ReportWire

Tag: War and unrest

  • Why the 155 mm round is so critical to the war in Ukraine

    Why the 155 mm round is so critical to the war in Ukraine

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The 155 mm howitzer round is one of the most requested artillery munitions of the war in Ukraine. Already the U.S. has shipped more than 1.5 million rounds to Ukraine, but Kyiv is still seeking more.

    A look at why this particular munition is so commonly used, and why it’s been so critical to the war in Ukraine.

    WHAT IS THE 155 MM?

    Essentially, the 155 mm round is a very big bullet, made up of four parts: the detonating fuse, projectile, propellant and primer.

    Each round is about 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, weighs about 100 pounds (45 kilograms), and is 155 mm, or 6.1 inches, in diameter. They are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns that are identified by the range of the angle of fire that their barrels can be set to.

    The 155 mm shells can be configured in many ways: They can be packed with highly explosive material, use precision guided systems, pierce armor or produce high fragmentation.

    Past variants have included smoke rounds to obscure troop movement and illumination rounds to expose an enemy’s position.

    “The 155 mm round and the similar Soviet-era 152 mm rounds are so popular because they provide a good balance between range and warhead size,” said Ryan Brobst, a research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “If you have too small a shell, it won’t do enough damage and go as far. If you have a larger shell, you can’t necessarily fire it as far. This is the most common middle ground, and that’s why it’s so widely used.”

    155 MM HISTORY

    The French first developed the 155 mm round to respond to World War I’s extensive trench warfare, and early versions included gas shells, Keri Pleasant, historian for the Army’s Joint Munitions Command, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

    As World War I continued, the 155 mm gun became the most common artillery piece used by the Allies, Pleasant said, and the U.S. Army later adopted it as its standard field heavy artillery piece.

    The U.S. military fielded its own version, the M1, for World War II. After the war, the new NATO alliance adopted the 155 mm as its artillery standard.

    By the Korean War, the round had been modified again, with a cluster munition variant. “The round contained 88 submunitions, which were dispersed over a wide area to destroy vehicles, equipment, and personnel,” Pleasant said.

    ITS USE IN UKRAINE

    Howitzer fires can strike targets up to 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 kilometers) away, depending on what type of round and firing system is used, which makes them highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.

    “Adversaries don’t have much warning of it coming. And it’s harder to hide from incoming rounds that are arcing in from the top, which makes it highly lethal,” Brobst said.

    In Ukraine, 155 mm rounds are being fired at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 a day, said Ukrainian parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee. They are eclipsed by the estimated 40,000 Russian variant howitzer rounds fired at them, she told reporters at a recent Washington event sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.

    The Pentagon previously had said how many rounds it was providing in each of the security assistance packages being sent about every two weeks to keep weapons and ammunition flowing into Ukraine. But it stopped specifying the number of 155 mm rounds shipped in each package in February, citing operational security.

    However, in its overall count of assistance provided to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, the Pentagon says it has sent more than 160 155 mm howitzers, more than 1.5 million 155 mm rounds, more than 6,500 precision-guided 155 mm rounds and more than 14,000 155 mm Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems — essentially a 155 mm shell packed with four mines that scatter on the ground and can take out a Russian tank if it drives over them.

    Other countries have also provided howitzers, but Kyiv has continually asked for more. As of last year Ukrainian officials were requesting as many as 1,000 howitzer systems to push Russian forces back.

    SPRING OFFENSIVE

    As Ukraine prepares for an intense counteroffensive this spring, it will likely need to fire 7,000 to 9,000 155 mm shells a day, said Yehor Cherniev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who spoke to reporters at the German Marshall Fund event.

    In recent months, the Biden administration has been using presidential drawdown authority to send ammunition directly from U.S. military stockpiles to Ukraine, instead of having to wait and buy rounds from defense firms, so they can get there in time for the anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

    The U.S. has also been training Ukrainian troops in Germany on how to better use the 155 mm rounds in combined arms tactics — coordinating strikes with targeting information provided by forward-based troops and other armored systems to maximize damage and reduce the number of rounds needed to take out a target.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Why the 155 mm round is so critical to the war in Ukraine

    Why the 155 mm round is so critical to the war in Ukraine

    [ad_1]

    WASHINGTON — The 155 mm howitzer round is one of the most requested artillery munitions of the war in Ukraine. Already the U.S. has shipped more than 1.5 million rounds to Ukraine, but Kyiv is still seeking more.

    A look at why this particular munition is so commonly used, and why it’s been so critical to the war in Ukraine.

    WHAT IS THE 155 MM?

    Essentially, the 155 mm round is a very big bullet, made up of four parts: the detonating fuse, projectile, propellant and primer.

    Each round is about 2 feet (60 centimeters) long, weighs about 100 pounds (45 kilograms), and is 155 mm, or 6.1 inches, in diameter. They are used in howitzer systems, which are towed large guns that are identified by the range of the angle of fire that their barrels can be set to.

    The 155 mm shells can be configured in many ways: They can be packed with highly explosive material, use precision guided systems, pierce armor or produce high fragmentation.

    Past variants have included smoke rounds to obscure troop movement and illumination rounds to expose an enemy’s position.

    “The 155 mm round and the similar Soviet-era 152 mm rounds are so popular because they provide a good balance between range and warhead size,” said Ryan Brobst, a research analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “If you have too small a shell, it won’t do enough damage and go as far. If you have a larger shell, you can’t necessarily fire it as far. This is the most common middle ground, and that’s why it’s so widely used.”

    155 MM HISTORY

    The French first developed the 155 mm round to respond to World War I’s extensive trench warfare, and early versions included gas shells, Keri Pleasant, historian for the Army’s Joint Munitions Command, said in a statement to The Associated Press.

    As World War I continued, the 155 mm gun became the most common artillery piece used by the Allies, Pleasant said, and the U.S. Army later adopted it as its standard field heavy artillery piece.

    The U.S. military fielded its own version, the M1, for World War II. After the war, the new NATO alliance adopted the 155 mm as its artillery standard.

    By the Korean War, the round had been modified again, with a cluster munition variant. “The round contained 88 submunitions, which were dispersed over a wide area to destroy vehicles, equipment, and personnel,” Pleasant said.

    ITS USE IN UKRAINE

    Howitzer fires can strike targets up to 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 kilometers) away, depending on what type of round and firing system is used, which makes them highly valued by ground forces to take out enemy targets from a protected distance.

    “Adversaries don’t have much warning of it coming. And it’s harder to hide from incoming rounds that are arcing in from the top, which makes it highly lethal,” Brobst said.

    In Ukraine, 155 mm rounds are being fired at a rate of 6,000 to 8,000 a day, said Ukrainian parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee. They are eclipsed by the estimated 40,000 Russian variant howitzer rounds fired at them, she told reporters at a recent Washington event sponsored by the German Marshall Fund.

    The Pentagon previously had said how many rounds it was providing in each of the security assistance packages being sent about every two weeks to keep weapons and ammunition flowing into Ukraine. But it stopped specifying the number of 155 mm rounds shipped in each package in February, citing operational security.

    However, in its overall count of assistance provided to Ukraine since Russia invaded in February 2022, the Pentagon says it has sent more than 160 155 mm howitzers, more than 1.5 million 155 mm rounds, more than 6,500 precision-guided 155 mm rounds and more than 14,000 155 mm Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems — essentially a 155 mm shell packed with four mines that scatter on the ground and can take out a Russian tank if it drives over them.

    Other countries have also provided howitzers, but Kyiv has continually asked for more. As of last year Ukrainian officials were requesting as many as 1,000 howitzer systems to push Russian forces back.

    SPRING OFFENSIVE

    As Ukraine prepares for an intense counteroffensive this spring, it will likely need to fire 7,000 to 9,000 155 mm shells a day, said Yehor Cherniev, a member of Ukraine’s parliament who spoke to reporters at the German Marshall Fund event.

    In recent months, the Biden administration has been using presidential drawdown authority to send ammunition directly from U.S. military stockpiles to Ukraine, instead of having to wait and buy rounds from defense firms, so they can get there in time for the anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive.

    The U.S. has also been training Ukrainian troops in Germany on how to better use the 155 mm rounds in combined arms tactics — coordinating strikes with targeting information provided by forward-based troops and other armored systems to maximize damage and reduce the number of rounds needed to take out a target.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Nomaan Merchant contributed to this story.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • A deeply divided Israel limps toward its 75th birthday

    A deeply divided Israel limps toward its 75th birthday

    [ad_1]

    JERUSALEM — Orit Pinhasov strongly opposes the Israeli government’s proposed judicial overhaul, but you won’t find her anywhere near the mass protests against the plan. She says her marriage depends on it.

    Pinhasov’s husband sits on the opposite side of Israel’s political divide, and joining the protests will only deepen what she says already are palpable tensions in her household.

    “I don’t go to the demonstrations not because I don’t believe in them,” she said. “I don’t go in order to protect my home. I feel like I’m fighting for my home.”

    As Israel turns 75 on Wednesday, it has much to celebrate. But instead of feting its accomplishments as a regional military and economic powerhouse, the nation that arose on the ashes of the Holocaust faces perhaps its gravest existential threat yet — not from foreign enemies but from divisions within.

    For over three months, tens of thousands of people have rallied in the streets against what they see as an assault by an ultranationalist, religious government threatening a national identity rooted in liberal traditions.

    Fighter pilots have threatened to stop reporting for duty. The nation’s leaders have openly warned of civil war, and families of fallen soldiers have called on politicians to stay away from the ceremonies. Many Israelis wonder if the deep split can ever heal.

