogs to help the search efforts.
The force of the mud sliding down the mountainside just before dawn was strong enough to send cars and buses onto beaches and into the sea at the port of Casamicciola, on the north end of the island, which lies off Naples.
Read more: 252 dead as Indonesia earthquake topples homes, buildings, roads
The island received 126 millimeters (nearly five inches) of rain in six hours, the heaviest rainfall in 20 years, according to officials.
Streets were impassable and mayors on the island urged people to stay home. At least 100 people were reported stranded without electricity and water, and about 70 were housed in a community gymnasium.
There was early confusion over the death toll. Vice Premier Matteo Salvini initially said eight people were confirmed dead, followed by the interior minister saying that no deaths were confirmed, while 10 to 12 were missing.
Read more: At least 31 dead in south Philippines floods, landslides
“The situation is very complicated and very serious because probably some of those people are under the mud,” Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told RAI state TV from an emergency command center in Rome.
ANSA reported that at least 10 buildings collapsed. One family with a newborn that was previously reported missing was located and was receiving medical care, according to the Naples prefect.
Video from the island showed small bulldozers clearing roads, while residents used hoses to try to get mud out of their homes. One man, identified as Benjamin Iacono, told Sky TG24 that mud overwhelmed three adjacent shops that he owns, completely wiping out his inventory. He estimated damage at 100,000 euros to 150,000 euros ($104,000 to $156,000)
Firefighters and the Coast Guard were conducting search and rescues, initially hampered by strong winds that prevented helicopters and boats from reaching the island.
The densely populated mountainous island is a popular tourist destination for both its beaches and spas. A 4.0-magnitude quake on the island in 2017 killed two people, causing significant damage to the towns of Casamicciola and neighboring Lacco Ameno.
Flashes of Arab unity at World Cup after years of discontent
For a brief moment after Saudi Arabia's Salem Aldawsari fired a ball from just inside the penalty box into the back of the net to seal a World Cup win against Argentina, Arabs across the divided Middle East found something to celebrate.
Such Arab unity is hard to come by and fleeting when it arrives. But Qatar's hosting of the World Cup has provided a moment where many in the Arab world have rallied by Doha and the Saudi team's win.
Whether that momentum continues will be tested on Saturday as Saudi Arabia faces Poland — and as regional tensions, religious differences and renewed economic competition between countries resume.
“All Arabic countries are celebrating because one Arab team won,” said 27-year-old Saudi Rakan Yousef after Arab fans congratulated him in Doha, Qatar, on the Green Falcons’ win. “Even the emir of Qatar attended our match. ... There’s this feeling now that we are all brothers. That’s why I’m speechless.”
The Arab world's division start even with the Arabic language.
Spoken Arabic changes regionally, with the Berber-infused Arabic of North Africa, the rapid-fire Egyptian heard in movies and television comedies, the soft Levantine drawl and the guttural dialect of the Gulf Arabs.
Read more: Saudi fans put on brave face after World Cup loss to Poland
Religion is another differentiator — there are Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite with subgroups within, and minority Christians, Druze, Baha'i and others. Different views on religion and regional rivalries bleed into conflicts, such as the ongoing war in Yemen.
But despite an attempt by al-Qaida to stir up extremists, the monthlong World Cup in energy-rich Qatar so far has seen unity among the Gulf Arab nations. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the heads of state in two countries that only some two years ago had boycotted Qatar, attended the tournament's opening match.
Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, called Qatar's hosting of the tournament “a milestone for all Arabs" and also attended the opening. That feeling was shared by others as well.
“We are proud to be here for the first World Cup in an Arabic country,” Morocco coach Walid Regragui said.
Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi similarly praised Qatar while dismissing the criticisms of journalists — and by extension, rights groups.
“Qatar did a tremendous job organizing a World Cup. ... Qatar never claimed it was perfect,” Safadi said. “We have differences in opinion, we have differences in views but that should not take away from the fact that Qatar has really put together a World Cup that is unique in every sense of the word.”
