The British royal family is wealthy, but where does their money come from? Here, we break it down and explain some of the history.
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Month: September 2022
Somali Militia Beheads Islamist Insurgents After Battle, Witnesses Say
A government-allied Somali militia killed at least 45 al-Shabab fighters and beheaded some of them, three witnesses said on Sunday, as citizens in central regions of the country increasingly take up arms against the insurgents.
The beheadings on Saturday followed a battle in the Hiran region of Hirshabelle State, where there has been significant fighting this month between al-Shabab and newly expanded militias allied with the federal government.
Al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked Islamist group, has been fighting Somalia’s weak central government since 2006. It wants to implement a strict interpretation of sharia law.
Al-Shabab has increasingly burned houses, destroyed wells, and beheaded civilians in the Hiran region, residents say; that, combined with its demands for taxes amidst the worst drought in 40 years, has pushed more residents to take up arms.
“Al-Shabab is not strong, it just burns people, beheads people and put their heads in the streets just to terrorize,” said Ahmed Abdulle, a Hiran elder.
“Now, we are doing the same: we have ordered the beheading of al-Shabab fighters,” he told Reuters.
Videos widely shared on Telegram showed at least two beheaded alleged al-Shabab fighters and dozens more dead bodies in fatigues and red-and-white checked scarves. Some of the dead appeared to have died in battle.
Reuters was not independently able to verify the authenticity of the videos, but three witnesses to the beheadings said they were real. Seven other residents, including Abdulle, said family members had been present and confirmed the deaths to them.
The three witnesses asked not to be named for security reasons.
“Al-Shabab put us in hell. … So our people decided to liberate themselves. … My daughter is also fighting in the frontline, she has an AK-47 on her shoulder,” resident Halima Ismail said.
Somali Interior Minister Ahmed Moalim Fiqi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
An al-Shabab spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
Fighters have retaken 10 villages from al-Shabab in recent weeks, elder Hassaan Farah told Reuters.
Residents in nearby Galmudug state are also taking up arms.
“This week, we have recaptured nine villages,” said Ahmed Shire, the Galmudug information minister. “It is a big revolution by Galmudug state.”
On Saturday, the federal government sent troops to reinforce Galmudug fighters, the Somali National News Agency said.
Earlier this month, al-Shabab militants killed at least 18 civilians and destroyed food aid trucks. In August, they killed more than 20 people in a hotel siege.
Somalia has been in civil war since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew a dictator then turned on each other.
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Spanish Charity Rescues 372 in Central Mediterranean; 1 Dead
The Spanish charity Open Arms has rescued 372 people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean to Europe in unseaworthy smugglers’ boats and recovered the corpse of a man who had been shot by smugglers, officials said Sunday.
The rescue ship Open Arms Uno remained at sea and is seeking a safe port for the rescued people, including some who need medical attention and many who are suffering from dehydration, said Laura Lanuza, an Open Arms representative. She said they have made at least two requests for a safe port in Malta.
In all, the ship performed three rescues in 24 hours. In the largest rescue, the Open Arms picked up 294 people, mostly Egyptians, from an overcrowded barge in waters south of Malta during a nighttime operation that spanned nearly five hours before dawn Sunday. Those rescued said they had been at sea for four days.
The packed boat had been spotted by volunteer pilots combing the Mediterranean for people in distress, and a photo showed its decks packed with people waving for help.
Before that, the Open Arms rescued 59 migrants from Syria, Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea, among them 10 minors, from an oil platform they had reached in international waters near Tunisia. Still in the flimsy smugglers’ boat was the wrapped body of a migrant who had been shot on shore by smugglers, Lanuza said.
“The smugglers forced the people to take the corpse with them. They spent a day or so at sea, and kept the corpse until they were saved,” Lanuza said.
On Saturday morning, the Open Arms rescued 19 people from a rubber dinghy off Libya in international waters. They included 16 people from Syria.
A photographer with The Associated Press aboard, the Open Arms, said during each rescue, desperate people flung themselves into the water, complicating the operation.
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Ukraine Looks For War Dead in Recaptured Northeast Region
Ukraine on Sunday searched for its war dead in Izium and other towns in the northeastern part of the country it reclaimed from Russia in a lightning advance earlier this month.
Izium Mayor Valery Marchenko told state television that “the exhumation is under way, the graves are being dug up and all the remains are being transported to Kharkiv.
“The work will continue for another two weeks, there are many burials,” Marchenko said. “No new ones have been found yet, but the services are looking for possible burials.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that investigators had discovered new evidence of torture inflicted against some of the soldiers buried in Izium, one of more than 20 towns that Ukraine recaptured in the northeastern Kharkiv region that Russia had held for months. He said that 17 bodies were found at one site, some of which bore signs of torture.
