A critical week for diplomacy, as US President Joe Biden heads to Europe for a special NATO summit aimed at defusing the conflict in Ukraine and imposing more consequences on Russia for invading their Western neighbor. European nations fear this conflict could spread into their territory. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington, with reporting from Bill Gallo in Seoul.
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Month: March 2022
Enough Drinking Water in Africa for Decades, New Report Reveals
There is enough groundwater on the African continent to provide everyone with enough drinking water to face at least five years of drought, and in some cases up to 50 years. This is according to a new analysis done by the British Geological Survey and WaterAid, presented at the World Water Forum in Dakar.
The British Geological Survey and WaterAid after a ten-year survey found that throughout Africa there are enough subsurface water reserves to serve the entire population. Even in parched locations, according to BGS chief researcher Alan MacDonald, there can be adequate groundwater, he explains through Zoom.
“When you realize the groundwater resources are maybe 20 times the amount of water we have in the rivers and lakes of Africa,” said MacDonald. “Then it’s a really amazing fact but because it’s hidden it’s so often out of sight and out of mind.”
This applies to Turkana, Kenya, one of Africa’s driest regions, where camel caravans trek between the scarce water sources. It is one of the worst affected places on the continent, according to the Famine Early Warning System. Turkana’s water minister, Vincent Palor, confirms the situation is dire.
“The water sources are drying up because the water table has gone down. The body condition of the livestock is poor,” said Palor. “When we also look at the vegetation cover, the vegetation cover is not pleasant because it’s drying up.”
But even in Turkana, there appears to be water just beneath the feet of the camel herders. According to a 2013 report Turkana has enough groundwater to service Kenya for 70 years. However, a government survey has shown the water is too salty.
Virginia Newton-Lewis, a senior policy analyst at WaterAid, explained that investments are needed to get usable water.
“We need mapping, we need monitoring,” said Newton-Lewis. “This takes investments, this takes investments in also equipment. It takes investments in human resources to do that. And then we need investments in the way we get the water that we find to the people that need it the most.”
BGS researcher Alan MacDonald added that the report is timely since groundwater is crucial amid droughts caused by climate change.
“As droughts are becoming more common, then people are looking for a much more reliable source of water, which is why I think there is an increased interest in groundwater resources because they are much more reliable than rainwater or river water or even reservoirs,” said MacDonald.
Turkana’s Minister Vincent Palor is pleased with the renewed focus on groundwater exploration, as he is concerned that continuing water shortages may exacerbate the situation.
“If the water stress continues this means there will be a scramble for water, and this may force these pastoralists to move to neighboring countries, and then at times contributing to conflict,” said Palor.
There is however respite for Turkana and Africa since another recent survey by BGS suggests that 80% of the subterranean water is likely to be acceptable for drinking.
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Life Under Russian Occupation: Hunger, Fear and Abductions
Anhelina sat and prayed in the basement of her home in Bucha after Russian forces overran her small town north of Kyiv this month after fierce fighting. “There was no light, water, or gas. It was impossible to go out because they shoot. People were being shot around the house, which is a terrible sound, even scarier than the bombs,” said the mother of a three-year-old daughter.
That day Russian soldiers had broken into her home and inspecting the mobile phones of her father and husband found text messages to the local Ukrainian territorial defense forces. “They were taken away for interrogation. And I just sat and prayed in the dark for their return,” she told VOA in a text message.
Anhelina was lucky. The men were returned and a Russian commander who “loves children” told his men not to scare the toddler. “They brought food, water and candy for the little one,” she says. That was the only glimmer of hope in the terrifying days she spent under Russian occupation.
Chechen fighters “miraculously passed our house” one day. The friendly commander told her if they had entered, they probably would have killed her in revenge for the deaths of many of their men in a Ukrainian ambush.
Her story isn’t dissimilar to the testimony of others trapped in occupied towns and villages. Ukrainians disparagingly refer to their invaders as “orcs,” a reference to the malevolent goblin-like beasts’ author JRR Tolkien portrayed in his trilogy Lord of the Rings.
Abductions, shots, threats
It wasn’t how Russian soldiers expected to be greeted. Russian POWs have told their Ukrainian captors their commanders told them they’d be welcomed as liberators. But they’re being met with civilian protests and surliness, even in predominantly Russian-speaking regions, to the surprise of the shunned intruders.
And the occupying forces are responding harshly — with threats, intimidation, shootings. At checkpoints men are brusquely examined to see if their chests or backs display signs of chaffing caused by wearing flak jackets. There have been allegations of torture, and so far, unverified reports of rapes. Last week Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko said women in some occupied towns near Kyiv had been subjected to barbaric sexual assaults.
Russian soldiers, many dispirited and demoralized, are looting, say locals.
“Orcs are hungry,” a woman in the southern town of Kherson told VOA. “At first they would go house to house and ask for food, now they just take it, and they steal food from passers-by and stores,” she said. “They also take cars, trucks, and daub Z on them,” she added, in reference to the Russian army invasion marking that’s become a pro-war Russian symbol.
Locals are split on the reasons for the looting. Some say it is a tactic of terror aimed at breaking their will to resist; others suspect it is plain hooliganism by ill-disciplined and hungry troops.
In Bucha, Veronika, who managed to flee the town after living under Russian occupation for three days, told VOA: “They use people’s houses like their own. Eat and charge up their walkie-talkies and clean their guns. And when they leave, they steal a lot of things also, they steal everything, even food blenders, do you understand? Even blenders, carpets, everything. They’re taking everything from our houses and sometimes they burn houses for no reason.”
She added: “Sometimes they kill people. I don’t know why. At the house of a friend, when the husband went to the outhouse they killed him with three shots, one to the back, another one to the stomach. I don’t remember where the third one was. They never gave a reason.”
Veronika said it got worse with the second wave of soldiers who entered Bucha. The first wave seemed to be more professional, more disciplined, but the soldiers who came later, many of whom were from Chechnya, “really were beasts.”
“The Russians disperse peaceful protests with their guns. When people stand up to them, they often shoot,” the woman in Kherson said. “One time they fired at the ground, causing ricochet injuries. About five people were wounded,” she added. “A blogger, a girl, was broadcasting live near them. She was stuffed into a car. Until now, nothing is known about this girl,” she added.
Kherson was encircled on February 27 and endured a brief siege before Russia captured it on March 3, the first major Ukrainian town to fall to Russian forces. The mayor, Igor Kolykhaiev, urged troops who stormed a town hall meeting not to shoot civilians; he counseled residents to heed the rules he managed to negotiate with the Russians. He managed to persuade the invaders to allow the Ukrainian flag to remain flying above the town hall.
The Russians may have seized Kherson, but the town has not kowtowed. There is still episodic peaceful civil resistance in the form of protests, which the Russians respond to stony-faced or with shots, threats and abductions.
And that is how it is playing out in other Ukrainian towns as the Russians install new political knyaz, or masters, and puppet administrations, according to locals in occupied towns in southern and eastern Ukraine. On Sunday thousands of protesters rallied in Kherson and in occupied Enerhodar, where they demanded the release of the town’s deputy mayor, who has been abducted. Video posted on social-media sites show Russian soldiers in Berdyansk, a port town on the Sea of Azov, beating protesters as they lay on the ground.
The mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, was abducted on March 11 by Russian troops. Local residents protested. He was released last week in exchange for nine Russian POWs. Fedorov told Current Time TV, a Russian-language television channel overseen by Radio Free Europe and VOA: “It is a rather difficult ordeal when they take you for seven hours with a bag on your head, not knowing where, and you don’t trust the people who took you.”
His interrogators didn’t manhandle him — they didn’t need to as there was a constant air of menace. “Or there was someone being tortured in the next cell over — and you could hear the screams, which absolutely pressured you, psychologically, so that it could definitely be compared with intimidation, with torture, and so on. So all of these six days were quite difficult,” he said. The mayor of the small southern Ukrainian town of Dniprorudne, was also abducted last week, according to Ukrainian authorities. His fate is unknown.
Protests
Kherson’s mayor hasn’t been dragged off. But on Thursday the Russians announced a new governing authority for the town, using the same name as used for other puppet administrations, the Rescue Committee for Peace and Order. In Kherson the new knyaz are pro-Russian politicians with links to the party of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who was ousted in 2014 by the Maidan uprising. Most of the town’s residents remain uncooperative. “Kherson’s attitude to the Russian world had been neutral before the war,” said a local woman, who asked not to be named.
“But after the events of February 24, it changed. Numerous demonstrations show this. People show remarkable courage and bravery during these protests,” she said. “The city is full of [pro-Russian] separatists. These separatists are despised. Most are corrupt officials from previous city administrations. They try to cajole people. They promise benefits; they blackmail; they intimidate,” she added. Another said: “You can’t complain, or they’ll put you on an enemies list.”
Homes of suspected political activists are raided. There are checkpoints across Kherson and frequent Russian patrols stop, search and interrogate residents, checking mobile phones. “We are seeing it a lot,” a Kherson resident said. “A lot of people have deleted their social-media accounts or they clean up their messages in Viber or Telegram before leaving home,” they added.
Igor Kolykhaiev, Kherson’s legal mayor, has been trying to oversee emergency repairs and get some rudimentary basic services functioning. The new knyaz are at a loss and issue half-baked orders, locals say. That is reminiscent of what happened eight years ago in Donetsk, one of the two eastern Ukrainian oblasts seized in 2014 by pro-Moscow separatists, as this correspondent witnessed when reporting from the city.
The Moscow-backed insurrectionists who seized control of Donetsk were ignorant of the basic mechanics of practical politics. When they stormed the local city treasury to seize money, the treasurer had to explain that tax proceeds were not stored in actual cash in the building.
According to locals, pharmacies are almost empty, and so. too, food stores. Despite shortages, most people won’t accept Russian humanitarian aid that’s trucked in. “The Russians just wanted a pretty propaganda picture,” said a local. Ukrainian humanitarian aid conveys have been rebuffed by the Russians.
Trying to escape from occupation isn’t easy. On March 10 Anhelina and her family heard a humanitarian corridor was being opened up for Bucha. On the journey out, she spent a night with her relatives and others in another basement, where a sewer broke. “and so in the stench, cold, sitting, we waited for the morning.”
“Wheelchair, white flag, a minimum of things and we set off. We walked past the corpses of civilians [how many of them there were]. I didn’t explain anything to the child, because I didn’t know what to say,” she says.
“Every few meters Russians ordered us to stop and put our hands up. Later we noticed my three-year-old was also raising her hands,” she says. At a checkpoint a civilian car sped by and hit a mine. “There was almost nothing left,” she says.
Anhelina then explained what happened next: “You can’t go back, only forward, men in front, I’m with the wheelchair behind. Passed mines, corpses, shattered military equipment, we made our way to freedom.”
“We are safe now, but nothing will be the same. We try to talk normally, even joke a little, but when I close my eyes, I see a road of dead people, and how we stood with our hands up, waiting for the Russians to decide about us.”
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Norway’s Equinor Shuts Snorre B Oil Platform As Precaution After Earthquake
OSLO — Norway’s Equinor has shut its Snorre B oil platform as a precautionary measure following an earthquake in the North Sea, although no damage has been reported so far, the company said Monday.
It was not yet clear when Snorre B, which produces between 30,000-35,000 barrels per day of oil, could resume normal operation, Equinor spokesperson Gisle Ledel Johannessen said.
“Our focus now is on the safety,” he said.
Remotely operated vehicles, or ROVs, have been deployed to scan the seabed for any damage, Equinor said.
The quake, which took place early on Monday, had an estimated magnitude of 4.6, according to the Norwegian National Seismic Network.
The tremor was noticed at the Snorre field, which has several platforms, Johannessen said.
“At Snorre B, the production has been shut down as a precaution,” he said.
“Snorre is the closest in proximity to the earthquake and on the installations they felt the earthquake … But (there are) no reports of any damages to installations or on the seabed,” he added.
While small earthquakes are common along Norway’s coast, a tremor of the magnitude seen on Monday happens only once a decade on average, University of Bergen seismology Professor Lars Ottermoller told newspaper Bergens Tidende.
Norway is Europe’s second largest petroleum producer after Russia, producing around 4 million barrels of oil equivalents per day, roughly equally divided between oil and natural gas.
The Nordic country has said it will do its utmost to maintain high output of oil and gas at a time when Western nations are seeking to wean themselves off Russian petroleum following last month’s invasion of Ukraine.
Operator Equinor has a stake of 33.3% in Snorre, while state oil firm Petoro holds 30%, Vaar Energi holds 18.5%, INPEX Idemitsu 9.6% and Wintershall DEA 8.6% according to Norwegian government data.
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Jackson, 1st Black female High Court Pick, Faces Senators
WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee is beginning historic confirmation hearings Monday for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who would be the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Barring a significant misstep by the 51-year-old Jackson, a federal judge for the past nine years, Democrats who control the Senate by the slimmest of margins intend to wrap up her confirmation before Easter.
Jackson is expected to present an opening statement Monday afternoon, then answer questions from the committee’s 11 Democrats and 11 Republicans over the next two days. She will be introduced by Thomas B. Griffith, a retired judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Lisa M. Fairfax, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.
Jackson appeared before the same committee last year, after President Joe Biden chose her to fill an opening on the federal appeals court in Washington, just down the hill from the Supreme Court.
Her testimony will give most Americans, as well as the Senate, their most extensive look yet at the Harvard-trained lawyer with a resume that includes two years as a federal public defender. That makes her the first nominee with significant criminal defense experience since Thurgood Marshall, the first Black American to serve on the nation’s highest court.
In addition to being the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Jackson would be the third Black justice, after Marshall and his successor, Justice Clarence Thomas.
The American Bar Association, which evaluates judicial nominees, on Friday gave Jackson’s its highest rating, unanimously “well qualified.”
Janette McCarthy Wallace, general counsel of the NAACP, said she is excited to see a Black woman on the verge of a high court seat.
