Russia warns US against further sanctions as Ukraine deal stalls

DONETSK: Russia said its military is massed on Ukraine's doorstep and warned against further US sanctions as a deal struck with Washington appeared to stall because of intransigence by Moscow-backed rebels in the former Soviet republic.

A threat by US President Barack Obama that more sanctions would befall Moscow if the agreement, reached Thursday with Ukraine and the EU, failed was “absolutely unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian television.

“Our Western colleagues are trying to push responsibility towards our side. But it must be underlined: it is a collective responsibility,” he said.

He pointedly declared that “there are troops close to the Ukrainian border”. “Some are based there, others have been sent as reinforcements due to the situation in Ukraine,” he added.

The comments appeared to be a warning shot to Washington that the situation could quickly degrade if Moscow were punished for a failed implementation of the accord.

The White House said it was watching Moscow to see if it is holding up its end of the deal.

“We expect and we will be watching whether Russia does or does not uphold its responsibility to use its very considerable influence to restrain and withdraw those irregular militia from the buildings and spaces that they've occupied,” said National Security Advisory Susan Rice.

In a phone call on Friday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, US Secretary of State John Kerry said the following days would be “pivotal”, a senior State Department official said.

The top US diplomat stressed that “all illegal armed groups must be disarmed and all illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners,” according to the official.

But on the ground in Ukraine's restive east, there were signs the pact was coming unstuck hours after the four parties signed off on it.

Pro-Russian rebels were refusing to cede control of a string of towns they seized over the past two weeks.

But, says Moscow, neither are pro-Western protesters in Kiev budging from the iconic Maidan square they continue to occupy even after ousting former president Viktor Yanukovych two months ago.

“One cannot treat Russia like it is a shameful student, and brandish a piece of paper on which we put crosses next to the duties it has accomplished, “said Peskov.

If the hard-won agreement collapses — as Western and Ukrainian leaders fear it might — the US has said it will quickly ramp up sanctions on Russia, which it holds responsible for supporting the separatists and stoking the crisis.

Defiance in the east

In the main eastern city of Donetsk, where rebel gunmen wearing ski-masks still occupied a barricaded government building, there was defiance, with the Russian national anthem blaring out through speakers.

Denis Pushilin, a prominent member of the self-declared Donetsk Republic, said he agreed that the buildings should be vacated, but only if the leaders in Kiev must also leave the buildings “that they are occupying illegally since their coup d'etat” in February.

In nearby Slavyansk, insurgents remained holed up inside a seized police station.

Unyielding pro-Russian militants also manned barricades of tyres and sandbags in another town of Kramatorsk while Ukrainian military helicopters continued to land at a nearby aerodrome that remains under Kiev's control.

In a concession to the Russian-speaking militants, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk pledged safeguards for the Russian language and a broad decentralisation of power.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsya also suggested the authorities would hold off temporarily from any further military action on the ground to give the agreement time to take effect.

“If this does not begin in the next few days then I think after Easter there will be more concrete actions,” Deshchytsya told journalists. Easter in Orthodox Ukraine ends on Monday.

A sceptical Obama, likewise, has spoken of wanting to see progress within days, otherwise further sanctions, on top of those already targeting Vladimir Putin's inner circle, would be implemented. US Vice President Joe Biden is due in Kiev on Tuesday.

The US president also on Friday made clear his “disgust” at reports of anti-Jewish leaflets handed out in Donetsk.

The pamphlets telling Jews to register or be expelled sparked global outrage and fears of a Nazi-style pogrom.

The Ukrainian government and many Western states believe the occupations in the east took place with the active support of elite Russian military units, allegations Moscow denies.

To back their claims, Ukraine said it was holding 10 Russian “spies” it believes were sent to stir up unrest. It has also, according to the Russian airline Aeroflot, banned the entry of Russian males aged 16 to 60.

In a rare success, the Ukrainian army said it had recovered two of six armoured vehicles captured by separatists during a disastrous military operation earlier in the week.

• No high hopes -

On Thursday, Putin warned that Ukraine was plunging into the “abyss” — and he hoped he would not have to resort to his “right” to send in the tens of thousands of troops deployed on Ukraine's border.

