World

MOSCOW — Russia said on Tuesday its forces had captured 400 square kilometres of Ukrainian territory this year.

Moscow secured its first territorial gains in almost a year in recent months, as Kyiv struggles with manpower and ammunition shortages amid delays to vital Western aid.

“Since the start of the year, 403 square kilometres ... have come under our control,” Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said, referring to gains in the Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in 2022, despite not fully controlling them.

“Russian armed forces continue to push Ukrainian units westwards,” Shoigu told a meeting of Russia’s military chiefs, according to a transcript published by the defence ministry.

In February, Russia captured the frontline town of Avdiivka, just outside the Russian-held regional capital of Donetsk city in its most significant territorial advance since May last year.

Shoigu said Russian forces had captured five settlements — four in Donetsk and one in Zaporizhzhia — over the last month.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said last week that the recent acceleration in Russian gains on the battlefield was “not reflective of the threat of Russian operational success amid continued delays in US security assistance” to Kyiv.

It said Ukraine faced “materiel constraints” on its defensive capabilities.

A $60 billion package of military support is held up in the US Congress, while promised deliveries of artillery shells from Europe to Ukraine are running behind schedule.

The ISW estimates Russia controls more than 100,000 square kilometres — or almost a fifth — of Ukrainian territory.

SEOUL — North Korea fired a medium-range ballistic missile on Tuesday, Seoul’s military said, the latest in a spate of banned weapons tests by Kim Jong -un’s regime this year.

Tuesday’s launch was the third ballistic missile test of 2024, after a solid-fuel one overseen by Kim in March and another tipped with a manoeuvrable hypersonic warhead in January.

It also comes less than two weeks after Kim supervised an engine test for a “new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile”, according to North Korean state media, which has also said said he oversaw “super large” rocket launcher drills and tank exercises this year.

Seoul’s military “detected around 06:53 (21:53 GMT) what is presumed to be a medium-range ballistic missile fired from Pyongyang area into the East Sea”, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.

The missile flew about 600 kilometres before splashing down, the JCS said, adding it had “stepped up monitoring and are closely sharing relevant information with the US and Japan”.

“We strongly condemn the North’s blatant provocation that threatens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula,” it added.

Tokyo confirmed the missile launch, with its coastguard urging vessels to be vigilant and report any fallen objects without approaching them.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK, citing unnamed government sources, reported that the missile appeared “to have fallen in waters outside Japan’s exclusive economic zone”.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that the North had “repeatedly launched ballistic missiles” this year, adding that it was a threat to regional security and “absolutely unacceptable”.

The launch comes just days after a Russian veto at the United Nations ended UN expert monitoring of North Korean sanctions violations, amid a probe into alleged arms transfers between Moscow and Pyongyang.

North Korea has yet to comment on the development.

It also comes just over a week before South Korea votes in a general election, in which the party of hawkish President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has taken a tough line with Pyongyang, is seeking to win back control of the parliament.

Sanctions monitoring? 

“The Kim regime prioritises advancing its military capabilities and doesn’t care to stay quiet during the South Korean legislative election campaign,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul.

“But firing an intermediate-range missile lacks the shock value of a full-range ICBM launch or a nuclear test, so it’s unlikely to swing any national assembly seats.”

Pyongyang has been under a raft of sanctions since its second nuclear test in 2009, but the development of its nuclear and weapons programmes has continued unabated.

So far this year, the nuclear-armed North has declared South Korea its “principal enemy”, jettisoned agencies dedicated to reunification and outreach, and threatened war over “even 0.001 mm” of territorial infringement.

The Tuesday launch “appears to be part of Pyongyang’s missile development blueprint, including hypersonic weapons,” said Han Kwon-hee of the Korea Association of Defence Industry Studies.

It seems Kim is developing such technology domestically, rather than with Russian help “given the sensitive nature of the weapons”, he added.

Pyongyang has recently boosted ties with traditional ally Russia.

In September last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim held a summit in Russia’s far east, during which Kim declared that ties with Moscow were his country’s “number one priority”.

