https://arab.news/wqcq8
PHNOM PENH: Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba pressed Southeast Asian countries for political and material support in his county’s fight against Russia, while accusing Moscow on Saturday of playing “hunger games” with the world by holding up shipments of Ukrainian grain and other agricultural products.
Kuleba told reporters on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit that with a deal allowing Ukraine to export grain and fertilizer due to expire Nov. 19, the world needed to pressure Russia not to object to its extension, saying Ukrainian products were critical in Africa and Asia.
More than just continuing the deal, however, Kuleba accused Russian inspectors of “quiet sabotage,” saying they were intentionally dragging their feet in allowing shipments through.
Not only does Russia have “to remain part of the initiative, it also has to instruct its inspectors to act in good faith and to avoid any measures, any steps, that create obstacles and hinder the export of Ukrainian agricultural goods to the global market,” he said.
“Russia should — must — stop playing hunger games with the world.”
Kuleba’s country was invited to the ASEAN summit for the first time this year and signed a peace accord with the group of nations with a combined population of nearly 700 million people.
Many of the member nations have thus far been reserved in their stance toward the invasion, condemning the war but generally trying to avoid assigning blame. Eight of 10 ASEAN countries did vote in favor of the UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russian aggression, with Vietnam and Laos abstaining.
Kuleba said signing the accord with ASEAN was a strong message of support from the group, though added that “the litmus test is the … voting in the UN General Assembly for resolutions related to Ukraine.”
ASEAN is made up of Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei and Myanmar, though Myanmar’s leaders are not being allowed to participate in the current meetings due to ongoing violence in the country and its lack of effort in implementing the group’s peace plan following the 2021 military takeover.
Kuleba said he is using the opportunity of the Phnom Penh summit as “an Asian tour,” meeting with ASEAN members and non-members like Australia to plead for more political support, material aid — like transformers and generators to repair those destroyed in the fighting — and improvements of food security and trade.
He spoke on the day US President Joe Biden arrived at the talks, and was scheduled to meet with Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the sidelines.
He said he had hoped to meet with China’s foreign minister but was told he would not be present. Kuleba added that Ukraine was maintaining a dialogue with China to push Beijing to “use its leverage on Russia to make them stop the war. ”
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also on hand at the ASEAN meetings, and Kuleba said if Lavrov asked to meet him, he would be willing to consider the request but accused Russia thus far of using talks as a “smokescreen for its continued aggression on the ground.”
“Ukraine will prevail, it’s only a matter of time and the price,” he said. “And yes, some gains are being achieved militarily, but some gains of Ukraine will be achieved diplomatically.”
But, he said, in any talks the “territorial integrity of Ukraine is not something that can be discussed.”
TAIPEI: China’s military flew 36 fighter jets and bombers near Taiwan, the Taiwanese defense ministry announced, part of a long-running campaign of intimidation against the self-ruled island democracy that Beijing claims as part of its territory.
Ten of the aircraft on Saturday flew across the median line in the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland, the ministry said. It said they included six Shenyang J-11 and four J-16 aircraft.
Taiwan and China split in 1949 following a civil war that ended with the Communist Party in control of the mainland. The island never has been part of the People’s Republic of China, but Beijing says it is obliged to unite with the mainland, by force if necessary.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s government stepped up efforts this year to intimidate Taiwan. It has sent fighter planes and bombers to fly near the island and fired missiles into the sea.
On Saturday, Taiwan’s military also spotted four Chengdu J-10 fighters, a Y-8 antisubmarine warfare plane and three H-6 bombers southwest of the island, the Ministry of Defense said on its website. It said three Chinese drones also were detected.
PHNOM PENH: Cambodian leader Hun Sen called for unity Sunday, telling a gathering including Russia, China and the United States that current global tensions have been taking a toll on everyone.
The prime minister, whose country holds the rotating chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said at the opening of the East Asia Summit that it was in the world’s common interest to cooperate to solve differences peacefully.
The comments come as regional tensions remain high between the United States and China over Taiwan and Beijing’s growing regional aspirations, and while the Russia invasion of Ukraine has disrupted global supply chains, causing rising energy and food prices far beyond Europe.
Without singling out any nation by name, Hun Sen said he hoped leaders would embrace a “spirit of togetherness in upholding open and inclusive multilateralism, pragmatism and mutual respect in addressing the existential and strategic challenges we all face.”
“Many current challenges and tensions have been hindering our past hard-earned efforts to promote sustainable development and causing greater hardship to people’s lives,” he said as he opened the meeting, which is running in parallel to the ASEAN group’s main summit.
Participants included US President Joe Biden and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, and it comes just a day before the highly anticipated meeting between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 summit in Bali.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was also taking part in the meetings, which also included the leaders of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan and others.
On Saturday, Biden promised that the US would work with ASEAN, telling leaders of the strategically vital coalition that “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” in the region where US rival China is also working to expand its influence.
He promised to collaborate to build a region that is “free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”
“I look forward to continuing our work together with ASEAN and with each one of you to deepen peace and prosperity throughout the region to resolve challenges from the South China Sea to Myanmar and to find innovative solutions to shared challenges,” Biden said, citing climate and health security among areas of collaboration.
Li Keqiang, meantime, told a meeting of ASEAN, China, Japan and South Korea that amid a “turbulent” global security situation, “unilateralism and protectionism are surging, economic and financial risks are rising, and global development is confronted with unprecedented challenges.”
