4 killed, 38 hurt in Russian strike on Kharkiv DIY store

Russia on Saturday bombed a hardware superstore in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing four people and wounding 38, Ukraine officials said, in an attack condemned as “vile” by President Volodymyr Zelensky. Kharkiv regional governor Oleg Synegubov said “unfortunately there are already four dead” and “38 wounded” after two guided Russian bombs hit the store. Two of those killed “were men who worked in the hypermarket,” Synegubov said earlier in a video posted on Telegram. “The number of wounded has gone up to 35 people,” Kharkiv’s mayor, Igor Terekhov, posted on Telegram. Thick black smoke billowed from the gutted building of the Epitsentr DIY superstore in the northeastern outskirts of the city, as firefighters sprayed water on a blaze sparked by the strikes, an AFP journalist saw. The Epitsentr chain sells household and DIY goods. “As of now, we know that more than 200 people could have been inside the hypermarket,” Zelensky said on Telegram, condemning the daylight attack on an “obviously civilian” target. The regional governor said there was “no contact with some of the staff” and “according to our information, visitors could still be in the building”. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, is just a few dozen kilometres from the border and regularly comes under attack from Russian missiles — strikes on the city killed seven people Thursday. Later on Saturday, another strike hit the centre of Kharkiv, injuring eight, Terekhov said, without giving details. Zelensky had visited Kharkiv on Friday and met officials to discuss the defence of the surrounding region. On Saturday, he urged world leaders to supply Ukraine with “sufficient air defence protection” to “prevent such terrorist attacks”. “Russia struck another brutal blow at our Kharkiv — at a construction hypermarket — on Saturday, right in the middle of the day,” Zelensky said. The latest attacks came after Russia launched a ground offensive in the Kharkiv region on May 10. Ukraine said Friday that it had managed to halt Moscow’s progress and was counterattacking. Ukraine’s rescue service posted images of firefighters spraying water inside the blazing Epitsentr store building, with the roof torn open and debris strewn around. They said the fire had raged over an area of 10,000 sq m but that the firefighters had managed to contain it. “There were a lot of workers and shoppers inside,” Zelensky said. Terekhov, Kharkiv’s mayor, said that according to the store’s owner, 15 employees had not been in contact and approximately 200 people were in the building at the time of the strikes. He described the attack as “pure terrorism”.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683334/international/4-killed-38-hurt-in-russian-strike-on-kharkiv-diy-store

G7 ministers cite ‘progress’ but no done deal on Russian assets for Ukraine

G7 finance ministers cited “progress” in finding ways to use profits from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine as they wrapped up a meeting on Saturday, envisioning a concrete proposal to present to a leaders’ summit next month. A search for creative yet legally sound solutions was top of the agenda at the two-day Group of Seven meeting in Stresa, northern Italy, as Kyiv continues its urgent appeals for more funds from Western allies in its third year of war with Russia. “We are making progress in our discussions on potential avenues to bring forward the extraordinary profits stemming from immobilised Russian sovereign assets to the benefit of Ukraine, consistent with international law and our respective legal systems,” the ministers said in a final statement. They hope to present a proposal that is “defined in all its dimensions” to G7 leaders ahead of a summit in Puglia, southern Italy, on June 13-15, Italian Finance Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti said during a press conference on Saturday following the summit. “Progress has been made,” Giorgetti said, cautioning however that an agreed proposal “is clearly not yet finalised because it has significant technical and legal issues”. “We do not deny the difficulties but there is a firm determination to arrive at a solution,” he added. G7 finance ministers reiterated in their final statement that Russian assets frozen by the Group of Seven nations “will remain immobilised until Russia pays for the damage it has caused to Ukraine”. But they went further, saying they were “committed to further financial and economic sanctions...including continuing to target Russia’s energy revenue and future extractive capabilities”. The G7 is “ready to impose sanctions on individuals and entities that help Russia acquire advanced materials, technology, and equipment for its military industrial base,” added the statement. The summit wrapped up a day after the US announced a new $275mn package of aid for Kyiv, part of a $61bn military aid deal passed by Congress last month after months of delays. Kicking off the talks in Stresa, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen had urged her counterparts to embrace “ambitious options” in considering how to use the frozen Russian assets. A debated US proposal would tap the interest generated by the €300bn ($325bn) of Russian central bank assets frozen by the G7 and EU, creating a $50bn loan facility backed by future interest on the assets. Giorgetti — whose country Italy holds this year’s G7 presidency — called the US proposal a “flexible and pragmatic” plan that answered the legal and regulatory concerns shared within the EU. Last week, the European Union agreed to a more modest plan, using interest from Russian assets frozen by the bloc potentially amounting to up to three billion euros a year. Finance ministers attending the talks had warned that the Stresa summit was not likely to result in a concrete deal. On Friday, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire described what they had reached as a “political agreement in principle, not a turnkey solution”. Ukrainian Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko, who also attended the Stresa talks, said it was a “good signal that we are moving in the right direction”. “I hope that during the G7 leadership summit in June there will be some decision,” he told reporters. The G7 ministers also called out China’s trade policies and industrial overcapacity, warning that the bloc could take measures to counter them. The United States has led warnings that a surge of low-cost Chinese exports fuelled by Chinese government support in key sectors like solar and electric vehicles pose a risk to global markets. “While reaffirming our interest in a balanced and reciprocal collaboration, we express concerns about China’s comprehensive use of non-market policies and practices that undermines our workers, industries, and economic resilience,” said the statement. The G7 will “continue to monitor the potential negative impacts of overcapacity” and “consider taking steps to ensure a level playing field, in line with World Trade Organisation (WTO) principles”. In February, the US argued that G7 nations should seize the frozen assets outright, an idea it later backed away from due to the concern of allies that it could be a dangerous legal precedent and that Russia could retaliate.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683333/international/g7-ministers-cite-progress-but-no-done-deal-on-russian-assets-for-ukraine

Nine killed as Rajasthan reels under heatwave

At least nine people have died of suspected heat stroke in India’s western state of Rajasthan, media said on Friday, with temperatures expected to soar further amid predictions of a severe heat wave.Searing heat in the country’s north has been a cause of concern during a mammoth general election, and the capital, New Delhi, is set to vote today in temperatures forecast to be around 45 degrees C.India’s summer temperatures often peak in May, but scientists have predicted more heatwave days than usual this year, largely caused by fewer non-monsoon thundershowers and an active but weakening El Nino weather phenomenon.At least nine deaths in Rajasthan were suspected to have resulted from people falling sick in the sweltering heat, local media said.The state’s disaster management officials said they had yet to ascertain the cause, as medical examinations were not complete.The news comes after the city of Barmer in Rajasthan topped temperature charts this week with a record 48.8C on Thursday.Weather officials have warned of conditions ranging from a heatwave to a severe heatwave in many parts of the state, as well as in the northern states of Punjab and Haryana.Indian weather officials set the heatwave threshold at a maximum temperature of 40C in the country’s plains, as well as a departure of at least 4.5C from the normal maximum temperature.In the southern state of Kerala, by contrast, at least seven people died following pre-monsoon rains that were about 18% heavier than normal, bringing floods that disrupted flight schedules in some areas.A red alert has been issued by the weather department in Kerala.Meanwhile, a team of international scientists said extreme temperatures throughout Asia last month were made worse most likely as a result of human-driven climate change.Parts of Bangladesh and neighbouring states are likely to be hit by a cyclone in a couple of days.In neighbouring Pakistan, the climate change ministry said that about 26 districts in the country were boiling under a severe heatwave as of Thursday, with the current spell of sizzling temperature likely to last until May 30.The temperature was expected to hit 50C in at least two cities in the southern province of Sindh on Friday, which has already delayed week annual school exams due to the blistering heat.In a striking contrast, Bangladesh and parts of West Bengal in eastern India are expected to be hit by “severe cyclonic storm” Remal, which is likely to make landfall tomorrow, IMD has predicted.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683269/international/nine-killed-as-rajasthan-reels-under-heatwave

