World

A volunteer scoops up a fledgling kite lying nearly immobile on a scorching Indian sidewalk as the relentless sun beats down on its feathers — one of countless birds struggling to endure an unbearable heatwave.

An early start to summer has brought record temperatures and made life a misery for human and animal alike, with experts warning that climate change is making such conditions more intense and more frequent.

One animal hospital in the western city of Ahmedabad has treated around 2,000 birds over the past month, many weak and severely dehydrated, with some suffering from broken wings after falling from trees.

“We receive daily at least 50 to 60 dehydrated birds,” Gira Shah, co-founder of the Jivdaya Charitable Trust that manages the hospital, told AFP, adding that temperatures have soared up to 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).

The bird hospital is one of the biggest of its kind in India and was established by members of the Jain faith — an ancient Indian religion that preaches non-violence and love for all creatures, great and small.

The hellish heat has coincided with the end of the breeding season for some bird species, resulting in large numbers of chicks and fledglings being treated in the facility.

A regular stream of volunteer rescuers and members of the public bring the birds in cardboard boxes or baskets every day, where they are logged, weighed, tagged and examined by a veterinarian.

The birds are treated, but around one in four do not survive due to the severity of their dehydration or from the resulting complications.

Those that recover are kept in an aviary until they are ready to be released back into the wild.

Others that have been too severely disabled by their injuries are sent to zoos or educational institutions.

– ‘Pretty dire’ –

Veterinarian Nidhi Sharma had already treated a parakeet and a babbler chick before the fledgling kite rescued from the road was brought to her for examination.

“It’s severely dehydrated,” the 29-year-old said as she injected it with replenishing fluids.

The rescuers believe the kite, weakened by the heat, fell to the ground from its nest in a tree nearly 15 metres (50 feet) above.

Hospital curator Sherwin Everett has worked at Jivdaya — “compassionate life” in the local Gujarati language — since 2010.

He says this year’s heatwave has been among the worst for local birds he has ever seen.

Heatwaves have killed more than 6,500 people in India since 2010, but Shah and Everett are also calling on the public to also be considerate of the welfare of any wildlife they come across.

“We are expecting until July to have multiple heatwaves and the temperature will get worse,” Everett said.

“Right now we have received quite a lot of birds that have been dehydrated,” he added. “But the upcoming months seem to be pretty dire for us as well.”

Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative party lost control of key councils in London, according to partial results from local and regional UK elections on Friday, with a potentially historic change looming in Northern Ireland.

The main opposition Labour party of Keir Starmer won control of long-term Conservative strongholds in the capital, including Wandsworth and Barnet as well as Westminster, for the first time since 1964, with around a third of English votes counted.

Results so far are not a landslide for Labour, with the centrist Lib Dems and Greens making inroads elsewhere in England, and counting from Thursday’s vote in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to get underway later in the day.

Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden sought to play down Conservative losses and insisted Johnson was not under threat.

“I think looking at the picture of the results so far, they demonstrate that whilst there have been difficult results, they are consistent with what you’d expect with us from mid-term,” Dowden told Sky News.

The new Labour leader of Westminster City Council Adam Hug said his party’s victory was a “huge privilege”, while the leader of the Labour group in Barnet said the result was a reflection of disillusionment with the Tories.

“I think a lot of Conservatives haven’t voted this time, I think they feel alienated from No 10 and that they are, I don’t know, they’ve been disappointed with Boris Johnson and so not voting and I think that’s made a difference as well,” Barry Rawlings told the BBC.

The contest for the devolved assembly in Belfast could see a pro-Irish nationalist party win for the first time in the troubled history of the British province.

The results could have huge constitutional implications for the four-nation UK’s future, with predicted victors Sinn Fein committed to a vote on reunification with Ireland.

Poor results could reignite simmering discontent within Johnson’s ruling Conservatives about his leadership, after a string of recent scandals.

Johnson has tried to sideline the so-called “Partygate” scandal that last month saw him become the first British prime minister to be fined for breaking the law while in office.

– Jeopardy –

Johnson, 57, won a landslide 2019 general election victory by vowing to take the UK out of the European Union, and reverse rampant regional inequality.

