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KYIV: Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of “good news” on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, saying his army had retaken some towns and villages from Russia in what open source analysts said looked like a deep and sudden thrust behind Russian lines. In his daily late night address on Wednesday, President Zelensky said he had received news that his forces had liberated a slew of settlements in the Kharkiv region in a counter offensive that some Western analysts suggested had seen Kyiv recapture around 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of territory. “This week we have good news from Kharkiv Oblast. All of you have most likely seen reports about the recent activities of Ukrainian defenders. And I think every (Ukrainian) citizen feels proud of our warriors,” said Zelensky. Kharkiv region borders Russia and its main city, Kharkiv, has for months been struck by Russian missiles after Moscow failed to take it in the early stages of its Feb. 24 invasion. In a sign that the situation in the area was still highly fluid though, Zelensky said it was too early to name the recaptured towns and villages while thanking two airborne brigades and a mechanized brigade for what he called their bravery. Such a thrust, if confirmed and the gains are held, would be a significant boost for Kyiv, which is keen to show its Western backers that it can change the facts on the ground by force and deserves continued financial and weapons support. There is additional pressure on Kyiv to demonstrate that before winter sets in amid threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt all energy shipments to Europe if Brussels goes ahead with a proposal to cap the price of Russian gas. In a boost for Kyiv, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday that President Joe Biden had approved an additional $675 million in weapons to Ukraine as he and other defense ministers met in Germany to discuss how to continue supporting Ukraine in the long-term. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, which follows the war day-by-day, said the Ukrainian military looked to have made significant progress on Wednesday. “Ukrainian forces likely used tactical surprise to advance at least 20 km into Russian-held territory in (the) eastern Kharkiv Oblast (region) on September 7, recapturing approximately 400 square kilometers of ground,” the ISW said. Russia has confirmed fighting in the area but has not confirmed any territorial losses, though unverified social media accounts run by Russian military experts have suggested Moscow did suffer setbacks and will need to urgently reinforce. Ukrainian Presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, in a video posted on YouTube, said Ukrainian troops had surprised Russian defenders at the town of Balakleiia. “The Russians are saying that Balakleiia is encircled when in fact (our troops) have gone much further.” A pro-Russian official from the region, Rodion Miroshnik, said on Telegram that Balakleiia remained in Russian hands although there was fighting north of the town. Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield accounts but Yuri Podolyak, a Ukrainian often quoted by pro-Russian officials, also said Russian troops were surprised by the Ukrainian advance. “The enemy had considerable success near Balakleiia with a relatively small force ... It would appear that Russian forces slept through this advance and were expecting it elsewhere,” he wrote on Telegram. “Everything would seem to depend now on the speed with which reserves are brought into the fight ... there have been significant losses.”
ISLAMABAD: United Nations chief Antonio Guterres on Saturday visited several areas of Pakistan ravaged by floods, as he rounded off a two-day trip aimed at raising awareness of the disaster. Record monsoon rains and glacier melt in northern mountains have triggered floods that have killed more than 1,391 people, sweeping away houses, roads, railway tracks, bridges, livestock and crops. Huge areas of the country are inundated, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced from their homes. The government says the lives of nearly 33 million have been disrupted. Pakistan estimates the damage at $30 billion, and both the government and Guterres have blamed the flooding on climate change. The UN secretary-general landed in Sindh province on Saturday, before flying over some of the worst-affected areas en route to Balochistan, another badly hit province. “It is difficult not to feel deeply moved to hear such detailed descriptions of tragedy,” Guterres said after landing in Sindh, according to a video released by the office of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. “Pakistan needs massive financial support. This is not a matter of generosity, it is a matter of justice.” A video released by Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb showed Guterres seated next to Sharif viewing flood-damaged areas from an aircraft window. “Unimaginable,” Guterres said, surveying the damage. In July and August, Pakistan got 391 mm (15.4 inches) of rain, or nearly 190 percent more than the 30-year average. The southern province of Sindh has seen 466 percent more rain than average. Guterres said on Saturday the world needed to understand the impact of climate change on low-income countries. “Humanity has been waging war on nature and nature strikes back,” he said. “Nature strikes back in Sindh, but it was not Sindh that has made the emissions of greenhouse gases that have accelerated climate change so dramatically,” Guterres said. “There is a very unfair situation relative to the level of destruction.”
