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China defends trade with Russia after the US says equipment used in Ukraine might have been exported

Dhiman Bhattacharjee
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China defends trade with Russia after the US says equipment used in Ukraine might have been exported

China defends trade with Russia after the US says equipment used in Ukraine might have been exported

BEIJING (AP) — The Chinese government defended its dealings with Russia as “normal economic and trade cooperation” Friday after a United States intelligence report said Beijing possibly provided equipment used in Ukraine that might have military applications.

The Biden administration has warned Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s government of unspecified consequences if it supports the Kremlin’s war effort. The latest report cited Russian customs data that showed Chinese state-owned military contractors supplied navigation equipment, fighter jet parts, drones and other goods, but didn’t say whether that might trigger U.S. retaliation.

“China has been carrying out normal economic and trade cooperation with countries around the world, including Russia,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She said Chinese-Russian cooperation “neither targets a third party nor is it subject to interference and coercion by a third party.”

READ MORE : China supplying equipment to Russia it should not, French diplomat says

Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin declared before the February 2022 invasion that their governments had a “no-limits” friendship. Beijing says it is neutral in the war, but it has blocked efforts to censure Moscow in the United Nations and has repeated Russian justifications for the attack.

China is an “increasingly important buttress” for Russia, “probably supplying Moscow with key technology and dual-use equipment used in Ukraine,” said the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, referring to equipment that can have both civilian and military applications.

China has stepped up purchases of Russian oil and gas, which helps Putin’s government offset lost sales after the United States, Europe and Japan cut off most purchases of Russian energy. Beijing can do that without triggering Western sanctions on its own companies, but Washington and its allies are frustrated that it undercuts economic pressure on Moscow.

China rejects Western trade and financial sanctions on Russia because they weren’t authorized by the U.N. Security Council, where Beijing and Moscow have veto power. However, China has appeared to avoid directly defying those sanctions.

“We have also consistently opposed unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law and have not been authorized by the Security Council,” said Mao.

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New York City Crane Collapse Linked to Company and Operator With History of Safety Violations

Kyung An
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New York City Crane Collapse Linked to Company and Operator With History of Safety Violations

New York City Crane Collapse Linked to Company and Operator With History of Safety Violations

NEW YORK (AP) — As authorities continue to investigate a crane collapse that rained thousands of pounds of steel debris onto a busy Manhattan thoroughfare Wednesday, the owner and operator of the failed crane are facing scrutiny over past safety failures.

The tower crane, owned by New York Crane and Equipment Corp., was hoisting concrete to the 36th story of a luxury high-rise when a fire broke out in the machine’s cab, officials said. The flames burned through a cable holding the crane’s arm in place, sending the 180-foot-long boom crashing to the ground.

Though no one was seriously hurt, the near catastrophe stirred memories of past crane collapses, including a series of incidents involving people connected to Wednesday’s accident.

READ MORE : Top Chinese diplomat proposes talks with Japan, South Korea 

Two of the city’s most disastrous crane collapses came over the span of two months in 2008, both involving cranes owned by New York Crane and Equipment Corp. Nine people died, pushing the city to overhaul its process of inspecting and regulating tower cranes.

Later that year, a construction worker fell to his death while helping dismantle a crane owned by a different company. One of the two crane operators, whose license was suspended for eight months, was Chris Van Duyne. The same man was operating the crane that caught fire Wednesday, officials said.

Phone messages left with Van Duyne and New York Crane were not immediately returned Thursday.

The fire’s cause is still under investigation. In the meantime, neither the crane company nor its operator have been publicly accused of wrongdoing.

As officials await answers, City Council Member Pierina Sanchez, the head of the council’s committee on housing and building, said it was troubling that a crane company cited for past safety failures was once again linked to a major incident.

“It raises concern that a company that has a history of injuries and fatalities on site is continuing to do business in the city of New York,” she said. “Why do they still have a license?”

Following the consecutive collapses 15 years ago, New York adopted a series of stringent crane requirements that go beyond those of other states, according to industry experts.

Stephen Smith, the executive director of the Center for Building in North America, said the regulations — which require multiple city-specific licenses and high insurance liability –- have the unintended consequence of keeping new companies from entering New York’s market, effectively allowing a small number of players to dominate the industry.

