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The United States on Thursday announced $675 million in additional military equipment for Ukraine, as it said allies’ efforts in bolstering Kyiv were now visibly paying off on the battlefield.

Hosting a new round of talks with partners in Germany, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Kyiv was now not only resisting Russian invaders, but is mounting a counter-offensive in the south.

“It’s fitting that we’re meeting back here at Ramstein,” he said, referring to the US airbase in western Germany where the first of the “Ukraine Defence Contact Group” meetings on coordinating armaments support for Kyiv took place.

“Now, we’re seeing the demonstrable success of our common efforts on the battlefield,” he said, stressing that allies are in it “for the long haul”.

The meeting came hours after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said his forces had recaptured several settlements in the northeastern Kharkiv region from the Russians.

Ukraine has also claimed it had retaken several villages in the south of the country where it has been waging a counter-offensive since last week.

Kyiv has repeatedly urged its allies for more heavy weapons as it pursues its pushback. Prime Minister Denys Shmygal reiterated the request when he visited Germany on Sunday. 

– ‘Significant consumption’ –

Among the issues to be raised at Ramstein are the challenges of producing and restocking arms, as “there is a significant consumption of munitions in the conduct of this war that’s occurring in Ukraine”, said top US General Mark Milley.

The aim would be to look at what stocks are available in which countries and what would need to be sourced from industry, he said.

Artillery is proving decisive in the war and projectiles of all sorts are in huge demand.

With Ukraine and Russia fighting a war of attrition of munitions, stocks are similarly a crucial factor.

Having already exhausted all its Russian-made armaments, Ukraine is now entirely dependent on Western military support.

Russia, under heavy sanctions, is meanwhile turning to North Korea for huge quantities of rocket and artillery shells, said Washington.

– ‘More effective’ –

The United States has been Ukraine’s biggest armaments supplier. 

Its latest package would include 105mm howitzers, precision-guided GMLRS rockets and artillery ammunition. 

It comes on top of $13.5 billion worth of various weapons, including anti-tank Javelin missiles and shells compatible with NATO’s artillery systems.

Among the most efficient weapons sent lately by Washington are the HIMAR multiple rocket launch systems, paired with GMLRS rockets that can reach targets up to 80 kilometres (50 miles) away.

But Kyiv is seeking ATACMS — precision-guided, medium range tactical missile that can be launched by the HIMAR systems and which are capable of striking at 300 kilometres.

The United States has so far refused, as it fears the missiles could land in Russian territory, sparking an even bigger conflict.

“Right now, the policy of the United States government is that we’re not sending ATACMS,” said Milley. 

“We’ve had this conversation several times with my counterpart and others in the Ukrainian government.”

Rather, he noted that the HIMARS and GMLRS have “proven to be very, very effective systems… against Russian forces”. 

“The range of the HIMARS is sufficient to meet the needs of the Ukrainians as they are currently fighting,” he added. 

US command spokesman Dave Butler also assessed that while Russia was firing its artillery at a higher rate than Ukraine, Kyiv’s “are more effective”.

– Russia taking Ukrainian children –

Zelensky has declined to name the settlements recaptured by Kyiv forces, but the US Institute for the Study of War, which follows in detail the fighting, said the Ukraine counterattack was near Balakliya and probably drove Russian forces back to the north side of the Siverskyi Donets and Serednya Balakliika rivers.

It appeared Ukraine forces also recaptured Verbivka and that Russian forces may have destroyed bridges to prevent Ukrainian fighters from pursuing them, ISW said.

“Russia’s deployment of forces from Kharkiv and eastern Ukraine to Ukraine’s south is likely enabling Ukrainian counterattacks of opportunity,” it said.

In the territories occupied by Russian forces, the United Nations said there were “credible accusations” that Ukrainian children were being forcibly taken to Russia.

Some Ukrainians judged as close to the Ukraine government or military have also been tortured and forcibly removed and sent to Russian penal colonies and other detention centres, Ilze Brands Kehris, the assistant UN secretary general for human rights, told the Security Council.

But Russian UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya called the allegations unfounded and said what was labelled “filtration” was simply registering Ukrainians willingly fleeing the war to Russia.

Donald Trump’s former advisor Steve Bannon is due to appear in court Thursday to be charged with fraud in a case of alleged misappropriation of funds for the construction of a wall between the United States and Mexico, US media reported. 

Bannon, 68, a popular ideologue who was closely involved in Trump’s rise to the American presidency, was en route Wednesday night to New York to surrender to the office of Manhattan’s prosecutor and to face the charges, his lawyer Robert Costello told CNBC television.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s office did not respond to AFP’s request for comment. 

Details about the exact nature of the charges were not public, as the indictment is sealed, but the Washington Post, CNBC and CNN reported that they relate to the same case that saw Bannon indicted in 2020 for financial fraud. 

The former White House advisor was arrested in August 2020 in that case, where he was accused alongside three others of fraud and embezzling a part of $25 million of donor funds set aside to build a wall between the US and Mexico.

The construction of the wall was a key campaign promise by Trump in his run to the presidency in 2016. 

