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  • Death toll in Kenyan starvation cult rises to 73 – police

    Death toll in Kenyan starvation cult rises to 73 – police

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    • Exhumations to resume on Tuesday
    • President Ruto calls cult leader “terrible criminal”

    NAIROBI, April 24 (Reuters) – Kenyan police have recovered 73 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, a police officer said on Monday.

    The death toll, which has repeatedly risen as exhumations have been carried out, could rise further. The Kenyan Red Cross said 112 people have been reported missing to a tracing and counselling desk it has set up at a local hospital.

    The cult’s leader, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested on April 14 following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers.

    “The death toll now stands 73 people,” Charles Kamau, head detective in Malindi, Kilifi County, told Reuters via telephone.

    He said three more people had been arrested, without giving details. Privately-owned NTV channel reported that one of those arrested was being held on suspicion of being a close associate of the leader of the cult.

    Followers of the self-proclaimed Good News International Church had been living in several secluded settlements in an 800-acre area within the Shakahola forest.

    The Directorate of Criminal Investigations said on Twitter that 33 people had so far been rescued.

    [1/4] Body bags are seen arranged as forensic experts and homicide detectives exhume bodies of suspected members of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi county, Kenya, April 22, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

    Earlier on Monday, the country’s police chief Japhet Koome, visiting the scene, said most of the people were found in mass graves as well as eight who were found alive and emaciated, but later died.

    Koome said 14 other cult members were in police custody.

    Mackenzie was arraigned on April 15 at Malindi Law Courts, where the judge gave police 14 days to conduct investigations while he was kept in detention. Kenyan media have reported that he is refusing food and water.

    Reuters was not able to reach any lawyer or representative for Mackenzie.

    President William Ruto said Mackenzie’s teachings were contrary to any authentic religion.

    “Mr Mackenzie … pretends and postures as a pastor when in fact he is a terrible criminal,” said Ruto, who was delivering a speech at an unrelated public event just outside Nairobi.

    He said he had instructed relevant agencies to get to the root cause of what had happened and to tackle “people who want to use religion to advance weird, unacceptable ideology in the Republic of Kenya that is causing unnecessary loss of life”.

    Reporting by Hereward Holland; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Alexander Winning

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Sudan factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire as foreigners are evacuated

    Sudan factions agree to 72-hour ceasefire as foreigners are evacuated

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    • At least 427 people killed since fighting began on April 15
    • Foreign nations fly military planes to extract citizens
    • U.N.’s Guterres urges Security Council to intervene

    KHARTOUM, April 24 (Reuters) – Sudan’s warring factions agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting on Tuesday, while Western, Arab and Asian nations raced to extract their citizens from the country.

    The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) said the U.S. and Saudi Arabia mediated the truce. U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced the agreement first and said it followed two days of intense negotiations. The two sides have not abided by several previous temporary truce deals.

    Fighting erupted between the SAF and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 and has killed at least 427 people, knocked out hospitals and other services, and turned residential areas into war zones.

    “During this period, the United States urges the SAF and RSF to immediately and fully uphold the ceasefire,” Blinken said in a statement.

    He said the U.S. would coordinate with regional, international and Sudanese civilian interests to create a committee that would oversee work on a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements.

    The RSF confirmed in Khartoum that it had agreed to the ceasefire, starting at midnight, to facilitate humanitarian efforts. “We affirm our commitment to a complete ceasefire during the truce period”, the RSF said.

    The SAF said on its Facebook page that it also agreed to the truce deal. A coalition of Sudanese civil society groups that had been part of negotiations on a transition to democracy welcomed the news.

    Ahead of the evening truce announcement, air strikes and ground fighting shook Omdurman, one of three adjacent cities in the capital region, and there were also clashes in capital Khartoum, a Reuters reporter said.

    Dark smoke enveloped the sky near the international airport in central Khartoum, adjacent to army headquarters, and booms of artillery fire rattled the surroundings.

    U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the violence in a country that flanks the Red Sea, Horn of Africa and Sahel regions “risks a catastrophic conflagration … that could engulf the whole region and beyond”.

    The Security Council planned a meeting on Sudan on Tuesday.

    THOUSANDS FLEE

    Tens of thousands of people including Sudanese and citizens from neighbouring countries have fled in the past few days, to Egypt, Chad and South Sudan, despite instability and difficult living conditions there.

    [1/3] Spanish military plane and military vehicles are seen departing on tarmac as Spanish diplomatic personnel and citizens are evacuated, in Khartoum, Sudan, April 23. Spanish Defence Ministry via REUTERS

    Foreign governments have been working to bring their nationals to safety. One 65-vehicle convoy took dozens of children, along with hundreds of diplomats and aid workers, on an 800-km (500-mile), 35-hour journey in searing heat from Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

    For those remaining in Africa’s third-largest country, where a third of its 46 million people needed aid even before the violence, the situation was increasingly bleak.

    There were acute shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel and limited communications and electricity, with prices skyrocketing, said deputy U.N. spokesperson Farhan Haq.

    He cited reports of looting of humanitarian supplies and said “intense fighting” in Khartoum as well as in Northern, Blue Nile, North Kordofan and Darfur states was hindering relief operations.

    Facing attacks, aid organisations were among those withdrawing staff, and the World Food Programme suspended its food distribution mission, one of the largest in the world.

    “The quick evacuation of Westerners means that the country is on the brink of collapse. But we expect a greater role from them in supporting stability by pressuring the two sides to stop the war,” said Suleiman Awad, a 43-year-old academic in Omdurman.

    Several nations, including Canada, France, Poland, Switzerland and the United States, have halted embassy operations until further notice.

    Fighting calmed enough over the weekend for the United States and Britain to get embassy staff out, triggering a rush of evacuations of hundreds of foreign nationals by countries ranging from Gulf Arab states to Russia, Japan and South Korea.

    Japan said all its citizens who wished to leave Sudan had been evacuated. Paris said it had arranged evacuations of 491 people, including 196 French citizens and others from 36 other nationalities. A French warship was heading for Port Sudan to pick up more evacuees.

    Four German air force planes evacuated more than 400 people of various nationalities from Sudan as of Monday, while the Saudi foreign ministry said on Monday it evacuated 356 people, including 101 Saudis and people of 26 other nationalities.

    Several countries sent military planes from Djibouti. Families with children crowded into Spanish and French military transport aircraft, while a group of nuns were among the evacuees on an Italian plane, photographs showed.

    The U.N. secretary general urged the 15 members of the Security Council to use their clout to return Sudan to the path of democratic transition.

    Islamist autocrat Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in a popular uprising in 2019, and the army and RSF jointly mounted a 2021 military coup. But two years later, they fell out during negotiations to integrate and form a civilian government.

    Reporting by Sabine Siebold and Martin Schlicht in Berlin and Simon Johnson in Stockholm; Writing by Michael Georgy and Toby Chopra

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Brazil takes fight against racism abroad

    Brazil takes fight against racism abroad

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    LISBON, April 23 (Reuters) – Government officials from Brazil are using their president’s first visit to Europe since being elected to raise awareness and fight against the racial discrimination faced by the Brazilian community in Portugal and elsewhere.

    Brazil’s minister of racial equality, Anielle Franco, was one of the officials who travelled with President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Her mission was to bring discussions about racism to the table.

    “We’re not going to be able to solve 523 years of problems in just one visit but I hope we can move forward because that’s why we’re here,” Franco told reporters on Sunday, referring to centuries of oppression faced by Black people.

    Franco is the sister of Marielle Franco, a Black councilwoman in Rio de Janeiro who fought for racial justice and was shot dead in 2018.

    When elected, Lula said he aimed to attack racism and Brazil’s legacy of slavery. Portuguese vessels carried nearly 6 million enslaved Africans into slavery. Most went to Brazil.

    Europe’s top human rights group previously said Portugal had to confront its colonial past and role in the transatlantic slave trade to help fight racism and discrimination in the country today.

    “Let’s build a future without forgetting the debts of the past,” Franco wrote on Instagram. “Let’s build a future where cooperation is mutual between countries to seek justice and reparation.”

    In a letter addressed to Lula on Sunday, Lisbon-based migrant association Casa do Brasil said cases of discrimination against Brazilians in Portugal were on the rise.

    A study by Casa do Brasil showed 91% of Brazilians in Portugal, a community of around 300,000, have faced some sort of discrimination in access to public services.

    Franco met Portuguese parliament affairs minister Ana Catarina Mendes on Saturday to discuss policies to tackle racial injustice.

    Both governments agreed on a national strategy to combat racism.

