Russian Missiles Hit Shopping Centre with over 1,000 Shoppers
Russia launched missiles Monday that struck a shopping centre in the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the number of casualties is “impossible to even imagine.”
Zelensky said more than 1,000 civilians were at the shopping centre at the time of the attack, and the mall was on fire. Initial reports say two people were killed and 20 wounded.
The Ukrainian leader deplored the attack, saying the shopping centre, in a city 300 kilometres southeast of the capital, Kyiv, was “no danger to the Russian army, no strategic value.”
He said the shoppers only attempted “to live a normal life, which angers Russians so much.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken tweeted, “The world is horrified by Russia’s missile strike today, which hit a crowded Ukrainian shopping mall — the latest in a string of atrocities. We will continue to support our Ukrainian partners and hold Russia, including those responsible for atrocities, to account.”
Meanwhile, ahead of a NATO summit starting Tuesday in Madrid, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said the Western military alliance is declaring a sevenfold increase in its troops on standby alert — from 40,000 to more than 300,000.
G-7 Heightening Russia Sanctions for Ukraine War
The United States and the other members of the Group of Seven leading industrialized economies imposed new sanctions Monday against Russia for its four-month invasion of Ukraine. These include measures to cut Moscow off materials and services that its industrial and technology sectors need.
The White House said the US will commit $7.5 billion as part of a G-7 effort to help Ukraine cover its short-term budget needs and that the governments are making “an unprecedented, long-term security commitment to providing Ukraine with financial, humanitarian, military and diplomatic support as long as it takes.”
In a joint communique, the G-7 said, “We remain appalled by and continue to condemn the brutal, unprovoked, unjustifiable and illegal war of aggression against Ukraine by Russia and aided by Belarus. We condemn and will not recognise Russia’s continued attempts to redraw borders by force.”
The announcement came as G-7 leaders met in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, where they spoke by video link with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Additional specific US sanctions include blocks on Russian state-owned defence enterprises and defence research organisations, limiting Russia’s ability to replenish the equipment it lost in the war and prohibiting gold imports into the United States.
Biden Visit: US Wants Israelis, Palestinians to Calm Tensions
The United States expressed concern Monday about “palpable and dangerous” tensions between Israelis and Palestinians ahead of a visit next month by President Joe Biden to the region.
“We once again call on all parties to refrain from unilateral actions that increase tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution, such as settlement activity, demolitions, incitement to violence and evictions,” the deputy US ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Mills, told a meeting of the Security Council on the issue of Israeli settlements.
Biden will visit Israel and the West Bank and then continue to Saudi Arabia from July 13 through July 16.
The White House says the president plans to meet with Israeli leaders to discuss that country’s “security, prosperity, and its increasing integration into the greater region.” Biden will also visit the West Bank to meet with Palestinian Authority officials.
Mills said that during the trip, Biden will “urge calm and explore ways to promote equal measures of security, freedom and opportunity for both Israelis and Palestinians.”
US-Palestinian relations hit a low in 2020 when the Trump administration unveiled its Middle East peace plan. The Palestinians rejected it outright, saying it heavily favoured Israel and did not give them a sovereign, contiguous state with East Jerusalem as its capital. .
UN Appeals for $110m for Afghan Quake Response
The United Nations made an urgent appeal Monday for $110.3 million to provide life-saving assistance to more than 360,000 Afghans affected last week by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake that killed about 1,000 people, including 150 children.
The funding is required in the next three months to meet pressing humanitarian needs, prevent more deaths and help rebuild homes and communities shattered by the disaster.
The earthquake destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes in several districts in Paktika and Khost provinces, according to aid agencies and Taliban officials.
“I’m appealing to the world — please help. We need money. We need funding. We need support to resolve this tragedy,” Ramiz Alakbarov, U.N. resident relief coordinator for Afghanistan, said in a video message while visiting an area in Paktika province hard hit by the earthquake.
More than half of the appealed funding, if provided by donors, will be spent on emergency shelters and non-food items, while about $35 million will go to emergency food and health care needs.
Several countries in the region, including the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Qatar, Pakistan, India and China, have responded to the disaster with planes loaded with tents, clothes, medical supplies and food items. The United States has also pledged aid.
.Russia Faces Debt Payment Default
Russia moved closer Sunday to default on international debt payments for the first time in a century.
Interest payments totalling $100 million on two bonds were originally due May 27 but carried a 30-day grace period.
Russia has struggled to make such payments due to restrictions on its financial activities and sanctions imposed in response to its invasion of Ukraine in February.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine continued on Sunday when Russian forces launched new missile attacks on Ukraine’s two biggest cities, the capital of Kyiv and Kharkiv.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least two apartment buildings in the city were hit, leaving at least one person dead and four others injured.
Russia ramped up its use of cruise missiles, striking targets across northwestern Ukraine. Air raid sirens blared in several cities.
“It’s more of their barbarism,” US President Joe Biden said of the Russian strike on Kyiv as he appeared at a G-7 welcoming ceremony with Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a key focus of the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is due to address the meeting Monday.
Biden said that the United States and the other G-7 economies will ban the import of Russian gold, the latest sanction imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth month.
Cameroonian Separatists Committed Gross Human Rights Violations: Report
A Human Rights Watch report released Monday says separatists in Cameroon are increasingly brutal in their attacks. Human Rights Watch says separatists have committed murders and have carried out at least 80 abductions since January.
According to the report, separatists have killed at least seven people, injured six, raped a teenage girl, and committed other grave human rights abuses in the English-speaking western regions this year.
The separatists also torched at least two schools, attacked a university and kidnapped people, including 33 students and five teachers, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
Ilaria Allegrozzi, HRW’s central Africa researcher, said an escalation in attacks on civilians, education and health had exacerbated an already dire human rights situation in Cameroon’s Anglophone regions.
“The separatist groups have kidnapped more than 80 people since January, and this figure is more likely underestimated compared to the reality on the ground, given the challenges of accessing the regions, but also the widespread fear among the victims to denounce because of possible retaliation and reprisals,” Allegrozzi said. “These are serious human rights abuses, and they continue in the context of increasing violence and impunity that facilitates and fuels other abuses.”
HRW said in April, separatists stormed the University of Bamenda campus in the Northwest region, shooting in the air, causing panic among students and teachers, and leading to a stampede that injured at least five people. .
South Africa Police Investigating Deaths of 21 Teenagers in Bar
South African authorities say the owner of a bar where at least 17 teenagers were found dead, and four others died while receiving medical care is expected to face charges. Police investigating the mysterious deaths in Eastern Cape province say they have not ruled out the possibility the teenagers were poisoned.
South African police say they are investigating and awaiting autopsy results after the teenagers’ bodies were found at a bar early Sunday morning with no visible cause of death.
Brigadier Thembinkosi Kinana is a police spokesman.
“Whilst we understand the urgency of this matter and the anxiety of the public, in particular the affected families who want answers. We urge that we allow sufficient time for our detectives to finalize those investigations. I must also add that we have not made any arrests at this stage,” he said.
South African police say the owner is expected to face charges and have not ruled out the possibility that the teenagers were poisoned.
Spokesman Kinana said half a dozen of the bodies were not immediately claimed.
Protesters in India Call for Release of Anti-Modi Activist
Protesters in India’s financial capital
Mumbai on Monday demanded the release of a critic of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of faking documents about anti-Muslim riots in 2002.
Teesta Setalvad is accused of tutoring witnesses, forging the documents and fabricating evidence in cases pertaining to the riots in Gujarat when Modi was state chief minister, according to police documents seen by Reuters.
A lawyer for Setalvad could not immediately be reached for comment.
Modi was accused of failing to stop the rioting when at least 1,000 people died under his watch. He denied the accusations and was exonerated in an Indian Supreme Court inquiry in 2012. Last week, the Supreme Court dismissed another petition questioning his exoneration.
Setalvad, a leading rights activist, was detained from her residence in Mumbai on Saturday by police from Gujarat, taken to the neighbouring state, placed under formal arrest and sent to police custody until July 2.
“Just because activists like her are fighting in the court of law doesn’t mean they should be put behind bars,” Nooruddin Naik, a protester, told Reuters.
WNBA Star Brittney Griner Ordered to Trial Friday in Russia
Shackled and looking wary, WNBA star Brittney Griner was ordered to stand trial Friday by a court near Moscow on cannabis possession charges, about 4 1/2 months after her arrest at an airport while returning to play for a Russian team.
The Phoenix Mercury centre and two-time US Olympic gold medalist also was ordered to remain in custody for the duration of her criminal trial. Griner could face 10 years in prison if convicted on charges of large-scale transportation of drugs. Fewer than 1% of defendants in Russian criminal cases are acquitted, and unlike in the US, acquittals can be overturned.
At Monday’s closed-door preliminary hearing at the court in the Moscow suburb of Khimki, Griner’s detention was extended for another six months. Photos obtained by The Associated Press showed the 31-year-old in handcuffs and looking straight ahead, unlike a previous court appearance where she kept her head down and covered with a hood.
Her detention and trial come at an extraordinarily low point in MoscowWashington relations. She was arrested at Sheremetyevo Airport less than a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, which aggravated already-high tensions with sweeping sanctions by the United States and Russia’s denunciation of US weapon supplies to Ukraine.