Read more: On outskirts of Doha, laborers watch World Cup they built
But the biggest surprise came two days later as Saudi Arabia stunned Argentina by winning their opener in the tournament, with Aldawsari doing a cartwheel and a flip. Qatar's ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, attended the match and wore a Saudi flag around his shoulders.
One veteran Saudi sports journalist, Majed al-Tuwaijri, even wept on air after the match.
“This is the most beautiful and important moment in my life and my 30-year media career," he said, his voice choking up. “I find myself failing to express myself because of the complexity of my feelings toward this great historical victory.”
Saudi Arabia's King Salman declared Wednesday a public holiday to commemorate the win. In the kingdom and outside of it, people cheered and waved the country's green and white flag to celebrate.
The Saudi flag itself carries two images that show its complicated place in the wider Arab world. It bears a white sword and the Arabic inscription of the shahada, a Muslim declaration of faith: "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.” After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632 A.D., Islam spread from the austere desert reaches of the Arabian Peninsula that later would become Saudi Arabia.
Today, Saudi Arabia maintains beheading as a form of execution and is one of the world's top enforcers of the death penalty. The kingdom also has used its oil money since the 1980s to export an ultraconservative view of Islam called Wahhabism into mosques around the world. Extremists have exploited Wahhabi organizations receiving Saudi funding as well.
That history, as well as regional politics, make a wholehearted embrace of Saudi Arabia more complicated for Arabs in the Mideast. While some celebrated Saudi Arabia's win in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave blockaded by Egypt and Israel is ruled by the militant group Hamas. The kingdom, while not diplomatically recognizing Israel, now allows Israeli airlines overflight rights.
The limits also can be seen in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been fighting the country's Iranian-backed Houthi rebels since 2015. Houthi Information Minister Daifallah al-Shami on Twitter offered “a thousand congratulations” to Saudi Arabia for placing “Arab football back on the map.” He later deleted the tweet and apologized.
“There are red lines that no party or person should cross,” al-Shami wrote.
The Saudi win, which the daily newspaper Okaz described as “restoring the glories” of the kingdom, also fits into the new, more nationalistic Saudi Arabia forming under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
As the prince has risen to power, the kingdom has socially liberalized by allowing women to drive, reopening movie theaters and curtailing its morality police. His comments to the team ahead of the tournament, urging them to “enjoy” the matches, have been repeated constantly in Saudi Arabia's tightly controlled press.
But Prince Mohammed also led a self-described corruption crackdown targeting anyone with power in the kingdom. U.S. intelligence agencies believe the brutal slaying of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul came at his orders, something denied by the kingdom.
Meanwhile, economic competition between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia has been increasing as Riyadh tries to draw international business from Dubai. Qatar, which faced a Saudi-led boycott only two years earlier, has embraced the kingdom while solidifying ties with the United States as hedge. The inconclusive war in Yemen still rages.
Soccer provides a respite, but no panacea for those woes.
“You’d have to have a historical lobotomy to think this is a stable region,” said David B. Roberts, an associate professor at King’s College London who long has studied Gulf Arab nations.
Indian police detain man accused of killing Australian woman because ‘her dog barked at him’
Delhi Police have detained an Indian man accused of killing an Australian woman in Queensland in 2018. The man, Rajwinder Singh, had left Australia after killing the woman.
Toyah Cordingley (24) was killed by Rajwinder, according to investigators, because “her dog barked at him,” NDTV reports.
Apparently, after an altercation with his wife, Rajwinder Singh (38) headed to Wangetti Beach in Queensland. He admitted to Delhi police that he was carrying some fruits and a kitchen knife.
A pharmacy employee, Cordingley, was walking her dog down the shore. Rajwinder and Cordingley got into a fight, as the latter’s dog was barking at him. According to authorities, this led to the Indian man attacking and reportedly killing Cordingley.
Read more: India's tribespeople seek formal recognition of ancient nature-worshipping faith
Rajwinder then tied the dog to a tree and buried Cordingley’s body in the sand.
Two days later, Rajwinder Singh fled Australia – leaving behind his wife, three children, and his job.
A Red Corner Notice from Interpol was issued against Rajwinder, and on November 21 the Patiala House Court issued a non-bailable warrant in accordance with the extradition laws.
