World

The United Nations warned Monday that it would cost $20 billion to clean up an oil spill in the event of the “imminent” break-up of an oil tanker abandoned off Yemen.

“Our recent visit to (the FSO Safer) with technical experts indicates that the vessel is imminently going to break up,” the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly, said ahead of a conference, hosted by the UN and The Netherlands, to raise funds for an emergency operation to prevent an oil spill.

The 45-year-old FSO Safer, long used as a floating oil storage platform with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, has been moored off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida since 2015, without being serviced.

“The impact of a spill will be catastrophic,” Gressly continued at a briefing in Amman. “The effect on the environment would be tremendous… our estimate is that $20 billion would be spent just to clean the oil spill.”

The UN official had earlier announced on Twitter that the Netherlands would host on Wednesday a pledging conference for the international body’s plan to avert the crisis.

Last month, the UN said it was seeking nearly $80 million for its operation. It warned of “a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe centred on a country already decimated by more than seven years of war”.

It said that the emergency part of a two-stage operation would see the toxic cargo pumped from the storage platform to a temporary replacement vessel at a cost of $79.6 million.

Gressly estimated that a total of $144 million would be needed for the full operation, reiterating that $80 million was needed “to secure the oil safely in the initial phase”.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly in Yemen’s seven-year war, while millions have been displaced in what the UN calls the world’s biggest humanitarian crisis.

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

– War defends ‘Russian Motherland’: Putin –

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his highly anticipated Victory Day speech at a giant military parade in Moscow. He says he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine to defend the Russian “Motherland” from an “absolutely unacceptable threat”.

Speculation that he could use the 77th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II to expand the conflict comes to naught.

The Russian leader insists instead on the need to avoid “the horror of a global war”.

– Separatists parade in Mariupol –

A giant black and orange ribbon is carried through the devastated port city of Mariupol by pro-Russian separatists to mark Victory Day.

In late April, after besieging the strategic city for several weeks, Moscow said it had taken control of the city, except for the huge Azovstal steel plant where the remaining Ukrainian forces are holed up.

The Kremlin said last week there were no Victory Day celebrations planned in the battered city.

– ‘We will win,’ says Zelensky –

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky says he will not allow the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazis to be “appropriated” by Putin.

“We are proud of our ancestors who together with other nations in the anti-Hitler coalition defeated Nazism. And we will not allow anyone to annex this victory. We will not allow it to be appropriated,” he says.

He compares the Russian invasion to the Nazi occupation of parts of present-day Ukraine, vowing, “We won then. We will win now.”

– Battles rage in east –

As Russia tries to take the Russian-speaking Donbas region in the east, the governor of Lugansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, says there are “very serious battles” around Bilogorivka and Rubizhne. 

Donbas encompasses Lugansk and the neighbouring region of Donetsk.

– EU chief to meet Orban in oil row –

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen heads to Hungary to meet Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is holding up Brussels’ plans for an embargo on Russian oil.

Landlocked Hungary relies on Russian oil from a single pipeline and Orban has warned he cannot approve the European Commission’s proposed sixth package of EU sanctions against Moscow

As Von der Leyen sets off, Orban’s international spokesman Zoltan Kovacs, citing Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, compares the sanctions package to an “atomic bomb” for Hungary’s economy.

– Ukraine ‘decades’ away from EU membership: Macron –

Von der Leyen says the EU will give its opinion on Ukraine’s membership bid next month but French President Emmanuel Macron appears to rule out the prospect of the country joining the club in the near future.

Macron, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency, says joining the bloc would take “decades” and suggests instead that Ukraine and other EU hopefuls like Moldova and Georgia be integrated into a new, yet-to-be-created “European political community”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says it is a “very interesting suggestion”.

– UN rights body to meet on Ukraine –

The UN Human Rights Council announces it will convene a special session on Thursday to address alleged worsening Russian violations in its war in Ukraine.

More than 50 countries back Kyiv’s request for an extraordinary meeting of the UN’s top rights body to examine “the deteriorating human rights situation in Ukraine stemming from the Russian aggression”.

– Invasion will fail: EU’s Michel –

European Council President Charles Michel says Russia will fail to “execute” Ukraine’s “freedom” on a surprise trip to Odessa during which he is forced to take cover when missiles again strike the Black Sea city.

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At least 43 inmates died on Monday in Ecuador’s latest grisly prison riot, the public prosecutor said.

Authorities said a fight broke out between the rival Los Lobos and R7 gangs inside the Bellavista prison in Santo Domingo de los Colorados, in the center of Ecuador some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from Quito.

“For now there are 43 inmates dead,” said the public prosecutor’s office on Twitter, adding that the situation was “developing.”

The South American country’s prison authority SNAI said it has activated “security protocols” to contain the “disturbances to order.”

Interior minister Patricio Carrillo initially told reporters that two inmates had been killed before later increasing that figure to 41 in a press conference. The public prosecutor’s office then tweeted the latest death toll.

Carrillo had also claimed authorities were in control.

During the riot, at least 112 people tried to escape but were detained by security forces inside the prison grounds, said Carrillo.

Inmates with facial injuries were taken by truck and ambulance to medical facilities while family members of those incarcerated gathered at the prison looking for information, AFP reporters at the scene said.

Authorities have said they will carry out a search for weapons and transfer gang leaders to a different prison.

Prior to this one, around 350 inmates had been killed in five separate prison riots since February 2021.

Just last month, at least 20 inmates died inside the El Turi prison in Cuenca, southern Ecuador.

Ecuadoran President Guillermo Lasso insists the problem inside the facilities mirrors that outside, where drug gangs are vying for control of trafficking routes.

Those rivalries among inmates sometimes explode into violence, with some prisoners hacked to death or beheaded with machetes.

Even with greater investment in the prison system, the creation of a commission to pacify facilities and new policies such as the holding of the most dangerous prisoners at a single penitentiary, have not reduced the bloody violence.

Ecuador has also seen a rise in street crime and drug trafficking which the government has tried to tackle by declaring a state of emergency in the three worst affected provinces: Guayas, Manabi and Esmeraldas.

The country seized a record 210 tons of drugs in 2021 and has already seized another 82 tons this year.

A former senior Rwandan official went on trial in Paris on Monday accused of complicity in the African nation’s genocide, the most high-ranking figure yet to face justice in France over the 1994 massacres.

The case of Laurent Bucyibaruta is the fourth from the Rwandan genocide to come to court in France, which had long been under pressure from activists to act against suspected perpetrators who had taken refuge on French soil. 

An estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus perished in 100 days of slaughter in 1994 in which Hutu militiamen massacred Tutsis taking cover in churches and schools.

Standing trial on charges of genocide, complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against humanity, Bucyibaruta faces a life sentence if convicted. He is the highest-ranking Rwandan official to be tried in France.

At the heart of the case are several “security” meetings, either ordered by Bucyibaruta or in which he participated. The accusation says they were slaughter-planning sessions.

The 78-year-old, who suffers from health problems, entered the courtroom in a wheelchair, a walking stick in his hand. 

Bucyibaruta, in a hoarse voice, asked if he could remain seated, as offered by the court’s president. 

The defendant suffers from “severe heart disease and diabetes”, said one of his lawyers, Jean-Marie Biju-Duval.

“He can appear in court, he can express himself, but is he in a condition to defend himself?” asked Biju-Duval.

– Tens of thousands killed –

In particular the former prefect of the southern province of Gikongoro is accused of persuading thousands of people to take refuge in the Murambi Technical School, by promising them food, water and protection. 

But days later, in the early hours of April 21, tens of thousands of Tutsis were executed in one of the genocide’s grimmest episodes.

The court will also discuss Bucyibaruta’s responsibility in the massacre of around 90 Tutsi pupils at the Marie Merci school in Kibeho on May 7, 1994 and in the execution of Tutsi prisoners — including three priests — in Gikongoro prison.

Bucyibaruta denies the charges and refutes any involvement in the killings. 

Defence lawyers asked for the case to be thrown out, due to “unreasonable” delays as the proceedings began 22 years ago. 

The court rejected this request.

The trial is expected to last two months and feature over 100 witnesses including survivors from Rwanda, who have flown over or will appear via videoconference. 

Bucyibaruta, who has been in France since 1997 and is under judicial supervision, has myriad health problems which should limit the hearings to seven hours a day. 