Ukrainian officials said last week 440 bodies were discovered in woodlands near Izium, with most of the dead identified as civilians, Ukraine said the discovery proved war crimes had been committed by Russian forces. Emergency workers have been exhuming the remains.
Oleksandr Ilienkov, the chief of the prosecutor’s office for the Kharkiv region, told the Reuters news agency at the site on Friday: “One of the bodies [found] has evidence of a ligature pattern and a rope around the neck, tied hands.” Forensic examination of the bodies is continuing.
Moscow has repeatedly denied it has targeted civilians during its nearly seven-month invasion. The Kremlin has not commented publicly on the discovery of the graves.
The head of the pro-Russian administration that abandoned the Kharkiv region earlier this month accused Ukrainians of staging the atrocities at Izium. “I have not heard anything about burials,” Vitaly Ganchev told Rossiya-24 state television.
Meanwhile, as the fighting rages on, a British intelligence report said Sunday that Russia has widened its attacks on civilian infrastructure in the past week.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the Donetsk region in the last day. Ukrainian officials said that several dozen high-rise and private buildings, gas pipelines and power lines were damaged by Russian strikes in Nikopol.
The British report said, “As it faces setbacks on the front lines, Russia has likely extended the locations it is prepared to strike in an attempt to directly undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and government.”
U.S. President Joe Biden is again warning Russian President Vladimir Putin against using weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. You will change the face of war unlike anything since World War II,” he said in an interview with CBS News scheduled to air Sunday night. Biden would not comment specifically on a U.S. response if Russia were to use chemical or nuclear weapons in Ukraine.
“They’ll become more of a pariah in the world than they ever have been,” he added. “And depending on the extent of what they do will determine what response would occur.”
It was not Biden’s first warning to his Russian counterpart. Biden said in March that the NATO military alliance would respond “in kind” to any use of weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.
“We will respond if he uses it,” Biden said, referring to Putin. “The nature of the response depends on the nature of the use.”
He spoke after meeting with partners from NATO along with the Group of Seven leading industrialized economies and the European Union.
Just days into the invasion of Ukraine, Putin ordered Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, prompting the White House to assemble a team of national security officials — the so-called Tiger Team — to study potential responses in the event Russia deployed chemical, biological or nuclear weapons against Ukraine, neighboring nations or NATO convoys of weapons and aid headed for Ukraine.
In 2000, Russia updated its military doctrine to allow the first use of nuclear weapons “in response to large-scale aggression utilizing conventional weapons in situations critical to the national security of the Russian Federation,” according to the U.S.-based Arms Control Association. The 1997 version of the doctrine had allowed the first use of nuclear arms only “in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian Federation.”
The newest version also states for the first time that Russia has the right to use nuclear weapons to respond to all “weapons of mass destruction” attacks.
In another development, The New York Times reports that Ukrainian military personnel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut say they believe they are fighting Russian prisoners instead of Russian soldiers.
The publication said it has analyzed a video posted online that apparently shows representatives of The Wagner Group, a private military company, promising inmates they could win their freedom if they completed a six–month, combat tour in Ukraine. The Times said, however, that the video could not be verified.
President Putin has said seizing Bakhmut is one of the main goals of its invasion of Ukraine.
Some material in this report came from Reuters.
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Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II Is Huge Security Challenge
The funeral of the only monarch most Britons have known involves the biggest security operation London has ever seen.
Mayor Sadiq Khan says Monday’s state funeral for Queen Elizabeth II is an “unprecedented” security challenge, with hundreds of thousands of people packing central London and a funeral guest list of 500 emperors, kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers and other leaders from around the world.
“It’s been decades since this many world leaders were in one place,” said Khan. “This is unprecedented … in relation to the various things that we’re juggling.”
“There could be bad people wanting to cause damage to individuals or to some of our world leaders,” Khan told The Associated Press. “So we are working incredibly hard — the police, the security services and many, many others — to make sure this state funeral is as successful as it can be.”
Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy said the “hugely complex” policing operation is the biggest in the London force’s history, surpassing the London 2012 Olympics.
More than 10,000 police officers will be on duty Monday, with London bobbies supplemented by reinforcements from all of Britain’s 43 police forces. Hundreds of volunteer marshals and members of the armed forces will also act as stewards along the processional route.
They are just the most visible part of a security operation that is being run from a high-tech control center near Lambeth Bridge, not far from Parliament.
Street drains and garbage bins are being searched and sealed. On Monday there will be police spotters on rooftops, sniffer dogs on the streets, marine officers on the River Thames and mounted police on horseback.
