At Least 32 Killed in Turkey in Separate Crashes at Two Sites

• 08, 20, 2022
•  Nbiz
•  Бізнес, Новини
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At least 32 people were killed in southeast Turkey on Saturday when vehicles crashed into first responders who were attending earlier accidents, authorities said.

Sixteen people including emergency workers and journalists died when a bus crashed into an earlier accident site, regional governor Davut Gul from southeastern province of Gaziantep said. Another 20 people were wounded and received treatment.

“Around 10:45 this morning, a passenger bus crashed here,” Gul said, speaking from the scene of the accident on the road east of Gaziantep.  

“While the fire brigade, medical teams and other colleagues were responding to the accident, another bus crashed 200 meters behind. The second bus slid to this site and hit the first responders and the wounded people on the ground.”

Separately, a truck hit a site some 250 km (155 miles) east in Derik district of Mardin where first responders were attending to another accident, according to footage.

Sixteen people died and 29 others were injured as a result of the incident in Mardin, Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said, adding that eight of the wounded were in critical condition.
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British Lawmaker: Nuclear Accident Could Draw NATO Allies into War

• 08, 20, 2022
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Conservative British member of parliament Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the House of Commons Defense Select Committee, cautioned that any nuclear accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant could draw NATO into the war between Russia and Ukraine.
 

“Let’s make it clear now: any deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5,” he said Friday on Twitter.  

Article 5 of the NATO treaty states that an armed attack against one or more NATO allies in Europe or North America is to be considered an attack against them all and compels each to take any action it deems necessary to assist the attacked member state.  

Let’s make it clear now:

ANY deliberate damage causing potential radiation leak to a Ukrainian nuclear reactor would be a breach of NATO’s Article 5.@thetimes pic.twitter.com/FFv6KR1xdq

— Tobias Ellwood MP (@Tobias_Ellwood) August 19, 2022]]

During a phone call Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Vladimir Putin said Russia will allow international inspectors to enter the Russian–occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear site in Ukraine, Europe’s largest nuclear facility. 

Hours later, while giving a speech commemorating the 78th anniversary of the allied landing in Nazi-occupied southern France, Macron accused the Russian leader of launching a “brutal attack” on Ukraine in an imperialist, revanchist violation of international law.  

He warned French citizens that the resulting energy and economic crisis confronting Europe is not over, calling it “the price of our freedom and our values.”

“Since Vladimir Putin launched his brutal attack on Ukraine, war has returned to European soil, a few hours away from us,” Macron said, adding that Putin is seeking to impose his “imperialist will” on Europe, conjuring “phantoms of the spirit of revenge” in a “flagrant violation of the integrity of states.”

There is growing concern in Europe that shelling around Zaporizhzhia could result in a catastrophe worse than the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the IAEA’s aim to send a mission” to the plant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Friday, “Ukrainian diplomats, our partners, representatives of the U.N. and the IAEA are working out the specific details of the mission to be sent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. …  I am grateful to everyone who joined this work and initiative.”

Zelenskyy also cautioned in his address, “If Russian blackmail with radiation continues, this summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time. Because not a single instruction at any nuclear power plant in the world envisages a procedure in case a terrorist state turns a nuclear power plant into a target.”
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Swiss Prosecutors Asked to Probe Attack on Journalist in Ukraine 

• 08, 20, 2022
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A rights group has asked Switzerland to investigate an alleged attack on a Swiss photojournalist by Russian troops in Ukraine earlier this year, prosecutors confirmed Friday.

Ukrainian NGO Truth Hounds has asked Switzerland’s Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to probe an attack on Swiss freelance journalist Guillaume Briquet in southern Ukraine in March as a possible war crime, according to the Swiss-based Civitas Maxima group that helped it file the complaint.

The OAG confirmed to AFP that it had received the complaint, which it said would “now be examined according to usual procedure.”

