Ukraine puts army on high combat alert as Putin prepares to ‘invade'

March 2, 2014

Ukraine_puts_armyMoscow/Kiev, Feb 2: Russian President Vladimir Putin demanded and won his parliament's approval on Saturday to invade Ukraine, where the new government warned of war, put its troops on high alert and appealed to Nato for help.

Putin's open assertion of the right to send troops to a country of 46 million people on the ramparts of central Europe creates the biggest confrontation between Russia and the West since the Cold War.

Troops with no insignia on their uniforms but clearly Russian — some in vehicles with Russian number plates — have already seized Crimea, an isolated peninsula in the Black Sea where Moscow has a large military presence in the headquarters of its Black Sea Fleet. Kiev's new authorities have been powerless to stop them.

The United States said Russia was in clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and called on Moscow to withdraw its forces back to bases in Crimea. It also urged the deployment of international monitors to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, leading a government that took power after Moscow's ally Viktor Yanukovich fled a week ago, said Russian military action "would be the beginning of war and the end of any relations between Ukraine and Russia".

Acting President Oleksander Turchinov ordered troops to be placed on high combat alert. Foreign minister Andriy Deshchytsya said he had met European and US officials and sent a request to Nato to "examine all possibilities to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine".

The United States will suspend participation in preparatory meetings for a summit of G8 countries in Sochi, Russia, and warned of "greater political and economic isolation", the White House said in a statement after President Barack Obama and Putin held a 90-minute telephone call.

Obama told Putin that if Russia had concerns about ethnic Russians in Ukraine, it should address them peacefully, the White House said.

Putin's move was a direct rebuff to Western leaders who had repeatedly urged Russia not to intervene, including Obama, who just a day earlier had held a televised address to warn Moscow of "costs" if it acted.

Putin told Obama that Russia reserved the right to protect its interests and those of Russian speakers in Ukraine, the Kremlin said.

'Dangerous situation'

Russian forces solidified their control of Crimea and unrest spread to other parts of Ukraine on Saturday. Pro-Russian demonstrators clashed, sometimes violently, with supporters of Ukraine's new authorities and raised the Russian flag over government buildings in several cities.

"This is probably the most dangerous situation in Europe since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968," said a Western official on condition of anonymity. "Realistically, we have to assume the Crimea is in Russian hands. The challenge now is to deter Russia from taking over the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine."

Putin asked parliament to approve force "in connection with the extraordinary situation in Ukraine, the threat to the lives of citizens of the Russian Federation, our compatriots" and to protect the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea.

The upper house swiftly delivered a unanimous "yes" vote, shown live on television.

Western capitals scrambled for a response.

Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN security council, US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, called for the swift deployment of international monitors from the United Nations and the Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Ukraine to help stem the escalating crisis there.

Defence secretary Chuck Hagel told his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu during a phone call that Moscow's military intervention risked creating further instability and an escalation "that would threaten European and international security", the Pentagon said. A US defence official said there had been no change in US military posture or in the alert status of forces.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton urged Moscow not to send troops. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt said this would be "clearly against international law". Czech President Milos Zeman likened the crisis to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia.

"Urgent need for de-escalation in Crimea," tweeted Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "Nato allies continue to coordinate closely."

Nato ambassadors will meet in Brussels on Sunday to discuss the situation, Rasmussen tweeted. "North Atlantic Council will meet tomorrow followed by Nato-Ukraine Commission," he wrote.

Putin said his request for authorization to use force in Ukraine would last "until the normalization of the socio-political situation in that country". His justification — the need to protect Russian citizens — was the same as he used to launch a 2008 invasion of Georgia, where Russian forces seized two breakaway regions and recognized them as independent.

In a statement posted online, the Kremlin said that in his phone call with Obama, Putin "underlined that there are real threats to the life and health of Russian citizens and compatriots on Ukrainian territory".

Flags torn down

So far there has been no sign of Russian military action in Ukraine outside Crimea, the only part of the country with a Russian ethnic majority, which has often voiced separatist aims.

A potentially bigger risk would be conflict spreading to the rest of Ukraine, where the sides could not be easily kept apart.