Flying drones over central London has been temporarily banned, and Heathrow Airport is grounding scores of flights so that aircraft noise does not disturb the funeral service.
Authorities face the challenge of keeping 500 world leaders safe, without ruffling too many diplomatic feathers. Presidents, prime ministers and royalty will gather offsite before being taken by bus to the abbey — though an exception is being made for U.S. President Joe Biden, who is expected to arrive in his armored limousine, known as The Beast.
Another challenge is the sheer size of the crowds expected to gather around Westminster Abbey and along the route the coffin will travel after the funeral, past Buckingham Palace to Hyde Park. From there it will be taken by hearse about 20 miles (32 kilometers) to Windsor, where another 2,000 police officers will be on duty.
The queen is due to be interred in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle alongside her husband Prince Philip, who died last year aged 99.
Police are deploying more than 22 miles (36 kilometers) of barriers in central London to control the crowds, and transit bosses are preparing for jam-packed stations, buses and subway trains as 1 million people flood the ceremonial heart of London. Subways will run later than normal and train companies are adding extra services to help get people home.
While many will be mourning the queen, support for the monarchy is far from universal. Police have already drawn criticism for arresting several people who staged peaceful protests during events related to the queen’s death and the accession of King Charles III.
Cundy said it had been made clear to officers that “people have a right to protest.”
“Our response here in London will be proportionate, it will be balanced, and officers will only be taking action where it is absolutely necessary,” he said.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley said the goal was to keep the event safe, “and try to do it in as unobtrusive a way as possible, because this is obviously a solemn occasion.”
Dean of Westminster David Hoyle, who will conduct the funeral service in the 900-year-old abbey, said preparations were going smoothly — despite the occasional security-related glitch.
“There was a wonderful moment when I had flower arrangers waiting in the abbey, and no flowers, because, quite properly, the police didn’t recognize what the van was and the flowers were sent back,” he said.
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Biden, World Leaders Gather in London For Funeral of Queen Elizabeth II
U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are in London alongside hundreds of world leaders and thousands of ordinary people who flocked to the British capital, joining long lines to pay their final respects to the nation’s longest serving monarch, Queen Elizabeth II.
Biden, who arrived late Saturday, is among hundreds of world leaders who are gathering in Britain to attend the queen’s funeral Monday.
On Sunday, as people milled around central London, world leaders made their way to Lancaster House to deliver condolences over the queen’s death on Sept. 8 at the age of 96.
“This is a time of grief, but also a time of deep gratitude,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who leads one of the 56 countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, an organization of many former British colonies now led by Elizabeth’s eldest son, King Charles III. “Australians give thanks for the life of service of Queen Elizabeth II, a life defined by commitment to family, to country, to [the] Commonwealth.”
Biden and his wife are also expected to pay their respects to Elizabeth Sunday in Westminster Hall, where her body has been lying in state since Wednesday. Members of Europe’s royal families are also expected to attend the services. The king will also host a formal state reception for dignitaries Sunday.
The British crown has extended a controversial funeral invitation to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is widely believed to be responsible for ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. But they did not invite the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Syria, Afghanistan and Venezuela.
On Sunday, as the skies over London remained clear, thousands of people milled around Westminster, the center of the city. London police cheerfully marshalled the heaving crowds of families, veterans carrying bouquets and children holding lollipops, as the Queen’s image beamed at them from shop windows.
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Eritrea Calls Up Armed Forces After Ethiopia Clashes
Eritrean authorities have called on their armed forces to mobilize in response to the renewed fighting in northern Ethiopia, the British and Canadian governments said.
The return to combat last month shattered a March truce and dashed hopes of peacefully resolving the nearly two-year war between Ethiopian authorities and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Tigrayan authorities have since expressed readiness to hold talks led by the African Union, but the Ethiopian government has not responded publicly to the overtures, other than saying it remains “committed” to the AU-led peace process.
Both sides have accused the other of firing first, and fighting has spread from around southern Tigray to other fronts farther north and west, while also drawing in Eritrean troops who backed Ethiopian forces during the early phase of the war.
In travel advisories published late Friday, the Canadian and British governments warned their nationals in Eritrea to limit their movements following the mobilization call.
“Local authorities have issued a general call for mobilization of armed forces in response to the conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the Canadian government said.
“Additional security measures could be imposed on short notice across the country,” it said.
The British advisory said the Eritrean announcement was made on Wednesday.
“You should be extra vigilant at this time,” the advisory said.
Eritrea, which is one of the world’s most closed states, has not commented on the reports.