Bannon was never tried for those charges, after then president Trump pardoned him in January last year, a day before he left the White House. 

In a statement, Bannon denounced “bogus lawsuits” against him 60 days before the November 8 midterm legislative elections.

He blasted “an armed partisan politicization of the criminal justice system.” 

The criminal indictment comes six weeks after Bannon was convicted in a federal court in Washington of obstructing the investigative powers of Congress. 

He had refused to cooperate with the House committee investigating the January 6, 2021 assault on Capitol Hill. 

Even after leaving the White House in August 2017, Bannon had remained close to Trump, speaking with him the day before the Capitol riot. 

A man killed at least four people and wounded three others in an hours-long shooting rampage across Memphis on Wednesday, before a high-speed chase that ended with his arrest, police in the US city said.

Officers identified the suspect as Ezekiel Kelly, 19, and said he was apprehended with two weapons in his vehicle at approximately 9:00 pm local time (01:00 GMT on Thursday).

“(Kelly) was taken into custody without incident by the Memphis police department and the Shelby County sheriff’s office,” said Memphis police chief Cerelyn Davis at a news conference.

Kelly is alleged to have killed his first victim just after midnight on Wednesday, and gone on a shooting spree across the Tennessee city in the afternoon and early evening, Davis said.

There were at least eight different crime scenes, police said, including carjackings and a shooting at a local store, and Kelly had live-streamed parts of his spree.

“Ezekiel Kelly was on Facebook Live when he opened fire inside the store,” said Davis.

Authorities issued a “shelter in place” order while the shootings were ongoing, effectively locking down parts of the city. 

The United States regularly sees mass shootings and other gun violence, but Congress has been reluctant to pass strict gun control legislation as the issue remains politically divisive.

At least 490 people have been killed in mass shootings and mass murders in the US in 2022 so far, according to the Gun Violence Archive, with 14,050 people dying in gun-related incidents over the same period, excluding suicides.

Memphis has seen a string of high-profile killings in recent months, including the murder of a pastor during a carjacking and the abduction and murder last week of a woman who was on a pre-dawn run.

“I am angry. I am angry for (the victims) and I’m angry for our citizens who had to shelter in place for their own safety until this suspect was caught,” said Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland following Wednesday’s shootings. 

“This is no way for us to live, and it is not acceptable.”

Survivors of a karaoke bar blaze in Vietnam spoke Thursday of their terror as they tried to escape an inferno which killed over 30 people and has raised questions over fire safety standards in the Southeast Asian nation.

The fire in a dense residential neighbourhood of Thuan An city, north of commercial hub Ho Chi Minh City, spread rapidly through the three-storey building, engulfing the second floor and trapping customers and staff as dense smoke filled the staircase.

Thirty two people were killed and 17 were injured, police said, with many suffering broken bones after the flames forced them to jump from the roof.

Due to the intensity of the flames, firefighters struggled to enter the building and were forced to knock down part of a wall to get inside. Eight people were found dead in the bar’s toilet.

Do Thanh Tu, who worked at the An Phu karaoke parlour, told state media that he was convinced he would die in the inferno.

“When the fire broke out, I tried to run down to the first floor, but I saw too much fire there, so I ran to the rooftop to find shelter,” he told the VNexpress news site as he lay in hospital in Thuan An.

“I saw people up there, many of them were screaming. We thought we would die. Many people jumped. 

“Around half an hour later, rescuers came for us. There was so much smoke I could not breathe.”

Sixty people were inside the 30-room bar when the fire erupted on Tuesday evening. Many employees were sleeping on the highest floor at the time, waiting for their next shift, and saw smoke creeping up the stairs.

Ngan, 20, told VNexpress it stung her nose and eyes, trapping her and her colleagues inside the room. Eventually forced onto the roof, they tried to poke their heads through metal bars and wave their hands, hoping someone would see them.

– Safety worries –

The initial cause was said to be an electrical short circuit, according to authorities in Binh Duong province.

The bar’s fire safety standards had been checked three times — in 2019, 2021 and this year — and had met all the regulation’s requirements, authorities added.

But it comes after several deadly fires in recent years, including two at Karaoke bars in Hanoi, prompting Vietnam’s prime minister to order an investigation as well as an inspection of all high-risk venues.

Police partly blamed drunken singers for the tragedy during a press conference. 

“They were drunk. So when the staff at the karaoke bar informed them about the fire… people in some karaoke rooms didn’t listen,” provincial police chief Trinh Ngoc Quyen said.

“There was one room in which a customer pulled an employee into the room and closed the door.”

Outside the hospital’s morgue, family members of the victims — some clutching flowers and pictures of their loved ones — queued up to identify their relatives.

Tran Thi Bich Van, 32, lost her husband, brother and brother-in-law in the blaze.

She told AFP that her brother had been visiting them from his home on the southern island of Phu Quoc and all three men had left for the karaoke bar after dinner.

“At around 10.40 pm the police called me, and at that moment I knew they had been in the fire,” she said.

“His body is badly disfigured,” she said of her husband, through tears. “But his face remains bright.”