He blames the turmoil on Kiev's interim leaders, whose authority he does not recognise.

Avalanche on Everest kills 12, three missing

KATMANDU: An avalanche swept down a climbing route on Mount Everest early Friday, killing at least 12 Nepalese guides and leaving three missing in the deadliest disaster on the world's highest peak.

The Sherpa guides had gone early in the morning to fix ropes for other climbers when the avalanche hit just them below Camp 2 at about 6:30 am, Nepal Tourism Ministry official Krishna Lamsal said from the base camp where he is monitoring rescue efforts.

Rescue workers pulled out 12 bodies from under mounds of snow and ice and were searching for the three missing guides, Lamsal said.

Two Sherpas who were injured were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Nepal's capital, Katmandu.

Hundreds of climbers, their guides and support crews have gathered at the base camp to prepare for attempts to scale the 8,850-meter mountain early next month when weather conditions become favorable.

They have been setting up camps at higher altitudes and guides have been fixing routes and ropes on the slopes above.

As soon as the avalanche hit, rescuers and fellow climbers rushed to help.

Ang Tshering of the Nepal Mountaineering Association said the area where the avalanche hit is nicknamed the ''popcorn field'' and is just below Camp 2 at 6,400 meters.

Earlier this year, Nepal announced several steps to better manage the heavy flow of climbers and speed up rescue operations.

The steps included the dispatch of officials and security personnel to the base camp at 5,300 meters, where they will stay throughout the spring climbing season that ends in May.

More than 4,000 climbers have scaled the summit since 1953, when it was first conquered by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

Hundreds have died attempting to reach the peak.

The worst recorded disaster on Everest had been a snowstorm on May 11, 1996, that caused the deaths of eight climbers.

Six Nepalese guides were killed in an avalanche in 1970.

View from abroad : Idealism and jihad

Of late, the British media has been full of reports about the dangers posed by citizens who have gone to Syria to fight the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The apprehension is that at least some of these radicalised Muslims will return, trained and battle-hardened, to launch terrorist attacks within Britain. These fears are shared by many European countries with large Muslim populations that have contributed fighters to the Syrian civil war.

Currently, there are an estimated 2,000 citizens of European countries reported to be fighting in Syria. Recently, one of them, Abu Suleiman al-Britani, drove a truck laden with explosives into Haleb prison in Aleppo. This suicide attack, carried out by the Al Nusra Front, an Al Qaeda affiliate, enabled some 300 prisoners to escape.

Most of these foreign volunteers fly to Turkey and cross the border into Syria. Here they are guided to various resistance groups, but mostly, they tend to join extremist units. Two Muslim clerics have been identified as preachers who are using the Internet to urge young people to join the jihad.

Last January, 16 young Britons were arrested as they returned from Syria, while seven are awaiting trial. They stand accused under Section 5 of the Terrorism Act, 2006, which makes it a crime to fight abroad with a “political, ideological, religious or racial motive”. Those found guilty can be sentenced to life in prison.

But as George Monbiot reminds us in a recent article in the Guardian , thousands of foreign volunteers flocked to Spain to join the International Brigades fighting General Franco’s fascist power grab against an elected socialist government in 1937.

Among them was George Orwell who, according to Monbiot, would have been arrested and jailed under the Terrorist Act. Even back in 1937, the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870 was reactivated to deter British volunteers; however, nobody was prosecuted under this law.

Another famous writer who went to Spain during the civil war was Ernest Hemingway, and For Whom the Bell Tolls is based on his experiences during that bloody conflict.

My father was studying for his doctorate in Sanskrit drama at Sorbonne University in those exciting days, and told me about the ferment among leftist circles in Paris. Several of his friends crossed the border into Spain to join the International Brigades.

So is the era of idealism over? Or is it that some struggles have a greater moral claim on our conscience than others? Is it more politically correct to honour those fighting for social justice based on an egalitarian worldview, while punishing those carrying out a jihad to restore the Caliphate and impose Sharia law?

We can point to the terrorist attacks carried out by Islamist extremists to justify our rejection of the whole movement. But the truth is that jihadis don’t have a monopoly on violence against non-combatants: the 19th century Anarchists shook Europe with their campaign of indiscriminate violence.