    Miri Regev, the government minister in charge of the main celebration on Tuesday night, has threatened to throw out anyone who disrupts it. The event takes place at a plaza next to Israel’s national cemetery in Jerusalem, where the country abruptly shifts from solemn Memorial Day observances for fallen soldiers to the joy of Independence Day, complete with a symbolic torch-lighting ceremony, military marches and musical and dance performances.

    Opposition leader Yair Lapid is boycotting the ceremony. “You have torn Israeli society apart, and no phony fireworks performance can cover that up,” he said.

    The rift is so wide that Israel’s longest-running and perhaps most pressing problem — its open-ended military rule over the Palestinians — barely gets mentioned despite a recent surge in violence. Even before the protests erupted, public discourse was mostly limited to the military’s dealing with the conflict, rather than the future of the territories Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, which Palestinians seek for their state.

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a polarizing leader revered by supporters and reviled by opponents, has played a key role in the crisis. The divisions gained steam as he was indicted on corruption charges in 2019. Israel barreled through five cycles of elections in under four years — all of them focused on Netanyahu’s fitness to rule.

    Late last year, Netanyahu finally eked out a victory — cobbling together the most right-wing government in Israel’s history. Within days, it set out to overhaul the judicial system and give Netanyahu’s allies the power to overturn court decisions and appoint judges.

    The plan, which critics see as a transparent power grab, has triggered unprecedented protests that ultimately forced Netanyahu to freeze it. In a reflection of the deep mistrust, the protests have only grown larger, exposing deeper fault lines in Israeli society that go back decades.

    On Netanyahu’s side is a religious and socially conservative coalition that includes the politically powerful ultra-Orthodox minority, the religious-nationalist community, including West Bank settlers, and Jews of Middle Eastern descent who live in outlying working-class towns.

    Those protesting against him are largely secular, middle-class professionals behind Israel’s modern economy. They include high-tech workers, teachers, lawyers and current and former commanders in Israel’s security forces.

    Israel’s Palestinian minority, meanwhile, has largely sat out the protests, saying it never felt part of the country to begin with.

    These divisions have filtered down to workplaces, friendships and families.

    Despite political differences, Pinhasov, 49, said she and her husband have “lived in peace” for 30 years. She said there were disagreements at election time every few years, but these were short-lived and minor.

    That began to change during the coronavirus pandemic, when Pinhasov said the tone of public debate over issues like lockdowns and vaccines became more strident. Then, as Israel ricocheted from election to election, the tensions began to be felt at home.

    Her husband would tell her she’s been “brainwashed” and complained about “leftist” media, Pinhasov said. When she disagreed, he would say, “you don’t understand.” They could no longer watch the news together or “Wonderful Country,” a popular political satire show.

    Their four children, including a 21-year-old son who shares his father’s views, all love and respect each other and their parents, she says. But it’s complicated, like “walking on eggshells.”

    While Israel typically unites in times of war, seeds of distrust were planted decades ago.

    From the country’s earliest days, the Jewish majority was plagued by disagreements over issues such as whether to accept reparations from postwar West Germany, to violent protests by poorer Middle Eastern Jews in the early 1970s, and bitter internal divisions over military fiascos during the 1973 Mideast war and later in Lebanon.

    Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish ultranationalist in 1995 opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians. Large protests erupted when Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

    “Israel was always a deeply divided society, but somehow it held together,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli author, historian and journalist. “The difference now is that we are really discussing the basic values of this society.”

    The protests against Netanyahu’s government show that many are “genuinely frightened” for the country’s future, he said.

    Tel Aviv University economist Dan Ben-David, president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, points to two seminal events in Israel’s history – the 1967 and 1973 Mideast wars.

    The 1967 war, in which Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, spawned the Jewish settler movement, which has turned into a powerful political force representing some 700,000 people.

    The 1973 war, meanwhile, set off a process that would bring the right-wing Likud party to power four years later. The Likud has ruled for most of the time since then, usually in partnership with ultra-Orthodox parties.

    These religious parties have used their political power to win generous subsidies and controversial exemptions from military service — angering the broader secular public.

    The ultra-Orthodox community, and to a lesser extent the religious nationalist community run separate school systems that offer subpar educations with little respect for democratic values like minority rights, Ben-David said.

    Because these communities have high birth rates, he said said the country needs to go back to a “melting pot” model that includes a core curriculum promoting universal values, he said. “If we are one nation, then we need to teach our children what brings us together.”

    Danny Danon, a former ambassador to the United Nations and top figure in Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the anniversary is a time for everyone to reflect and think about what they have in common.

    “In my five years at the U.N., I realized that our enemies do not make the distinction between left and right, secular and Orthodox,” he said. “That’s why we have to realize we have to stick together.”

    Still, many see the 75th anniversary celebrations as a time for joy.

    Pinhasov said she will host a party for some 100 people at her home in central Israel, many of them members of her husband’s family.

    “It’s our Independence Day,” she said. “It’s still a day for celebrations.”

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo

    Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo

    [ad_1]

    SCRANTON, Pa. — One of the most important munitions of the Ukraine war comes from a historic factory in this city built by coal barons, where tons of steel rods are brought in by train to be forged into the artillery shells Kyiv can’t get enough of — and that the U.S. can’t produce fast enough.

    The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is at the vanguard of a multibillion-dollar Pentagon plan to modernize and accelerate its production of ammunition and equipment not only to support Ukraine, but to be ready for a potential conflict with China.

    But it is one of just two sites in the U.S. that make the steel bodies for the critical 155 mm howitzer rounds that the U.S. is rushing to Ukraine to help in its grinding fight to repel the Russian invasion in the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II.

    The invasion of Ukraine revealed that the U.S. stockpile of 155 mm shells and those of European allies were unprepared to support a major and ongoing conventional land war, sending them scrambling to bolster production. The dwindling supply has alarmed U.S. military planners, and the Army now plans to spend billions on munitions plants around the country in what it calls its most significant transformation in 40 years.

    It may not be easy to adapt: practically every square foot of the Scranton plant’s red brick factory buildings — first constructed more than a century ago as a locomotive repair depot — is in use as the Army clears space, expands production to private factories and assembles new supply chains.

    There are some things that Army and plant officials in Scranton won’t reveal, including where they get the steel for the shells and exactly how many more rounds this factory can produce.

    “That’s what Russia wants to know,” said Justine Barati of the U.S. Army’s Joint Munitions Command.

    So far, the U.S. has provided more than $35 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine.

    The 155 mm shell is one of the most often-requested and supplied items, which also include air defense systems, long-range missiles and tanks.

    The rounds, used in howitzer systems, are critical to Ukraine’s fight because they allow the Ukrainians to hit Russian targets up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) away with a highly explosive munition.

    “Unfortunately, we understand that the production is very limited and it’s been more than a year of war,” Ukraine parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova said at a German Marshall Fund media roundtable in Washington on Monday. “But unfortunately we are very dependent on 155.”

    The Army is spending about $1.5 billion to ramp up production of 155 mm rounds from 14,000 a month before Russia invaded Ukraine to over 85,000 a month by 2028, U.S. Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo told a symposium last month.

    Already, the U.S. military has given Ukraine more than 1.5 million rounds of 155 mm ammunition, according to Army figures.

    But even with higher near-term production rates, the U.S. cannot replenish its stockpile or catch up to the usage pace in Ukraine, where officials estimate that the Ukrainian military is firing 6,000 to 8,000 shells per day. In other words, two days’ worth of shells fired by Ukraine equates to the United States’ monthly pre-war production figure.

    “This could become a crisis. With the front line now mostly stationary, artillery has become the most important combat arm,” said a January report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    Currently, the metal bodies for the 155 mm shells are made at the Army’s Scranton plant, operated by General Dynamics, and at a General Dynamics-owned plant in nearby Wilkes-Barre, officials say.

    Together, the plants are under contract for 24,000 shells per month, with an additional $217 million Army task order to further boost production, although officials won’t say how many more 155 mm shells are sought by the task order.

    The Russians are firing 40,000 shells per day, said Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee.

    “So we’re doing five times less than they do and trying to keep it up. But if we don’t start the production lines, if you don’t warm it up, it is going to be a huge problem,” Ustinova said.

    The obstacles the U.S. faces in ramping up production can be seen at the Scranton plant.

    The factory — built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a rising coal and railroad powerhouse — has produced large-caliber ammunition for the military going back to the Korean War.

    But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the structures.

    Inside, the floor is crowded with piles of shells, defunct equipment and production lines where robotic arms, saws, presses and other machines cut, heat, forge, temper, pressure test, wash and paint the shells.

    The plant is in the midst of $120 million in modernization plans and the Army hopes to open a new production line there by 2025.

    Still, clearing space for it has been a complicated task while the military adds newer machinery to make existing lines more efficient.

    “There’s a lot going on,” said Richard Hansen, the Army commander’s representative at the plant.

    Meanwhile, the Army is expanding supply chains for parts — metal shells, explosive fill, charges that shoot the shell and fuses — and buying the massive machines that do the work.

    The Army has new contracts with plants in Texas and Canada to make 155 mm shells, said Douglas Bush, an assistant Army secretary and its chief weapons buyer. The U.S. is also looking overseas to allies to expand production, Bush said.

    Once the shells are finished in Scranton, they are shipped to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, where they are packed with explosives, fitted with fuses and packaged for final delivery.

    The Scranton plant is ill-suited for that task: an accident with an explosive could be devastating.

    “If we had a mishap here,” Hansen said, “we take half of the city with us.”

