What's the cost of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure amid Russia's invasion?


What's the cost of damage to Ukraine's infrastructure amid Russia's invasion?

MORGAN WINSOR
Mon, March 28, 2022

The cost of direct damage to Ukraine's infrastructure amid Russia's ongoing invasion has reached almost an estimated $63 billion, according to an analysis by the Kyiv School of Economics.

Shocking images and videos have emerged in recent weeks showing just some of the devastation across Ukraine since Russian forces attacked on Feb. 24. Where businesses, homes, hospitals, schools and other infrastructure once stood, there are now massive piles of unrecognizable rubble and crumbling shells of concrete.

PHOTO: A child walks in front of a damaged school in Zhytomyr, northern Ukraine, on March 23, 2022, amid Russia's invasion. (Fadel Senna/AFP via Getty Images)

The KSE Institute, an analytical unit of the Kyiv School of Economics in Ukraine's capital, has been collecting and analyzing data from the "Russia Will Pay" project, launched in collaboration with the Ukrainian president's office and the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy.


Through the resource, Ukrainian citizens, government officials and local authorities can confidentially submit reports on the loss of or damage to physical infrastructure across the country as a result of the war, including roads, residential buildings, businesses and other facilities. Analysts at the KSE Institute then assess those reported damages and estimate the financial value.

PHOTO: A man recovers items from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 25, 2022. (Felipe Dana/AP)

"It is aimed at collecting information about all the facilities destroyed as a result of the war that Russia waged against Ukraine," the KSE Institute said in a recent statement about the "Russia Will Pay" resource. "The Ukrainian government will use this data as evidence in international courts for Russia to compensate for the intended damages."

PHOTO: Local residents sit on a bench near a destroyed apartment building in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine on March 25, 2022. (Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters)

The latest analysis shows that, as of March 24, at least 4,431 residential buildings, 92 factories and warehouses, 378 institutions of secondary and higher education, 138 health care institutions, 12 airports, seven thermal power plants and hydroelectric power plants have been damaged, destroyed or seized in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24 -- totaling an estimated $62,889,000. Compared to the previous estimate published on March 17, net growth amounted to $3.5 billion, according to the KSE Institute.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's overall economic losses due to the war -- taking into account both direct losses calculated from the project as well as indirect losses, like GDP decline -- range from $543 billion to $600 billion, according to an estimate by the KSE Institute and the Ukrainian Ministry of Economy.

PHOTO: A heavily damaged apartment building is pictured at a front line discrict of Kharkiv, Ukraine, on March 27, 2022, amid the Russian invasion. (Aris Messinis/AFP via Getty Images)

Before updating its calculations, the KSE Institute said it received "detailed data" from the Ukrainian Ministry of Infrastructure on the destruction of its facilities, which allowed analysts to clarify and, in some cases, reduce the assessment of losses.

The KSE Institute said it has improved the methodology of assessing losses from the destruction of residential real estate "based on the World Bank’s experience in analyzing losses in Syria and Iraq, as well as the recommendations of the leading Ukrainian investment company Dragon Capital."

"These calculations are based on the analysis of several thousands of public notifications from Ukrainian citizens, the government, local authorities about losses and damages throughout the country, as well as indirect assessment methods such as calculating the estimated area of the war-damaged property in the most affected cities," the KSE Institute said. "These estimates are not exhaustive: information on numerous damages and destruction may be missing due to the inability of citizens, local and state authorities to promptly record the damage in each city and town."

Disinformation Endangering Red Cross Work In Ukraine: ICRC

By Nina LARSON
03/29/22 

A massive disinformation campaign targeting the Red Cross as it provides aid in the Ukraine conflict is putting its staff at risk, the organisation said Tuesday.

The International Committee of the Red Cross also condemned "abhorrent and unacceptable" levels of violence being inflicted on civilians.

The ICRC said it had faced a barrage of accusations over its efforts to try to facilitate evacuations from embattled cities in Ukraine, and over its communications with both sides in the conflict.

"We are seeing deliberate, targeted attacks using false narratives, and disseminating this information to discredit the ICRC," spokesman Ewan Watson told journalists in Geneva.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, there had been "a huge flow of misinformation and disinformation that we see as deliberate, targeted and orchestrated across social media channels... and occasionally appearing in the mainstream media.

"This has the potential to cause real harm for our teams... on the ground and for the people we serve."

One accusation circulating on social media was that the Geneva-based body helped organise forced evacuations of Ukrainians from the besieged city of Mariupol to Russia.

Watson insisted that the ICRC "would never support any operation that would go against people's will and our principles".

Another claim was that the organisation was setting up an office in Rostov, southern Russia, to "filter Ukrainians", a charge Watson described as "absolutely false".

The ICRC acknowledged it was discussing opening an office in Rostov, but stressed that this was part of a "huge regional scale-up to deal with a massive humanitarian crisis".

Watson insisted that the neutral organisation was merely seeking to fulfil its mandate to support and help victims of conflict wherever they are.

The ICRC condemned 'abhorrent and unacceptable' levels of violence being inflicted on civilians Photo: AFP / Sergey BOBOK

"It is not doing any of the parties' bidding: it is fulfilling our role as the International Committee of the Red Cross to come to the assistance of victims," he said.

Watson stressed that "our neutrality and our impartial humanitarian action must be respected."

"Neutrality and impartiality are not abstract concepts or lofty principles," he argued.

ICRC's neutrality is what allows it "to reach, help and, in many cases, save the lives of civilians".

As the caretaker of the Geneva Conventions, the ICRC has been striving to make both sides aware of their obligations under international humanitarian law, he said. That includes the legal obligation to protect civilians and limit military strikes in civilian areas.

The organisation said it had made detailed proposals to ensure safe passage and evacuations from Mariupol, where an estimated 160,000 people are remain trapped with little food, water or medicine.

"The humanitarian crisis is deepening in Ukraine," Watson said.

"The level of death, disruption and suffering that we are witnessing being inflicted on civilians is abhorrent and unacceptable.

"Time is running out for civilians in Mariupol and in other frontline areas who have now gone for weeks with no humanitarian assistance."

Parties to the conflict are also obligated to inform the ICRC of any prisoners of war captured and to allow ICRC staff to visit them.

"We expect the parties to fulfil their obligations under the Geneva Conventions without further delay," said Watson.

FRANCE 24 in Ukraine: Russian bombardment turns frontline Kharkiv into ghost town

Ukrainian forces on Monday recaptured a small village on the outskirts of Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv, as Kyiv's forces mount counterattacks against a stalling Russian invasion. FRANCE 24's Catherine Norris Trent reports from Kharkiv, Ukraine.

 

 Amnesty International accuses Russia of war crimes in Ukraine

Amnesty International on Tuesday slammed "war crimes" in Ukraine, as the civilian toll continues to rise after Russia's invasion, likening the situation to the Syrian war.

Russian forces are abducting Ukrainians in occupied territories

Lara BULLENS

Ukrainian journalists, public officials, civil rights activists and even civilians who are vocal against the invasion of their country are being arbitrarily detained by Russian forces. The tactic is being used to instil fear in local communities, some say, with forced detentions lasting anywhere from a day to two weeks.

© Serhii Nuzhnenko, Reuters

It was an icy cold morning on March 23 when Russian forces knocked on Svetlana Zalizetskaya’s front door in Melitopol in southeast Ukraine. Hoping to find her inside, they came face to face with her elderly parents instead. “I wasn’t home at the time,” she told FRANCE 24. The three armed men searched the place, turning the house “upside down”, and took her 75-year-old father to an unknown location.

Zalizetskaya, the director of local newspaper Holovna Gazeta Melitopolya and news website RIA-Melitopol, had fled the city days earlier. “I was intimidated by Galina Danilchenko,” she said, referring to the pro-Russian acting mayor who replaced Ivan Fedorov, who was himself abducted on March 11 and eventually released in exchange for nine Russian conscripts.

“[Danilchenko] asked me to become a propagandist for Russia and to start reporting in support of the occupation. She tried to convince me by promising a great career in Moscow,” said Zalizetskaya, who refused the proposal and packed her things to leave the city for fear of reprisal. A few days later, she received a call and found that her father had been taken hostage.

“Their demand was clear: he would be returned if I gave myself in.” But Zalizetskaya turned down the Russian proposal once again, “so they demanded that I shut down RIA-Melitopol”.

On March 25, two days after her father’s abduction, Zalizetskaya posted on Facebook announcing the transfer of her news website to third parties “in exchange for evacuation” and "in territory controlled by Ukraine" who, according to her, "provide objective information". She is still sharing articles by RIA-Melitopol on her Facebook page and said that she did not personally consent to cooperation beyond the statement.

Her father was released later that day, relatively unscathed but deprived of the medicine he needed and badly shaken up by his abduction. Though Zalizetskaya was relieved, the anger she feels is palpable. “I regard such actions of the occupying forces as terrorism,” she said, adding that she is determined to continue working as a journalist to document the horrors Ukrainians face in Russian-occupied territories.

This wasn’t the first time a journalist or a relative had been detained by Russian forces in Ukraine. The UN’s monitoring mission on the ground, which is documenting abductions, found that 21 journalists and civil society activists have been arrested since Russia began its invasion on February 24. Family members are often kept in the dark on the whereabouts of their loved ones, without any idea of what is happening to them. Of the 21 captured, only nine have been “reportedly released”, according to the UN.