They, too, had utopian goals, believing it was essential to topple the state before their vision of the perfect society could be created. And American forces have never shirked from inflicting civilian casualties in their wars from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Ultimately, terrorism is a weapon of the weak. Suicide bombers don their explosive vests because they have no tanks or jet fighters to confront the state. Asymmetrical warfare has been a recurring theme in military history as the only option available to weak forces when facing organised and well-equipped armies.

The key ingredient that gives the smaller side a chance of success is motivation based on idealism. For young British Muslims to leave the comfort of their homes and risk their lives in a distant land they know little about needs a high level of idealism.

But the fears of European governments about the potential of these jihadis to carry out terrorist attacks in their own countries are not misplaced. Long before the Syrian civil war began, many terrorist attacks have been carried out or planned by young Muslims born and brought up in the West. So there are reasonable grounds to suspect that at least some of these volunteers will represent a threat to security.

Recently, there were newspaper reports to suggest that the Al Nusra Front has put together a unit with the express purpose of recruiting Muslim volunteers from Western countries. Apparently, they are to be indoctrinated and trained to carry out operations on their return. And as citizens of the European Union, they would be free to travel across the Western world without needing visas.

Seldom has a conflict been so widely reported by participants on Facebook and other social media. The allure of adventure and comradeship forged under fire makes for a powerful recruitment tool.

Photographs of young combatants posing with machine guns, together with their occasionally boastful accounts of derring-do, make their friends back home envious, filling them with the desire to fly to Turkey en route to Syria.

Faced with a threat whose potency is amplified in the minds of security analysts, it is probable that governments in the West will take no chances, and simply lock up anybody suspected of having visited Syria recently.

This is unlike Pakistan from where volunteers have been fighting under the banner of jihad virtually since the beginning of the conflict. Our authorities have shut their eyes to the dangers posed by these fighters. But as we discovered after the Soviets left Afghanistan, blowback is a long and painful process that endures long after the conflict has ended

Eight dead as skydivers’ plane crashes in Finland

HELSINKI: A small airplane taking a group of skydivers for an Easter Day jump crashed on Sunday in Finland, killing eight people, police said.

The Comp Air 8 plane went down in the town of Jamijarvi in western Finland.

There were 11 people on board. Three of them, including the pilot, jumped to safety before the plane crashed, police said.

The survivors have been hospitalised but their lives are not in danger. All the skydivers were residents of the area, police said.

Witnesses said the plane appeared to run into engine trouble and fell rapidly.

The Jamijarvi airport is a popular spot with amateur skydivers.

Guddu Power Plant: PM launches commissioning of additional units

GUDDU: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Monday inaugurated commissioning of additional power units at the Guddu Thermal Power Plant, which will add another 747 MW to the national grid at a cost of Rs 60 billion.

Addressing a large gathering here after the inauguration of two gas turbines of 243 MW each, the prime minister said a third unit will be operational in May, increasing the current capacity of Guddu Power Plant from 1655 MW to 2402 MW, equivalent to four billion units of electricity.

He said the three units were part of the Combined Cycle Plant and would generate 747 MW of electricity to cut down the demand-supply gap.

He said the early completion of the project, seven months ahead of schedule, will lead to a saving of 58.6 billion rupees. He said the saving was almost equal to the amount spent on the project.

He said he was pleased to see that the efforts of the government were bearing fruits and hoped that with sustained efforts the problem of load-shedding will be over soon, and industry and agriculture will flourish.

The premier regretted that in the past the slow pace of work on the projects had hampered progress but hoped that the measures being adopted by the government will bring about a positive change.

He said had the pace of progress adopted by his government in 1999 continued, there would have been no issue of load-shedding and the country would have been at the forefront amongst the developed countries of the world.

He said the government will ensure that each penny from the national exchequer is spent transparently and on projects that benefit the masses. He said the people of Pakistan were facing long hours of load-shedding for the past one decade and it had also seriously undermined the country's progress in all areas.

However, he expressed the hope that with the initiative of the government things would change and an era of progress and development will usher in.

In this regard, he said the government through good governance was trying to enhance efficiency of existing power plants, speeding up work of ongoing projects, and planning for new projects under public-private partnership.

