Washington (AFP) - The United States said Tuesday that Russia was not complying with New START, the last remaining arms control treaty between the world's two main nuclear powers, as tensions soar over the Ukraine war.
Responding to a request from Congress, the State Department faulted Russia for suspending inspections and canceling talks but did not accuse Moscow of expanding nuclear warheads beyond agreed limits.
"Russia is not complying with its obligation under the New START Treaty to facilitate inspection activities on its territory," a State Department spokesperson said, charging that Moscow's refusal "threatens the viability of US-Russian nuclear arms control."
"Russia has a clear path for returning to full compliance. All Russia needs to do is allow inspection activities on its territory, just as it did for years under the New START Treaty, and meet in a session of the Bilateral Consultative Commission," he said, referring to the formal talks set up under the treaty.
"There is nothing preventing Russian inspectors from traveling to the United States and conducting inspections."
Moscow announced in early August that it was suspending US inspections of its military sites under New START. It said it was responding to American obstruction of inspections by Russia, a charge denied by Washington.
Diplomacy between the two powers has ground to a bare minimum over the past year as the United States leads a drive to punish Russia economically for its war against Ukraine and arm Kyiv with billions of dollars in weapons.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, reviving Cold War era fears of an apocalyptic war.
Russia indefinitely postponed talks under New START that had been due to start on November 29 in Cairo, accusing the United States of "toxicity and animosity."
President Joe Biden shortly after taking office extended New START by five years until 2026, giving time to negotiate while preserving what the Democratic administration sees as an important existing treaty.
The previous administration of Donald Trump had ripped up previous arms control agreements and had been hesitant to preserve New START in its current form, saying that any nuclear treaty must also include China, whose arsenal is rapidly growing but still significantly below those of Russia and the United States.
The Biden administration indicated that it wanted to preserve New START. The State Department spokesperson said the treaty was meant "to make the world safer."
Republican lawmakers, who took control of the House of Representatives in January, had asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken to report by Tuesday whether Russia was in violation.
A group of Republicans active on defense policy responded that Biden had "naively" extended New START and said that Russia "cannot be trusted to abide by any international agreement."
"We urge President Biden to direct the Department of Defense to prepare for a future where Russia may deploy large numbers of warheads, well in excess of New START treaty limits," said a statement by Republicans including Representative Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
New START, signed by then president Barack Obama in 2010 when relations were warmer, restricted Russia and the United States to a maximum of 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each -- a reduction of nearly 30 percent from the previous limit set in 2002.
It also limits the number of launchers and heavy bombers to 800, still easily enough to destroy Earth.
MIAMI — A group of Haitian-American and Colombian suspects are en route to Miami from Haiti to face federal conspiracy charges in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. The four suspects are accused of helping coordinate a failed kidnapping of Haiti’s president to remove him from office upon his return from a state visit to Turkey in June 2021, and then of conspiring in a final plan to kill him at his home in the hillside suburbs of Port-au-Prince the following month. Three of the four suspects lived in South Florida: James Solages, who quit his job at a nursing home to ...
Women and girls have finally been allowed to take part in a torchlit procession on Tuesday at a festival in Shetland celebrating the Scottish islands' Viking past.
The committee in charge of the "Up Helly Aa" festival in Shetland's main town of Lerwick announced last year that it was time to lift a ban on women taking part in the traditional procession.
The event, which marks the end of the Christmas season, is popular among tourists.
It traditionally involves around 1,000 male participants known as guizers, who wear Viking dress and divide into squads to parade through the town.
The procession is led by the Guizer Jarl, or chief guizer, and culminates in the participants using their flaming torches to set ablaze a replica Viking longship.
The modern event, first held in 1881, is known for its festive parties that often involve traditional Shetland dancing and copious alcohol consumption.
Rural "Up Helly Aa" processions on Shetland, which lies in the middle of the North Sea some 400 miles (640 kilometers) from Edinburgh, started allowing women to take part in 2015.
But the town of Lerwick's committee initially stood firm against allowing female participants to get involved in celebrating the island's Norse heritage.
This year -- despite the lifting of the gender restrictions -- there are no women in the main Jarl squad which leads the procession. However, women are taking part in other historic costumed squads involved in the event.
Festival organizers said it was not necessarily a surprise that there were no female participants for the 2023 Jarl Squad, since it was formed back in 2021, before the lifting of gender restrictions was announced in June 2022.
"It is expected that females participating in the Jarl Squad will evolve in the coming years, but we'll see females participating in some of the other 46 squads from the 2023 festival," the "Up Helly Aa" committee said ahead of the event.
The torch-lit processions and longboat burning are an echo of pagan Norse rituals -- the Shetland and neighboring Orkney Islands were ruled by the Norse for about 500 years until they became part of Scotland in 1468.
