22/05/2025

THURSDAY | MAY 22, 2025

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Europe increases pressure on Israel over Gaza attacks

PUTIN VISITS KURSK FOR FIRST TIME AFTER RECAPTURE MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the western Kursk region for the first time since Russian forces ejected Ukrainian troops from the area last month. The Kremlin said that during the visit on Tuesday Putin met volunteer organisations in the region and visited the Kursk-II nuclear power plant. State television showed Putin meeting volunteers and local officials in the region including acting governor Alexander Khinshtein. Putin was accompanied by Sergei Kiriyenko, Kremlin first deputy chief of staff. Russia said in late April that it had ejected Ukrainian troops from Kursk, ending the biggest incursion into Russian territory since World War Two. Just over two years after Russia’s 2022 invasion, Ukraine on Aug 6 launched its boldest attack, smashing through the Russian border into the Kursk region, supported by swarms of drones and heavy Western weaponry. – Reuters IRAN PARLIAMENT APPROVES STRATEGIC PACT WITH RUSSIA DUBAI: Iran’s parliament approved a 20 year strategic partnership yesterday between Moscow and Tehran. The agreement represents a deepening of bilateral ties including closer defence cooperation. Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian signed the strategic partnership document on Jan 17. The Russian legislative branch approved the pact in April. While the agreement does not include a mutual defence clause, it says both countries will work together against common military threats, develop their military-technical cooperation and take part in joint exercises. The pact also includes several clauses aimed at boosting economic partnership, notably by strengthening direct interbank cooperation and promoting their national financial products. A free trade deal between Iran and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union went into effect last week. – Reuters THREE WORKERS DIE IN CRANE PLATFORM CRASH STUTTGART: Three construction workers were killed in southwestern Germany on Tuesday after they crashed to the ground on a suspended work platform attached to a crane. The three men had been working on an elevated bridge set to be incorporated into the B32 motorway near the town of Horb am Neckar, some 50km south of Stuttgart. The bridge, expected to open to traffic by 2028, is set to be some 2,100m long and up to 90m high. It was unclear from what height the platform had fallen. Previous images of the construction site show several cranes towering well above the partially built bridge. Work at the site has been suspended following the incident, with large numbers of emergency counsellors deployed to the site to attend to workers, some of whom had seen the platform fall to the ground, according to local daily Schwarzwalder Bote. – Bernama

BR I E F S

o Humanitarian crisis sparks international anger

GAZA CITY: European countries ramped up pressure on Israel to abandon its intensified campaign in Gaza and let more aid into the war-ravaged territory, where rescuers said yesterday new attacks killed at least 19 people. Israel said 93 trucks had entered Gaza from Israel on Tuesday but the United Nations said the aid had been held up. The UN announced Monday that it had been cleared to send in aid for the first time since Israel imposed a total blockade on March 2, sparking severe shortages of food and medicine. The humanitarian crisis has prompted international anger, with the European Union saying it would review its trade cooperation deal with Israel over the blockade. European Union foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas said “a strong majority” of foreign ministers from the 27 member states backed the move, adding “the countries see that the situation in Gaza is untenable ... and what we want is to unblock the humanitarian aid”. Sweden said it would press the EU to level sanctions against Israeli ministers. Britain suspended free-trade negotiations with Israel, summoned the Israeli ambassador and said it was imposing sanctions on settlers in the occupied West Bank in its toughest actions so far against Israel’s conduct of the war. “Blocking aid, expanding the war, dismissing the concerns of your friends and partners. This is indefensible and it must stop,” Foreign Secretary David Lammy told parliament. Israel rejected the moves. The EU action “reflects a total misunderstanding of the complex reality Israel is facing”, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein said. Responding to Britain, Marmorstein said “external pressure will not divert Israel from its path in defending its existence and security”. COGAT, the Israeli Defence Ministry body that oversees civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, said “93 UN trucks carrying humanitarian aid, including flour for bakeries, food for babies, medical equipment, and pharmaceutical drugs were transferred” to Gaza. The spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres confirmed dozens of trucks were allowed in, but spoke of difficulties. “Today, one of our teams waited several