International nonprofit Reporters Without Borders also published a handful of alarming accounts regarding the detention, torture, intimidation and threats media workers in Ukraine are facing.

Consequences of speaking out

The UN says many perpetrators of abductions come from the Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions, home to self-proclaimed “republics” allied with the Russian Federation and pro-Russian armed groups. Cases have also been reported in parts of Kyiv, Kheron, Donetsk, Sumy and Chernihiv.

“It’s becoming increasingly dangerous for journalists and editors to stay in regions occupied by Russia,” Sergiy Tomilenko, president of Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists, told FRANCE 24. “They are isolated in these territories. They can’t leave.”

Local officials are also being targeted for detention. Abductions have also been alleged in northern cities including Nova Kakhovka, where the secretary of the city council has vanished, and in Bucha, where six local council members were detained and eventually released following a Russia raid, according to the BBC.

The UN found that 24 public officials and civil servants of local authorities had been detained in Russian-controlled regions. Thirteen have reportedly been released, but the location and status of the remaining 11 are unknown.

Political analyst Mattia Nelles, who is normally based in Kyiv but now lives in Germany, has been tracking abductions in the east and south of Ukraine. He said Russian forces will target “anyone who is actively speaking out against the occupation” and are especially quick to detain those calling for protests.

“I even heard of two cases in Kherson where people were randomly picked up at checkpoints after Russian forces searched their phones and found many pro-Ukrainian channels open on their Telegram [app],” he explained. “My friend who lives there says he never takes his phone with him when he goes outside now.”

‘You could be next’

Nelles, his Ukrainian wife and her parents managed to flee the country early on, though a large part of their family is still living in Svatove, a city in the Luhansk Oblast. On March 26, neighbours informed his uncle that Russian forces had come looking for him. “It was unclear why, but we assumed it was because he is an army veteran. He served as a medic in 2016 and 2018 for the Ukrainian army in Donbas.”

His uncle went into hiding, but Russian forces found him shortly after and detained him for interrogation. “It lasted three hours,” Nelles said. “And it turned out that they were looking for his son-in-law, who is an active army soldier and is also registered at my uncle’s house. Hence the mix-up.”

Nelles’ uncle was released and, despite being deeply distressed, was unharmed. Others, like the Ukrainian fixer for Radio France who was tortured for nine days, were not as lucky.

“There are varying degrees of severity when it comes to how [Russian occupiers] treat people,” Nelles explained. “I imagine that it’s a case-by-case situation. It depends on how much the person resists, how involved they are with the Ukrainian army, or how much of a problem they were for the occupying forces.”

It also depends on what Russian forces want to get out of their detainees. When speaking about the abduction of Zalizetskaya's father, Tomilenko explained that the case was a clear example of Russia trying to neutralise Ukrainian media by using a carrot-and-stick method. “First, they arrest local journalists and editors, [and] try to intimidate them into saying they support the occupation,” he said. If this fails, Russian forces “simply demand that they stop covering the news”.

The goal of the abductions is crystal clear. They are an effective means of instilling fear in local populations, making it easier for Russian forces to exert control. And for some, it seems to be working. Tomilenko hears of new abductions on a daily basis and has an increasing number of journalist colleagues afraid to leave their houses. “Two colleagues in Kherson haven’t gone outside in two weeks,” he said.

In an effort to clamp down, human rights organisations in Ukraine are putting together missing persons lists and campaigning to shed light on what is happening on the ground. Ukraine’s National Union of Journalists has also published guidelines for journalists and editors in occupied territories, urging them to refrain from posting anything on social media and to use pseudonyms if working as local correspondents for international or national media outlets.

But the sense of intimidation left behind by the abductions can be felt by even the most courageous souls. “The message being sent out is: ‘If you dare to speak out, you could be next’,” Nelles explained. “That is terrifying. Especially for those who hold any official position.”

Ukraine’s other fight: Growing food for itself and the world

By CARA ANNA and AYA BATRAWY

1 of 15

Maria Pavlovych weeps as she remembers her 25-year-old soldier son, Roman Pavlovych, who was killed near the besieged city of Mariupol, in his bedroom, in Hordynia village, western Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. The Pavlovych family knows a second front line in Russia's war runs through the farmland here in western Ukraine, far from the daily resistance against the invasion. It is an uphill battle for farmers to feed not only their country but the world.

 (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)

HORDYNIA, Ukraine (AP) — Planting season has arrived in Ukraine. Boot marks stamped in the frozen earth have thawed. But the Pavlovych family’s fields remain untouched in a lonely landscape of checkpoints and churches.