© 2023 AFP
Hundreds of thousands of enraged workers across France walked off the job and hit the streets Tuesday to protest President Emmanuel Macron's unpopular plan to raise the nation's official retirement age from 62 to 64.
It marks the second time this month that French workers have mobilized against Macron's attack on the country's pension system. Nationwide strikes and marches on January 19 brought out between one million and two million people, and labor unions aimed to match or exceed those numbers on Tuesday, with roughly 250 demonstrations planned around the country.
Longtime leftist leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon predicted Tuesday morning that "a historic day" of protests would help defeat Macron's proposal once and for all, as massive crowds rallied in cities and towns outside Paris—prior to a major march that shut down the French capital on Tuesday afternoon.
“It's not often that we see such a mass mobilization," Mélenchon said from the southern city of Marseille. "It's a form of citizens' insurrection."
On the small western island of Ouessant, about 100 people gathered early in the day for a protest outside the office of Mayor Denis Palluel.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press, Palluel noted that the threat of having to work longer to qualify for a full pension dismayed mariners on the island who have grueling ocean-based jobs.
"Retiring at a reasonable age is important," he said, "because life expectancy isn't very long."
"Retiring at a reasonable age is important because life expectancy isn't very long."
Despite widespread opposition to pushing back France's retirement age—approximately three-fourths of the population is against such a move, according to recent polling—many lawmakers remain determined to fulfill Macron's election pledge to overhaul the nation's pension system.
On Monday, Macron described his effort to hike the retirement age as "essential." Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, for her part, asserted this past weekend that raising the retirement age to 64 by 2030 is "no longer negotiable."
"Strikers and protesters intend to prove otherwise," Agence France-Pressereported Tuesday. "Labor unions and left-wing legislators fighting in parliament against Macron's plans are counting on protesters to turn out massively to strengthen their efforts to kill the bill."
As they did earlier this month, strikes on Tuesday upended multiple aspects of daily life, including electricity production, transportation, and education.
"TotalEnegies says between 75% and 100% of workers at its refineries and fuel depots are on strike, while electricity supplier EDF said they're monitoring a drop in power to the national grid equivalent to three nuclear power plants," Euronews reported.
According to AP: "Rail operator SNCF reported major disruptions, with strikes knocking out most trains in the Paris region, in all other regions, and on France’s flagship high-speed network linking cities and major towns. The Paris Metro was also hard hit by station closures and cancellations."
France's Education Ministry, meanwhile, reported that around a quarter of the nation's teachers were on strike Tuesday, down from 70% during the first round of protests.
Macron's proposed pension reform, the text of which Borne presented to the National Assembly earlier this month, faces an uphill battle.
For one thing, the New Ecological and Social People's Union (NUPES)—a coalition of four left-wing parties recently formed by Mélenchon—won 131 seats in last June's parliamentary elections, helping to prevent the neoliberal alliance Ensemble from securing the absolute majority it needed to ram through Macron's unwanted austerity agenda.
According to AFP, even the president's own allies from his ruling alliance have expressed concerns about some aspects of the legislation.
"We can feel a certain nervousness from the majority as we begin our work," Mathilde Panot, head of the left-wing France Unbowed party in the National Assembly, told the news outleton Tuesday. "When we see this opposition growing, I understand why they are wavering."
However, journalist Marlon Ettinger, citing French Communist Party MP André Chassaigne, warned recently that "the government might try to pass the reform through a social security financing bill (known as PLFRSS), which would allow for a series of constitutional delays that would significantly limit the amount of time deputies can discuss the bill. It would also block the possibility for the opposition to present their own counterproposals."
In addition, "although Macron has no popular assent, nor a parliamentary majority for his reform, he does have constitutional tools he can use to push the package through," Ettinger explained in Jacobin. "One, known as 49.3 (after the article of the Constitution which grants the president this power), essentially lets him bypass the National Assembly. The constitution of the current Fifth Republic grants the president these authoritarian powers to hedge against any popular sentiment that might make its way into the lower house. The use of 49.3 would suspend the debate in the National Assembly, then send the bill directly to the Senate, which is controlled by Les Républicains."
Aware that such anti-democratic maneuvers are on the table, Mélenchon and other opponents of the assault on France's pension system have called on Macron to withdraw his proposal for good.
Forty-nine children died when their overloaded boat capsized in northwest Pakistan, police said Tuesday after divers spent three days dragging bodies from freezing waters.
The boys aged between seven and 14 were all students of a madrassa and had been taken for a day trip to the scenic Tanda Dam lake on Sunday.
