World

Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Thursday during a trip to Kyiv that it would take Russia decades to repair its standing in the world after invading Ukraine.

Marin described Russia’s war in Ukraine as a “turning point” for Europe, during a press conference with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

The conflict, she said, has “changed the European security environment profoundly, as well as our perception of Russia”.

“Trust is lost for generations,” Marin said.

Her visit comes after Finland and neighbouring Sweden filed historic applications to join NATO in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

Marin during her trip visited Irpin and Bucha, towns on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital where Russian troops have been accused of killing civilians. 

She also met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Chairman of Ukraine’s parliament Ruslan Stefanchuk.

In a statement following the visit, she said it was “important for the European Union to be united, bold and determined in the face of Russia’s invasion.”

She also backed Kyiv’s closer integration with Brussels, saying it was “important to create concrete steps for Ukraine to become an EU member state.”

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A fugitive member of Colombia’s Gulf Clan drug cartel wanted by the United States has been killed by police in the South American country, the government said Thursday.

President Ivan Duque announced on Twitter that Juan Larinson Castro Estupinan, alias “Matamba” — a former Gulf Clan boss and one of Colombia’s most wanted criminals — had been “neutralized.”  

The Gulf Clan, Colombia’s biggest drug cartel, launched a revenge campaign this month, closing schools and bringing transport to a standstill in the country’s north after its boss, Dairo Antonio Usaga, was extradited to the United States to face trafficking charges there.

Defense Minister Diego Molano said Thursday that Matamba, who had escaped prison in March pending a decision on his own extradition to the United States, was “killed in combat” in a police operation in the northern municipality of Bolivar.

“We continue dealing blows to the ‘Gulf Clan’,” said Duque, adding: “no bandit will have a burrow left to hide in.”

Matamba had escaped from prison with the help of a guard who left his cell door open. He fled in a guard’s uniform.

His helper was arrested and 55 other guards suspended, as well as the two top bosses of the La Picota prison.

His lawyers claimed he had never escaped, but was in hiding inside the prison while negotiating a surrender to the United States in exchange for information on drug routes.

In Colombia, he faced charges of criminal association for the purpose of homicide, extortion and illegally carrying of weapons. 

On Wednesday, Molano also announced the “presumed death” of Miguel Botache Santillana, one of the leaders of a dissident left-wing guerrilla group, in Venezuela.

Colombia is experiencing a wave of increased violence despite a 2016 peace agreement that disarmed the FARC guerrilla group after nearly six decades of internal conflict.

Many of the areas abandoned by the FARC have since become battle grounds for the ELN rebel group, drug cartels and FARC dissidents fighting for control of drug and illegal mining revenues.

The rise in insecurity is a key issue ahead of a first round of presidential elections on Sunday.

Desperate parents scuffled with police and pleaded with them to storm the Texas school where a gunman ultimately killed 19 children and two teachers, new video showed Thursday, as questions mounted over the authorities’ response to the massacre.

In one jolty, nearly seven minute clip posted on YouTube, parents living a nightmare — a school shooting under way with their kids inside — are seen screaming expletives at police behind yellow tape trying to keep them away from Robb Elementary School in the town of Uvalde.

“It’s my daughter!” one woman bellows amid chaotic scenes of moaning, crying and shoving.

In another shorter video, parents mill around what is apparently the rear of the school, and complain angrily that police are doing nothing as the worst school shooting in a decade is unfolding.

One woman, frantic about her son, yells to police, “if they’ve got a shot, shoot him or something. Go on.”

Jacinto Cazares, whose daughter Jacklyn died in Tuesday’s massacre, said he raced to the school when he heard about the shooting.

“There was at least 40 lawmen armed to the teeth but didn’t do a darn thing (until) it was far too late,” Cazares told ABC News Wednesday night.

“The situation could’ve been over quick if they had better tactical training.”

Daniel Myers and his wife Matilda — both local pastors — told AFP they saw parents at the scene growing frantic as police appeared to wait on reinforcements before entering the school.

“Parents were desperate,” said Daniel Myers, 72. “They were ready to go in. One family member, he says: ‘I was in the military, just give me a gun, I’ll go in. I’m not going to hesitate. I’ll go in.'”