“Crane collapses are not that frequent, so if multiple high-profile accidents happen with the same company, it doesn’t reflect well on them,” Smith added. “You have to wonder if we’re not keeping out more competent operators and firms.”

Founded by James Lomma – known locally as the “King of Cranes” – New York Crane and Equipment Corp. has long been one of the city’s top crane providers, helping to build the Hudson Yards development and the new World Trade Center.

But the Queens-based company has also faced a series of criminal and civil actions.

In March of 2008, one of the company’s cranes toppled on Manhattan’s east side, pulverizing buildings on the way down and fatally injuring seven people. Prosecutors blamed that accident on shoddy work by a crane rigger, but a jury acquitted him of manslaughter charges after his lawyer argued that bad welding and other factors were to blame.

Two months later, another Lomma-owned tower crane collapsed in the city, killing the operator Donald Leo and a construction worker, Ramadan Kurtaj. Investigators blamed that collapse on a busted bearing, manufactured by a Chinese company that had warned Lomma it did not have confidence in the product.

Lomma was acquitted of manslaughter charges, but he was sued by the workers’ families and ordered by an appeals court to pay $35 million for a series of “wonton and egregious” decisions that led to the collapse. He filed for bankruptcy soon after, and he died in 2019. The company is currently managed by Sal Isola, who did not return a request for comment.

In 2004, New York Crane and Construction Corp. faced allegations of poor maintenance after another worker, Glenn Gonnert, fell to his death from the mast of a crane.

In court papers, the victim’s son said the accidents were due in part to defects that caused oil to leak from the crane’s motor, creating a slippery surface that allowed his father to fall to his death. The company denied wrongdoing.

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On Dhanush’s 40th birthday today, July 28, Captain Miller teaser out

Roshan Bilung
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On Dhanush’s 40th birthday today, July 28, Captain Miller teaser out

On Dhanush’s 40th birthday today, July 28, Captain Miller teaser out

DT BEATS – Dhanush’s ‘Captain Miller’ has already created a lot of hype among the audience. The period film is written and directed by Arun Matheswaran of ‘Rocky and Saani Kaayidham’ fame. The film is billed as an action-adventure drama set in the pre-Independence era. On Dhanush’s 40th birthday today, July 28, the makers unveiled the teaser for ‘Captain Miller’ just as the clock struck 12 am, it started trending on Twitter.

The teaser begins with the hunt by the British for ‘wanted dacoit’ Captain Miller aka Eesa aka Analeesan. After many fierce battle scenes and vehicles exploding, a wanted poster with a handsome reward for the person who finds Captain Miller appears.

Do you know Dhanush’s real name

Venkatesh Prabhu Kasthuri Raja is the real name of Captain Miller (Dhanush).

Dhanush start his career in the 2002 teen drama film Thulluvadho Ilamai, directed by his father Kasthuri Raja, which became a sleeper hit.

He then appeared in his brother Selvaraghavan’s first directorial venture, the romantic psychological thriller Kaadhal Kondein in 2003. The film portrayed Dhanush as a mentally-disturbed youth, Vinodh, who yearned for the love of his friend, eventually turning possessive of her. Upon release, the film opened to critical acclaim and proved to be a major commercial success, eventually becoming Dhanush’s breakthrough in Tamil cinema. The film also fetched him his first nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actor – Tamil. His next film was the romantic comedy Thiruda Thirudi (2003), a critical and commercial success.

Dhanush also is a singer, generally for his own films. As a lyricst, he is often credited as “Poetu Dhanush”. He was introduced as a playback singer in Pudhukottaiyilirundhu Saravanan, by its composer Yuvan Shankar Raja and collaborated again with him in his brother Selvaraghavan’s directorial, Pudhupettai. He sang further numbers in Selvaraghavan’s films Aayirathil Oruvan and Mayakkam Enna; the former, which featured him alongside his wife Aishwarya Rajinikanth.

“Why This Kolaveri Di” was released on YouTube in 2011 as part of the soundtrack to the film 3, the directorial debut of Aishwarya Dhanush. The song became the most-searched video in India. Anirudh Ravichander was the soundtrack composer for the film and Dhanush wrote much of the lyrics. He has also sung “No Problem” in the Kannada film Vajrakaya, which earned him a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer – Kannada, and “Thikka” in the Telugu film Thikka.