"The water of the dam was freezing due to cold weather that impeded the rescue mission. But today the divers were able to dive deep to recover the remaining bodies," said Khateer Ahmad, a senior official with Rescue 1122.
The bodies of a teacher and one skipper were also pulled from the water, he added, bringing the death toll to 51.
Muhammad Umar, who sells tea at a picnic site overlooking the popular weekend tourist destination, said dozens of parents and relatives had gathered over the past few days.
"Every time a body was recovered from the scene, they would jump onto the diver to see if it was their son and every time we would hear them screaming in pain and anguish," he told AFP over the phone on Tuesday.
"I have not witnessed such scenes in my life, it's something that can't be explained in words."
Tanda Dam lake is about five kilometers (3 miles) away from the madrassa -- an Islamic school that offers free religious education -- in Kohat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Police spokesperson Fazal Naeem issued the new death toll on Tuesday after the end of the rescue mission. It was confirmed by the military's media wing.
"The boat was overloaded; its capacity was around 20 to 25 persons," Naeem told AFP.
He added that five people were rescued including four students and one teacher.
Pakistan's army shared images showing divers traversing the lake in rubber dinghies, entering the green waters to pull out the bodies of children.
"I got stuck under the boat," 11-year-old survivor Muhammad Mustafa told AFP from his hospital bed on Sunday.
"My shawl and sweater weighed me down, so I took them off."
"The water was extremely cold and my body went numb. I thought I was going to pass out when a man on an inflatable tube saved me."
Drownings are common in Pakistan, when aged and overloaded vessels lose their stability and pitch passengers into the water.
On the same day, at least 41 people were confirmed dead after their bus crashed into a ravine in southwestern Balochistan province.
In July last year, at least 18 women drowned after an overloaded boat carrying about 100 members of the same family capsized during a marriage procession between two villages.
© 2023 AFP
A Canadian province on Tuesday decriminalized the possession of small amounts of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and other hard drugs in a radical policy shift to address an opioid overdose crisis that has killed thousands.
Adults found in British Columbia with up to 2.5 grams of these drugs, rather than face jail or fines, will be provided with information on how to access addiction treatment programs.
Police will also not seize their drugs.
Sellers and traffickers of hard drugs, however, will continue to face criminal prosecution during the three-year pilot project.
"The situation has never been more urgent," Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett told a news conference on the eve of the new rules taking effect.
"The effects of this public health crisis have devastated communities across British Columbia and across Canada," she said. When the measure was announced last May, she'd suggested it could be expanded to other provinces.
British Columbia is the epicenter of a crisis that has seen more than 10,000 overdose deaths since it declared a public health emergency in 2016. That represents about six people dying each day from toxic drug poisoning in the province of five million people, topping Covid-19 deaths at the onset of the pandemic.
Nationwide the number of fatalities has surpassed 30,000.
Officials hope the change in policy will remove the stigma associated with drug use that keeps people from seeking help, and foster the notion that addiction is a health issue.
British Columbia's chief public health officer Bonnie Henry said stigma and shame around using drugs "drives people to hide their addictions."
"That means that many people are dying alone," she said.
Kathryn Botchford, whose husband Jason died of a drug overdose in 2019, said she had no idea he'd even been using drugs.
"When I discovered how he died, I thought there must be a mistake. Jason doesn't do drugs. We have three young kids and he knows the risks," she said. "But I was wrong. He died alone using an illegal substance."
Botchford said she initially kept his cause of death secret, even from their children. "His secret became my secret."
But eventually, she said, "I realized that... I was unconsciously creating shame."
Scott MacDonald, a doctor at a Vancouver clinic that was the first in North America to provide medical-grade heroin to patients, said under the new rules "people will be more inclined to seek vital substance use care and other health services they so often need."
Police no longer confiscating their drugs, he told AFP, will reduce their stress, and "will make people's lives easier."
Canada has spent more than Can$800 million (US$600 million) to try to stem the opioid crisis, including on addiction treatment, Naloxone supplies and opening 39 supervised drug consumption sites across Canada.
Bennett pointed to successes such as the more than 42,000 overdoses reversed at safe injection sites, and more than 209,000 individuals referred to health and social services in recent years.
But she acknowledged also "that access to treatment remains a gap" that is still being worked on.
The criminal code exemption granted to British Columbia for the pilot project makes the province only the second jurisdiction in North America to decriminalize hard drugs after the US state of Oregon did so in November 2020.
The state saw a dramatic drop in arrests that have freed up police and court resources, but Oregon's initiative has faced pushback over the relatively few people (less than one percent) taking up offers of addiction help.
"Their effort to nudge people (off drugs) completely failed," Stanford researcher Keith Humphreys told AFP.
He and others blamed a lack of access to addiction treatment services and a chaotic rollout of funding to support the initiative.
Isabelle Fortier of the Canadian group Moms Stop The Harm, whose daughter died of an overdose in 2019, said decriminalization is a good first step, but more are needed.
"It's not going to solve the crisis," she told AFP.
"But maybe it can help," she said, "by preventing people from going down a slippery slope and being further stigmatized because they have a criminal record."
© 2023 AFP
An Iranian court has handed jail sentences of over 10 years each to a young couple who danced in front of one of Tehran's main landmarks in a video seen as a symbol of defiance against the regime, activists said on Tuesday.
Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, both in their early 20s, had been arrested in early November after a video went viral of them dancing romantically in front of the Azadi Tower in Tehran.
Haghighi did not wear a headscarf in defiance of the Islamic republic's strict rules for women, while women are also not allowed to dance in public in Iran, let alone with a man.
A revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced them each to 10 years and six months in prison, as well as bans on using the Internet and leaving Iran, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.
The couple, who already had a following in Tehran as popular Instagram bloggers, were convicted of "encouraging corruption and public prostitution" as well as "gathering with the intention of disrupting national security", it added.
HRANA cited sources close to their families as saying they had been deprived of lawyers during the court proceedings while attempts to secure their release on bail have been rejected.
It said Haghighi is now in the notorious Qarchak prison for women outside Tehran, whose conditions are regularly condemned by activists.
Iranian authorities have clamped down severely on all forms of dissent since the death in September of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the headscarf rules, sparked protests that have turned into a movement against the regime.
At least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the United Nations, ranging from prominent celebrities, journalists and lawyers to ordinary people who took to the streets.
The couple's video had been hailed as a symbol of the freedoms demanded by the protest movement, with Ahmadi at one moment lifting his partner in the air as her long hair flowed behind.
One of the main icons of the Iranian capital, the gigantic and futuristic Azadi (Freedom) Tower is a place of huge sensitivity.
It opened under the rule of the last shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the early 1970s when it was known as the Shahyad (In Memory of the Shah) Tower.
It was renamed after the shah was ousted in 1979 with the creation of the Islamic republic. Its architect, a member of the Bahai faith which is not recognised in today's Iran, now lives in exile.
© 2023 AFP
Decked out in helmet, belt, gold-plated armor and sandals, Juan Pablo Huanacchini Mamani gazes out vacantly from the Ollantaytambo Inca ruins in Peru.
His Inca warrior costume sparkles in the sunlight, but the 48-year-old feels no joy.
Huanacchini has worked in the tourism industry at this gateway town to Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel that is the jewel of Peruvian tourism -- since he was a child.
But the Ollantaytambo site that normally welcomes 4,000 visitors a day is deserted.
Peru's vital tourism industry has been decimated by weeks of social unrest that has left 48 people dead in clashes between protesters and security forces since December 7.
Peru attracted 4.5 million tourists a year before the Covid-19 pandemic.
The sector was supposed to rebound in 2022 and 2023, but Peru's latest political crisis has left those working in tourism dismayed.
"Look, there's no one. It's empty," moaned Huanacchini.
Situated around 60 kilometers (40 miles) from Cusco -- the old Inca capital that acts as a hub for those visiting Machu Picchu -- Ollantaytambo has its own ruins of an Inca citadel that are worth visiting, if not as spectacular as those at Machu Picchu.
But protesters allow it to open only at weekends, when barely 100 tourists visit.
Roadblocks, airport closures and the suspension of the train service that serves Machu Picchu have left tourists wary of visiting the area for fear of getting stranded.
Peru's southern Andean regions that are home to large populations of poor Indigenous people have borne the brunt of the unrest.
Peru has been in crisis since then-president Pedro Castillo -- who has Indigenous roots -- attempted to dissolve congress and rule by decree.
He was subsequently impeached, arrested and charged with rebellion.
Protesters are demanding the resignation of his successor Dina Boluarte, immediate elections, a new constitution and the dissolution of the legislature.
But their stamina is having a knock-on effect.
"We're very sad. We live off tourism, if there's no tourism...." said Huanacchini.
"We live day to day. Sometimes I earn 100 soles (26 cents). How am I going to earn anything if there is no one? This is a terrible crisis."
According to the tourism ministry, the unrest is costing the country 25 million soles a day with hotel occupancy down 83 percent.
Cusco's regional tourism director Abel Alberto Matto Leiva says 75 percent of Cusco's one million population "works directly or indirectly in tourism. 9,000 guides, 5,000 (trekking) porters, 2,500 travel agents and a whole chain" comprising hotels, restaurants, taxis.
Some 20,000 people are unemployed but that figure is expected to grow six-fold in March.