Despite making good on his Brexit pledge, the coronavirus pandemic largely stalled his domestic plans. 

But his position has been put in jeopardy because of anger at lockdown-breaking parties at his Downing Street office and the steeply rising cost of living.

Labour is trying to make inroads across England despite defending the many gains it made at the last local elections in 2018.

The party is bidding to leapfrog the Conservatives into second place in Scotland, behind the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), and remain the largest party in Wales, where 16 and 17-year-olds are eligible to vote for the first time. 

– ‘Sea change’ –

The contest for Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly is set to capture attention, after numerous polls put Sinn Fein ahead.

A University of Liverpool poll reported Tuesday it remained on target to win comfortably with over a quarter of the vote. 

The pro-UK Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and cross-community Alliance Party were tied for second.

Deirdre Heenan, professor of social policy at Ulster University, said there was a feeling the election “really is momentous”. 

“It will be a sea change if a nationalist becomes first minister,” she told AFP.

Sinn Fein — the IRA’s former political wing — has dialled down its calls for Irish unity during campaigning, saying it is “not fixated” on a date for a sovereignty poll, instead focusing on the rising cost of living and other local issues.

Party vice president Michelle O’Neill has insisted voters are “looking towards the future” with pragmatism rather than the dogmatism that has long been the hallmark of Northern Irish politics.

O’Neill’s DUP rivals have sought to keep the spotlight on possible Irish reunification in the hope of bolstering their flagging fortunes.

In February, its first minister withdrew from the power-sharing government in protest at post-Brexit trade arrangements, prompting its collapse. 

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson has said that his party would not form a new executive unless London rips up the trading terms, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Almost 500 civilians have been evacuated from the devastated city of Mariupol and its besieged Azovstal steel plant in a UN-led rescue operation, the Ukrainian president’s office said Friday.

The United Nations had said Thursday that a new convoy would evacuate civilians from the “bleak hell” of the factory, which has become the last pocket of resistance in the southern port city.

“We have managed to evacuate almost 500 civilians,” Andriy Yermak, who heads Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said on Telegram.

He said Kyiv will “do everything to save all its civilians and military” stuck in the devastated city, adding that the operation was ongoing.

The Russian military had announced a three-day ceasefire at the site starting Thursday but a Ukrainian commander said there was still heavy fighting at the sprawling complex.

Hundreds of soldiers and civilians have been holed up for weeks under heavy bombardment, many taking shelter in the plant’s Soviet-era underground tunnels.

Ten weeks into a war that has killed thousands, destroyed cities and uprooted more than 13 million people, Russia has focused its efforts on Ukraine’s east and south, and taking full control of the now-flattened Mariupol would be a major victory for Moscow.

“We still have to evacuate civilians from there, women and children. Just imagine… more than two months of constant bombing and constant death,” Zelensky had said Thursday.

Speaking to the Israeli prime minister Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin had said his military was ready to allow civilians to leave, according to the Kremlin.

“As for the militants remaining at Azovstal, the Kyiv authorities must give them an order to lay down their arms,” Putin said.

A commander of the Azov regiment defending the factory said in a video on Telegram that there was still heavy fighting.

“The Russians violated the promise of a truce and did not allow the evacuation of civilians who continue to hide from shelling in the basement of the plant,” Svyatoslav Palamar said.

– Pentagon denial –

Since failing to take Kyiv early on in its invasion, which began February 24, Russia has focused its efforts on Ukraine’s east and south.

Seizing the strategically located Mariupol would allow Moscow to create a land bridge between the separatist pro-Russian regions in eastern Ukraine and Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.

The Kremlin conceded Thursday that Kyiv’s Western partners had prevented a quick end to Moscow’s campaign by sharing intelligence and weapons with Ukraine, but that it was “incapable of hindering the achievement” of Russia’s military operation.

The United States is among Ukraine’s biggest backers, supplying military equipment and munitions worth billions of dollars as well as intelligence and training.

But the White House has sought to limit knowledge of the full extent of its assistance to avoid provoking Russia into a broader conflict beyond Ukraine.

Washington on Thursday denied an explosive report in The New York Times that it helped Ukraine target Russian generals.