Since the latest clashes broke out, Tigray has been bombed several times, with an official at Ayder Referral Hospital, the region’s biggest, saying that 16 people had died in air strikes.
AFP was not able to independently verify the claims. Access to northern Ethiopia is severely restricted and Tigray has been under a communications blackout for more than a year.
The TPLF ruled Ethiopia for decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018.
Abiy’s government has declared the TPLF a terrorist group and considers its claim to authority in Tigray illegitimate.
Abiy — a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — sent troops into Tigray in November 2020 to topple the TPLF, in response to what he said were attacks on federal army camps.
But the TPLF recaptured most of Tigray in a surprise comeback in June 2021.
It then expanded into the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara before the fighting reached a stalemate.
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UN Decries ‘Shameful’ Yearlong Closure of Girls’ Schools in Afghanistan
The United Nations Sunday renewed its call for Afghanistan’s Taliban to urgently reopen schools to teenage girls, denouncing the anniversary of their exclusion from education as “tragic, shameful, and entirely avoidable.”
Since taking control of the conflict-torn country in August of last year, the Islamist group has instructed girls in grades 7 to 12 to remain home, which has mainly affected girls aged between 12 and 18.
“The ongoing exclusion of girls from high school has no credible justification and has no parallel anywhere in the world,” Markus Potzel, the acting chief of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement.
“It is profoundly damaging to a generation of girls and to the future of Afghanistan itself,” he said.
The Taliban reopened high schools to boys last year on September 18 but have ignored international calls for allowing female students to return to classroom. In recent days girls have also taken to the streets in some Afghan cities to protest the ban on their education.
“A year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will never get back. Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them back in,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote on Twitter.
The hardline Taliban rulers have also ordered women to cover their faces in public and told female staff in many public sector departments to stay home, saying the rules are in line with Afghan culture and Islamic law.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told VOA his government is determined to resolve the problem of girls’ education within the framework of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“Whether it’s a problem with the world or not, our own people also demand the same from us. We are trying to find a positive way out,” he said.
Mujahid insisted that reopening schools to girls is an internal Afghan matter and other countries should not link the issue to establishing ties with the Taliban government.
“This is also an internal problem of Afghanistan, it is the issue of our people, it is the issue of my children and my daughter. There is no room for outside intervention,” Mujahid told VOA.
The U.N. mission has estimated that the closure of female schools has barred more than 1 million girls across Afghanistan from receiving an education over the past year. It pressed the Taliban to reverse the slew of rules curbing basic rights of Afghan women and girls, saying the restrictions increase the risk of marginalization, violence exploitation and abuse against them.
“If the ban on girls attending high school remains, the U.N. is increasingly concerned that such measures, taken together with other restrictions being placed upon Afghans’ basic freedoms, will contribute to a deepening of the crises facing Afghanistan, including greater insecurity, poverty and isolation,” the statement said.
Other countries have not yet recognized the Taliban government because of its curbs on women’s and girls’ access to work and education, and for suppressing other civil liberties.
The return of the Taliban to power has deepened an already bad humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and pushed its war-hit economy to the brink of collapse.
The economic crisis, international economic sanctions and suspension of foreign financial assistance have made it difficult for the Islamist group to govern the poverty-stricken South Asian nation of about 40 million people.
More than half of the Afghan population suffers from acute hunger, according to U.N. assessments.
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Pelosi: Attacks on Armenia by Azerbaijan Are ‘Illegal And Deadly’
U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, visiting Armenia Sunday, has condemned Azerbaijan’s recent attacks on Armenia, calling them “illegal and deadly.” More than 200 people have been killed in the border clashes.
Speaking in Yerevan, Pelosi said the U.S. supports Armenian sovereignty and wants to know what it needs to defend itself.
The U.S. lawmaker said the attacks were “initiated by the Azeris and there has to be recognition of that.”
Pelosi said the attacks on Armenia by Azerbaijan are part of a worldwide struggle between democracy and autocracy.
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Ukraine, Food Security in Spotlight During UN Leaders Week
The annual gathering of leaders at the U.N. General Assembly is taking place this year in the shadow of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and as the war in Ukraine heads into a possibly decisive period.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is skipping the Queen’s funeral to remain in New York to oversee an Education Summit on Monday. He will then participate in the opening of the annual debate Tuesday morning, telling reporters it would be “inconceivable” that he would miss it.
U.S. President Joe Biden as host country leader would traditionally be the second head of state to address the assembly Tuesday, but as he will be attending Elizabeth’s funeral Monday, U.S. officials say his speech will now shift to Wednesday.
Spotlight
Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be coming to New York, but despite this, their conflict will dominate the agenda.