Source : Wikipedia | India Today

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G20 should lead way on energy transition plans at COP28, event president says

Diplomat Times
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G20 should lead way on energy transition plans at COP28, event president says

G20 should lead way on energy transition plans at COP28, event president says

DUBAI/New Delhi (Reuters) – G20 powers must send stronger signals of their will to transform world energy systems and should lead the way on plans for mitigating global warming at the COP28 summit, the event’s incoming president and the U.N. climate chief said on Thursday.

Representatives of the world’s leading 20 economies meeting in Chennai, India failed on Saturday to reach a consensus on phasing down fossil fuels, following objections by some producer nations.

READ MORE : India’s Hosting of G20 Meeting in Kashmir Raises Questions of International Acceptance

“We must leave Chennai on the right path and with a clear signal that the political will to tackle the climate crisis is there,” Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said in a joint statement with incoming COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber.

At COP28 – due to take place in Dubai in December – the G20 should lay “the path to a strong and credible outcome that provides developing countries with the basis to undertake a just transition,” they said.

They said they aim to define a global goal on adaptation, a key part of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, and set in operation the loss and damage fund – agreed at last year’s COP27 in Egypt – at COP28.

Mitigation is action taken to limit climate change by cutting or eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, or removing them from the atmosphere, while adaptation is adjusting to reduce the harm done by climate change.

Reporting by Yousef Saba; Editing by Andrew Heavens and John Stonestreet

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Russia-Africa summit: Putin promises African leaders free grain despite ‘hypocritical’ Western sanctions

Mark Kenya
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Russia-Africa summit: Putin promises African leaders free grain despite ‘hypocritical’ Western sanctions

Russia-Africa summit: Putin promises African leaders free grain despite ‘hypocritical’ Western sanctions

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday told African leaders he would gift them tens of thousands of tons of grain despite Western sanctions, which he said made it harder for Moscow to export its grain and fertilizers.

Speaking at a Russia-Africa summit in St Petersburg, Putin said Russia was ready to replace Ukrainian grain exports to Africa on both a commercial and aid basis to fulfil what he said was Moscow’s critical role in global food security.

READ MORE : Shift to the right expected in parliamentary elections in Spain

“We will be ready to provide Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Central African Republic and Eritrea with 25-50,000 tonnes of free grain each in the next three to four months,” Putin told the summit, whose participants applauded.

Last year, Russia exported 60 million tonnes of grain, of which 48 million was wheat, Putin said. U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called the promised grain “a handful of donations”.

Many of the African countries Putin listed already enjoy close ties with Moscow; he omitted others in need such as Sudan and Chad.

Zimbabwe’s president said he was grateful, even though his country already had enough to ensure its own food security.

Russia held its first Africa summit in 2019 and is pushing even harder, since sending troops into Ukraine, for influence and business on a continent where its Wagner mercenary group remains active despite an abortive mutiny at home last month.

Photographs purporting to show Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin meeting African officials on the sidelines of the summit surfaced on the Telegram app on Thursday. Reuters was unable to immediately verify when and where they had been taken.

Responding to Western criticism of Moscow’s decision to quit the Black Sea grain deal, in which it allowed Ukraine to ship grain from its seaports despite the war, Putin restated his argument that a parallel memorandum promising to facilitate Russian grain and fertiliser exports had been ignored.

Comoros President Azali Assoumani, chair of the African Union, said Russia’s complaints should be listened to, the Russian state news agency RIA reported:

“I shouldn’t say that Russia is right or wrong. It acted for its own reasons; now we need to hear them in order to try to move forward.”

GLOBAL WHEAT PRICES SOARING

However, the collapse of the deal, and Russia’s bombing of the Danube river ports that Ukraine has used as a roundabout export route, have driven up global wheat prices by about 10% in the past 10 days.

“When taking out of the market millions and millions of tonnes of grains, it is clear that … will lead to higher prices,” U.N. Secretary-General Guterres told reporters.

“So it’s not with a handful of donations to some countries that we correct this dramatic impact that affects everybody, everywhere.”

Putin told the summit that over 70% of Ukrainian grain exported under the deal had gone to countries with above-average income.

the poorest countries, like Sudan, had been “screwed over” and received less than 3% of the shipments, he said, ignoring the fact that Ukrainian supply has helped keep global prices down.

