Russia says shot dead Ukrainian agent who tried to blow up car
Russia says shot dead Ukrainian agent who tried to blow up car/node/2571733/world
Russia says shot dead Ukrainian agent who tried to blow up car
Russia's FSB security service said Tuesday it shot dead a Ukrainian agent who attempted to plant explosives under the car of a senior defence industry official. (AFP/File)
Russia says shot dead Ukrainian agent who tried to blow up car
The suspect, whom it did not name, allegedly worked for Ukraine’s GUR intelligence agency
A pistol with ammunition was found at the scene
Updated 17 September 2024
AFP
MOSCOW: Russia’s FSB security service said Tuesday it shot dead a Ukrainian agent who attempted to plant explosives under the car of a senior defense industry official.
The suspect, whom it did not name, allegedly worked for Ukraine’s GUR intelligence agency and targeted a “senior employee of a defense enterprise in the Sverdlovsk region,” the FSB said.
He was detained while “placing an improvised explosive device in a hiding place, put up armed resistance and was neutralized by return fire,” the FSB added.
A pistol with ammunition was found at the scene, while law enforcement seized components used for making explosives during a search of his residence, it continued.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Ukraine has often targeted Russian officials it believes are complicit in the Kremlin’s full-scale military assault on its territory, which began in 2022.
In December 2023, pro-Russian Ukrainian defector Illia Kyva was shot dead near Moscow in an attack claimed by Kyiv’s security services.
He’s emboldened, he’s organized and he’s still Trump: Takeaways from the president’s opening days
Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters
In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government
He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship
Updated 16 sec ago
AP
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s first week in office isn’t over yet, but already it offers signals about how his next four years in the White House may unfold.
Some takeaways from the earliest days of his second term: He’s emboldened like never before
Within hours of being sworn in, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people who were convicted or charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by his supporters. Those pardoned include people who attacked, bloodied and beat police officers that day. The Republican president’s decision was at odds with earlier comments by his incoming vice president, JD Vance, and other senior aides that Trump would only let off those who weren’t violent.
The pardons were the first of many moves he made in his first week to reward allies and punish critics, in both significant and subtle ways. It signaled that without the need to worry about reelection — the Constitution bars a third term — or legal consequences after the Supreme Court granted presidents expansive immunity, the new president, backed by a Republican Congress, has little to restrain him.
Trump ended protective security details for Dr. Anthony Fauci, his former COVID-19 adviser, along with former national security adviser John Bolton, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his onetime deputy. The security protections had been regularly extended by the Biden administration over credible threats to the men’s lives.
Trump also revoked the security clearances of dozens of former government officials who had criticized him, including Bolton, and directed that the portrait of a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, retired Gen. Mark Milley be removed from the Pentagon walls. He’s way more organized this time
In his first days in office, Trump demonstrated just how much he and his team had learned from four often-chaotic years in the White House and four more in political exile.
A president’s most valuable resource is time and Trump set out in his first hours to make his mark on the nation with executive orders, policy memoranda and government staffing shake-ups. It reflected a level of sophistication that eluded him in his first term and surpassed his Democratic predecessors in its scale and scope for their opening days in the Oval Office.
Feeling burned by the holdover of Obama administration appointees during his first go-around, Trump swiftly exiled Biden holdovers and moved to test new hires for their fealty to his agenda.
In a matter of days he uprooted four years of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the federal government, sent federal troops to the US-Mexico border and erased Biden’s guardrails on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency development.
In his first term, Trump’s early executive orders were more showpieces than substance and frequently were blocked by federal courts. This time, Trump is still confronting the limits of his constitutional authorities, but is also far more adept at controlling what is within them. But Trump is still Trump
An hour after concluding a relatively sedate inaugural address in the Capitol Rotunda, Trump decided to let loose.
Speaking to an overflow crowd of governors, political supports and dignitaries in the Capitol Visitor Center’s Emancipation Hall, Trump ripped in to Biden, the Justice Department and other perceived rivals. He followed it up with an even longer speech to supporters at a downtown arena and in more than 50 minutes of remarks and questions and answers with reporters in the Oval Office.
