Day: May 1, 2024

Pashinyan commented on the further development of events on the border with Azerbaijan – Aze.Media  Aze Media

Неплохо было бы, чтобы Запад это тоже оценил и сделал правильные выводы. И прекратил делать ставку на популистов в России. Популизм – это плохо всегда и везде.

GENEVA — More than 800 mine action leaders attending a U.N.-sponsored conference in Geneva this week are warning of the ongoing dangers from unexploded ordnance and landmines in countries affected by conflict.

A focus of the conference is on the war in Gaza, which the United Nations Mine Action Service, or UNMAS, says “has resulted in explosive ordnance contamination on a scale unprecedented for Gaza.”

The agency has been working in Gaza for over a decade providing services to lessen the threat of explosive ordnance to civilians and enable the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.

“After October 7, the program has undergone a rapid evolution. We have become an enabler of the humanitarian response into Gaza,” said Charles Mungo Birch, chief of the UNMAS mine action program in the Palestinian territories.

He told journalists Wednesday, “We support humanitarian convoys going north and do explosive hazard assessments of humanitarian sites which allow humanitarian work to continue.”

For example, he said that in December, UNMAS Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers accompanied a World Health Organization convoy along a dangerous route to Shifa hospital.

“That convoy evacuated over 30 premature babies, which we returned to southern Gaza, and only one of them died,” he said.

UNMAS estimates there are 37 million tons of rubble in Gaza, amounting to 300 kilos (660 pounds) per square meter of surface. This, it says, is more rubble than in Ukraine.

“To put this in perspective, the Ukrainian frontline is 600 miles long and Gaza is 25 miles long,” Birch said.

“This rubble is likely heavily contaminated with UXO [unexploded ordnance].  Clearance of this will be further complicated by other hazards in the rubble,” he said, noting that about 800,000 tons of asbestos is estimated to be in the rubble.

Paul Heslop, program manager for mine action, UNDP Ukraine, said a significant amount of contamination from UXO is found on both sides of the frontline of that conflict — however, mine clearance experts are unable to access Russian-occupied areas.

“So, we have not had any work on that side of the conflict zone,” he said. “There has been an extensive use of all types of munitions by both sides in this conflict. We are seeing a level of contamination that we have not seen in Europe since the Second World War.”

UNMAS reports 60 million people around the world are affected by the threat of land mines, leftover ammunition and explosive devices every day. It says the legacy of contamination from these weapons continues decades after a conflict ends, killing and maiming thousands of people.

The agency cites Syria, Yemen, West Africa and the Sahel region, including Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, among the most-contaminated countries in the world.

“Most of the problem in the Sahel is the IUDs, improvised unexploded devices that are homemade, similar to what we have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia,” said Heslop, who was involved in projects in the Sahel for the past 10 years.

“Obviously, they are very low-cost and fairly easy to make.  So, I think the scourge of the Sahel is the use of IUDs in a fairly indiscriminate way,” he said.

UNMAS officials said a mine clearance program the agency ran for many years in Sudan “was incredibly successful.” Therefore, they said, it is “very distressing” to see Sudan once again being contaminated by these lethal weapons, many of which now are in urban areas where the current war is raging.

Last year, UNMAS recorded 1,500 victims of explosive ordnance in the Tigray and Afar regions in northern Ethiopia, with men and young boys accounting for 80% of the victims.

Francesca Chiaudani, chief of the UNMAS mine action program in Ethiopia, said casualties are likely to remain high because the agency has received only 2% of the $10 million needed for mine clearance activities.

Another problem, she said, is difficulty in getting accreditation for nongovernmental organizations to conduct surveys and clearance activities in conflict-affected areas.

“At the moment, some limited or clearance activity has been conducted by the Ethiopian national defense forces. But there is no humanitarian clearance happening in the county because of not having authorization for organizations to do so,” she said.

However, she said, “Accreditation for international NGOs is currently in process, and we are very hopeful that at least four will be accredited in the next month.”

WASHINGTON — The western Balkan countries are starkly split between the West and Russia, with the once-strong support for European Union accession now shrinking, according to a recent poll by the International Republican Institute. 

The results of the February-March poll, which the Washington-based research group conducted in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, comes as the region faces renewed ethnic tensions amid an EU enlargement slowdown and a rise in pro-Russian sentiment.  

The poll found that overwhelming majorities in Albania and Kosovo want their countries to pursue an unequivocally pro-European Union and pro-Western course, while only 10 percent of the respondents in Serbia gave the same response.  

A majority of the Serbs polled indicated they want Serbia either to maintain ties to Russia or pursue a pro-Russian foreign policy. 

The poll found that 39 percent of Bosnians, 36 percent of Montenegrins and 31 percent of North Macedonians support an unequivocally pro-Western course.  

“Generally, the pro-Western trend in the region is strong, with a couple of notable exceptions,” Paul McCarthy, the International Republican Institute’s director for Europe, told Voice of America. ”Serbia goes against the grain of the other five countries in the region; it is more pro-Russian, blames the West for the conflict in Ukraine, has very low approval ratings for joining the European Union.”  

McCarthy said that the pro-Western tendencies have also softened in Montenegro and North Macedonia, despite their having become NATO members, as well as in Bosnia, where Turkey has replaced the United States as the key ally of Bosnian Muslims. 

Serbs also oppose NATO membership: Only 3 percent of the poll’s respondents in Serbia said they supported it.  

“People are losing patience with the wait to join the European Union. Part of this is also explained by the fact that Ukraine has been invited and other countries, whereas in most cases western Balkans countries have been waiting for over two decades in the line to join the European Union,” said McCarthy. “Support for the EU accession is beginning to soften around the edges in those countries where it was very, very strong.” 

Still, the International Republican Institute’s poll found that, with the exception of Serbia, resounding majorities in the five Balkan countries would still vote for joining the EU. In Serbia, 40 percent of the poll’s respondents said that they would vote in favor of EU membership, while 34 percent would vote against it and 17 percent would not vote. 

McCarthy said anti-EU attitude in Serbia is fostered by its government, which uses media to encourage people to abandon EU membership hopes and “emphasize relationships with foreign authoritarian actors such as Russia and China.” 

The western Balkans’ geopolitical splits were also evident in the poll of respondents’ attitudes toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

The poll found that 43 percent of Serbs, 27 percent of Macedonians and 25 percent of Montenegrins blame the West for the war between Russia and Ukraine. 

Majorities of the respondents in Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and North Macedonia said that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are “somewhat” or “completely” unjustified, a view shared by 37 percent of the respondents in Serbia. 

Who counts as an ally and who as a foe? 

Longstanding disagreements and ethnic disputes continue to cast a shadow over the western Balkans more than three decades after Yugoslavia’s disintegration led to bloody wars. 

Eighty-three percent of Kosovars view Serbia, which rejects Kosovo’s independence, as a threat, while 68 percent of Albanians in Albania view Serbia and Russia as the main danger for their country.  

Majorities in Kosovo and Albania view the United States, which is credited for leading the 78-day NATO intervention in 1998-1999 to stop Serbia’s ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s Albanian majority, as their countries’ key ally.  

In Bosnia, Turkey is viewed as the biggest ally and Serbia as the biggest threat, while 34 percent of Macedonians see Serbia as their main ally while viewing Bulgaria, which has blocked Macedonia’s EU accession path, as their top foe. 

In Montenegro, 32 percent of the International Republican Institute’s poll respondents named Serbia as their country’s most important ally while 19 percent named the United States as its most important threat. In Serbia, 36 percent of the respondents named the U.S. as the country’s main threat and Russia as its key ally.

George Santos revives drag persona Kitara Ravache in new Cameo grift  The Independent

Pope Francis accepts Hartford archbishop’s resignation, Rev. Christopher Coyne officially takes role  Greenwich Time

  Fox News