Four people in three cases have already been convicted in French courts over the genocide: a former hotel driver handed a 14-year sentence, an army officer jailed for 25 years and two mayors given life sentences.

Hundreds of thousands of Muscovites marched Monday to remember the victims of World War II, with many believing that Russia is once again fighting Nazism, but this time in Ukraine.

Every year on May 9, Russians celebrate Victory Day, one of the country’s most important holidays marking the anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.

After a military parade on Red Square, memorial marches called the “Immortal Regiment” are held in cities across Russia, with participants carrying photos of family members who fought in what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.

This year’s march was led by President Vladimir Putin — who held a photo of his father — over two months since the Russian leader deployed troops to Ukraine for what he calls a campaign to “de-Nazify” Russia’s pro-Western neighbour.

Joining the march was Taisiya Chepurina, carrying a sepia picture of her husband, a soldier who fought in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1944. 

For the 81-year-old widow, Russia’s military action in Ukraine is justified if Ukrainian Nazis “shoot at our soldiers”.

“Putin conducts politics so well, well done to him. He makes sure that our boys don’t die, that there is as little blood as possible. I bow down to him,” she said. 

As the procession marched on, military “Hurrahs” and chants of “Russia” were regularly shouted out by the participants of all ages. 

Small orchestras played Soviet war tunes, while food stalls distributed soup to warm a crowd braving the wind and rain.

– ‘History repeats itself’ –

“Nobody could have imagined that 77 years later, fascist forces, Nazi forces would come back to life, killing civilians, butchering Russians into pieces,” another participant, Anastasia Rybina, told AFP. 

“History repeats itself,” the 37-year-old economist added.

Her words were echoed by Oksana Buranova, a real estate agent dressed in head-to-toe military uniform for the occasion, marching together with her teenage daughter.

“Our grandfathers died for this, and today fascism is reborn,” she said. 

She added that in Western countries, which have backed Ukraine, “many people are misinformed”. 

In the city festooned with Soviet-era symbols ahead of the celebration, the participants marched enthusiastically. 

In the crowd, there were some signs and flags with the new military symbol — the letter “Z” that is being used to show support for Russia’s campaign in Ukraine.

At the same time, the founders of the “Immortal Regiment,” which was an independent initiative back in 2012 but was later taken over by Russian authorities, distanced themselves from this year’s event.

Some participants said they came to Moscow especially to take part in the march, like Alexei Karpinsky, who travelled from neighbouring Belarus, an ex-Soviet country and an ally of Russia. 

“It was my dream since childhood to come with my family,” said the 34-year-old in a black leather jacket, adding that “there is still work to be done to stifle the ideas of Nazism”. 

Another participant, Andrei Tikhomirov, 49, said he decided to join for the first time because “there is a need to support Russia and our president”. 

“I never voted for him, but now it’s such a time, I think all Russians should be here,” the businessman said, adding that today “Nazism has approached” Russian borders. 

For others, the march was still only about World War II.

Accompanied by her French husband Frank Lank, Muscovite Tatyana said she came to honour her grandfather Alexander. “So many years have passed and we have not forgotten him”. 

“We don’t want to think” about what’s happening in Ukraine she said, adding that conflict “never brings anything good to people, when civilians, women and children are dying”. 

The son of late Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos on Tuesday headed for a historic landslide victory in the country’s presidential election, after Filipinos brushed aside warnings about weakening their already fragile democracy.

Nearly 40 years after his namesake father was deposed by a popular revolt and his family chased into exile, Ferdinand Marcos Jr had garnered more than double the number of votes of his nearest rival, according to an unofficial tally of results.

With more than 84 percent of precincts reporting, Marcos had received over 27 million votes to liberal candidate Leni Robredo’s 12.9 million.

If sustained, the tally — published by local media from Commission on Elections figures — would make Marcos the first Philippine president since his father’s ouster to be elected with an absolute majority.

It would also signal an astonishing turnaround for the fortunes of the Marcos clan, who have come from being pariahs to in reach of the presidential palace in a generation.

Marcos’ campaign was marked by a relentless online whitewashing of his father’s brutal and corrupt regime, as well as an embrace of current authoritarian president Rodrigo Duterte, who retains widespread popular support.

