01/09/2025

MONDAY | SEP 1, 2025

9

‘Nato should have dissolved in 1990’

NEW YORK: Nato should have been dissolved back in 1990 as the alliance had fulfilled its mission of confronting the Soviet Union, renowned US economist and director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University Jeffrey Sachs (pic) told RIA Novosti news agency.

The interview was conducted ahead of the Eastern Economic Forum, which will take place in Vladivostok from Wednesday. The economist is going to participate in a session “UN Development Agenda Beyond 2030”. “First of all, Nato should have ended in 1990 when President Gorbachev ended the Warsaw Pact, the Western countries should have said yes, and we end Nato,” Jeffrey Sachs said. “It became, instead, a mechanism of US power expansion, which is not what Nato should be. This eastward movement of Nato since 1990 has been wholly unjustified and contrary to Western promises.” Sachs expressed scepticism about Europe’s ability to establish an independent security framework to replace Nato. “The problem with Europe is, as everybody knows, there isn’t really a Europe. There are so many countries squabbling with each other,” Sachs noted, highlighting that Europe has been at war with itself for 1,000 years. In February last year, Putin told US journalist Tucker Carlson that Russia could become a Nato member in the early 2000s if the US showed sincere interest. Clinton, however, “was cold” to this idea, according to Putin. Russia has highlighted Nato’s unprecedented military activity near its western borders. Ukraine’s plans to join the bloc were among the reasons why Russia says it launched its military operation in February 2022. – Bernama 60,000 GAZA STUDENTS MISS SCHOOL FOR THIRD YEAR GAZA CITY: The UN agency for Palestinian refugees warned that more than 660,000 children have been deprived of schooling for a third consecutive year. “Children must be protected at all times,” the agency said in a statement, cautioning that the enclave’s youth are at risk of becoming a “lost generation”. While schools in the occupied West Bank are set to reopen today, Gaza’s classrooms remain shuttered. The Palestinian Education Ministry said around 700,000 students in the enclave have seen their schooling suspended under bombardment, with more than 70,000 unable to take high school exams for two consecutive years. Israeli attacks since October 2023 have killed at least 17,000 school students and more than 1,200 university students in Gaza, while injuring tens of thousands more, the ministry said. In the occupied West Bank, dozens of students have also been killed, wounded or detained by Israeli forces during the same period. – Bernama HAMAS CONFIRMS MOHAMMED SINWAR DEATH CAIRO: Hamas confirmed on Saturday the death of its Gaza military chief Mohammad Sinwar, a few months after Israel said it killed him in a strike in May. Hamas did not provide details on Sinwar’s death but published pictures of him along with other group leaders, describing them as “martyrs”. Mohammad Sinwar was the younger brother of Yahya Sinwar, the group’s chief, who co-masterminded the Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, and whom Israel had killed in combat a year later. He was elevated to the top ranks of the group after the death of the brother. His confirmed death would leave his close associate Izz al-Din Haddad, who oversees operations in northern Gaza, in charge of Hamas’ armed wing across the whole of the enclave. – Reuters

Gaza City suburbs pounded TEL AVIV: Israeli forces pounded the suburbs of Gaza City on Saturday night and early yesterday from the air and ground, destroying homes and driving more families out of the area as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet was set yesterday to discuss a plan to seize the city. three weeks, and on Friday it ended temporary pauses in the area that had allowed for aid deliveries, designating it a “dangerous combat zone”. to absorb, amid severe shortages of food, shelter and medical supplies. “People who have relatives in the south left to stay with them. Others including myself didn’t find a space as Deir Al-Balah and Mawasi are overcrowded,” said Ghada, a mother of five from the city’s Sabra neighbourhood. Around half of the enclave’s more than 2 million people are in Gaza City. Several thousand were estimated to have left the city for central and southern areas of the enclave. A flotilla of paper boats are laid on the ground near a poster reading ‘Stop the Genocide’ during a demonstration in support of Gaza and Palestinians at Venice Lido during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival on Saturday. – AFPPIC o Evacuation concerns raised amid severe shortages

He was an ally to former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, whom the Houthis ousted from Sanaa in late 2014 triggering a decade-long civil war, but later joined forces with the group. Yemen has been split between a Houthi administration in Sanaa and a Saudi-backed government in Aden since then. Since Israel’s Gaza military offensive began in October 2023, the Houthis have attacked vessels in the Red Sea in what they describe as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians. They have also frequently fired missiles towards Israel, most of which have been intercepted. Israel has responded with strikes on Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the vital Hodeidah port. Israel has assassinated over the last year leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah. “They are crawling into the heart of the city where hundreds of thousands are sheltering, from the east, north, and south, while bombing those areas from the air and ground to scare people to leave,” said Rezik Salah, a father of two, from Sheikh Radwan. An Israeli official said Netanyahu’s security Cabinet will convene to discuss the next stages of the planned offensive to seize Gaza City, which he has described as Hamas’ last bastion. A full-scale offensive is not expected to start for weeks. Israel says it wants to evacuate the civilian population before moving more ground forces in. On Saturday, Red Cross head Mirjana Spoljaric said an evacuation from the city would provoke a massive population displacement that no other area in the Gaza Strip is equipped

Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday that the strike was “a crushing blow” against the Houthis, adding that “this is only the beginning.” Saba news agency ran a statement from Defence Minister Mohamed al-Atifi shortly after the prime minister’s death was confirmed and quoted him as saying the group was ready to confront Israel. The statement did not mention Thursday’s airstrike and it was unclear if it was made before or after the attack. Atifi runs the Houthis’ Missiles Brigade Group and is considered their leading missiles expert. Sources confirmed to Reuters that the energy, foreign and information ministers were among those killed. On Thursday, Israeli security sources had said the targets had been various locations where a large number of senior Houthi officials had gathered to watch a televised speech recorded by leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi. – Reuters Israel’s military has warned its political leaders that the offensive is endangering hostages held in Gaza. Protests in Israel calling for an end to the war and the release of the hostages have intensified in the past few weeks. Large crowds demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday and hostages’ families protested outside the homes of ministers yesterday. Twenty of the remaining 48 hostages are believed to still be alive. Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 63,000 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza health officials, and it has plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis and left much of it in ruins. – Reuters

Local health authorities said Israeli gunfire and strikes killed at least 18 people yesterday, including 13 who tried to get food from an aid site in the central Gaza Strip, and at least two in a house in Gaza City. The Israeli military spokesperson’s office said they were reviewing the reports. Residents of Sheikh Radwan, one of the largest neighbourhoods of Gaza City, said the territory had been under Israeli tank shelling and airstrikes throughout Saturday and yesterday, forcing families to seek shelter in the western parts of the city. The Israeli military has gradually escalated its operations around Gaza City over the past

BR I E F S

Houthi PM, ministers killed in airstrike ADEN: The prime minister of Yemen’s Houthi-run government and several other ministers were killed in an Israeli strike on the capital Sanaa, the head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council said on Saturday, in the first such attack to kill senior officials. Rahwi was seen largely as a figurehead who was not part of the inner circle of the Houthi leadership.

A number of others were wounded in Thursday’s strike, Mahdi al-Mashat added, without providing details. Israel said on Friday that the airstrike had targeted the group’s chief of staff, defence minister and other senior officials and that it was verifying the outcome. Mashat’s statement did not make clear whether the defence minister was among the casualties. Ahmad Ghaleb al-Rahwi was appointed as prime minister a year ago, but the de facto leader of the government was his deputy, Mohammed Miftah, who was assigned on Saturday to carry out the prime minister’s duties.