In Cusco, many hotels and restaurants have closed to save costs.
"We are in free fall and we don't know when this will change," said Henry Yabar, vice-president of the hotel chamber in Cusco.
He shut his three-star, 15-room hotel.
"Right now there are about 250 people (tourists) in Cusco, in high season we can have 10,000."
"It has been a fatal blow," with 95 percent cancellations and up to 30 percent of the 1,200 hotels -- most of which are run locally -- going out of business.
"The government needs to throw us a lifeline," launch an emergency plan and suspend taxes and repayments of loans taken out during the pandemic, said Yabar, who said he expects things to pick up, for those that survive, in July.
In the tourist market close to the central square in Cusco, most stalls are closed.
Surrounded by hand-made hats, Filomena Quispe, 67, has spent 35 years selling handicrafts to tourists.
"I haven't sold a single sol. What can we do? Close our stall and go," she said.
"We haven't sold enough all month to eat."
Tearfully, Quispe said she is living off her meagre savings.
"No one is helping us at all. We artisans are completely forgotten."
Some 14,000 artisans have seen their income practically disappear, according to authorities.
But for tourists, there is one benefit.
"The visit has been fantastic. It's empty though, there's absolutely no one around apart from us," said Sandeep Cliff, a doctor from London, about his trip to Ollantaytambo.
However, his dream holiday hit a snag.
"We were told literally a week before we arrived that Machu Picchu is closed."
But he held no grudge to the locals.
"It's messed our holiday up a bit, but they have a reason (for protesting), and we've got to respect that."
© 2023 AFP
The Battle of Stalingrad, which turned the tide of World War II 80 years ago when German forces capitulated to the Red Army, remains a powerful symbol of patriotism in Russia as it presses its war in Ukraine.
One of the largest battles in history, the fighting raged for more than six months in 1942 and 1943 before the Russians defeated Nazi soldiers trapped in the ruined city in the depths of winter.
By the time it was over, on February 2, 1943, between one and two million people had died.
The first-ever surrender by the Nazis was glorified in Russia as the event that rescued Europe from Adolf Hitler.
Today, some of the most enthusiastic supporters of President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine are to be found in Stalin's so-called "Hero City" of Stalingrad, now called Volgograd.
Located some 900 kilometers (559 miles) southeast of Moscow, pre-war Stalingrad was a crucible of Soviet industry with factories in the city of 600,000 people churning out military hardware.
Stalingrad also acted as a gateway to the oil fields of the Caucasus as well as to Central Asia and the Caspian Sea.
For Hitler, who had in June 1941 pulled out of a German-Soviet non-aggression pact, its name alone made it a tantalizing target and worthy of an epic fight.
The battle began in July 1942 and lasted for 200 days of grinding aerial bombardments and house-to-house fighting between the Germans on one hand and Soviet soldiers and civilians on the other.
The Soviets were under strict orders from Stalin to stand their ground. "Not a single step back," he ordered, warning that troops who retreated would be shot.
The 6th Army of German general Friedrich Paulus managed to gain control of 90 percent of the city.
But in November, the Red Army staged a forceful counter-offensive, overcoming the enemy troops who were trapped and left to starve in the Soviet winter.
In January 1943, the Soviets launched a final offensive, retaking the ruined city district by district until the last German troops capitulated on February 2, 1943.
Originally called Tsaritsyn, the city became Stalingrad during Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's rule in 1925.
As part of the "de-Stalinization" process launched by his successor Nikita Khrushchev, the newly rebuilt city was renamed Volgograd in 1961.
In 2013, lawmakers in the city voted to revive the name Stalingrad for ceremonial purposes six days a year, including February 2, to commemorate the Nazi surrender, and May 9, to mark the final Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945.
The city is steeped in nostalgia for the former Soviet Union, fueling a brisk business in historical tourism.
Looming large over the city is a hilltop memorial to the battle that includes a towering 85-meter (279-foot) sculpture of a woman with a raised sword, known as "The Motherland Calls".
"Defenders of Stalingrad have passed a great heritage to us: love for the Motherland, readiness to protect its interests and independence, to stand strong in the face of any test," Putin said in 2018 on the 75th anniversary of the surrender.
- Films and video games -
The battle has been the inspiration of several films, from German director Joseph Vilsmaier's "Stalingrad", a brutal depiction of the battle as seen by German troops, to Russian director Fyodor Bondarchuk's 2013 take on the Soviet experience.
In literature it inspired Vasily Grossman's acclaimed 1960 masterpiece "Life and Fate", which was banned in the Soviet Union for over quarter of a century for drawing a line between Stalinism and Nazism.