Putin said Western sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation”, had even prevented Russia supplying free fertiliser to poor nations.

Russia’s grain and fertiliser exports are not subject to Western sanctions, but Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance are a barrier to shipments.

“On the one hand, Western countries are obstructing supplies of our grain and fertilisers, while on the other they hypocritically blame us for the current crisis situation on the world food market,” said Putin.

Assoumani, who shared the stage with Putin, appealed in his speech for “peaceful co-existence” between Russia and Ukraine, saying this would save the lives of those who needed their food.

Russia says 49 of Africa’s 54 states have sent representatives to St Petersburg, including 17 heads of state and four heads of government.

Yet that is fewer than half the number of leaders who attended the 2019 summit – something the Kremlin has blamed in part on Western countries’ efforts to dissuade them from going.

Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Kevin Liffey

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Ukraine’s Olga Kharlan disqualified after refusing to shake hands with Russian opponent

Marietta Reformado
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Ukraine’s Olga Kharlan disqualified after refusing to shake hands with Russian opponent

Ukraine’s Olga Kharlan disqualified after refusing to shake hands with Russian opponent

ITALY (Reuters) – Ukrainian fencer Olga Kharlan has been disqualified after refusing to shake hands with Russian Anna Smirnova at the World Championships in Milan on Thursday.

Kharlan, a four-time Olympic medallist and world champion, won the individual sabre bout 15-7 and then refused to shake hands with her opponent, instead offering her sabre to tap blades.

Smirnova remained on the piste for over half an hour after the incident, speaking with a number of officials before leaving.

READ MORE : Sumo championship: Hoshoryu beats Hokutofuji in playoff for maiden championship

Ukrainian athletes in other sports – including tennis players Elina Svitolina and Marta Kostyuk – have also refused to shake hands with Russian and Belarusian opponents following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with Moscow using Belarus as a staging ground for what it calls a “special military operation”.

In fencing’s rules, shaking an opponent’s hand is mandatory and failure to do so results in a ‘black card’.

“We fully support Olga Kharlan in this situation. We are preparing a protest,” Mykhailo Illiashev, president of Ukraine’s fencing federation (NFFU), said in televised comments.

“We will appeal this decision, because the referee who judged this match did not give directly a black card or disqualify her.

“It was only later that the underhanded games began and this disqualification appeared already after the next opponent was determined, already after a judge for the next competition was determined.”

Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Huttsait described the incident as “an obvious provocation from the Russian side”.

Huttsait, a gold medallist in team sabre at the 1992 Barcelona Games, told a press conference that Smirnova “approached (Kharlan), provoked her, holding her hand up for a long time and waiting.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, writing on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, said Smirnova “lost the fair competition and decided to play dirty with the handshake show. This is exactly how Russian army acts on the battlefield.”

Illiashev said the NFFU anticipate the appeal to be considered within the next few days.

“In this case, we will seek to cancel this black card because this disqualification will make it impossible for her to participate in the team competition, which will be held in Milan in a few days,” Illiashev said.

“And it is important for us that our team performs.”

The women’s team sabre event begins on July 29.

Kharlan is representing Ukraine at the competition after the country’s sports ministry on Wednesday relaxed its rules over national sports teams competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events that have competitors from Russia and Belarus.

Smirnova was competing as a neutral.

The International Fencing Federation (FIE) did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Reporting by Aadi Nair and Anna Pruchnika, editing by Pritha Sarkar and Ron Popeski

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Climate change: July set to be world’s warmest month on record

Roshan Bilung
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Climate change: July set to be world’s warmest month on record

Climate change: July set to be world’s warmest month on record

Gloria Dickie (Reuters) – July 2023 is set to upend previous heat benchmarks, U.N. Secretary-general António Guterres said on Thursday after scientists said it was on track to be the world’s hottest month on record.

The U.N. World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service also said in a joint statement it was “extremely likely” July 2023 would break the record.

“We don’t have to wait for the end of the month to know this. Short of a mini-Ice Age over the next days, July 2023 will shatter records across the board,” Guterres said in New York.

READ MORE : Mumbai Rain, CM Orders, All Schools In Mumbai To Be Closed Tomorrow Due To Heavy Rain

“Climate change is here. It is terrifying. And it is just the beginning,” he told reporters, adding “the era of global boiling has arrived”.