– 40 minutes –

The tight-knit Latino community was changed forever when Salvador Ramos, an 18-year-old with a history of being bullied, entered the school with an assault rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

According to the Austin Statesman, authorities are examining the police response, including what steps they took to stop the gunman.

Texas Department of Public Safety director Steven McCraw told CNN Ramos was inside for about 40 minutes before police managed to shoot and kill him.

Officials say he was confronted by a school resource officer, but was able to enter through a back door, making his way to two adjoining classrooms where he started shooting.

Hearing shots from the school, police officers at first ran inside and themselves came under gunfire.

Some police started to break windows and evacuate children and teachers, while law enforcement helped pin the shooter in place until a tactical team that included US Border Patrol agents was assembled. 

Border Patrol chief Raul Ortiz said the force’s agents “didn’t hesitate.”

“They came up with a plan. They entered that classroom and they took care of the situation as quickly as they possibly could,” Ortiz told CNN.

– ‘I have no words’ –

Speaking out for the first time, Ramos’s mother Adriana Reyes told ABC News her son could be aggressive when angry but was “not a monster” — and that she was not aware he had been buying weapons.

“I had an uneasy feeling sometimes, like ‘what are you up to?,'” she told ABC Wednesday evening. “We all have a rage, that some people have it more than others.”

Authorities said Ramos shot his 66-year-old grandmother in the face before attacking the school.

“Those kids… I have no words,” Reyes said through tears. “I don’t know what to say about those poor kids.”

The Uvalde shooting was the deadliest since 20 elementary-age children and six staff were killed at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

– ‘Common sense’ –

The Georgia-based gun manufacturer Daniel Defense said it was its “understanding” that Ramos used a weapon made by the company, without specifying how he obtained it.

“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and community devastated by this evil act,” the company said in a statement to AFP, promising its full cooperation with investigators.

Pressed Wednesday on how Ramos was able to obtain the murder weapon, Texas Governor Greg Abbott brushed aside suggestions tougher gun laws were needed in his state — where attachment to the right to bear arms runs deep.

But in the shooting’s wake President Joe Biden — who will head to Uvalde in coming days — has called on lawmakers to take on America’s powerful gun lobby and enact “common sense gun reforms.”

Gun control activists and lawmakers addressed reporters outside the US Capitol on Thursday, vowing no let-up in their efforts in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.

“Gun violence prevention is going to be on the ballot,” said the Democratic senator from Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal

The March for Our Lives — founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting in Florida — has meanwhile called for nationwide protests on June 11 to press for gun control.

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Eleven newborn babies died in a hospital fire blamed on an electrical short circuit in Senegal’s western city of Tivaouane, authorities said Thursday.

In the latest in a series of hospital deaths that have exposed the weaknesses of the nation’s healthcare system, President Macky Sall announced the tragedy on Twitter and  declared three days of national mourning.

“I have just learned with pain and dismay about the deaths of 11 newborn babies in the fire at the neonatal department of the public hospital,” Sall wrote after the fire late Wednesday.

“To their mothers and their families, I express my deepest sympathy,” he tweeted.

Macky would return early from abroad and visit the hospital on Saturday, his office said.

“Where is Mohamed?,” asked one of the distraught mothers outside Mame Abdou Aziz Sy Dabakh Hospital in Tivaouane, a city with a population of 40,000.

Her baby son was taken to the hospital 10 days ago and was baptised on Monday, Mohamed’s 54-year-old father Alioune Diouf said.

The city’s mayor Demba Diop said the fire had been caused by a short circuit and spread very quickly.

He denied allegations from relatives at the hospital and across social media that the babies had been left alone, saying a midwife and nurse were present Wednesday evening.

“There was a noise and an explosion, that lasted three minutes at most,” he said outside the hospital entrance.

“Five minutes after, the fire brigade arrived. People used fire extinguishers.”

The mayor said the air-conditioning had accelerated the flames and added that the two nurses fainted but were revived.

“There was no negligence,” Diop insisted.

Health Minister Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr was quoted in media reports also as blaming an electrical fault.

– ‘Beyond heartbroken’ –

The maternity unit was equipped to take care of 13 babies. 