    “We need to make it happen,” said Franco.

    Reporting by Catarina Demony; Editing by Christina Fincher

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Catarina Demony

    Thomson Reuters

    Portugal-based multimedia correspondent reporting on politics, economics, the environment and daily news. Previous experience in local journalism in the UK., co-founded a project telling the stories of Portuguese-speakers living in London, and edited a youth-led news site.

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  • Number of bodies exhumed from suspected Kenyan cult graves jumps to 47

    Number of bodies exhumed from suspected Kenyan cult graves jumps to 47

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    NAIROBI, April 23 (Reuters) – Kenyan police have now exhumed the bodies of 47 people thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death.

    Police near the coastal town of Malindi started exhuming bodies on Friday from the Shakahola forest.

    “In total, 47 people have died at the Shakahola forest,” detective Charles Kamau told Reuters on Sunday.

    The exhumations were still ongoing, Kamau said.

    [1/4] Kenya police officers stand guard as Forensic experts and homicide detectives exhume bodies of suspected members of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi county, Kenya April 22, 2023. REUTERS/Stringer

    Earlier this month, police rescued 15 members of the group — worshippers at the Good News International Church — who they said had been told to starve themselves to death. Four of them died before they reached hospital, police said.

    The leader of the church, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves belonging to at least 31 of Mackenzie’s followers.

    Local media, citing police sources, reported that Mackenzie has refused to eat or drink while in police custody.

    Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said the entire 800 acre forest had been sealed off and declared a scene of crime.

    “This horrendous blight on our conscience must lead not only to the most severe punishment of the perpetrator(s) of the atrocity on so many innocent souls, but tighter regulation (including self-regulation) of every church, mosque, temple or synagogue going forward,” he said.

    Reporting by Humphrey Malalo and Ayenat Mersie
    Editing by Christina Fincher

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Exclusive: Chinese firm imported copper from Russian-controlled part of Ukraine

    Exclusive: Chinese firm imported copper from Russian-controlled part of Ukraine

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    • Data shows Quzhou Nova bought $7.4 mln of ingots
    • Copper plant is in Russian-annexed part of Ukraine
    • Area is subject to U.S. sanctions against Moscow
    • Russian ally China does not abide by U.S. measures

    April 14 (Reuters) – A Chinese company bought at least $7.4 million worth of copper alloy ingots from a plant in a Russian-annexed region of Ukraine that is subject to Western sanctions, according to Russian customs data reviewed by Reuters.

    China has not imposed any restrictions on trade with Russia, but the United States has threatened to blacklist companies round the world for violating its sanctions and warned Beijing against supplying Moscow with goods banned by U.S. export rules.

    The customs information, drawn from one commercial trade data provider and cross-checked with two others, show some of the first evidence of Chinese trades with Russian-annexed regions of Ukraine since the war began on Feb. 24, 2022.

    The Chinese firm, Quzhou Nova, bought at least 3,220 tons of copper alloy in ingots worth a total of $7.4 million from the Debaltsevsky Plant of Metallurgical Engineering between Oct. 8, 2022 and March 24, 2023, according to the data.

    The plant is located in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, close to the border with Luhansk. Both Donetsk and Luhansk were among four Ukrainian regions that President Vladimir Putin claimed last September as part of Russia.

    Quzhou Nova, a trading and manufacturing company based in the city of Quzhou in the eastern province of Zhejiang, told Reuters it does not have any import and export business related to the trade of copper alloy in ingots.

    When Reuters showed details of the exports in the customs data to Quzhou Nova, the company said on March 23 that it “finds hard to understand the document, because this document is not stamped and signed”, and suggested contacting customs about the issue.

    The database, which collects information on all shipments worldwide, does not display stamps or signatures on its information.

    The Chinese customs service did not provide detailed information on imports. It said that “company trade data are not disclosed in our public information”.

    China imported copper and copper alloys worth $852 million from Russia between October and February, according to public customs statistics.

    A source at the Debaltsevsky plant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was a non-ferrous metallurgy workshop on the territory of the factory. The source declined to comment on the issue of copper alloy shipments to China, saying the information was a “trade secret”.

    Contacted for comment, the Russian Federal customs service told Reuters that information on companies is confidential and is not disclosed by the service.

    When asked about the matter on Friday, the Kremlin said it did not know whether the Reuters news story about the transaction was true or what proof was available. The Kremlin said it had no information about the subject itself.

    The Debaltsevsky Plant did not respond to Reuters requests for comments by phone and in writing.

    Ukraine, its Western allies and an overwhelming majority of countries at the U.N. General Assembly have condemned Russia’s declared annexation of the four regions as illegal.

    SANCTIONS

    U.S. sanctions imposed on Feb. 21, 2022, three days before Russia invaded Ukraine, prohibit U.S imports from or exports to the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics.

    Two days later, the European Union announced measures including an import ban on goods from the two regions.

    While Chinese companies are free as far as their authorities are concerned to trade with firms in Russian-controlled regions of Ukraine, they do risk being added to Western blacklists.

    Asked about the copper shipments data, the U.S. State Department said it was concerned about China’s alignment with the Kremlin.

    “We have warned the PRC (People’s Republic of China) that assistance to Russia’s war effort would have serious consequences. We will not hesitate to move against entities, including PRC firms, that help Russia wage war against Ukraine or help Russia circumvent sanctions,” it added in a statement to Reuters, listing some Chinese companies already sanctioned.

    The European Commision did not respond to Reuters’ questions as to whether Chinese companies cooperated with the Russian-annexed Ukrainian territories and what risks such activity posed.

    China’s Ministry of Commerce did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment about the shipments of copper alloys from the Debaltsevsky Plant or cooperation with businesses in the Donetsk region.

    The data seen by Reuters is based on shipping and customs documents like bill of lading and shipping bills and collected from several customs departments, government bodies and other partners.

    Quzhou Nova says it specialises in the export of wrapping paper. According to its website, it manufactures and trades goods for the tobacco industry, including paper, aluminium foil and polypropylene film.

    Reuters could not establish what use the copper alloy was intended for.

    The Ukrainian plant, located in the city of Debaltseve 70 km (45 miles) from the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Donetsk, specializes in making equipment and spare parts for ferrous metallurgy, the mining industry and cement plants, and has steelmaking and metal casting workshops, according to its website.

    Reuters was not able to find any data about the financial state of the company. It was added to the Russian state tax register in December 2022 and has yet to report financial data.

    According to a Ukrainian register, the legal status of the plant in Debaltseve has been suspended by the Ukrainian authorities. The register does not indicate when or why this happened.

    As of early 2023, its only owner was the Ukrainian Donetsk regional state administration.

    The Ukrainian government, as well as the Russian-appointed Donetsk People’s Republic administration, did not immediately comment to Reuters about cooperation with Chinese companies and shipments of goods to China.

    The copper alloy shipments from the plant were carried out via the port of Novorossiysk in southern Russia, according to the customs data.

    Reporting by Filipp Lebedev and Gleb Stolyarov in Tbilisi; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Cawthorne

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Over 18,000 cows die in Texas dairy farm blaze

    Over 18,000 cows die in Texas dairy farm blaze

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    April 13 (Reuters) – More than 18,000 cows died after an explosion and fire at a family dairy farm in west Texas, marking the deadliest such barn blaze on record in the United States.

    Firefighters rescued one employee from the South Fork Dairy near Dimmitt on Monday as flames raced through a building and into holding pens, according to images and statements from the Castro County Sheriff’s Office.

    The cause of the fire was under investigation and it was not immediately possible to contact members of the family who own the farm in one of Texas’ biggest milk production counties.

    The blaze prompted calls from the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI), among the oldest U.S. animal protection groups, for federal laws to prevent barn fires which kill hundreds of thousands of farm animals each year.

    There are no federal regulations protecting animals from the fires and only a few states, Texas not among them, have adopted fire protection codes for such buildings, according to an AWI statement.

    The blaze was the most devastating U.S. barn fire involving cattle since the AWI began tracking such incidents in 2013. Around 6.5 million farm animals have died in such fires in the last decade, most of them poultry.

    Reporting By Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico; Editing by Daniel Wallis

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • No China, no deal: Bid to break sovereign debt logjams gets weary thumbs up

    No China, no deal: Bid to break sovereign debt logjams gets weary thumbs up

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    LONDON, April 13 (Reuters) – The latest bid by the world’s leading institutions and creditors to speed up debt restructurings and get bankrupt countries back on their feet has been greeted by a mix of cautious optimism and weary scepticism by veteran crisis watchers.

