AFP, KYIV
Kyiv yesterday said that more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops, many of them injured, remained in the sprawling Azovstal steel works in the Russian-controlled port city of Mariupol.
“More than a thousand” Ukrainian soldiers remain in the plant, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, said. “Hundreds are injured. There are people with serious injuries who require urgent evacuation.”
Photo: AFP
Earlier yesterday, Matilda Bogner, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, told reporters in Geneva, Switzerland, that since the Russian invasion, thousands more civilians have been killed than the official UN death toll of 3,381.
The UN team, which includes 55 monitors in Ukraine, has said that most of the deaths occurred from the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, such as shelling and airstrikes.
“We have been working on estimates, but all I can say for now is that it is thousands higher than the numbers we have currently given to you,” Bogner said.
“The big black hole is Mariupol, where it has been difficult for us to fully access and to get fully corroborated information,” she said.
On Monday, Ukraine’s Black Sea port of Odesa came under repeated missile attack.
The Ukrainian military said that Russian forces fired seven missiles from the air at Odesa, hitting a shopping center and a warehouse.
As part of the barrage, a Russian supersonic bomber fired three hypersonic missiles, said the Center for Defense Strategies, a Ukrainian think tank tracking the war.
Using advanced guided missiles allows Russia to fire from aircraft at a distance, without being exposed to potential anti-aircraft fire.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden signed a law speeding up arms deliveries to Kyiv.
The US has sent about US$4 billion in military aid to Ukraine, but “caving to aggression is even more costly,” Biden said.
In a bid to build pressure on Russia, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she made “progress” on a proposed Russian oil embargo during talks with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Additional reporting by Reuters, AP
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
Taiwan is still in the process of assessing the possibility of recruiting workers from Eswatini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday, adding that its goal is to help Eswatini upgrade its vocational training centers. If there are plans to recruit workers from Eswatini, safeguarding national security, protecting public health and ensuring the employment rights of Taiwanese would be prerequisites, Department of West Asian and African Affairs Director-General Yen Chia-liang (顏嘉良) told a news conference. Key considerations would also include filling labor shortages in specific industries, and fostering bilateral professional and technical exchanges, he said. Yen was asked about the progress of labor
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS