Third Russian strike in 3 days kills more Ukrainian civilians
Third Russian strike in 3 days kills more Ukrainian civilians/node/2579998/world
Third Russian strike in 3 days kills more Ukrainian civilians
Rescuers work at the site of a residential building, which was hit by a drone strike amid Russia’s attack on Hlukhiv, Ukraine, on Tuesday. (Reuters)
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Updated 19 November 2024
AP
Third Russian strike in 3 days kills more Ukrainian civilians
Updated 19 November 2024
AP
KYIV: A third Russian strike in three days on a civilian residential area in Ukraine killed at least 12 people, including a child, officials said Tuesday, as the war reached its 1,000th day.
The strike by a Shahed drone in the northern Sumy region injured 11 others, including two children, Ukraine’s Rescue Services said, adding that more people could be trapped under the rubble.
The attack late Monday night hit a dormitory of an educational facility in the town of Hlukhiv, the regional administration said.
Ukraine has repeatedly been clobbered by Russian drones and missiles, while on the battlefield it is under severe Russian pressure at places on the about 1,000-kilometer front line where its army is stretched thin against a bigger adversary.
On Sunday, a Russian ballistic missile with cluster munitions struck a residential area of Sumy in northern Ukraine, killing 11 people and injuring 84 others.
On Monday, a Russian missile barrage sparked apartment fires in the southern port of Odesa, killing at least 10 people and injuring 43.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the series of aerial strikes proved that Russian President Vladimir Putin was not interest in ending the war.
“Each new attack by Russia only confirms Putin’s true intentions. He wants the war to continue. Talks about peace are not interesting to him. We must force Russia to a just peace by force,” Zelenskyy said.
Longer exposure, more pollen: climate change worsens allergies
Climate change affects allergy patients in multiple ways, according to a 2023 report by the WMO
Shifting climate has already begun altering the production and distribution of pollen and spores, says study
Updated 5 sec ago
AFP
PARIS: Runny nose, itching eyes, worsening asthma symptoms — the effects of hay fever are nothing to sneeze at, experts say, warning of an “explosion” of allergies as climate change lengthens and intensifies pollen seasons.
The UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has found that a shifting climate has already begun altering the production and distribution of pollen and spores.
As winter frost thaws earlier and spring weather gets warmer, plants and trees flower earlier, extending the pollen season, numerous studies have shown.
Air pollution can also increase people’s sensitivity to allergens, while invasive species are spreading into new regions and causing fresh waves of allergies.
More and more people, particularly in industrialized nations, have reported developing allergy symptoms in recent decades.
Around a quarter of adults in Europe suffer from airborne allergies, including severe asthma, while the proportion among children is 30 to 40 percent.
That figure is expected to rise to half of Europeans by 2050, according to the World Health Organization.
“We’re in crisis because allergies are exploding,” said Severine Fernandez, president of the French Allergists’ Union.
Whereas previously an allergic person would endure only what is commonly known as hay fever, albeit sometimes for years, “now that person can become asthmatic after one or two years,” Fernandez said.
A car drives between trees in a small park in Frankfurt, Germany, April 8, 2024. (AP Photo/File)
‘No doubt that climate change is having an effect’
Climate change affects allergy patients in multiple ways, according to a 2023 report by the WMO.
Rising levels of carbon dioxide, one of the main heat-trapping gases produced by burning fossil fuels, boost plant growth, in turn increasing pollen production.
Air pollution not only irritates the airways of people exposed, but it also causes stress to plants, which then produce more “allergenic and irritant pollen.”
Nicolas Visez, an aerobiologist at the University of Lille, said each plant species reacted differently to a variety of factors such as water availability, temperature and CO2 concentrations.
Birch trees for example will wither as summers get hotter and drier, while the heat causes a proliferation of ragweed, a highly allergenic invasive plant.
“There’s no doubt that climate change is having an effect,” Visez said.
In a study published in 2017, researchers projected that ragweed allergies would more than double in Europe by 2041-2060 as a result of climate change, raising the number of people affected from 33 million to 77 million.
The authors suggested that higher pollen concentrations as well as longer pollen seasons could make symptoms more severe.
‘AutoPollen’ program
A Europe-wide “AutoPollen” program under development aims to provide real-time data on the distribution of pollen and fungal spores.
In Switzerland, a tie-up with MeteoSwiss allows patients and doctors to match personal allergy profiles with maps of specific allergens throughout the country.
In parts of France, authorities have planted “pollinariums,” gardens packed with the main local allergen species.
These provide information on the very first pollen released into the air so that people can start taking antihistamines and other protective measures in a timely manner.
“Hazelnuts have started to bloom as early as mid-December, which wasn’t the case before,” said Salome Pasquet, a botanist with the association behind the pollen gardens.
“That’s really because we’ve had very mild winters, so flowering has come earlier,” she said.
Some countries are taking an interventionist approach — cutting off the pollen at the source.
In Japan, the government announced a plan in 2023 to combat allergies caused by the archipelago’s many cedar trees, which includes felling cedars to replace them with species that produce less pollen.
Countries in Europe are also more mindful of species in the environment, both native ones that have been planted and invasive newcomers like ragweed.
Preference is given to species with a lower allergenic potential, such as maple or fruit trees.
“The idea is not to stop planting allergenic species,” Pasquet said, but to be mindful of creating diversity and avoiding having “places where there are rows of birch trees, as was the case a few years ago.”
It was birch trees in a client’s garden that originally set off symptoms for Simon Barthelemy, an architect who lives near Paris.
“I had a major eye allergy, and it’s been a recurring problem every year since,” he said.
“I’m on antihistamines, but if I don’t take them I get itchy eyes, I’m very tired, I cough... I can’t sleep at night.”
British lawmakers to vote on landmark assisted dying law
Would be biggest social reform in a generation
Some worries over protections for most vulnerable
Updated 15 min 51 sec ago
Reuters
LONDON: British lawmakers will vote on Friday on whether to proceed with a bill to legalize assisted dying for terminally ill people, in what would be the biggest social reform in the country for a generation.
Last November, lawmakers voted 330 to 275 in favor of the principle of allowing assisted dying, paving the way for Britain to follow Australia, Canada and other countries, as well as some US states.
Now, after months of scrutiny, amendment and emotional debate, the bill must clear another stage of voting to keep it on the road to legalization, a process that could still take months. A vote against would stop it in its tracks.
The Labour lawmaker who has proposed the new law, Kim Leadbeater, said there could be a reduction in the number of members of parliament who support the bill on Friday, but she was confident it would still be approved.
One member of parliament who supports the legislation said there were about a dozen votes between those in favor and against, with a number yet to declare their position.
Dozens of lawmakers earlier in June signed a letter to the leader of the House of Commons saying that there had not been enough time to debate the details of such a consequential law change.
Leadbeater said her biggest fear was that if the legislation was voted down, then it could be another decade before the issue returns to parliament.
The issue was last considered in 2015 when lawmakers voted against it.
“It works and it is safe, and it provides dignity to terminally ill people,” she told reporters before the vote. “This is not an either or when it comes to palliative care or assisted dying. It is about choice for people.”
Public support
Opinion polls show that a majority of Britons back assisted dying, and supporters say the law needs to catch up with public opinion.
But, since the initial vote, some lawmakers say they are worried the bill’s protections against the coercion of vulnerable people have been weakened.
Under the proposed law, mentally competent, terminally ill adults in England and Wales with six months or fewer to live would be given the right to end their lives with medical help.
In the original plan, an assisted death would have required court approval. That has been replaced by a requirement for a judgment by a panel including a social worker, a senior legal figure and a psychiatrist. Lawmakers have also raised questions about the impact of assisted dying on the finances and resources of Britain’s state-run National Health Service and the need to improve palliative care.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is neutral on the bill, meaning politicians can vote according to their conscience rather than along party lines.