“At the time of the fire, there were 11, whom nurses were unable to save,” the minister said.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that he was “beyond heartbroken with this tragic news.

“I’m sending my deepest condolences to the parents and families of the babies who lost their lives.” 

Health Minister Sarr, who had been in Geneva attending a meeting with the WHO, said an investigation is under way.

The tragedy in Tivaouane comes after several other public health incidents in Senegal, which suffers from a great disparity between urban and rural areas in healthcare services. 

In the northern town of Linguere in late April, a fire broke out at a hospital and four newborn babies were killed. The town’s mayor cited an electrical malfunction in an air conditioning unit in the maternity ward.

– ‘This is unacceptable’ –

Wednesday’s accident came over a month after the nation mourned the death of a pregnant woman who waited in vain for a caesarean section.

The woman, Astou Sokhna, arrived at a hospital in the northern city of Louga in pain. The staff refused to accommodate her request for a C-section, saying it was not scheduled. 

She died on April 1, 20 hours after arrival.

Sokhna’s death caused a wave of outrage across the country over the dire state of the health system. Sarr acknowledged two weeks later that the death could have been avoided.

Three midwives on duty the night Sokhna died were given a six-month suspended prison sentence on May 11 by the High Court of Louga for “failure to assist a person in danger” in connection with her case. 

Amnesty International’s Senegal director Seydi Gassama said his organisation had called for an inspection and upgrade for neonatal services in hospitals across Senegal after the “atrocious” death of the four babies in Linguere.

With the new tragedy, Amnesty “urges the government to set up an independent commission of inquiry to determine responsibility and punish the culprits, no matter the level they are at in the state apparatus”, he tweeted. 

Opposition lawmaker Mamadou Lamine Diallo also responded with outrage to the Tivaouane blaze. 

“More babies burned in a public hospital… this is unacceptable @MackySall,” he tweeted. 

“We suffer with the families to whom we offer our condolences. Enough is enough.”

Ukraine said Thursday the war in the east of the country had hit its fiercest level yet as it urged Western allies to match words with support against invading Russian forces.

Moscow’s troops pushed into the industrial Donbas region after failing to take the capital Kyiv, closing in on several urban centres including the strategically located Severodonetsk and Lysychansk.

Russian forces also shelled Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv, killing seven people, after Moscow’s efforts to capture the north-eastern hub were repelled by heavy battles early in the war. 

Britain and Germany both said Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be defeated in the conflict, now in its fourth month, but Kyiv called on the West to urgently supply more heavy weapons for its outgunned forces.

“The fighting has reached its maximum intensity,” Ukraine’s Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar told a press briefing about the battles in the east.

“Enemy forces are storming the positions of our troops simultaneously in several directions. We have an extremely difficult and long stage of fighting ahead of us.”

Pro-Moscow separatist groups have controlled parts of Donbas, the industrial basin comprising Donetsk and Lugansk regions, since 2014 but Russia now appears set on taking the whole region.

Lugansk regional governor Sergiy Gaiday said that “heavy” Russian bombardments on Lysychansk had done extensive damage to civilian infrastructure, including a humanitarian aid centre.

– ‘Used to shelling’ –

Three people died in recent Russian attacks on Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which stand on the crucial route to Ukraine’s eastern administrative centre in Kramatorsk, Gaiday said.

In Kramatorsk itself, children roamed the rubble left by Russian attacks as the sound of shellfire booms.

“That was a 22 (122-mm artillery),” said Yevgen, a sombre-looking 13-year-old who moved to Kramatorsk with his mother from the ruins of his village Galyna. 

“I am not scared,” he declared as he sat alone on a slab of a destroyed apartment block. “I got used to the shelling.”

Four civilians were killed in shelling in the Donetsk region around Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian presidency said.

Fresh shelling around Kharkiv killed another seven people and injured 17, including a nine-year-old child, officials said.

“Today the enemy insidiously fired on Kharkiv,” regional governor Oleg Sinegubov said on social media, warning residents to take to air raid shelters.

An AFP reporter in Kharkiv saw plumes of smoke rising from the stricken area, along with several people injured near a shuttered shopping centre. An elderly man with injuries to his arm and leg was carried away by medics.