As tension built on Saturday, demonstrations occasionally turned violent in eastern cities, where most people, though ethnically Ukrainian, are Russian speakers and many support Moscow and Yanukovich.

Demonstrators flew Russian flags on government buildings in the cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk.

In Kharkiv, scores of people were wounded in clashes when thousands of pro-Russian activists stormed the regional government headquarters and fought pitched battles with a smaller number of supporters of Ukraine's new authorities.

Pro-Russian demonstrators wielded axe handles and chains against those defending the building with plastic shields.

In Donetsk, Yanukovich's home region, lawmakers declared they were seeking a referendum on the region's status.

"We do not recognize the authorities in Kiev, they are not legitimate," protest leader Pavel Guberev thundered from a podium in Donetsk.

Thousands of followers, holding a giant Russian flag and chanting "Russia, Russia" marched to the government headquarters and replaced the Ukrainian flag with Russia's.

Coal miner Gennady Pavlov said he backed Putin's declaration of the right to intervene. "It is time to put an end to this lawlessness. Russians are our brothers. I support the forces."

"War has arrived"

On Kiev's central Independence Square, where protesters camped out for months against Yanukovich, a World War II film about Crimea was being shown on a giant screen, when Yuri Lutsenko, a former interior minister, interrupted it to announce Putin's decree. "War has arrived," Lutsenko said.

Hundreds of Ukrainians descended on the square chanting "Glory to the heroes. Death to the occupiers."

Although there was little doubt that the troops without insignia that have already seized Crimea are Russian, the Kremlin has not yet openly confirmed it. It described Saturday's authorization as a threat for future action rather than confirmation that its soldiers are already involved.

A Kremlin spokesman said Putin had not yet decided to use force, and still hoped to avoid further escalation.

In Crimea itself, the arrival of troops was cheered by the Russian majority. In the coastal town of Balaclava, where Russian-speaking troops in armoured vehicles with black Russian number plates had encircled a small garrison of Ukrainian border guards, families posed for pictures with the soldiers. A wedding party honked its car horns.

"I want to live with Russia. I want to join Russia," said Alla Batura, a petite 71-year-old pensioner who has lived in Sevastopol for 50 years. "They are good lads ... They are protecting us, so we feel safe."

But not everyone was reassured. Inna, 21, a clerk in a nearby shop who came out to stare at the armoured personnel carriers, said: "I am in shock. I don't understand what the hell this is ... People say they came here to protect us. Who knows? ... All of our (Ukrainian) military are probably out at sea by now."

The rapid pace of events has rattled the new leaders of Ukraine, who took power in a nation on the verge of bankruptcy when Yanukovich fled Kiev last week after his police killed scores of anti-Russian protesters in Kiev. Ukraine's crisis began in November when Yanukovich, at Moscow's behest, abandoned a free trade pact with the EU for closer ties with Russia.

For many in Ukraine, the prospect of a military conflict chilled the blood.

"When a Slav fights another Slav, the result is devastating," said Natalia Kuharchuk, a Kiev accountant.

"God save us."

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News Network
May 29,2020

Karachi, May 29: Investigators and rescue officials have found around Rs 3 crore in cash in the wreckage of the Pakistan International Airlines' aircraft that crashed wth 99 people on board, killing 97 people, including nine children.

Flight PK-8303 from Lahore to Karachi crashed in a residential area near Karachi International Airport on Friday, with only two passengers miraculously surviving the crash.

Investigators and rescue officials have found currencies of different countries and denominations worth around Rs 30 million from the aircraft's wreckage, an official said on Thursday.

"An investigation has been ordered into how such a huge amount of cash got through airport security and baggage scanners and found its way into the ill-fated flight," the official said.

He said that the amount was recovered from two bags in the wreckage.

"The process of identifying the bodies and their luggage which will be handed over to their families and relatives is going on," he said.

A total of 97 people including the aircraft crew died in the crash, one of the most catastrophic aviation disasters in Pakistan's history.

A government official said on Thursday that the identification of 47 bodies had been completed, while 43 bodies were handed over for burial.

Friday's accident was the first major aircraft crash in Pakistan after December 7, 2016 when a PIA ATR-42 aircraft from Chitral to Islamabad crashed midway. The crash claimed the lives of all 48 passengers and crew, including singer-cum-evangelist Junaid Jamshed.