In popular culture, Sergeant Yakov Pavlov, one of the battle's heroes, appears in the cult video game "Call of Duty".
© 2023 AFP
A suicide blast at a mosque inside a police headquarters in Pakistan that killed more than 90 people was a targeted revenge attack, a police chief said Tuesday.
Between 300 and 400 policemen had gathered for afternoon prayers at the compound's mosque on Monday in the provincial capital Peshawar when an entire wall and most of the roof were blown out, showering rubble on officers.
"We are on the frontline taking action against militants and that is why we were targeted," city police chief Muhammad Ijaz Khan told AFP.
"The purpose was to demoralize us as a force."
Low-level militancy, often targeting security checkpoints, has been steadily rising in the areas near Peshawar that border Afghanistan since the Taliban seized control of Kabul in August 2021.
The assaults are claimed mostly by the Pakistani Taliban, as well as the local chapter of the Islamic State, but mass casualty attacks remain rare.
The head of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province police force, Moazzam Jah Ansari, told reporters that a suicide bomber had entered the mosque as a guest, carrying 10-12 kilograms (about 22-26 pounds) of "explosive material in bits and pieces".
He added that a militant group that was on-and-off affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban could be behind the attack.
Authorities are investigating how a major security breach could happen in one of the most tightly controlled areas of the city, housing intelligence and counter-terrorism bureaus, and next door to the regional secretariat.
The nation is already being hobbled by a massive economic downturn and political chaos, ahead of elections due by October.
Provincial Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan confirmed it was a suicide blast, putting the latest death toll at 95, with more than 221 wounded.
Corpses were still being pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed wall and roof, with rescuers using listening devices to try and detect heartbeats beneath the rubble.
At least 20 of the slain police officers were buried after a prayer ceremony, with coffins draped in the Pakistani flag © Handout / Pakistan's Police Department/AFP
"I remained trapped under the rubble with a dead body over me for seven hours. I had lost all hope of survival," Wajahat Ali, a 23-year-old police constable whose feet were broken, told AFP from hospital on Tuesday.
Survivor Shahid Ali said the explosion took place seconds after the imam started prayers.
"I saw black smoke rising to the sky. I ran out to save my life," the 47-year-old police officers told AFP.
Dozens of slain police officers have already been buried in several mass prayer ceremonies, with coffins lined up in rows and draped in the Pakistani flag while a guard of honor was performed.
"Terrorists want to create fear by targeting those who perform the duty of defending Pakistan," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.
In a statement, the Pakistani Taliban -- separate from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar Islamist ideology -- denied it was responsible for the latest blast.
Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, it carried out a years-long wave of horrific violence after emerging in 2007 but recently has attempted to rebrand itself as a less brutal outfit, claiming not to target places of worship.
But a security official in Peshawar, who asked not to be named, said Tuesday that authorities were considering all possibilities including the involvement of a TTP splinter faction, the Islamic State or a coordinated attack by several groups.
"Often in the past militant groups, including the TTP, that carry out attacks in mosques do not claim them" because a mosque is considered a sacred place, the official told AFP.
Pakistan was once plagued by almost daily bombings, but a major military clearance operation which started in 2014 largely restored order.
Analysts say militants in the former tribal areas adjacent to Peshawar and bordering Afghanistan have become emboldened since the return of the Afghan Taliban, with Islamabad accusing the new rulers of failing to secure their mountainous frontier.
But mass casualty attacks remain relatively rare, with Islamic State claiming the most recent blast on a Shiite mosque in Peshawar last March that killed 64.
Provinces around the country announced they were on high alert after the blast, with checkpoints ramped up and extra security forces deployed, while in the capital Islamabad snipers were posted on buildings and at city entrance points.
The drastic security breach came on the day United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had been due to visit Islamabad, although the trip was cancelled at the last minute due to bad weather.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday condemned the blast as "abhorrent", and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken extended his condolences for the "horrific attack".
© 2023 AFP
Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, who is under investigation for his supporters' storming of government buildings, is seeking a six-month visa to remain in the United States, his lawyer said Monday.
Bolsonaro flew to Florida in late December as his term ended rather than watch the inauguration of his leftist successor President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
He is understood to have entered on a visa for visiting world leaders, which expires on Tuesday as he is no longer on official business.
AG Immigration Group, a California-based law firm known for its work with Brazilians, said that Bolsonaro has requested a six-month visa to stay in the United States.
"We look forward to achieving the highest level of satisfaction and desired results for our client," it said in a statement.
Bolsonaro had previously told CNN Brasil that he had planned to return by the end of January, and was considering moving his departure earlier for health reasons.
The far-right leader was injured in a knife attack in 2018. He has suffered ongoing health complications from that assassination attempt, and received hospital care during his stay in Florida.
