Author: AFP
Ukraine is not currently in a strong enough position for peace talks with Russia, NATO chief Mark Rutte said Monday, as US president-elect Donald Trump gears up to take power. “At this moment, clearly Ukraine is not there, because they cannot at this moment negotiate from a position of strength,” Rutte told EU lawmakers. “We have to do more to make sure by changing the trajectory of the conflict that they can get to that position of strength.” Trump will be sworn into office next Monday after vowing on the campaign trail to bring a swift end to Russian President…
The United States and its allies “can’t walk away” from Ukraine, outgoing President Joe Biden said on Monday, as he prepares to step down next week and hand power to Donald Trump. Hailing US and international support for Kyiv since Moscow’s 2022 invasion, Biden said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has “failed to achieve any of his strategic objectives” but that “there is more to do, we can’t walk away.”
South Korea’s intelligence service on Sunday backed up Ukraine’s account of having captured two wounded North Korean soldiers in Russia, after Kyiv said they were being questioned. Ukraine, the United States and South Korea have accused nuclear-armed North Korea of sending more than 10,000 soldiers to help bolster Russian forces. Seoul’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told AFP it has “confirmed that the Ukrainian military captured two North Korean soldiers on January 9 in the Kursk battlefield in Russia”. On Saturday, Ukrainian intelligence (SBU) released a video showing the two men in hospital bunks, one with bandaged hands and the other…
President Joe Biden’s administration said Friday that nearly one million immigrants from El Salvador, Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela will be allowed to legally remain in the United States for another 18 months. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was extending the so-called “temporary protected status” (TPS) of 232,000 Salvadorans, 1,900 Sudanese, 600,000 Venezuelans and 103,700 Ukrainians. The move comes less than 10 days before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to carry out a mass deportation of migrants after taking office. TPS is granted to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war,…
President Joe Biden’s administration said Friday that nearly one million immigrants from El Salvador, Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela will be allowed to legally remain in the United States for another 18 months. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was extending the so-called “temporary protected status” (TPS) of 232,000 Salvadorans, 1,900 Sudanese, 600,000 Venezuelans and 103,700 Ukrainians. The move comes less than 10 days before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who has pledged to carry out a mass deportation of migrants after taking office. TPS is granted to foreign citizens who cannot safely return home because of war,…
US President Joe Biden on Friday condemned tech giant Meta’s “shameful” decision to end its third-party fact-checking program in the United States. “I think it’s really shameful,” Biden told reporters at the White House when asked about the announcement. “Telling the truth matters.” Biden added: “You think it doesn’t matter that they let be printed, or millions of people read, things that are simply not true? I mean, I want to know what that’s all about. “It’s just completely contrary to everything America’s about. We want to tell the truth.” Earlier, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had refused to…
US President Joe Biden said Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was in “tough shape,” after Washington and London imposed sweeping sanctions against Moscow’s energy sector over its invasion of Ukraine. “Putin is in tough shape right now, and I think it’s really important that he not have any breathing room to continue to do the god-awful things he continues to do,” Biden told reporters at the White House. Biden added that there was a “real chance Ukraine can prevail” if it continues to get Western support, with just days until Donald Trump takes over the US presidency.
Faced with plunging temperatures and heavy rain in war-battered central Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, displaced Palestinian father Tayseer Obaid resorted to digging for a modicum of domestic comfort. In the clay soil of the encampment area that his family has been displaced to by the war, Obaid dug a square hole nearly two metres deep and capped it with a tarpaulin stretched over an improvised wooden A-frame to keep out the rain. “I had an idea to dig into the ground to expand the space as it was very limited,” Obaid said. “So I dug 90 centimetres, it was okay and…
Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two residential houses in the Tambov region and injuring at least three people, Russia said on Saturday. The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on the Telegram messaging app people were treated for injuries resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, about 480 kilometres (300 miles) southeast of Moscow. He said the buildings were only slightly damaged, the inhabitants were offered temporary housing, and an evacuation was not required. “Three (people) had cuts from fragments of broken windows, another four complained of high blood…
Today’s robots perform safety checks at industrial plants, conduct quality control in manufacturing, and are even starting to keep hospital patients company. But soon — perhaps very soon — these increasingly humanlike machines will handle more sophisticated tasks, freeing up people while raising complex questions about the roles of artificial intelligence that are gaining attention. At a panel hosted by the American Association of Retired Persons at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), experts described the next five years as a period where robots transition primarily from industrial sites to service settings, helping to address a worsening health care labor…