04/06/2025

WEDNESDAY | JUNE 4, 2025

9 ‘Wilful restriction of food aid may constitute a war crime’

France’s upper house debates fast-fashion Bill PARIS: France’s Senate on Monday debated a Bill to regulate the influx of environmentally unfriendly, low-quality clothes into the country. The lower house of parliament adopted a version of the so-called “fast fashion” Bill in March last year, but a commission in the right-leaning Senate has sought changes that backers say will better target Chinese-founded brands. With cheap, low-quality brands increasingly flooding the market, 35 items of clothing are thrown away in France every second, according to the French environment agency. Sylvie Valente Le Hir, a senator from the Republicans party, accused “Chinese giants of ultra-fast fashion” of bringing “unfair competition” to local brands. “We need to establish rules, hit them as hard as possible,” she said. The proposed law would define “fast fashion” according to production rates, collection turnover, lifespan of clothes and “poor incentives” to repair them. Companies producing such throwaway items would be obliged to inform customers about the environmental cost. The Bill would introduce sanctions on companies according to the environmental impact of the clothes sold. Members of the lower house approved pegging these sanctions to eco-labelling, which would mean giving a clothing item points according to its effect on the planet. – AFP COLOMBIAN ATTORNEYS ACCUSED OF GRAFT BOGOTA: Guatemala’s attorney general’s office announced arrest warrants on Monday for a group of people including Colombia’s attorney general and a former UN anti-corruption prosecutor. The head of Guatemala’s Special Prosecutor’s Office Against Impunity Rafael Curruchiche said a Guatemalan court had issued arrest warrants for Colombia’s Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo and Ivan Velasquez, a veteran prosecutor, on corruption charges. He alleged that Velasquez led a “criminal structure” that benefited businessmen from a Brazilian construction company formerly known as Odebrecht. Camargo and Velasquez were charged with criminal association, obstruction of justice, influence peddling and collusion. Velasquez said the arrest warrants amounted to persecution by corrupt officials. – Reuters THREE HELD OVER MURDER OF MUSICIANS CIUDAD VICTORIA: Three suspects in the kidnapping and murder of Mexican musicians in Tamaulipas state were arrested on Monday. The five members of local band Fugitivo had been hired for a weekend performance in the crime-wracked northeastern city of Reynosa, but arrived to find a vacant lot. Their bodies were found several days later. Investigators said the musicians had been kidnapped on May 25 while driving to an event. Nine alleged cartel members were arrested last week, with authorities announcing another sting on Monday. “An operation was carried out on three properties” in Reynosa, the public security office said, adding that the three suspects had been arrested there. – AFP

BR I E F S

GENEVA: The UN human rights office said yesterday the impediment of access to food and relief for civilians in Gaza may constitute a war crime, describing attacks on civilians trying to access food aid as unconscionable. “For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the ‘Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured,” said the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Jeremy Laurence. At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a food distribution o Killings reported near distribution site for third day

Sunday’s distribution “fabrications”. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday he was “appalled” by reports of Palestinians killed and wounded while seeking aid and called for an independent investigation. The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents of several districts in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip late on Monday. The military told residents to head west towards the Mawasi humanitarian area. Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, and that most of its 2.3 million population has become internally displaced. The territory’s Health Ministry said yesterday that the new evacuation orders could halt work at the Nasser Hospital, the largest, still-functioning medical facility in the south, endangering the lives of those being treated there. – Reuters

distribution sites last week in an effort to alleviate hunger in Gaza. The foundation’s aid plan, which bypasses traditional aid groups, has come under fierce criticism from the United Nations and established charities which say it does not follow humanitarian principles. The group, which is endorsed by Israel, said it distributed 21 truckloads of food early yesterday and that the aid operation was “conducted safely and without incident within the site”. However, there have been reports of repeated killings near Rafah as crowds gather to get desperately needed supplies. On Sunday, Palestinian and international officials reported that at least 31 people were killed and dozens more injured. On Monday, three more Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military has denied targeting civilians gathering for aid and called reports of deaths during

site in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday. The Israeli military said its forces had opened fire on a group of individuals who had left designated access routes near the distribution centre in Rafah. It said it was still investigating what had happened. The deaths came hours after Israel said three of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, as its forces pushed ahead with an offensive against Hamas that has laid waste to much of the enclave. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross said its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties, adding that 19 of those were declared dead upon arrival, and eight died of their wounds shortly after. More than 35 patients required immediate intervention, the spokesperson said. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation launched its first

Palestinians waiting for food at a distribution point in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip, on Monday. – AFPPIC

Trump ‘open’ to meeting Ukraine, Russia leaders ISTANBUL: US President Donald Trump is “open” to meeting his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in Turkiye, the White House said, after the two sides failed on Monday to make headway towards an elusive ceasefire. round later this month in either Istanbul or Ankara. Putin has so far refused such a meeting. But Zelensky has said he is willing, underlining that key issues can only be resolved at leaders-level. Monday’s talks in Istanbul, according to a State Department spokesperson.

– according to its negotiating terms reported by state media. Russia only partly controls those regions. Moscow has also demanded a ban on Kyiv joining Nato, limiting Ukraine’s military and ending Western military support. Top negotiators from both sides agreed to swap all severely wounded soldiers and captured fighters under the age of 25. Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said it would involve “at least 1,000” on each side. The two sides also agreed to hand over the bodies of 6,000 soldiers, Ukraine said after the talks. – AFP

Zelensky said that, “We are very much awaiting strong steps from the United States” and urged Trump to toughen sanctions on Russia to “push” it to agree to a full ceasefire. In Monday’s meeting, Ukraine said that Moscow had rejected its call for an unconditional ceasefire. It offered instead a partial truce of two to three days in some areas of the frontline. Russia will only agree to a full ceasefire if Ukrainian troops pull back from four regions – Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson

Trump, who wants a swift end to the three-year war, is “open” to a three-way summit “if it comes to that, but he wants both of these leaders and both sides to come to the table together”, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in Washington. But despite Trump’s willingness to meet Putin and Zelensky, no US representative took part in

Delegations from both sides did, however, agree another large-scale prisoner exchange in their meeting in Istanbul, which in mid-May also hosted their first round of face-to face talks. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan proposed that Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Trump come together for a third