“Representation matters,” Wallace said. “It’s critical to have diverse experience on the bench. It should reflect the rich cultural diversity of this country.”
It’s not yet clear how aggressively Republicans will go after Jackson, given that her confirmation would not alter the court’s 6-3 conservative majority.
Still, some Republicans have signaled they could use Jackson’s nomination to try to brand Democrats as soft on crime, an emerging theme in GOP midterm election campaigns. Biden has chosen several former public defenders for life-tenured judicial posts. In addition, Jackson served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission, an independent agency created by Congress to reduce disparity in federal prison sentences.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., highlighted one potential line of attack. “I’ve noticed an alarming pattern when it comes to Judge Jackson’s treatment of sex offenders, especially those preying on children,” Hawley wrote on Twitter last week in a thread that was echoed by the Republican National Committee. Hawley did not raise the issue when he questioned Jackson last year before voting against her appeals court confirmation.
The White House pushed back forcefully against the criticism as “toxic and weakly presented misinformation.” Sentencing expert Douglas Berman, an Ohio State law professor, wrote on his blog that Jackson’s record shows she is skeptical of the range of prison terms recommended for child pornography cases, “but so too were prosecutors in the majority of her cases and so too are district judges nationwide.”
Hawley is one of several committee Republicans, along with Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who are potential 2024 presidential candidates, and their aspirations may collide with other Republicans who would just as soon not pursue a scorched-earth approach to Jackson’s nomination.
Biden chose Jackson in February, fulfilling a campaign pledge to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court for the first time in American history. She would take the seat of Justice Stephen Breyer, who announced in January that he would retire this summer after 28 years on the court.
Jackson once worked as a high court law clerk to Breyer early in her legal career.
Democrats are moving quickly to confirm Jackson, even though Breyer’s seat will not officially open until the summer. They have no votes to spare in a 50-50 Senate that they run by virtue of the tiebreaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
But they are not moving as fast as Republicans did when they installed Amy Coney Barrett on the court little more than a month after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and days before the 2020 presidential election.
Barrett, the third of President Donald Trump’s high court picks, entrenched the court’s conservative majority when she took the place of the liberal Ginsburg.
Last year, Jackson won Senate confirmation by a 53-44 vote, with three Republicans supporting her. It’s not clear how many Republicans might vote for her this time.
Jackson is married to Patrick Johnson, a surgeon in Washington. They have two daughters, one in college and the other in high school. She is related by marriage to former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who also was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2012. Ryan has voiced support for Jackson’s nomination.
Jackson has spoken about how her children have kept her in touch with reality, even as she has held a judge’s gavel since 2013. In the courtroom, she told an audience in Athens, Georgia, in 2017, “people listen and generally do what I tell them to do.”
At home, though, her daughters “make it very clear I know nothing, I should not tell them anything, much less give them any orders, that is, if they talk to me at all,” Jackson said.
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Ukraine Finally Rotates Workers at Chernobyl: IAEA
VIENNA, AUSTRIA — Ukraine has managed to rotate staff working at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for the first time since Russia seized it last month as it invaded its neighbor, the U.N.’s nuclear agency said.
Ukraine told the International Atomic Energy Agency that around half of the staff were “finally” able to return to their homes on Sunday after working at the Russian-controlled site for nearly four weeks, IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said.
Those who left were replaced by other Ukrainian staff, Grossi said in a statement late Sunday.
“It is a positive — albeit long overdue — development that some staff at the Chernobyl NPP have now rotated and returned to their families,” Grossi said.
“They deserve our full respect and admiration for having worked in these extremely difficult circumstances. They were there for far too long. I sincerely hope that remaining staff from this shift can also rotate soon.”
On February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow’s troops seized the Chernobyl compound, the site of the 1986 core meltdown that sparked the worst nuclear reactor catastrophe in history.
Around 100 technicians have been working under armed guard to maintain the site since then.
Grossi, who had expressed deep concern about the well-being of the Ukrainian staff at the site, “welcomed the news about the partial rotation of personnel,” the IAEA said.
“Before today’s rotation, the same work shift had been on-site since the day before the Russian forces entered the area,” it continued.
It is unclear why Russian soldiers seized Chernobyl, where the destroyed reactor is kept under close supervision within a concrete and lead sarcophagus, and the three other reactors are being decommissioned.
In 2017, the site was one of several Ukrainian targets hit by a massive cyberattack thought to have originated in Russia, which briefly took its radiation monitoring system off-line.
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US Official: Biden fortified Saudi’s Patriot Missile Supply
WASHINGTON — The U.S. has transferred a significant number of Patriot antimissile interceptors to Saudi Arabia in recent weeks as the Biden administration looks to ease what has been a point of tension in the increasingly complicated U.S.-Saudi relationship.
A senior administration official confirmed Sunday night that the interceptors have been sent to Saudi Arabia. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a decision that has not been formally announced, said the decision was in line with President Joe Biden’s promise that “America will have the backs of our friends in the region.”
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan on Sunday condemned Houthi forces in Yemen after they unleashed one of their most intense barrages of drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia’s critical energy facilities, sparking a fire at one site and temporarily cutting oil production at another.
The Associated Press reported in September that the U.S. had moved its own Patriot defense system from Prince Sultan Air Base outside of Riyadh even as the kingdom faced continued to face air attacks from Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
The kingdom has insisted that the interceptors are critical to their defense against Houthi attacks. The Saudis have been locked in a stalemate war with the Houthis since March 2015.
At the time the U.S. Patriot systems were moved out of the kingdom, administration officials said the shift in defense capabilities was made in part due to a desire to face what American officials see as the looming “great powers conflict” with China and Russia. Pentagon officials noted that the U.S. maintained tens of thousands of forces and a robust force posture in the Middle East representing “some of our most advanced air power and maritime capabilities.”
The decision to fortify Saudi Arabia’s supply of interceptors was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The U.S.-Saudi relationship has been strained since Biden took office. The president has refused to deal directly with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and has removed the Houthis from a list of designated terrorist groups.
The Biden administration last year released a declassified intelligence report concluding that the crown prince, son of the aging King Salman and known as MBS, had authorized the team of Saudi security and intelligence officials that killed journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
The killing of Khashoggi, a critic of MBS, drew global condemnation. The crown prince insists he was not involved in the operation carried out by Saudi operatives.
In a recent interview with The Atlantic, the crown prince was asked whether Biden misunderstands something about him. He responded, “Simply, I do not care” and that it was up to Biden to think “about the interests of America” when weighing his dealings with the Saudi monarchy.
The White House dispatched Brett McGurk, the National Security Council’s Middle East coordinator, and the State Department’s energy envoy, Amos Hochstein, to Riyadh last month to talk to Saudi officials about a range of issues — chief among them the ongoing war in Yemen and global energy supplies.