    Standoffs between major Western-backed lenders like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the world’s top bilateral creditor, China, have been blamed for keeping countries such as Zambia mired in default for nearly three years.

    The somewhat loose framework around sovereign restructurings has seen Beijing seek to influence the traditional rules of engagement in these processes.

    The renewed push to overcome the logjams came after a “roundtable” at the IMF Spring Meetings and included pledges from the Fund and World Bank to share assessments of countries’ troubles more quickly, provide more low-interest and grant funding and stricter timeframes on restructurings overall.

    The idea is that Beijing would then drop its insistence that the multilateral lenders take losses, or “haircuts”, on the loans they have provided or underwritten in crisis-hit countries.

    Beijing has not commented directly on the demand for multilateral lender haircuts, but in remarks published on Friday People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang reiterated China’s willingness to implement debt talks under the Common Framework, the platform introduced by leading G20 nations in 2020 to streamline talks with all creditors.

    “If the multilateral development banks are now making real commitments to provide fresh grants to distressed countries this is a breakthrough,” said Kevin Gallagher, director of the Boston University Global Development Policy Center.

    But he added that as the new plans lacked specific mention of China’s intentions it suggested the “lack of a strong and clear consensus” in Washington.

    The IMF’s managing director Kristalina Georgieva has stressed that with around 15% of low income countries already in debt distress and dozens more in danger of falling into it, far more urgency is needed.

    Besides members of the Paris Club of creditor nations such as the United States, France and Japan, cash-strapped nations now have to rework loans with lenders such as India, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Kuwait – but first and foremost China.

    Beijing is now the largest bilateral creditor to developing nations, extending $138 billion in new loans between 2010 and 2021, according to World Bank data, and some estimates put total lending at almost $850 billion.

    Reuters Graphics

    HEADWINDS

    Global headwinds are about to get stronger too.

    Financially weaker countries with “junk”-grade sovereign credit ratings need to repay or refinance $30 billion worth of government bonds next year between them, compared to just $8.4 billion for the remainder of this one.

    The rise in global borrowing costs, though, means that many countries under the greatest stress are now unable to borrow in the international capital markets or, if they can, only at unsustainably high interest rates.

    The Chinese debt, meanwhile, is often opaque and muddied by arguments about whether the loans have been given by “official” entities – i.e by the government – or by “private” entities.

    Authorities in Beijing also prefer to roll over debt payments rather than write them off, and given it is an increasingly dominant creditor, it has little incentive to follow co-operative Paris Club-like principles.

    “It would be great to have China on board (with the push to speed up restructurings) but I don’t really have high hopes because there is a lot of geopolitics involved,” said Viktor Szabo, an emerging market debt manager at Abrdn in London.

    Select IMF loans to low and middle income countries by date of Board approval

    COMMON PROBLEMS

    Recent research by Boston University estimated that up to $520 billion in debt needs to be written off to help developing nations at greatest risk of default return to a sounder fiscal footing.

    But lengthy delays in Zambia, and more recently in Sri Lanka, have elicited widespread criticism of the Common Framework.

    Wednesday’s promises by the IMF to provide its assessments more quickly was an admission that the Common Framework was currently failing, Szabo added.

    “You have to make it functional. The fact that it’s been in place for three years and there is nothing to really show for it, that is really appalling.”

    Anna Ashton, director of China research at Eurasia Group, said this week’s developments underscored the benefits for China to give some ground on some of its concerns.

    “Being willing to compromise and facilitate debt restructuring right now is likely crucial to China’s continued credibility with the developing world writ large,” Ashton said.

    Patrick Curran, senior economist with Tellimer, added that China dropping demands for the big multilateral development banks (MDBs) to swallow losses on their loans could also be “a major breakthrough”.

    “There is likely to be broad support for the alternative proposal that MDBs mobilize their resources more aggressively, especially at a time when most low-income countries are locked out of the market,” Curran said.

    Germany’s finance minister Christian Lindner on Thursday too said all the talk now needed to be converted into action.

    The group that took part in Wednesday’s roundtable plans to meet again in coming weeks to address remaining issues, including how various creditors are treated, principles for cut-off dates and suspending debt payments.

    Ultimately, whether the new terms help Zambia, and countries like Sri Lanka, Ghana and Ethiopia that are also in the midst of bailout talks, finalise deals will be the only proof of whether the new terms work.

    “China is a difficult partner to talk to but we need China at the table for the solution of debt problems, because otherwise we won’t see any progress,” Lindner said.

    Reuters Graphics

    Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York and Joe Cash in Beijing
    Editing by Mark Potter

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Europe presses tough Taiwan stance after backlash against Macron comments

    Europe presses tough Taiwan stance after backlash against Macron comments

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    April 14 (Reuters) – European foreign policy officials on Friday urged China not to use force over Taiwan, taking a tough stance against Beijing’s threats over the democratically governed island, after comments by French President Emmanuel Macron were perceived as weak.

    China in recent days has held intense military drills around Taiwan, which it claims as its own, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, addressing the issue at a press conference in Beijing alongside her Chinese counterpart Qin Gang, said any attempt by China to control Taiwan would be unacceptable and would have serious repercussions for Europe.

    EU foreign policy chief Joseph Borrell echoed her remarks in a statement prepared for a speech due to be delivered in Beijing at the Center for China and Globalization think tank on Friday that had to be cancelled after he caught COVID-19.

    “A military escalation in the Taiwan Strait, through which … 50% of world trade goes every day, would be a horror scenario for the entire world,” said Baerbock, adding it would have “inevitable repercussions” for European interests.

    In interviews published after his trip to China last week, which was meant to showcase European unity on China policy, Macron cautioned against being drawn into a crisis over Taiwan driven by an “American rhythm and a Chinese overreaction”.

    While many of the remarks were not new, the timing of their publication, and their bluntness, annoyed many Western officials.

    “The European Union’s position (on Taiwan) is consistent and clear,” Borrell said in his remarks. “Any attempt to change the status quo by force would be unacceptable.”

    UKRAINE ISSUE

    Borrell also said Europe’s future relationship with China depended on it trying to use its influence to find a political solution to the Ukraine crisis.

    “It will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the European Union to maintain a relationship of trust with China, which I would like to see, if China does not contribute to the search for a political solution based on Russia’s withdrawal from the Ukrainian territory,” Borrell said.

    “Neutrality in the face of the violation of international law is not credible,” Borrell said, adding an appeal for Chinese President Xi Jinping to speak to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and for China to provide more humanitarian aid to Ukraine.

    Xi has met Russian President Vladimir Putin twice but not spoken with Zelenskiy since Russia invaded Ukraine in what Moscow calls a “special military operation” in February 2022.

    China stated its opposition to attacks on civilians and on nuclear facilities in a position paper on Ukraine published in February, but it has refrained from openly criticising Russia.

    “President Xi’s visit to Moscow has demonstrated that no other country has a bigger influence on Russia than China,” said Baerbock.

    “It is good that China has signalled to get engaged in finding a solution. But I have to say clearly that I wonder why China so far has not asked the aggressor Russia to stop the war. We all know President Putin has the opportunity to do so any time he wants to.”

    Poland’s prime minister warned earlier this week that Ukraine’s defeat may embolden China to invade Taiwan.

    Baerbock and Borrell also spoke about the risks of being too dependent economically on China, in line with comments made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in a speech last month on the eve of her China visit.

    “We just paid a high price for our energy dependency on Russia, and it is well-known that one should not make the same mistake twice,” said Baerbock, adding that economic security is core to Germany’s strategy for China.

    Borrell said that the EU needs to diversify its value chains to reduce its dependency on China for raw materials.

    He also said that the increasing trade imbalances between the EU and China are “unsustainable” and called on China to remove market access barriers.

    Reporting by Yew Lun Tian in Beijing; Editing by Clarence Fernandez

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Ukraine’s Zelenskiy aims for Western warplane coalition; Russians pressure Bakhmut

    Ukraine’s Zelenskiy aims for Western warplane coalition; Russians pressure Bakhmut

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    • Poland pledges more MiG jets for Kyiv during Zelenskiy visit
    • Zelenskiy cites difficult situation for Kyiv’s forces in Bakhmut
    • France’s Macron in China to nudge it to help end Russia’s war

    KYIV, April 5 (Reuters) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during a trip to Warsaw on Wednesday that Poland would help form a coalition of Western powers to supply warplanes to Kyiv, adding that Ukrainian troops were still fighting for Bakhmut in the east but could withdraw if they risked being cut off.