The United States subsequently claimed Pyongyang had begun providing Moscow with weapons.

South Korea asserted last month that North Korea had shipped around 7,000 containers of arms to Russia for its war with Ukraine since the transfers began around July — likely in exchange for Russian help with Kim’s satellite programmes.

BRASÍLIA — Ahead of the 60th anniversary of Brazil’s last military coup, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has cancelled events honouring its victims, seeking to show unity with the army after several officers were linked to an alleged plot to keep him from power.

“We need to bring Brazilian society and the armed forces closer, not treat each other as if we were enemies,” the leftist president told reporters in late February.

On March 31, 1964, the Brazilian military ousted then-president Joao Goulart and went on to hold dictatorial power for 21 years.

The era, long a flashpoint in Brazilian politics, still counts among its defenders the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain who served as president from 2019 to 2022.

The anniversary had seemed a natural one for Lula — a former union official who once led an historic workers’ strike against the military regime — to remember the 434 people who were killed or disappeared during military rule, according to the findings of a 2014 National Truth Commission.

In contrast to neighbouring Argentina, which tried state agents for crimes committed during the 1976-1983 dictatorship there, in Brazil that dark chapter ended with the 1979 passage of an amnesty law.

‘Political calculation’

But the 78-year-old Lula told reporters the 1964 coup was “already part of history”, adding that his government “will not dwell on the matter”.

“I am more concerned with the coup of January 8, 2023 than the one in 1964,” he added.

That day in January, thousands of Bolsonaro supporters invaded the seat of power in Brasilia — the Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices — calling on the military to depose Lula a week after his inauguration.

Police are investigating Bolsonaro for allegedly taking part in plotting a “coup d’etat” to remain in power after his election defeat in 2022.

Several of his close allies have been linked to the plot, including government ministers and high-ranking army officers. Police have detained a major and a colonel.

“There has never been a time as propitious to discuss the place of the armed forces in Brazilian society as there was after the Bolsonaro government and January 8,” historian Lucas Pedretti told AFP.

But Lula “made a political calculation placing a strategic accommodation with the armed forces in the foreground, to the detriment... of the historic needs of Brazilian society to review its past”, said Pedretti, a political scientist with the Rio de Janeiro State University.

Protests

Lula’s decision meant the cancellation of events planned by his own government, including the human rights ministry.

Silvio Almeida, who heads that ministry, had planned to deliver a speech at a Brasilia museum honouring those who were killed or persecuted by the former military regime, local media reported.

While Lula last year had reversed a Bolsonaro policy that allowed the military to hold celebrations of the 1964 coup, there will be no official reflections this year on the role of the armed forces then or since.

“It’s history; we don’t need to be stirring things up,” one army source told AFP.

Rights groups have insisted that Lula reinstate the Special Commission on Deaths and Political Disappearances, which was established in 1995 to investigate political crimes during the dictatorship years, then canceled by Bolsonaro in his final year in government.

The Brazilian Coalition for Memory, Truth and Justice — which groups more than 150 associations — sharply criticized the president’s decision not to commemorate the coup anniversary.

“Vigorously repudiating the 1964 coup is a way of reaffirming the commitment to punish current and possible future coup attempts,” the group said in a statement.

“We will not accept that governments again negotiate or abandon the rights of victims in order to be able to compromise with the military,” the statement added.

WASHINGTON — Russian intelligence has been linked to mysterious so-called Havana Syndrome symptoms experienced by US diplomats, a media investigation said on Monday, but the State Department stood by its assessment that no foreign actor was responsible.

Havana Syndrome was first publicly reported in 2016 when US diplomats in Cuba’s capital reported falling ill and hearing piercing sounds at night, sparking speculation of an attack by a foreign entity using an unspecified sonar weapon.

Other symptoms including bloody noses, headaches and vision problems were later reported by embassy staff in China, Europe and the US capital Washington.

The diplomats may have been targeted by Russian sonic weaponry, according to the joint report by The Insider, Der Spiegel and CBS’s “60 Minutes” news programme.