The Saudis have thus far declined to pump more crude to alleviate a spike in global oil prices that’s been spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Ukraine Rejects Russian Ultimatum to Surrender Mariupol
Zelenskyy says he’s ready for negotiations with Putin
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Fritz Hands Nadal First 2022 Defeat to Lift Indian Wells Trophy
INDIAN WELLS — Taylor Fritz stunned Rafael Nadal 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) on Sunday to win the ATP Indian Wells Masters and end the 21-time Grand Slam champion’s perfect 20-0 run to start 2022.
Fritz, ranked 20th in the world, claimed his second career title and his first at the elite Masters 1000 level while denying Nadal a record-equalling 37th Masters crown.
The 24-year-old American achieved his biggest triumph despite an injured right ankle that was so painful when he tested it Sunday morning he didn’t think he’d be able to play.
“This is just one of those childhood dreams, winning this tournament especially, Indian Wells, this is one of those childhood dreams you never even think can come true,” the Southern California native said, fighting back tears.
“It was just an emotional roller coaster all day,” said Fritz, who spent hours leading up to the match receiving treatment to numb his ankle after “basically almost crying because I thought I was going to have to pull out.
“It was a game-time decision,” Fritz said. “A lot of members of my team wanted me to not play the match. I’m never going to let them forget that because I went on the court and it was a complete non-issue, didn’t feel it at all, didn’t hinder me at all.”
The 35-year-old Nadal, meanwhile, was pushing himself through pain, twice receiving treatment on his upper body for a yet-to-be diagnosed problem that not only hurt but also affected his breathing.
“I don’t know if it’s something on the rib, I don’t know yet,” Nadal said. “It’s a kind of pain that limit me a lot.”
Nadal had already said he would skip next week’s Miami Masters to give his body a rest and prepare for the claycourt season.
After fearing a foot injury that halted his 2021 campaign might end his career, the Spaniard claimed a record-setting 21st Grand Slam singles title with an epic comeback victory over Daniil Medvedev in the Australian Open final, then won the title at Acapulco.
Fritz said he was aware that there was “stuff going on” with Nadal even before the match began.
“I can’t imagine how banged up someone’s body must be after 20-something straight matches, playing as much as he has,” Fritz said.
“I didn’t let it change how I was going to play at all. I treated it like I was playing the Rafa that I know, that everybody knows.”
Battling to the end, Nadal saved one match point in the 10th game of the second set, but in a tense tiebreaker that decided it all Fritz proved too much.
After Nadal spun a forehand wide to give up another match point, Fritz put it away with yet another of his big forehand winners.
Fast start for Fritz
Fritz’s fitness concerns were at the forefront when the American fell on the very first point of the match.
But he seized a 4-0 lead in the opening set in just 19 minutes.
Nadal, coming off a draining three-set semi-final victory over 18-year-old compatriot Carlos Alcaraz, appeared to have found his range when he held at love to make it 4-1.
But he was unable to make any inroads on Fritz’s serve until the American served for the set at 5-2 and Nadal converted his only break chance of the set when Fritz sent a forehand long.
However, Nadal was unable to build any momentum, immediately surrendering the break and the set after 39 minutes.
Nadal took a medical timeout between sets and gained the first break of the second set for a 2-1 lead.
Fritz opened the door for him with a double fault, came up with a big serve then fell to a forehand winner on the Spaniard’s second break chance.
But the American broke back immediately and saved four break points in the next game and they went with serve to the tiebreaker, Fritz finally sealing it on his first match point with a forehand winner to the corner.
“I just kept telling myself there’s no reason why I can’t win this,” said Fritz, who became the first American men’s champion at Indian Wells since Andre Agassi in 2001 and the youngest Indian Wells men’s winner since Novak Djokovic in 2011.
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Latest Developments in Ukraine: March 21
Full developments of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine
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For Afghans Resettled in US, An Uncertain Future
BOSTON — In a storied corner of Boston, one of America’s newest families is finding its feet months after fleeing Afghanistan: Israr and Sayeda are starting work, studying English and setting up home to welcome their first-born child.
But like many of the tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated after Kabul’s fall to the Taliban, the young couple — who asked to be identified by first names only — are also taking steps to ensure the rug doesn’t get pulled out from under their new life.
Though he worked as a U.S. Army interpreter, Israr and his wife are in the United States on what is known as humanitarian parole, a “tenuous legal status,” according to resettlement organizations, that offers only two years residence.
After an arduous, months-long journey that took them from Kabul via Qatar, Washington and a military base in Texas, the pair settled early this year in Boston’s Charlestown neighborhood, where they were taken under the wing of a couple they now call their second “mama and papa.”
“My papa is working on it,” 26-year-old Israr said of his immigration status. “He got me a pro bono lawyer.”
Israr had carefully packed all his documents before heading to Kabul airport as the chaotic evacuation unfolded in late August.
But after nerve-racking encounters with Taliban at the airport entrances, Sayeda, 23, hid some on her person, hoping they wouldn’t search, or beat a woman.
In the event, she was beaten to the point she couldn’t walk. Israr, also injured, abandoned the bags and carried her.
“I lost my luggage, my important documentation, my money, my clothes, my everything,” he told AFP.
They finally made it onto a plane with only his passport, a handful of documents and the clothes on their backs.
Now the couple face an uncertain path to permanent residency.
For the time being, the main avenues are the Special Immigrant Visa — reserved for those who aided the U.S. government — and asylum.
Israr said completing his SIV application is proving complicated, but asylum comes with other challenges.
While he describes “threats” and “blackmail” from the Taliban, a credible fear of persecution is not always easy to prove.
‘No brainer’
Resettlement of Afghans to the United States wound down to a trickle by late February, but as focus turns to the Ukraine war and a new refugee crisis, advocates are urging lawmakers to ensure Afghans can stay for good.
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar has said she is working on legislation and Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, head of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) said she’s met with sympathetic Republicans too.
LIRS and others are advocating for Congress to pass an Afghan Adjustment Act, which would give Afghans a pathway to permanent U.S. status.
“To us, it’s a no brainer,” said Vignarajah, but she is still braced for “challenges” ahead.
For now, asylum is a “high threshold to meet,” she told AFP.
To establish a credible claim, Vignarajah explained, requires a significant amount of documentation.
“That’s a potential Catch-22,” she said, with many people encouraged to destroy evidence of their links to the United States to avoid Taliban retribution.
“That same documentation that might be a death sentence in Afghanistan could be the key to winning an asylum case here in the U.S.”
‘Unjust’
Jeffrey Thielman, head of the International Institute of New England (IINE), which helped settle Israr and Sayeda, already knows of a Boston immigration court denying an Afghan asylum request over persecution concerns deemed “too general.”
Thielman told AFP many may find themselves without a pathway to permanent residency on the same grounds.
“They’ve been vetted, they’ve gone through our cultural orientation program, their kids are now in school, they’re getting jobs — to rip these people out of this country and to give them this uncertainty is very unjust,” he said.
Another hurdle is that the U.S. resettlement infrastructure faces “severe” backlogs of more than 10,000 SIV applications and roughly 600,000 pending asylum cases, said Vignarajah.
The impetus to create a new pathway is amplified by the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, where aid agencies have said more than half the population faces hunger.