Over a week ago, the family learned their 25-year-old soldier son, Roman, had been killed near the besieged city of Mariupol. On Tuesday, the father, also named Roman, will leave for the war himself.

“The front line is full of our best people. And now they are dying,” said the mother, Maria. In tears, she sat in her son’s bedroom in their warm brick home, his medals and photos spread before her.

The Pavlovych family knows a second front line in Russia’s war runs through the farmland here in western Ukraine, far from the daily resistance against the invasion. It is an uphill battle for farmers to feed not only their country but the world.

Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, leaving millions across North Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia facing the potential loss of access to the affordable supplies they need for bread and noodles. The war has raised the specter of food shortages and political instability in countries reliant on Ukrainian wheat, including Indonesia, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon.

It is unclear how many farmers will be able to plant or tend to their harvests with the war raging, forcing those like Pavlovych to the front lines. And the challenges keep growing.

Infrastructure — from ports and roads to farm equipment — is snarled and damaged, meaning critical supplies like fuel are difficult to get and routes for export almost impossible to reach. Fertilizer producers are paralyzed by nearby fighting, and a prolonged winter may disrupt spring yields.

“How can we sow under the blows of Russian artillery? How can we sow when the enemy deliberately mines the fields, destroys fuel bases?” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a recent address. “We do not know what harvest we will have and whether we’ll be able to export.”

An airport not far from the Pavlovych home was bombed in the early days of the war, sending unexploded ordnance into nearby fields now planted with warning signs instead of corn.

The thudding sounds of efforts to safely dispose of the ordnance could be heard last week beside the younger Pavlovych’s flower-strewn grave.

There is no time to lose, even as families mourn. The northwestern Lviv region near the border with Poland, far from the heart of what is known as Ukraine’s breadbasket in the south, is being asked to plant all the available fields it can, said Ivan Kilgan, head of the regional agricultural association.

Still, the region won’t be able to reach its pre-war levels.

“We are expecting to produce more than 50 million tons of cereals. Previously, we produced more than 80 million tons. It’s logical. Less land, less harvest,” Kilgan said.

Standing in a frigid barn containing more than 1,000 tons of wheat and soy, Kilgan vowed to send tons of flour to feed Ukraine’s army. He’s planting 2,000 hectares (nearly 5,000 acres) this year, up from 1,200 hectares (around 3,000 acres).

And yet he’s short on fertilizer. For the extra production he plans, he needs more than double the 300 tons of fertilizer he has.

“If the world wants Ukrainian bread, it needs to help with this,” Kilgan said. In his office, he showed blueprints for more grain elevators and put them aside with frustration: “Now, these are just paper.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the world to avert “a hurricane of hunger” from the disruption to Ukrainian grains, which the World Food Program relies on for about half of its wheat supplies.

Alternative wheat supplies will be more expensive and hit poor households elsewhere in the world, said Megan Konar, an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign whose research focuses on the intersection of food, water and trade.

“Winter wheat is the biggest wheat crop in Ukraine and Russia, which was planted last fall and due to be harvested early this summer,” she said. “This crop would be impacted if people are not available to work in the fields to harvest.”

Corn, which is planted in the spring, also will be affected if fighting impedes farmers, she added.

That’s true of those whose fields have been mined or bombed in parts of the heavily hit southern and central key growing areas, said Tetyana Hetman, head of the agriculture department in the Lviv region.

“We have already been approached by farmers from other regions to find land plots that they can cultivate” in the Lviv region to try to ensure the country’s food security, she said.

Concerned about feeding its own people, Ukraine’s government has limited exports of oats, millet, buckwheat, sugar, salt, rye, cattle and meat. Under specific licensing, wheat, corn, chicken meat and eggs, and sunflower oil can be shipped.

Ukraine does have sufficient food reserves, deputy minister of agrarian policy and food Taras Vysotsky told local media.

He said Ukraine consumes 8 million tons of wheat per year and has about 6 million tons on hand. It also has a two-year supply of corn, a five-year supply of sunflower oil and enough sugar for 1½ years.

Many Ukrainians have more immediate worries than harvests, with their country at stake.

An estimated 500 residents have gone to war out of 14,500 in the largely agricultural villages in this part of the Lviv region, said Bogdan Yusviak, who leads the local territorial council.

In his village, Pavlovych was the first to die.

His parents don’t know how it happened. The first hint that something had gone terribly wrong was the arrival of their son’s belongings by mail. Thirty minutes later, someone called about his death, his mother said.

Roman loved farming, his parents said, the way he loved to take in stray animals. Even at the front, he would advise his parents on questions like whether to plant potatoes this year. He told his father, in training for battle, that he’d be more useful at home and in the fields.

Now, those fields lay empty. “We have no time,” his father said, his hands clasped before him.