Rain, flash floods and mudslides threatened the search for dozens of people still missing on Thursday, days after a strong earthquake rocked mountainous southwest China, killing at least 82.

The magnitude 6.6 quake hit about 43 kilometres (26 miles) southeast of the city of Kangding in Sichuan province at a depth of 10 kilometres on Monday, according to the US Geological Survey, forcing thousands to be resettled into temporary camps.

State broadcaster CCTV said that 46 people died in Ganzi prefecture near the epicentre, while 36 deaths were reported in neighbouring Ya’an city. 

More than 270 others were injured while the number of missing remained at 35, CCTV reported without giving more details about the situations of those unaccounted for.

A yellow alert issued by the national weather service — warning of a “risk of geological disaster” — was in force until Thursday night, and moderate rain was forecast to continue to Friday with heavy showers in some areas.

“Since the post-earthquake geological conditions are inherently fragile, and the impact of additional rainfall may lead to landslides and mudslides, the local area needs to beware of secondary disasters,” China’s meteorological administration said.

The People’s Liberation Army, paramilitary police, and fire rescue services dispatched more than 10,000 workers to the area, who continued search operations and landslide clean-up efforts in the remote countryside.

– Mountain torrents –

Rescuers braved flash floods and landslides caused by aftershocks to relocate villagers from destroyed homes, often having to haul them through mountainous terrain on ropes and stretchers.

CCTV images showed soldiers in military fatigues and orange life jackets using a zip-line to ferry people across river rapids.

“We also waded through the water to get to Xingfu village. The mountain torrents contain rocks… the stones you can’t see in the water pose the greatest threat to us,” a rescue team member named Tan Ke told CCTV.

“We quickly used ropes to build a human ladder… when we first started wading, the water reached our knees and thighs. By the time we got to a safe place, the flash flood had reached waist level.” 

Over 22,000 people have so far been moved into 124 temporary sites across Ganzi and Ya’an, the state-owned People’s Daily newspaper reported. 

The paper said over 21,000 students and staff at a school in Shimian county, where Ya’an is located, were safely evacuated within one minute of the quake. 

Nearly 1,800 schools in the area had reopened by Wednesday, it added. 

Workers raced to fix hundreds of kilometres of power and optical cables, with communications in affected areas “basically restored” as of Thursday, the China Youth Daily reported. 

Local authorities have received over 100 million yuan ($14 million) in disaster relief donations so far, the report said, and the Sichuan government issued an emergency notice requiring local authorities to dish out hardship allowances for affected people.

The quake also rocked buildings in the provincial capital of Chengdu — where millions are confined to their homes under a strict Covid-19 lockdown — and in the nearby megacity of Chongqing, residents told AFP.

The 400 residents of Basti Ahmad Din, a tiny Pakistani village left surrounded by floodwater after torrential monsoon rains, are facing starvation and disease.

But they have refused pleas to evacuate.

Leaving for a relief camp would mean the women of the village mingling with men outside their families, residents told AFP, and that would violate their “honour”.

The women of Basti Ahmad Din do not get a say.

“It is up to the village elders to decide,” said Shireen Bibi, 17, when asked if she would prefer to go to the safety of a camp on dry land.

Catastrophic monsoon rains blamed on climate change have left vast swathes of Pakistan under water this summer, with villagers such as those in Basti Ahmad Din grappling with the destruction of their homes and livelihoods.

More than half of the 90 homes in Basti Ahmad Din, located in the Rojhan area of Punjab province, have been destroyed.

The cotton crops that surrounded the village when the rains started in June are now rotting in flooded fields, and the dirt road that once connected to the nearest city is under three metres (10 feet) of water.

Rickety wooden rowboats are the only way for villagers to head out to purchase food and supplies.

They are also expensive, with their operators charging fares far higher than normal.

Basti Ahmad Din’s families have worryingly low amounts of food left, and they have decided to pool and ration whatever wheat and grain they managed to salvage after the rains.

Numerous volunteers who come to the village to drop off aid packages have pleaded with the residents to leave for safety, to no avail.

– ‘Would rather starve’ –

“We are Baloch. Baloch don’t allow their women to go out,” said Basti Ahmad Din resident Muhammad Amir, referring to the dominant ethnic group in the village.

“The Baloch would rather starve and make do than let their families go out.”

In many parts of conservative, deeply patriarchal Pakistan, women live under a strict system of so-called honour.

It severely limits their freedom of movement and how they interact — if at all — with men outside their families.

Women can even be killed for bringing “shame” by interacting with men or marrying someone they, rather than their families, choose. 

And in a disaster situation such as the floods in Pakistan, this code can completely cut off women and girls from basic needs such as food and medical care.

Instead of taking their families there, the men of Basti Ahmad Din make the expensive boat trip to the nearest relief camp for aid and supplies once a week.

The village elders — all men — say it is only acceptable for women to leave in “emergency” situations such as ill health.

Natural disasters do not count, and one elder named Mureed Hussain said they did not evacuate during the last catastrophic floods in 2010.

“We didn’t leave our village then,” he told AFP.

“We don’t allow our women to go out. They can’t stay in those camps. It’s a matter of honour.”