AFP USA

A record 383 aid workers were killed last year, the United Nations said Tuesday, branding the figures and lack of accountability a “shameful indictment” of international apathy, and warning that this year’s toll was equally grim.The 2024 figure was up 31 percent on the year before, the UN said on World Humanitarian Day, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.It said state actors were the most common perpetrators of the killings last year, and most of the victims were local staff attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.Besides those killed, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped and 45 detained.”Humanitarians must be respected and protected. They can never be targeted,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.”This rule is non-negotiable and is binding on all parties to conflict, always and everywhere. Yet red lines are crossed with impunity,” he said, calling for perpetrators to be brought to justice.- ‘Life-saving work’ -Provisional figures from the Aid Worker Security Database show that 265 aid workers have been killed this year to August 14.”Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher, head of its humanitarian agency OCHA.”Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end.”OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke said “very, very few” people had “ever been brought to justice for any of these attacks”.The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement said 18 of its staff and volunteers had been killed so far this year “while carrying out their life-saving work”.”Each killing sends a dangerous message that their lives were expendable. They were not,” the group said.Meanwhile the UN’s World Health Organization said 1,121 health workers and patients had been killed and hundreds injured in attacks across 16 territories —  with most deaths in Sudan.”Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of life-saving care when they need it the most, endangers health care providers, and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.- Frustration with impunity -World Humanitarian Day marks the day in 2003 when UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians were killed in the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.Current UN deputy human rights chief Nada al-Nashif — who survived that blast — urged countries to use the principle of universal jurisdiction to go after the perpetrators of such attacks.”It’s supreme frustration with impunity,” she told AFP.”Where the pursuit in national jurisdictions is not coming through — then we have to resort to universal jurisdiction.”Speaking of the Baghdad attack, she said: “I lost a finger, I was badly hurt, I had about six surgeries over four years, but it is nothing, it pales in comparison to what we lost that day.”I am really saddened that we are in the same place now, where the United Nations is being undermined.”We are being manipulated again, attacked, directly, and find ourselves prey to misinformation and disinformation at a time when more than ever we need a robust, vivid and dynamic UN.”

Mexican drug trafficker Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada will plead guilty at a hearing next Monday, US court filings show, raising the prospect of a cooperation deal with prosecutors.Zambada, who cofounded the Sinaloa Cartel with notorious drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, was arrested in the United States in July 2024 along with Joaquin Guzman Lopez, a son of El Chapo.Zambada, 77, alleged that he had been kidnapped in Mexico and handed to the US against his will, caught in an apparent attempt by Guzman Lopez to gain leniency for himself and an imprisoned brother.”The August 25, 2025 status conference is converted to a change of plea hearing,” said an entry in the court docket updated Monday.Zambada will avoid a trial because of the plea.Last September, Zambada pleaded not guilty to 17 charges including murder and drug trafficking, particularly of fentanyl — a powerful narcotic 50 times stronger than cocaine, responsible for tens of thousands of US overdose deaths annually.In addition to avoiding the dock, an agreement with prosecutors could lead to a lighter sentence than that of El Chapo, who is serving life imprisonment in the United States.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that US air support and European ground troops could be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, warning of a “rough” situation if talks between Moscow and Kyiv fail.”When it comes to security, they’re willing to put people on the ground,” he told Fox News, referring to European allies whom he met in the White House on Monday.”We’re willing to help them with things, especially, probably, if you talk about by air, because no one has the kind of stuff we have, really, they don’t,” Trump said.He added his “assurance” that no US ground troops would deploy to Ukraine, and he categorically ruled out Ukraine joining the Western military alliance NATO.Post-war security is a key concern for Kyiv after more than three years of Russian invasion. Moscow has long said it will not tolerate Ukraine joining NATO and has been hostile to the idea of Western troops deploying to the former Soviet territory.Trump said that “France and Germany, a couple of them, UK — they want to have boots on the ground.””I don’t think it’s going to be a problem, to be honest with you. I think, I think Putin is tired of” the war, he added.Trump said that following his talks Monday with European leaders he is pushing to organize a bilateral summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — followed by another where he will join.”I called President Putin, and we’re trying to work out a meeting with President Zelensky. We’ll see what happens there,” he said. “If that works out, if it works out, then I’ll go to the trilat and close it up.”Saying it was possible Putin would back out, Trump said “I hope President Putin’s going to be good and if not, it’s going to be a rough situation.”Zelensky “has to show some flexibility also.”In addition to the question of guaranteeing Ukraine’s future security, the other key sticking point in ending the war is the status of the huge swaths of land occupied by Russia.Trump said Ukraine has to accept it will not get its lost territories back — including the eastern Donbas region — but in return will get peace.”I assume you’ve all seen the map. You know, a big chunk of territory is taken and that territory has been taken. Now they’re talking about Donbas, but Donbas right now, as you know, is 79 percent owned and controlled by Russia,” Trump said.The US leader said Ukraine was not powerful enough to change the situation.”This was a war and Russia is a powerful military nation, you know. Whether people like it or not, it’s a powerful nation. It’s a much bigger nation,” he said. “You don’t take, you don’t take on a nation that’s 10 times your size.””Everybody can play cute and this and that, but, you know, Ukraine is going to get their life back,” Trump said about a peace deal involving Ukraine surrendering land. “They’re going to stop having people killed all over the place and they’re going to get a lot of land.”

Russia said Tuesday that any deal on Ukraine should ensure its own security and that of Russians in Ukraine, as Kyiv’s allies met to discuss possible peace talks, after suggestions that Volodymyr Zelensky could sit down with Vladimir Putin.Hopes of a breakthrough rose when the Ukrainian president and European leaders met in Washington on Monday with US President Donald Trump, who said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart.But Russia warned that any solution of the war in Ukraine must respect “Russia’s security interests”, with its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov adding that any meeting between the leaders “must be prepared very thoroughly”.Face-to-face talks between Zelensky and Putin would be their first since Russia’s brutal invasion three-and-a-half years ago.The Ukraine war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has ground to a virtual stalemate despite a few recent Russian advances, defying Trump’s push to end it.Lavrov told state TV channel Rossiya 24 that any deal to end the conflict must ensure the rights of “Russian-speaking people who live in Ukraine.”His comments came as France and Britain were co-hosting a virtual meeting of about 30 of Kyiv’s allies known as the “coalition of the willing” to “keep them up to date on what was decided”, President Emmanuel Macron told French news channel LCI.He added that work on setting the peace talks will start after that, hinting at Geneva as a possible location. Macron also voiced wider European concern about Moscow’s territorial ambitions, after suggestions Ukraine could be forced to concede parts of the embattled Donbas region still under its control.On the streets of Kyiv, there was scepticism about whether the latest talks can end the grinding conflict.”The main problem is Putin himself doesn’t want it,” Anton, 32, who works in a warehouse, told AFP. “They can meet as many times as they want but Putin doesn’t need it and Donald Trump doesn’t really know what to do.” But in Moscow, some people were more hopeful. “I hope we can agree on mutually beneficial terms,” said Vyacheslav, 23, who works for the government. He added that it would have been better if the meeting between the presidents happened “at the very beginning.”- Open to talks -Trump, who last week held talks with Putin in Alaska, wrote on his Truth Social network after Monday’s meetings that he called Putin to start planning peace talks with Zelensky.A three-way summit with both leaders would then be held, he added.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was part of the European delegation, said Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting within the next two weeks.Zelensky said he was “ready” to meet his bitter foe Putin and on Tuesday hailed the Washington talks as a “truly significant step toward ending the war and ensuring the security of Ukraine and our people”.In Moscow, where a Kremlin aide said that Putin was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine, Lavrov said the United States had now taken “a much deeper approach to resolving the crisis”.Trump’s summit with Putin last Friday failed to produce a ceasefire and, just before Monday’s talks, a Russian drone strike on an apartment block in Kharkiv killed seven, including two children.Zelensky rushed to the White House to meet with Trump after the US president increasingly pushed the Ukrainian leader to make concessions to Russia.- Security guarantees -Trump meanwhile said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine and that Putin had agreed to them, despite ruling out Kyiv’s long-held dream of joining the NATO alliance.The guarantees “would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America”, he said.The Financial Times said Ukraine had undertaken to buy $100 billion of US weapons financed by Europe in return for US guarantees for its security.Zelensky later spoke to reporters about a $90-billion package, and said Ukraine and its allies would formalise the terms of the security guarantees within 10 days.The presence of the European leaders however also underscored continuing nervousness about whether Trump will pivot towards Putin as he has on a number of occasions.Trump had pushed Ukraine ahead of the meeting to give up Crimea and abandon its goal of joining NATO — both key demands made by Putin.burs/dc