“I think that Joe Biden and other Western leaders will use this as an opportunity to simply hammer home their anger with Russia over this war,” Richard Gowan, U.N. director for the International Crisis Group, told VOA.
He said Western leaders will also be seeking to shore up support from some non-Western countries they feel are trying to avoid taking sides or criticizing Russia.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told reporters Friday that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “tests the fundamental principles that the U.N. was founded on.” She urged the international community not to abandon those values.
“We must double down on our commitment to a peaceful world and hold even closer our deeply held principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, peace and security,” she said.
“And that’s why next week is so critical. We believe this is a moment to defend the United Nations and to demonstrate to the world that it can still take the world’s most pressing global challenges on.”
On Thursday, the U.N. Security Council will hold a ministerial level meeting on the situation; it could see some heated exchanges between Russian and Western officials. There will also be a separate side event that day on accountability for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
But despite what will be many meetings and events about the conflict, even the secretary-general is not optimistic that there will be the opportunity for any ground-breaking diplomacy on the sidelines of the annual debate.
“My good offices are ready, but I have no illusions … at the present moment, the chances of a peace deal are minimal,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Food crisis
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up global food, fertilizer and fuel prices, pushing fragile countries closer to the brink.
World Food Program Chief David Beasley warns that in 82 countries, as many as 345 million people are acutely food insecure, or “marching toward starvation.”
Somalia is one of the worst off.
Four failed rainy seasons have led to unprecedented drought. Eight million people could soon face famine if October’s rains fail as forecast.
“In total, 300,000 people are expected to be in IPC 5 conditions between October and December,” the Food and Agriculture Organization’s chief economist, Maximo Torero, told U.N. Security Council members Thursday.
IPC 5 is the humanitarian classification for famine.
In 2011-12 more than 250,000 Somalis died from famine. In 2016, there were fears that would be repeated, but international donors rallied to prevent the worst outcome.
Today, leaders know they need to act and do so quickly.
Somalia has sent its special envoy for drought response to New York to muster international support.
“Food is available inside the country — what we need is cash,” Abdirahman Abdishakur told VOA.
He warns that if a scaled-up humanitarian response does not happen in the next few weeks, people will die.
“The famine is real — it is happening,” he said.
On Wednesday, there will be a high-level meeting on responding to urgent needs in the Horn of Africa.
As for rising global food prices, the United States, the African Union, European Union and Spain will co-chair a food security summit Tuesday.
“It is bringing both the South as well as countries — developing countries and donor countries — together in the room to address these issues and how we move forward,” Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield said. “So that we can avoid the crisis that we are actually experiencing right now and see if we can make the situation better in the coming months.”
Improving market supply
The United Nations is counting on a package deal it has brokered with the help of Turkey and agreed by Ukraine and Russia, to put more grain on the global market and lower food prices.
The deal, signed July 22 in Istanbul, allows Ukrainian grain exports out of its Black Sea ports that Russia had blockaded. A separate agreement seeks to remove obstacles to get Russian fertilizer and food exports to world markets. Although not under Western sanctions, some shippers and insurers have been reluctant to do business with Russian companies for fear of running afoul of other sanctions targeting Moscow.
So far, more than 3 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain has gotten to markets in more than 30 countries via the deal, leading to a drop in food prices.
“Prices at the international level have gone down, but it is true that prices at the domestic level have not yet seen the decrease that we have seen in the international market,” said U.N. Conference on Trade and Development chief Rebeca Grynspan, who helped negotiate the deal.
She is also working to get more Russian fertilizer to markets, to ease prices, which she says are currently three times more than they were before the pandemic. If farmers cannot afford fertilizer, their crop yields could shrink, leading to food shortages next year.
“Fertilizer is a very important part of this deal,” Grynspan said.
Multitude of crises
While Ukraine may monopolize the spotlight during the high-level week, there is no shortage of other pressing issues, crises and conflicts for leaders to discuss.
Many will come up in bilateral meetings among top leaders. Others will get a broader setting.
Ahead of the general debate, Secretary-General Guterres is convening an education summit to address the massive disruption caused to schooling by the pandemic. The U.N. says 244 million young people worldwide are still out of school.
A new report from the U.N. children’s agency, UNICEF, estimates that only a third of 10-year-olds worldwide can read and understand a simple written story. That is half what it was pre-pandemic.
This is the first year leaders will meet again in New York in person in large numbers since the pandemic began in 2020, and while COVID-19 will not be in the spotlight, pandemic recovery will be part of economic and health discussions.
As will the climate crisis.
The U.N. chief just returned from Pakistan, where deadly floods have submerged one-third of the country.
