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WASHINGTON: US officials believe Russia is working to fabricate evidence concerning last week’s deadly strike on prison housing prisoners of war in a separatist region of eastern Ukraine. US intelligence officials have determined that Russia is looking to plant false evidence to make it appear that Ukrainian forces were responsible for the July 29 attack on Olenivka Prison that left 53 dead and wounded dozens more, a US official familiar with the intelligence finding told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Russia has claimed that Ukraine’s military used US-supplied rocket launchers to strike the prison in Olenivka, a settlement controlled by the Moscow-backed Donetsk People’s Republic. The Ukrainian military denied making any rocket or artillery strikes in Olenivka. The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defense ministry claimed in a statement Wednesday to have evidence that local Kremlin-backed separatists colluded with the Russian FSB, the KGB’s main successor agency, and mercenary group Wagner to mine the barrack before “using a flammable substance, which led to the rapid spread of fire in the room.” The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the classified intelligence — which was recently downgraded — shows that Russian officials might even plant ammunition from medium-ranged High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as evidence that the systems provided by the US to Ukraine were used in the attack. Russia is expected to take the action as it anticipates independent investigators and journalists eventually getting access to Olenivka, the official added. Ukraine has effectively used HIMARS launchers, which fire medium-range rockets and can be quickly moved before Russia can target them with return fire, and have been seeking more launchers from the United States.
COCOA BEACH, United States: Up to 400,000 visitors are expected to flock to the Florida coast on Saturday, hoping to catch a glimpse — and hear the roar — of NASA’s rocket launch to the Moon. If the uncrewed Space Launch System (SLS) lifts off successfully, it will be not only awe-inspiring but historic for NASA, marking the first of its Artemis missions plotting a return to the Moon. The Kennedy Space Center will be closed to the public, but spectators on local beaches will be able to see the most powerful vehicle that NASA has ever launched climb into the sky. “I remember being a little kid and some of the (Apollo) lunar landings,” Alberto Tirado told AFP on Cocoa Beach, the day before the rocket’s scheduled launch. “So I want to feel that power and what they felt in the 1960s.”
On Monday, when a first launch attempt had to be scuttled at the last moment due to technical issues, local Brevard County authorities had expected between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors. Don Walker, the county’s communications director, says that though Monday’s numbers have yet to be finalized, they estimate “double that amount on Saturday.” “We are ‘guesstimating’ the launch viewing crowd to number between 200,000 to 400,000 people,” Walker told AFP. For comparison, SpaceX’s first manned launch in 2020 — amid the pandemic — drew 220,000 people. The fact that the launch is scheduled for a weekend, with Monday also a US holiday, means that the crowd is likely to be much larger, said Meagan Happel with the Space Coast Office of Tourism. As on Monday, traffic is expected to get heavy “three to four hours” before the launch, Happel told AFP. Liftoff is currently scheduled for 2:17 p.m. (18:17 GMT) on Saturday, with the potential for up to a two-hour delay if necessary. Hotels along the coast have been fully booked for several weeks, and there are only a limited number of parking spaces near the best viewpoints. Artemis 1 is a test flight without any astronauts on board. The Orion capsule, after separating from the SLS rocket, will spend about six weeks in space and travel at one point nearly 40,000 miles (64,000 km) past the Moon — farther than any human-grade vehicle has ever gone. It is the Orion that will then take future astronauts back to the Moon — including the first woman and the first person color to walk on its surface — in 2025 at the earliest.