Lawmakers will hold a final debate on the legislation on Friday morning before a likely vote in the afternoon. If it passes, the legislation will be sent to the House of Lords, parliament’s upper chamber, for further scrutiny.
Italy, pressed to lower deficit but hike defense spending, lashes at ‘stupid’ EU rules
EU budget rules need to be changed to allow member states to boost defense spending, says Italian economy minister
Updated 25 min 45 sec ago
Reuters
ROME: European Union budget rules are “stupid and senseless” and need to be changed to allow member states to boost defense spending as recommended by Brussels, Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said on Thursday.
The EU Commission has introduced flexibility clauses to allow more investment in security, but Giorgetti said their current form penalizes countries such as Italy, which are under a so-called EU infringement procedure for their excessive deficits.
“It is essential to find ways to bring these rules up to date with the crisis we are experiencing so that they do not seem stupid and senseless,” the minister said in a statement issued by his staff on the sidelines of a meeting with euro zone peers in Luxembourg.
The title of the statement was blunter, saying Giorgetti called for changes to “stupid and senseless rules.”
Brussels has proposed allowing member states to raise defense spending by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product each year for four years without any disciplinary steps that would normally kick in once a deficit is more than 3 percent of GDP.
The plan came amid growing pressure in Europe to boost military spending to deter a potential attack from Russia and become less dependent on the United States.
Highly-indebted Italy is set this year to meet the NATO defense target of 2 percent of GDP through a series of accounting changes, but an alliance summit next week is expected to raise the goal to 5 percent of GDP.
Giorgetti said that, under the Commission’s scheme, member states not subject to the EU’s excessive deficit procedure would be allowed to use the extra leeway on defense without breaching budget rules, even if their deficits rise above the 3 percent of GDP ceiling.
However, “member states already in the infringement procedure cannot use the same flexibility,” he added.
In this situation Italy is reluctant to use the EU flexibility clause because it would prevent it from lowering its deficit to 2.8 percent of GDP in 2026 from 3.4 percent last year, as planned.
“Italy is committed to a timely exit from the infringement procedure and accepting the invitation to increase defense spending would forever prevent this,” Giorgetti said.
Rome is also wary of any move that could harm its improving reputation on financial markets, two government officials said.
Last month, credit ratings agency Moody’s upgraded Italy’s outlook to “positive” after rival S&P Global raised the country’s rating to “BBB+” from “BBB.”
Italy’s preferred option would be the issuance of common EU debt to finance higher defense spending, one of the officials said, but such a plan would require support from the other bloc members. (Editing by Alvise Armellini and Gavin Jones)
Muslim NY mayoral candidate reports threats; Jewish Ohio lawmaker was threatened separately
Updated 36 min 51 sec ago
Reuters
WASHINGTON: The New York City Police Department said on Thursday its hate crime unit was probing anti-Muslim threats against mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani while in another incident US Representative Max Miller of Ohio said he was “run off the road” by another driver with a Palestinian flag.
These marked the latest US incidents to raise concerns about the rise in hate against Americans of Muslim, Arab, Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian heritage since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza in late 2023.
An NYPD spokesperson said police received reports that on Wednesday at 9:45 a.m., Mamdani, a Democratic state assembly member and mayoral candidate, reported that he “received four phone voicemails, on various dates, making threatening anti-Muslim statements by an unknown individual.”
There have not been any arrests so far and the investigation remained ongoing, the NYPD added. The New York Daily News reported a man threatened to blow up Mamdani’s car. Mamdani had no immediate comment.
Separately, Republican US Representative Max Miller from Ohio said on X he was “run off the road” in the city of Rocky River on Thursday while he and his family were threatened by a person with a Palestinian flag. He said he had filed a police report.
“Today I was run off the road in Rocky River, and the life of me and my family was threatened by a person who proceeded to show a Palestinian flag before taking off,” said Miller, who is Jewish and pro-Israeli. He labeled the incident, which was also condemned by top congressional Democrats, as antisemitic.