The effects of July’s heat have been seen across the world. Thousands of tourists fled wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes, and many more suffered baking heat across the U.S. Southwest. Temperatures in a northwest China township soared as high as 52.2C (126F), breaking the national record.

While the WMO would not call the record outright, instead waiting until the availability of all finalised data in August, an analysis by Germany’s Leipzig University released on Thursday found that July 2023 would clinch the record.

This month’s mean global temperature is projected to be at least 0.2C (0.4F) warmer than July 2019, the former hottest in the 174-year observational record, according to EU data.

The margin of difference between now and July 2019 is “so substantial that we can already say with absolute certainty that it is going to be the warmest July”, Leipzig climate scientist Karsten Haustein said.

July 2023 is estimated to be roughly 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial mean. The WMO has confirmed that the first three weeks of July have been the warmest on record.

Commenting on the pattern, Michael Mann, a climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, said it was clear by mid-July that it was going to be a record warm month, and provided an “indicator of a planet that will continue to warm as long as we burn fossil fuels”.

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Normally, the global mean temperature for July is around 16C (61F), inclusive of the Southern Hemisphere winter. But this July it has surged to around 17C (63F).

What’s more, “we may have to go back thousands if not tens of thousands of years to find similarly warm conditions on our planet”, Haustein said. Early, less fine-tuned climate records — gathered from things like ice cores and tree rings — suggest the Earth has not been this hot in 120,000 years.

Haustein’s analysis is based on preliminary temperature data and weather models, including forecast temperatures through the end of this month, but validated by unaffiliated scientists.

“The result is confirmed by several independent datasets combining measurements in the ocean and over land. It is statistically robust,” said Piers Forster, a climate scientist at Leeds University in Britain.

The planet is in the early stages of an El Nino event, borne of unusually warm waters in the eastern Pacific. El Nino typically delivers warmer temperatures around the world, doubling down on the warming driven by human-caused climate change, which scientists said this week had played an “absolutely overwhelming” role in July’s extreme heatwaves.

While El Nino’s impacts are expected to peak later this year and into 2024, it “has already started to help boost the temperatures”, Haustein said.

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July is traditionally the hottest month of the year, and the EU said it did not project August would surpass the record set this month.

However, scientists expect 2023 or 2024 will end up as the hottest year in the record books, surpassing 2016.

(This story has been refiled to remove the double attribution of Guterres)

Photo Source : BBC

Reporting by Gloria Dickie in London, Ontario; additional reporting by Ali Withers in Copenhagen and David Stanway in Singapore; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Alison Williams

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Saudi Arabia is spending billions to become a global gaming hub. Some fans don’t want to play

Mark Kenya
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Saudi Arabia is spending billions to become a global gaming hub. Some fans don’t want to play

Saudi Arabia is spending billions to become a global gaming hub. Some fans don’t want to play

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia, the new home of some of soccer’s biggest stars and a co-owner of professional golf, is proving to be no less ambitious when it comes to another global pastime – the $180 billion-a-year video game industry.

Last September, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund earmarked nearly $40 billion for a new conglomerate aimed at transforming the kingdom into the “ultimate global hub” for games and esports by 2030. In February, the Saudi fund became the biggest outside investor in Nintendo, and just this month the kingdom hosted a major gaming tournament with a record $45 million prize pool.

That’s made Saudi Arabia an increasingly important player in the industry and contributed to its breakneck transformation from an insular kingdom best known for oil and ultraconservative Islam into an emerging sports and entertainment powerhouse.

READ MORE : A diplomatic fight breaks out after a man desecrated the Quran

The move into gaming has sparked the same kind of backlash seen in soccer and golf, where critics accuse the Saudis of “sportswashing” human rights abuses, including the 2018 killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident.

With gaming, a kingdom that sentences people to decades in prison over a few tweets is joining a worldwide community dominated by the young and very online.

“It’s the Romans and the Colosseum all over again, and you have countries at the top layer using sports as a theater to display their wealth and their power,” said Joost van Dreunen, a professor at New York University who has written a book about the business of video games.

“You have to ask the question: Who is the architect behind this, and what are the intentions of these architects?” he said.