CHICAGO: The World Health Organization is monitoring a cluster of 10 cases of pneumonia from an unknown cause in Argentina in an outbreak that so far has included three deaths. The cases are linked to a single private clinic in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán, located in the northwest part of the country, according to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the regional office of the WHO. An initial report on Tuesday included five healthcare workers and a patient who was treated in the intensive care ward of the clinic, with symptoms emerging between Aug. 18-22. On Thursday, local health officials reported another three cases, bringing the total to 9, including three deaths. All three people who died had other health conditions. On Friday, Argentina reported an additional case. Symptoms have included fever, muscle and abdominal pain and shortness of breath. Several patients had pneumonia in both lungs. Tests for known respiratory viruses and other viral, bacterial and fungal agents were all negative, PAHO said. Biological samples have been sent to Argentina's National Administration of Laboratories and Health Institutes for additional testing, which will include an analysis for the presence of toxins. Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said given that the lungs are heavily involved, the cause is likely something the patients inhaled. He first suspected Legionnaires' disease, which is caused by inhaling droplets of water containing Legionella bacteria, but tests have ruled that out. PAHO and the WHO are monitoring the outbreak and assisting local health officials with the investigation. Osterholm said "mystery illnesses" do sometimes happen, and most often they can be explained by some local outbreak that does not have pandemic implications. Osterholm said he expects more definitive information from Argentine health officials in the next five to seven days.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who fled the country in July after tens of thousands of protesters stormed his home and office in a display of anger over the country’s economic crisis, has returned to the country after seven weeks. Rajapaksa flew into Colombo’s Bandaranaike international airport around midnight Friday from Bangkok via Singapore. On being welcomed by lawmakers in his party, Rajapaksa left the airport in a motorcade heavily guarded by armed soldiers and reached a government-owned house allocated to him as a former president, at the center of the capital, Colombo. On July 13, the ousted leader, his wife and two bodyguards left aboard an air force plane for the Maldives, before traveling to Singapore from where he officially resigned. He flew to Thailand two weeks later. Rajapaksa has no court case or arrest warrant pending against him. The only court case he was facing for alleged corruption during his time as the secretary to the ministry of defense under his older brother’s presidency was withdrawn when he was elected president in 2019 because of constitutional immunity. For months, Sri Lanka has been in the grips of its worst economic crisis, which triggered extraordinary protests and unprecedented public rage that ultimately forced Rajapaksa and his brother, the former prime minister, to step down. The situation in the bankrupt country was made worse by global factors like the pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but many hold the once-powerful Rajapaksa family as responsible for severely mismanaging the economy and tipping it into crisis. The economic meltdown has seen monthslong shortages of essentials such as fuel, medicine and cooking gas due to a severe shortage of foreign currency. Though cooking gas supplies were restored through World Bank support, shortages of fuel, critical medicines and some food items continue. The island nation has suspended repayment of nearly $7 billion in foreign debt due this year. The country’s total foreign debt amounts to more than $51 billion, of which $28 billion has to be repaid by 2027. On Tuesday, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who took over after Rajapaksa resigned, and his administration reached a preliminary agreement with the International Monetary Fund for a $2.9 billion bailout package over four years to help the country recover. Rajapaksa, a former military officer, was elected on promises to uplift the country’s economy and ensure national security after Islamic State-inspired bomb attacks killed some 270 people in churches and hotels on Easter Sunday 2019. He relinquished his American citizenship when he contested the election because laws at the time made dual citizens ineligible from holding political office. As a top defense official he is accused of overseeing human rights violations by the military during the country’s three-decade civil war with the now-defeated Tamil Tiger rebels who fought for an independent state for the country’s ethnic minority Tamils. In April, protesters started camping outside the president’s office in the heart of Colombo and chanted “Gota, go home,” a demand for Rajapaksa to quit, which quickly became the rallying cry of the movement. The demonstrations dismantled the Rajapaksa family’s grip on politics. Before Rajapaksa resigned, his older brother stepped down as prime minister and three more close family members quit their Cabinet positions. But the country’s new president, Wickremesinghe, has since cracked down on protests. His first action as leader included dismantling the protest tents in the middle of the night as police forcibly removed demonstrators from the site and attacked them. There is genuine fear among people who want to protest now, said Bhavani Fonseksa, with the independent think tank Center for Policy Alternatives. “Whether people will take to the streets to demonstrate again is still to be seen, especially since there’s been so much repression since Ranil Wickremesinghe came to power. Several protesters have been arrested so there is genuine fear,” she said. Dayan Jayatilleka, a former diplomat and political analyst, said the ruling SLPP party will welcome him back, but didn’t think his return would spark people to flood the streets again. “They will be sour — it is still far too early for him to return,” he said. “There is no way Gotabaya will be forgiven for his transgressions but I think now there is more bitterness than public rage that awaits him,” Jayatilleka added. For Nazly Hameem, an organizer who helped lead the protest movement, the former president’s return isn’t an issue “as long as he is held accountable.” “He is a Sri Lankan citizen so no one can prevent him from coming back. But as someone who wants justice against the corrupt system, I would like to see action taken — there should be justice, they should file cases against him and hold him accountable for what he did to the country.” “Our slogan was ‘Gota, go home’ — we didn’t expect him to flee, we wanted him to resign. As long as he doesn’t involve himself in active politics, it won’t be a problem.”