    __

    Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo

    Unprepared for long war, US Army under gun to make more ammo

    [ad_1]

    SCRANTON, Pa. — One of the most important munitions of the Ukraine war comes from a historic factory in this city built by coal barons, where tons of steel rods are brought in by train to be forged into the artillery shells Kyiv can’t get enough of — and that the U.S. can’t produce fast enough.

    The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant is at the vanguard of a multibillion-dollar Pentagon plan to modernize and accelerate its production of ammunition and equipment not only to support Ukraine, but to be ready for a potential conflict with China.

    But it is one of just two sites in the U.S. that make the steel bodies for the critical 155 mm howitzer rounds that the U.S. is rushing to Ukraine to help in its grinding fight to repel the Russian invasion in the largest-scale war in Europe since World War II.

    The invasion of Ukraine revealed that the U.S. stockpile of 155 mm shells and those of European allies were unprepared to support a major and ongoing conventional land war, sending them scrambling to bolster production. The dwindling supply has alarmed U.S. military planners, and the Army now plans to spend billions on munitions plants around the country in what it calls its most significant transformation in 40 years.

    It may not be easy to adapt: practically every square foot of the Scranton plant’s red brick factory buildings — first constructed more than a century ago as a locomotive repair depot — is in use as the Army clears space, expands production to private factories and assembles new supply chains.

    There are some things that Army and plant officials in Scranton won’t reveal, including where they get the steel for the shells and exactly how many more rounds this factory can produce.

    “That’s what Russia wants to know,” said Justine Barati of the U.S. Army’s Joint Munitions Command.

    So far, the U.S. has provided more than $35 billion in weapons and equipment to Ukraine.

    The 155 mm shell is one of the most often-requested and supplied items, which also include air defense systems, long-range missiles and tanks.

    The rounds, used in howitzer systems, are critical to Ukraine’s fight because they allow the Ukrainians to hit Russian targets up to 20 miles (32 kilometers) away with a highly explosive munition.

    “Unfortunately, we understand that the production is very limited and it’s been more than a year of war,” Ukraine parliamentary member Oleksandra Ustinova said at a German Marshall Fund media roundtable in Washington on Monday. “But unfortunately we are very dependent on 155.”

    The Army is spending about $1.5 billion to ramp up production of 155 mm rounds from 14,000 a month before Russia invaded Ukraine to over 85,000 a month by 2028, U.S. Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo told a symposium last month.

    Already, the U.S. military has given Ukraine more than 1.5 million rounds of 155 mm ammunition, according to Army figures.

    But even with higher near-term production rates, the U.S. cannot replenish its stockpile or catch up to the usage pace in Ukraine, where officials estimate that the Ukrainian military is firing 6,000 to 8,000 shells per day. In other words, two days’ worth of shells fired by Ukraine equates to the United States’ monthly pre-war production figure.

    “This could become a crisis. With the front line now mostly stationary, artillery has become the most important combat arm,” said a January report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

    Currently, the metal bodies for the 155 mm shells are made at the Army’s Scranton plant, operated by General Dynamics, and at a General Dynamics-owned plant in nearby Wilkes-Barre, officials say.

    Together, the plants are under contract for 24,000 shells per month, with an additional $217 million Army task order to further boost production, although officials won’t say how many more 155 mm shells are sought by the task order.

    The Russians are firing 40,000 shells per day, said Ustinova, who serves on Ukraine’s wartime oversight committee.

    “So we’re doing five times less than they do and trying to keep it up. But if we don’t start the production lines, if you don’t warm it up, it is going to be a huge problem,” Ustinova said.

    The obstacles the U.S. faces in ramping up production can be seen at the Scranton plant.

    The factory — built for the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad just after 1900, when the city was a rising coal and railroad powerhouse — has produced large-caliber ammunition for the military going back to the Korean War.

    But the buildings are on the National Historic Registry of Historic Places, limiting how the Army can alter the structures.

    Inside, the floor is crowded with piles of shells, defunct equipment and production lines where robotic arms, saws, presses and other machines cut, heat, forge, temper, pressure test, wash and paint the shells.

    The plant is in the midst of $120 million in modernization plans and the Army hopes to open a new production line there by 2025.

    Still, clearing space for it has been a complicated task while the military adds newer machinery to make existing lines more efficient.

    “There’s a lot going on,” said Richard Hansen, the Army commander’s representative at the plant.

    Meanwhile, the Army is expanding supply chains for parts — metal shells, explosive fill, charges that shoot the shell and fuses — and buying the massive machines that do the work.

    The Army has new contracts with plants in Texas and Canada to make 155 mm shells, said Douglas Bush, an assistant Army secretary and its chief weapons buyer. The U.S. is also looking overseas to allies to expand production, Bush said.

    Once the shells are finished in Scranton, they are shipped to the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant, where they are packed with explosives, fitted with fuses and packaged for final delivery.

    The Scranton plant is ill-suited for that task: an accident with an explosive could be devastating.

    “If we had a mishap here,” Hansen said, “we take half of the city with us.”

    __

    Associated Press writers Tara Copp and Nomaan Merchant in Washington contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on Twitter: http://twitter.com/timelywriter

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Minister: Ukraine will beat Russia in war of technologies

    Minister: Ukraine will beat Russia in war of technologies

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine — As Ukrainian and Russian troops fight conventional battles on the front lines, Europe’s first major war of the internet age has also sparked a war of technology as both sides vie for the advantage with their drones and satellite communications.

    While the two sides have kept pace with one another thus far, Ukraine‘s minister in charge of technology told The Associated Press in an interview Friday that he was confident his country had the motivation and abilities to out-innovate Russia in the end.

    Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Minister of Digital Transformation, said unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, electronic warfare, satellite communications and other technologies had been a fundamental part of the war with Russia that began more than a year ago.

    “Technologies allow traditional and modern artillery to be more accurate, and they help save the lives of our soldiers,” he said.

    “When you have ‘eyes’ over you, you can make more effective decisions about managing your troops.”

    He acknowledged that Russia was also aware of the importance of technology on the battlefield, and was actively developing and improving its own.

    “Every day, there are new UAVs on the battlefield from our side and from Russia’s side,” Fedorov said. “We see what kind of drones they have. We receive, disassemble and study them.”

    He said the government was planning investments in new technology projects to encourage further competition and innovation.

    “In this technology war we will surely win,” he said. “Even if fewer than 50-60% of supported projects will give some result, it can be decisive on the battlefield.”

    In recent weeks, anticipation of a possible Ukrainian counteroffensive this spring has risen. Fedorov said it was impossible to imagine any efficient operations without technologies on the battlefield.

    Ukraine has not mounted a major operation to liberate occupied territories since it retook the city of Kherson and part of the surrounding province last November. However, the frequency of reported drone attacks in Russia has increased.

    Over the past months, a spate of drone strikes has targeted areas in southern and western Russia, reflecting the growing reach of the Ukrainian military. After each strike, Russian authorities blamed Ukraine, but Ukrainian official stopped short of openly claiming responsibility. Instead, they emphasized the right to attack any target in response to the Russian aggression.

    Fedorov said the effect of Ukraine’s drone warfare could be seen in Russia’s actions, noting that Russia has now started moving armored equipment further from the front line.

    “There have been certain events that have changed the situation, but we continue to scale this useful experience,” he said, but refused to be drawn on the details.

    Commenting on the battle for the city of Bakhmut, the longest of the war so far, Fedorov said that the “use of technologies is invaluable in such situations.”

    “When you have limited artillery resources, weapons, ammunition, and strike drones, you need to be as accurate as possible,” he said. This accuracy can be achieved in particular by drones.

    However, with a front line thousands of kilometers long, the heavy weapons and armored equipment traditional for warfare remained essential, Fedorov said. Technology could help Ukraine locate potential targets, but the army could not hit them all because it lacked the necessary artillery and ammunition, he added.

    The delivery of promised aid from partner countries remained “critical,” said the minister in charge of technologies.

    ___ Follow AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Brazil’s Lula visits Portugal amid Ukraine tensions with EU

    Brazil’s Lula visits Portugal amid Ukraine tensions with EU

    [ad_1]

    LISBON — Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was set to arrive in Portugal on Friday amid heightened tensions with the European Union over his position on the war in Ukraine, following statements suggesting the invaded country and the West share responsibility for the conflict.

    Lula said last weekend while traveling in the United Arab Emirates and China that both Ukraine and Russia had decided to go to war, and that the U.S. was “stimulating” the fighting. Earlier in the month, he irked Ukraine, the U.S. and the EU by suggesting that Ukraine cede Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, to end the current conflict.

    Lula also welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Brasilia on Monday. The following day, Lula condemned the “violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity” while promoting his proposal for a club of nations, including Brazil, to mediate a peaceful resolution to the war.

    Lula’s trip to Portugal is an opportunity to repair some of the damage to Brazil-EU relations his comments caused, said Guilherme Casarões, a political scientist at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a think tank and university in Sao Paulo.

    “It could be an important step for Lula to show that he is really willing to adopt a position of balance or equidistance between the parties involved in the conflict, potentially allowing Brazil to play the role of mediator in the medium term,” Casarões said.

    Lula was expected to meet with Portugal’s president and prime minister this weekend and to appear at a Portugal-Brazil summit with various ministers. He is also scheduled to attend a Monday prize-giving ceremony for Brazilian musician and writer Chico Buarque.

    Lula plans to address Portugal’s parliament on Tuesday, which is the anniversary of the 1974 Carnation Revolution that ended nearly a half-century of authoritarian rule in Portugal.