Mourners grieving loved ones at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis yesterday. – REUTERSPIC

immediately comment on the latest strikes. The military said on Tuesday it had hit more than “100 terror targets” in Gaza over the past day. At a bombed petrol station on Tuesday, Mahmoud al-Louh carried a cloth bag of body parts to a vehicle. “They are civilians, children who were sleeping. What was their fault?” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Monday that Israel would “take control of all the territory of the Strip” with its new campaign. Israel resumed operations across Gaza on March 18, ending a two-month ceasefire. Negotiators from Israel and Hamas began new indirect talks in Doha at the weekend, as the intensified campaign started. Qatar, which has been involved in mediation efforts throughout the war, said on Tuesday that Israel’s “irresponsible, aggressive” behaviour had undermined the chances of a ceasefire. Hours later, Netanyahu’s office accused Hamas of refusing to accept a deal, saying Israel was recalling its senior negotiators but leaving some of its team in Doha. A source close to Hamas alleged that Israel’s delegation “has not held any real negotiations” since Sunday, blaming “Netanyahu’s systematic policy of obstruction”. – AFP

hours for the Israeli green light to ... collect the nutrition supplies. Unfortunately, they were not able to bring those supplies into our warehouse,” Stephane Dujarric said. UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher said the nine trucks cleared to enter on Monday were “a drop in the ocean of what is urgently needed”. He told the BBC on Tuesday that 14,000 babies could die in the next 48 hours if aid did not reach them in time. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting that the supplies were “not in sufficient amounts” but added: “We anticipate that those flows will increase over the next few days and weeks. It’s important that that be achieved.” The Israeli army stepped up its offensive at the weekend, vowing to defeat Gaza’s Hamas rulers, whose Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered the current war. Israeli strikes yesterday left “19 dead, most of them children” and including a week-old baby, said Gaza civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal. Several people were missing under the rubble while dozens of others were wounded in the attacks across the Palestinian territory, Bassal said. Israel on Wednesday announced one soldier was killed in Gaza but did not

Fires drive tropical forest loss to record high PARIS: Eighteen football pitches every minute of every hour of every day, that is the record extent of tropical rainforest destroyed last year due in large measure to fires, researchers reported yesterday. of these losses, surpassing for the first time agriculture as the main driver of destruction. fuelled by “extreme conditions that made them more intense and difficult to control, the authors said.

land for industrial-scale farms, according to the report. The picture is mixed elsewhere, with improvements in Indonesia and Malaysia but a sharp deterioration in Congo-Brazzaville and the Democratic Republic of Congo. While policies have resulted in a slowdown of the extent of forests lost to oil palm plantations, notably in Asia, the destructive footprint of other commodities has expanded, including avocados, coffee and cocoa. “We shouldn’t assume that the drivers are always the same,” said Rod Taylor, director of the WRI’s forest programme. “One new driver we are seeing, for example, is linked to mining and critical minerals.” – AFP

Resources Institute in Washington. The Brazilian Amazon was most affected, with destruction at its highest level since 2016. Global Forest Watch reports on forest destruction from all causes, deliberate or accidental. This is in contrast to the Brazilian government’s monitoring network MapBiomas, which published figures last week showing a sharp decline in deforestation last year but based on narrower criteria and not including many areas ravaged by fire. Neighbouring Bolivia’s forest loss – 1.5 million hectares – skyrocketed by 200% last year, with a record 3.6% of primary forests destroyed in a single year, mostly due to fires set to clear

Historically, most fires in tropical forests are set to clear land for agriculture and livestock, especially the “big four” commodities: palm oil, soy, beef and timber. Brazil saw 2.8 million hectares of primary forest destroyed last year, two-thirds to fires started to make way for soybeans and cattle. In 2023, Brazil made measurable progress in reducing forest loss during President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s first year after returning to office. “But this progress is threatened by the expansion of agriculture,” said Sarah Carter, a researcher at the World

Loss of tree cover last year – from deforestation and fires, deliberate or accidental – generated more than three billion tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution, exceeding India’s emissions from fossil fuel use over the same period. Tropical forests, which harbour the highest concentrations of biodiversity, are the most threatened of any forest biomes on the planet. They are also sponges for carbon dioxide. Forest fires inject billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The exceptional fires last year were

Tally it all up and the world lost 67,000 sq km of precious primary tropical forest, an area double the size of Belgium or Taiwan. The loss was 80% higher than in 2023, according to the Global Forest Watch think tank. “This level of forest destruction is unprecedented in more than 20 years of data,” its co-director Elizabeth Goldman said in a briefing. “This is a global red alert.” Fires are responsible for nearly half