– ‘Show me one Nazi!’ –

Russia’s rationale of a “special military operation” to “demilitarise and de-Nazify” Ukraine drew a snort of derision in one village near Kharkiv which came under fire.

“Show me one Nazi in the village! We have our nation, we are nationalists but not Nazis nor fascists,” said retired nurse Larysa Kosynets.

As the toll mounted, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on the West to add to the billions of dollars in weaponry it has already poured in, and blasted suggestions a negotiated peace could include territorial concessions.

“We need the help of our partners — above all, weapons for Ukraine. Full help, without exceptions, without limits, enough to win,” Zelensky said in his daily address to the nation.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba had earlier told Davos that his country “badly” needs multiple-launch rocket systems to match Russian firepower.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has faced criticism over Berlin’s slow response, said Putin will not negotiate seriously until he realises he could not win in Ukraine.

“Our goal is crystal clear — Putin must not win this war. And I am convinced that he will not win it,” the German chancellor told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss echoed the German chancellor’s comments and warned against offering “backsliding” on support for Kyiv.

“We need to make sure that Putin loses in Ukraine and that Ukraine prevails,” Truss told reporters during a visit to Sarajevo.

– ‘Illegal’ sanctions –

The Ukraine conflict has sparked fears of a global food crisis, on top of the political and economic shockwaves that have already reverberated around the world since the February 24 invasion.

The Kremlin on Thursday pointed the finger at Western countries for stopping grain-carrying vessels from leaving ports in Ukraine — rejecting accusations that Russia was to blame.

Putin said Moscow was ready to make a “significant contribution” to averting the crisis if the West lifts sanctions imposed on Russia over Ukraine, in a telephone call with Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

The Russian central bank meanwhile cut its key interest rate to 11 percent from 14 percent following an emergency meeting, as authorities sought to rein in the ruble which has surged in value despite the conflict.

Moscow slapped strict capital controls to boost the economy after the imposition of the sanctions and since then the ruble has staged a spectacular rebound — but Russia fears a strong ruble can hit budget revenues and exporters. 

The Kremlin is also seeking to tighten its grip over the parts of Ukraine it occupies, including fast-tracking citizenship for residents of two southern regions that are mostly under Russian control.

The United States branded the plan an “attempt to subjugate the people of Ukraine”.

World Health Organization member states meanwhile strongly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine and attacks on health facilities. A Russian resolution which made no reference to the invasion flopped.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Thursday for vigorous competition with China to preserve the existing global order but said the United States did not seek a “Cold War.”

In a long-awaited speech billed as the most comprehensive statement to date on China by President Joe Biden’s administration, Blinken said that Beijing posed “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order” despite months of US focus on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“China is the only country with both the intent to reshape the international order — and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” Blinken said at George Washington University.

“Beijing’s vision would move us away from the universal values that have sustained so much of the world’s progress over the past 75 years,” he said.

“President Biden believes this decade will be decisive. The actions that we take at home and with countries worldwide will determine whether our shared vision of the future will be realized.”

The Biden administration recently launched a loose new trade framework across Asia and has set up a forum with the European Union to set technological standards, efforts aimed at uniting like-minded nations as China dominates new fields such as artificial intelligence.

Blinken acknowledged a growing consensus that other nations cannot change the trajectory of China, saying that under President Xi Jinping it has become “more repressive at home, more aggressive abroad.”

“There is growing convergence about the need to approach relations with Beijing with more realism,” he said.

– ‘No Cold War’ –

With no rhetorical bombast or surprises, Blinken drew an implicit contrast to the approach of the previous administration of Donald Trump which spoke in stark terms of an all-out global conflict with China.

On trips to Africa and Latin America, where China has invested billions of dollars on infrastructure, Blinken has downplayed the competition and not asked nations to take sides.

“We are not looking for conflict or a new Cold War. To the contrary, we’re determined to avoid both,” Blinken said in his speech.

“We don’t seek to block China from its role as a major power, nor to stop China — or any other country for that matter – from growing their economy or advancing the interests of their people,” he said.

But he said that defending the global order, including international law and agreements, would “make it possible for all countries — including the United States and China — to coexist and cooperate.”

He pointed to climate change, saying that the United States and China — the world’s two largest emitters — worked together to make progress at last year’s summit in Glasgow and that a healthy competition on clean energy would have global benefits.