Heatwave cancels classes for half Pakistan’s schoolchildren

Half of Pakistan’s pupils will be shut out of schools for a week as the nation takes crisis measures to lessen the effect of a series of heatwaves, officials said yesterday.Some 26mn students will be out of lessons from tomorrow (Saturday) in Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province, which has ordered schools to close for the summer break one week early because of the soaring temperatures.The early closure was confirmed by a spokesperson for Punjab’s Education Department.Pakistan’s meteorological office has forecast three heatwaves – one already underway and two more set to hit in early and late June.Temperatures in Punjab are currently 6-8° Celsius above normal, the disaster management agency said, with the provincial capital Lahore due for 46C (111° Fahrenheit) at the weekend.The government’s Co-ordinator on Climate Change and Environment told journalists in Islamabad yesterday that “global warming is causing a sudden change in weather patterns”.Parts of Pakistan are facing power cuts of up to 15 hours as demand for fans and air conditioning surges, leaving students sweltering at their desks.The Save the Children NGO said the 26mn Punjabi schoolchildren with lessons cancelled account for 52% of pre-primary, primary and secondary students in Pakistan.“Prolonged exposure to intense heat impacts children’s ability to learn and to concentrate and this puts their education at risk,” country director Mohamed Khuram Gondal said. “Excess heat is also potentially lethal to children.”The UN children’s agency Unicef said that more than three-quarters of children in South Asia – or 460mn – are exposed to temperatures above 35C (95F) for at least 83 days per year.It warned that children are at risk of “dehydration, higher body temperature, rapid heartbeat, cramps ... and coma”.Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions.However, the nation of 240mn ranks high among countries vulnerable to extreme weather events, which scientists have linked to climate change.A third of Pakistan was submerged by unprecedented monsoon rains in 2022 that displaced millions of people.It was also battered by above-normal rainfall last month that killed at least 144 people in the wettest April recorded since 1961, with more deluges forecast this summer.Lahore’s students also saw lessons cut this winter when schools were shut as the megacity was enveloped by choking smog.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683226/international/heatwave-cancels-classes-for-half-pakistans-schoolchildren

Ruto: Kenya deployment will ‘break the back’ of Haiti gangs

Kenyan President William Ruto vowed yesterday that his country’s upcoming deployment to Haiti will seek to crush gangs that have ravaged the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country.Ruto was speaking on a state visit to Washington alongside President Joe Biden, who saluted Kenya’s willingness to assist and promised that the United States would provide intelligence and equipment in hopes of stabilising its troubled southern neighbour.“Gangs and criminals do not have status. They have no religion,” Ruto told a White House news conference.He vowed that the international mission would “deal with them firmly, decisively, within the perimeters of the law”.Kenya and the other nations set to deploy to Haiti aim to “secure that country and to break the back of the gangs and the criminals that have visited untold suffering in that country”, Ruto said.Asked if the Kenyan deployment can succeed in defeating gangs that have plunged Haiti into near anarchy, Biden said: “Yes.”“This is a crisis. It’s able to be dealt with,” Biden said, praising Kenya’s “first-rate capability”.The Biden administration had searched extensively for a country to take the lead but had ruled out sending in US forces, who have a long history of intervention in Haiti.“We’re in a situation where we want to do all we can without us looking like America, once again, is stepping over and deciding this is what must be done,” Biden said. “Haitians are looking for help, as well as the folks in the Caribbean are looking for help.”Ruto said that the deployment was a decision by Kenya, not the United States, as his country wanted to advance “peace and stability as a responsible global citizen”.In 2021 Biden withdrew the last US troops from Afghanistan, ending America’s longest war, and has promised to avoid putting US forces at risk overseas.Meanwhile, the deployment of the first Kenyan police officers to Haiti to lead an international anti-gang force has been delayed after a planned flight from Nairobi was postponed on Tuesday, two sources briefed on the matter told Reuters.US officials had previously indicated that the officers would be in Port-au-Prince yesterday to coincide with Kenyan President Ruto’s state visit to the White House.Kenya volunteered in July to lead the mission but has faced repeated delays deploying due to litigation brought by opponents of the government’s plan and a surge of violence in March that led the Haitian prime minister to resign.The mission, which will comprise up to 2,500 personnel, is intended to counter gangs who control most of Port-au-Prince and have carried out widespread killings, kidnappings and sexual violence.Kenya has committed 1,000 police officers to the UN-approved mission, most of which is being financed by the United States.Two hundred Kenyan officers assigned to the mission were told they would fly out of Nairobi on Tuesday evening, the two sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information.One source, a former police officer in contact with members of the mission, said the officers were given no explanation for the last-minute delay and were told to remain on standby.The other source, who was briefed by a government official, said conditions were not in place in Port-au-Prince to receive the officers.Kenya’s government spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683219/international/ruto-kenya-deployment-will-break-the-back-of-haiti-gangs