But Bolsonaro has since come under scrutiny over the January 8 riot in the capital Brasilia by his supporters who refused to accept Lula's victory.
The new government has ordered a probe of Bolsonaro, who for years has sought to cast doubt on Brazil's electronic voting system, which has historically won praise around the world.
Bolsonaro's last justice minister, Anderson Torres, was also visiting the United States during the riot and was arrested on his return.
Asked about Bolsonaro's application, the State Department said that visa records are confidential under US law.
"Therefore, we cannot discuss the details of individual visa cases," a State Department spokesperson said.
Thousands of Bolsonaro backers broke into the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court buildings in Brasilia in an unsuccessful attempt to seek the overthrow of Lula.
Several lawmakers of Biden's Democratic Party have publicly called on the administration to send Bolsonaro back to Brazil, saying he no longer had a right to stay in the United States as a visiting head of state.
"The United States must not provide shelter for him, or any authoritarian who has inspired such violence against democratic institutions," said a letter signed by lawmakers including Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Joaquin Castro, a prominent progressive Democrat.
Brazilians require visas to enter the United States including as tourists.
Bolsonaro was one of the closest international allies of Donald Trump, another former president living in Florida who has made baseless allegations about electoral fraud.
The Brasilia riot mirrored the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol by Trump supporters who did not accept his defeat to President Joe Biden.
Steve Bannon, a far-right populist strategist who worked for Trump, has developed close ties with Bolsonaro's supporters and raised questions about last year's Brazilian election.
Bolsonaro, however, has largely kept a low profile since flying to Florida. He has been staying near Disney World at the Orlando home of Brazilian former martial arts champion Jose Aldo and was photographed eating fried chicken alone at a KFC restaurant.
© 2023 AFP
Two years after a coup snuffed out Myanmar's short-lived democratic experiment, the country's military is planning elections that analysts warn could spark further bloodshed as opposition to junta rule rages on.
Observers also say the planned poll cannot be free and fair under the present circumstances, with one analyst characterizing it as a mere "performance" aimed at justifying the junta's hold on power.
Allegations of voter fraud in the last election in November 2020 -- won resoundingly by democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi's party -- were the army's excuse for seizing power on February 1, 2021.
Though the claims were never substantiated, the generals arrested Suu Kyi and other top civilian leaders in a series of pre-dawn raids.
With the political opposition now decimated, and the junta buttressed by tacit backing from close allies Russia and China, the military is expected to hold a new election later this year -- no later than August, according to the constitution.
But with resistance raging from the hilly jungles of the borderlands to the plains of the army's traditional recruiting grounds, people across swathes of the country will be unlikely to vote -- and run the risk of reprisals if they do.
Any junta-held poll will be "like a cart with only one wheel", a former civil servant in Yangon who has been on strike since the coup told AFP.
"There is no way it will bring any progress," he said, requesting anonymity for fear of reprisals.
In the jungle near the border with Thailand, Lin Lin, a member of one of the dozens of "People's Defense Force" groups battling the junta, vowed elections would have no bearing on their mission to oust the military from Myanmar's politics.
"We will hold on to our weapons until we get our elected government," he told AFP.
More than a million people have been displaced by violence since the coup, according to the UN, with the military accused of bombing and shelling civilians and committing war crimes as it struggles to crush resistance.
Last week UN human rights chief Volker Turk said the country faced a "catastrophic situation, which sees only deepening human suffering and rights violations on a daily basis".
The junta-imposed state of emergency is due to expire at the end of January, after which the constitution says the authorities must move to hold fresh elections.
The government of junta supremo Min Aung Hlaing has not set a date, but last week gave all existing and aspiring political parties two months to register with its election commission.
Military negotiators are working to stitch together a large enough patchwork of constituencies to make an election credible, including ethnic rebel groups that have stayed out of the post-coup chaos, and smaller, regional parties.
But voting will likely be impossible in many areas of the country, said Htwe Htwe Thein at Curtin University in Australia.
"In areas they do control, it is possible that people could be forced to vote, and vote for the junta-affiliated party or parties," she told AFP.
"People would certainly assume that they are being watched -- and there could be punishment for not voting or voting against the junta."
Threats have also been made by anti-coup fighters against those cooperating with the election, with local media reporting several attacks on teams verifying voter lists in commercial hub Yangon.
The junta's "technical ability to conduct anything approaching even clearly fake elections will be circumscribed by lack of bureaucratic capacity, confusion, boycotts and violence," independent analyst David Mathieson told AFP.
Any poll would be "beyond fraudulent", Mathieson warned.
"These aren't real elections, remember. They're a squalid performance to justify the (junta's) coup d'etat claims of a corrupt 2020 election," he said.