    Trade will also be high on the agenda, with Lula pushing for implementation of an agreement between the European Union and the South American Mercosur bloc. It was signed in 2019 but hasn’t yet taken effect as not all EU and Mercosur member nations have ratified the agreement.

    “Through this trip to Portugal, Lula is seeking to draw closer to the European Union itself,” Casarões said. “Portugal is a Brazilian ally within the European Union and can serve as a platform for Brazil to defend its position in the context of these negotiations.”

    During the presidency of Lula’s predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, France and other EU members voiced concern that the deal could increase destruction of the Amazon rainforest. Lula, for his part, has tried to show that environmental protection is a central priority of his government and promised to end illegal deforestation by 2030.

    As a result, it is unlikely that environmental concerns will be an issue for completing the deal, Casarões said.

    Brazil is a former Portuguese colony. The royal court left Lisbon in 1807 for Rio de Janeiro, which briefly became the seat of the Portuguese empire. Since Brazil won independence in 1822, the two countries have maintained close ties and are part of the Lusophone Commonwealth, officially known as the Community of Portuguese Language Countries.

    Many Brazilians have moved to Portugal over the past decade amid an economic downturn and political turbulence.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • NATO head defiantly says Ukraine belongs in alliance one day

    NATO head defiantly says Ukraine belongs in alliance one day

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine — NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg defiantly declared Thursday that Ukraine deserves to join the military alliance and pledged continuing support for the country on his first visit to Kyiv since Russia’s invasion just over a year ago.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Stoltenberg, who has been instrumental in marshaling support from NATO’s members, to push for even more from them, including warplanes, artillery and armored equipment.

    The Kremlin has given various justifications for going to war, but repeated Thursday that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO was a key goal behind its invasion, arguing that Kyiv’s membership in the alliance would pose an existential threat to Russia.

    NATO leaders said in 2008 that Ukraine would join the alliance one day, and Stoltenberg has repeated that promise throughout the course of the war — though the organization has established no pathway or timetable for membership.

    “Let me be clear, Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family,” Stoltenberg told a press conference. “Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO.”

    He said he and Zelenskyy discussed a NATO support program.

    “This will help you transition from Soviet-era equipment and doctrines to NATO standards and ensure full interoperability with the alliance,” Stoltenberg said. “NATO stands with you today, tomorrow and for as long as it takes.”

    He noted Thursday’s announcement by Denmark and the Netherlands that they plan to provide Ukraine with at least another 14 refurbished Leopard 2 battle tanks from early 2024. He added that he expected countries to “make new announcements of concrete military support to Ukraine” at a meeting Germany on Friday.

    The fighting in recent months has become a war of attrition, with neither side able to gain momentum. But Ukraine is expected to launch a counteroffensive in coming weeks, and it has recently received sophisticated weapons from its Western allies.

    NATO has no official presence in Ukraine and provides only provides nonlethal support to Kyiv, but Stoltenberg has been the strong voice of the alliance throughout the war.

    A procession of international leaders has made the journey to Kyiv over the last year, and the former Norwegian prime minister is one of the last major Western figures to do so.

    NATO, formed to counter the Soviet Union, has long feared being dragged into a wide war with nuclear-armed Russia, but as the West has moved from hesitantly providing helmets and uniforms to tanks, warplanes and advanced missile systems, high-level visits have become routine.

    Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that preventing Ukraine from joining NATO remains one of the goals of what Moscow calls its “special military operation.” Speaking in a conference call with reporters, Peskov said that Ukraine’s accession would pose a “serious, significant threat to our country, to our country’s security.”

    Earlier this month, Finland joined the alliance, setting aside decades of neutrality in a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape. While NATO says it poses no threat to Russia, the Nordic country’s accession dealt a major political blow to Putin.

    Finland’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Neighboring Sweden is expected to join in coming months, too, possibly by the time U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius in July.

    The alliance has focused on bolstering defenses on its own territory to dissuade Putin from attacking any member country. Under NATO’s collective security guarantee, an attack on one member country is considered to be an attack on them all.

    On Friday, Stoltenberg will attend a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. It’s the main international forum for drumming up military support for the conflict-ravaged country.

    Meanwhile, the Ukraine Space Agency said Thursday that a bright flash of light in the night sky over the country the previous day was probably a meteorite entering the earth’s atmosphere. Residents of the capital and several cities in Belarus saw the flash of light, which lingered for a couple of seconds, and an explosion was heard in the Kyiv region. It triggered an air raid alarm in Kyiv.

    ___

    Cook reported from Brussels.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • NATO chief visits Kyiv for first time since Russian invasion

    NATO chief visits Kyiv for first time since Russian invasion

    [ad_1]

    NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is visiting Ukraine for the first time since last year’s invasion by Russia, an alliance official says

    ByLORNE COOK and SAMYA KULLAB Associated Press

    KYIV, Ukraine — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is visiting Ukraine for the first time since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than a year ago, an alliance official said Thursday.

    “The NATO secretary-general is in Ukraine. We will release more information as soon as possible,” said an alliance official, who asked not to be identified in line with NATO procedures.

    Pictures of Stoltenberg apparently paying tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv’s St Michael’s Square were published by local media.

    Apart from the important symbolism of the visit, the exact purpose of Stoltenberg’s trip wasn’t immediately clear. NATO has no official presence in Ukraine. As an organization of 31 countries, it only provides nonlethal support — generators, medical equipment, tents, military uniforms and other supplies — to the government in Kyiv.

    Stoltenberg has been the strong voice of the alliance throughout the war and has been instrumental in garnering and coordinating support by the 31 members for Ukraine as the country sought to hold on to its territory.

    Stoltenberg had been to Kyiv before the war, but this is his first visit during the hostilities and underscores the longstanding commitments of the alliance in defense of Ukraine’s independence.

    Earlier this month, Finland joined NATO, dealing a major blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a historic realignment of Europe’s post-Cold War security landscape triggered by Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

    The Nordic country’s membership doubles Russia’s border with the world’s biggest security alliance. Neighboring Sweden is expected to join in coming months too, possibly by the time U.S. President Joe Biden and his NATO counterparts meet in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on July 11-12.

    The world’s biggest security alliance has focused on bolstering defenses on its own territory to dissuade Putin from attacking any member country. Under NATO’s collective security guarantee, an attack on one member country is considered to be an attack on them all.

    The U.S. and many other members are providing weapons, ammunition and training for Ukraine’s embattled troops bilaterally and in groups, but NATO as a whole wants to avoid being dragged into any potential war with nuclear armed Russia.

    On Friday, Stoltenberg will attend a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

    ___

    Lorne Cook reported from Brussels.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Stampede in Yemen’s capital kills at least 78, official says

    Stampede in Yemen’s capital kills at least 78, official says

    [ad_1]

    SANAA, Yemen — A crowd of people apparently spooked by gunfire and an electrical explosion stampeded at an event to distribute financial aid in Yemen’s capital late Wednesday, killing at least 78 and injuring dozens more, according to eyewitnesses and a Houthi rebel official.

    Abdel-Rahman Ahmed and Yahia Mohsen, who witnessed the scene, said armed Houthis had fired into the air in an attempt at crowd control, apparently striking an electrical wire and causing it to explode. That sparked a panic, and people, including many women and children, began stampeding, they said.

    Video posted on social media showed dozens of bodies on the ground, some motionless and others screaming as people tried to help.

    The crush took place in the Old City in the center of Sanaa, where hundreds of poor people gathered for the event organized by merchants, according to the Houthi-run Interior Ministry.

    The ministry’s spokesman, Brig. Abdel-Khaleq al-Aghri, blamed the crush on the “random distribution” of funds without coordination with local authorities. The tragedy came ahead of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Islamic holy month Ramadan later this week.

    Dozens of injured people were taken to nearby hospitals. Motaher al-Marouni, a senior health official in Sanaa, gave the death toll and said at least 13 were seriously hurt, according the Houthi rebels’ Al-Masirah satellite TV channel.

    The rebels quickly sealed off the school where the event was held and barred people, including journalists, from approaching.

    The Interior Ministry said it had detained two organizers and an investigation was underway.

    Yemen’s capital has been under the control of the Iranian-backed Houthis since they descended from their northern stronghold in 2014 and removed the internationally recognized government.

    That prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene in 2015 to try to restore the government.

    The conflict has turned in recent years into a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, killing more than 150,000 people including fighters and civilians and creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

    More than 21 million people in Yemen, or two-thirds of the country’s population, need help and protection, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Among those in need, more than 17 million are considered particularly vulnerable.

    In February the United Nations said it had raised only $1.2 billion out of a target of $4.3 billion at a conference aimed at generating funds to ease the humanitarian crisis.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Putin rallies his troops with 2nd Ukraine visit in 2 months

    Putin rallies his troops with 2nd Ukraine visit in 2 months

    [ad_1]

    KYIV, Ukraine — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday visited command posts of the Kremlin’s forces fighting in Ukraine in an apparent effort to rally his troops as the war approaches its 14th month and Kyiv readies a possible counteroffensive with Western-supplied weapons.

    A video released by the Kremlin and broadcast by Russian state television showed Putin arriving by helicopter at the command post for Russian forces in the southern Kherson region and afterward flying to the headquarters of the Russian National Guard of the eastern Luhansk region

    Dressed in a dark suit, and in an apparent demonstration of authority, Putin appeared to chair the meetings with his military top brass. It was his second trip in two months to the Russian-occupied territories in the neighboring country.

    The locations of the military headquarters in the Kherson and Luhansk regions weren’t disclosed, so it wasn’t possible to assess how close they are to the front line.

    Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned into a stalemate amid heavy fighting in the country’s east, particularly around the town of Bakhmut, which for 8½ months has been the stage for the war’s longest and bloodiest fight.

    In both locations, Putin congratulated the military on Orthodox Easter, which was celebrated Sunday and presented them with icons.

    Russia annexed the Kherson and Luhansk regions along with the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions in September in a move that was rejected by much of the world as illegal.

    It was impossible to independently verify the authenticity of the video footage.

    Last month, Putin visited the Russian-held Sea of Azov port city of Mariupol, which was captured by Russian troops in May after two months of fierce fighting.

    Putin’s trips to the military headquarters come as Ukraine is preparing for a new counteroffensive to reclaim the occupied territories.

    Ukrainian officials have said they’re buying time by depleting Russian forces in the battle while Kyiv prepares a counteroffensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has argued that if Russia wins the Bakhmut battle, it could allow Putin to begin building international support for a deal that would require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises to end the war.

    Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told The Associated Press in an interview in Kyiv that Ukraine’s allies are helping the government to achieve the level of technical equipment necessary to launch the attack, delivering heavy armored vehicles and ammunition.

    He expressed confidence that Ukraine will be able to return all its occupied territories.

    “We will defeat Russia,” he said. “If you have a strong inner spirit, you will definitely win. And we always had it strong. This is something that always annoyed the Russians.”

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • US helicopter raid in Syria targets an Islamic State leader

    US helicopter raid in Syria targets an Islamic State leader

    [ad_1]

    The U.S. military says a helicopter raid by U.S. forces in northern Syria has resulted in the “probable death” of a senior leader of the militant Islamic State group

    BEIRUT — A helicopter raid by U.S. forces in northern Syria early on Monday resulted in the “probable death” of a senior leader of the militant Islamic State group, the U.S. military said.

    The U.S. Central Command said in a statement that the IS leader, who was not named, was “responsible for planning terror attacks in the Middle East and Europe.” Two other “armed individuals” were killed along with the target of the raid, CENTCOM said. The statement said no civilians or U.S. troops were hurt in the operation.

    Syria’s White Helmets, a civil defense group operating in opposition-held areas of northern Syria, said it transported two people wounded during the raid to a local hospital, which later said they had died. A third person was killed when the U.S. forces landed for the raid, the White Helmets said.

    The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which partners with the U.S. in anti-IS operations in northeast Syria, said that the operation was launched from a base near the town of Kobani and targeted a military site belonging to a Turkish-backed armed opposition group, Suqour al-Shamal, in the village of village of Suwayda in the region of Jarablus, near the Turkish border.

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that the raid had resulted in the arrest of a senior IS leader and killed three people. The U.S. military made no mention of any arrests.

    The Observatory said “violent clashes” took place after the helicopter landed, the first such landing this year.

    At least 900 U.S. troops are deployed in Syria, along with an undisclosed number of contractors.

    The Islamic State group, which swept through Iraq and Syria in 2014, taking control of large swaths of territory, was defeated in Syria in 2019, but sleeper cells maintain a presence and periodically stage attacks on military and civilian targets.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Dozens killed as army, rivals battle for control of Sudan

    Dozens killed as army, rivals battle for control of Sudan

    [ad_1]

    KHARTOUM, Sudan — The Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group battled for control of the chaos-stricken nation for a second day Sunday, signaling they were unwilling to end hostilities despite mounting diplomatic pressure to cease fire.

    Heavy fighting involving armored vehicles, truck-mounted machine guns and war planes raged Sunday in the capital of Khartoum, the adjoining city of Omdurman and in flashpoints across the country. The rival forces are believed to have tens of thousands of fighters each in the capital alone.

    At least five civilians were killed and 78 wounded Sunday, bringing the two-day toll to 61 dead and more than 670 wounded, said the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate. The group said it believes there were dozens of additional deaths among the rival forces.

    The clashes are part of a power struggle between Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces group. The two generals are former allies who jointly orchestrated an October 2021 military coup that derailed Sudan’s short-lived transition to democracy.

    In recent months, internationally backed negotiations revived hopes for such a transition, but growing tensions between Burhan and Dagalo eventually delayed a deal with political parties.

    Volker Perthes, the U.N. envoy for Sudan, announced that both Burhan and Dagalo agreed to a three-hour humanitarian pause in fighting on Sunday.

    An hour after the pause was meant to have started in the late afternoon, regular exchanges of guns and heavy weapons firing could still be heard in parts of central Khartoum, even intensifying in some areas. The clashes come as most Sudanese are preparing to celebrate the major holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, when Muslims traditionally fast from sunrise to sunset.

    Residents in the capital said fighting raged around the military’s headquarters shortly before sunset. “Heavy explosions and gunfire around the clock,” said Amany Sayed, a 38-year-old Khartoum resident. “The battles here (in the capital) never stopped.”

    In Khartoum and Omdurman, fighting was also reported around Khartoum International Airport and state television headquarters. A senior military official said clashes with RSF fighters began earlier in the day around military headquarters.

    “They are shooting against each other in the streets,” said prominent rights advocate Tahani Abass who lives near the military headquarters. “It’s an all-out war in residential areas.”

    Abass said her family spent the night huddling on the ground floor of their home. “No one was able to sleep and the kids were crying and screaming with every explosion,” she said. Sounds of gunfire were heard while she was speaking to The Associated Press.

    The military and the RSF both claimed to be in control of strategic locations in Khartoum and elsewhere in the county. Their claims couldn’t be independently verified.

    Both sides signaled that they were unwilling to negotiate.

    Burhan’s military called for dismantling the RSF, which it labeled a “rebellious militia.” Dagalo told the satellite news network Al Arabyia that he ruled out negotiation and called on Burhan to surrender.

    Meanwhile, diplomatic pressure appeared to be mounting.

    Top diplomats, including the U.S. Secretary of State, the U.N. secretary-general, the EU foreign policy chief, the head of the Arab League and the head of the African Union Commission urged the sides to stop fighting. Members of the U.N. Security Council, at odds over other crises around the world, called for an immediate end of the hostilities and a return to dialogue.

    The African Union’s top council called Sunday for an immediate cease-fire “without conditions.” It also asked the AU Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat to “immediately travel to Sudan to engage the parties towards a cease-fire.”

    Arab states with stakes in Sudan — Qatar, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — made similar appeals. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Farhan bin Faisal spoke by phone with Sudan’s rival generals and urged them to stop “all kinds of military escalation,” Saudi state TV reported.

    U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he consulted with the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. “We agreed it was essential for the parties to immediately end hostilities without pre-condition,” he said in a statement early Sunday.

    On Sunday, the World Food Program said it temporarily suspended operations in Sudan after three agency employees were killed in clashes the previous day and an aircraft used by the WFP was damaged.

    “We cannot do our lifesaving work if the safety and security of our teams and partners is not guaranteed,” said Cindy McCain, the executive director of the agency. About 16 million people, or one-third of Sudan’s population, require humanitarian assistance, according to the U.N.

    The rival forces were fighting in several locations across Sudan, including the western Darfur region where tens of thousands of people live in camps for displaced people after years of genocidal civil war.

    The three WFP employees were killed in clashes in the town of Kebkabiya in the province of North Darfur. Two agency employees were wounded.

    Dozens of people were also killed and wounded since Saturday at a camp for displaced people in North Darfur, said Adam Regal, a spokesman for a Darfur charity.

    In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur province, the two sides fought for control of the city’s airport, said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

    The official said fighting also spread to the eastern region, including the provinces of Kassala and al-Qadarif on the borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea. He said battles centered around RSF and army bases.

    The recent tensions stem from disagreement over how the RSF, headed by Dagalo, should be integrated into the armed forces and what authority should oversee the process. The merger is a key condition of Sudan’s unsigned transition agreement with political groups.

    Pro-democracy activists have blamed Burhan and Dagalo for abuses against protesters across the county over the past four years, including the deadly break-up of a protest camp outside the military’s headquarters in Khartoum in June 2019 that killed over 120 protesters. Many groups have repeatedly called for holding them accountable. The RSF has long been accused of atrocities linked to the Darfur conflict.

    Sudan, a country at the crossroads of the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa, is known for its history of military coups and civil conflicts since it gained independence in 1950s. A decade-old civil conflict resulted in the secession of South Sudan in 2011.

    The U.N. Security Council will discuss the crisis in Sudan on Monday, said Fedor Strzhizhovskiy, the spokesman for the U.N. mission of Russia, which holds the council’s presidency this month.

    ___

    Magdy reported from Cairo.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Frances D’Emilio in Rome contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • EU leaders beat a path to Xi’s door seeking China’s help

    EU leaders beat a path to Xi’s door seeking China’s help

    [ad_1]

    BRUSSELS — In the weeks since Chinese leader Xi Jinping won a third five-year term as president, setting him on course to remain in power for life, leaders and diplomats from around the world have beaten a path to his door. None more so than those from Europe.

    French President Emmanuel Macron made a high-profile state visit to Beijing last week accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in the northeast port city of Tianjin on Thursday, following a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in November. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, would have been in China this week, too, but he tested positive for COVID-19.

    For the 27-nation trading bloc, the reasons to head to China are clear.

    As an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi could play a pivotal role in helping to end the war in Ukraine. The conflict has dragged on for over a year, driven up energy prices and inflicted more damage on economies struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

    The Europeans want Xi’s help. They want him to talk to Ukraine’s president as well as Russia’s, but they don’t see him as the key mediator. China’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine is mostly a list of its previously known positions and is unacceptable, EU officials say.