Ukraine’s allies were meeting on Tuesday to discuss the outcome of fast-moving talks to end the war with Russia, after indications that Volodymyr Zelensky could sit down with Vladimir Putin for a peace summit.Hopes of a breakthrough rose when the Ukrainian president and European leaders met US President Donald Trump in Washington on Monday, who said he had also spoken by phone with his Russian counterpart.The Ukraine war, which has killed tens of thousands of people, has ground to a virtual stalemate despite a few recent Russian advances, defying Trump’s push to end it.A face-to-face meeting between Zelensky and Putin would be their first since Russia’s brutal invasion nearly three-and-a-half years ago.French President Emmanuel Macron, who was in Washington for the talks on the key issue of long-term security guarantees for Ukraine, said France and Britain would hold a meeting on Tuesday with around 30 of Kyiv’s allies.The virtual meeting of the so-called “coalition of the willing” would “keep them up to date on what was decided”, Macron told French news channel LCI. “Right after that, we’ll start concrete work with the Americans.”Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer are co-hosting the meeting, which will “discuss next steps” for Ukraine, a UK government spokesperson told AFP, as Kyiv seeks backing from allies to enforce any peace deal.Macron suggested Geneva could host peace talks, but said it was “up to Ukraine” to decide whether to make concessions on territory, including parts of the eastern Donbas region still under its control.”Putin has rarely honoured his commitments,” he added, calling the Russian leader a “predator, an ogre at our gates” — comments that underscored wider European wariness.Putin “has constantly been a force for destabilisation. He has sought to redraw borders to increase his power,” Macron said.- Open to talks -Trump, who last week held talks with Putin in Alaska, wrote on his Truth Social network after Monday’s meetings that “everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine”.”At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky,” he added.Trump said he would then hold a three-way summit with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who was part of the European delegation, said Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting within the next two weeks.Zelensky said he was “ready” to meet his bitter foe Putin, while in Moscow, a Kremlin aide said that Putin was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine.Trump’s summit with Putin last Friday failed to produce any ceasefire, with no let-up since in daily Russian drone attacks on Ukraine.Zelensky then rushed to the White House to meet with Trump after the US president increasingly pushed the Ukrainian leader to make concessions to Russia.The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the European Commission and NATO then announced that they would also be attending, in a pointed show of support.Zelensky also met one-on-one in the Oval Office with Trump in their first encounter there since their acrimonious blow-up in February.The Ukrainian president said the meeting was their “best” yet, with little of the tension that erupted when Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him in front of TV cameras for not being “grateful” for US support.- Security guarantees -Trump meanwhile said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, adding that Putin had agreed to them despite ruling out Kyiv’s long-held dream of joining the NATO alliance.The guarantees “would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America”, he said.The Financial Times, citing a document seen by the newspaper, said Ukraine had undertaken to buy $100 billion of US weapons financed by Europe in return for US guarantees for its security.Zelensky later spoke to reporters about a $90-billion package, and said Ukraine and its allies would formalise the terms of the security guarantees within 10 days.The presence of the European leaders however also underscored continuing nervousness about whether Trump will pivot towards Putin as he has on a number of occasions.Trump had pushed Ukraine ahead of the meeting to give up Crimea and abandon its goal of joining NATO — both key demands made by Putin.burs-phz/jhb

A record 383 aid workers were killed in 2024, the United Nations said Tuesday, branding the figures and lack of accountability a “shameful indictment” of international apathy — and warned this year’s toll was equally disturbing.The 2024 figure was up 31 percent on the year before, the UN said on World Humanitarian Day, “driven by the relentless conflicts in Gaza, where 181 humanitarian workers were killed, and in Sudan, where 60 lost their lives”.It said state actors were the most common perpetrators of the killings in 2024.The UN said most of those killed were local staff, and were either attacked in the line of duty or in their homes.Besides those killed, 308 aid workers were wounded, 125 kidnapped and 45 detained last year.”Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” said UN aid chief Tom Fletcher.”Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy. “As the humanitarian community, we demand — again — that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account.”Provisional figures from the Aid Worker Security Database show that 265 aid workers have been killed this year, as of August 14.The UN reiterated that attacks on aid workers and operations violate international humanitarian law and damage the lifelines sustaining millions of people trapped in war and disaster zones.”Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end,” said Fletcher, the UN emergency relief coordinator and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs.Meanwhile the UN’s World Health Organization said it had verified more than 800 attacks on health care in 16 territories so far this year, with more than 1,110 health workers and patients killed and hundreds injured.”Each attack inflicts lasting harm, deprives entire communities of life-saving care when they need it the most, endangers health care providers, and weakens already strained health systems,” the WHO said.World Humanitarian Day marks the day in 2003 when UN rights chief Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 other humanitarians were killed in the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

