Category World News

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot dead when giving a talk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday in the latest example of ‘political violence’ in the US. President Trump ordered flags to fly at half-mast for the controversial 31-year-old.

Ukraine reclaimed 62sq km (24sq miles) of territory last month, its commander in chief revealed on Monday, contradicting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent claim to be advancing “in all directions”.

“The month in which the occupiers hoped for their breakthroughs and made maximum efforts for this became the month with comparatively the smallest territorial gains by the enemy in recent times,” Oleksandr Syrskii, commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, claimed on his Telegram messaging service channel.

Most of the gains were in Donetsk, Ukraine’s eastern region, where fighting has been intense for most of the war.

Russian forces there have been gunning for the towns of Dobropillia and Pokrovsk, but lost ground in both directions.

Towards Dobropillia, Russia captured 13.5sq km (5.21sq miles), but lost 25.5sq km (10sq miles), said Syrskii. “In the Pokrovsk direction, their gain was 5sq km (1.9sq miles), while our troops regained control over 26sq km (10sq miles),” Syrskii said.

He added that Ukrainian troops gained another 4sq km (1.5sq miles) on other sectors of the front.

Across the entire front, Russia made estimated gains of 499sq km (190sq miles) in August, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, but its losses contradict Putin’s recent claim in Beijing that all Russian troops in Ukraine were “advancing successfully, at different speeds”.

“Despite spreading propaganda … the Russians suffered blows,” said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.

Dnipro Group of forces spokesman Oleksiy Belskyi, whose unit is defending Pokrovsk, said on Saturday that Russia was concentrating armoured vehicles and drones, and redeploying experienced units in preparation for a new offensive.

Although Russian advances have picked up some speed since the spring, last week Russia claimed to have captured only one village, Novoselivka in Dnipropetrovsk.

It also claimed to have “neutralised” a Ukrainian attempt to land reconnaissance troops on an island in the Dnipro River Delta.

Russian assaults have come at great cost.

Syrskii estimated Russian casualties since the beginning of the year at 299,210.

He described Ukrainian tactics as “containing the enemy and inflicting the maximum possible losses on them”.

Russia escalates drone attacks

Unable to win the war with ground assaults, Russia has sought to break Ukraine’s morale with long-range drone attacks on its rear cities. During the week of September 4-10, it unleashed a total of 1,811 drones and 63 missiles. Ukraine said it downed 87 percent of the drones and half the missiles.

Russia escalated this tactic overnight on Sunday with the largest such attack of the war, when 810 drones and decoys targeted Kyiv, along with 13 missiles.

Ukrainian Premier Yulia Svyrydenko said the cabinet offices had been struck for the first time, and photographed herself in front of the smouldering ruin.

“For the first time, the government building – its roof and upper floors – has been damaged due to a hostile attack,” she wrote on Telegram.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed to have targeted its biggest ever drone attack against drone manufacturing sites in and around Kyiv, “where long-range drones had been manufactured, assembled, repaired, stocked, and launched”, as well as “airbases in the central, southern, and eastern parts of Ukraine”.

Russia denies targeting civilians and claims to be aiming at military targets, even if those are sometimes nestled in urban spaces.

One of its attacks on Tuesday killed 24 retirees who were queueing up to collect their monthly pensions in the town of Yarova in Donetsk.

A new air defence ‘format’

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday told Ukrainians that nearly half the drones in the Kyiv strike were decoys sent “to complicate the situation” in air defence, and called the shooting down of several ballistic missiles “a significant achievement”.

Ukraine’s military intelligence has estimated for some time now that the Russian drone production – already at 90 a day – aims to deliver strike packages of more than 1,000 drones and missiles to overwhelm Ukrainian defences, and has been strategising on how to counter the threat.

On September 4, Zelenskyy referred cryptically to “a certain format” of air defence that he and French President Emmanuel Macron had discussed for the first time.

“If we receive a positive signal from the United States, since technically much in this format of air defence depends on them – if we receive that positive signal, we will be glad to share this information,” Zelenkyy said.

A Ukrainian think tank, Price of Freedom, has proposed an air defence plan whereby 120 European aircraft would patrol Ukraine’s western skies, allowing its air force to focus more effectively on defensive and offensive operations in the contested eastern airspace. It was unclear if Zelenskyy was referring to this plan.

That same day, Syrskii said, “We are creating a layered system to counter enemy ‘Shaheds’ and ‘Gerans’,” referring to Russia’s kamikaze and decoy drones, respectively. “Our joint task is to form more such crews, train more fighter operators, and provide them with more effective means of destruction and radars.”

That new air defence “format” received renewed importance on Wednesday, when an estimated 19 drones crossed over into Polish airspace, forcing NATO to mobilise Polish F-16s, Dutch F-35s and Italian airborne early warning and control (AWACS) planes for the first time to shoot them down.

For the first time, also, NATO’s Article 4 was invoked in the context of the Ukraine war by Polish Premier Donald Tusk. The article says “Parties will consult together, whenever, in the opinion of any of them, the territorial integrity, political independence or security of any of the Parties is threatened.”

Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said the airspace violation was “an act of aggression that created a real threat to the security of our citizens”, and called it “unprecedented”.

Russian opposition newspaper Verstka recorded six occasions when a drone strayed into Polish airspace during the war. “It is unlikely that such a number of drones could have all entered into Polish airspace by accident or as a result of a technical or operator error,” said the ISW.

Ukraine’s deep strikes

Ukraine has been developing long-range strike capabilities as a means of leverage to bring Russia to the negotiating table.

On Friday, Ukrainian drones hit the Ryazan refinery, one of Russia’s four largest, putting its primary processing unit out of action. The same refinery was struck on August 2 and August 28.

Ukraine also claimed to have struck two S-300 air defence vehicles in the Kaluga region.

On Sunday, drones struck an oil pumping station in Russia’s Bryansk region, near Naitopovichi. “The facility is of strategic importance for transporting oil products from Belarusian refineries to the Russian Federation,” said Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces.

On the same day, Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SSO) said they had struck the Ilsky refinery on the Russian border territory of Krasnodar Krai and destroyed its primary oil-refining complex.

Brovdi said drones also struck and severely damaged Transneft’s Vtorovo oil pumping station in Penkino, in the Vladimir region.

Two days later, Ukraine’s military intelligence said two oil and two gas pipelines had been damaged, also in the Penkino area.

Ukraine has been conducting many of these strikes with domestically built drones, which carry small payloads of less than 100kg (220lb).

Last month, it unveiled mass production of the Flamingo, a 3,000km- (1,900-mile-)range cruise missile carrying a warhead of more than a tonne, and may have begun testing it on the battlefield.

On September 4, the Flamingo’s manufacturer, Fire Point, also revealed two ballistic missiles under development – the FP-7 with a 200km (124-mile) range and 150kg warhead, and the FP-9 with a 855km (1,860-mile) range and 800kg payload.

Ukraine’s allies have already entered into joint production of drones.

On September 3, Denmark said Fire Point would build a rocket fuel plant for the Flamingo near the Danish Air Force base at Skrydstrup.

On Tuesday, UK Defence Secretary John Healy said he would fund the production of “thousands of long-range drones” in the UK for Ukraine, and German defence minister Boris Pistorius said he was allocating $350m to launch a new deep strike initiative by purchasing long-range drones from Ukrainian companies and giving them to Ukraine’s armed forces – a model of assistance pioneered by Denmark.

Twenty-six of Ukraine’s allies on September 4 committed military resources to a peacekeeping force that would operate behind Ukrainian front lines after a ceasefire.

Zelenskyy described it as a “security system”.

“We are preparing strength – on the ground, in the air, and at sea,” he said.

Nepal’s army is resuming talks with protesters to pick an interim leader for the Himalayan nation, after violence that removed the government of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, according to an army spokesperson.

Soldiers were patrolling the quiet streets of the capital Kathmandu for a second day on Thursday following the worst protests in decades, triggered by a social media ban that authorities rolled back after deadly protests this week.

Nepal’s President Ramchandra Paudel meanwhile said he is seeking an end to the crisis engulfing the country.

“I am consulting and making every effort to find a way out of the current difficult situation in the country within the constitutional framework,” Paudel said in a statement. “I appeal to all parties to be confident that a solution to the problem is being sought as soon as possible to address the demands of the protesting citizens.”