    The EU also fears that Xi might supply weapons to Russia. They’ve been particularly disturbed by Putin’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. That announcement came just days after Xi and Putin met to cement their “no-limits friendship.”

    Baerbock said the war is “top of my agenda.” Praising Beijing for easing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, she said that “its influence vis à vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.”

    At the same time, the EU is deeply concerned about a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait. China launched war games just after Macron left. But unlike the U.S., with its military and strategic interest in Taiwan, the Europeans mostly see the island in economic and pro-democracy terms.

    So the visits are meant to reassure Xi of respect for Beijing’s control over all of Chinese territory and to urge calm. They also highlight the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to build a coalition of countries to ramp up pressure on Beijing over its expansionist policies.

    “The key is that we have every interest, both in Europe and in China, to maintain the status quo,” a senior EU official said Wednesday, briefing reporters on plans for Borrell’s sensitive trip on condition that he not be named. “It has worked well for all sides for decades.”

    Beyond the geopolitics lies business. The EU and China did more than 2.3 billion euros’ ($2.5 billion) worth of trade every day last year, and the Europeans don’t want to endanger that. However, the EU’s trade deficit has more than tripled over the past decade, and it wants to level the business playing field.

    It’s also desperate to limit its imports of critical resources from China, like rare earth minerals or hi-tech components, after painfully weaning itself off its biggest, and most unreliable, gas supplier, Russia.

    It’s a fine line to walk, and China is adept at divide-and-conquer politics.

    Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has often used its economic heft to pry France, Germany and other allies away from the U.S. on issues ranging from military security and trade to human rights and Taiwan.

    Beijing has called repeatedly for a “multi-polar world,” a reference to Chinese frustration with U.S. dominance of global affairs and the ruling Communist Party’s ambition to see the country become an international leader.

    “There has been a serious deviation in U.S. understanding and positioning about China, treating China as the primary opponent and the biggest geopolitical challenge,” the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, told reporters last month.

    “China-Europe relations are not targeted, dependent, or subject to third parties,” he said.

    Macron’s visit appeared to illustrate that Qin’s view isn’t just wishful thinking. As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington, the French leader said, it is important for Europe to retain its “strategic autonomy.”

    “Being a friend doesn’t mean that you have to be a vassal,” Macron said Wednesday, repeating a remark from his trip that alarmed some European partners. “Just because we’re allies, it doesn’t mean (that) we no longer have the right to think for ourselves.”

    Such comments could strain ties with the U.S. and have also exposed divisions within the EU.

    Without mentioning Macron, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that some in Europe were too slow to heed the “wake-up call” on China.

    “You could see this over the past couple of weeks as some European leaders went to Beijing,” Morawiecki said, adding: “I do not quite understand the idea of strategic autonomy, if it means de-facto shooting into our own knee.”

    For its part, the White House has sought to downplay Macron’s talk of Europe as “an independent pole in a multi-polar world.”

    It thinks European skepticism toward Beijing is growing. U.S. officials note a recent Dutch decision to restrict China’s access to advanced computer chip components or Scholz publicly prodding Xi not to deliver weapons to Russia.

    Despite the differences of national emphasis, the EU’s strategy on China remains much as it was enshrined in 2019 — that the Asian giant is “a partner, a competitor and systemic rival.” The aim of the recent visits fit that mold: to secure Xi’s commitment to peace, keep trade flowing fairly and reduce Europe’s reliance on China for critical resources.

    ___

    Joe McDonald in Beijing, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • EU leaders beat a path to Xi’s door seeking China’s help

    EU leaders beat a path to Xi’s door seeking China’s help

    [ad_1]

    BRUSSELS — In the weeks since Chinese leader Xi Jinping won a third five-year term as president, setting him on course to remain in power for life, leaders and diplomats from around the world have beaten a path to his door. None more so than those from Europe.

    French President Emmanuel Macron made a high-profile state visit to Beijing last week accompanied by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, just days after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

    German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in the northeast port city of Tianjin on Thursday, following a visit by Chancellor Olaf Scholz in November. The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, would have been in China this week, too, but he tested positive for COVID-19.

    For the 27-nation trading bloc, the reasons to head to China are clear.

    As an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Xi could play a pivotal role in helping to end the war in Ukraine. The conflict has dragged on for over a year, driven up energy prices and inflicted more damage on economies struggling to rebound from the coronavirus pandemic.

    The Europeans want Xi’s help. They want him to talk to Ukraine’s president as well as Russia’s, but they don’t see him as the key mediator. China’s proposed peace plan for Ukraine is mostly a list of its previously known positions and is unacceptable, EU officials say.

    The EU also fears that Xi might supply weapons to Russia. They’ve been particularly disturbed by Putin’s plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus. That announcement came just days after Xi and Putin met to cement their “no-limits friendship.”

    Baerbock said the war is “top of my agenda.” Praising Beijing for easing tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran, she said that “its influence vis à vis Russia will have consequences for the whole of Europe and for our relationship with China.”

    At the same time, the EU is deeply concerned about a military escalation in the Taiwan Strait. China launched war games just after Macron left. But unlike the U.S., with its military and strategic interest in Taiwan, the Europeans mostly see the island in economic and pro-democracy terms.

    So the visits are meant to reassure Xi of respect for Beijing’s control over all of Chinese territory and to urge calm. They also highlight the challenge the U.S. faces as it tries to build a coalition of countries to ramp up pressure on Beijing over its expansionist policies.

    “The key is that we have every interest, both in Europe and in China, to maintain the status quo,” a senior EU official said Wednesday, briefing reporters on plans for Borrell’s sensitive trip on condition that he not be named. “It has worked well for all sides for decades.”

    Beyond the geopolitics lies business. The EU and China did more than 2.3 billion euros’ ($2.5 billion) worth of trade every day last year, and the Europeans don’t want to endanger that. However, the EU’s trade deficit has more than tripled over the past decade, and it wants to level the business playing field.

    It’s also desperate to limit its imports of critical resources from China, like rare earth minerals or hi-tech components, after painfully weaning itself off its biggest, and most unreliable, gas supplier, Russia.

    It’s a fine line to walk, and China is adept at divide-and-conquer politics.

    Over the past two decades, the Chinese government has often used its economic heft to pry France, Germany and other allies away from the U.S. on issues ranging from military security and trade to human rights and Taiwan.

    Beijing has called repeatedly for a “multi-polar world,” a reference to Chinese frustration with U.S. dominance of global affairs and the ruling Communist Party’s ambition to see the country become an international leader.

    “There has been a serious deviation in U.S. understanding and positioning about China, treating China as the primary opponent and the biggest geopolitical challenge,” the Chinese foreign minister, Qin Gang, told reporters last month.

    “China-Europe relations are not targeted, dependent, or subject to third parties,” he said.

    Macron’s visit appeared to illustrate that Qin’s view isn’t just wishful thinking. As tensions rise between Beijing and Washington, the French leader said, it is important for Europe to retain its “strategic autonomy.”

    “Being a friend doesn’t mean that you have to be a vassal,” Macron said Wednesday, repeating a remark from his trip that alarmed some European partners. “Just because we’re allies, it doesn’t mean (that) we no longer have the right to think for ourselves.”

    Such comments could strain ties with the U.S. and have also exposed divisions within the EU.

    Without mentioning Macron, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki warned that some in Europe were too slow to heed the “wake-up call” on China.

    “You could see this over the past couple of weeks as some European leaders went to Beijing,” Morawiecki said, adding: “I do not quite understand the idea of strategic autonomy, if it means de-facto shooting into our own knee.”

    For its part, the White House has sought to downplay Macron’s talk of Europe as “an independent pole in a multi-polar world.”

    It thinks European skepticism toward Beijing is growing. U.S. officials note a recent Dutch decision to restrict China’s access to advanced computer chip components or Scholz publicly prodding Xi not to deliver weapons to Russia.

    Despite the differences of national emphasis, the EU’s strategy on China remains much as it was enshrined in 2019 — that the Asian giant is “a partner, a competitor and systemic rival.” The aim of the recent visits fit that mold: to secure Xi’s commitment to peace, keep trade flowing fairly and reduce Europe’s reliance on China for critical resources.

    ___

    Joe McDonald in Beijing, Aamer Madhani in Washington, Geir Moulson in Berlin, Vanessa Gera in Warsaw and Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, contributed.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Today in History: April 15, Titanic sinks; 1,500 dead

    Today in History: April 15, Titanic sinks; 1,500 dead

    [ad_1]

    Today in History

    Today is Saturday, April 15, the 105th day of 2023. There are 260 days left in the year.

    Today’s Highlight in History:

    On April 15, 1912, the British luxury liner RMS Titanic foundered in the North Atlantic off Newfoundland more than 2 1/2 hours after hitting an iceberg; 1,514 people died, while less than half as many survived.

    On this date:

    In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died nine hours after being shot the night before by John Wilkes Booth at Ford’s Theatre in Washington; Andrew Johnson became the nation’s 17th president.

    In 1892, General Electric Co., formed by the merger of the Edison Electric Light Co. and other firms, was incorporated in Schenectady, New York.

    In 1945, during World War II, British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp Bergen-Belsen. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died on April 12, was buried at the Roosevelt family home in Hyde Park, New York.

    In 1947, Jackie Robinson, baseball’s first Black major league player of the modern era, made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day at Ebbets Field. (The Dodgers defeated the Boston Braves, 5-3.)

    In 1955, Ray Kroc opened the first franchised McDonald’s restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois.

    In 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army held up a branch of the Hibernia Bank in San Francisco; a member of the group was SLA kidnap victim Patricia Hearst, who by this time was going by the name “Tania” (Hearst later said she’d been forced to participate).