17 martyrs in Israeli occupation shelling in Gaza, Rafah

At least 17 Palestinians, including more than ten children, were martyred, and dozens were injured at dawn Thursday, after the Israeli occupation forces targeted two homes in the cities of Gaza and Rafah.Palestinian news agency (WAFA) reported that 16 Palestinians, including ten children, were martyred, and a number of citizens were injured following the occupation bombing of a house in Al-Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City.A person was killed after the occupation forces targeted a house belonging to Al-Shaer family in Rafah, WAFA added.The occupation forces targeted, Thursday dawn, a house in Nuseirat Camp in the central Gaza Strip, leading to eight martyrs.The unprecedented Israeli occupation aggression against the Gaza Strip by sea, land and air has been continuing for 230 days, causing a complete humanitarian catastrophe embodied by tens of thousands of martyrs, wounded and missing persons, along with massive destruction of vital infrastructure and facilities.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683149/international/17-martyrs-in-israeli-occupation-shelling-in-gaza-rafah

Norway, Ireland, Spain recognise Palestinian state

Norway, Ireland and Spain announced Wednesday they will recognise a Palestinian state from next week, highlighting the deep split over the issue within the EU as the Israel-Hamas war rages.The three nations hope other countries will follow, but France said that now was not the right moment for it to take that step -- yet Paris noted recognition was not 'taboo'.This announcement by prime ministers Jonas Gahr Store of Norway, Pedro Sanchez of Spain and Simon Harris of Ireland comes days after the International Criminal Court prosecutor said he would seek arrest warrants for Israel's prime minister and Hamas leaders.Sanchez, who has visited several nations to drum up support for recognition, said the move would reinforce efforts to revive a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict, which he said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was jeopardising with the Gaza offensive.Israel reacted with fury again, immediately recalling its envoys to the three nations.'The intention of several European countries to recognise a Palestinian state is a reward for terror,' Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said, adding a sovereign State of Palestine would be a 'terror state'.But the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) hailed the move as 'historical'. Palestinian resistance movement Hamas praised what it called an 'important step' that resulted from the 'brave resistance' of Palestinians.According to the Palestinian Authority, which rules parts of the occupied West Bank, 142 of the 193 UN members already recognise a Palestinian state.Sweden, which has a large Palestinian community, became the first European Union member in western Europe to recognise Palestinian statehood in 2014.A Palestinian state was recognised by Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania before they joined the EU.Norway -- which has played a key role in Middle East diplomacy, hosting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in the 1990s which led to the Oslo Accords -- said recognition was needed to support moderate voices amid the Gaza war.'In the midst of a war, with tens of thousands killed and injured, we must keep alive the only alternative that offers a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike: Two states, living side by side, in peace and security,' Store said, adding that the moves could give renewed momentum for peace talks.Harris drew parallels with international recognition of the Irish state in 1919.'From our own history, we know what it means,' he went on, referring to Ireland's declaration of independence from British rule, which eventually led to formal statehood.In March, Slovenia and Malta signed a statement with Spain and Ireland expressing their willingness to recognise a Palestinian state.Slovenia's government this month passed a decree on recognising a Palestine state that will be sent to parliament for approval by mid-June.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683078/international/norway-ireland-spain-recognise-palestinian-state