    Neighbouring Poland is a close ally of Ukraine and helped galvanise support in the West to supply main battle tanks to Kyiv. During Zelenskiy’s visit, Poland announced it would send 10 more MiG fighter jets on top of four provided earlier.

    “Just as your (Polish) leadership proved itself in the tank coalition, I believe that it will manifest itself in the planes coalition,” Zelenskiy said in a speech on a square in Warsaw.

    Earlier in the day, Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops faced a really difficult situation in Bakhmut and the military would take “corresponding” decisions to protect them if they risk being encircled by Russian invasion forces.

    Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut sometimes advanced a little only to be knocked back, Zelenskiy said, but remained inside the city.

    “We are in Bakhmut and the enemy does not control it,” Zelenskiy said.

    BOMBARDMENT

    Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s mainly Russian-occupied Donetsk province, has proven one of the bloodiest and longest battles of Russia’s invasion, now in its 14th month. Kyiv’s forces have held out against a Russian onslaught with heavy losses on both sides and the city, a mining and transport hub, reduced to ruin after months of street fighting and bombardment.

    “For me, the most important is not to lose our soldiers and of course if there is a moment of even hotter events and the danger we could lose our personnel because of encirclement – of course the corresponding correct decisions will be taken by generals there,” Zelenskiy said.

    He appeared to be referring to the idea of withdrawing.

    However, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said later in that the situation at the front was “completely under control” despite repeated Russian attempts to take Bakhmut and other cities in the east.

    Reuters could not verify the battlefield reports.

    Ukrainian military commanders have stressed the importance of holding Bakhmut and other cities and inflicting losses on Russian troops before an anticipated counter-offensive against them in the coming weeks or months.

    [1/6] Ukrainian service member, Naza, 21, commander from 28th mechanised brigade repositions his machine gun during a fire exchange at the frontline, amid Russia?s attack on Ukraine in the region of Bakhmut, Ukraine, April 5, 2023. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach

    Mercenaries from the Wagner group – who have spearheaded the assault on Bakhmut – said at the weekend they had captured the city centre, a claim dismissed by Kyiv.

    The U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War said the Wagner fighters had made advances in Bakhmut and were likely to continue trying to consolidate control of the city centre and push westward through dense urban neighbourhoods.

    PLAYING THE CHINA CARD

    French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, was visiting China after he and U.S. President Joe Biden agreed they would try to engage Beijing to hasten the end of the Russian assault on Ukraine.

    China has called for a comprehensive ceasefire and described its position on the conflict as “impartial”, even though the Chinese and Russian presidents announced a “no limits” partnership shortly before the invasion.

    Both Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, due in Beijing shortly after him, have said they want to persuade China to use its influence over Russia to bring peace in Ukraine, or to at least deter Beijing from directly supporting Moscow in the conflict.

    The U.S. and NATO have said China was considering sending arms to Russia, which Beijing has denied.

    ‘SHOULDER TO SHOULDER’

    Poland has played a big role in persuading Western allies to supply battle tanks and other heavy weapons to Ukraine, which helped Kyiv stem and sometimes reverse Russian advances so far.

    “You have stood shoulder to shoulder with us, and we are grateful for it,” Zelenskiy said after Polish President Andrzej Duda presented him with Poland’s highest award, the Order of the White Eagle.

    Duda said Warsaw was also working to secure additional security guarantees for Ukraine at a NATO summit to be held in the Lithuania in July.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told state TV that Moscow needed to maintain relations with Washington even though American supplies of weapons to Ukraine meant “we are really in a hot phase of the war”.

    In addition to MiG-29s, Kyiv has also pressed NATO for F-16 jet fighters but Duda’s foreign policy adviser, Marcin Przydacz, said Poland would not decide soon on whether to send any.

    Reporting by Pavel Polityuk with additional reporting by Ron Popeski, Mike Stone, Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz and Tom Balmforth; writing by Angus MacSwan, Mark Heinrich and Idrees Ali; editing by Philippa Fletcher, Nick Macfie and Grant McCool

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • China warns US House Speaker not to meet Taiwan president

    China warns US House Speaker not to meet Taiwan president

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    • McCarthy, Tsai to meet in Los Angeles on Wednesday
    • China again warns McCarthy against meeting
    • Taiwan says China’s criticism “increasingly absurd”

    BEIJING/TAIPEI, April 4 (Reuters) – China warned U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday not to “repeat disastrous past mistakes” by meeting Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, saying it would not help regional peace and stability, only unite the Chinese people against a common enemy.

    The Republican McCarthy, the third-most-senior U.S. leader after the president and vice president, will host a meeting in California on Wednesday with Tsai, during a sensitive stopover in the United States that has prompted Chinese threats of retaliation.

    China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, staged war games around the island last August after then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, visited the capital, Taipei.

    Tsai will make what is formally called a “transit” in Los Angeles on her way back to Taipei after a trip to Central America. The United States says such stopovers are common practice and there is no need for China to overreact.

    But China’s consulate in Los Angeles said it was “false” to claim it as a transit, adding that Tsai was engaging in official exchanges to “put on a political show”.

    No matter in what capacity McCarthy meets Tsai, the gesture would greatly harm the feelings of the Chinese people, send a serious wrong signal to Taiwan separatist forces, and affect the political foundation of Sino-U.S. ties, it said in a statement.

    “It is not conducive to regional peace, security nor stability, and is not in the common interests of the people of China and the United States,” the consulate added.

    McCarthy is ignoring the lessons from the mistakes of his predecessor, it said, in a veiled reference to Pelosi’s Taipei visit, and is insisting on playing the “Taiwan card”.

    “He will undoubtedly repeat disastrous past mistakes and further damage Sino-U.S. relations. It will only strengthen the Chinese people’s strong will and determination to share a common enemy and support national unity.”

    Speaking to reporters in Beijing on Tuesday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said China will closely follow developments and resolutely and vigorously defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, without giving details.

    CHINESE MILITARY ACTIVITIES

    Although Taiwan has not reported unusual Chinese movements in the run-up to the meeting, China’s military has continued activities around the island.

    Taiwan’s defence ministry on Tuesday morning reported that in the previous 24 hours it had spotted nine Chinese military aircraft in its air defence identification zone, in an area between Taiwan’s southwest coast and the Taiwan-controlled Pratas Islands at the top of the South China Sea.

    In a statement on Tuesday, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said China had no right to complain, as the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island.

    China’s recent criticism of Tsai’s trip “has become increasingly absurd”, it added.

    “Even if the authoritarian government continues with its expansion and intensifies coercion, Taiwan will not back down,” the statement said.

    In China, prominent commentator Hu Xijin wrote on his widely followed Twitter account “the Chinese mainland will definitely react, and make the Tsai Ing-wen regime lose much more than what they can gain from this meeting.”

    Hu, who had voiced his concerns over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last year, also wrote “The U.S. side is definitely not getting any real advantage either,” on his Weibo account, a Twitter-like social media platform in China.

    Hu is former editor-in-chief of Chinese state-backed tabloid the Global Times, known for its strident nationalistic stance.

    Taiwan has lived with the threat of a Chinese attack since the defeated Republic of China government fled to the island in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists.

    Life in Taiwan has continued as normal, with shops, restaurants and tourist spots in Taipei packed during a long holiday weekend that ends on Wednesday.

    “They will certainly get angry and there will be some actions, but we are actually used to this,” said social worker Sunny Lai, 42.

    Reporting by Laurie Chen in Beijing and Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Additional reporting by Beijing newsroom and Fabian Hamacher in Taipei; Editing by Himani Sarkar, Clarence Fernandez and Gerry Doyle

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Laurie Chen

    Thomson Reuters

    Laurie Chen is a China Correspondent at Reuters’ Beijing bureau, covering politics and general news. Before joining Reuters, she reported on China for six years at Agence France-Presse and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She speaks fluent Mandarin.

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  • Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine slams Putin’s nuclear weapons plan

    Russia’s war on Ukraine latest: Ukraine slams Putin’s nuclear weapons plan

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    March 26 (Reuters) – A top security adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russian plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus would destabilise that country, which he said had been taken “hostage” by Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the decision on Saturday, sending a warning to NATO over its military support for Ukraine and escalating a standoff with the West.

    DIPLOMACY AND SANCTIONS

    * Russia and China are not creating a military alliance and the cooperation between their armed forces is “transparent”, Putin said in comments broadcast on Sunday, days after hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping in the Kremlin.

    * Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday he would push for fair peace in the war in Ukraine that included “territorial integrity”, when he visits China next week.