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According to a senior police officer, Rajwinder was detained by the Special Cell of the Delhi Police along the G T Karnal Road based on information supplied by the CBI, which serves as Interpol’s central agency in India, and their Australian counterparts.
Brazilian protests intensify; Bolsonaro stays silent
The two men were sitting at a bar on Nov. 21, sipping drinks for relief from the scorching heat of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, when police officers barged in and arrested them for allegedly torching trucks and an ambulance with Molotov cocktails.
One man attempted to flee and ditch his illegal firearm. Inside their pickup truck, officers found jugs of gasoline, knives, a pistol, slingshots and hundreds of stones — as well as 9,999 reais (nearly $1,900) in cash.
A federal judge ordered their preventive detention, noting that their apparent motive for the violence was “dissatisfaction with the result of the last presidential election and pursuit of its undemocratic reversal,” according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
For more than three weeks, supporters of incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro who refuse to accept his narrow defeat in October’s election have blocked roads and camped outside military buildings in Mato Grosso, Brazil’s soy-producing powerhouse. They also have protested in other states across the nation, while pleading for intervention from the armed forces or marching orders from their commander in chief.
Since his election loss, Bolsonaro has only addressed the nation twice, to say that the protests are legitimate and encourage them to continue, as long as they don’t prevent people from coming and going.
Bolsonaro has not disavowed the recent emergence of violence, either. He has, however, challenged the election results — which the electoral authority’s president said appears aimed at stoking protests.
While most demonstrations are peaceful, tactics deployed by hardcore participants have begun concerning authorities. José Antônio Borges, chief state prosecutor in Mato Grosso, compared their actions to that of guerrilla fighters, militia groups and domestic terrorists.
Mato Grosso is one of the nation’s hotbeds for unrest. The chief targets, Borges says, are soy trucks from Grupo Maggi, owned by a tycoon who declared support for President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are also indications that people and companies from the state may be fueling protests elsewhere.
Road blockades and acts of violence have been reported in the states of Rondonia, Para, Parana and Santa Catarina. In the latter, federal highway police said protesters blocking highways have employed “terrorist” methods including homemade bombs, fireworks, nails, stones and barricades made of burnt tires.
Read more: Security agencies will act, if vandalism is there in the name of protests, says Home Minister
Police also noted that roadblocks over the weekend were different from those carried out immediately after the Oct. 30 runoff election, when truckers blocked more than 1,000 roads and highways across the country, with only isolated incidents.
Now, most acts of resistance are taking place at night, carried out by “extremely violent and coordinated hooded men,” acting in different regions of the state at the same time, federal highway police said.
“The situation is getting very critical” in Mato Grosso state, chief state prosecutor Borges told the AP. Among other examples, he noted that protesters in Sinop, the state’s second most populous city, this week ordered shops and businesses to close in support of the movement. “Whoever doesn’t shut down suffers reprisals,” he said.
Since the vote, Bolsonaro has dropped out of public view and his daily agenda has been largely vacant, prompting speculation as to whether he is stewing or scheming.
Government transition duties have been led by his chief of staff, while Vice President Hamilton Mourão has stepped in to preside over official ceremonies. In an interview with newspaper O Globo, Mourão chalked up Bolsonaro’s absence to erysipelas, a skin infection on his legs that he said prevents the president from wearing pants.
But even Bolsonaro’s social media accounts have gone silent – aside from generic posts about his administration, apparently from his communications team. And the live social media broadcasts that, with rare exception, he conducted every Thursday night during his administration have ceased. The silence marks an abrupt about-face for the bombastic Brazilian leader whose legions of supporters hang on his every word.
Still, demonstrators, who have camped outside military barracks across Brazil for weeks, are certain they have his tacit support.
“We understand perfectly well why he doesn’t want to talk: They (the news media) distort his words,” said a 49-year-old woman who identified herself only as Joelma during a protest outside the monumental regional military command center in Rio de Janeiro. She declined to give her full name, claiming the protest had been infiltrated by informants.
Joelma and others say they are outraged with Bolsonaro’s loss and claim the election was rigged, echoing the incumbent president’s claims — made without evidence — that the electronic voting system is prone to fraud.