Saudi Arabia’s 37-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reportedly an avid gamer himself, sees the foray into gaming as part of Vision 2030, his ambitious plan to overhaul the kingdom’s economy, reduce its reliance on oil and provide jobs and entertainment for its youthful population.

“We are harnessing the untapped potential across the esports and games sector to diversify our economy,” he said last September, when he announced the establishment of the Savvy Games Group.

Owned by Saudi Arabia’s $700 billion Public Investment Fund and led by CEO Brian Ward, an industry veteran, Savvy aims to invest $39 billion in the gaming industry. It hopes to establish 250 local companies and create 39,000 jobs in the next seven years.

Earlier this month, it completed the $4.9 billion purchase of Scopely, the creator of “Monopoly Go,” “Star Trek Fleet Command” and “Marvel Strike Force.”

Gaming is a massive and fast-growing industry. Market research firm Newzoo says an estimated 3.2 billion people play games on PCs, consoles, mobile devices or cloud gaming services, with the industry generating $184.4 billion in revenues in 2022. Gaming brings in more money than the combined earnings of the global box office, music streaming and album sales, and the top five wealthiest sports leagues, according to a 2021 report by the Boston Consulting Group.

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West Africa recorded over 1,800 terrorist attack in first six months of 2023, regional official says

Mark Kenya
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West Africa recorded over 1,800 terrorist attack in first six months of 2023, regional official says

West Africa recorded over 1,800 terrorist attack in first six months of 2023, regional official says

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — West Africa recorded over 1,800 terrorist attacks in the first six months of the year resulting in nearly 4,600 deaths with dire humanitarian consequences, and a top regional official said Tuesday that’s just “a snippet of the horrendous impact of insecurity.”

Omar Touray told the U.N. Security Council that half a million people in the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States known as ECOWAS are refugees and nearly 6.2 million are internally displaced. If there isn’t an adequate international response to the 30 million people ECOWAS assesses need food right now, he said, the number of people in need will increase to 42 million by the end of next month.

Touray, who is president of the ECOWAS Commission, singled out the following drivers of insecurity in the region: terrorism, armed rebellion, organized crime, unconstitutional changes of government, illegal maritime activities, environmental crises and fake news.

READ MORE : Sudan clashes intensify with no mediation in sight

He said the region is worried about the resurgence of the military, with three countries – Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – under military rule.

“The reversal of democratic gains runs parallel to insecurity that West Africa and the Sahel have been facing for some time now,” he said, and insecurity continues to inflict pain and suffering on millions of people.

For example, Touray said, the 4,593 deaths in terrorist attacks between January and June 30 include 2,725 in Burkina Faso, 844 in Mali, 77 in Niger and 70 in Nigeria. He added that terrorist attacks in Benin and Togo which have coastlines on the Atlantic Ocean are a “stark indication of the expansion of terrorism to littoral states, a situation that poses additional threat to the region.”

Touray said there have been a multiplicity of initiatives to tackle terrorism and insecurity which have had an impact on the ground, but there is a lack of coordination and ECOWAS wants to integrate the various initiatives into a regional plan of action.

ECOWAS military chiefs of staff have held consultations to strengthen a regional standby force “in a manner that will enable it to support member states in the fight against terrorism and against threats to constitutional order,” he said.

Touray said the military chiefs proposed two options, establishing a 5,000-strong brigade at an annual cost of $2.3 billion or deployment of troops on demand at an annual cost of $360 million.

He reiterated the African Union’s request for African peace operations to receive funding from the U.N. regular budget, to which all 193 U.N. member states contribute.

Touray said the military staff recommendations were made before Mali’s military junta demanded that the more than 15,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in the country leave, which was followed by the Security Council’s unanimous vote on June 30 to immediately end the mission. Mali has brought in mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner Group to help fight an Islamic insurgency.

Touray told the council that ECOWAS leaders “have reflected on the possible adverse impact of the withdrawal on the region and have decided to convene an extraordinary session on peace and security by the end of August.” Ahead of that meeting, he said, Benin’s president will visit Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea and press for “an expeditious return to constitutional order.”

The Security Council was also briefed by the new head of the U.N. office for West Africa, Leonardo Santos Simão, who said the security situation in the central Sahel, especially the border region of Burkina Faso. Mali and Niger, “has deteriorated further, with multiple attacks against civilians and defense and security forces.” He also said “the southward expansion of insecurity remains a potent threat.”