For all of Trump’s experience and organization, he is still very much the same Donald Trump, and just as intent as before on dominating the center of the national conversation. If not more. Courts may rein Trump in or give him expansive new powers
He has acted to try to end civil service protections for many federal workers and overturn more than a century of law on birthright citizenship. Such moves have been a magnet for legal challenges. In the case of the birthright citizenship order, it met swift criticism from US District Judge John Coughenour, who put a temporary stay on Trump’s plans.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades. I can’t remember another case where the question presented was as clear as this one is,” Coughenour, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan, told a Justice Department attorney. “This is a blatantly unconstitutional order.”
How those court cases play out will determine not only the fate of some of Trump’s most controversial actions, but just how far any president can go in pushing an agenda. Trump is betting that oil can grease the economy’s wheels and fix everything
The president likes to call it “liquid gold.”
His main economic assumption is that more oil production by the United States, OPEC would bring down prices. That would reduce overall inflation and cut down on the oil revenues that Russia is using to fund its war in Ukraine.
For Trump, oil is the answer.
He’s betting that fossil fuels are the future, despite the climate change risks.
“The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we’re going to use it,” Trump said in a Thursday speech. “Not only will this reduce the cost of virtually all goods and services, it’ll make the United States a manufacturing superpower and the world capital of artificial intelligence and crypto” The problem with billionaires is they’re rivals, not super friends
Trump had the world’s wealthiest men behind him on the dais when he took the oath of office on Monday.
Tesla’s Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and LVMH’s Bernard Arnault were all there. SoftBank billionaire Masayoshi Son was in the audience. Later in the week, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and OpenAI’s Sam Altman appeared with Son at the White House to announce an artificial intelligence investment of up to $500 billion.
Musk, the Trump backer who is leading the president’s Department of Government Efficiency effort, posted on X that SoftBank didn’t have the money. Altman, a rival to to Musk on AI, responded over X that the funding was there.
By surrounding himself with the wealthiest people in tech, Trump is also stuck in their drama.
“The people in the deal are very, very smart people,” Trump said Thursday. “But Elon, one of the people, he happens to hate. But I have certain hatreds of people, too.” Trump has a thing for William McKinley
America’s 25th president has a big fan in Trump. Trump likes the tariffs that were imposed during Republican William McKinley’s presidency and helped to fund the government. Trump has claimed the country was its wealthiest in the 1890s when McKinley was in office.
But McKinley might not be a great economic role model for the 21st century.
For starters, the Tax Foundation found that federal receipts were equal to just 3 percent of the overall economy in 1900, McKinley’s reelection year. Tax revenues are now equal to about 17 percent of the US economy and that’s still not enough to fund the government without running massive deficits. So it would be hard to go full McKinley without some chaos.
As Dartmouth College economist Douglas Irwin noted on X, the economic era defined by McKinley was not that great for many people.
“There was a little something called the Panic of 1893 and the unemployment rate was in double digits from 1894-98!!” Irwin wrote. “Not a great decade!”
International peacekeepers killed as fighting rages around eastern Congo’s key city
M23 has made significant territorial gains in recent weeks, encircling the eastern city of Goma, which has around 2 million people
Congo, the US and UN officials accuse Rwanda of backing M23, which is mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis who broke away from the Congolese army
Updated 51 min 49 sec ago
AP
GOMA, Congo: Fighting with M23 rebels in eastern Congo has left at least 13 peacekeepers and foreign soldiers dead, United Nations and army officials said Saturday.
M23 has made significant territorial gains in recent weeks, encircling the eastern city of Goma, which has around 2 million people and is a regional hub for security and humanitarian efforts.
The UN Security Council moved up an emergency meeting on the escalating violence to Sunday morning (10 am EST). Congo requested the meeting, which had originally been scheduled for Monday.
On Saturday, Congo’s army said it fended off an M23 offensive toward Goma with the help of its allied forces, including UN troops and soldiers from the Southern African Development Community Mission, also known as SAMIDRC.