Scenes of large barbecues with free food and portable bathrooms at several protests, plus reports of free bus rides bringing demonstrators to the capital, Brasilia, have prompted investigations into the people and companies financing and organizing the gatherings and roadblocks. The Supreme Court has frozen at least 43 bank accounts for suspicion of involvement, news site G1 reported, saying most are from Mato Grosso. Borges cited the involvement of agribusiness players in the protests, many of whom support Bolsonaro’s push for development of the Amazon rainforest and his authorization of previously banned pesticides. By contrast, President-elect da Silva has pledged to rebuild environmental protections.
Most recently, protesters have been emboldened by the president’s decision to officially contest the election results.
Read more: Brazil election body rejects Bolsonaro's push to void votes
On Tuesday, Bolsonaro and his party filed a request for the electoral authority to annul votes cast on nearly 60% of electronic voting machines, citing a software bug in older models. Independent experts have said the bug, while newly discovered, doesn’t affect the results and the electoral authority’s president, Alexandre de Moraes swiftly rejected the “bizarre and illicit” request.
De Moraes, who is also a Supreme Court justice, called it “an attack on the Democratic Rule of Law ... with the purpose of encouraging criminal and anti-democratic movements.”
On Nov. 21, Prosecutor-general Augusto Aras summoned federal prosecutors from states where roadblocks and violence have become more intense for a crisis meeting. Aras, who is widely seen as a Bolsonaro stalwart, said he received intelligence reports from local prosecutors and instructed Mato Grosso’s governor to request federal backup to clear its blocked highways.
Ultimately that wasn’t necessary, as local law enforcement managed to break up demonstrations and, by Monday night, roads in Mato Grosso and elsewhere were all liberated, according to the federal highway police. It was unclear how long this would last, however, amid Bolsonaro’s continued silence, said Guilherme Casarões, a political science professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation university.
“With his silence, he keeps people in the streets,” Casarões said. “This is the great advantage he has today: a very mobilized, and very radical base.”
"Let’s proudly declare: We are all feminists"
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called on governments to increase funding by 50 per cent to women’s rights organizations and movements by 2026.
He said violence against women and girls is the most pervasive human rights violation in the world.
"Let’s take a stand and raise our voices in support of women’s rights. Let’s proudly declare: We are all feminists," he said in a message marking the International Day for the elimination of violence against women.
Every 11 minutes, a woman or girl is killed by an intimate partner or family member — and we know that other stresses, from the COVID-19 pandemic to economic turmoil, inevitably lead to even more physical and verbal abuse, Guterres said.
Read: UN chief Antonio Guterres greets people on Nowruz
Women and girls also face rampant online violence, from misogynistic hate speech, to sexual harassment, image abuse and grooming by predators, he said.
"This discrimination, violence and abuse targeting half of humanity comes at a steep cost. It limits women’s and girls’ participation in all walks of life, denies their basic rights and freedoms, and blocks the equal economic recovery and sustainable growth our world needs," said the UN chief.
Now is the time for transformative action that ends violence against women and girls, he said.
This means governments designing, funding and implementing national action plans to tackle this scourge, Guterres said.
"It means involving grassroots and civil society groups at every stage of decision-making. It means ensuring that laws are implemented and respected, so survivors see their rights to justice and support upheld.
Read: “Prejudice, racism and rising hate speech”: UN chief describes world
It means supporting public campaigns that challenge patriarchal norms and reject misogyny and violence," said the UN chief.
"And as this year’s theme — “UNITE: Activism to End Violence Against Women and Girls” — reminds us, it means standing with activists around the world who are calling for change and supporting survivors of violence," he said.
NATO vows to aid Ukraine ‘for as long as it takes’
NATO is determined to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia for “as long as it takes” and will help the war-wracked country transform its armed forces into a modern army up to Western standards, the alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowed on Friday.
Speaking to reporters ahead of a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Romania next week, Stoltenberg urged countries that want to, either individually or in groups, to keep providing air defense systems and other weapons to Ukraine. NATO as an organization does not supply weapons.