With the generals shielded at the United Nations by Moscow and Beijing -- and the international community grappling with crises in Ukraine and Afghanistan -- many in Myanmar have given up on help from outside.
It would take nothing short of "a miracle" for Myanmar's opposition to get the kind of weapons support currently rolling into Ukraine, said Mathieson.
Close ally Russia has already come out in support of the polls, and while Washington has urged the international community to reject any election as a "sham", diplomatic sources say neighbors such as Thailand, India and China will likely give their tacit approval.
But whatever the outcome, it is unlikely to end the violence that is convulsing the country.
"The mission is to attack the military dictatorship with the determination of defiance," said Lin Lin from the jungle near the Thai border.
"When an elected government is selected by people, we will rest."
(AFP)
Peru's Congress will resume debate Tuesday on a bill to bring forward elections, a move aimed at ending weeks of protests that have left dozens dead and brought parts of the country to a standstill.
On Monday, lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on the bill after seven hours of discussions, and proceedings will resume at 11:00 am on Tuesday (1600 GMT), according to the legislature.
"We are sure that there will be a way out. All the democratic blocs are going to debate it taking into account the high sense of urgency," said Prime Minister Alberto Otarola on Monday.
The South American country has been embroiled in a political crisis with near-daily street protests since December 7, when then-president Pedro Castillo was arrested after attempting to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.
In seven weeks of demonstrations, 48 people -- including one police officer -- have been killed in clashes between security forces and protesters, according to the Ombudsman's Office.
The unrest is being propelled mainly by poor, rural Indigenous people from southern Peru who had identified Castillo as one of their own who would fight to end poverty, racism and inequality.
Dozens of roadblocks have been set up by protesters, causing a shortage of food and fuel in some southern areas as they demand that Castillo's replacement, President Dina Boluarte, step down.
Trade unions and other bodies have called for another major demonstration against Boluarte in Lima on Tuesday.
Last month, lawmakers moved elections due in 2026 to April 2024, but as protests showed no sign of abating, Boluarte has called to hold them this year, which Congress rejected late Friday.
"Vote for Peru, for the country, by moving the elections up to 2023," the president said in an address to the nation on Sunday.
Lawmakers "have a chance to win the country's trust," she said.
In last week's vote on moving elections to October, there were 65 votes against and just 45 in favor, with two abstentions.
If reconvened lawmakers again refuse to advance elections, Boluarte has said she will propose a constitutional reform allowing a first voting round to be held in October and a runoff in December.
Protesters are demanding immediate elections, the dissolution of Congress and a new constitution.
In the Lima suburb of Huaycan, hundreds of people marched on Monday chanting: "No more deaths, Dina quit now."
Dozens of soldiers headed to Ica, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of the capital, to support police in clearing roadblocks on the vital Panamericana Sur highway that connects major cities.
Weeks of roadblocks have caused shortages of food, fuel and other basic supplies countrywide.
According to a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies, 73 percent of citizens want elections this year.
Monday's congressional sitting coincided with a wake for Victor Santisteban, 55, a demonstrator who died Saturday after receiving blunt force trauma to the head, according to a medical report.
Santisteban's death was the first recorded in Lima since the protests started.
According to the human rights ombudsman's office, Saturday's protest in the capital saw at least seven people hospitalized after police used tear gas on demonstrators hurling stones and cement pieces.
Geronimo Lopez, leader of the General Confederation of Peruvian Workers, said protesters would "not cease their struggle" until Boluarte steps down, and called for a national march Tuesday.
Boluarte, who as Castillo's vice president was constitutionally mandated to replace him, has insisted that "nobody has any interest in clinging to power."
Apart from those who have died in protests, 10 civilians -- including two babies -- died when they were unable to get medical treatment or medicine due to roadblocks, according to the ombudsman's office.
The protest movement has affected Peru's vital tourism industry, forcing the closure of the world-renowned Machu Picchu Inca citadel ruins.
In the district of Poroy, about 15 kilometers from Cusco, about 300 people queued Monday to buy a gas bottle for domestic use.
"There are people here queuing since 3.00 am... I have not had any gas for two weeks," 33-year-old housewife Gabriela Alvarez told AFP.
"We have had to go back in time to cook with firewood and charcoal which hurts the lungs," she said.
Peru's Las Bambas copper mine -- responsible for about two percent of global metal supply -- said Monday it would have to halt production starting Wednesday unless the roadblocks were lifted.
Chinese owner MMG said in a statement that "after transportation interruptions that affected both entry and exit traffic, (the company) has been forced to start a progressive slowdown of its Las Bambas operation due to a shortage of critical supplies."
© Agence France-Presse
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