Small island states win ‘historic’ climate case

The UN maritime court on Tuesday ruled in favour of nine small island states that brought a case to seek increased protection of the world’s oceans from catastrophic climate change.Finding that carbon emissions can be considered a sea pollutant, the court said countries had an obligation to take measures to mitigate their effects on oceans.The countries that brought the case called the court decision “historic”, and experts said it could be influential in shaping the scope of future climate litigation involving greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.“Anthropogenic GHG emissions into the atmosphere constitute pollution of the marine environment” under the international UNCLOS treaty, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) ruled in an expert opinion.Polluting countries therefore have “the specific obligation to take all measures necessary to ensure that...emissions under their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage by pollution to other states and their environment”, the court said.The case was brought in September by nine small countries disproportionately affected by climate change, including Antigua and Barbuda, Vanuatu and Tuvalu.They asked the Hamburg-based court to issue an opinion on whether carbon dioxide emissions absorbed by the oceans could be considered pollution, and if so, what obligations countries had to address the problem.The UNCLOS treaty binds countries to prevent pollution of the oceans, defining pollution as the introduction of “substances or energy into the marine environment” that harms marine life.But it does not spell out carbon emissions as a specific pollutant, which the plaintiffs had argued should qualify.The court’s opinion is advisory and non-binding but will influence how the UN treaty is interpreted around the world.“This is the first-ever decision by an international tribunal on climate change and the oceans and clarifies the legally binding obligations of 169 countries that are party to the (UNCLOS treaty),” the nine plaintiff countries said in a statement.The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, said small island nations were “fighting for their survival”.“Some will become uninhabitable in the near future because of the failure to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. We demand that the major polluters respect international law, and stop the catastrophic harm against us before it is too late,” he said.The other island nations joining the ITLOS case were the Bahamas, Niue, Palau, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/683061/international/small-island-states-win-historic-climate-case