BERLIN: German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock arrived in Kyiv on Saturday on a surprise visit, which she said was to demonstrate Berlin’s unwavering support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia. It is her second trip to Ukraine and comes a week after Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal’s trip to Berlin where he had repeated Kyiv’s call for weapons. “I have traveled to Kyiv today to show that they can continue to rely on us. That we will continue to stand by Ukraine for as long as necessary with deliveries of weapons, and with humanitarian and financial support,” Baerbock said in a statement. Over the last weeks, Germany has sent howitzers, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft missiles to Kyiv. Heavier weapons like anti-aircraft systems, rocket launchers mounted on pick-ups and anti-drone equipment are also due in a further military aid package worth over 500 million euros. Earlier this week, Berlin said it would also team up with the Netherlands to train Ukrainian soldiers on demining. Baerbock said it was “clear that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is counting on us getting tired of sympathizing with the suffering in Ukraine.” “He thinks that he can divide our societies with lies and blackmail us with energy deliveries. “This calculation must not and will not work. Because all of Europe knows that Ukraine is defending our peace,” she said. Baerbock was the first senior German government figure to visit Kyiv in May, when she announced the reopening of Germany’s embassy in the country.
LONDON: King Charles III will officially be proclaimed as Britain’s new monarch on Saturday in a ceremony followed by gun salutes and the reading of proclamations in London and across the four corners of the United Kingdom. The death of 96-year-old Queen Elizabeth on Thursday after 70 years on the throne set in train long-established and highly choreographed plans for days of mourning and a state funeral that will be held in just over a week. The death of Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch, has drawn drawing an outpouring of tributes from at home and around the globe. Charles, 73, succeeded his mother immediately on Thursday but an Accession Council made up of hundreds of politicians, bishops and senior civil servants will proclaim his succession on Saturday at a ceremony with officials in traditional heraldic clothing. The proclamation will be accompanied by gun salutes and heralds who travel to Mansion House in the City of London where it will be read at the Royal Exchange. The proclamation will be read publicly in the other capital cities of the United Kingdom — Edinburgh in Scotland, Belfast in Northern Ireland, and Cardiff in Wales — and at other locations, too. The new king vowed on Friday to serve the nation with “loyalty, respect and love” in his first address to the nation as king. Charles is king and head of state of the United Kingdom and 14 other realms including Australia, Canada, Jamaica, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea Earlier, returning to London from Scotland where his mother died, he was greeted with cheers, applause and a crowd singing “God Save The King” as he made his first public appearance outside Buckingham Palace. Charles also said in his address that he had made his eldest son William, 40, the new Prince of Wales, the title that had been his for more than 50 years and is traditionally held by the heir to the throne. William’s wife Kate becomes Princess of Wales, a role last held by the late Princess Diana. Britain has declared a period of mourning until the state funeral for Elizabeth, once described by her grandson Harry as “the nation’s grandmother.” The date for that has not been announced but it is expected in a little over a week’s time. Leaders from around the world are expected in London for the funeral, including US President Joe Biden, who said on Friday he would attend. To the British people, “she was your queen. To us, she was the queen,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Friday. Although he is already king, Charles’ coronation will take place at a later date — and the timing for that is not yet clear. There was a 16-month gap between Elizabeth becoming queen in 1952 and her coronation in 1953. TEARS AND FLOWERS Thousands have gathered at royal palaces to pay their respects to the late queen, with some shedding tears as they laid flowers and others wanting to celebrate the life of a monarch who for most Britons was the only they have ever known. Elizabeth, who was the world’s oldest and longest-serving head of state, came to the throne following the death of her father King George VI on Feb. 6, 1952, when she was just 25. Over the decades she witnessed a seismic change in the social, political and economic structure of her nation. She won praise for guiding the monarchy into the 21st Century and modernizing it in the process, despite intense media scrutiny and the often highly public travails of her family. Charles, who opinion polls indicate is less popular than his mother, now has the task of securing the institution’s future.