The year-long investigation “uncovered evidence suggesting that unexplained anomalous health incidents, also known as Havana Syndrome, may have their origin in the use of directed energy weapons wielded by members of [the Russian GRU] Unit 29155”, the report said.

Russia’s Unit 29155 is responsible for foreign operations and has been blamed for several international incidents, including the attempted poisoning of defector Sergei Skripal in Britain in 2018.

The United States in 2017 withdrew non-essential employees from its recently reopened embassy in Havana and expelled Cuban diplomats over the illnesses, speculating that microwave or other electronic warfare was responsible.

But US intelligence later concluded that the symptoms were more likely the result of preexisting conditions, conventional illnesses and environmental factors.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, asked about the new report, said there had been no change in that assessment.

“It has been the broad conclusion of the intelligence community since March 2023 that it is unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible for these anomalous health incidents,” Miller told reporters.

Moscow dismissed the new allegations as “groundless”.

“This topic has been talked up in the press for many years already. And from the very beginning, most often it’s linked to the Russian side,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a news conference.

“But nobody has ever published any convincing evidence, so all this is nothing more than a groundless and unfounded accusation,” he said.

The joint investigation suggests the first cases of Havana Syndrome may have occurred in Germany two years earlier than the cases reported in Havana in 2016 that gave the syndrome its name.

“There were likely attacks two years earlier in Frankfurt, Germany, when a US government employee stationed at the consulate there was knocked unconscious by something akin to a strong energy beam,” the report said.

The New Yorker reported in July 2021 that about two dozen US intelligence officers, diplomats and other government officials in Austria had reported problems similar to the Havana Syndrome since President Joe Biden took office earlier that year.

The United States deployed medical and scientific experts to study the alleged attacks, and those affected have been extensively examined to try to understand their afflictions.

A study last month by the National Institutes of Health said that it found no tangible evidence of brain injuries in people with Havana Syndrome, even if they reported real symptoms such as migraines, chronic dizziness and depression.

In a sign of easing concerns and also a sign of policy priorities, the Biden administration last year reopened the US immigration office in Havana that had been shuttered during the scare.

LIMA — Peru’s prosecutor’s office on Sunday ordered President Dina Boluarte to present any Rolex watches in her possession, after a raid on her home and office as part of a corruption probe.

Boluarte, 61, is being investigated for illegal enrichment and failing to declare several luxury watches which she has been spotted wearing since coming to power in 2022, following her predecessor’s arrest.

“The president of the republic has been formally summoned to exhibit the Rolex watches,” when she gives her sworn statement on April 5, the prosecutor’s office said.

The statement from the prosecutor’s office said that officers had not found the luxury watches during a dawn raid on Saturday, in which agents were shown breaking down the door of Boluarte’s home in dramatic television footage.

However, “other elements of interest for the investigation were obtained”. Local media indicated that documents were found showing when one of the watches was obtained.

Boluarte’s lawyer Mateo Castaneda told journalists on Saturday that police had found some watches during their operation.

“They did not take them away. They were noted and photographed. There were around 10, and among them were some nice ones but I cannot say if they were Rolex,” Castaneda told radio station RPP.

In an address to the nation, Boluarte slammed the raids as “arbitrary, disproportionate and abusive”.

The raid came after prosecutors refused Boluarte’s request for more time to respond to a subpoena demanding she furnish proof of purchase for her watches.

Prosecutors also want to know if she has reported the Rolex watches on her income statements.

Boluarte came to power in December 2022 after former president Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, leading to his arrest and violent protests demanding she step down, and that fresh elections be held.

She is also facing a constitutional complaint over a crackdown on those protests which led to the deaths of more than 50 people.

Boluarte, whose approval ratings hover around 10 per cent, said on Saturday the raids were “an attack on democracy and the state of government, generating political, social and economic instability”.

She has previously said that the watches were the product of working hard since she was 18 years old.

If she is indicted in the case, a trial could not take place until after her term ends in July 2026 or she is impeached, according to the constitution.

Congress potentially could seek her dismissal on grounds of “moral incapacity”, but that would require the unlikely cooperation of the right-leaning groups that control the parliament — and are Boluarte’s main support — with their left-wing rivals.