Standing outside near the gate of their home, his mother looked up at the evergreen trees nearby.

“Those trees grew up with him,” Maria Pavlovych said of her son. Now, she said, she and his girlfriend go to the cemetery and take turns crying.

___

Aya Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Respect Your Cat Day might have origins in King Richard II's 1384 edict

Photo by laurenta_photography/Pixabay.com

March 28 (UPI) -- Respect Your Cat Day, celebrated annually on March 28, is a day of showing regard for one's feline companions, and the holiday might have had its origins in a 1384 edict from England's King Richard II.

The holiday -- not to be confused with Oct. 29's National Cat Day, Aug. 8's International Cat Day and July 10's National Kitten Day -- is a day for cat owners to revere their pets as they were once worshiped 4,000 years ago in ancient Egypt.

The origins of Respect Your Cat Day reportedly date back to March 28, 1384, when King Richard II of England issued an edict banning his subjects from eating cats.

Other holidays and observations for March 28 include National Hot Tub Day, National Triglycerides Day, National Black Forest Cake Day and Children's Picture Book Day.

Great Cat Massacre. ROBERT DARNTON, "THE GREAT CAT MASSACRE," HISTORY TODAY (AUGUST 1989). In the Paris of the 1730s a group of printing apprentices tortured and ritually killed all the cats they could find – including the pet of their master's wife. Why did this violent ritual cause them so much amusement?

Great Cat Massacre

https://www.misterdann.com › earlyargreatcatmassacre

The Great Cat Massacre | History Today

https://www.historytoday.com › archive › great-cat-mas...

Aug 8, 1984 — In Paris in the 1730s, a group of printing apprentices tortured and ritually killed all the cats they could find.

WORKERS Revolt: The Great Cat Massacre of Therue Saint ...

http://safransapeh.weebly.com › uploads › pdf_gr...

PDF

The Story and its Context: THE FUNNIEST THING that ever happened in the printing shop of Jacques. Vincent, according to a worker who.

PRIMATE

Endangered black lion tamarin born at Jersey Zoo

March 29 (UPI) -- An endangered, black lion tamarin named Grace was born at the Jersey Zoo in Jersey, which is fighting to keep the species from going extinct.

Grace arrived in December but needed to be hand-reared as she was too weak to hold onto her mother.

Grace was then taken care of by a team at the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust and will soon be re-integrated back into her family group.

The Jersey Zoo is the only location in the world where black lion tamarins can be found outside of the Atlantic Forest in Brazil. There is only roughly 1,000 black lion tamarins left remaining.

"Her mother is the only breeding female outside of Brazil, and now Grace too will play a very important part in the breeding program to help safeguard the future of her species," head of the mammal department Dominic Wormell told BBC.

Deer can transmit COVID-19 for five days after infection, study suggests

By HealthDay News

Researchers also found that the virus develops and replicates in the deer's respiratory tract, lymphoid tissues (including tonsils and several lymph nodes) and in the central nervous system. 

File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

White-tailed deer can shed and transmit the COVID-19 virus for up to five days after they're infected, according to a study that also identified where the virus develops and replicates in deer.

Five days is "a relatively short window of time in which the infected animals are shedding and are able to transmit the virus," said co-author Dr. Diego Diel, director of the Cornell University Virology Laboratory in Ithaca, N.Y.

For the study, Diel and his team analyzed data from 2021 surveys of five U.S. states. Their findings were recently published in the journal PLOS Pathogens.

The researchers also found that the virus develops and replicates in the deer's respiratory tract, lymphoid tissues (including tonsils and several lymph nodes) and in the central nervous system.

RELATED Spread of COVID-19 to animals raises concern for further mutations

"Virus replication in the upper respiratory tract -- especially the nasal turbinates [nose structures] -- is comparable with what is observed in humans and in other animals that are susceptible to the infection, and I think that's probably one of the reasons why the virus transmits so efficiently," Diel said in a university news release.

As with humans, the virus spreads between deer through nasal and oral secretions and aerosols, he said.

The findings add to ongoing research investigating whether deer are reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 in nature. Last year, scientists identified a number of cases in which the virus was transmitted from people into deer in several states.

RELATED Study confirms multiple COVID-19 variants in deer in Ohio

And more recent research reported that the spread of a virus from animals to people and back again is not unique to COVID-19 and has occurred at least 100 times.

Pinpointing tissues in deer where the virus replicates during infection could be important for hunters, according to Diel's team.

There is no evidence yet that people have caught COVID-19 from deer, but some experts are concerned hunters could get the virus from infected deer.

"Given the broad practice of deer hunting in the U.S., knowing the sites of virus replication is important to minimize the risks of exposure and transmission from these wild animals that could potentially transmit the virus back to humans," Diel said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on animals and COVID-19.