    * Putin held a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, the Kremlin said. Erdogan thanked Putin for his “positive attitude” in extending the Black Sea grain deal, the Kremlin said in a statement.

    BATTLEFIELD

    * Ukrainian forces have managed to blunt Russia’s offensive in and around the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, where the situation is stabilising, commander in chief General Valery Zaluzhniy said on Saturday. Separately, Britain’s defence ministry said the months-long Russian assault on the city had stalled, mainly as a result of heavy troop losses.

    * The Ukraine General Staff said on Sunday Ukrainian forces had repelled 85 Russian attacks over the past 24 hours in several parts of the eastern front, including the Bakhmut area.

    * U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Saturday he will visit the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine next week to assess the serious situation there.

    * More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia’s Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday.

    *Reuters could not independently verify battlefield reports.

    ECONOMY

    * Ukraine will no longer resort to “dangerous” monetary financing to fund the war against Russia, its central bank governor, Andriy Pyshnyi, told the Financial Times in an interview.

    RECENT IN-DEPTH STORIES

    * INSIGHT-Inside Ukraine’s scramble for “game-changer” drone fleet

    * Peace plans and pipelines: What came out of the Putin-Xi talks?

    * SPECIAL REPORT-Wagner’s convicts tell of horrors of Ukraine war and loyalty to their leader

    Compiled by Reuters editors

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  • California farmers flood their fields in order to save them

    California farmers flood their fields in order to save them

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    HELM, California, March 24 (Reuters) – When Don Cameron first intentionally flooded his central California farm in 2011, pumping excess stormwater onto his fields, fellow growers told him he was crazy.

    Today, California water experts see Cameron as a pioneer. His experiment to control flooding and replenish the ground water has become a model that policy makers say others should emulate.

    With the drought-stricken state suddenly inundated by a series of rainstorms, California’s outdated infrastructure has let much of the stormwater drain into the Pacific Ocean. Cameron estimated his operation is returning 8,000 to 9,000 acre-feet of water back to the ground monthly during this exceptionally wet year, from both rainwater and melted snowpack. That would be enough water for 16,000 to 18,000 urban households in a year.

    “When we started doing this, our neighbors thought we were absolutely crazy. Everyone we talked to thought we would kill the crop. And lo and behold, believe me, it turned out great,” said Cameron, vice president and general manager of Terra Nova Ranch, a 6,000-acre (2,400-hectare) farm growing wine grapes, almonds, walnuts, pistachios, olives and other crops in the San Joaquin Valley, the heart of California’s $50 billion agricultural industry.

    If more farmers would inundate their fields rather than divert precipitation into flood channels, that excess could seep underground and get stored for when drought conditions return.

    California swings between disastrous drought and raging floodwaters. This season has been especially rainy, with 12 atmospheric rivers pounding California since late December, placing greater importance on flood control. More wet weather is forecast in the coming week.

    Terra Nova’s basins are filled with 1.5 to 3.5 feet of water, Cameron said Wednesday. He plans to eventually flood 530 acres of pistachio trees and 150 acres of wine grapes plus another 350 acres that are planted only when excess floodwater is available.

    The state Department of Water Resources provided $5 million and Terra Nova another $8 million for the project, which includes a pumping system. So far there has been virtually zero return for the company, Cameron said, though it may acquire future water rights for its groundwater contributions.

    Cameron “is definitely what we call the godfather of on-farm recharge. He’s really the pioneer who began doing it first,” said Ashley Boren, CEO of Sustainable Conservation, an environmental group with a focus on supporting sustainable groundwater management.

    This mimicking of nature – letting water flow across the landscape – is the most cost-effective way to manage peak flood flows, experts say, while banking the surplus for drier days.

    “It’s not only going to benefit us, it will benefit our neighbors,” Cameron said.

    Cameron began his 30-year-old passion project before the state passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) of 2014, a law that sought to avoid a looming disaster from overdrafts.

    Since then, policy makers have worked on economic incentives for more farmers to follow suit. Some water districts that are responsible for implementing SGMA have offered growers credits toward water rights in exchange for recharge. Pending state legislation would simplify permitting and guarantee water rights for participating growers.

    California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order on March 10 making it easier for farmers to divert floodwaters onto their lands until June.

    There is no statewide monitoring of on-farm recharge, but Sustainable Conservation is keeping track of four water districts in the San Joaquin Valley that recorded 260 farmers replenishing their aquifers this year, returning at least 50,000 acre-feet (61.7 million cubic meters) back into the ground as of mid-February.

    California, which has a strategic goal of adding 4 million acre-feet of storage, recently provided $260 million in grants to Groundwater Sustainability Agencies established under SGMA. The state received applications seeking $800 million, indicating demand for projects, said Paul Gosselin, deputy director of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Office.

    Besides cost, growers face other obstacles to on-farm recharge. A farm must have access to the water, cannot hurt endangered species and cannot flood land subjected to certain fertilizers or pesticides or dairy farm waste.

    In the Merced River Watershed, willing farmers could recapture enough future floodwater to replace 31% of the groundwater they are overdrafting under existing conditions, said Daniel Mountjoy, director of resource stewardship for Sustainable Conservation, who participated in a state study. That could jump to 63% with changes in reservoir management and infrastructure improvements, he said.

    To achieve sustainability throughout the San Joaquin Valley, an estimated 750,000 to 1 million acres of irrigated farmland would have to be fallowed, Mountjoy said.

    “We’re at the beginning of a lot of momentum for groundwater recharge programs,” said Gosselin, of the state groundwater office. “The last two years (of extreme drought) was a wakeup call for everybody.”

    Reporting by Mike Blake in Helm and Daniel Trotta in Carlsbad, Calif. Editing by Donna Bryson and David Gregorio

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

    Michael Roy Blake

    Thomson Reuters

    Mike Blake is a senior photographer with Reuters and a member of the Pulitzer Prize winning team for Breaking News Photography in 2019. He began his career with Reuters in Toronto, Canada in 1985 and has traveled the World covering Olympic Games (18 in total) and World sporting events as well as breaking news and feature stories. Previously based in Vancouver and now Los Angeles, Blake attended Emily Carr College of Art and began his career making prints at a major daily newspaper. Blake grew up skateboarding and taking pictures and continues to do so now in his spare time.

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  • Russia presses along Ukraine front after reports of Bakhmut slowdown

    Russia presses along Ukraine front after reports of Bakhmut slowdown

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    • Fighting along Donbas front as Russia presses offensive
    • Kyiv says civilians killed in strike on shelter
    • Red Cross says civilians in Bakhmut at limits of survival
    • Biden and Trudeau reaffirm ‘steadfast’ support for Ukraine

    NEAR KREMINNA, Ukraine, March 24 (Reuters) – Russian forces attacked northern and southern stretches of the front in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region on Friday, even as Kyiv said Moscow’s assault was flagging near the city of Bakhmut.

    Ukrainian military reports described heavy fighting along a line running from Lyman to Kupiansk, as well as in the south at Avdiivka on the outskirts of the Russian-held city of Donetsk.

    Both areas have been major Russian targets in a winter campaign to fully capture Ukraine’s industrialised Donbas region. The offensive has so far yielded scant gains despite the deaths of thousands of troops on both sides in the war’s bloodiest fighting.

    At a Ukrainian artillery position in lush pine forests behind the northern stretch of the front, troops fired 155 mm rounds from a French TRF-1 howitzer towards a highway used to supply Russian-held Kreminna.

    “Luckily we are holding the same position,” a soldier told Reuters. “Because we are facing a very strong enemy with very good arms. And it’s a professional army: airborne troops.”

    As orders came in with coordinates, the crew jumped into position, removed camouflage, aimed, loaded and fired. After three rounds, they lowered their gun’s barrel, covered it back up and returned to bunkers to await further orders. Artillery and small arms fire could be heard in the distance.

    The front lines have barely budged since November, despite intense fighting. Ukraine recaptured swathes of territory in the second half of 2022, but has since kept mostly to the defensive, while Russia has attacked with hundreds of thousands of freshly called-up reservists and convicts recruited from prison.

    As winter turns to spring, the main question in Ukraine is how much longer Russia can sustain its offensive, and when or whether Ukraine can reverse the momentum with a counterassault.

    Meeting in Ottawa on Friday, U.S. President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reaffirmed their “steadfast support for the Ukrainian people as they defend themselves against Putin’s brutal and barbaric invasion,” Trudeau said.

    On Thursday, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces said Russia’s assault on Bakhmut, a small city that has been the focus of the biggest battle of the war, appeared to be losing steam and Kyiv could go on the offensive “very soon”.

    ‘PEOPLE PUSHED TO THE VERY LIMITS’

    For now, Ukrainian forces are still focused on preventing a Russian advance along more than 300 km (185 miles) of Donbas front, from Kupiansk in the north to Vuhledar in the south.

    “Shelling of Avdiivka does not stop – artillery, rockets, mortars,” said Oleksiy Dmytrashkyvskyi of Ukraine’s Tavria military command, responsible for southern areas, who said he was saddened by the conditions suffered by the mostly elderly people who did not want to leave.

    Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the east command defending the front farther north, said Russia’s main focus was on a stretch from Kupiansk to Lyman recaptured by Ukrainian forces last year.

    [1/5] Anti-aircraft unit serviceman of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, call sign “Chub”, 34, prepares to pose for a portrait with a portable anti-aircraft missile system, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near Soledar north of Bakhmut, Ukraine March 23, 2023. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

    Both said the Russians were reinforcing after heavy losses. There was no similar update from the Russian side, which has long claimed to be inflicting heavy casualties on the Ukrainians.

    In Bakhmut itself, Ukrainian troops, who weeks ago appeared likely to pull back, have instead dug in, a strategy some Western military experts say is risky given the need to conserve forces for a counterattack.

    The International Committee of the Red Cross said some 10,000 Ukrainian civilians, many elderly and with disabilities, were suffering “very dire conditions” in and around Bakhmut.

    “They are … spending almost the entire days in intense shelling in the [underground] shelters,” the ICRC’s Umar Khan told a news briefing. “All you see is people pushed to the very limits of their existence and survival and resilience.”

    The United Nations issued its latest report on rights abuses in the war, confirming thousands of civilian deaths, which it describes as the tip of the iceberg, as well as disappearances, torture and rape, mostly of Ukrainians in Russian-occupied areas. Russia denies atrocities.

    RUSSIAN ECONOMY BURDENED

    In Kostiantynivka, west of Bakhmut, a Russian missile slammed into a refuge offering warm shelter for civilians, killing at least three women, local officials said.

    In the northern Sumy region, an administrative building, a school building and residential buildings were among those damaged by Russian shelling that killed two civilians, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office said.

    There was no immediate Russian response to the reports.

    Russia said its forces had destroyed a hangar housing Ukrainian drones in the Odesa region in the south.

    Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, saying Ukraine’s ties to the West were a security threat. Since then, tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians as well as soldiers on both sides have been killed. Kyiv and the West call the war an unprovoked assault to subdue an independent country.

    Dmitry Medvedev, a hardline Kremlin official, said Moscow wants to create demilitarised zones around Ukrainian territory it claims to have annexed, and would otherwise battle deep into Ukraine.

    While Russia’s invasion has wreaked colossal damage in Ukraine, increased defence spending, Western sanctions and the loss of hundreds of thousands of young men from the workforce have also caused economic upheaval at home.

    The Social Policy Institute at Moscow’s Higher School of Economics found in a study released this week that, even in its most optimistic scenario, real incomes would only exceed 2021 levels by 2% by the decade’s end and a middle class that grew after Vladimir Putin became president in 2000 would shrink markedly.

    Reporting by Mike Collett-White west of Kreminna, Pavel Polityuk in Kyiv and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Alex Richardson and Cynthia Osterman

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Free-diver plunges to record depth beneath frozen Swiss lake

    Free-diver plunges to record depth beneath frozen Swiss lake

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    LAKE SILS, Switzerland, March 14 (Reuters) – David Vencl emerged from the depths of Switzerland’s Lake Sils on Tuesday after a record dive beneath the ice to a depth of more than 50 meters without a wetsuit.

    The 40-year-old Czech diver’s record vertical plunge to 52.1 meters in a single breath follows his entry into the Guinness World Records book for swimming the length of a frozen Czech lake in 2021.

    Vencl dived through a hole in the ice then retrieved a sticker from a depth of 50 meters to prove his feat before re-emerging through the same hole. He spat some blood, sat down for a minute and then opened a bottle of champagne. A later visit to the hospital confirmed there was nothing serious.

    [1/3] Czech freediver David Vencl dives to 52 metres under the ice of Lake Sils in one breath and wearing only a swimsuit in this picture taken from a video in Sils near St. Moritz, Switzerland March 14, 2023. David Vencl Organisation/Handout via REUTERS

    The Swiss plunge in temperatures of between 1 and 4 degrees Celsius took him 1 minute 54 seconds, his promoter Pavel Kalous said, which was a bit slower than expected.

    “He kind of enjoyed it but he admits he was a little more nervous than usual and he had some problems with breathing,” he told Reuters.

    “There is nothing difficult for him to be in cold water… Lack of oxygen is something normal for him. But this was completely different because it’s really difficult to work with the pressure in your ears in cold water,” he added.

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    “If you combine all these three things: cold water, lack of oxygen and the problem with working with pressure, it’s something very unique,” he added.

    Reporting by Denis Balibouse in Lake Sils, Switzerland
    Writing by Emma Farge
    Editing by Matthew Lewis

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • As Russia looms, US seeks influence in West Africa’s fight against Islamists

    As Russia looms, US seeks influence in West Africa’s fight against Islamists

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    DABOYA, Ghana, March 15 (Reuters) – U.S. commanders leading annual counter-terrorism exercises in West Africa have urged coastal countries to depend on each other to contain a spreading Islamist insurgency, rather than non-Western powers, after Mali last year hired Russian mercenaries.

    Relations between Russia and the U.S. have become more hostile since Moscow invaded Ukraine over a year ago, and Washington and its allies oppose Russian influence in West Africa.

    During drills this month in northern Ghana, trainers urged troops to share phone numbers with foreign counterparts operating over poorly marked borders, often just a few miles apart. Elsewhere, soldiers have also learned to use motorbikes, as the insurgents do, for their speed and manoeuvrability.

    Overrun by Islamist groups, and amid a row with former colonial power France, Mali’s military government last year hired private Russian military contractor Wagner Group, whose fighters are playing key roles in Ukraine, to combat the militants. This has worried Western governments and the United Nations who say the move has led to a spike in violence.

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    Mali, whose government took power in a 2021 military coup, has previously said Russian forces are not mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with equipment from Russia.

    “You have governments with so many problems that they begin reaching out to other malign actors who are perhaps more exploitive of the resources in those countries,” Colonel Robert Zyla from U.S. Special Operations Command Africa (SOCAF) told Reuters at exercises in Ghana.

    “Contrast that with what we’re trying to bring, which are partnerships between neighbours and other democratic nations.”

    In this month’s exercises, soldiers patrolled barren scrubland dotted with thin bushes. At the centre of the strategy is engaging border communities and making sure armies work together in a region where frontiers span hundreds of miles of sparsely populated desert.

    “No one country can solve this by themselves,” Zyla said. “Going forward it will be about teaching countries in the region how to reach across borders and talk.”

    [1/5] Ghanaian military personnel train shooting during the annual counter-terrorism program called “Operation Flintlock”, in Daboya, Ghana March 2, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Kokoroko

    FAILURE TO STOP INSURGENCY

    For a decade, offensive efforts have failed to stop an Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions. Security experts say it could get worse after thousands of French troops were forced out of Mali and Burkina Faso by military juntas this year.

    The main challenge is a lack of resources and large-scale international commitment to defence in one of the poorest parts of the world, experts said.

    Ghana has bolstered troops in its northern regions. But it has no reconnaissance drones to monitor border areas, said Colonel Richard Kainyi Mensah, chief operations officer for Ghana’s special operations brigade.

    “Logistics and equipment are key,” he said. “Resources are limited.”

    It is not clear what more resources the U.S. and Europe are willing to give. The U.S. has been reluctant to engage after four soldiers were killed in Niger in 2017. The UK, Germany and other nations are pulling troops from a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali as security worsens.

    Earlier this month, General Michael Langley, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, told journalists that “stabilization and security” were its focus in Africa, without providing details.

    Some believe that not enough is being done.

    “There’s a lot of hesitancy to deploy more than we need to,” said Aneliese Bernard, director of Strategic Stabilization Advisors, a U.S.-based risk advisory group. “The irony is that means we’re basically putting a Band-Aid on a severed limb.”

    Timing is crucial, security experts and military officials said. Islamist violence that began in 2012 in Mali has spread. Armed groups have a foothold in coastal countries including Benin and Togo and threaten economic leaders Ivory Coast and Ghana.