    In 1989, 96 people died in a crush of soccer fans at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England. Students in Beijing launched a series of pro-democracy protests; the demonstrations culminated in a government crackdown at Tiananmen Square.

    In 1998, Pol Pot, the notorious leader of the Khmer Rouge, died at age 72, evading prosecution for the deaths of 2 million Cambodians.

    In 2009, whipped up by conservative commentators and bloggers, tens of thousands of protesters staged “tea parties” around the country to tap into the collective angst stirred up by a bad economy, government spending and bailouts.

    In 2013, two bombs made from pressure cookers exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing two women and an 8-year-old boy and injuring more than 260. Suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM’-ehr-luhn tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) died in a shootout with police; his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv), was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

    In 2019, fire swept across the top of the Notre Dame Cathedral as the soaring Paris landmark underwent renovations; the blaze collapsed the cathedral’s spire and spread to one of its landmark rectangular towers, but fire officials said the church’s structure had been saved.

    In 2020, the government reported that the nation’s industrial output in March registered its biggest decline since the U.S. demobilized at the end of World War II as factories shut down amid the coronavirus epidemic.

    Ten years ago: Venezuela’s electoral council quickly certified the razor-thin presidential victory of Hugo Chavez’s hand-picked successor, Nicolas Maduro. North Koreans celebrated the birthday of their first leader, Kim Il Sung, by dancing in plazas and snacking on peanuts. The Denver Post won a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colorado, while The New York Times captured awards for reporting on a harrowing avalanche, the rise of a new aristocracy in China and the business practices of Apple and Wal-Mart. Adam Johnson’s “The Orphan Master’s Son” won the Pulitzer for fiction, while Ayad Akhtar’s “Disgraced” won the drama prize.

    Five years ago: A seven-hour battle over territory and money broke out among inmates armed with homemade knives at the Lee Correctional Institution in South Carolina, leaving seven inmates dead and 22 injured in the worst U.S. prison riot in a quarter-century. At the Academy of Country Music Awards, held in Las Vegas six months after the deadly shooting at a country music festival there, Jason Aldean paid tribute to the 58 people killed; he spoke after he was named entertainer of the year for the third consecutive time. (Aldean had been performing at the Las Vegas festival when the shooting began.)

    One year ago: It was revealed that more than 900 civilian bodies had been discovered in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital following the withdrawal of Russian forces. Police said many were “simply executed.” Mississippi announced it was ditching a state song that was based on the campaign tune of a former governor who pledged to preserve segregation. Prince Harry and his wife Meghan visited Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle on their first joint visit to the U.K. since they gave up formal royal roles and moved to the U.S. more than two years earlier. Liz Sheridan, who played doting mom to Jerry Seinfeld on his hit sitcom, died at age 93.

    Today’s Birthdays: Actor Claudia Cardinale is 85. Author and politician Jeffrey Archer is 83. Rock singer-guitarist Dave Edmunds is 80. Actor Michael Tucci is 77. Actor Lois Chiles is 76. Writer-producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason is 76. Actor Amy Wright is 73. Actor Sam McMurray is 71. Actor-screenwriter Emma Thompson is 64. Bluegrass musician Jeff Parker is 62. Singer Samantha Fox is 57. Olympic gold, silver and bronze medal swimmer Dara Torres is 56. Rock musician Ed O’Brien (Radiohead) is 55. Actor Flex Alexander is 53. Actor Danny Pino is 49. Actor Douglas Spain is 49. Country singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton is 45. Actor Luke Evans is 44. Rock musician Patrick Carney (The Black Keys) is 43. Rock musician Zach Carothers (Portugal. The Man) is 42. Actor-writer Seth Rogen is 41. Actor Alice Braga is 40. Americana singer-songwriter Margo Price is 40. Rock musician De’Mar Hamilton (Plain White T’s) is 39. Actor Samira Wiley is 36. Actor Leonie Elliott is 35. Actor Emma Watson is 33. Actor Maisie Williams is 26.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • In first, Iran’s president addresses Palestinians in Gaza

    In first, Iran’s president addresses Palestinians in Gaza

    [ad_1]

    GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Iran’s president on Friday delivered an unprecedented speech to an annual pro-Palestinian rally in the Gaza Strip — a display of Iran’s importance to the Hamas militant group that rules the territory.

    In a virtual address to hundreds of supporters of Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad group gathered at a soccer field, Ebrahim Raisi urged Palestinians to press on with their struggle against Israel.

    “The initiative to self-determination is today in the hands of the Palestinian fighters,” Raisi said, dismissing Hamas’ domestic political rival, the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, which has long sought to win Palestinian statehood through negotiations with Israel. The Palestinian Authority administers autonomous enclaves in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

    Raisi’s speech was seen as part of efforts to mend a rift between Hamas and its long-time patron, Iran, over the devastating civil war in Syria.

    Raisi addressed the crowd on the occasion of “Jerusalem Day,” or al-Quds Day after the city’s Arabic name, which falls on the final Friday of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. Jerusalem is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site of Islam. The mosque sits atop a walled esplanade, a compound that was the site of biblical Jewish temples and is revered as the most sacred site in Judaism.

    The compound has repeatedly been a flashpoint in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last week, Israeli police forcefully removed Palestinian worshippers who had barricaded themselves in the mosque with stones and firecrackers, demanding the right to pray there overnight.

    After the raid, in which hundreds of Palestinians were detained and dozens hurt, Palestinian militants fired rockets from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria toward Israel.

    The Hamas leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, praised the rocket fire during Friday’s rally. “The response came like a simple electric shock,” Sinwar said.

    For the past four decades, al-Quds Day parades have drawn thousands to the streets around the Middle East. The event is most dramatic in Iran, where crowds burn Israeli flags and chant pledges to liberate Jerusalem. Israel captured Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war and annexed it to its capital. Palestinians seek the eastern part of the city as a future capital.

    Although Hamas is a Sunni Muslim group, it has a militant wing that has long nurtured close ties with Iran, a source of funding and a Shiite powerhouse. Hamas and Iran are brought together by a shared enmity toward Israel.

    While Iran has not revealed the details of its support, Hamas has publicly praised the Islamic Republic for its assistance. Experts say Iran’s support is both financial and political — now mostly blueprint technology, engineering know-how and training to help the militant group grow its own homemade arsenal of advanced rockets that can strike all of Israel’s territory.

    A crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas violently wrested control of Gaza in 2007 has made it difficult for Hamas to smuggle Iranian-made rockets into the coastal enclave in recent years.

    The U.S. State Department reports that Iran provides some $100 million a year to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

    The civil war in Syria strained the relationship. In 2012, Hamas closed its Damascus office and left Syria following President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown on a popular uprising — including on the Muslim Brotherhood, a political Islamist movement with which Hamas is aligned.

    But the Hamas military wing has been drifting closer to Iran, a main backer of Assad. Recent steps toward reconciliation between Hamas and Assad late last year have pointed toward Iran’s growing influence on Gaza’s militant rulers.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Welcomed in Ireland, ‘Cousin Joe’ Biden jokes of staying

    Welcomed in Ireland, ‘Cousin Joe’ Biden jokes of staying

    [ad_1]

    DUBLIN — DUBLIN (AP) — In Ireland this week, well-wishers have lined the streets to catch a mere glimpse of President Joe Biden. Photos of his smiling face are plastered on shop windows, and one admirer held a sign reading, “2024 — Make Joe President Again.”

    No wonder Biden keeps joking about sticking around.

    Back home, Biden’s approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency. And even some fellow Democrats have suggested he shouldn’t run for reelection. On trips within the U.S. to discuss his economic and social policies, Biden often gets a smattering of admirers waving as he drives by, and friendly crowds applaud his speeches. But the reception doesn’t compare with the overwhelming adoration he’s getting here in the old sod.

    Expect more of the same on Friday, when Biden wraps up his visit to Ireland by spending a day in County Mayo in western Ireland, where his great-great-grandfather Patrick Blewitt lived until he left for the United States in 1850. The locals have been abuzz for weeks with preparation for Biden’s visit, giving buildings a new coat of paint and hanging American flags from shopfronts.

    It’s a dynamic that most of Biden’s predecessors also have faced: The world abroad tends to love American presidents. Back home, not always. Not so much.

    “With the greatest of respect, Mr. President, I must say, you sure can draw a crowd,” Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl, speaker of the lower chamber of Ireland’s parliament, said as he introduced Biden’s joint address to lawmakers on Thursday. “Perhaps afterwards you might give me some hints on how we could ensure good attendance around here.”

    A U.S. president’s overseas trips often offer a backdrop and substance that are difficult to replicate on home turf. Biden’s Ireland trip has been heady with nostalgia and fellowship — grand sweeping hills and cozy towns fitting for just such a mood.

    Presidential visits come with the pageantry of Air Force One landings, long motorcades and “the beast,” Biden’s limo, which other world leaders, like Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, delight in riding.

    “He can feel the love in a way that’s hard to do at home,” presidential historian Douglas Brinkley said. “There’s something about an American president being in your country that makes a nation’s press and public go gaga.”

    “With the exception of the pope, the American president is usually the most coveted global figure,” Brinkley said.

    During Biden’s visit to Warsaw, Poland, in February, thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Royal Castle to hear the president deliver a speech on the eve of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

    With the castle lit in the colors of the Ukrainian flag behind him, Biden vowed that “Democracies of the world will stand guard over freedom today, tomorrow and forever” to a rapt audience. As Biden exited the stage, he paused one more time to take in the scene, and a man in the audience bellowed out: “You’re our hero!”