Israr and Sayeda are relieved and grateful to be safe in the United States with “another chance.”
In the calm of their bright, cozy apartment, Sayeda blends breakfast smoothies before going to work, she at a daycare and Israr at a local Whole Foods.
And yet they are wracked with worry for those left behind.
Israr is helping both his and Sayeda’s relatives in Afghanistan, as jobs disappear and food prices skyrocket, while also preparing for their baby’s arrival and to pay rent once it is no longer covered by the resettlement organization.
“It’s a lot of responsibilities on my shoulder,” he said.
But he holds out hope, that perhaps “one day my family is coming here.”
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Russia Gives Ukraine Ultimatum to Surrender Mariupol
Russia has given Ukraine until the early hours of Monday to surrender the besieged city of Mariupol, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he is ready for peace negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
However, a short time later, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk rejected the ultimatum. “There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms. We have already informed the Russian side about this,” she told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda.
According to a Russian state news agency RIA, Russia’s defense ministry wanted a response from Ukraine’s military by 5 a.m. Moscow time/4 a.m. in Kyiv (0200 GMT). Moscow referred to refusing to surrender as siding with “bandits.”
The ultimatum came hours after Zelenskyy told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in an interview broadcast Sunday that failure to reach a negotiated agreement with Russia “would mean that this is a third World War.”
Zelenskyy has called for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow that restore the territorial integrity and provide justice for Ukraine. Russia’s lead negotiator has said in recent days the sides have moved closer to agreement on the issue of Ukraine dropping its bid to join NATO and adopting neutral status.
Zelenskyy told CNN that Russian forces entered Ukraine “to exterminate us, to kill us,” but he vowed that Ukraine would not concede its sovereignty or its integrity.
“Russians have killed our children. You cannot reverse the situation anymore. You cannot demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as independent republics. These compromises are simply wrong,” said Zelenskyy.
Mariupol
A Mariupol art school where about 400 people had found shelter was bombed by Russian forces early Sunday.
Mariupol’s city council said that the building was destroyed in the attack. Information about survivors was not immediately available.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he thinks Russian forces are resorting to these brutal civilian attacks because its military “campaign is stalled.”
“This is really disgusting,” Austin said.
Just a few days earlier a Russian airstrike targeted a theater where hundreds of people had been sheltering. The word “CHILDREN” had been written in Russian in big letters visible from the sky on the ground just outside the theater, to alert Russian forces of who was inside.
More than 100 have been rescued from the theater, and it is still unclear how many casualties and fatalities the attack caused.
The city continues to resist Russian military forces, who are having to engage in attrition tactics and urban fighting that requires going from building to building.
“Mariupol has not yet fallen. It is out of food, fuel, water, everything except for heart. They are still fighting very hard,” retired Gen. David Petraeus told CNN Sunday.
Thousands of residents of Mariupol have been forcibly taken from their homes to Russian territory, according to a Mariupol city council statement on its Telegram channel.
“The occupiers illegally took people from the Livoberezhny district and from the shelter in the sports club building, where more than a thousand people (mostly women and children) were hiding from the constant bombing,” the statement said.
“What the occupiers are doing today is familiar to the older generation, who saw the horrific events of World War II, when the Nazis forcibly captured people,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boichenko said.
Russia still stalled
Austin said that Russian forces across the country have been ineffective as Ukrainian forces continue to attrit Russian troops with weapons provided by the U.S. and NATO allies.
“It’s had the effect of him (Putin) moving his forces into a woodchipper,” Austin told CBS.
U.S. officials have estimated that Ukrainians have killed more than 3,000 Russian troops since the invasion began.
At least five of those have been senior Russian officers, according to the Ukrainian government.
Petraeus said Sunday at least four of the five Russian generals’ deaths “are absolutely confirmed,” adding that Ukrainian snipers “have just been picking them off left and right.”
Russian troops have failed to seize control of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, a major objective of the Kremlin, even as the invasion enters its fourth week.
Ukraine’s National Police said in a statement Saturday on Telegram that Russia was attacking the northwestern suburbs of Kyiv, while the regional Kyiv government reported the city of Slavutych, north of Kyiv was “completely isolated.”
Mykolaiv
Meanwhile, officials in Ukraine have yet to release the death toll following a Russian missile attack Friday on a military base where soldiers were sleeping in barracks, now destroyed, in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.
One soldier told AFP that 50 bodies have been found, while another said there could be as many as 100 dead under the rubble.
Mykolaiv is located 130 kilometers from the strategic military port of Odesa.
Russia said Saturday that its hypersonic missiles had destroyed an underground depot for missiles and ammunition Friday in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region. Russian news agencies said it was the first time it used the advanced weapons system in Ukraine since it invaded February 24.
U.S Defense Secretary Austin said Sunday he could not confirm or dispute whether Russia had used those types of weapons in Ukraine but added he would not see it as a gamechanger if they had.
A Ukrainian air force representative verified the attack in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, but said Ukraine had no information on the type of missiles used.
Meanwhile, neighboring Slovakia’s defense minister said Sunday that Patriot air defense systems started arriving in Slovakia from NATO partner countries.
The systems will be operated by German and Dutch troops to help reinforce the defense of NATO’s eastern flank, in a move prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The United Nations human rights office (OHCHR) reports that at least 902 civilians have been killed and upward of 1,459 have been wounded as of Saturday, while warning the actual count likely is higher. Most of the deaths were from explosions caused by shelling from heavy artillery and multiple missiles and airstrikes, OHCHR said. The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office said 112 of those killed were children.
Millions of people have fled their homes since the Russian invasion. “The war in Ukraine is so devastating that 10 million have fled — either displaced inside the country, or as refugees abroad,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grande tweeted Sunday.
U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Gunfire at Arkansas Car Show Leaves 1 Dead, 24 Wounded
One person was killed and 24 others wounded when gunfire erupted during a car show that is part of an annual community event in a small southeast Arkansas town, authorities said Sunday.
Police have not said what led to Saturday night’s shooting in Dumas, but Gov. Asa Hutchinson said on Twitter that there were two suspects, one of whom had been arrested and was being held on unrelated charges.
At least six children were among those wounded.
“As the investigation continues, I will examine details to see if there are any steps that could have been taken to prevent this type of tragedy,” Hutchinson said.
Dumas is a city of about 4,000 located about 90 miles (144 kilometers) south of Little Rock. The car show is part of a community event held each spring called Hood-Nic, which is short for neighborhood picnic. The Hood-Nic Foundation says on its website that its mission is to “rebuild, reunite, and respond to the needs of the youth in our communities.”
The event, which helps raise funds for scholarships and school supplies, also included a bonfire, a basketball tournament, musical performances, a teen party and a balloon release.
“The purpose of Hood-Nic has always been to bring the community together,” the foundation said on its Facebook page. “This senseless violence needs to end.”
Six children who were wounded by gunfire were taken to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, according to a spokeswoman. Most had been released as of Sunday afternoon.
Messages left at a hospital in Dumas and another in nearby McGehee were not immediately returned.