JAKARTA: A strong 6.1-magnitude earthquake struck Indonesia’s Papua region Saturday morning and was followed by a 5.8-magnitude aftershock minutes later, the US Geological Survey said. Both quakes hit at a relatively shallow depth of 15 kilometers (9.3 miles), about 272 kilometers from the town of Abepura, according to the USGS. No casualties or damages were immediately reported by authorities but the Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BKMG) warned of moderate shaking and light damage in a tweet. Indonesia experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide, that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin. A 6.2-magnitude quake that shook Sulawesi island in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless, reducing buildings to a tangled mass of twisted metal and chunks of concrete in the seaside city of Mamuju.
LONDON: In November, the Prince of Wales and his wife, the Duchess of Cornwall, embarked on the first overseas tour by any member of the British royal family since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, which had brought a temporary halt to such trips two years earlier.
To those familiar with the interests closest to the prince’s heart, the choice of the Middle East as the destination came as no surprise.
Visiting Jordan and Egypt, the prince was honoring his lifelong commitment to the building of bridges between different faiths and cultures, and exercising his fascination with, and love of, a region with which he has always been deeply engaged.
On his visit to Jordan, the prince was keen to express his admiration for the work being done in the country on behalf of refugees, many of whom had been displaced by the war in Syria.
He has been particularly concerned with the plight of refugees throughout the region. In January 2020 he was announced as the first UK patron of the International Rescue Committee, the organization working in 40 countries “to help people to survive, recover, and gain control of their futures.”
In Jordan, he met and spoke to some of the 750,000 people being hosted by the country, many of whom rely on support from donor countries, including the UK and Saudi Arabia.
The prince’s sense of the history of the region, which in many cases is linked inextricably with that of his own country, is keen. While in Jordan, he planted a tree to symbolize the UK-Jordanian partnership, and to mark the centenary of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan — a product of the allied defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and which was finally granted independence from the British mandate in 1946.
In Cairo, the prince and the duchess were welcomed by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. It was the prince’s second trip to Egypt. He had visited previously in 2006, as part of a tour that also included Saudi Arabia and which had been carried out to promote better understanding and tolerance between religions, and in support of environmental initiatives and the promotion of sustainable job opportunities and training for young people.
After visiting Cairo’s Al-Azhar mosque, the prince underlined his commitment to interfaith harmony in a speech at Al-Azhar University.
He said: “I believe with all my heart, that responsible men and women should work to restore mutual respect between religions, and we must do everything in our power to overcome the mistrust that poisons the lives of many people.”
Similar to his mother, who passed away on Thursday, Charles has always been devoted to ecumenism and the promotion of harmony between faiths.
As King Charles III, he now inherits Queen Elizabeth II’s role as Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and the title Defender of the Faith — and, like her before him, he has always made clear that he sees this role as being better defined as defender of all faiths.
During a BBC interview in 2015, he said: “It has always seemed to me that, while at the same time being Defender of the Faith, you can also be protector of faiths.
“The Church has a duty to protect the free practice of all faiths in this country.”
With more than 3 million Muslims in the UK, Islam is the second-largest religion in the country, and Charles’ interest in the religion is well known.
In 2015, during a Middle East tour that took him to Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE, it emerged that the prince had spent the previous six months learning Arabic with a private tutor, in order to be able to read the Qur’an in its original language, and to be better able to decipher inscriptions in museums and other institutions during his many trips to the region.
A royal aide revealed that the prince was “enormously interested in the region.”
Known for his passion for Islamic history, art, and culture — at the University of Cambridge in the 1960s, the prince read archaeology, anthropology, and history at Trinity College — Charles has always taken a close interest in the heritage of the Middle East.