Prime Minister Sharif also termed the project as part of the government's efforts to meet the energy shortfall in the country and gave a detailed overview of the new projects that were underway across the country to make the country self-sufficient.

He said following the government’s efforts additional 21,000 MW electricity would be added to the national grid in next eight years.

He was also appreciative of the Chinese assistance and its company Harbin Electric International Company for completing the work on the project, seven months ahead of the deadline.

The prime minister lauded the strong Pakistan-China multifaceted ties and said he was proud of Pakistan's friendship with China which he said was deepest than the deepest oceans, highest than the highest mountains and sweetest than the sweetest honey.

He said the two countries were jointly working on several power projects and had promised investment of billions of dollars in different projects in Pakistan.

He was also appreciative of the Ministry of Water and Power, GENCO Holding Company and Central Power Generation Co Ltd of Guddu for fast tracking the project.

The prime minister, who earlier had a round of the power plant and unveiled the plaque, was also briefed about the salient features of the project.

Prime Minister Sharif said he and Chief Minister Sindh Syed Qaim Ali Shah will soon jointly inaugurate the work on the new Lahore-Karachi motorway.

He mentioned that soon after coming into power, his government paid back the Rs 500 billion circular debt and incentives were given to Independent Power Producers.

He said 6600 MW electricity would also be generated at the Gadani Power Park with assistance of local and foreign investors, while with the support of the Asian Development Bank, a 1320 MW coal-fired power plant was being set up at Jamshoro. Besides, feasibility was underway for similar coal plants at Lakhara, Port Qasim and Thar.

He said work on 1410 MW extension IV at Tarbela, Extension V at Tarbela for 1320 MW and 4500 MW at Diamir and Bhasa dams had also been initiated.

He said the private sector was investing in power projects at Soki Kinari, Karot and Kohala, and all this would bring about 21,000 MW power in the next eight years.

He said the government was also focusing on fast-tracking the pace of work on ongoing projects. And in this regard, he mentioned the one he was inaugurating and the Nandipur Power Project.

Modi critics told to go to Pakistan after polls

New Delhi: Narendra Modi used to call Gujarat’s Muslims Mian Musharraf. On Saturday, his electoral candidate from Bihar just went a step further when he warned Mr Modi’s critics they would be sent to Pakistan after the polls.

In remarks quoted by NDTV from Godda in Jharkhand, bordering Bihar, BJP candidate Giriraj Singh told a rally that those who oppose his party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi will have “no place in India” after the result of the general election are announced.

“Those who want to stop Narendra Modi (from becoming prime minister) are looking towards Pakistan. In the coming days, they will have no place in India. They will only have place in Pakistan,” Mr Singh said while addressing a gathering in Godda district of Jharkhand.

Mr Singh made the remarks in the presence of senior party leader and former president Nitin Gadkari. He is the party’s candidate from Nawada in Bihar.

Opinion polls, not known for their veracity, suggest that the Narendra Modi-led BJP could to win the maximum seats in the national election. Voting, spread across nine phases, ends on May 12. Results will be declared on May 16.

Malala portrait up for auction in New York

NEW YORK: A portrait of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban, is expected to fetch up to $80,000 for her charity when it is auctioned in New York next month.

By Jonathan Yeo, one of Britain's leading portrait painters, the oil on canvas has been on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London since September.

The picture, which shows the 16-year-old doing her homework and which measures nearly one meter (three feet) by one meter, goes under the hammer at Christie's on May 14.

The auction house estimates the value at $60,000 to $80,000.

“The funds raised will support the work of the Malala Fund, including helping young Syrian refugees in Jordan and girls freed from child labour now attending school in Pakistan,” said Malala, who was badly wounded but survived the October 2012 attack.

“I hope that whoever buys the painting knows that their generosity will directly help children in some of the most challenging environments in the world.”

Yeo, who donated the painting, met Malala in April 2013 when she was recovering from the severe head injury inflicted by a Taliban gunman as she sat on a school bus in northwest Pakistan.

She was targeted for her outspoken views on education for girls.

Yeo painted Malala in Britain, where she has settled since the attack, and he said it had been a “privilege.”

“I hope the painting reflects the slight paradox of someone with enormous power yet vulnerability and youth at the same time,” he said.

Malala last year was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.