https://arab.news/546w7
PRETORIA: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Kyiv would do “everything” its allies wanted but could not recognize Russia’s annexation of Crimea, considered illegal under Ukraine’s constitution.
“We do everything that our partners have proposed, only what contradicts our legislation and the constitution we cannot do,” Zelensky told reporters during a visit to South Africa in response to a question about Ukraine’s position on ceasefire talks.
MADRID: Spanish police said Monday they have dismantled a criminal network suspected of smuggling mainly Yemeni migrants into Britain and Canada with fake passports.
After obtaining refugee documents in Greece, the migrants went to European airports where gang members would deliver them counterfeit passports to allow them to “irregularly” go to the two countries, police said in a statement.
The group allegedly facilitated more than 40 irregular migration attempts, charging up to 3,000 ($3,250) per person.
Police said they started investigating in September after Canada’s border agency alerted Spanish authorities to multiple cases of Yemeni nationals trying to enter from Spanish airports using forged travel documents.
Officers arrested 11 suspected gang members, including its alleged leader, in raids in northern Spain and Madrid.
Police said they traced flight bookings, money transfers, credit card payments, airport surveillance footage, and electronic travel authorizations as part of their probe into the network.
Authorities in Austria, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Switzerland and Britain helped the investigation, and the European Union’s Europol agency helped analyze data from mobile devices that were seized from the suspects.
BANGKOK: Preliminary talks between Thailand and Cambodia defense officials started on Monday in Malaysia ahead of a key ministerial level meeting on Thursday, as a fragile truce continues to hold a week after the two sides agreed on a ceasefire.
The ceasefire, which came after five days of border clashes between Cambodia and Thailand, was reached at a meeting in Malaysia last Monday, with help from the United States and China also observing.
The worst fighting between the Southeast Asian neighbors in over a decade included exchanges of artillery fire and jet fighter sorties, claiming at least 43 lives and leaving over 300,000 people displaced on both sides of the border.
The ministers of defense of both countries are due to hold a meeting of the General Border Committee to discuss how to maintain the ceasefire, authorities on both sides said.
The Thursday meeting will be observed by representatives from the United States, Chinna and Malaysia.
Mistrust between the two neighbors has lingered despite the ongoing talks, with the Cambodia defense ministry accusing Thailand in a statement of violating the ceasefire agreement by using excavators and laying barbed wire in a contested border area.
Thailand said both sides are maintaining their position without any significant movements.
But “there are reports that the Cambodian side has modified their positions and reinforced their troops in key areas... to replace personnel lost in each area,” said Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a Thai military spokesperson.
Cambodia also demanded that Thailand releases 18 of its captured soldiers as soon as possible. Thailand said in a statement that the group are being treated well as “prisoners of war” and will be released after “a complete cessation of the armed conflict, not just a ceasefire.”
MELBOURNE: A Chinese citizen was charged Monday under Australia’s recent foreign interference laws with covertly collecting information about an Australian Buddhist association, police said.
The woman, an Australian permanent resident based in the capital Canberra, is only the third person charged since the laws were passed in 2018 and the first to be accused of interferring with the general population, Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Stephen Nutt police said.
She was charged in a Canberra court with covertly gathering information about a local branch of the Buddhist association Guan Yin Citta on behalf of the Public Security Bureau of China.
The association is banned in China. Police have not detailed her alleged objectives.
“We allege the activity was to support intelligence objectives of the China’s Public Security Bureau. This is the first time the AFP has charged a person with foreign interference that allegedly involves targeting members of the Australian community,” Nutt told reporters.
“Foreign interference is a serious crime that undermines democracy and social cohesion. It is a crime carried out by or on behalf of a foreign principal that involves covert and deceptive conduct or threats of serious harm or menacing demands,” Nutt added.
The woman, who was arrested at her home Saturday, cannot be named publicly due to a court order. She was remanded in custody and faces a maximum 15 years in prison if convicted.
The Chinese Embassy in Canberra did not immediately respond on Monday to a request for comment.
She is the first foreign national to be charged under the sweeping laws that created a rift between Australia and China when they were first announced in 2017.
Vietnam-born Melbourne businessman and local community leader Di Sanh Duong was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison last year over an attempt to influence a former federal government minister on behalf of China.
Sydney businessman Alexander Csergo also was charged with foreign interference for allegedly accepting payments for information from two suspected Chinese spies. He pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Mike Burgess, director-general of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization, said the nation’s main domestic spy agency had made a signficant contribution to the latest arrest.
“Foreign interference of the kind alleged is an appalling assault on Australian values, freedoms and sovereignty,” Burgess said in a statement.
The charge comes as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese mends bilateral relations with China that plumbed new lows under the previous Australian administration over issues including foreign interference laws.
Albanese traveled to Beijing last month to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the fouth time since the Australian leader was first elected in 2022.
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Monday that everyone should be careful about nuclear rhetoric, in its first response to a statement by US President Donald Trump that he had ordered a repositioning of US nuclear submarines.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down the significance of Trump’s comments, saying it was clear that US submarines were already on combat duty anyway. He said Moscow had no desire to get into a polemic with Trump on the issue.
Trump said on Friday he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be positioned in “the appropriate regions” in response to remarks from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev about the risk of war between the nuclear-armed adversaries.