Recent incidents that raised alarm over antisemitism and anti-Israel attitudes in the US include a fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy employees in Washington and a Colorado attack that left eight people wounded when a suspect threw incendiary devices into a pro-Israeli crowd.
Incidents raising alarm about anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian prejudice include the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian child in Illinois, the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas and a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California.
Most US allies in NATO are on track to endorse Trump’s demand that they invest 5 percent of GDP on defense and military needs
But Spanish PM Sánchez’s decision risks derailing next week’s NATO summit, which could have lingering repercussions
Updated 20 June 2025
AP
MADRID: Spain has rejected a NATO proposal to spend 5 percent of gross domestic product on defense needs that’s due to be announced next week, calling it “unreasonable.”
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in a letter sent on Thursday to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, said that Spain “cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP” at next week’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.
Any agreement to adopt a new spending guideline must be made with the consensus of all 32 NATO member states. So Sánchez’s decision risks derailing next week’s summit, which US President Donald Trump is due to attend, and creating a last-minute shakeup that could have lingering repercussions.
Most US allies in NATO are on track to endorse Trump’s demand that they invest 5 percent of GDP on their defense and military needs. In early June, Sweden and the Netherlands said that they aim to meet the new target.
A NATO official on Thursday said that discussions between allies were ongoing about a new defense spending plan.
“For Spain, committing to a 5 percent target would not only be unreasonable, but also counterproductive, as it would move Spain away from optimal spending and it would hinder the EU’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its security and defense ecosystem,” Sánchez wrote in the letter seen by The Associated Press.
Spain was the lowest spender in the trans-Atlantic alliance last year, directing less than 2 percent of its GDP on defense expenditure.
Sánchez said in April that the government would raise defense spending by 10.5 billion euros ($12 billion) in 2025 to reach NATO’s previous target of 2 percent of GDP.
On Thursday, Sánchez called for “a more flexible formula” in relation to a new spending target — one that either made it optional or left Spain out of its application.
Sánchez wrote that the country is “fully committed to NATO,” but that meeting a 5 percent target “would be incompatible with our welfare state and our world vision.” He said that doing so would require cutting public services and scaling back other spending, including toward the green transition.
Instead, Spain will need to spend 2.1 percent of GDP to meet the Spanish military’s estimated defense needs, Sánchez said.
At home, corruption scandals that have ensnared Sánchez’s inner circle and family members have put the Spanish leader under increasing pressure to call an early election, even from some allies.
Increased military spending is also unpopular among some of Sanchez’s coalition partners. In April, when Sánchez announced that Spain would reach NATO’s previous 2 percent spending target, the move angered some coalition members further to the left of his Socialist Party.
NATO allies agreed to spend 2 percent of GDP on military expenditure after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. But the alliance’s plans for defending Europe and North America against a Russian attack require investments of at least 3 percent.
The aim now is to raise the bar to 3.5 percent for core defense spending on tanks, warplanes, air defense, missiles and hiring extra troops. A further 1.5 percent would be spent on things like roads, bridges, ports and airfields so armies can deploy more quickly, as well as preparing societies for possible attack.
Several allies have committed to reaching the new spending goal, even though other nations will struggle to find the billions required.
Rutte had been due to table a new proposal on Friday aimed at satisfying Spain and trying to break the deadlock. European allies and Canada want to end the standoff before the leaders meet with Trump on Wednesday.
Poland and the Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania — have already publicly committed to 5 percent, and Rutte has said that most allies were ready to endorse the goal.
But Spain isn’t alone among NATO’s low spenders. Belgium, Canada and Italy will also struggle to hike security spending by billions of dollars.
A big question still to be answered is what time frame countries will be given to reach an agreed-upon new spending goal.
A target date of 2032 was initially floated, but Rutte has said that Russia could be ready to launch an attack on NATO territory by 2030.