As major economies in East Asia, Li said the group needed to “stay committed to promoting peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond, and to improving the people’s well-being.”
Russian forces destroyed key infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson before fleeing, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as his counterparts in Russia and Iran vowed to deepen economic, political and trade ties.
Zelensky described as hellish battles in the eastern region of Donetsk, where pro-Moscow forces were putting up a much stiffer fight after Russia abandoned on Friday the only regional capital it had captured since the war began in February.
Jubilant residents of Kherson welcomed arriving troops while Zelensky said authorities, in their efforts to stabilize the region, had dealt with nearly 2,000 mines, trip-wires and unexploded shells left by the departing Russians.
Russians “everywhere have the same goal: to humiliate people as much as possible. But we will restore everything, believe me,” Zelensky said in a video address on Saturday.
“Before fleeing from Kherson, the occupiers destroyed all the critical infrastructure: communications, water, heat, electricity.”
Ukraine’s success in Kherson, where its troops now control more than 60 regional settlements, as well as in other places, benefited partly from resistance in the Donetsk region, despite repeated Russian attacks, Zelensky added.
“There it is just hell — there are extremely fierce battles there every day,” he said. “But our units are defending bravely — they are withstanding the terrible pressure of the invaders, preserving our defense lines.”
In a telephone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi emphasized “further enhancing cooperation in the political, trade and economic fields, including the transport and logistics sector,” the Kremlin said on Saturday.
Russia has stepped up efforts to build ties with Iran and other non-Western countries during the war, with a senior Russian security official having met Iranian leaders in Tehran on Wednesday.
The visit followed accusations by Ukraine and the West that Russia has used Iranian drones to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Iran says it sent Russia a small number of drones before the war began. Last month, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats said that Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles.
But Ukraine will decide on the timing and contents of any negotiation framework with Russia, according to the readout of a Saturday meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Phnom Penh.
The Washington Post reported a week ago that the Biden administration was privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Putin was removed from power.
Moscow calls its action in Ukraine a “special military operation” aimed at demilitarizing and “denazifying” its smaller neighbor. Kyiv and its allies say Russia’s invasion, which has killed tens of thousands and uprooted millions, was unprovoked and illegal.
On the road to Kherson, villagers holding flowers waited on Saturday to greet and kiss Ukrainian soldiers as they poured in to secure control of the right bank of the Dnipro River after the stunning Russian retreat.
“We’ve become 20 years younger in the last two days,” said Valentyna Buhailova, 61, just before a Ukrainian soldier jumped out of a small truck and hugged her and her companion Nataliya Porkhunuk, 66, in a hamlet near the center of Kherson.
But volleys of artillery fire surrounded the international airport, and police said they were setting up checkpoints in and around the city and sweeping for mines left behind.
The mayor said the humanitarian situation was “severe” because of a lack of water, medicine and bread, as residents celebrated their liberation in what Zelensky called a “historic day.”
“The city has a critical shortage, mainly of water,” Mayor Roman Holovnia told television. “There is currently not enough medicine, not enough bread because it can’t be baked: there is no electricity.”
Renowned graffiti artist Banksy unveiled on Instagram a mural of a girl gymnast performing a handstand on a small pile of concrete rubble in the Ukrainian town of Borodyanka, which had been occupied by Russia until April and heavily damaged in the early days of fighting.
“This is such a historic moment for our country that people like Banksy and other famous figures are coming here and showing the world what Russia has done to us,” said Alina Mazur, 31, who drove 60km from Kyiv, the capital, for a glimpse.
But the road to Kherson from Mykolaiv was lined by fields scarred by miles of abandoned Russian trenches. A destroyed T72 tank lay with its turret tossed upside down.
The abandoned trenches were littered with refuse, blankets and camouflage netting. An irrigation ditch was filled with discarded Russian gear and several anti-tank mines were visible on the side of road.
People in the village of Kiselivka said the Russians left on Wednesday night.
“They didn’t fire any shots,” said Hyhory Kulyaka, 54, who drove up on a scooter. “They were just gone.”
WASHINGTON: The head of US Customs and Border Protection has resigned from his job leading the nation’s largest law enforcement agency as agents encounter record numbers of migrants entering the US from Mexico.
Chris Magnus submitted his resignation to President Joe Biden on Saturday, saying it had been “a privilege and honor” to be part of the administration.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden had accepted Magnus’ resignation. “President Biden appreciates Commissioner Magnus’ nearly forty years of service and the contributions he made to police reform during his tenure as police chief in three US cities,” she said.
Two people who were briefed on the matter told The Associated Press on Friday that Magnus was told to resign or be fired less than a year after he was confirmed. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to address the matter publicly.
Magnus’s removal is part of a larger shakeup expected at Homeland Security as it struggles to manage migrants coming from a wider range of countries, including Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua. This comes as Republicans are likely to take control of the House in January and are expected to launch investigations into the border.
Migrants were stopped 2.38 million times at the Mexican border in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 37 percent from the year before. The annual total surpassed 2 million for the first time in August and is more than twice the highest level during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2019.
The Los Angeles Times was first to report on the ultimatum. In a statement to the newspaper, Magnus said he was asked by Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to step down or be fired.