Wallace McGehee, the car show’s organizer, expressed condolences to the victims’ families and the community.
“For something like this to happen, it’s a tragedy,” McGehee told KATV. “We did this here for 16 years without a problem.”
Chris Jones, a Democrat running for Arkansas governor, tweeted that was at the event earlier Saturday, registering voters and enjoying “a positive family atmosphere.”
“I am deeply saddened (and honestly angered) by this tragedy,” Jones said in a statement.
Hutchinson said that the man who was arrested was from Jacksonville, which is just northeast of Little Rock.
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Moscow TV War Protester Urges Other Russians to Speak Up
The Russian editor who protested Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine during a state TV news broadcast called Sunday for other Russians to speak out against the “gruesome war.”
While working for Channel One television in Moscow, Marina Ovsyannikova barged onto the set of an evening newscast Monday, holding a poster reading “No War.”
She was subsequently detained, fined 30,000 rubles ($280), and then freed pending possible further prosecution, but has turned down a French offer of asylum.
On Sunday she described to US media her decision to protest as “spontaneous,” but said a sense of deep dissatisfaction with her government had been building for years — a feeling she said many of her colleagues shared.
“The propaganda on our state channels was becoming more and more distorted, and the pressure that has been applied in Russian politics could not leave us indifferent,” she told ABC News program “This Week.”
“When I spoke to my friends and colleagues, everyone until the last moment could not believe that such a thing could happen — that this gruesome war could take place,” she said from Moscow, speaking through an interpreter.
“As soon as the war began, I could not sleep, I could not eat. I came to work, and after a week of coverage of this situation, the atmosphere on [Channel One] was so unpleasant that I realized I could not go back there.”
Ovsyannikova said she considered joining a protest in a public square, but saw that protesters were being arrested and faced jail time.
“I decided that maybe I could do something else, something more meaningful… and I could show to the rest of the world that Russians are against the war, and I could show to the Russian people that this is just propaganda.”
She said she hoped to “maybe stimulate some people to speak up against the war.”
The sign she held up behind a news reader said: “Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They are lying to you here.”
Ovsyannikova, who has resigned her job, told France 24 television on Thursday that her protest had “broken the life of our family,” with her young son particularly anxious.
“But we need to put an end to this fratricidal war.”
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Across Europe, Ukrainian Exiles Pray for Peace Back Home
Alona Fartukhova has been coming to Berlin’s Ukrainian Orthodox Christian community every day since she arrived in Germany five days ago from war-torn Kyiv. The 20-year-old refugee has been attending daily prayers for peace and helped organize donations for her compatriots back home.
On Sunday, Fartukhova joined dozens of other Ukrainian worshippers at a red brick stone church in the German capital who sang together, lit candles, and received blessings from the head of the community, Father Oleh Polianko. Later they put medical crutches, sleeping bags, diapers, big boxes of gummi bears and countless jars of pickles — which were piling up everywhere inside the church — into big cardboard boxes to be sent to Ukraine.
“It’s some help for our army, and it is … a lot of things for children” said the university student, who fled by herself and is now living at a hotel in Berlin, as she stacked boxes onto the church pews. “It is so good that a lot of people support us, we really appreciate it.”
Across Europe, Ukrainians gathered for church services Sunday to pray for peace in their war-torn country. Newly arrived refugees mingled with longtime members of Europe’s 1.5 million-strong Ukrainian diaspora at houses of worship all over the continent from Germany to Romania to Moldova.
Since Russia attacked Ukraine more than three weeks ago, over 3.38 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency. Altogether, 10 million people have fled their homes — more than 6 million of them have been displaced internally, the UNHCR said Sunday.
Most have escaped to neighboring Poland, Romania or Moldova, but as the war continues many are moving farther west.
Germany has registered more than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees but the real numbers are expected to be much higher as Ukrainians don’t need a visa to come to Germany, and federal police only register refugees entering Germany by train or bus. Ukrainians coming to Germany from Poland by car are normally not registered.
Members of Germany’s Ukrainian immigrant community, which counts around 300,000 people, have not only been raising money and collecting donations, but also driven the goods to the border and beyond and on their way back to Germany have taken along refugees. Families already living in Germany have squeezed together to accommodate refugees and are helping them find jobs and get their kids into schools.
The diaspora Ukrainians’ religious communities — mostly Christian Orthodox, but also some Catholic and Jewish communities — have been leading refugee initiatives and have also become an anchor for those worrying about their families back in the war.
Polianko, who heads the 500-member-strong Orthodox Christian community in Berlin, held some one-on-one prayers on Sunday with worshippers who were especially distressed. He then gave blessings “for the souls of our soldiers who are fighting in Ukraine, and also for the souls of our soldiers who have died in Ukraine.”
Because the Berlin community has been so overwhelmed by donations, they temporarily moved from their small church building in the city’s Hermsdorf neighborhood to the bigger church of the Lutheran Philippus Nathanael community in Berlin-Friedenau. Here, they have plenty of space to organize donation drives and a wide driveway for trucks picking up the boxes, says Andriy Ilin, the deputy head of the community.
The Lutherans are currently holding their own services in a nearby community center.
“Initially, they offered us the church for March, now they’ve extended it to April, and they kindly let us know that if we need it beyond that, they will allow that too.” Ilin said.Elsewhere in Europe, local worshippers also opened their churches to welcome Ukrainians.
In Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, locals and refugees alike assembled for an Orthodox prayer service on Sunday.
Angelica Gretsai, a refugee from the northern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, lit candles just before the religious service in Russian began at a small Sfintul Gheorghe church.
“(I pray) for peace of course, for peace in Ukraine, for these two peoples (Russians and Ukrainians ) to make up, for this war to be no more,” Gretsai said adding that she was yearning to go back home and be with friends and family.
“I’m basically alone here, it’s the first time I came to Moldova,” she said, adding that she was staying with some distant relatives she had never met before. Moldova has welcomed more than 360,000 refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine.
In Suceava, Romania, south of the Ukrainian border, locals and new arrivals from Ukraine held a service together at St. John’s church. Romania has welcomed more than half a million refugees from Ukraine since the beginning of the war and several of them found their way to the church service.
Ariadna Belciug, a local resident at the service, said she was praying “especially for the children, because no one deserves to go through these times.”
“I pray for them to be all right, to be safe and for better days for them to come,” Belciug added.
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World Press Freedom: Angola, Eswatini, Zimbabwe Ranked Among the Worst
Media watchdogs in southern Africa are calling on the governments of Angola, Eswatini and Zimbabwe to do more to protect press freedom following the publication of the Freedom in the World 2022 Report which says those countries are among the most oppressive authorities to media in the region.
The Media Institute of Southern Africa said it was concerned that Eswatini and Zimbabwe authorities were strangling the media as published in the recent Freedom in the World 2022 Report.
Tabani Moyo is the director of Media Institute of Southern Africa.