“The United States provides battlefield intelligence to help the Ukrainians defend their country,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

“We do not provide intelligence with the intent to kill Russian generals.”

Separately, US media reported Thursday that Washington had shared intelligence that helped Ukraine sink the Russian warship Moskva last month.

However a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP that the United States does not “provide specific targeting information on ships.” 

– Fiji seizes oligarch’s yacht –

Ukraine’s government has estimated at least $600 billion will be needed to rebuild the country after the war.

Zelensky, who has tirelessly campaigned for help from allies, on Thursday launched a global crowdfunding platform called United24 to help Ukraine win the war and rebuild its infrastructure.

More than six billion euros ($6.3 billion) were collected at a donors’ conference in Warsaw, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said Thursday.

In addition to financial and military assistance, Ukraine’s allies have also punished Russia for the invasion with unprecedented sanctions.

In one of the latest such moves, the British government said Thursday it had frozen the assets of UK-based steel and mining firm Evraz as it is of strategic significance for Russia’s war effort.

Evraz’s main shareholder is Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, who is already under sanctions, and its main operations are in Russia.

And in another action against oligarchs close to Putin, authorities in Fiji seized the $300 million yacht of Suleiman Kerimov after the United States requested be held for sanctions violations and ties to corruption.

– Farmers on the front line –

Fighting continued across eastern Ukraine.

Donbas regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said at least 25 civilians were wounded in an overnight Russian strike on the city of Kramatorsk.

Elsewhere, the Ukrainian army said it had retaken control of “several settlements on the border of Mykolaiv and Kherson regions”.

In the southwest, farmers racing to keep up with the spring planting season have found themselves ploughing around unexploded ordnance — one more piece of worrying news for next year’s harvest in Europe’s breadbasket.

“Every day since the start of the war we have been finding and destroying unexploded ammunition,” Dmytro Polishchuk, one of the deminers, told AFP before heading into a field in the southwestern village of Grygorivka to destroy an unexploded rocket.

burs-qan/ser

Philippine election rivals traded allegations of dirty tricks and vote-rigging Friday, in the final stretch of an acerbic campaign that is tipped to bring the son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to power.

After months of fierce campaigning marked by relentless misinformation and an online whitewashing of the country’s violent history, rivals Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Leni Robredo implicated each other in underhand tactics.

Marcos Jr — the son of the late dictator and notoriously kleptocratic first lady Imelda Marcos — is predicted to win Monday’s poll by a landslide.

The Marcos campaign on Friday urged supporters to “protect their votes” against unspecified attempts at vote-rigging.

“We’ve already won!” Marcos Jr said. “Just make sure you guard the votes on Monday — don’t sleep… we know that when we sleep, a lot of undesirable things happen.”

The Marcos campaign also accused Robredo of being “toxic, divisive and acrimonious” and having “associated themselves” with shadowy political groups.

Robredo has campaigned on a promise to clean up the Philippines’ chronically corrupt politics.

The 57-year-old lawyer, and current vice president, has attracted fevered support from progressive young Filipinos.

Despite her deficit in opinion polls, few are ready to completely rule her out, as febrile rumours swirl about the accuracy of polls that currently put her on 23 percent of the vote versus Marcos’ 56 percent.

With all still to play for, her campaign took legal action on Friday to bat back potentially damaging rumours that she is in league with the Communist Party.

Unproven allegations that party founder Jose Maria Sison, who lives in exile in the Netherlands, was advising her campaign recently resurfaced in Marcos-allied media.

In a complaint affidavit filed with the prosecutor’s office Robredo’s spokesman called the allegations “fabricated” and “fictitious”.

“This crossed a line,” Barry Gutierrez told reporters. 

“This is not a vlogger, it’s not some random influencer on social media putting out criticisms. This is supposedly a respectable member of the journalism profession.”

– Echoes of the dictator –

Despite a lack of evidence, the allegations have circulated widely on Facebook, which is extremely popular in the Philippines, gaining hundreds of thousands of interactions.

Misinformation seeking to discredit Robredo as stupid, unfriendly or even a communist has surged during the election season. 

Communist rebels have waged a decades-long insurgency in the country. 