Hurricane Erin’s massive footprint battered Caribbean islands with heavy gusts and downpours Monday, as it threatened rip currents and flooding along the US East Coast later this week even without a predicted landfall.The Category 3 storm strengthened dramatically over the weekend in a historic burst of intensification scientists said was fueled by human-caused climate change. It briefly peaked as a Category 5 hurricane before weakening.In its latest advisory the US National Hurricane Center said the Atlantic season’s first hurricane was packing maximum sustained winds of 125 miles (205 kilometers) per hour while moving northwest at 8 mph. Erin is “unusually large,” with hurricane force winds extending 80 miles from the center and tropical storm winds extending 230 miles, the NHC said.The storm’s outer bands were forecast to dump rain across Cuba and the Dominican Republic through Monday as well as the Turks and Caicos and the southeast Bahamas — where a tropical storm warning is in place — into Tuesday.These regions could receive localized totals of up to four inches (10 centimeters) of rain, according to the NHC.The agency’s deputy director, Jamie Rhome, warned Americans not to assume the hurricane won’t impact them simply because its track keeps it offshore.”Nothing could be further from the truth for portions of the Mid-Atlantic, especially the Outer Banks of North Carolina,” he said. On Wednesday and Thursday, waves of up to 20 feet (six meters), coastal flooding and storm surge “could overwash dunes and flood homes, flood roads and make some communities impassable,” he said.Evacuations have been ordered for two North Carolina islands, Ocracoke and Hatteras.From Tuesday, much of the East Coast will face a high risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents, which occur when channels of water surge away from the shore. In Puerto Rico, a US territory of more than three million people, weekend flooding swamped homes and roads in the island’s east, and widespread power outages left residents in the dark, though nearly all service has since been restored.- Climate link -“Erin is one of the fastest, most intensifying storms in the modern record,” Daniel Gilford, a climate scientist at the nonprofit Climate Central, told AFP.”We see that it has intensified over these warm surface temperatures — and this makes a lot of sense, because we know that hurricanes act like heat engines taking up energy from the ocean surface, converting that energy into winds.”According to Climate Central, Erin traveled over waters whose extreme warmth was made up to 100 times more likely through climate change.The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, has now entered its historical peak. Despite a relatively quiet start with just four named storms so far, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) continues to forecast an “above-normal” season.A typical season produces 14 named storms, of which seven become hurricanes and three strengthen into major hurricanes. This year, tropical activity is expected to be elevated by a combination of warmer-than-average sea-surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean, along with an active West African monsoon, NOAA said.Scientists broadly agree that climate change is supercharging tropical cyclones: warmer oceans fuel stronger winds, a warmer atmosphere intensifies rainfall, and higher sea levels magnify storm surge.Climate change may also be making hurricanes more frequent. 

An outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood thought to have originated in contaminated cooling towers has killed five people and put 14 in the hospital, health officials said on Monday.”The NYC Health Department is currently investigating a community cluster of Legionnaires’ disease in Central Harlem,” the New York City health department said in a statement.”As of August 18, there are 108 confirmed cases, five deaths, 14 currently hospitalized.”Legionnaires’ disease, which is not directly contagious from person to person, is caused by bacteria that can multiply in water and air conditioning systems.Spreading through contaminated droplets, the bug can cause fever and pneumonia, especially among people with weak immune systems.The disease takes its name from the first known outbreak, which occurred in 1976 at a hotel in Philadelphia where the American Legion military veterans’ association was holding a conference.More than 220 people fell ill, of whom 34 died.”The Health Department has sampled and tested water from cooling towers in the investigation zone. Any cooling towers with initial positive results for Legionella bacteria have completed the treatment required by the Health Department,” New York’s health department said in its statement. “This community outbreak is not related to a building’s hot or cold water supply.”