“Eswatini is stubborn or notorious for shutting internet twice in 2021 alone in response to protests in that country. Zimbabwe mainly not free considering issues around proposals on the regulation of the (inter)net. But also remember that Zimbabwe is in the process of introducing the amendment of the Criminal Law Codification Reforms Act which seeks to criminalize the engagement of citizens with [foreign] embassies. Angola is in election season, its behavior, we will be watching closely. But also of interest were countries that were from southern Africa in terms of internet freedom,” said Moyo.
That was reference to Angola, Malawi, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
“Zambia, in 2021 August, shut down internet during elections. Zimbabwe throttled the internet during this month when political parties were starting campaigning. Then you have a little bit of progression in South Africa, which is still within the free nations. And Angola being one of the countries on the look out due to the election season. Beginning of the year, I wrote projections on state of the freedom in southern Africa, and this report tallies [with] what I projected and actually affirming projections around trends that were likely going to see in 2022,” said Moyo.
Kindness Paradza, Zimbabwe deputy information minister dismissed the report saying it is “nonsense. Who has been harassed, detained, jailed or killed in the last 12 months?” he asked.
Tafadzwa Mugwadi is from Zimbabwe President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling ZANU-PF party.
“Government has done adequate reforms to ensure that our journalists and media house continue to enjoy the space thus so far open in Zimbabwe under the second republic it is therefore mischievous, erroneous and a dangerous lie by the Freedom House to allege that there is no freedom of the media in Zimbabwe,” said Mugwadi.
When President Mnangagwa took over from the late Robert Mugabe in 2017 he promised that citizens would enjoy all freedoms enshrined in the Zimbabwe constitution. But his critics say that promise is still far from being a reality.
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Malawi Launches Polio Vaccine for East and Southern Africa Countries
Malawi Sunday launched a polio vaccination campaign after the country in February confirmed its first case, 30 years after it eradicated the disease.
UNICEF, the World Health Organization and other partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative are leading the campaign, which targets over 20 million children in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania by July.
The vaccine rollout comes after it was confirmed last month that a 3-year-old girl was paralyzed by wild poliovirus in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe.
Until February, Malawi had last reported a polio case in 1992. The southern African country was declared polio-free in 2005 — 15 years before the whole continent achieved the same status.
UNICEF says over 9 million children are to be vaccinated in the first round of the mass campaign in Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi.
UNICEF said the mass immunization will also target children previously vaccinated.
“We need to vaccinate children who have been vaccinated before because it takes multiple doses of the polio doses to get fully immunized as regards to polio and every additional dose gives children extra protection,” says Rudolf Schwenk, UNICEF’s representative in Malawi.
Schwenk says if some children are not immunized during the campaign, starting Monday the risk of polio will remain not only in Malawi but in neighboring countries as well.
So far, UNICEF has procured over 36 million doses of polio vaccine for the first two rounds of immunizations of children in Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zambia.
In Malawi, the U.N. children’s agency is set to administer 6.8 million doses of the polio vaccine to be used in the first two rounds of vaccination in March and April, targeting 2.9 million children.
Three more rounds of vaccination will follow in the coming months, covering a total of more than 20 million children from the targeted four African countries.
However, in Malawi some health experts fear the immunization campaign would meet with vaccine resistance, as has been the case with COVID-19 vaccine in Malawi.
But UNICEF says efforts were made already to increase acceptance and demand for the polio vaccine among parents and communities.
“So we have worked with faith leaders, with high-level government officials, we have spoken to community leaders and with our partners we have done sensitization discussion to help the understand the importance of vaccinating the children,” said Schwenk.
He also says they have distributed information, education and communication materials across Malawi and aired radio messages about the advantages of the polio vaccine.
Dr. Mike Chisema, the manager for the Expanded Program on Immunization in the Ministry of Health in Malawi, told journalists Thursday that the government was ready for the polio vaccination campaign despite shortage of health care workers.
“Issue of human resource remains a challenge,” he said. “It’s not just about this particular program of outbreak response alone. But what is most important to note is that we have the teams that are available; our health surveillance assistants who do this work all the time. But it’s a question of adding the numbers over time. But we will work to manage with available human resource on the ground.”
In a statement released Sunday, UNICEF said in partnership with the World Health Organization they have trained health care workers in all the countries where they are administering the polio vaccine.
In Malawi they have trained 13,500 health workers and volunteers, 34 district health promotion officers. While in Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia they have trained a combined total of about 3,000 health care workers.
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Amid Western Sanctions, India Explores Rupee-Ruble Mechanism for Trade with Russia
India is considering establishing a payment mechanism in local currencies to allow it to continue trade with Russia, which has been hit with Western sanctions in response to its invasion of Ukraine.
New Delhi is proceeding with purchases of Russian crude at discounted prices despite pressure from the United States.
The state-run Indian Oil Corp. has concluded a deal to buy 3 million barrels of Russian crude, according to local media reports.
Although it has not officially confirmed the deal, India has defended the country’s decision to look at purchasing Russian oil.
“A number of countries are importing energy from Russia, especially in Europe,” Indian External Affairs Ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi told reporters earlier this week. He said India, which imports most of its oil, is “always exploring all possibilities in global energy markets.”
While the United States has banned Russian oil imports, several European countries, such as Germany, which are dependent on Russian imports of energy, continue to buy it. India, the world’s third-largest oil importer, imports only about 3% of its crude from Russia, but cheap Russian oil could help cushion its economy from spiraling international crude prices.
India will study the impact of Western sanctions against Russia while devising a payment mechanism to settle its trade with Moscow officials say.
“We will await details to examine the impact on our economic exchanges with Russia,” according to Bagchi.
As sanctions limit Russia’s ability to do business in major currencies such as the dollar or the euro, an Indian business body has asked the government to set up a rupee-ruble mechanism to facilitate trade.
“We have proposed that local currency trading may be explored in the given situation. It is one of the plausible options that are on the table,” according to Ajay Sahai, director general of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations. Indian exporters say payments of about $500 million are stuck because Russian buyers cannot pay in foreign exchange.
Work was ongoing to set up a rupee-ruble trade mechanism to be used to pay for oil and other goods, an Indian official, who refused to be identified, has told Reuters.
The trade in local currencies could take place between Russian banks and companies with accounts in Indian state-run banks.
This is not the first time that such a mechanism is being considered — India and the former Soviet Union had a rupee-ruble exchange plan in place during the Cold War to bypass the U.S. dollar.
India has also used a similar program with Iran, under Western sanctions for its nuclear weapons program.
New Delhi has taken a neutral stance on the Russian invasion, calling for a cease-fire and diplomacy to resolve the crisis, but abstaining from condemning Moscow, with which it has longstanding ties.
It has been under pressure from Washington, which has been urging India to the U.S. and other countries’ tough stand on the invasion.
When asked if the U.S. plans to reach out to India for curbs on oil purchases from Russia, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that Washington has been in touch with Indian leaders but added that countries have different “economic reasoning,” including some in Europe.
“But what we would project or convey to any leader around the world is that the world — the rest of the world is watching where you’re going to stand as it relates to this conflict, whether its support for Russia in any form as they are illegally invading Ukraine,” she told reporters.