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News Network
April 27,2020

London, Apr 27: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returns to work on Monday more than three weeks after being hospitalised for the coronavirus and spending three days in intensive care.

Johnson, one of the highest-profile people to have contracted the virus, returned to 10 Downing Street on Sunday evening and will chair a meeting on Monday morning of the coronavirus "war cabinet", his colleagues confirmed.

Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary who has deputised in Johnson's absence, told the BBC on Sunday that his return would be a "boost for the government and a boost for the country".

Raab also claimed the prime minister was "raring to go".

Johnson, 55, was admitted to hospital on April 5 suffering from "persistent symptoms" of the deadly disease.

His condition worsened and he later admitted after being put in intensive care that "things could have gone either way".

He was discharged on April 12 and has been recuperating at his official residence, west of London.

In a video message after leaving hospital, Johnson thanked "Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal" for helping him recover.

On medical advice, he has not been doing official government work during his convalescence but has spoken to Queen Elizabeth and US President Donald Trump on the phone.

The British leader was diagnosed with the virus late last month but initially stayed at Downing Street and was filmed taking part in a round of applause for health workers in the days before he went to hospital.

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News Network
May 30,2020

Washington, May 30: The United States will end its relationship with the World Health Organization over the body’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday, accusing the U.N. agency of becoming a puppet of China.

The move to quit the Geneva-based body, which the United States formally joined in 1948, comes amid growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the coronavirus outbreak. The virus first emerged in China’s Wuhan city late last year.

Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, Trump said Chinese officials “ignored their reporting obligations” to the WHO about the virus - that has killed hundreds of thousands of people globally - and pressured the agency to “mislead the world.”

“China has total control over the World Health Organization despite only paying $40 million per year compared to what the United States has been paying which is approximately $450 million a year,” he said.

Trump’s decision follows a pledge last week by Chinese President Xi Jinping to give $2 billion to the WHO over the next two years to help combat the coronavirus. The amount almost matches the WHO’s entire annual program budget for last year.

Trump last month halted funding for the 194-member organization, then in a May 18 letter gave the WHO 30 days to commit to reforms.

“Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating our relationship with the World Health Organization and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” Trump said on Friday.

It was not immediately clear when his decision would come into effect. A 1948 joint resolution of Congress on U.S. membership of the WHO said the country “reserves its right to withdraw from the organization on a one-year notice.”

The World Health Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s announcement. It has previously denied Trump’s assertions that it promoted Chinese “disinformation” about the virus.

“It’s important to remember that the WHO is a platform for cooperation among countries,” said Donna McKay, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. “Walking away from this critical institution in the midst of an historic pandemic will hurt people both in the United States and around the world.”

‘ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL’

The United States currently owes the WHO more than $200 million in assessed contributions, according to the WHO website. Washington also gives several hundred million dollars annually in voluntary funding tied to specific WHO programs such as polio eradication, HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

Amesh A. Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said that in practice Trump’s decision was unlikely to change the operations of the WHO.

“From a symbolic or moral standpoint it’s the wrong type of action to be taking in the middle of a pandemic and seems to deflect responsibility for what we in the U.S. failed to do and blame the WHO,” said Adalja.

When Trump halted funding to the WHO last month, two Western diplomats said the U.S. suspension was more harmful politically to the WHO than to the agency’s current programs, which are funded for now.

The WHO is an independent international body that works with the United Nations. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last month that the WHO is “absolutely critical to the world’s efforts to win the war against COVID-19.”

When asked about Trump’s decision, a U.N. spokesman said: “We have consistently called for all states to support WHO.”

Trump has long scorned multilateralism as he focuses on an “America First” agenda. Since taking office, he has quit the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. cultural agency, a global accord to tackle climate change and the Iran nuclear deal. He has also cut funding for the U.N. population fund and the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees.

“The WHO is the world’s early warning system for infectious diseases,” said U.S. Representative Nita Lowey, a Democrat who chairs the House Committee on Appropriations. “Now, during a global pandemic that has cost over 100,000 American lives, is not the time to put the country further at risk.”

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