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday gave Easter Mass with tens of thousands of Catholics at Saint Peter’s Square in Vatican City before his traditional blessing, as concerns persist over his health.

The 87-year-old arrived in a wheelchair to preside over the mass from 10:00 am (08:00 GMT) in cloudy and windy weather, with the events broadcast live around the globe.

France will pronounce the “Urbi et Orbi” (To the City and the World) blessing at midday where he is expected to bring up the international conflicts raging worldwide.

Easter Sunday marks the resurrection of Jesus Christ and is the culmination of Holy Week, a major part of the Catholic calendar followed by 1.3 billion people.

The pope on Saturday presided over the Easter Vigil at the Vatican in front of some 6,000 people from around the world, a day after his last-minute cancellation at a major Good Friday procession revived questions about his health.

He delivered a 10-minute homily in Italian, speaking without any undue difficulty and condemning “the walls of selfishness and indifference” in the world.

At the end of the two-and-a-half-hour service he showed little sign of fatigue, taking time to greet and bless some of the worshippers.

In a brief statement on Friday, the Vatican had said that “to preserve his health ahead of tomorrow’s vigil and the Easter Sunday mass, Pope Francis will this evening follow the Way of the Cross at the Colosseum from the Santa Marta Residence”, where he lives.

Health concerns 

The last-minute decision raised questions about how long Francis can continue to lead the Catholic Church.

A Vatican source told AFP on Friday there was “no particular concern” about his health and the decision to pull out had been “simply a measure of caution”.

The Argentinian Jesuit had also cancelled his participation in the “Via Crucis” in 2023, but that followed a three-day hospital stay for bronchitis, and was announced well ahead of time. Weeks later, he underwent a hernia operation.

Up until Friday, the pope had attended his various engagements throughout the week, but he recently appeared tired and has sometimes delegated speaking roles to colleagues.

Francis, who never takes holidays, made his last trip in September, to the southern French city of Marseille. In December, he cancelled a much-anticipated attendance at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

His next scheduled trip is to Venice on April 28. The Vatican has not yet confirmed a planned trip to Asia and Pacific Ocean nations for this summer.

Francis has previously left the door open to stepping down if he can no longer do the job. That would follow the example of his immediate predecessor, Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first Pope since the Middle Ages to voluntarily step aside.

But in a memoir published this month, Francis wrote that he did “not have any cause serious enough to make me think of resigning”.

LIMA — Peruvian authorities raided President Dina Boluarte’s home and the government palace early Saturday as part of an ongoing corruption investigation related to undisclosed luxury watches.

The search was carried out “according to the court order”, Colonel Harvey Colchado of the police told reporters. He would not say whether anything suspect had been found.

According to a police document obtained by AFP, about 40 agents and prosecutors were involved in the house raid, which was searching for Rolex watches that Boluarte had not publicly declared.

The raid “is for the purpose of search and seizure”, police said.

The embattled president was at the palace at the time, officials said. In a brief message on X, the presidency said the search was carried out “normally and without any incident”.

Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzen slammed the raid as an “intolerable outrage” and “disproportionate and unconstitutional”.

He added, however, that Boluarte would “cooperate with the prosecution” and provide a statement when summoned.

Authorities launched an investigation into Boluarte this month after a news outlet drew attention to pictures of her sporting luxury watches at public events.

Rolex watches can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Saturday’s raid, a joint operation between the police and the prosecutor’s office, was broadcast on local television channel Latina.

Government agents could be seen surrounding the house in the Surquillo District of the capital Lima while officers blocked oncoming traffic.

The surprise, early-morning raid was requested by the public prosecutor and authorised by the Supreme Court of Preparatory Investigation.

It came after prosecutors refused Boluarte’s request for more time to respond to a subpoena demanding she furnish proof of purchase for her watches.

‘Clean hands’ 

Already facing declining approval ratings — currently around 10 percent — she was plunged into a fresh political crisis by the probe into whether she has illegally enriched herself while in office.

