Category World News

On Saturday, April 26, 2018, this is how things are going.

Fighting

In what Russian investigators and Kremlin officials described as a “terrorist attack,” a senior Russian general was killed in a car bombing attack in Balashikha, in eastern Moscow.
• A Volkswagen Golf detonated after an improvised explosive device was triggered, killing Lieutenant General Yaroslav Moskalik, 59, a member of the Russian General Staff.
• The car bomb, the most recent of a number of Russian military officers and pro-war figures to be killed since Russia’s first crackdown on Ukraine, was quickly put on hold by the Kremlin. Moscow’s claims that it was responsible for the killing were not addressed by Kyiv.
• Moskalik was a rising star, according to Russian war bloggers. He had met with Western officials in order to try to reach an agreement on the Ukraine conflict through a number of high-level Russian delegations.

Three people were killed and ten others were hurt when a drone struck an apartment building in Pavlohrad, in the southeast of Ukraine, on Friday, inflicting further airstrikes on the country.
• Serhii Lysak, the head of the regional administration in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, reported on Telegram that a child and a 76-year-old woman were among the civilians killed in the nighttime drone strike on Pavlohrad.
• According to the Ukrainian air force, 103 Shahed and decoy drones were fired by Russian forces at five Ukrainian regions. Authorities in the Sumy and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine reported no casualties but damage to civilian infrastructure.
• At least 12 people were killed on Thursday when the deadly Russian attack in Kiev’s capital, Kyiv, was carried out by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
• Zelenskyy claimed that the Russian forces launched almost 150 assaults on Ukrainian positions along the roughly 1, 000-kilometer (620-mile) front line using the attack on Kyiv as cover.

We traveled to the location of the ballistic missile strike in Kyiv today, along with diplomats from the countries and international organizations operating in the country. The location where 12 of our country’s citizens were killed when the missile exploded. My… pic. https://twitter.com/ncz8eXhioo

• Additionally, President Zelenskyy claimed that US-made components were discovered in a missile used in the Kyiv attack.

Ceasefire

• Zelenskyy reiterated to reporters that the Ukraine’s position on the Crimean Peninsula, which is alleged to have been being pressed by the US to renounce it as part of ceasefire negotiations with Moscow, had not changed.
• Ukraine “will not formally recognize any territory that has been temporarily occupied.” According to Zelenskyy, it seems to me that this is a completely fair position because, first of all, it is legal from the perspective of the Ukrainian Constitution as well as from the perspective of international law,” it said.
• “I concur with President Trump that Ukraine does not possess sufficient weapons to regain its possession of the Crimean Peninsula.” However, he continued, “We have sanctions options and the world.”

• The latest example of how US President Donald Trump was pressuring Ukraine to make concessions will end the war came as Zelenskyy made the remarks in an interview released on Friday.
• On Friday, President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours in Moscow to discuss the US’s plan to end Ukraine’s conflict.
• According to Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin aide, Witkoff and Putin had a “constructive” discussion, which included “a discussion on the possibility of renewing direct negotiations” between Kyiv and Moscow. According to Ushakov, the meeting brought the US and Russian positions on Ukraine “closer together.”
• Trump stated in a social media post following Witkoff’s meeting that a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow would be necessary to reach a deal.
• After setting foot in Rome for Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday, Trump stated in the post, “Most of the major points are agreed to.”

Diplomacy

• Due to the rise in Russian aggression against his country and his attendance at a “military meeting,” Ukrainian Zelenskyy has suggested that he may not attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral on Saturday in Rome. Zelenskyy questioned whether or not he should postpone his trip to Rome and whether it was significant to be here.
• Ukraine will be honored to be a part of the conversation if I can’t make it. Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv that the First Lady [Olena Zelenska] and the Foreign Minister [Andrii Sybiha] would be present.
• President Trump demanded on social media that Zelenskyy “IMMEDIATELY” sign a protracted agreement granting US access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.
• Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the country’s top diplomat, has not yet ratified the crucial Rare Earths Agreement with the US. Trump claimed that it is “at least three weeks late.”

In the wake of dozens of tourists being killed by gunmen in Indian-administered Kashmir, the UN has called for calm between India and Pakistan.

As both sides announced a number of diplomatic measures aimed at the other, relations between the neighbors have fallen to their lowest level in years.

What kind of crisis is this?

Presenter: Cyril Vanier

Guests:

Maleeha Lodhi, columnist for DAWN newspaper

Author of Kashmir at the Crossroads: Inside a 21st-Century Conflict is Sumantra Bose.

A Wisconsin judge has been detained by federal agents on suspicion of obstructing immigration officials, which is adding to the White House’s ongoing legal battle with the White House.

The judge was detained on Friday for allegedly assisting an undocumented immigrant evade federal agents, according to director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Kash Patel.

The US Department of Justice alleged in a criminal complaint that Milwaukee County circuit judge Hannah Dugan attempted to help the man evade arrest by allowing him to leave through a jury door.

The Judge’s obstructive action increased the public’s risk, Patel said, despite the fact that our agents had chased down the perp [undocumented migrant] on foot and he’s been in custody ever since.

Immigration officials arrived to arrest Flores-Ruiz in her court after Judge Dugan’s accusations of being “visibly angry,” the Justice Department said, and called the move “absurd.”

According to records, Dugan made a brief appearance in Milwaukee federal court on charges of obstructing a proceeding and hiding a person to deter an arrest. She was freed, and she will make a plea deal on May 15. A crowd gathered outside the court and chanted, “Free the Judge Now!”

After the hearing, Dugan exited the court through a side door and was later driven away in a dark SUV.

According to advocates for immigration and legal rights, people without legal status may be less inclined to testify in court about crimes in places like courts, where they can conduct immigration enforcement operations.

Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote on social media that “no one is above the law.”

Due to several rulings that restrict the Trump administration’s aggressive use of presidential power in immigration and other matters, the Trump administration has been engaged in an ever-increasing conflict with federal judges. In that dispute, state courts have not had much of an impact.

Before the federal court’s hearing against Dugan, Patel deleted the post he had made after making it public on social media.

According to Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Director Patel’s statement reveals that Trump’s FBI is more interested in stifling federal law enforcement, punishing those who oppose those laws, and intimidating those who oppose them, than it is in pursuing justice.

After taking office in January, Trump reintroduced a comprehensive immigration crackdown, and the Justice Department has mandated that local authorities who stifle the investigation file criminally.

In two weeks this month, more than 480 civilians have been killed in attacks in Sudan’s North Darfur region, with some of the attacks being ethnically motivated, according to the UN.

The UN human rights office reported on Friday that “the actual number is likely much higher” and that at least 481 civilians have been killed in North Darfur since April 10.

Additionally, it described the region’s high rates of sexual violence, including those committed against young boys and girls, as “horrifying.”

UN rights chief Volker Turk stated in the statement that “the suffering of the Sudanese people is hard to imagine, harder to comprehend, and simply impossible to accept.”

North Darfur has turned into a crucial battleground for the conflict that broke out between the Sudanese army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by al-Burhan’s former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The conflict, which the UN describes as the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, has resulted in tens of thousands of casualties.

“Range reports of sexual violence everywhere”

Between April 11 and April 13, one of the most recent bloody assaults took place at the Zamzam displacement camp. According to the UN rights office, that attack claimed the lives of at least 210 civilians, including nine medical professionals. Turnk cited reports of “women, girls, and boys being raped or gang-raped there or as they attempted to flee”

According to the UN, 129 more civilians were killed this week in El-Fasher City, Um Kedada District, and the displacement camp for the Abu Shouk.

According to the statement, some of the most recent attacks were “ethnically motivated,” with particular communities targeted.

The rising number of civilian casualties and the widespread reports of sexual violence, according to Turk, are horrifying.

Additionally, according to the UN, “dozens of people reported to have died in detention facilities run by the RSF or “while walking for days in harsh conditions in an attempt to flee violence” in detention facilities.”

Dire circumstances

According to the UN’s rights office, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict.

The displaced “face dire conditions” amid persistent restrictions on humanitarian aid for the needy, it said.

The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) earlier on Friday warned that due to funding constraints, it may have to reduce its food support in the coming weeks.

According to the organization, rations in areas where famine is possible have been reduced to 70% of a typical WFP ration (i.e., 2,100 kcal per day).

According to Turk, Turk’s claim that Turk’s continued attacks that target humanitarian workers and medical personnel also threaten the aid response.

He claimed that “medical workers are themselves in danger, and even water sources have been purposefully attacked, and that the systems to assist victims in many areas are on the verge of collapse.”

The UN’s assessment comes a day after UK Foreign Minister David Lammy warned that Darfur’s violence “could be the results of ethnic cleansing” and may constitute crimes against humanity.