Paudel also urged Nepalis to “practice restraint and cooperate to maintain peace and order in the country”.

Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet told the Reuters news agency earlier on Thursday that “initial talks are on and would continue today,” referring to the discussions on an interim leader. “We are trying to normalise the situation slowly.”

Al Jazeera’s Rob McBride, reporting from Kathmandu, said “there is an uneasy calm here on the streets.

“It does feel like an uneasy standoff at times because things are still extremely tense” as crowds gather routinely in front of the military headquarters before being pushed back by soldiers, he added.

Frontrunner Karki

Former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, who was Nepal’s first woman appointed to the job in 2016, is reportedly the frontrunner for interim leader, with her name suggested by many of those leading the protests.

“We see Sushila Karki for who she truly is – honest, fearless, and unshaken,” said Sujit Kumar Jha, 34, a supporter of the agitation. “She’s the right choice. When truth speaks, it sounds like Karki.”

Karki, 73, has given her consent, but efforts are being made to find a constitutional route to appoint her, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

However, there were some differences over her candidature among the protesters, who were seeking to reach a unanimous decision, another source said.

Kathmandu Mayor Balen Shah, an independent politician who is popular among the young protesters, and several others have voiced support for Karki, but divisions within both the protest camp and mainstream parties leave Nepal’s political future unclear.

KP Khanal, an activist who was at the forefront of the protest, said many young demonstrators like him, who have not been invited to the talks, are watching developments cautiously.

“Nothing is looking clear. We were together during the peaceful protest, but the situation has changed after we dispersed,” he said.

Hope for ‘political solution’

The next big question, said Al Jazeera’s McBride, is whether an interim government can be formed and what it will look like.

“A lot of the groups that have led these protests … don’t necessarily see eye to eye and work together,” said McBride. “Some of them are in open conflict with each other, so it’s [a] difficult [situation] but the military is trying to facilitate this dialogue to lead to an interim government.”

The situation on the ground is “very tense; it could go either way at the moment”, said McBride. “The hope is that there will be a political solution to this situation.”

Shops, schools and colleges stayed shut in Kathmandu and surrounding areas, but some essential services had resumed.

A nationwide curfew first imposed on Tuesday night will remain in place until Friday.

Despite the extension, the army has eased restrictions to allow smoother movement for essential service workers.

In a statement issued late on Wednesday, it said domestic and international air travellers would also be permitted to move freely upon showing their tickets.

The death toll from the protests had risen to 31 by Thursday, local media reported. According to the Forensic Medicine Department at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, where dead bodies of protesters have been taken for postmortem, preliminary identities of 25 victims have been established so far. The identities of the remaining six deceased, one of whom is a woman, are not yet known, local English daily Kathmandu Post reported.

The demonstrations that rocked Nepal this week are popularly referred to as the “Gen Z” protests, since most participants were young people voicing frustration at the government’s perceived failure to fight corruption and boost economic opportunities.

Bhadohi, India: Surya Mani Tiwari has had sleepless nights ever since United States President Donald Trump slapped India with 50 percent tariffs.

The 78-year-old exports carpets worth more than 1 billion rupees ($11.4m) from Bhadohi in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh to the US every year. But the tariffs, the highest tier so far, have brought business to a screeching halt.

“We are completely dependent on the US for our business and have no other markets. The tariffs have brought our production to a halt, and no consignment has been dispatched to the US for the past one month,” Tiwari told Al Jazeera. “It is the worst phase of my 50-year career in the carpet business, and the industry will die a painful death if the situation doesn’t improve in the next two months.”

Tiwari is among the several hundred carpet exporters in Bhadohi, popularly known as the carpet city of India, who are staring at a complete collapse of their business ever since Trump announced tariffs on India – initially 25 percent which kicked in on August 7, and an additional 25 percent from August 27 on account of India’s imports of Russian oil which he has said was is fuelling the war in Ukraine.

India’s predominantly export-based carpet industry produces handloom, handicraft, knotted, Persian and various other types of carpets that have a high demand in the US, including for wall-to-wall carpeting in homes and businesses.