“The Rwandan-backed M23 is clearly exploiting the presidential transition in the US to advance on Goma — putting thousands more civilians at risk,” Kate Hixon, advocacy director for Africa at Amnesty International US, told the Associated Press.
Congo, the United States and UN experts accuse Rwanda of backing M23, which is mainly made up of ethnic Tutsis who broke away from the Congolese army more than a decade ago.
Rwanda’s government denies the claim, but last year acknowledged that it has troops and missile systems in eastern Congo to safeguard its security, pointing to a buildup of Congolese forces near the border. UN experts estimate there are up to 4,000 Rwandan forces in Congo.
The burning wreckage of a white armored fighting vehicle carrying UN markings could be seen on a road between Goma and Sake on Saturday, where much of the fighting was concentrated in recent days.
Two South African peacekeepers were killed Friday, while a Uruguayan Blue Helmet was killed Saturday, a UN official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the matter publicly.
Additionally, three Malawian peacekeepers were killed in eastern Congo, the United Nations in Malawi said Saturday.
Seven South African soldiers from the SAMIDRC were also killed during clashes with M23 over the last two days, South Africa’s department of defense said in a statement.
Uruguay’s military in a statement issued Saturday identified its member killed in Congo as Rodolfo Álvarez, who was part of the Uruguay IV Battalion. The unit, according to the statement, is working “uninterruptedly to comply with the United Nations mandate, as well as to guarantee the evacuation of non-essential civilian and military personnel from the city of Goma.”
“Various measures have been taken to improve the security of our troops, who are operating in adverse conditions,” the military said. It added that four Uruguayan peacekeepers were also injured. Three of them remained in Goma while a fourth one was evacuated to Uganda for treatment.
Since 2021, Congo’s government and allied forces, including SAMIDRC and UN troops, have been keeping M23 away from Goma.
The UN peacekeeping force, also known as MONUSCO, entered Congo more than two decades ago and has around 14,000 peacekeepers on the ground.
South Africa’s defense minister, Angie Motshekga, was visiting the country’s troops stationed in Congo as part of the UN peacekeeping mission the day the soldiers were killed.
Why child-killer diseases like dengue, cholera and mpox have surged worldwide
Three child-killer diseases witnessed major resurgences in 2024, fuelled partly by climate crises and conflict
Poor sanitation, displacement, and war-damaged infrastructure left millions vulnerable to fatal illnesses
Updated 26 January 2025
Nadia Al-Faour
DUBAI: When the UN launched the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, it set out a bold action plan to eliminate premature death and needless suffering caused by preventable diseases by 2030.
With just five years to go, the world appears to be moving backwards. Indeed, 2024 actually witnessed an alarming surge in a triad of preventable or manageable child-killer diseases.
Dengue, cholera and mpox returned with a vengeance, claiming the lives of thousands of children. With their weaker immune systems, the young are particularly vulnerable to infection and often fatal complications.
Bangladeshi children suffering from dengue fever rest at a ward at the Mugda Medical College and Hospital in Dhaka on August 8, 2019. (AFP file)
This multifaceted health emergency has compounded the suffering of already stricken communities in impoverished countries and conflict zones, where climate change, inequality and underfunded health systems have left many without access to basic care or sanitation.
“Currently, about half of the world’s population is not fully covered by essential, quality, affordable health services, denying them their right to health,” said Dr. Revati Phalkey, global health and nutrition director at Save the Children International.
“Health systems are under enormous pressure to deliver universal health coverage, with the majority of countries experiencing worsening or no significant change in service coverage since the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015.”
According to the World Health Organization, dengue fever — a mosquito-borne disease that causes severe fever, pain and in some cases death — saw an alarming spike in 2024.
Dengue cases doubled from 6.65 million in 2023 to 13.3 million in 2024. The total number of dengue-related deaths globally last year was 9,600. The WHO estimates some four billion people are now at risk of dengue related viruses.
A woman carries her children while workers spray mosquito repellent as part of a prevention campaign against dengue fever in Banda Aceh on January 22, 2025. (AFP)
Children who play outside with limited protection against mosquitoes are often more exposed and therefore more vulnerable to the virus than adults. The absence of mosquito nets where children sleep is also a key contributing factor.
In developing countries in Southeast Asia, parts of Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, dengue fever is especially prevalent. Informal settlements in these regions often lack basic infrastructure for waste management, sewage or clean water.
Infographic courtesy of US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
These conditions offer a fertile breeding ground for mosquitoes and for the disease to spread. Meanwhile, rising temperatures associated with climate change have expanded the range of mosquito habitats, allowing them to flourish across a wider region.
The spread of dengue, sometimes known as “breakbone fever” due to the severe fatigue it causes, represents “an alarming trend” according to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebereyesus, with 5 billion people at risk of being infected by 2050.
FASTFACT
13,600
Deaths from dengue, cholera, or mpox in 2024.
Dengue is not the only danger. In Yemen, Sudan and Gaza, where conflict has displaced thousands and destroyed critical civilian infrastructure, cholera has become a major threat to adults and children alike.
A deadly bacterial infection spread through contaminated water, cholera is another consequence of poor sanitation. The infection causes rapid dehydration through severe diarrhea and vomiting, which can quickly lead to death if left untreated.
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East released a statement in June warning of a cholera outbreak in the Gaza Strip amid severe water shortages and damage to sanitation services.
A woman and children sit outside tents sheltering displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 8, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas. (AFP file)
Several UN agencies have issued warnings about the high risk of infectious diseases in overcrowded refugee camps across the Middle East and North Africa, where displaced households have limited access to clean water and proper sanitation.
In Sudan, as of last November, the WHO reported more than 37,514 cholera cases across the country and at least 1,000 deaths. “We are racing against time,” Sheldon Yett, the UN children’s fund representative to Sudan, said in a statement in September.
“We must take decisive action to tackle the outbreaks as well as invest in the health systems underpinning the essential services vulnerable children and families in Sudan so desperately need.”
A health care worker attends to a young patient at a cholera treatment center in Gedaref state, Sudan, November 2024. (Photo courtesy of UNOCHA / Yao Chen)
Despite efforts by the international community to provide vaccines and clean water, outbreaks in conflict zones have proven difficult to keep under control. The collapse of sanitation services, in particular, has left millions of children vulnerable to the disease.
Although the overall number of cholera cases worldwide fell by 16 percent in 2024, there has been a 126 percent spike in the number of deaths as a result of the disease.
Another health crisis threatening the world’s children is mpox, formerly known as monkeypox. The virus reemerged in 2024 to devastating effect across parts of Africa, with children suffering the most severe consequences.
Once a rare disease confined to rural areas of Central and West Africa, mpox has now become a significant public health crisis with thousands of reported infections, particularly among children under the age of five.
Mpox, contracted through contact with infected people and animals, bodily fluids and contaminated objects, causes fever, rashes, and painful lesions that in turn can lead to other illnesses and afflictions such as pneumonia and blindness.
While it can be controlled using vaccines, such resources remain scarce in parts of Africa. Having already been overwhelmed by Ebola and malaria, the region’s health systems are stretched to the limit, leaving treatment out of reach for thousands of children.
Moreover, poor sanitation, crowded living conditions, and rapid urbanization have increased the risk of transmission.
Dr. Robert Musole, medical director of the Kavumu hospital, visits patients recovering from mpox in the village of Kavumu, 30km north of Bukavu in eastern DR Congo on August 24, 2024. (AFP file)
Children in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been the worst affected by the mpox virus, with the WHO declaring the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. Around 75 percent of cases are in children under the age of 10.
The surge in these diseases reflects the broader, interconnected crises faced by the world, where the most vulnerable populations are left with limited means to recover and adapt.
In wealthier countries, child deaths resulting from cholera and dengue have dropped significantly thanks to well-functioning sanitation services and accessible healthcare systems that have weathered the blows of the coronavirus pandemic.
A boy carries a child to receive treatment at a medical centre near a camp for people displaced by conflict in Abs in Yemen's Hajjah province on August 27, 2024. (AFP)
However, in low income countries, particularly those in the midst of conflict, healthcare systems are extremely vulnerable, with medical staff overstretched, medicines in short supply, and wards overwhelmed by the sick and wounded.
The grim reality for millions of children across the world underscores the urgent need for global action.
“We need greater global investments to build strong health systems that are able to deliver essential health services, especially vaccines and essential medicines, while responding to global health emergencies including emerging issues like mpox,” said Dr. Phalkey.
A medic gives the cholera vaccination to a child in the town of Maaret Misrin in the rebel-held northern part of the northwestern Idlib province on March 7, 2023. (AFP
“It is time for governments and the international community to step up and ensure all children are protected against disease and have access to adequate health services when they need them and where they need them.
“Every child has the right to survive and thrive, and it is our collective responsibility to deliver on this.”
CIA now says COVID-19 ‘more likely’ to have come from lab
The agency had for years said it could not conclude whether COVID-19 was the result of a lab incident or it originated in nature
The CIA says it has “low confidence” in its assessment that a “research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely“
Updated 25 January 2025
Reuters
NEW YORK: The Central Intelligence Agency has assessed that the COVID-19 pandemic is “more likely” to have emerged from a lab rather than from nature, an agency spokesperson said on Saturday.
The agency had for years said it could not conclude whether COVID-19 was the result of a lab incident or it originated in nature. But in the final weeks of the Biden administration, former CIA Director William Burns asked CIA analysts and scientists to make a clear determination, stressing the pandemic’s historical significance, according to a senior US official.
The CIA says it has “low confidence” in its assessment that a “research-related origin of the COVID-19 pandemic is more likely” and notes in its statement that both scenarios — lab origin and natural origin — remain plausible.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It was unclear the extent to which the agency has collected new intelligence on COVID-19’s origins and whether that new evidence was used to formulate the latest assessment.
China’s government says it supports and has taken part in research to determine COVID-19’s origin, and has accused Washington of politicizing the matter, especially because of efforts by US intelligence agencies to investigate.
Beijing has said claims that a laboratory leak likely caused the pandemic have no credibility.
In an interview with Breitbart following his confirmation by the US Senate on Friday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said one of his first priorities was getting his agency to make a public assessment on the pandemic’s origins.
“That’s a day-one thing for me,” he said. “I’ve been on record as you know in saying I think our intelligence, our science, and our common sense all really dictate that the origins of COVID was a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”
New Delhi probes mystery illness after 17 die in India-administered Kashmir
The deaths, including those of 13 children, have occurred in the remote village of Badhaal in Rajouri area since early December
All of the fatalities had damage to the brain and nervous system, said Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, who heads Rajouri’s medical college
Updated 25 January 2025
AFP
SRINAGAR: Authorities in India-administered Jammu and Kashmir were investigating a mysterious disease that has claimed the lives of 17 people, local media reports said Saturday.
The deaths, including those of 13 children, have occurred in the remote village of Badhaal in Jammu’s Rajouri area since early December.
The village was declared a containment zone earlier this week with around 230 people quarantined, the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency reported.
All of the fatalities had damage to the brain and nervous system, Amarjeet Singh Bhatia, who heads Rajouri’s government medical college, said.
“The winter vacations have also been canceled to deal with the medical alert situation,” PTI quoted Bhatia as saying.
The victims were members of three related families.
The federal government has launched an investigation with health minister Jitendra Singh saying an initial probe suggested the deaths were “not due to any infection, virus or bacteria but rather a toxin.”
“There is a long series of toxins being tested. I believe a solution will be found soon. Additionally, if there was any mischief or malicious activity, that is also being investigated,” PTI quoted Singh as saying.
In a separate medical incident, authorities in the western city of Pune recorded at least 73 cases of a rare nerve disorder.
Those infected with Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) include 26 women and 14 of the patients are on ventilator support, PTI quoted an official as saying.
In GBS, a person’s immune system attacks the peripheral nerves, according to the World Health Organization.
The syndrome can impact nerves that control muscle movement which may lead to muscle weakness, loss of sensation in the legs or arms and those infected can face trouble swallowing and breathing.