New Delhi however has shown no indication that it will weaken trade or strategic ties to Russia — Moscow supplies India with more than 70% of its weapons, which are critical for New Delhi as it faces Chinese troops all along its Himalayan border. During a visit three months ago by Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi, both countries pledged to increase trade in the defense and energy sectors.
Analysts in New Delhi are optimistic that differences over Russia will not harm ties with Washington, which have grown in recent years as both India and the United States look at how to contain a more assertive China.
“It is not as if U.S. and India are on the same page on every issue,” said Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the Jindal School of International Affairs at O.P. Jindal University. Pointing out that India’s focus is primarily Asia and Indo-Pacific region, he said, “We are really fearful of what China could do along our borders and that remains our primary concern. And New Delhi feels that whether or not we take a joint position on Ukraine with the U.S., the Europeans and others, they will still partner with us to counterbalance China.”
That is why India believes that it can navigate its partnerships with both Russia and the United States for the time being, analysts such as Chaulia say.
However, if the war in Ukraine does not wind down and the crisis drags on, he said “then we will have to readjust our position.”
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Car Runs into Carnival Revelers in Belgium, Killing 6
A car slammed at high speed into carnival revelers in a small town in southern Belgium early Sunday, killing six people and leaving 10 more with life-threatening injuries. Several dozen were more lightly injured.
“What should have been a great party turned into a tragedy,” said Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden.
The prosecutor’s office said that in the early stages of the investigation there were no elements to suspect a terror motive, and two locals in their thirties were arrested at the scene in Strépy-Bracquegnies, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Brussels.
In an age-old tradition, carnival revelers had gathered at dawn, intending to pick up others at their homes along the way, to finally hold their famous festivity again after it was banned for the past two years to counter the spread of COVID-19. Some dressed in colorful garb with bells attached, walking behind the beat of drums. It was supposed to be a day of deliverance.
Instead, said mayor Jacques Gobert, “what happened turned it into a national catastrophe.”
More than 150 people of all ages had gathered around 5 a.m. and were standing in a thick crowd along a long, straight road.
Suddenly, “a car drove from the back at high speed. And we have a few dozen injured and unfortunately several people who are killed,” Gobert said.
The driver and a second person were arrested when their car came to a halt a few hundred meters further on.
Since Belgium was hit with twin terror attacks in Brussels and Zaventem that killed 32 civilians six years ago, thoughts of a terror motive are never far away.
But prosecutor Damien Verheyen said “there is no element in the investigation at this time that allows me to consider that the motivations of the two could have been terror related.”
The prosecutor’s office also denied media reports that the crash may have been caused by a car that was being chased by police.
King Philippe and Prime Minister Alexander De Croo were expected in Strépy-Bracquegnies later Sunday to express support for the families and victims.
Carnival is extremely popular in the area and the nearby version in Binche has even been declared UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage.
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14 Displaced People, Including 7 Children, Killed in DR Congo
Fourteen civilians, including seven children, were killed in a camp for displaced people in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the local Red Cross said Sunday.
Seven adults and seven children, including a two-year-old, were all killed in the machete attack Saturday in the Ituri region, according to a Red Cross list seen by AFP.
Jean D’Zba Banju, a community leader in the Djugu area of Ituri, said CODECO militiamen entered Drakpa where they killed 12 people with machetes.
“CODECO militiamen entered Drakpa and started to cut people with machetes. They did not fire shots in order to operate calmly,” Banju told AFP.
“The victims are displaced people who had fled Ngotshi village to set up in Drakpa,” he said, adding that five other people were wounded.
CODECO is a political-religious sect that claims to represent the interests of the Lendu ethnic group.
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One Of Europe’s Biggest Steel Works Damaged in Ukraine’s Mariupol
One of Europe’s biggest iron and steel works, Azovstal, has been badly damaged as Russian forces lay siege to the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, officials said Sunday.
“One of the biggest metallurgic plants in #Europe destroyed. The economic losses for #Ukraine are huge. The environment is devastated,” tweeted Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko.
Vasylenko posted a video of explosions on an industrial site, with thick columns of grey and black smoke rising from the buildings.
One of her colleagues, Serhiy Taruta, wrote on Facebook that Russian forces “had practically destroyed the factory.”
“We will return to the city, rebuild the enterprise and revive it,” Azovstal’s director general, Enver Tskitishvili, wrote on messaging app Telegram, without specifying the extent of the damage.
He said that when the invasion began on Feb. 24, the factory had taken measures to reduce the environmental damage in the event of being hit.
“Coke oven batteries no longer pose a danger to the lives of residents,” he wrote. “We have also stopped the blast furnaces correctly.”
Azovstal is part of the Metinvest group, which is controlled by Ukraine’s richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.
Considered pro-Moscow before the war began, Akhmetov has since accused Russian troops of committing “crimes against humanity against Ukrainians.”
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Botswana Drops Vaccine Mandate for Travelers
Botswana will allow unvaccinated travelers into the country, provided they produce a negative COVID-19 test result. That’s a reversal from last month, when the nation started denying entry to travelers who were partially vaccinated or unvaccinated and not willing to get a free shot.
Botswana Ministry of Health spokesperson Christopher Nyanga said in a statement the decision to allow the unvaccinated into the country was meant to ensure smooth entry for travelers.
“I wish to indicate that these changes now allow partially vaccinated or unvaccinated people to enter the country, if they comply with the required testing requirements,” he said. “It is only when one is not fully vaccinated and is also not willing to undergo COVID-19 testing at the port of entry, that they will be charged and fined or taken to a court of law.”
There was confusion over what determined a fully vaccinated person. In Botswana, the vaccine validity period is 180 days, while Europe gives the same vaccines a 270-day validity period.
Nyanga says the vaccine validity discord was taken into consideration when dropping the vaccine mandate.
“Due to discordant periods for taking booster shots between Botswana and other countries, and for purposes of smoothening international travel, the definition of being fully vaccinated in Botswana will no longer include a booster shot,” he said. “Having completed the primary vaccine series will be considered sufficient for one to be allowed entry, without the need to present a negative PCR test result.”
Cindy Kelemi , director of the human rights organization Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV-AIDS, welcomed the government’s move.
“We have always maintained that the response to COVID-19 does not necessarily require for criminalization to be used as a strategy,” she said. “And not allowing entry to those who are not vaccinated is actually a violation of people’s rights. Therefore, it was only reasonable for the government to retract its previous guidelines and remove the barring of people who are not vaccinated, into Botswana.”
Since the introduction of vaccine mandates on Feb. 14, Botswana’s tourism industry says, it has suffered huge losses, with canceled bookings worth $10 million.
A tour guide in the Okavango Delta, Keletso Sedume, said he expects the situation to improve now that COVID-19 entry requirements have been eased.
“It is good news as there was a drop of tourists coming to the delta in the last few weeks,” he said. “We heard it is because some were reluctant to vaccinate and had canceled their bookings. We hope to see them come in now.”
Botswana authorities say they have vaccinated more than 71% of the adult population, which is one of the highest vaccination rates on the continent.
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