“What is happening in Pakistan demonstrates the sheer inadequacy of the global response to the climate crisis, and the betrayal and injustice at the heart of it,” he told reporters.
He will use his platform to press for more investments for climate adaptation and mitigation for the poorest countries, which have contributed the least to climate change.
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Kyrgyzstan Says Death Toll From Border Conflict Rises to 36
Kyrgyzstan said on Sunday its death toll from the border conflict with Tajikistan has risen to 36 people, with at least 129 wounded in fighting between the two Central Asian nations.
The former Soviet republics clashed over a border dispute on Sept. 14-16, accusing each other of using tanks, mortars, rocket artillery and assault drones to attack outposts and nearby settlements, leaving at least 54 dead.
Central Asian border issues largely stem from the Soviet era when Moscow tried to divide the region between groups whose settlements were often located amidst those of other ethnicities.
Kyrgyzstan has also said it evacuated about 137,000 evacuated from the conflict area.
Tajikistan has not given any official casualty numbers, but security sources said 30 people have been killed this week.
The two sides agreed a ceasefire on Sept. 16 which has largely held up despite several alleged incidents of shelling.
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Biden in London for Queen’s Funeral
U.S. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden are in London where they will attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral.
Biden, who arrived late Saturday, is among hundreds of world leaders who are gathering in Britain to attend the queen’s funeral Monday.
Biden and his wife are expected to pay their respects to Elizabeth Sunday in Westminster Hall, where her body had been lying in state since Wednesday.
Members of Europe’s royal families are also expected to attend Elizabeth’s services.
King Charles III, Elizabeth’s son, is holding a formal state reception Sunday for the many dignitaries who have gathered in England’s capital.
The British crown has extended a controversial funeral invitation to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, who is widely believed to be responsible for ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
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Cheetahs Make a Comeback in India After 70 Years
Seven decades after cheetahs died out in India, they’re back.
Eight big cats from Namibia made the long trek Saturday in a chartered cargo flight to the northern Indian city of Gwalior, part of an ambitious and hotly contested plan to reintroduce cheetahs to the South Asian country.
Then they were moved to their new home: a sprawling national park in the heart of India where scientists hope the world’s fastest land animal will roam again.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi released the cats into their enclosure Saturday morning. The cats emerged from their cage, tentatively at first while continuously scanning their new surroundings
“When the cheetah will run again, grasslands will be restored, biodiversity will increase and eco-tourism will get a boost,” said Modi.
Cheetahs were once widespread in India and became extinct in 1952 from hunting and loss of habitat. They remain the first and only predator to die out since India’s independence in 1947. India hopes importing African cheetahs will aid efforts to conserve the country’s threatened and largely neglected grasslands.
There are fewer than 7,000 adult cheetahs left in the wild globally, and they now inhabit less than 9% of their original range. Shrinking habitat, due to the increasing human population and climate change, is a huge threat and India’s grasslands and forests could offer “appropriate” homes for the big cat, said Laurie Marker, of the Cheetah Conservation Fund, an advocacy and research group assisting in bringing the cats to India.
“To save cheetahs from extinction, we need to create permanent places for them on earth,” she said.
Cheetah populations in most countries are declining. An exception to this is South Africa, where the cats have run out of space. Experts hope that Indian forests could offer these cats space to thrive. There are currently a dozen cheetahs in quarantine in South Africa, and they are expected to arrive at the Kuno National Park soon. Earlier this month, four cheetahs captured at reserves in South Africa were flown to Mozambique, where the cheetah population has drastically declined.
Some experts are more cautious.
There could be “cascading and unintended consequences” when a new animal is brought to the mix, said Mayukh Chatterjee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
For example, a tiger population boom in India has led to more conflict with people sharing the same space. With cheetahs, there are questions about how their presence would affect other carnivores like striped hyenas, or even prey like birds.
“The question remains: How well it’s done,” he said.
The initial eight cheetahs from Namibia will be quarantined at a facility in the national park and monitored for a month to make sure they’re not carrying pests. Then they will be released into a larger enclosure in the park to help them get used to their new environment. The enclosures contain natural prey – such as spotted deer and antelope, which scientists hope they’ll learn to hunt – and are designed to prevent other predators like bears or leopards from getting in.
The cheetahs will be fitted with tracking collars and released into the national park in about two months. Their movements will be tracked routinely, but for the most part, they’ll be on their own.
The reserve is big enough to hold 21 cheetahs and if they were to establish territories and breed, they could spread to other interconnected grasslands and forests that can house another dozen cheetahs, according to scientists.
There is only one village with a few hundred families still residing on the fringes of the park. Indian officials said they’d be moved soon, and any livestock loss due to cheetahs will be compensated. The project is estimated to cost $11.5 million over five years, including $6.3 million that will be paid for by state-owned Indian Oil.