The industry with a turnover of 160 billion rupees ($1.83bn) employs more than 2.5 million people across the country, the majority of whom are weavers, as per the Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC).

Bhadohi is the epicentre of the carpet business and controls more than an 80 percent share of the total turnover. It houses about 1,200 exporters who also double up as manufacturers. Approximately 1.4 million people, 5-6 percent of whom are women, depend on this business for their livelihood.

“We have been ruined with such high tariffs as the carpet industry runs completely on exports with a very negligible domestic presence,” CEPC director Piyush Baranwal told Al Jazeera. “The US is the major market for our business and contributes to around 60 percent share of the total turnover. Several millions of people earn their livelihood through carpets, which is like a cottage industry here.”

Production was already on the decline since Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2, but manufacturers and exporters were still hopeful that the bilateral discussions between New Delhi and Washington, DC would bring a competitive tax rate.

“We were hopeful that the discussions will help to sort out the issue, but nothing fruitful came out, which was very disappointing. The harsh tariffs have virtually put the industry on a ventilator as it is not possible to pay such high taxes when the margin is not more than eight to 10 percent for wholesalers,” Baranwal said.

Slipping market share

Sanjay Gupta, a carpet exporter and partner in Global Overseas, pointed out that the industry, despite its modest turnover, generates employment on a large scale. It works like a cottage industry where the exporters outsource orders to weavers who work from their homes.

“The weavers are a major force here,” he said. “The sudden tariffs will have major repercussions, as it might trigger large-scale migration of unemployed people to other states and would be difficult to bring them back in the future. I have lost around 40 percent of my business,” since the reciprocal tariffs were announced in April, he said, and in turn he has cut back on commissions to weavers.

Exporters also fear that India’s competitors in the carpet business, such as Turkiye and Pakistan, which have lower tariff rates at 15 percent and 19 percent, respectively, will snatch their market in the US.

“It would become increasingly difficult to hold our market share in the US, as other countries with lower tariffs will definitely try to increase their dominance. We might lose a major chunk of our US market if no timely resolution is done,” Md Zakir Hussain, 31, a carpet exporter and manufacturer, told Al Jazeera.

The loss of business has also spread to middlemen like Md Zamir Ahmed, 40, who supplies cotton yarn to the manufacturers. “We were suffering for the past five years since the yarn suppliers began to directly deal with the manufacturers and devoured our profits. The small market that we still possessed has come to an end with these tariffs.”

Job losses

Ever since the announcement of tariffs, layoffs have begun in the carpet industry because of the drop in orders. The weavers who are paid daily on the basis of their work are almost jobless and have started migrating to other states.

Raza Khan, president of All India Carpet Manufacturers Association (AICMA), told Al Jazeera that about 100,000 people have become jobless and the number could reach 700,000, or half of Bhadohi’s weaver population, in the next two months if the situation does not change.

Fatima Samir, 30, a mother of three daughters, who works on binding carpets – the process of finishing the raw edges of a carpet – gets paid 60 rupees ($0.68) for an hour of work. Even that paltry sum has been cut down now, forcing her to keep her youngest daughter out of school because of the financial crunch. Her husband, a carpet weaver, migrated to another city in April, where he found work in a soft drink bottling factory, when the orders in Bhadohi started to slow.

Even though he is sending money home, the extra expense of running two homes has hit the family, leaving Samir worried about her daughters’ future.

“I am trying to give a good education to my daughters and do not want them to get involved in this menial work. But the dwindling work worries me. Who knows what will happen in the future?” she said.

Imtiaz Ansari, 50, a carpet manufacturer and exporter, told Al Jazeera that he has already scaled down the working days of his employees.

“We have curtailed down the working hours of our employees to just three days in a week due to the present crisis. We might have to start retrenching them if the situation remains the same. Over 4,000 weavers that depended on us have stopped getting the work for the past one month. Over 90 percent orders are now on hold and just the pending orders are being completed now.”

Obaidulla Asri, 45, a local journalist who has been writing about the Bhadohi carpet industry for several years, warned that things could worsen.

The manufacturers borrow money from the banks to make the carpets for which they have received orders, but get paid only two to three months after delivery.