Copyright © 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Rare birth of Sumatran rhino brings hope for endangered species

The rhino calf has yet to be named.

A Sumatran rhino has successfully given birth in an Indonesian sanctuary, environment officials said, in a boost for conservation efforts targeting the critically endangered animal.

The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates fewer than 80 Sumatran rhinos remain in the world, mainly on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and Borneo.

A rhino named Rosa gave birth to a female calf on Thursday in Way Kambas National Park in Sumatra, after suffering eight miscarriages since 2005, when she was brought in from the wild for a breeding programme.

"The birth of this Sumatran rhino is such happy news amid the government's and partners' efforts to increase the population," Wiratno, a senior official at Indonesia's environment ministry, said in a statement Monday.

Like many Indonesians he goes by only one name.

The calf, who has yet to be named, brings the number of Sumatran rhinos in the Way Kambas sanctuary to eight.

Successful births are rare. The calf's father, named Andatu, was the first Sumatran rhino born in a sanctuary in more than 120 years.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classifies the Sumatran rhino, the smallest of all rhino species, as critically endangered.

Multiple threats have brought them to the brink of extinction, including poaching and climate change.

Rhino horn is often illegally traded for traditional Chinese medicine.

Indonesia is also racing to save another critically endangered species—the Javan rhino.

Once numbering in the thousands across Southeast Asia, fewer than 80 are alive today, mainly in a national park on Indonesia's main island of Java.

Efforts to conserve the species have shown promising results with the birth of five calves in Ujung Kulon National Park last year.

Endangered Sumatran rhino gives birth in Indonesia

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© 2022 AFP

Many in Mideast see hypocrisy in Western embrace of Ukraine

By JOSEPH KRAUSS

1 of 6

A Palestinian protester throws a Molotov cocktail towards Israeli soldiers during clashes in the West Bank city of Hebron, April 3, 2013. On social media, the world has cheered Ukrainians as they stockpile Molotov cocktails and take up arms against an occupying army. When Palestinians and Iraqis do the same thing, they are branded terrorists and legitimate targets. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi, File)


JERUSALEM (AP) — Within days of the Russian invasion, Western countries invoked international law, imposed crippling sanctions, began welcoming refugees with open arms and cheered on Ukraine’s armed resistance.

The response has elicited outrage across the Middle East, where many see a glaring double standard in how the West responds to international conflicts.

“We have seen every means we were told could not be activated for over 70 years deployed in less than seven days,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki told a security forum in Turkey earlier this month.

“Amazing hypocrisy,” he added.

The U.S.-led war in Iraq, which began 19 years ago this month, was widely seen as an unlawful invasion of one state by another. But Iraqis who fought the Americans were branded terrorists, and refugees fleeing to the West were often turned away, treated as potential security threats.

The Biden administration said Wednesday the United States has assessed that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine and would work with others to prosecute offenders. But the U.S. is not a member of the International Criminal Court and staunchly opposes any international probe of its own conduct or of its ally, Israel.

When Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war on behalf of President Bashar Assad in 2015, helping his forces to pummel and starve entire cities into submission, there was international outrage but little action. Syrian refugees fleeing to Europe died on perilous sea voyages or were turned back as many branded them a threat to Western culture.

In Yemen, a grinding yearslong war between a Saudi-led coalition and Iran-backed Houthi rebels has left 13 million people at risk of starvation. But even searing accounts of infants starving to death have not brought sustained international attention.

Bruce Riedel, formerly of the CIA and National Security Council, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said it was “understandable” that many in the Middle East see a double standard by the West.

“The United States and the United Kingdom have supported Saudi Arabia’s seven-years-old war in Yemen, which created the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe in decades,” he said.

Israel’s occupation of lands the Palestinians want for a future state is well into its sixth decade, and millions of Palestinians live under military rule with no end in sight. The U.S., Israel and Germany have passed legislation aimed at suppressing the Palestinian-led boycott movement, while major firms like McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil and Apple have won praise by suspending business in Russia.

On social media, the world has cheered Ukrainians as they stockpile Molotov cocktails and take up arms against an occupying army. When Palestinians and Iraqis do the same thing, they are branded terrorists and legitimate targets.

Civil defense members prepare Molotov cocktails in a yard in Kyiv, Ukraine, Feb. 27, 2022. On social media, the world has cheered Ukrainians as they stockpile Molotov cocktails and take up arms against an occupying army. When Palestinians and Iraqis do the same thing, they are branded terrorists and legitimate targets. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

“We resisted the occupiers, even when the world was with the Americans, including the Ukrainians, who were part of their coalition,” said Sheikh Jabbar al-Rubai, 51, who fought in the 2003-2011 Iraqi insurgency against U.S. forces.

