- New York Jets fire head coach Saleh: team
- Australia crush New Zealand in Women's T20 World Cup
- US states accuse TikTok of harming young users
- 'Evacuate now, now, now': Florida braces for next hurricane
- US Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to 'ghost guns' regulation
- Sparks fly as Orban berates EU 'elites' in parliament trip
- US finalizes rule to remove lead pipes within a decade
- Solanke hungry for second England cap after seven-year wait
- Gilded canopy restored at Vatican basilica
- Zverev scrapes through, Djokovic cruises to Shanghai Masters last 16
- Trump secretly sent Covid tests to Putin: Bob Woodward book
- Gauff answers critics: 'It's hard to win all the time'
- Neural networks, machine learning? Nobel-winning AI science explained
- China says raised 'serious concerns' with US over trade curbs
- Boeing delivers 27 MAX jets in September despite strike
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of other sex crimes
- Italy seek Nations League consistency as Germany continue rebuild
- From boom to budgeting as reality bites for Saudi football
- Stock markets diverge as Hong Kong sinks, oil prices fall
- US trade gap narrowest in five months as imports slip
- Stay and 'you are going to die': Florida braces for next hurricane
- England 96-1 after Salman's century lifts Pakistan to 556
- Hollywood star Idris Elba champions African cinema in Ghana
- Djokovic rolls Cobolli to make Shanghai Masters last 16
- Milan's Hernandez receives two-game suspension after referee rant
- Geoffrey Hinton, soft-spoken godfather of AI
- Ex-Barcelona and Spain great Iniesta retires aged 40
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for 'foundational' AI breakthroughs
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free in 2025 after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China slaps provisional tariffs on EU brandy imports
- Ex-skipper Skelton eyes Wallabies November return
- Spanish great Iniesta leaves indelible legacy after retirement
- Indian Kashmir elects first regional government in a decade
- Hong Kong stocks crash, oil prices retreat on fading China boost
- Man City accuse Premier League of 'misleading' claims after legal case
- Duo wins Physics Nobel for key breakthroughs in AI
- Agha defies England as Pakistan post 515-8 in first Test
- September second-warmest on record: EU climate monitor
- Pastor wanted by US for sex trafficking to run for Philippine senate
- Mozambican writer Mia Couto dreams future leaders set an 'example'
- German 'Maddie' suspect could be free soon after cleared of separate sex crimes
- China says to take anti-dumping measures against EU brandy imports
- German suspect in 'Maddie' case cleared in separate sex crimes trial
- Israel expands offensive against Hezbollah in south Lebanon
- China stocks rally fizzles on stimulus worries amid Asia retreat
- Bangladesh's Yunus says no elections before reforms
- England strike twice as Pakistan reach 397-6 at lunch in first Test
- China stocks rally peters out on stimulus worries amid Asia retreat
- Taiwan's Foxconn says building world's largest 'superchip' plant
- Kenya's deputy president faces impeachment vote
RIO | -4.64% | 66.535 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.36% | 24.66 | $ | |
NGG | 0.62% | 65.89 | $ | |
RBGPF | -0.46% | 60.52 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.29% | 6.97 | $ | |
SCS | -0.38% | 12.901 | $ | |
CMSD | 0.24% | 24.849 | $ | |
BTI | -0.04% | 35.185 | $ | |
BCC | -0.58% | 140.46 | $ | |
BCE | -0.52% | 33.355 | $ | |
GSK | -1.46% | 38.075 | $ | |
RELX | 1.11% | 46.555 | $ | |
VOD | -0.47% | 9.645 | $ | |
JRI | 0% | 13.18 | $ | |
AZN | -0.13% | 76.77 | $ | |
BP | -3.53% | 32.01 | $ |
Outcry at air strike on Ukraine children's hospital
An apparent Russian air strike destroyed a children's hospital in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol on Wednesday, triggering renewed global outrage two weeks into Moscow's invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbour.
The strike came as Mariupol's mayor said more than 1,200 civilians had died in the nine-day Russian siege of the southern port of almost half a million, with people left cowering without power or water under a barrage of shelling.
Condemning the hospital attack as an "war crime," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky shared video footage showing massive destruction at the complex, saying a "direct strike by Russian troops" had left children under the wreckage.
A local official said the strike on the recently refurbished maternity hospital, which included a paediatric unit, wounded at least 17 staff, though no deaths were reported.
On the Russian side, the foreign ministry -- while it did not deny the attack -- accused Ukrainian "nationalist battalions" of using the hospital to set up firing positions after moving out staff and patients.