Law enforcement used excessive force and deliberate brutality against Los Angeles protesters and journalists during demonstrations against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in June, a Human Rights Watch report said Monday.Scores of people were injured as officers fired hard foam rounds, flash-bang grenades, pepper balls and tear gas from close range, during the largely peaceful response to a dramatic increase in immigration arrests across Southern California.”Law enforcement officers…used brutal, excessive, and unnecessary force against people standing up for human rights and those reporting on the protests,” said Ida Sawyer, the rights group’s crisis, conflict and arms director.The protests erupted on June 6, in anger at raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been ordered by the Trump administration to target undocumented migrants across the sprawling, heavily Latino city.The demonstrations were mainly confined to a small section of downtown Los Angeles. Largely non-violent, they at times spiraled into chaotic scenes that Trump pounced on to send 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines into the city — a move loudly protested by local officials.Compiling the report, Human Rights Watch staff observed protests, visited locations of immigration raids in mid-June, and interviewed dozens of people.The report documented 65 cases in which law enforcement officers injured protesters and journalists but warned that the “actual number is most likely much higher.”On one occasion, a police officer shot three people at “very close range with kinetic impact projectiles,” leaving them in serious pain for days.”Before shooting one of them in the groin, the officer said: ‘I’m going to pop you, as you are taking up my focus,'” the report found.Other reported injuries included broken bones, concussions, an amputated finger, and severe eye damage.In a statement, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it “does not deploy less-lethal tools indiscriminately.” “Such tools are used only when all de-escalation efforts have been exhausted,” it added. The law enforcement agency said any time a deputy uses force, they are required to report it to a supervisor and undergo “a thorough, fair, and objective review,” including analyzing evidence and video footage to determine “that the actions taken were objectively reasonable and fully aligned” with policy.An Agence France-Presse photographer was shot in the face with a rubber bullet by law enforcement while covering a protest in downtown Los Angeles on June 14. At least three other journalists were also injured.The US Constitution guarantees the right to free speech and peaceful assembly, and protects against the use of excessive force by law enforcement. California has laws restricting the use of “less lethal weapons” during protests, and protecting the rights of journalists.

Russian and Ukrainian presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky looked set for a peace summit after fast-moving talks Monday between Donald Trump and European leaders that focused on the key issue of long-term security guarantees for Kyiv.Hopes of a breakthrough rose after Trump said he had spoken by phone with Russian counterpart Putin — whom he met in Alaska last week — following a “very good” meeting with the Europeans and the Ukrainian president at the White House.It would be the first meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders since Moscow’s brutal invasion nearly three and a half years ago, and comes as Trump tries to live up to his promise to quickly end the war.Trump, 79, wrote on his Truth Social network that “everyone is very happy about the possibility of PEACE for Russia/Ukraine.””At the conclusion of the meetings, I called President Putin, and began the arrangements for a meeting, at a location to be determined, between President Putin and President Zelensky,” Trump said.Trump said he would then hold a three-way summit with the Ukrainian and Russian leaders.German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting within the next two weeks, but there was no confirmation of a date or location.- Zelensky ‘ready’ to meet Putin -Zelensky confirmed to reporters outside the White House he was “ready” for a bilateral with bitter foe Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine has led to tens of thousands of deaths.In Moscow, a Kremlin aide said that Putin was open to the “idea” of direct talks with Ukraine.The Ukraine war has ground to a virtual stalemate despite a few recent Russian advances, but Trump’s summit with Putin last Friday failed to produce any ceasefire.Zelensky then rushed to the White House to meet with Trump after the US president increasingly pushed the Ukrainian leader to make concessions to Russia.The leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Finland, the European Commission and NATO then announced that they would be coming too, in a pointed show of support.Zelensky also met one-on-one in the Oval Office with Trump in their first encounter in the heart of the US presidency since their acrimonious blow-up there in February.The Ukrainian president said the meeting was their “best” yet, with little of the tensions that erupted when Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him in front of TV cameras for not being “grateful” for US support.Trump even complimented Zelensky on his black jacket, after the Ukrainian was criticized by right-wing media because he failed to change his trademark war-leader’s outfit for a suit during the February visit.- ‘Security guarantees’ -The US president meanwhile said he had discussed security guarantees for Ukraine, adding that Putin had agreed to them despite ruling out Kyiv’s long-held dream of joining the NATO alliance.Trump said the guarantees “would be provided by the various European Countries, with a coordination with the United States of America.” NATO chief Mark Rutte told reporters at the White House it was a “very successful meeting” with “the president really breaking the deadlock.””Today was really about security guarantees, the US getting more involved there, and all the details to be hammered out over the coming days,” he said.The Financial Times, citing a document seen by the newspaper, said Ukraine had undertaken to buy $100 billion of US weapons financed by Europe in return for US guarantees for its security.Zelensky later spoke to reporters about a $90 billion package, and said Ukraine and its allies would formalize the terms of the security guarantees within 10 days.The presence of the European leaders however also underscored continuing nervousness about whether Trump will pivot towards Putin as he has on a number of occasions.Trump had pushed Ukraine ahead of the meeting to give up Crimea and abandon its goal of joining NATO — both key demands made by Putin.French President Emmanuel Macron called Monday for stepping up sanctions against Russia if Putin does not move forward on peace with Ukraine.Finnish President Alex Stubb said Putin was not “to be trusted.”Germany’s Merz meanwhile said Ukraine should not be forced to surrender its Donbas region to Russia in talks.”The Russian demand that Kyiv give up the free parts of Donbas corresponds, to put it bluntly, to a proposal for the United States to have to give up Florida,” Merz told reporters.