Simão appealed for “robust and decisive support” for the ECOWAS action plan to eradicate terrorism in the region and for the African Union and efforts by countries to stem insecurity in the Sahel.

U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood told the council “the United States remains gravely concerned by democratic backsliding across the region” and is “deeply concerned by the spread of instability in coastal West Africa.”

He accused the Wagner Group of “committing human rights abuses and endangering the safety and security of civilians, peacekeepers and U.N. personnel.”

Russia’s deputy ambassador Anna Evstigneeva called the security situation in West Africa and the Sahel “difficult,” pointing to increased activity by fighters from the Islamic State extremist group, subversive activities by Boko Haram, and the spread of terrorist activity to coastal West African countries.

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Wildfires in Algeria kill at least 34 and injure hundreds but 80% now extinguished, officials say

Mark Kenya
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Wildfires in Algeria kill at least 34 and injure hundreds but 80% now extinguished, officials say

Wildfires in Algeria kill at least 34 and injure hundreds but 80% now extinguished, officials say

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Fires raging through forests, mountain villages and towns in northern Algeria have left at least 34 people dead, with 23 of them in the coastal region of Bejaia, according to authorities and a local radio station keeping track of the grim toll.

The blazes were being drastically curtailed. The Interior Ministry said Tuesday that 80% of the fires, which started Sunday, had been put out, the daily El Watan newspaper reported. A ministry statement quoted by the paper credited uninterrupted mobilization of firefighters, the use of firefighting aircraft and a drop in wind and in temperatures.

Among those killed in hard-hit Bejaia were 10 soldiers encircled by flames during an evacuation, the Defense Ministry reported Monday night.

READ MORE : Repatriation flights head for Greece as wildfires force tourists to flee

In neighboring Tunisia, the official TAP news agency reported one death, a school principal who died of asphyxiation from a fire in Nafza, in the northwest. That was one of several areas in Tunisia’s northwest where firefighters battled flames devouring forests and citrus and hazelnut groves as scorching heat made nations on the Mediterranean increasingly vulnerable to wildfires.

Spain’s defense ministry said Tuesday it will send Tunisia two firefighting planes and 27 military personnel, including crews and technicians from the Military Emergency Unit to help combat the wildfires there. That came in response to an EU request.

Strong winds and successive heat waves have fueled vicious fires in Greece and elsewhere around the Mediterranean this summer.

Algeria’s Bejaia — part of the Berber-speaking Kabyle region east of Algiers, the capital — was the hardest-hit area, with 23 deaths since Sunday, the local Soummam Radio reported Tuesday. Counting the deaths from the wind-driven blazes that swept through villages to the seaside, the radio report said that 197 other people were injured in the flames.

In Bouira province, closer to the capital, dead trees and burned brush dotted the hills around the town of Zbarbar, where firefighters moved in to douse scattered blazes on Monday. Some homes were transformed into burned out hovels, a video shot by The Associated Press showed. But firefighters’ efforts were limited. One grey-haired man tossed water from a plastic bottle onto the corrugated roof of what was left of his small damaged home in an effort to dampen it.

The official APS news agency reported Monday night that 34 people had died across several regions, or “wilayas.” Some 8,000 firefighters and 530 trucks, backed by military fire-fighting aircraft, fought the blazes in scorching heat, according to the latest update.

The Algerian Defense Ministry said Monday night that 10 soldiers died in the hardest-hit region of Bejaia. It added that 25 people were injured and evacuated to the closest hospitals.

Wildfires in this North African nation have taken heavy tolls in recent years.

At least 37 people were killed last August after wildfires blazed in the Kabyle region and near Algeria’s northern border with Tunisia. Parts of the mountainous Kabyle region, dotted with villages, are difficult to access.

August blazes in 2021, mainly in Kabyle, killed at least 90 people in the deadliest sequence of fires in recent years, centered in Kabyle. Arson was suspected in some cases, and in one town an angry crowd attacked and burned to death an artist who had traveled from afar to help firefighters. A hysterical crowd accused him of setting fires.

The Algerian online news site TSA quoted the National Meteorological Office as saying that temperatures that soared to around 50 C (122 F) in some of the fire-hit regions were expected to drop starting Tuesday.

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