01/10/2024

TUESDAY | OCT 1, 2024 9 US citizen pleads guilty to fighting for Ukraine LONDON: US citizen Stephen James Hubbard pleaded guilty in a Moscow court yesterday to charges of mercenary activity, admitting that he had received money to fight for Ukraine against Russia. “Yes, I agree with the indictment,” RIA news agency cited him as saying. Hubbard, 72, was placed in pre-trial detention last week for six months. He faces a sentence of seven to 15 years if convicted. RIA, citing a prosecutor in court, said Hubbard had signed a contract with a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the central city of Izyum at the start of the war in February 2022. The prosecution said he was promised US$1,000 (RM4,123) a month and was provided with training, weapons and ammunition. Hubbard was detained by Russian soldiers on April 2 of that year, RIA quoted the prosecutor as saying. A spokesperson for the US embassy in Moscow said last week it was aware of the detention of an American citizen, but declined further comment. Hubbard, a native of Michigan, had worked as an English teacher abroad for decades, including in Japan and Cyprus, his sister, Patricia Fox, told Reuters. She denied her brother was a mercenary and said he had no interest in fighting in any war. She said Hubbard was too elderly for combat. “He is so non-military. He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that ... He’s more of a pacifist,” Fox said. She said Hubbard had moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived there for a time with a woman, surviving off a small pension. Fox said she had last spoken to Hubbard in September 2021, via Skype. He had split from his girlfriend and was living alone, she said. Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a major prisoner swap on Aug 1 between Russia and the West freed three Americans and dozens of others. – Reuters Putin vows Russia will accomplish all Kyiv goals MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday vowed that Moscow would accomplish all goals it has set for itself in Ukraine, in its third year of conflict. “The truth is on our side. All goals set will be achieved,” Putin said in a video message released to mark the second anniversary of what Russia calls “Reunification Day”, when Moscow annexed four Ukrainian regions. After it sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia annexed the regions of Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. It does not fully control all territory in these regions. In his address, Putin repeated his justification for sending troops into Ukraine as protecting Russian speakers against a “neo-Nazi dictatorship” that aimed to “cut them off forever from Russia, their historic homeland”. He also slammed “Western elites” who “turned Ukraine into their colony, a military base aimed at Russia” and who fanned “hate, radical nationalism ... hostility to everything Russian”. “Today we are fighting for a secure, prosperous future for our children and grandchildren”, he said. – AFP

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted the southern Lebanese village of Khiam. – AFPPIC

Lebanon Hamas leader killed

GENEVA: The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross sounded the alarm over the blatant disregard shown for the Geneva Conventions in conflicts worldwide. Mirjana Spoljaric called on countries to urgently recommit to respecting international law in an interview with Swiss daily Le Temps . International humanitarian law (IHL) was being “systematically trampled underfoot by those who lead military operations”, she said. She pointed to “the number of wounded and dead during the conflicts in Gaza, Sudan and BEIRUT: Hamas said an Israeli airstrike killed its leader in Lebanon in the city of Tyre yesterday, and another Palestinian organisation said three of its leaders were killed in a strike in central Beirut – the first such hit inside the capital’s limits. The killings were the latest in a two-week wave of intensified Israeli attacks on targets in Lebanon, part of a conflict now also stretching from the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, to Yemen, and in Israel itself. Hamas said its leader in Lebanon, Fateh Sherif Abu el-Amin was killed along with his wife, son and daughter, in a strike that targeted their house in a refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre early yesterday. Another group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), said three of its leaders were killed in a strike that targeted Beirut’s Kola district. This was the first time Israel had struck Beirut beyond the city’s southern suburbs in a campaign which culminated in the assassination of Hezbollah’s veteran leader Hassan Nasrallah last week in a succession of heavy air strikes. The strike against the PFLP hit the upper floor of an apartment building, witnesses said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

promote increased protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure, said the IHRC. It is working towards a high-level international meeting in 2026 focused on how to “Uphold Humanity in War”, ICRC said. Spoljaric said: “The situation is extremely dangerous. The trauma created by conflicts risks haunting us for decades. “The idea is not reinvent the Geneva Conventions, which remain solid legal texts, but to urge states to apply them. Countries must make the implementation of IHL a political priority.” – AFP been carried out in the south of Lebanon, where Hezbollah has most of its operations, or Beirut’s southern suburbs. Yesterday’s attack in the Kola district appeared to be the first strike within Beirut’s city limits. Israel has vowed to keep up the assault and says it wants to make its northern areas secure again for residents who have been forced to flee Hezbollah rocket attacks. Exchanges of fire across the Lebanon-Israel border have been taking place almost daily since the war between Hamas and Israel erupted nearly a year ago. Hezbollah has said it was acting in solidarity with Hamas. The United States, Israel’s close ally, has urged a diplomatic resolution to the conflict in Lebanon but has also authorised its military to reinforce in the region. US President Joe Biden, asked if an all-out war in the Middle East could be avoided, said: “It has to be.” – Reuters

o Israeli strikes put Lebanese on edge

China, France, Jordan, Kazakhstan and South Africa – to galvanise political support for IHL. The Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1949 in the wake of World War II, “embody humanity’s shared conscience, values that transcend borders and creeds”, they said in a joint statement. “Yet, the suffering we witness today in armed conflicts is proof that respect for and compliance with their most fundamental rules are not being upheld.” The initiative will strive to develop recommendations for ways to prevent IHL violations and The Health Ministry in Yemen said at least four people were killed in airstrikes on the port of Hodeidah, which Israel said were a response to Houthi missile attacks. Israeli drones hovered over Beirut for much of Sunday, with the loud blasts of new airstrikes echoing around the Lebanese capital. Many of Israel’s attacks have what can happen to anyone.” The intensifying Israeli bombardments have killed a string of top Hezbollah officials, Israel’s arch-enemy. On Sunday, Israel carried out airstrikes on dozens of Hezbollah targets throughout Lebanon and against the Houthi militia in Yemen. The death toll across Lebanon on Sunday rose to 105, Health Ministry statements showed.

Ukraine”, which she said was “beyond our imagination”. The ICRC is the caretaker of the Geneva Conventions which strives to act as a neutral intermediary in conflicts. But it was finding its access to populations in need “increasingly constrained (and) instrumentalised”, said Spoljaric. It is “indispensible to act now”, she said, in support of international humanitarian law – the function of which is to limit the effects of armed conflict and protect civilians. On Friday the ICRC launched an initiative with six countries – Brazil, The latest attacks indicated Israel has no intention of slowing down its offensive on multiple fronts even after eliminating Nasrallah, who was Iran’s most powerful ally in its “Axis of Resistance” against Israeli and US influence in the region. Lebanon’s Health Ministry says more than 1,000 Lebanese have been killed and 6,000 wounded in the past two weeks, without specifying how many were civilians. One million people – a fifth of the population – have fled their homes, the government says. The escalation has put Beirut on edge, with Lebanese fearful that Israel will expand its military campaign. Beirut resident Nawel said: “There is nothing else to say or add, except God save Lebanon. What will happen to me is the same as

Recommit to international law, Red Cross urges states