WASHINGTON: The US State Department has approved a potential $1.1 billion sale of military equipment to Taiwan, including 60 anti-ship missiles and 100 air-to-air missiles, the Pentagon said on Friday, amid heightened tensions with China. The package was announced in the wake of China’s aggressive military drills around Taiwan following a visit to the island last month by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the highest-ranking US official to travel to Taipei in years. The sale includes Sidewinder missiles, which can be used for air-to-air and surface-attack missions, at a cost of some $85.6 million, Harpoon anti-ship missiles at an estimated $355 million cost and support for Taiwan’s surveillance radar program for an estimated $665.4 million, the Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said. The principal contractor for the Harpoon missiles is Boeing Co. Raytheon is the principal contractor for both the Sidewinders and the radar program. Reuters reported last month that President Joe Biden’s administration was planning new equipment for Taiwan but that the equipment would sustain Taiwan’s current military systems and fulfill existing orders, not offer new capabilities, despite the heightened tensions that followed Pelosi’s visit. The Pentagon said the equipment and support announced on Friday would not alter the basic military balance in the region. US officials said they did not reflect any change in policy toward Taiwan. “These proposed sales are routine cases to support Taiwan’s continuing efforts to modernize its armed forces and to maintain a credible defensive capability,” a US Department of State spokesperson said, requesting anonymity. Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan Business Council, said his organization opposed what he termed a “limited approach” to arms sales to Taiwan. “As the (China’s) People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently demonstrated in its mock blockade, the island faces a range of threats that require a range of capabilities. To deny the island the ability to mount a full defense will, over time, create new gaps in Taiwan’s defenses that the PLA can exploit,” Hammond-Chambers said in a statement. The order reflects continued US support for Taiwan as Taipei faces pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and has never ruled out using force to bring the democratically ruled island under its control. The sales must be reviewed by Congress, but both Democratic and Republican congressional aides said they do not expect opposition. There have been at least two other visits to Taiwan by members of Congress from both parties since Pelosi’s visit, as well as by governors of US states, all condemned by Beijing. Taipei says the People’s Republic of China has never ruled the island and has no right to claim it.
NICE: The Frenchman who tried single-handedly to stop a truck that mowed down dozens of people six years ago in the port city of Nice says he felt no fear at the time, but can’t help wondering whether a quicker reaction could have saved lives.
Franck Terrier, an airport worker and father of two, took his wife out to the Promenade des Anglais on his scooter to get ice cream on the night of July 14, 2016, joining thousands of others enjoying the Bastille Day fireworks.
“Suddenly a truck overtook me on the right,” Terrier said in an interview in the run-up to the trial on Monday of suspects linked to the attack by Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian, who drove a truck into the crowd, killing 86 people and injuring hundreds more. “I dropped my wife off, and decided to go after him,” Terrier said. “It was a reflex,” said Terrier, who flung his scooter at the truck’s wheels in an unsuccessful attempt to force the powerful vehicle to stop.
“I felt no fear,” he said. “I wanted to get into the cabin, I fought (with the attacker), I held on to the cabin. He tried to shoot me, a round went off but missed. In the struggle I took a blow to the head and I fell, but got back up.”
President Emmanuel Macron decorated Terrier with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honour, a year later, an expression of the nation’s gratitude for his daring action.
Yet Terrier, now 55, can’t shake the feeling that perhaps he could have done more.
“The worst thing is to face the victims’ families, because I keep having this feeling that I didn’t do enough,” he said. “Maybe I could have acted faster.”
President Emmanuel Macron has decorated Franck Terrier with France’s highest honor, the Legion of Honour — an expression of the nation’s gratitude for his daring action.
Terrier said he is aware that such thoughts are irrational and he understands that “with hindsight, I couldn’t have done more.”
But, he said, “there’s always a feeling of guilt because 86 people died.”
The attacker died in a shootout with police while Terrier, exhausted, leaned against the truck’s front wheel.
Police, assuming that Terrier had been in on the attack, roughed him up at first, but “when I managed to talk to them, they understood what had happened.”
Terrier, who had been chief runway manager at Nice’s airport for 30 years, never returned to that post and is now employed by city hall.
He has low expectations for the trial that is to examine the possible role of people close to Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in the attack, including those who sold him weapons.
“I don’t think there will be enough evidence against the people who were arrested. But still, it will be a chance to tell the story,” he said.
Terrier said he will not attend any screening of CCTV footage retracing the truck’s murderous itinerary at the trial. “I don’t have the strength,” he said.
He never refers to the attacker by name. “For me, people who commit such acts are not human, so I feel no hatred or anything else, just incomprehension,” he said.
His life “has returned to a semblance of normality”, Terrier said, “but I will never be able to turn the page, I will remember this all my life. I just hope that, over time, I will feel better.”