But international condemnation was swift, with the White House slamming the "barbaric" use of force against civilians, while British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the attack "depraved".
A UN spokesman said no health facility "should ever be a target".
The attack came as women were in labour inside, the regional military administration in Donetsk told AFP.
Videos posted by the regional chief and city authorities showed a woman being evacuated on a stretcher, a huge crater in the hospital yard, branches snapped from trees and burning cars, and cladding ripped from the building's facade.
- Escape routes -
The strike in Mariupol took place 14 days after Russian forces entered Ukraine in defiance of the international community -- and on the eve of the highest-level talks to date between the two nations.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov landed in Turkey for the face-to-face talks set for Thursday with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba -- who warned in a Facebook video his expectations were "limited".
So far, the parties have been engaged in lower level talks in Belarus, involving top Ukrainian officials but no Russian ministers and largely devoted to humanitarian issues.
On that front, the past days have brought some relief to terrified civilians with the opening of evacuation corridors out of bombarded cities, and Russia and Ukraine agreeing Wednesday to open several more.
For the first time the safe routes included Irpin, Bucha and Gostomel, a cluster of towns on the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv that have been largely occupied by Russian forces.
A corridor was also agreed for besieged Mariupol, where several previous evacuations have failed.
- Closing in on Kyiv -
While Moscow vowed to respect a 12-hour truce to allow civilians to flee via those corridors, its forces have made rapid advances towards the capital, approaching Brovary, a large eastern suburb, AFP journalists saw.
Fighting has intensified in the area, with Ukrainian forces trying to repel the Russian tanks, local residents and volunteers of the Ukrainian forces told AFP.
"They shoot to scare people and force them to stay at home, steal what they can to get supplies and settle among the inhabitants, so that the Ukrainian forces do not bomb them," said Volodymyr, a 41-year-old resident of Velyka Dymerka, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from Brovary.
Russia's war has sent around 2.2 million refugees across Ukraine's borders in what the United Nations has called Europe's fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II, and sparked fears of wider conflict pulling in the NATO alliance.
Fears of a potential nuclear accident also spiked Wednesday for the second time in a week -- after Russia attacked and seized a giant power station at Zaporizhzhia -- as Ukraine said power had been cut to the Chernobyl nuclear plant.
But the UN's atomic watchdog said that while the development violated a "key safety pillar", it saw "no critical impact on safety" at Chernobyl, site of the world's worst nuclear disaster in 1986.
- Missile defense, but no jets -
Reflecting fear that a Russian missile could -- deliberately or not -- cross the border from Ukraine into Poland, the United States said Wednesday it was sending two new anti-aircraft batteries to the NATO member state.
But it also definitively rejected a Polish offer to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine via a US air base in Germany, saying the "high risk" move could have been interpreted as an escalation.
Zelensky has appealed repeatedly -- and did so again Wednesday -- for Western powers to find a way to provide it with Poland's Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, which Ukrainian pilots already know how to fly.
But while the United States and European allies have supplied an arsenal of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles to Kyiv, both have drawn the line at jets, for fear of being considered co-belligerents by Russia.
"We do not support the transfer of additional fighter aircraft to the Ukrainian Air Force at this time, and therefore have no desire to see them in our custody, either," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters, firmly shutting down Poland's proposed scheme.
In the same logic, Western governments have baulked at Zelensky's increasingly desperate appeal for a no-fly zone to be declared over Ukraine, fearing it would trigger a conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.
Nevertheless, underscoring Western support, Britain said it was preparing to send more portable missile systems to help Ukraine, in addition to more than 3,000 anti-tank weapons sent so far.
And Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised an additional $50 million worth of military equipment.
- Call for G7 oil ban -
In tandem with military assistance to Kiev, Western allies have sought to choke the Russian war effort with unprecedented sanctions -- including a US ban announced Tuesday on the oil imports that help bankroll the conflict.
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss Wednesday urged the entire G7 to ban Russian oil imports, saying the world's top economies should "go further and faster" in punishing Moscow for invading Ukraine.
But political leaders are also keenly aware of the lasting impact of the energy standoff over Ukraine, with French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire warning the current spike in energy prices will produce effects comparable to the 1973 oil shock.
The European Union agreed in the meantime to add more Russian oligarchs to a sanctions blacklist, and to cut three Belarusian banks from the global SWIFT payments system over Minsk's support for the Kremlin's attack.
The Kremlin, scrambling to limit the economic fallout, accused the United States of having "declared economic war on Russia".
burs-ec/sst
J.Oliveira--AMWN