“NATO will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. We will not back down,” the former Norwegian prime minister said. “Allies are providing unprecedented military support, and I expect foreign ministers will also agree to step up non-lethal support.”
Stoltenberg said that members of the 30-nation security organization have been delivering fuel, generators, medical supplies, winter equipment and drone jamming devices, but that more will be needed as winter closes in, particularly as Russia attacks Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Read more: Poland, NATO say missile strike wasn't a Russian attack
“At our meeting in Bucharest, I will call for more,” he said. “Over the longer term we will help Ukraine transition from Soviet era equipment to modern NATO standards, doctrine and training.”
Stoltenberg said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba would join the ministers to discuss his country’s most pressing needs but also what kind of long-term support that NATO can provide. NATO’s top civilian official said the support will help Ukraine move toward joining the alliance one day.
The Nov 29-30 meeting in Bucharest is being held almost 15 years after NATO promised that Ukraine and Georgia would one day become members of the organization, a pledge that deeply angered Russia.
Also attending the meeting will be the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Georgia and Moldova – three partners that NATO says are coming under increasing Russian pressure. Stoltenberg said the meeting would see NATO “take further steps to help them protect their independence, and strengthen their ability to defend themselves.”
Read more: Deadly missile strike adds to Ukraine war fears in Poland
Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion 10 months ago, NATO has bolstered the defenses of allies neighboring Ukraine and Russia but has carefully sought to avoid being dragged into a wider war with a major nuclear power. But Stoltenberg put no pressure on Ukraine to enter peace talks with Russia, and indeed NATO and European diplomats have said that Putin does not appear willing to come to the table.
“Most wars end with negotiations,” he said. “But what happens at the negotiating table depends on what happens on the battlefield. Therefore, the best way to increase the chances for a peaceful solution is to support Ukraine.”
Death toll from Indonesia earthquake reaches 310 as more bodies found
The death toll from an earthquake that struck Indonesia’s Java island early this week rose to 310 after rescuers found more bodies under landslides, an official said. At least 24 people remain missing.
In devasted towns in western Java, residents gathered near badly damaged mosques for Friday prayers. Others held prayers along with rescuers between the tents at evacuation centers.
Bodies were recovered Friday in two areas of mountainous Cianjur district where landslides triggered by Monday’s quake brought tons of mud, rocks and broken trees, said Henri Alfiandi, chief of the National Search and Rescue Agency.
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More than 1,400 rescuers have been searching through the rubble since the magnitude 5.6 quake, which injured more than 2,000 people.
The head of the National Disaster Management Agency, Suharyanto, who uses one name, said rescuers will continue searching until rebuilding begins.
“We will do it up to the last person. There is no reduction whatsoever, in strength, enthusiasm, or the equipment,” Suharyanto said.
He said distribution of food and other aid is improving and is reaching more people in 110 evacuation locations.
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The disaster agency said the earthquake damaged at least 56,000 houses and displaced at least 36,000 people. Hundreds of public facilities were destroyed, including 363 schools.
An earthquake of that strength would not typically cause such serious damage. But Monday’s quake was shallow and shook a densely populated area that lacks earthquake-resistant infrastructure.
Indonesia is frequently struck by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis because of its location on the arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin known as the “Ring of Fire.”
Russia rains missiles on recaptured Ukrainian city
Natalia Kristenko’s dead body lay covered in a blanket in the doorway of her apartment building for hours overnight. City workers were at first too overwhelmed to retrieve her as they responded to a deadly barrage of attacks that shook Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson.
The 62-year-old had walked outside her home with her husband Thursday evening after drinking tea when the building was struck. Kristenko was killed instantly from a wound to the head. Her husband died hours later in the hospital from internal bleeding.
“Russians took the two most precious people from me,” their bereft daughter, Lilia Kristenko, 38, said, clutching her cat inside her coat as she watched on in horror Friday as responders finally arrived to transport her mother to the morgue.
“They lived so well, they lived differently,” she told The Associated Press. “But they died in one day.”
A barrage of missiles struck the recently liberated city of Kherson for the second day Friday in a marked escalation of attacks since Russia withdrew from the city two weeks ago.