His willingness to cooperate comes even as he charged again that Beijing is carrying out genocide against its Uyghur minority and also denounced its “brutal campaign” in Tibet and crackdown in Hong Kong.

– Refocusing on Asia –

Saying that China will “test American diplomacy like nothing we’ve seen before,” Blinken announced the formation of a “China House” inside the State Department to coordinate policy across regions.

Blinken’s speech — delayed from earlier this month after he tested positive for Covid-19 — was the latest attempt by the Biden administration to show its eyes are on Asia despite the Ukraine war.

Biden this month visited allies Japan and South Korea and invited leaders from Southeast Asia for a first-of-a-kind summit in Washington.

Blinken pledged to support US allies including by promoting freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where Beijing has been increasingly assertive on its myriad territorial claims.

The speech comes days after Biden made waves at a Tokyo news conference by giving the most explicit commitment in decades that the United States would militarily defend Taiwan in an invasion by Beijing, which claims the self-governing democracy.

Blinken again insisted that the United States was not deviating from its longstanding stance and said Beijing had raised tensions including with its nearly daily military flights near the island.

“While our policy has not changed, what has changed is Beijing’s growing coercion,” Blinken said.

Colombian superstar Shakira inched closer to standing trial in Spain for tax fraud after a Barcelona court dismissed an appeal from the singer, in a ruling made public Thursday.

Prosecutors accuse the 45-year-old “Hips don’t Lie” songstress of defrauding the Spanish tax office out of 14.5 million euros ($15.5 million) on income earned between 2012 and 2014.

Prosecutors say she moved to Spain in 2011 when her relationship with FC Barcelona defender Gerard Pique became public but maintained official tax residency in the Bahamas until 2015.

Her defence team argues she moved to Spain full time only in 2015 and has met all tax obligations.

They say that until 2014 she earned most of her money from international tours, did not live more than six months a year in Spain and was therefore not resident under tax law.

But a Barcelona court ruled that “documentation provided to prove” tax residence overseas “does not appear to sufficient”.

“We can consider that the appellant had her usual residence in Spain,” the court added in a ruling made public on Thursday.

The ruling ratifies a prior court decision issued in 2021.

Prosecutors now need to present an indictment before the court can order a trial.

Shakira’s lawyers insisted Thursday that her “conduct on tax matters has always been impeccable in all the countries she had to pay taxes”.

She has “no debts to the Spanish tax authorities” and paid any sums claimed by the tax authorities “as soon as she became aware of the amount,” they added in a statement.

Shakira, who has sold over 60 million albums, lives with Pique on the outskirts of Barcelona. The couple have two children.

Deforestation surged 66 percent last year in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, according to a new report, compounding fears over the rampant destruction of the Amazon rainforest further north.

The “Mata Atlantica,” which stretches down Brazil’s eastern coast, lost 21,642 hectares (53,479 acres) of forest cover from November 2020 to October 2021, up two-thirds from the year before, according to the report, which was based on satellite monitoring data and published late Wednesday by an environmental group.

Cutting down that forest — the size of more than 20,000 football fields — released the equivalent of 10.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, said the group, SOS Mata Atlantica.

“We weren’t expecting such a huge increase. We thought the Atlantic Forest would be a bit more immune to the explosion of deforestation (in other parts of Brazil), as a region with more governance and policing,” spokesman Luis Guedes Pinto told AFP.

“It shows the Atlantic Forest is also suffering from the dismantling of environmental policies and legislation.”

Deforestation has surged in Brazil under President Jair Bolsonaro, whom critics accuse of gutting environmental protection programs to benefit Brazil’s powerful agribusiness industry.

Since the far-right president took office in 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent from the previous decade, according to official figures.

Like the Amazon, the less-known Atlantic Forest is a critical buffer against climate change, and a key ecosystem without which Brazil’s supplies of food, water and hydroelectric power would be threatened, experts say.

Its destruction “is a disaster not just for Brazil, but for the world,” Pinto said.

“Research shows the Atlantic Forest is one of the biomes that will have to be urgently restored if we are to reach the goal of holding global warming to 1.5 degrees C in line with the Paris climate accord.”