If she is indicted in the case, a trial could not take place until after her term ends in July 2026 or she is impeached, according to the constitution.

Congress potentially could seek her dismissal on grounds of “moral incapacity,” but that would require the unlikely cooperation of the right-leaning groups that control the parliament — and are Boluarte’s main support — with their left-wing rivals.

The scandal erupted after local news outlet La Encerrona reported in mid-March that Boluarte had worn various Rolex timepieces at official events.

The outlet drew attention to the watches with pictures dating from December 2022, when Boluarte took office.

The government comptroller later announced it would review Boluarte’s asset declarations from the past two years to search for any irregularities.

Boluarte, 61, has staunchly defended herself.

“I entered the Government Palace with clean hands, and I will leave it with clean hands,” she said last week.

Responding to questions about how she could afford such expensive timepieces on a public salary, she said they were a product of working hard since she was 18 years old.

The lawyer and former vice president became Peru’s first woman president after leftist leader Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, leading to his quick ouster and arrest.

Violent protests demanding Boluarte step down and fresh elections be held followed, with almost 50 people killed in the ensuing crackdown. Prosecutors are investigating her on charges that security forces used excessive and lethal force.

EDE, Netherlands — A hostage drama in The Netherlands that lasted several hours ended without bloodshed on Saturday as all four hostages were freed and police took the suspect into custody.

Authorities said there was no reason to suspect a “terrorist motive” for the ordeal, which took place at a night spot popular with young people in the central Dutch town of Ede.

Police said they received reports of a potential hostage situation at 5:15am (04:15 GMT) at the Cafe Petticoat, with local media saying a “confused” man burst in as staff were clearing up after a party.

The man was armed with “several knives” that he showed to the hostages, Prosecutor Marthyne Kunst told reporters at a news conference in the town hall.

Police are also investigating a black backpack he was carrying with him, amid reports that the hostage-taker had threatened to use explosives.

Authorities later confirmed there were in fact no explosives in the backpack.

Police spokesman Anne Jan Oosterheert said officers were on the scene within minutes, immediately opening negotiations with the man.

“Luckily that all went well,” he said, declining to offer details of the negotiations.

The suspect is known to the police and has a previous conviction for threatening behaviour. Investigations are under way as to his motive and psychological state, Kunst said.

“Great respect and appreciation for police, emergency services and special forces who brought the hostage situation... to a successful conclusion,” said outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

“I wish everyone affected a great deal of strength to deal with these intense and dramatic events,” he added.

‘Terrible situation’ 

The incident sparked a major deployment including riot police and explosives experts.

Police cleared the town centre and evacuated the residents of some 150 buildings near the cafe. Trains were diverted away from the town as a precaution.

Hours after the ordeal began, an initial group of three people was released, pictures from public broadcaster NOS showing them exiting the building with their hands in the air.

The fourth hostage was freed shortly afterwards, with the suspected hostage-taker then arrested.

NOS images showed a man kneeling on the ground with his hands behind his back, as officers restrained him with handcuffs.

“A terrible situation for all these people. My concern and thoughts go out to them and their loved ones. I hope that the situation is now resolved quickly and safely,” said Ede mayor Rene Verhulst.

“Emotions are high” in the town, said the mayor, saying it had been “a very intense Saturday morning.”

He said he would soon be visiting the hostages, who were employees of the cafe.

“They were confronted by a man who said he had explosives in his bag and threatened them with knives. They are completely shocked,” Verhulst said.

The Netherlands has seen a series of terror attacks and plots, but not on the scale of other European countries, such as France or Britain.

In 2019, the country was stunned by a shooting spree on a tram in the city of Utrecht that claimed four lives.

In the most serious incident involving a terror attack, outspoken Dutch anti-Islam film director Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in 2004 in Amsterdam by a man with ties to a Dutch Islamist terror network.

Last year, a 27-year-old man armed with two guns held several people hostage at an Apple store in Amsterdam, sparking a tense five-hour ordeal.

That stand-off ended when the suspect was hit by a police car as he chased his last hostage who made a desperate break for freedom and ran out of the store.

He later died in hospital from his injuries.