Before polling day, rights activists, Catholic leaders and political analysts had warned Marcos Jr could rule with an even heavier fist if he wins by a large margin.

Delivering a late-night address from his campaign headquarters in Manila, a tired but beaming Marcos thanked volunteers for months of “sacrifices and work”.

But he stopped short of claiming victory, warning that “the count is not yet done”. 

“Let’s wait until it’s very clear, until the count reaches a hundred percent then we can celebrate.”

Cleve Arguelles, a political science lecturer at Manila’s De La Salle University said it was already clear that “this will be a historic election” for the Philippines.

The results are a crushing blow for supporters of Robredo, the incumbent vice president whose campaign morphed into a movement to defend democracy and brought almost a million people onto the streets in one recent rally.

Analyst Mark Thompson said there now needed to be soul searching among an opposition that needs to broaden its message beyond “good governance”.

“They need to make clear that they’re going to improve the lives of the average Filipino,” said Thompson, who is director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong.

Marcos was able to tap into widespread anger at a string of post-dictatorship governments, which many Filipinos believe had failed to materially improve their lives.

Crucially, he also secured the support of several of the country’s powerful political dynasties, who through networks of patronage can be called on to deliver blocs of votes.

Those alliances were set for a further victory with his running mate Sara Duterte garnering an even bigger lead over rivals in her vice presidential race.

In the Philippines, the winner only has to get more votes than anyone else.

– Dynastic burden –

Election day began before dawn, as mask-clad voters formed long queues to cast their ballots in 70,000 polling stations across the archipelago.

Polls officially closed 13 hours later at 7:00 pm (1100 GMT).

At Mariano Marcos Memorial Elementary School in the northern city of Batac, the ancestral home of the Marcoses, voters waved hand fans to cool their faces in the tropical heat.

Bomb sniffer dogs swept the polling station before Marcos Jr, 64, arrived with his younger sister Irene and eldest son Sandro.

They were followed by the family’s flamboyant 92-year-old matriarch Imelda, who was lowered from a white van while wearing a long, red top with matching trousers and slip-on flats.

Sandro, 28, who is running for elected office for the first time in a congressional district in Ilocos Norte province, admitted the family’s history was “a burden”.

But he added: “It’s one that we also try to sustain and protect and better as we serve.”

Casting her ballot for Robredo at a school in the central province of Camarines Sur, Corazon Bagay said the former congresswoman deserved to win.

“She has no whiff of corruption allegations,” said the 52-year-old homemaker.

“She’s not a thief. Leni is honest.”

Robredo, a 57-year-old lawyer and economist, had promised to clean up the dirty style of politics that has long plagued the feudal and corrupt democracy, where a handful of surnames hold sway.

Marcos Jr and Duterte — both offspring of authoritarian leaders — have insisted they are best qualified to “unify” the country.

Hundreds of thousands of red-clad supporters turned out at Marcos Jr and Duterte’s raucous rally in Manila on Saturday, as they made a last push for votes.

Josephine Llorca said successive governments since the 1986 revolution that ousted the family had failed to improve the lives of the poor.

“We tried it and they were even worse than the Marcoses’ time,” she said.

– ‘Another crossroads’ – 

Other candidates seeking the presidency included boxing legend Manny Pacquiao and former street scavenger turned actor Francisco Domagoso.

Personality rather than policy typically influences many people’s choice of candidate, though vote-buying and intimidation are also perennial problems.

More than 60,000 security personnel have been deployed to protect polling stations and election workers. 

Police reported at least two deadly shootings at polling stations on the restive southern island of Mindanao that had left four people dead and three wounded.

That followed a grenade attack on Sunday that injured nine people. 

Misinformation on social media, meanwhile, sought to confuse voters.

The Commission on Elections branded as “fake and spurious” documents circulating online showing it had disqualified a senatorial hopeful and five political parties.

Whatever the result, Marcos Jr opponents have already vowed to pursue efforts to have him disqualified over a previous tax conviction and to extract billions of dollars in estate taxes from his family.

“It’s another crossroads for us,” said Judy Taguiwalo, 72, an anti-Marcos activist who was arrested twice and tortured during the elder Marcos’ regime.

“We need to continue to stand up and struggle.”