“This is the first criminal complaint received in this context,” it said, stressing that receiving a complaint did not automatically mean it would launch an investigation.

Briquet was injured in the head and arms when his car, which had Geneva plates and PRESS written on both sides, was ambushed by Russian troops near Mykolaiv on March 6, according to Civitas Maxima.

Attackers possibly identified

Truth Hounds legal director Dmytro Koval told the RTS broadcaster that the group, which has been documenting war crimes in Ukraine since 2014, had been able to identify the Russian unit that probably opened fire on Briquet’s car.

Civitas Maxima, which provides legal representation for victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, suggested the journalist had been intentionally targeted.

“Mr. Briquet believes that the reason the press is being targeted is to intimidate journalists not to report on the conflict,” it said in a statement.

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, the Russian military has frequently been accused of deliberately targeting journalists who clearly identify as media workers.

At least a dozen journalists have been killed in the past six months of conflict, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Koval highlighted that Ukraine was struggling to investigate towering numbers of alleged war crimes and needed help from other countries.

“No country is capable of dealing with such a large number of war crimes that are currently suspected in Ukraine,” he said in the statement. “It is extremely important to involve in the investigations those states that have a jurisdictional connection with such crimes or can prompt the principle of universal jurisdiction over them.”

Swiss prosecutors have formed a task force to collect evidence of suspected war crimes committed in Ukraine from refugees arriving in Switzerland.

The OAG stressed that it could itself prosecute perpetrators of international crimes only if they were in Switzerland.

But the office also said it was securing any evidence it received of such crimes to pass on to the International Criminal Court in The Hague or to ensure criminal proceedings could be opened quickly if the suspected perpetrators entered Swiss territory.
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Putin to Allow Inspectors to Visit Russia-Occupied Nuclear Plant 

• 08, 20, 2022
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Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed that independent inspectors can travel to the Moscow-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, the French presidency said Friday, as fears grow over fighting near the site. 

According to French President Emmanuel Macron’s office, Putin had “reconsidered” his demand that the International Atomic Energy Agency travel through Russia to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear site. 

The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s chief, Rafael Grossi, “welcomed recent statements indicating that both Ukraine and Russia supported the IAEA’s aim to send a mission” to the plant. 

Meanwhile, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged Moscow’s forces occupying Zaporizhzhia not to disconnect the facility from the grid and potentially cut supplies of electricity to millions of Ukrainians. 

A flare-up in fighting around the Russian-controlled nuclear power station — with both sides blaming each other for attacks — has raised the specter of a disaster worse than in Chernobyl. 

The Kremlin said that Putin and Macron agreed that the IAEA should carry out inspections “as soon as possible” to “assess the real situation on the ground.” 

Putin also “stressed that the systematic shelling by the Ukrainian military of the territory of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant creates the danger of a large-scale catastrophe,” the Kremlin added. 

‘Most tragic’ summer

The warning came a day after Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Guterres, meeting in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, sounded the alarm over the fighting, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the United Nations to secure the site. 

“This summer may go down in the history of various European countries as one of the most tragic of all time,” Zelenskyy said in his Friday evening address. 

“No instruction at any nuclear power plant in the world provides a procedure in case a terrorist state turns a nuclear power plant into a target.” 

During his visit to the southern port of Odesa on Friday, the U.N. secretary-general said that “obviously, the electricity from Zaporizhzhia is Ukrainian electricity. This principle must be fully respected.” 

“Naturally, its energy must be used by the Ukrainian people,” he told AFP in separate comments.  

On Thursday, Moscow said Kyiv was preparing a “provocation” at the site that would see Russia “accused of creating a man-made disaster at the plant.”  

Kyiv, however, insisted that Moscow was planning the provocation, and said Russia’s occupying forces had ordered most staff to stay home Friday. 

The United States on Friday announced a new $775 million arms package, including more precision-guided missiles for HIMARS systems that enable Ukraine to strike Russian targets far behind the front lines.
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