The continent-to-continent relocation has been decades in the making. The cats that originally roamed India were Asiatic cheetahs, genetically distinct cousins of those that live in Africa and whose range stretched to Saudi Arabia.
India had hoped to bring in Asiatic cheetahs, but only a few dozen of these survive in Iran and that population is too vulnerable to move.
Many obstacles remain, including the presence of other predators in India like leopards that may compete with cheetahs, said conservation geneticist Pamela Burger of University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna.
“It would be better to conserve them now where they are than to put effort in creating new sites where the outcome is questionable,” she said.
Dr. Adrian Tordiffe, a veterinary wildlife specialist from South Africa associated with the project, said the animals need a helping hand. He added that conservation efforts in many African countries hadn’t been as successful, unlike in India where strict conservation laws have preserved big cat populations.
“We cannot sit back and hope that species like the cheetah will survive on their own without our help,” he said.
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Kazakhstan Renames Capital, Extends Presidential Term
The president of Kazakhstan on Saturday signed constitutional amendments that extended the presidential term to seven years and brought back the old name of the country’s capital.
The changes are among political and economic reforms that President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has called for after violent protests rocked the country in January, killing more than 200 people. The unrest was sparked by a sharp rise in fuel prices, but also reflected widespread dismay with the country’s politics, which for more than 30 years had been dominated by former President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his party.
The Kazakh parliament unanimously supported the amendments in two readings on Friday, and Tokayev signed them into law the next day. They extend the presidential term to seven years from the current five, but also bar any president from running for a second term in office. The changes also rename the country’s capital, now called Nur-Sultan, back to Astana.
Astana became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1997 when Nazarbayev, who led the country for three decades under the Soviet Union and after it gained independence in 1991, moved it there from Almaty. After he stepped down in 2019, his successor, Tokayev, moved to name it Nur-Sultan — in honor of Nazarbayev, who retained enormous influence as head of the county’s ruling party and security council.
But Tokayev removed him from those posts after the deadly unrest in January that hinged partly on dissatisfaction with the power that Nazarbayev still wielded and announced sweeping reforms.
Earlier this month, he called for an early presidential election and announced the move to bring back the old name of the country’s capital.
Tokayev has previously said that he would run in the election. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the new amendments would allow him to, but similar constitutional changes in Russia and Belarus allowed incumbent leaders to run again under the amended constitution.
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Belgrade’s EuroPride March Goes on Despite Far-Right Protests, Arrests
Serbian police arrested more than 30 people as thousands of LGBTQ activists turned out for Belgrade’s EuroPride march Saturday, despite a government ban.
The event had been intended as the cornerstone event of the EuroPride gathering. But the interior ministry banned the march earlier this week, citing security concerns after right wing groups threatened to hold protests.
And although the march took place without major incident, local media said clashes broke out between counterdemonstrators and police.
The interior ministry had also barred any counter protests, but some far-right groups vowed to rally and gather in front of churches.
Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin had warned in a statement that “we will not tolerate any violence in Belgrade streets, any more than illegal marches.”
Model and activist Yasmin Benoit said she had been to many gay pride parades “but this one is slightly more stressful than the others.”
“I’m from the U.K. where everyone is more supportive and it’s more commercial,” she told AFP.
“But here, this is really what pride should be,” she added, referring to the societal struggle at the origins of the movement.
“We are fighting for the future of this country,” said Luka, a Serbian taking part in Saturday’s event.
Gay marriage not recognized
Despite the official ban, demonstrators were able to march in the rain a few hundred meters between the Constitutional Court to a nearby park, a much shorter route than organizers had originally planned.
Gay marriage is not legally recognized in Serbia, where homophobia remains deep-seated despite some progress over the years in reducing discrimination.
The Balkan country, a candidate for EU membership, had been under intense international pressure to allow the march.
More than 20 embassies, including the U.S., France and Britain, had issued a joint statement urging the authorities to lift the ban.
There was a heavy police presence around the pride rally, with officers pushing back the small groups of counterdemonstrators waving crosses and religious insignia.
The interior ministry said 31 people were arrested.
The authorities gave no details on those detained, but AFP journalists saw several counterdemonstrators being taken away.
According to N1 television, there were scuffles between police and the counterdemonstrators, some of whom threw smoke bombs at the officers and damaged several vehicles.
The U.S. embassy had urged its citizens to avoid the event “because of the potential for unruly crowds, violence, as well as possible fines.”
‘Implicit sanctioning of bigotry’
Human rights groups and the European Union called on the Serbian government to rescind the ban.
“The Serbian government’s decision to cancel EuroPride is a shameful surrender to, and implicit sanctioning of, bigotry and threats of unlawful violence,” said Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch.
At least 15 members of the European Parliament announced that they would join the pride march in a show of solidarity.
Belgrade pride marches in 2001 and again in 2010 were marred by violence and rioting after far-right groups targeted the event.
Since 2014, the parade has been organized regularly without any notable unrest but was protected with a large law enforcement presence.
This year’s ban came just days after thousands took part in an anti-pride demonstration in Belgrade, with biker gangs, Orthodox priests and far-right nationalists demanding the EuroPride rally be scrapped.
“I am here to preserve Serbian traditions, faith and culture, which are being destroyed by sodomites,” Andrej Bakic, 36, a counter-protester in a group surrounded by riot police told AFP Saturday.
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William, Harry Stand Vigil with Cousins at Queen’s Coffin
Princes William and Harry stood vigil at either end of the coffin of their grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II, on Saturday, heads bowed as a line of mourners streamed past the late monarch’s lying-in-state.
The two sons of King Charles, attired in military uniforms, stood in silence at a 15-minute vigil in the vast Westminster Hall where the coffin has been lying since Wednesday, draped in the Royal Standard and with the bejeweled Imperial State Crown on top.
William and Harry were joined by their six cousins, including Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, who earlier paid tribute to Britain’s longest-reigning monarch. The queen died on September 8 at her summer estate in the Scottish Highlands at age 96.
“You were our matriarch, our guide, our loving hand on our backs leading us through this world,” said the sisters, daughters of Prince Andrew. “You taught us so much and we will cherish those lessons and memories forever. For now, dear grannie, all we want to say is thank you.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have lined up for long hours in a queue stretching along the River Thames, waiting to file past the coffin and honor the queen, a testimony to the affection in which she was held.
The other cousins at Saturday’s vigil were Peter Phillips and Zara Tindall, the children of Princess Anne, and Louise and James, the children of Prince Edward.
Earlier on Saturday, Charles and his heir William shook hands and greeted well-wishers in the queue, asking people how long they had been there and whether they were warm enough.
To cheers of “hip, hip, hurrah” and shouts of “God save the King,” Charles and William spoke to mourners near Lambeth Bridge, as they neared the end of the massive line to see the lying-in-state in the historic Westminster Hall.
On Friday night, Charles joined his three siblings, Princess Anne and Princes Andrew and Edward, in a silent vigil at the coffin.
“She wouldn’t believe all this, she really wouldn’t,” William was heard telling one man of the late queen, who came to the throne in 1952. “It’s amazing.”
One woman told Charles it had been “worth the wait” and others wished him well and cheered as he moved down the line.
Ahead of the state funeral at Westminster Abbey on Monday, world leaders also start arriving in the British capital.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese were among the dignitaries to pay their respects on Saturday while New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was seen curtsying to the coffin on Friday.
U.S. President Joe Biden was expected to go to the lying-in-state on Sunday.
On Saturday, Charles met leaders of the 14 countries where he is head of state such as Canada, Australia, and Jamaica after meeting the governors-general — the people who represent the monarch in overseas realms — at Buckingham Palace.
Security operation
London’s police force has described the funeral as the biggest security operation it has ever undertaken as prime ministers, presidents and royals come together and huge crowds throng the streets. The king visited police headquarters on Saturday to thank emergency services workers involved in the planning.
Underscoring the risks, police said one man had been detained and arrested after a witness told Sky News he “ran up to the queen’s coffin.” Footage showed a man being pinned to the ground by police officers and taken away.
By 5 p.m. local time, Britain’s culture ministry said the waiting time to reach the lying-in-state was up to 11 hours.
Inside the silent hall, some mourners wept, many were tearful while current soldiers and veterans saluted their former commander-in-chief. Others in the line fell to their knees.
New friendships, acts of kindness and the struggles of standing in line for hours, sometimes in the cold overnight, have come to define what has become known as just “the queue.”
The state funeral, to be attended by nearly 100 presidents and heads of government, is likely to be one of the biggest ceremonial events ever held in Britain.
Soldiers took part in early morning rehearsals in Windsor, where the queen’s coffin will be taken after the funeral at Westminster Abbey. Marching bands playing music and Grenadier Guards, who wear a tall bearskin hat on ceremonial duties, were seen marching down the High Street in preparation.
Liz Kelshall from Leatherhead, southern England, said she had brought her two children to Windsor so they would never forget the queen.
“It’s really important for them to grow up and remember this and it’s important for us as a family to come and show some respect for an amazing woman,” she said.
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