Ukraine’s prime minister voiced outrage at reports that masked men in east Ukraine’s main city handed out leaflets demanding Jews register or be expelled, NBC News reported on Saturday.
Members of the Jewish community in the pro-Russian protest hub of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine said on Friday that they were left shaken by the distribution of tracts demanding the registration of Jews.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he wanted to “make a clear statement and urge the Ukrainian military and security forces and Ukrainian Department of Homeland Security urgently to find these bastards and to bring them to justice,” he said in excerpts of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, which were to air in full yesterday.
The incident happened as about 20 Jews were leaving the synagogue last week. The three hooded men handing out the pamphlets were carrying a Russian flag and the symbol of the separatist Republic of Donetsk.
Reports of the anti-Semitic tracts sparked international concern, with US Secretary of State John Kerry branding the distribution of the pamphlets as “grotesque” and US President Barack Obama expressing “disgust.”
According to Yatsenyuk, Russian President Vladimir Putin “has a dream to restore the Soviet Union. And every day he goes further and further and doesn’t know where is the final destination.”
“I consider that the biggest disaster of this century would be the restoring of the Soviet Union under the auspices of [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin,” he said.
Washington, Kiev and many EU states see Putin as pulling the strings in Ukraine’s insurgency, sending in special forces that he repeatedly denies are there.
The Kremlin has snapped back by stressing it has part of its army on Ukraine’s doorstep — a declaration that appeared to be a warning shot that the situation could rapidly deteriorate if Washington were to impose further sanctions.
Washington has warned Moscow that Ukraine is in a “pivotal period” as pro-Russian rebels there refuse to comply with a Geneva accord reached on Thursday by Russia, the US, Ukraine and the EU to disarm and leave occupied public buildings.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese