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UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned Saturday Russia’s biggest drone and missile attack yet in the three-year war in Ukraine.
“The Secretary-General strongly condemns the latest series of large-scale drone and missile attacks by the Russian Federation,” Guterres said in a statement referring to the assault Friday and also calling for a full, immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
BERLIN: A conservative party in Germany’s governing coalition said Friday it would temporarily block aid promised to the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank over concerns the cash could be used against Israel.
Development Minister Reem Alabali Radovan of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) had pledged 30 million euros ($35 million) for the Palestinian Authority after a trip to the region last month.
But Alexander Hoffmann, parliamentary leader of the conservative CSU party, told the Bild newspaper the party wanted further “clarification.”
Hoffmann’s spokesman confirmed to AFP his comments that “humanitarian help is important, but it must be clear which concrete projects the money will be used for before the funds are approved.”
“Projects that endanger Israel’s security must be excluded.”
German government sources said the money would be used to pay the salaries of health care and education workers and be disbursed under an EU-run mechanism.
The CSU is the Bavarian counterpart to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s CDU and has been among Israel’s staunchest supporters in Germany, while the SPD has been somewhat more critical.
Sources within the coalition confirmed to AFP that the CSU was holding up approval of the money in parliament.
Merz’s spokesman Sebastian Hille said the government had “a common position” on the issue but had to wait for parliamentary approval.
He said he was confident that “the question can be sorted out between the coalition’s MPs.”
A development ministry spokeswoman underlined that the funds were intended to ease the dire financial situation the Palestinian Authority has been in since Israel stopped transferring revenues from taxes on goods destined for Authority-controlled areas.
“Public services such as health care have been seriously restricted and the school year hasn’t started on time,” she said.
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke by phone on Friday, Chinese state media reported, as they seek an agreement to help keep the video app TikTok online in the US and ease tensions between two superpowers locked in a standoff over trade.
The report from Chinese state broadcaster CCTV did not provide any details of the conversation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agreement is at the top of the agenda alongside trade for the leaders’ first known call in three months.
Trump and Xi’s effort to steady relations comes as the two governments have been discussing a potential in-person summit between Xi and Trump during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea on October 30-November 1, Reuters has reported.
KATMANDU: Nepal’s deposed prime minister KP Sharma Oli said Friday his government did not order police to open fire on protesters and called for a probe into violence that killed at least 73 people.
In his first statement since stepping down last Tuesday, the 73-year-old said “infiltrators” were responsible for inciting bloodshed during youth-led protests that swept the Himalayan nation beginning September 8.
The demonstrations were sparked by a short-lived ban on social media, but fueled by anger at corruption and long-standing economic woes.
At least 19 people were killed in a crackdown on the first day.
“Those who infiltrated (the protests) incited violence, resulting in the tragic loss of young lives,” Oli said in a post in Nepali on Facebook.
“The government did not issue orders to target the protesters and fire shots,” Oli said, as the country marked its constitution day Friday.
Mobs ransacked government offices, set fire to a newly opened Hilton hotel and attacked other symbols of authority – including Oli’s residence – as fury swept across towns and cities.
Some protesters were seen brandishing automatic rifles on the second day of the unrest.
“There should be an investigation on incidents of use of automatic weapons which the police did not have,” Oli said in his post.
“I will not say much about the conspiracy behind this today, time will tell itself,” he added.
Oli has not been seen in public since his removal, with allies saying he was under military protection.
“He was under the protection of the army and returned yesterday,” party colleague Agni Kharel from Oli’s CPN-UML said.
His successor, Prime Minister Sushila Karki, a 73-year-old former chief justice, has been tasked with restoring order and addressing demonstrators’ demands for a corruption-free future ahead of elections in six months.
“The demonstrations and movement led by youth reflect both the aspirations of our young generation, growing public awareness and, the dissatisfaction with prevailing corruption in the country,” Karki said in a speech to mark the country’s constitution day.
“The state machinery should (function) in accordance with the aspirations and expectations of the people.”
JAKARTA: Over 800 students fell sick in two cases of mass food poisoning this week after consuming free school meals sponsored by the Indonesian government, officials said on Friday.
One case affected more than 500 and was the biggest outbreak yet under President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship program. From January, when the program was launched, up to August, over 4,000 children have been hit by food poisoning after consuming the meals, according to Indonesian-based think tank, the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance, raising questions on oversight.
In Indonesia’s West Java province, 569 students from five schools in the Garut region experienced nausea and vomiting on Wednesday after consuming chicken and rice provided by one free meals kitchen a day earlier, Nurdin Yana, the secretary of Garut regional government, told Reuters.
“As of Friday, ten students are still being treated at the hospital and others have recovered,” Yana said. Initially, about 30 students had to be hospitalized, while the rest were treated at home, he added.
The local government will increase surveillance of the kitchen that provided the meals, Yana said, adding the program would not be halted but, instead, students would be given more basic food, such as bread, milk, boiled eggs and fruit for now.
Another mass food poisoning case linked to the program occurred on Wednesday in the Banggai Islands of Central Sulawesi province, affecting 277 students, the National Nutrition Agency, which oversees the program, said in a statement, adding that meal distribution in the area was temporarily halted.
Prabowo’s spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi said on Friday that the government apologized for the “re-occurrence of cases in several areas that are, of course, not what we had hoped for or intentional.”
Questions have been raised about standards and oversight of the program, which has expanded rapidly to reach over 20 million recipients, with an ambitious goal of reaching 83 million by year-end and a budget of 171 trillion rupiah ($10.32 billion).
The budget for the program will be doubled next year.
DUBAI: The Taliban released on Friday a British couple held in Afghanistan for more than seven months on undisclosed charges, an official said, part of a wider effort to get their government recognized internationally years after taking power.
The case of Peter and Barbie Reynolds, aged 80 and 75, underlined the concerns of the West over the actions of the Taliban since they overthrew the country’s US-backed government in a 2021 lightning offensive. The Reynolds had lived in Afghanistan for 18 years and run an education and training organization in the country’s central province of Bamiyan, choosing to remain in the country after the Taliban seized power.
Qatar, an energy-rich nation on the Arabian Peninsula that mediated talks between the US and the Taliban before the American withdrawal, helped in releasing the Reynolds. The couple left Afghanistan on Friday, a diplomat said. The diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations in the case.
The Reynolds’ family members in the United Kingdom repeatedly called for the couple’s release, saying they were being mistreated and held on undisclosed charges. While the Taliban rejected the abuse allegations, they have never explained what prompted their detention.
There was no immediate comment from the Taliban government or the UK Foreign Office about the couple’s release.
In July, United Nations human rights experts warned the couple’s physical and mental health was deteriorating rapidly and that they were at risk of irreparable harm or even death.
Earlier this month, the Taliban said they had reached an agreement with US envoys on a prisoner exchange as part of an effort to normalize relations. The meeting came after the Taliban in March released US citizen George Glezmann, who was abducted while traveling through Afghanistan as a tourist.
Afghanistan remains a focus of US President Donald Trump. On Thursday, while visiting the UK, Trump suggested that he is working to reestablish a US presence at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Zakir Jalaly, an official at the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry, dismissed the idea.