    When Biden spoke to the Canadian parliament in March, the chamber broke into applause 34 times. In a country in which English and French are spoken, Biden produced a thunderous round of clapping by simply opening his speech with “Bonjour, Canada.”

    Even in Ireland, though, the acclaim was not universal. The small left-wing party People Before Profit vowed to boycott Biden’s speech to parliament because of opposition to U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and elsewhere.

    People Before Profit lawmaker Paul Murphy said the president’s trip was being “treated as a visit by an interesting Irish-American celebrity, as opposed to a visit of the most powerful person in the world who needs to be asked hard questions about the kinds of policies that he is pursuing.”

    But Biden’s critics overseas tend to be far less personal with their jibes than what he gets in the U.S.

    One demonstrator Thursday held up a paper sign that said “Arrest War Criminal Biden” as the president’s motorcade headed for the Irish president’s house. During his Warsaw trip, a group stood in a square across the street from his hotel and chanted for hours, asking him to supply fighter jets to Ukraine. In 2021, when Biden met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland, protesters urged the U.S. president to press the case of jailed Russian leader Alexei Navalny.

    In the U.S., a few demonstrators routinely line up along the presidential motorcade route with flags emblazoned with “Let’s Go Brandon” — a coded insult for something far more vulgar that’s been embraced by some on the right. He’s also often confronted with signs claiming “Trump won,” a reference to former President Donald Trump’s repeated lie that the 2020 election was stolen.

    Biden is far from the only U.S. president to find appreciation abroad that seems more elusive at home.

    Then-President Bill Clinton found refuge overseas from the investigations pressing in on him at home. In his last year in office, President George W. Bush was about as well liked at home as Richard Nixon right before he resigned in scandal, according to the Pew Research Center. Bush’s reputation also plunged around the world as the Iraq War devolved into a quagmire.

    But Bush remained more popular in Africa, where he boosted foreign aid and battled the AIDS epidemic. He visited five countries on a trip to the continent in 2008, touting his accomplishments at a time of domestic backlash.

    His successor, President Barack Obama, saw his fortunes diverge in his first term. The grinding fallout from the Great Recession dragged down his approval ratings in the U.S., but views elsewhere in the world remained untarnished.

    The Irish response to Biden has been overwhelmingly positive for Cousin Joe, as many have called him. In the town of Dundalk, in County Louth, thousands of people waited nearly eight hours to see him. As he made his way through streets filled with admirers, some strained to get even a touch from him.

    Biden took selfies. He smiled at children. And he took a whirlwind tour of ancestral sites, pausing at Carlingford Castle, which could well have been the last Irish landmark that Owen Finnegan, his maternal great-great-grandfather, saw before sailing for New York in 1849. As he gazed at the sea, thousands cheered to him from the streets below, mixing with the sound of bagpipes that wafted from the green hills.

    “I don’t know why the hell my ancestors left here,” Biden said. “It’s beautiful.”

    ___

    Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani, Josh Boak and Zeke Miller in Washington, Jill Lawless in London and David Keyton in Dublin contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • Red Cross: Yemen rebels, Saudi coalition begin prisoner swap

    Red Cross: Yemen rebels, Saudi coalition begin prisoner swap

    [ad_1]

    SANAA, Yemen — An exchange of more than 800 prisoners linked to Yemen’s long-running war began Friday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said. The United Nations-brokered deal, in the works for months, comes amid concerted diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict.

    It is most significant prisoner exchange in Yemen since both sides freed more than 1,000 detainees in October 2020. Thousands of people are believed to be held as prisoners of war by all sides since the war erupted.

    In the three-day exchange, flights will transport prisoners between Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, long held by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, said Majed Fadail, a deputy minister for human rights for Yemen’s internationally recognized government.

    Other flights will bring prisoners between Sanaa and other Yemeni cities controlled by the internationally recognized government, he said. The Red Cross said that on Friday, there would be two rounds of simultaneous flights between Aden and Sanaa to transfer prisoners.

    Yemen’s conflict began in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of the country’s north. Yemen’s internationally recognized government fled to the south and then into exile in Saudi Arabia.

    The Houthi takeover prompted a Saudi-led coalition to intervene months later. The conflict has in recent years turned into a regional proxy war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the United States long involved on the periphery, providing intelligence assistance to the kingdom. However, international criticism over Saudi airstrikes killing civilians saw the U.S. pull back its support.

    The war has killed more than 150,000 people, including fighters and civilians, and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.

    The prisoner exchange had been scheduled to start earlier in the week but was delayed because of apparent logistical reasons.

    “With this act of goodwill, hundreds of families torn apart by conflict are being reunited during the holy month of Ramadan, a glimmer of hope amidst great suffering,” Fabrizio Carboni, the Red Cross’ regional director for the Near and Middle East, said in a statement. “Our deep desire is that these releases provide momentum for a broader political solution, leading to even more detainees returning to their loved ones.”

    The deal tentatively calls for the Houthis to release more than 180 prisoners, including Saudi and Sudanese troops fighting with the Saudi-led coalition, and four Yemeni journalists. The journalists were detained in recent years and sentenced to death by a Houthi-controlled court in a trial described by Amnesty International as “grossly unfair.”

    The deal also will see the release of top military officials held by the Houthis since the start of the war. Those include Maj. Gen. Mahmoud al-Subaihi, who was the defense minister when the war erupted; Nasser Mansour Hadi, the brother of former Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi; and relatives of late strongman President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

    In return, the Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni government are scheduled to release more than 700 Houthi prisoners, the rebels said.

    Saudi Arabia has already freed 13 Houthi detainees who returned to Sanaa on April 9 ahead of a trip by Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber, to the Yemeni capital. Including those detainees, the deal will see a total of 869 prisoners released, the Red Cross says.

    Al-Jaber visit to Sanaa was part of Oman-brokered talks between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis, aiming to revive a nationwide cease-fire that expired in October and relaunch inter-Yemeni peace talks to end the conflict.

    A deal last month between Saudi Arabia and Iran to restore ties has boosted negotiations between the kingdom and the Houthis and invigorated hopes of a negotiated settlement to the Yemeni conflict.

    However, some analysts fear that Saudi Arabia’s withdrawal could see a new version of the conflict erupt between Yemen’s rival governments. Then there are also secessionists who want to restore a separate country of South Yemen, which existed from 1967 to 1990.

    “I see prospects for temporary peace between the Saudis and the Houthis but escalation of violence within Yemen,” said Nadwa Dawsari, a nonresident scholar with the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based think-tank.

    She said that the Houthis have not shown themselves to be willing to compromise to reach peace with other Yemeni groups.

    “That is their ideology, they feel they are entitled to rule,” she said.

    Yemen also remains home to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, viewed by Washington as a dangerous offshoot of the Islamic extremist group.

    ___

    Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.

    [ad_2]

    Source link

  • UN, others cite new displacement from Ethiopia’s Tigray

    UN, others cite new displacement from Ethiopia’s Tigray

    [ad_1]

    ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have displaced tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans from disputed territory in the north of the country in recent weeks despite a peace deal agreed late last year, according to aid workers and internal agency documents seen by the AP.

    The Mai Tsebri area in northwestern Tigray is close to the regional border with Amhara. It changed hands several times during the war, which erupted in 2020 and ended with a ceasefire in November. The Amhara people claim the area as their own.

    Since early March, some 47,000 people uprooted from Mai Tsebri have gone to Endabaguna, a town roughly 55 kilometers (34 miles) further north, according to United Nations figures seen by the AP on Thursday.

    Another report, prepared by a humanitarian agency, says residents fled Mai Tsebri because of “harassment, ethnic profiling and direct threats” from irregular Amhara forces that also carried out “evictions.”

    That report adds that there have been no aid deliveries to Endabaguna since the displaced people started arriving. As a result, it says, they are “on the brink of starvation.”

    The displaced people at Endabaguna are sheltering in a reception center originally built by the U.N. and Ethiopia’s government for refugees from Eritrea, which borders Tigray. The site was badly damaged during the war.

    An aid worker who recently visited the center said conditions there were “very bad” and the number of people was “increasing day by day.”

    “The roofing and pipelines are damaged, there is no toilet and latrine, the doors and windows of the rooms are looted (or) damaged, and there is no proper water supply,” said the aid worker, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    It was not immediately possible to get a comment from Amhara authorities.

    A second aid worker, who also requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to a reporter, said many of the people recently uprooted from Mai Tsebri were displaced for a second time, having already been forced from their homes in the western part of Tigray.

    Amhara forces annexed western Tigray in the early stages of the war. They stand accused of “ethnic cleansing” by the U.S. State Department after they forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans from the area.

    Under the recent ceasefire, aid deliveries to Tigray resumed after two years of restrictions. However, aid workers say Amhara forces have continued to block food distribution around Mai Tsebri, and residents have reported killings.

    One Mai Tsebri resident, Teferi Muley, said he fled the area in November after he was threatened by Amhara troops, who accused him of helping the Tigray rebels. He said he returned in March to the nearby village of Haida, where he witnessed the shooting of several artisanal gold miners by Amhara troops.

    Last week Ethiopia’s government said it planned to fold the security forces of the 11 federal regions into the national army or police. This prompted a wave of protest across Amhara, as well as gun battles between the federal military and regional Amhara units who refused to disarm.

    Humanitarian officials believe the upheaval will likely lead to an increase in displacements from Mai Tsebri, which already stand at an average of 150 households every day, according to an assessment by another aid agency.

    [ad_2]

    Source link