Red-tagging — accusing someone of being a communist sympathiser — has intensified under President Rodrigo Duterte and has resulted in the deaths of many activists, journalists and lawyers.

Robredo hit back on Friday, accusing Marcos Jr of being a “liar”.

“I pity the Filipinos who were deceived by him,” she told reporters in the central city of Sorsogon.

The allegations against Robredo carry echoes of the elder Ferdinand Marcos’s tactics of discrediting enemies, justifying his dictatorial rule and retaining US Cold War support by playing up the spectre of a looming Red Peril that was hell-bent on taking over the country.

For much of the campaign, Marcos Jr has eschewed detailed policy pronouncements, instead framing himself as uniquely qualified to “unify” the nation.

He also portrayed his father’s rule — which saw widespread human rights abuses, rampant corruption, international opprobrium and the cratering of the Philippine economy — as a gilded age.

Behind the scenes, he has built a potent coalition of the country’s ruling families who can deliver blocks of votes on mass.

Marcos’ running mate is Sarah Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing president, who has strong domestic support for his unvarnished political style and a bloody drug war that rights groups estimate has killed tens of thousands in extrajudicial executions.

The duo’s campaign on Friday promised to reopen the economy after Covid-19 lockdowns, invest in infrastructure and continue Rodrigo Duterte’s “campaign against illegal drugs and criminality” which is subject to an investigation by the International Criminal Court.

But the prospect of a Marcos presidency has alarmed rights groups and Catholic church leaders, who doubt his commitment to democracy and fear his administration will weaken checks and balances on governance and worsen corruption.

Saturday will see both sides hold enormous rallies in Manila for the last day of campaigning — with hundreds of thousands projected to gather just a few kilometres (miles) apart to cheer their political idols and enjoy a barrage of Pinoy pop.

Fiji authorities have seized sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov’s $300 million yacht in line with a US warrant, the US Justice Department says.

The 348-foot (106-metre) Amadea was berthed in Lautoka, Fiji in the South Pacific when the island state’s law enforcement took control of it.

The US Justice Department had requested the vessel, which sailed to Fiji in mid-April, be held for violating sanctions and for alleged ties to corruption.

The Amadea is worth $325 million and has a helipad, pool, jacuzzi and “winter garden” on the sun deck, according to tracking website superyachtfan.com.

“The Amadea is subject to forfeiture based on probable cause of violations of US law, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, money laundering and conspiracy,” the department said in a statement Thursday.

Kerimov is among a group of Russian oligarchs “who profit from the Russian government through corruption and its malign activity around the globe, including the occupation of Crimea,” it said.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Russian oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin to punish Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.

Kerimov, who has made a fortune as part-owner of major Russian energy and financial companies including Gazprom and Sberbank, is also an official of the Russian government and a member of the Russian Federation Counsel, it said.

– ‘No hiding place’ –

“There is no hiding place for the assets of criminals who enable the Russian regime,” US Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. 

“The Justice Department will be relentless in our efforts to hold accountable those who facilitate the death and destruction we are witnessing in Ukraine,” Garland added.

Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said the department had its eyes “on every yacht purchased with dirty money”.

“This yacht seizure should tell every corrupt Russian oligarch that they cannot hide — not even in the remotest part of the world,” she said.

“We will use every means of enforcing the sanctions imposed in response to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine.”

An application by a company registered as the owner of the Amadea, Millemarin Investment, for an interim stay of execution of the court order approving the seizure, pending an appeal, was denied Friday by the Fiji High Court.

Fiji news media reported the superyacht is expected to be moved to the United States within days.

In a publicly released copy of the US warrant, the section listing various reasons to believe Kerimov is the true beneficial owner of the yacht was partly blacked out. 

It said the Amadea’s ownership was transferred to Millemarin Investment in August 2021.

The US warrant said Fiji’s authorities searched the vessel last month and found “numerous” financial documents related to the Amadea. Details of the transactions were blacked out.

The Amadea’s official paperwork said its next destination after Fiji was the Philippines. 

“However, there is reason to believe that its intended destination is, in fact, Vladivostok or other waters in Russian territory,” the warrant said.