In particular, he has followed closely and several times has visited the extensive archaeological work taking place in and around AlUla and the ancient Nabataean city of Hegra, inscribed in 2008 as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
On a visit to Saudi Arabia in 2013, he enjoyed a tour of the Wadi Hanifa and watched with great interest a presentation on the Diriyah project, which is transforming the historic Wadi into a destination for global cultural tourism, with the preserved ruins of Diriyah, capital of the First Saudi State and birthplace of Saudi Arabia, at its heart.
Charles is a keen artist, and that interest is reflected on his personal website, princeofwales.gov.uk — in the throes of being updated to reflect his new standing — on which four watercolors he painted in the Middle East are showcased.
The earliest, dated 1986, is of a ship in Port Suez, Egypt. Two others are landscapes painted in Saudi Arabia — a view of Wadi Arkam in the remote southwest Asir province in 1999, and a study of a historic palace in Diriyah, painted in 2001.
Since his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, Charles has made innumerable visits to countries in the region, formally and informally. Private visits aside, as Prince of Wales Charles made five official visits to Jordan, six to Qatar, seven to both Kuwait and the UAE, and 12 to Saudi Arabia.
It was a tradition that began in 1986 when he embarked on a nine-day tour of the Middle East, during which he visited Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia with his then wife, Diana, Princess of Wales, from whom he would separate in 1992.
Just how seriously Charles takes his and Britain’s links with the region is underlined by the number of meetings he has had at home and abroad, with members of Middle Eastern royal families — more than 200 in the past decade, including with those of Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE.
As Prince of Wales, it was part of Charles’ job to promote the mutual interests of Britain and its allies, and in pursuit of that duty he paid many formal and informal visits to Saudi Arabia, the UK’s most influential ally in the region.
The prince’s role as a bridge between his country and all the nations of the Gulf, in particular, has always been mutually beneficial. For example, the day after a visit to Riyadh in February 2014, during which the prince gamely accepted an invitation to don traditional Arab dress and take part in a sword dance, it was announced that British aerospace company BAE had completed a deal for the sale to the Kingdom of 72 Typhoon fighter jets.
As the Prince of Wales, Charles has had many charitable interests, but perhaps none has been as global in its outlook as The Prince’s Foundation, dedicated to “realizing the Prince of Wales’ vision of creating communities for a more sustainable world.”
Focused on education, appreciation of heritage, and the creation of equal opportunities for young people, at home and abroad, the foundation has run satellite programs in more than 20 countries, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where it operates permanent centers.
In Saudi Arabia, the foundation established a building arts and crafts vocational training program in Jeddah’s old city, Al-Balad, giving students the opportunity to become involved in the Ministry of Culture’s restoration projects in the city.
During the Winter at Tantora festival, held in AlUla from Jan. 10 to March 21, 2020, the foundation staged an exhibition titled “Cosmos, Color and Craft: The Art of the Order of Nature in AlUla,” and ran a series of hands-on workshops in conjunction with the Royal Commission for AlUla.
In the UAE, since 2009 the foundation has been working with the Abu Dhabi Music and Arts Foundation to deliver traditional arts workshops in the capital.
On his visit to Egypt last year, the prince met young craftspeople from the Egyptian Heritage Rescue Foundation and The Jameel School. Supported by The Prince’s Foundation, the school teaches young Egyptians classes in traditional Islamic geometry, drawing, color harmony, and arabesque studies.
Unsurprisingly, the foundation has attracted donations from many influential friends in the region. As the Prince of Wales, Charles’ bonds with the royal families of the region have always been deeper than the necessary ties demanded by wise diplomacy.
For example, he considered King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia as a personal friend and, after the monarch passed away in January 2015, flew to Riyadh to pay his final respects and express his condolences to his successor, King Salman, in person.
In Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who died on Thursday, the Middle East and its peoples had a lifelong friend, close to its leaders and committed to building and maintaining bridges between faiths and cultures.
In King Charles III, that precious friendship clearly is destined to continue unbroken.