    Reporting by Cooper Inveen in Daboya and Edward McAllister in Dakar; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Cynthia Osterman

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Exclusive: Ukraine accuses Russian snipers of abusing child, gang raping mother

    Exclusive: Ukraine accuses Russian snipers of abusing child, gang raping mother

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    • Soldiers assaulted family soon after invasion, prosecutors say
    • Ukraine accuses Russian army of widespread sexual assaults
    • President Vladimir Putin’s government denies atrocities

    KYIV, March 14 (Reuters) – Ukraine has accused two Russian soldiers of sexually assaulting a four-year-old girl and gang raping her mother at gunpoint in front of her father, as part of widespread allegations of abuse during the more than one-year-long invasion.

    According to Ukrainian prosecution files seen by Reuters, the incidents were among a spree of sex crimes Russian soldiers of the 15th Separate Motorized Rifle Brigade committed in four homes of Brovary district near the capital Kyiv in March 2022.

    Russia’s Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Phone numbers listed for the brigade were out of order. Two officials at the Samara Garrison, of which the brigade is a part, said they were unable to give contacts for the unit when contacted by Reuters, with one saying they were classified.

    During Moscow’s failed push to capture Kyiv after its Feb. 24 invasion, soldiers entered Brovary a few days later, looting and using sexual violence as a deliberate tactic to terrorise the population, the Ukrainian prosecutors said.

    “They singled out the women beforehand, coordinated their actions and their roles,” said the prosecutors, whose 2022 documents were based on interviews with witnesses and survivors.

    Most of the alleged atrocities took place on March 13, when soldiers “in a state of alcoholic intoxication, broke into the yard of the house where a young family lived,” the prosecutors alleged.

    The father was beaten with a metal pot then forced to kneel while his wife was gang raped. One of the soldiers told the four-year-old girl he “will make her a woman” before she was abused, the documents said.

    The family survived, though prosecutors said they are investigating additional crimes in the area including murders during the same period.

    President Vladimir Putin’s government, which says it is fighting Western-backed “neo-Nazis” in Ukraine, has repeatedly denied allegations of atrocities. It has also denied that its military commanders are aware of sexual violence by soldiers.

    The soldiers were both snipers, aged 32 and 28, the files said, adding that the former had died while the younger, named as Yevgeniy Chernoknizhniy, returned to Russia.

    When Reuters asked for the identities of both soldiers, prosecutors provided only the name of the younger man. When Reuters called a number in online databases for him, a person saying he was Chernoknizhniy’s brother said he was deceased.

    “He died. There’s no way you can get hold of him,” said the man, crying. “That’s all that I can say.”

    Reuters was unable to independently confirm his assertion.

    GROWING ACCUSATIONS

    The two snipers were among six suspects accused in the Brovary assaults, which prosecutors say is one of the most extensive investigations of sexual abuse since the invasion.

    After the alleged attack on the girl and her parents, the two soldiers entered the house of an elderly couple next door, where they beat them, prosecutors said, also raping a 41-year-old pregnant woman and a 17-year-old girl.

    At another location where several families lived, the soldiers forced everyone into the kitchen and gang raped a 15-year-old girl and her mother, they said.

    All the victims survived, prosecutors said, and were receiving psychological and medical assistance.

    A pre-trial investigation is ongoing into the possible role of superior officials in the Brovary attacks, prosecutors said, in a case adding to growing allegations of systematic sexual abuse by Russian soldiers.

    Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s office says it is investigating more than 71,000 reports of war crimes received since Russia sent tens of thousands of troops over the border.

    Ukrainian investigators know the probability of finding and punishing suspects is low and potential trials would be mainly in absentia, but there are also international efforts to prosecute war crimes including by the International Criminal Court.

    While suspects are unlikely to be surrendered by Moscow, anyone convicted in absentia may be placed on international watchlists, which would make it difficult to travel.

    Russia has also accused Ukrainian forces of war crimes, including the execution of 10 prisoners of war.

    A U.N. human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine has said that most of the dozens of sexual violence accusations pointed at the Russian military.

    So far, Ukrainian prosecutors have convicted 26 Russians of war crimes – some prisoners of war, some in absentia – of which one was for rape.

    Reporting by Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam and Stefaniia Bern in Kyiv;
    Additional reporting by Anton Zverev and Maria Tsvetkova;
    Editing by Alison Williams and Andrew Cawthorne

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • South Korea, Japan near landmark deal on wartime labour dispute – media

    South Korea, Japan near landmark deal on wartime labour dispute – media

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    SEOUL/TOKYO March 5 (Reuters) – South Korea and Japan may be near resolving a dispute over colonial-era forced labour that has overshadowed political and trade relations between the two neighbours, with media reports saying Seoul could announce plans on Monday.

    The South Korean government plans to announce on Monday morning its solution to the historical and legal dispute over compensating people forced to work under Japan’s 1910-1945 occupation of Korea, Japan’s Kyodo news reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

    The labour dispute and one over women forced into Japanese military brothels have bedevilled ties between the two pivotal U.S. allies for years.

    South Korea’s foreign ministry, asked about the reported agreement, said negotiations were ongoing.

    “The government is continuing to consult in various ways between diplomatic authorities at all levels in order to come up with a reasonable solution that meets the common interests of Korea and Japan as soon as possible,” it said in a statement.

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    Japan’s Cabinet Office and Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to phone and email requests for comment.

    Relations plunged to their lowest point in decades after South Korea’s Supreme Court in 2018 ordered Japanese firms to pay reparations to former forced labourers. Fifteen South Koreans have won such cases, but none has been compensated.

    The row spilled over into a trade dispute. Japan has maintained the compensation issue was settled under earlier treaties.

    ‘VOLUNTARY’ FUND, SUMMIT

    Seoul unveiled a plan in January to compensate former forced labourers through a South Korean public foundation. The proposal sparked backlash from victims and their families because it did not include contributions from Japanese companies, including those ordered by South Korean courts to pay reparations.

    Japan could allow its companies to “voluntarily” contribute to the foundation, and the two governments are aiming for South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol to visit Japan this month, Kyodo reported.

    South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing unnamed government sources, said Seoul and Tokyo had tentatively agreed to create a “future youth fund” to sponsor scholarships for students as part of the deal.

    The fund would be jointly formed by the Federation of Korean Industries, South Korea’s big business lobby, and its Japanese counterpart, Keidanren, the report said.

    Japan’s Nikkei reported that a Korean foundation would pay compensation on behalf of Japan, and the Japanese side would acknowledge expressions of apology and reflection made by previous administrations.

    Prime Minster Fumio Kishida plans to say he is extending past statements on wartime forced labour, which include an apology for Japan’s colonialism, Japan’s Yomiuri reported on Saturday.

    The newspaper said Tokyo could lift restrictions on exports of key electronics components to South Korea, as part of a deal for Seoul to withdraw its complaint to the World Trade Organization over the trade dispute.

    The conservative Yoon, who took office in May, has vowed to improve ties with Japan. In September, he met Kishida in the two countries’ first summit since 2019.

    On the dispute over Korean women forced into wartime brothels, euphemistically called “comfort women”, a 2015 agreement that was supposed to “irreversibly” resolve the claims fell apart after backlash from many of the victims.

    Reporting by Josh Smith in Seoul and Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by William Mallard

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • Iran makes sweeping pledge of cooperation to IAEA before board meeting

    Iran makes sweeping pledge of cooperation to IAEA before board meeting

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    VIENNA, March 4 (Reuters) – Iran has given sweeping assurances to the U.N. nuclear watchdog that it will finally assist a long-stalled investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and even re-install removed monitoring equipment, the watchdog said on Saturday.

    The International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran issued a joint statement on IAEA chief Rafael Grossi’s return from a trip to Tehran just two days before a quarterly meeting of the agency’s 35-nation Board of Governors.

    The statement went into little detail but the possibility of a marked improvement in relations between the two is likely to stave off a Western push for another resolution ordering Iran to cooperate, diplomats said. Iran has, however, made similar promises before that have yielded little or nothing.

    “Iran expressed its readiness to … provide further information and access to address the outstanding safeguards issues,” the joint statement said. A confidential IAEA report to member states seen by Reuters said Grossi “looks forward to … prompt and full implementation of the Joint Statement”.

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    Iran is supposed to provide access to information, locations and people, Grossi told a news conference at Vienna airport soon after landing, suggesting a vast improvement after years of Iranian stonewalling.

    [1/2] Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi meets with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi in Tehran, Iran, March 4, 2023. Iran’s President Website/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS.

    Iran would also allow the re-installation of extra monitoring equipment that had been put in place under the 2015 nuclear deal, but then removed last year as the deal unravelled in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the deal in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.

    Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization spokesperson Behrouz Kamalvandi, however, said Tehran had not agreed to give access to people.

    “During the two days that Mr. Grossi was in Iran, the issue of access to individuals was never raised,” Kamalvandi told state news agency IRNA, adding there also has been no deal regarding putting new cameras in Iran’s nuclear facilities.

    Follow-up talks in Iran between IAEA and Iranian officials aimed at hammering out the details would happen “very, very soon”, Grossi said.

    Asked if all that monitoring equipment would be re-installed, Grossi replied “Yes”. When asked where it would be re-installed, however, he said only that it would be at a number of locations.

    Reporting by Francois Murphy; Editing by Louise Heavens and David Holmes

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • China plans 7.2% defence spending rise this year, faster than GDP target

    China plans 7.2% defence spending rise this year, faster than GDP target

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    • China’s 2023 defence spending to rise 7.2%
    • Increase to outpace GDP growth target of around 5%
    • Premier Li says armed forces should boost combat preparedness
    • China investing in new hardware including aircraft carriers

    BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – China will boost defence spending by 7.2% this year, slightly outpacing last year’s increase and faster than the government’s modest economic growth forecast, as Premier Li Keqiang called for the armed forces to boost combat preparedness.

    The national budget released on Sunday showed 1.55 trillion yuan ($224 billion) allocated to military spending.

    The defence budget will be closely watched by China’s neighbours and the United States, who are concerned by Beijing’s strategic intentions and development of its military, especially as tensions have spiked in recent years over Taiwan.

    In his work report to the annual session of parliament, Li said military operations, capacity building and combat preparedness should be “well-coordinated in fulfilling major tasks”.

    “Our armed forces, with a focus on the goals for the centenary of the People’s Liberation Army in 2027, should work to carry out military operations, boost combat preparedness and enhance military capabilities,” he said in the state-of-the-nation address to the largely rubber-stamp legislature.

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    This year’s hike in defence spending marks the eighth consecutive single-digit increase. As in previous years, no breakdown of the spending was given, only the overall amount and the rate of increase.

    The spending increase outpaces targeted economic growth of around 5%, which is slightly below last year’s target as the world’s second-largest economy faces domestic headwinds.

    Beijing is nervous about challenges on fronts ranging from Chinese-claimed Taiwan to U.S. naval and air missions in the disputed South China Sea near Chinese-occupied islands.

    China staged war games near Taiwan last August to express anger at the visit to Taipei of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    Li Mingjiang, associate professor at S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, said defence spending outpacing the economic growth forecast showed China anticipates facing greater pressures in its external security environment, especially from the United States and on the Taiwan issue.

    “Chinese leaders are clearly intensifying efforts to prepare the country militarily to meet all potential security challenges, including unexpected situations,” he said.

    China, with the world’s largest military in terms of personnel, is busy adding a slew of new hardware, including aircraft carriers and stealth fighters.

    ‘STRENGTHEN MILITARY WORK’

    Beijing says its military spending for defensive purposes is a comparatively low percentage of its GDP and that critics want to demonise it as a threat to world peace.

    “The armed forces should intensify military training and preparedness across the board, develop new military strategic guidance, devote greater energy to training under combat conditions and make well-coordinated efforts to strengthen military work in all directions and domains,” Premier Li said.

    Takashi Kawakami, a professor of Takushoku University in Tokyo, said China would probably give priority to its nuclear capability.

    “As China strengthens the new area of cognitive warfare over Taiwan, I think it will also use the budget to build up its cyber and space capabilities, as well as its submarine forces to target undersea cables,” he said.

    China’s reported defence budget in 2023 is around one quarter of proposed U.S. spending, though many diplomats and foreign experts believe Beijing under-reports the real number.

    The fiscal 2023 U.S. defence budget authorises $858 billion in military spending and includes funding for purchases of weapons, ships and aircraft, and support for Taiwan and for Ukraine as it fights an invasion by Russia.

    China has long argued that it needs to close the gap with the United States. China, for example, has three aircraft carriers, compared with 11 in active service for the United States.

    The Ukraine war has prompted some elements in China’s military-industrial complex to call for an increase in the defence budget.

    An article published last October in the official journal of the State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence, a central government ministry responsible for wartime logistics, recommended an increase in the military budget given surges in defence spending from NATO member-states besides the United States.

    “This matter is not about participating in the international arms race, but defending our national security,” it said.

    ($1 = 6.9048 Chinese yuan renminbi)

    Reporting by Yew Lun Tian; Additional reporting by Eduardo Baptista, and Nobuhiro Kubo in Tokyo; Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by William Mallard & Simon Cameron-Moore

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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  • China sets modest growth target of about 5% as parliament opens

    China sets modest growth target of about 5% as parliament opens

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    • GDP target around 5% at low end of expectations
    • Work report focuses on consumption, jobs
    • Defence spending to rise 7.2%, up from 7.1% rise
    • Budget deficit target at 3%, wider than previous 2.8%

    BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) – China set a modest target for economic growth this year of around 5% on Sunday as it kicked-off the annual session of its National People’s Congress (NPC), which is poised to implement the biggest government shake-up in a decade.

    China’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by just 3% last year, one of its worst showings in decades, squeezed by three years of COVID-19 restrictions, crisis in its vast property sector, a crackdown on private enterprise and weakening demand for Chinese exports.

    In his work report, outgoing Premier Li Keqiang stressed the need for economic stability and expanding consumption, setting a goal to create around 12 million urban jobs this year, up from last year’s target of at least 11 million, and warned that risks remain in the real estate sector.

    Li set a budget deficit target at 3.0% of GDP, widening from a goal of around 2.8% last year.

    “We should give priority to the recovery and expansion of consumption,” said Li, who spoke for just under an hour in a speech to open the parliament, which will run through March 13.

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    “The incomes of urban and rural residents should be boosted through multiple channels. We should stabilize spending on big-ticket items and promote recovery in consumption of consumer services,” he said.

    This year’s growth target of around 5% was at the low end of expectations, as policy sources had recently told Reuters a range as high as 6% could be set. It is also below last year’s target of around 5.5%.

    “While the official growth target has been lowered for the second consecutive year, which might be a disappointment to the market, we reckon investors (should) pay attention to the underlying growth momentum to gauge the recovery pace,” said Zhou Hao, economist at Guotai Junan International.

    Li and a slate of more reform-oriented economic policy officials are set to retire during the congress, making way for loyalists to President Xi Jinping, who further tightened his grip on power when he secured a precedent-breaking third leadership term at October’s Communist Party Congress.

    [1/5] Chinese President Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang talk at the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China March 5, 2023. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

    During the NPC, former Shanghai party chief Li Qiang, a longtime Xi ally, is expected to be confirmed as premier, tasked with reinvigorating the world’s second-largest economy.

    The rubber-stamp parliament will also discuss Xi’s plans for an “intensive” and “wide-ranging” reorganisation of state and Communist Party entities, state media reported on Tuesday, with analysts expecting a further deepening of Communist Party penetration of state bodies.

    MILITARY BUDGET RISE

    Li said China’s armed forces should devote greater energy to training under combat conditions and boost combat preparedness, and the budget included a 7.2% increase in defence spending this year, a slightly bigger increase than last year’s budgeted 7.1% rise and again exceeding expected GDP growth.

    On Taiwan, Li struck a moderate tone, saying China should promote the peaceful development of cross-Strait relations and advance the process of China’s “peaceful reunification”, but also take resolute steps to oppose Taiwan independence.

    Beijing faces a host of challenges including increasingly fraught relations with the United States and a worsening demographic outlook, with plunging birth rates and a population drop last year for the first time since the famine year of 1961.

    China plans to lower the costs of childbirth, childcare and education and will actively respond to an ageing population and a decrease in fertility, the nation’s state planner said in a work report released on Sunday.

    The NPC opened on a smoggy day amid tight security in the Chinese capital, with 2,948 delegates gathered in the cavernous Great Hall of the People on the west side of Tiananmen Square.

    During the session, China’s legislature will vote on a plan to reform institutions under the State Council, or cabinet, and decide on a new cabinet line-up for the next five years, according to a meeting agenda.

    It is the first NPC meeting since China abruptly dropped its zero-COVID policy in December, following rare nationwide protests. Excluding the pandemic-shortened meetings of the previous three years, this year’s session will be the shortest in at least 40 years, according to NPC Observer, a blog.

    Additional reporting by the Beijing newsrooom; Writing by Tony Munroe; Editing by Himani Sarkar, William Mallard and Simon Cameron-Moore

    Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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