“Because the world was with the Americans, they didn’t give us this glory and call us a patriotic resistance,” instead emphasizing the insurgency’s religious character, he said. “This is of course a double standard, as if we are subhuman.”

Abdulameer Khalid, a 41-year-old Baghdad delivery driver, sees “no difference” between the Iraqi and Ukrainian resistance.

“If anything, the resistance to the Americans in Iraq was more justified, given that the Americans traveled thousands of kilometers to come to our country, while the Russians are going after a supposed threat next door to them,” he said.

To be sure, there are important differences between the war in Ukraine — a clear case of one U.N.-member state invading another — and the conflicts in the Middle East, which often involve civil war and Islamic extremism.

“By and large, Middle East conflicts are incredibly complicated. They are not morality plays,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Mideast adviser to Republican and Democratic administrations.

He said the Ukraine conflict is unique in its degree of moral clarity, with Russia widely seen as launching an aggressive, devastating war against its neighbor. The closest Mideast analogy might be Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, when Washington responded by assembling a military coalition including Arab states that drove out the Iraqi forces.

Still, Miller acknowledges that U.S. foreign policy “is filled with anomalies, inconsistencies, contradictions and yes, hypocrisy.”

The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan was a response to the 9/11 attacks, which Osama bin Laden planned while being sheltered by the Taliban there. The U.S. justified its war in Iraq with false claims about weapons of mass destruction, but the invasion also toppled a brutal dictator who had himself flouted international law and committed crimes against humanity.

A malnourished boy lies in a bed waiting to receive treatment at a feeding center at Al-Sabeen hospital in Sanaa, Yemen, Nov. 23, 2019. In Yemen, a grinding seven-year war between a Saudi-led coalition AGRESSORS and Iran-backed  YEMENI Houthi rebels has left 13 million people at risk of starvation. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed, File)

Still, the invasion is regarded by most Iraqis and other Arabs as an unprovoked disaster that set the stage for years of sectarian strife and bloodletting.

BULLSHIT FROM A WARMONGER
Elliott Abrams, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a White House adviser when the U.S. invaded Iraq, said there was a difference between Ukrainians battling Russian invaders and insurgents in Iraq who fought Americans.

“Iraqis who fought U.S. troops on behalf of Iran or ISIS were not freedom fighters,” he said, referring to the Islamic State group. ”Making these moral distinctions is not an act of hypocrisy.”

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict dates back more than a century — long before the 1967 war in which Israel seized east Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Most of the world considers those areas to be occupied Palestinian territory and Israel’s ongoing settlement construction to be a violation of international law. Israel portrays the conflict as a territorial dispute, accusing the Palestinians of refusing to accept its right to exist as a Jewish state.

“Only the severely context-challenged could compare Israel’s wars of defense to Russia’s invasion of its neighbor,” the Jerusalem Post said in a March 1 editorial on the topic.

Russia’s intervention in Syria was part of a complex civil war in which several factions — including the Islamic State group — committed atrocities. As IS seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, many feared extremists would slip into Europe amid waves of refugees.

Still, many in the Middle East saw harsh treatment of Arab and Muslim migrants as proof that Western nations still harbor cultural biases despite espousing universal rights and values.

Many feel their suffering is taken less seriously because of pervasive views that the Middle East has always been mired in violence — never mind the West’s role in creating and perpetuating many of its intractable conflicts.

“There’s this expectation, drawn from colonialism, that it’s more normal for us to be killed, to grieve our families, than it is for the West,” said Ines Abdel Razek, advocacy director for the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak in Washington, Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Bassem Mroue in Beirut and Noha ElHennawy in Cairo contributed

GERONTOCRACY

Taliban hard-liners turning back the clock in Afghanistan
By KATHY GANNON

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Afghan girls participate a lesson inside a classroom at Tajrobawai Girls High School, in Herat, Afghanistan, Nov. 25, 2021. Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark back to their harsh rule from the late 1990s. Girls have been banned from going to school beyond the sixth grade, women are turned back from boarding planes if they travel unaccompanied by a male relative. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)


ISLAMABAD (AP) — Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark to their harsh rule from the late 1990s.

Girls have been banned from going to school beyond the sixth grade, women are barred from boarding planes if they travel unaccompanied by a male relative. Men and women can only visit public parks on separate days and the use of mobile telephones in universities is prohibited.

It doesn’t stop there.

International media broadcasts — including the Pashto and Persian BBC services, which broadcast in the two languages of Afghanistan — are off the air as of the weekend. So are foreign drama series.

Since the Taliban seized control of the country in mid-August, during the last chaotic weeks of the U.S. and NATO pullout after 20 years of war, the international community has been concerned they would impose the same strict laws as when they previously ruled Afghanistan.