Read: Bombed, not beaten: Ukraine’s capital flips to survival mode
The city was shelled 17 times before midday Thursday, and strikes continued into the evening, killing at least four people and injuring 10, according to Kherson’s military administration. Soldiers in the region had warned that Kherson would face intensified strikes as Russian troops dig in across the Dnieper River.
Scores of people were injured in the strikes that hit residential and commercial buildings, lighting some on fire, blowing ash into the air and littering the streets with shattered glass. The attacks wrought destruction on some residential neighborhoods not previously hit in the war that has just entered its tenth month.
After Kristenko’s parents were hit, she tried to call an ambulance but there was no phone network, she said. Her 66-year-old father was clutching his stomach wound and screaming “it hurts so much I’m doing to die,” she said. He eventually was taken by ambulance to the hospital but died during surgery.
On Friday morning people sifted through what little remained of their destroyed houses and shops. Containers of food lined the floor of a shattered meat store, while across the street customers lined up at a coffee shop where residents said four people died the night before.
“I don’t even know what to say, it was unexpected,” said Diana Samsonova, who works at the coffee shop, which remained open throughout Russia’s occupation and has no plans to close despite the attacks.
The violence is compounding what’s become a dire humanitarian crisis. As Russians retreated, they destroyed key infrastructure, leaving people with little water and electricity. People have become so desperate they’re finding some salvation amid the wreckage.
Outside an apartment building that was badly damaged, residents filled buckets with water that pooled on the ground. Workers at the morgue used puddles to clean their bloody hands.
Valerii Parkhomenko had just parked his car and gone into a coffee shop when a rocket destroyed his vehicle.
“We were all crouching on the floor inside,” he said, showing the ash on his hands. “I feel awful, my car is destroyed, I need this car for work to feed my family,” he said.
Outside shelled apartment buildings residents picked up debris and frantically searched for relatives while paramedics helped the injured.
Read: After Russian retreat, Ukrainian military plans next move
“I think it’s so bad and I think all countries need to do something about this because it’s not normal,” said Ivan Mashkarynets, a man in his early 20s who was at home with his mother when the apartment block next to him was struck.
“There’s no army, there’s no soldiers. There are just people living here and they’re (still) firing,” he said.
The government has said it will help people evacuate if they want to, but many say they have no place to go.
“There is no work (elsewhere), there is no work here,” said Ihor Novak as he stood on a street examining the aftermath of the shelling. “For now, the Ukrainian army is here and with them we hope it will be safer.”
South Korea in demographic crisis as many stop having babies
Yoo Young Yi’s grandmother gave birth to six children. Her mother birthed two. Yoo doesn’t want any.
“My husband and I like babies so much … but there are things that we’d have to sacrifice if we raised kids,” said Yoo, a 30-year-old Seoul financial company employee. “So it’s become a matter of choice between two things, and we’ve agreed to focus more on ourselves.”
There are many like Yoo in South Korea who have chosen either not to have children or not to marry. Other advanced countries have similar trends, but South Korea’s demographic crisis is much worse.
South Korea’s statistics agency announced in September that the total fertility rate — the average number of babies born to each woman in their reproductive years — was 0.81 last year. That’s the world’s lowest for the third consecutive year.
The population shrank for the first time in 2021, stoking worry that a declining population could severely damage the economy — the world’s 10th largest — because of labor shortages and greater welfare spending as the number of older people increases and the number of taxpayers shrinks.
President Yoon Suk Yeol has ordered policymakers to find more effective steps to deal with the problem. The fertility rate, he said, is plunging even though South Korea spent 280 trillion won ($210 billion) over the past 16 years to try to turn the tide.
Many young South Koreans say that, unlike their parents and grandparents, they don’t feel an obligation to have a family. They cite the uncertainty of a bleak job market, expensive housing, gender and social inequality, low levels of social mobility and the huge expense of raising children in a brutally competitive society. Women also complain of a persistent patriarchal culture that forces them to do much of the childcare while enduring discrimination at work.
“In a nutshell, people think our country isn’t an easy place to live,” said Lee So-Young, a population policy expert at the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs. “They believe their children can’t have better lives than them, and so question why they should bother to have babies.”
Many people who fail to enter good schools and land decent jobs feel they’ve become “dropouts” who “cannot be happy” even if they marry and have kids because South Korea lacks advanced social safety nets, said Choi Yoon Kyung, an expert at the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. She said South Korea failed to establish such welfare programs during its explosive economic growth in the 1960 to ’80s.
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Yoo, the Seoul financial worker, said that until she went to college, she strongly wanted a baby. But she changed her mind when she saw female office colleagues calling their kids from the company toilet to check on them or leaving early when their children were sick. She said her male coworkers didn’t have to do this.
“After seeing this, I realized my concentration at work would be greatly diminished if I had babies,” Yoo said.
Her 34-year-old husband, Jo Jun Hwi, said he doesn’t think having kids is necessary. An interpreter at an information technology company, Jo said he wants to enjoy his life after years of exhaustive job-hunting that made him “feel like I was standing on the edge of a cliff.”
There are no official figures on how many South Koreans have chosen not to marry or have kids. But records from the national statistics agency show there were about 193,000 marriages in South Korea last year, down from a peak of 430,000 in 1996. The agency data also show about 260,600 babies were born in South Korea last year, down from 691,200 in 1996, and a peak of 1 million in 1971. The recent figures were the lowest since the statistics agency began compiling such data in 1970.
Kang Han Byeol, a 33-year-old graphic designer who’s decided to remain single, believes South Korea isn’t a sound place to raise children. She cited frustration with gender inequalities, widespread digital sex crimes targeting women such as spy cams hidden in public restrooms, and a culture that ignores those pushing for social justice.
“I can consider marriage when our society becomes healthier and gives more equal status to both women and men,” Kang said.
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Kang’s 26-year-old roommate Ha Hyunji also decided to stay single after her married female friends advised her not to marry because most of the housework and child care falls to them. Ha worries about the huge amount of money she would spend for any future children’s private tutoring to prevent them from falling behind in an education-obsessed nation.
“I can have a fun life without marriage and enjoy my life with my friends,” said Ha, who runs a cocktail bar in Seoul.
Until the mid-1990s, South Korea maintained birth control programs, which were initially launched to slow the country’s post-war population explosion. The nation distributed contraceptive pills and condoms for free at public medical centers and offered exemptions on military reserve training for men if they had a vasectomy.
United Nations figures show a South Korean woman on average gave birth to about four to six children in the 1950s and ’60s, three to four in the 1970s, and less than two in the mid-1980s.
South Korea has been offering a variety of incentives and other support programs for those who give birth to many children. But Choi, the expert, said the fertility rate has been falling too fast to see any tangible effects. During a government task force meeting last month, officials said they would soon formulate comprehensive measures to cope with demographic challenges.
South Korean society still frowns on those who remain childfree or single.
In 2021 when Yoo and Jo posted their decision to live without children on their YouTube channel, “You Young You Young,” some posted messages calling them “selfish” and asking them to pay more taxes. The messages also called Jo “sterile” and accused Yoo of “gaslighting” her husband.
Lee Sung-jai, a 75-year-old Seoul resident, said it’s “the order of nature” for humankind to marry and give birth to children.
“These days, I see some (unmarried) young women walking with dogs in strollers and saying they are their moms. Did they give birth to those dogs? They are really crazy,” he said.
Seo Ji Seong, 38, said that she’s often called a patriot by older people for having many babies, though she didn’t give birth to them for the national interest. She’s expecting a fifth baby in January.
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Seo’s family recently moved to a rent-free apartment in the city of Anyang, which was jointly provided by the state-run Korea Land and Housing Corporation and the city for families with at least four children. Seo and her husband, Kim Dong Uk, 33, receive other state support, though it’s still tough economically to raise four kids.
Kim said he enjoys seeing each of his children growing up with different personalities and talents, while Seo feels their kids’ social skills are helped while playing and competing with one another at home.
“They are all so cute. That’s why I’ve kept giving birth to babies even though it’s difficult,” Seo said.