The latest assault on women’s rights came earlier this month, when the all-male and religiously driven Taliban government broke its promise to allow girls to return to school after the sixth grade. The move stunned much of the world — and many in Afghanistan — especially after the Taliban had given all “the necessary assurances” that this was not going to happen.

The United Nations has called the banning of international media broadcasts “another repressive step against the people of Afghanistan.” The website of the BBC Pashto service said it was “a worrying development at a time of uncertainty and turbulence.”

“More than 6 million Afghans consume the BBC’s independent and impartial journalism on TV every week and it is crucial they are not denied access to it in the future,” BBC World Services’ head of languages Tarik Kafala said in a statement Sunday.

On Monday, members of the Taliban vice and virtue ministry stood outside government ministries, ordering male employees without traditional turbans and beards — seen as a symbol of piety — to go home. One employee who was told to go home said he didn’t know if and when he would be able to return to work. He spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing for his safety.

According to a senior Taliban official and Afghans familiar with the Taliban’s leadership, the push to return to the past — which resulted in the edicts — emerged from a three-day meeting last week in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.

They say the edicts stem from the demands of the Taliban’s hard-line supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, who is apparently trying to steer the country back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban had banned women from education and public spaces, and outlawed music, television and many sports.

“The younger among the Taliban do not agree with some of these edicts but they are not comfortable contradicting the elders,” said Torek Farhadi, an analyst who served as adviser to previous Afghan governments. Farhadi, who has been in contact with Taliban officials since their return to power, did not elaborate.

The more pragmatic among the Taliban are resisting the edicts — or at least silently ignoring them, Farhadi said.

Since their takeover of the country, the Taliban have been trying to transition from insurgency and war to governing, with the hard-liners increasingly at odds with the pragmatists on how to run a country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and an economy in free fall.

The Taliban leadership today is different from the one-man rule of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive founder of the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s who reigned with a heavy hand. A divide is growing between some within the old guard, who uphold the harsh rule of the past and a younger generation of Taliban leaders who see a future of engagement with the international community.

The younger generation sees rights for both men and women, though still within their interpretation of Islamic law — but one that allows school for girls and women in the workforce.

“The younger Taliban need to speak up,” said Farhadi.

Still, Akhundzada has modelled himself on Mullah Omar, preferring to stay in remote Kandahar, far from the eyes of the public, rather than rule from the Afghan capital of Kabul. He also adheres to Pashtun tribal mores — traditions where women are hidden away and girls are married off at puberty.

Education Ministry spokesman Mawlvi Aziz Ahmad Rayan speaks during an interview in Kabul, Afghanistan, March 23, 2022. Taliban hard-liners are turning back the clock in Afghanistan with a flurry of repressive edicts over the past days that hark back to their harsh rule from the late 1990s. Girls have been banned from going to school beyond the sixth grade, women are turned back from boarding planes if they travel unaccompanied by a male relative. Men and women can only visit public parks on separate days. (AP Photo/Mohammed Shoaib Amin, File)

Akhunzada ran a madrassa, or a religious school, in Pakistan’s border regions before his 2016 rise as the new Taliban leader. Those with knowledge of Akhunzada say he is unconcerned about international outrage over the latest restrictive Taliban edicts and about the growing discontent and complaints from Afghans, who have become increasingly outspoken.

It was Akhunzada who reportedly vetoed the opening of schools to girls after the sixth grade as the Taliban had promised to do in late March, at the start of the new school year. On Saturday, dozens of girls demonstrated in Kabul, demanding the right to go to school.

Ethnic Pashtuns elsewhere have resisted Taliban adherence to tribal laws. In Pakistan, where ethnic Pashtuns also dominate the border regions, movements such as the Pashtun Rights Movement have emerged to challenge backward tribal traditions and disavow Taliban interpretations of Islamic law.

Manzoor Pashteen, the movement’s leader, has been an outspoken opponent and has accused the Taliban of hijacking ethnic Pashtun sentiments and misrepresenting their traditions — and misinterpreting them as religious edicts.

Akhunzada’s onslaught against progress comes at a time when the health of the Taliban-appointed prime minister, also a hard-liner, Hasan Akhund, is reported to be deteriorating. Akhund did not meet with China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week, when the top Chinese diplomat made a surprise one-day visit to Kabul.

Farhadi has hope the younger, more pragmatic Taliban leaders will find their voice and urged for an outreach to them by Islamic countries and scholars, as well as Afghan scholars and political figures.

“The Taliban movement needs a reform,” said Farhadi. “It is slow to come and it is frustrating for everyone involved. But we mustn’t give up.”

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Follow Kathy Gannon on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Kathygannon.