Sunak decries infected blood scandal cover-up

An infected blood scandal in Britain was no accident but the fault of doctors and a succession of governments that led to 3,000 deaths and thousands more contracting hepatitis or HIV, a public inquiry reported on Monday.Inquiry chair Brian Langstaff said more than 30,000 people received infected blood and blood products in the 1970s and 1980s from Britain’s state-funded National Health Service, destroying lives, dreams and families.The government hid the truth to “save face and to save expense”, he said, adding that the cover-up was “more subtle, more pervasive and more chilling in its implications” than any orchestrated conspiracy plot.Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “a day of shame for the British state”.“The result of this inquiry should shake our nation to its core,” he said, adding that ministers and institutions had failed in the most “harrowing and devastating way”.“I want to make a wholehearted unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice,” he told parliament and promised full compensation to those affected.The families of victims and survivors had sought justice for years and Langstaff, who led a six-year inquiry, said the scale of what happened was both horrifying and astonishing.In some cases, blood products made from donations from US prisoners or other high-risk groups paid to donate were used on children, infecting them with HIV or hepatitis C, long after the risks were known.Other victims were used in medical trials without their knowledge or consent. Those who contracted HIV were often shunned by their communities.“This disaster was not an accident,” said Langstaff to a standing ovation from campaigners.“The infections happened because those in authority – doctors, the blood services and successive governments – did not put patient safety first.”Stephen Lawrence received blood after he was knocked down by a police car in London in 1985. Two years later, he was diagnosed with HIV and Hepatitis C at the age of 15.“I was accused of being on drugs, drinking, all that,” he told Reuters, adding that he had not been compensated because his records had gone missing.“It’s about justice,” he said. “I’ve been struggling with this for 37 years.”The use of infected blood has resulted in thousands of victims in the United States, France, Canada and other countries.The British government agreed in 2022 to make an interim payment of £100,000 ($126,990) to some of those affected.Clive Smith, chair of the Haemophilia Society, said the scandal had rocked faith in the medical establishment. “(It) really challenges the trust that we put in people to look after us, to do their best and to protect us,” he told reporters.Infected blood and blood products were used for transfusions, which were not always clinically needed, and as treatments for bleeding disorders like haemophilia.Haemophiliacs received Factor 8 concentrates from the United States which carried a particularly high risk.Some of the concentrates carried the HIV virus, the inquiry said, but authorities failed to switch to safer alternatives and they decided in July 1983, a year after risks were apparent, not to suspend their importation.Systemic failures resulted in between 80 and 100 people becoming infected with HIV by transfusion, the inquiry found, and about 26,800 were infected with Hepatitis C, often from receiving blood after childbirth or an operation.Both groups were failed by doctors’ complacency about Hepatitis C and their slowness to respond to the risks of AIDS, it said, compounded by an absence of meaningful apology or redress.“It will be astonishing to anyone who reads this report that these events could have happened in the UK,” Langstaff said.The former judge’s inquiry does not have the power to recommend prosecutions.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/682978/international/sunak-decries-infected-blood-scandal-cover-up

Trump biopic Apprentice premieres at Cannes

The Apprentice, Iran-born director Ali Abbasi’s much-anticipated drama of a young Donald Trump’s ascendancy as a New York real estate mogul, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday.Part of the pull of the film is its timing, as Trump, now 77, looks to win another term as US president in November.The film shares its title with the reality show that helped turn Trump into a household name.Sebastian Stan, who made his name in the Captain America trilogy as the Winter Soldier, morphs into Trump, from his early stages as an upstart working for his father’s business to a brazen, self-centred tycoon.The story focuses on Trump’s time under the tutelage of Roy Cohn, a political fixer best known for his involvement in Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist scare campaigns of the 1950s and portrayed by Succession’s Jeremy Strong.His three rules for success, which Trump later takes credit for while speaking with the writer of his business advice book The Art of the Deal, are prescient of his traits in office: deny everything, always be on the attack and never admit defeat. Abbasi is known for his eclectic film repertoire.Critics were mixed, praising for Stan and Strong while seeing the film’s basis in actual events as a limitation.Sebastian Stan Plays Donald Trump in a Docudrama That Nails Everything About Him but His Mystery, read the headline for entertainment website Variety, while trade publication IndieWire pointed out that the film “can’t get around the fact that Trump is too base and pathological to be of much dramatic interest”.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/682977/international/trump-biopic-apprentice-premieres-at-cannes

Slovak PM’s life no longer in danger after shooting

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico’s life was no longer in danger following an assassination attempt, Deputy Prime Minister Robert Kalinak said on Sunday.The suspected gunman appeared in court on Saturday after Fico was shot four times last Wednesday, leaving him fighting for his life at one stage.“He has emerged from the immediate threat to his life, but his condition remains serious and he requires intensive care,” Kalinak, Fico’s closest political ally, told reporters.The Slovak premier was shot as he was greeting supporters after a government meeting in the central town of Handlova. He underwent a five-hour operation on Wednesday and another on Friday at a hospital in the central city of Banska Bystrica.“We can consider his condition stable with a positive prognosis,” Kalinak said outside the hospital, adding that “we all feel a bit more relaxed now.”Kalinak added that Fico would stay at Banska Bystrica for the moment.The suspected gunman, identified by Slovak media as 71-year-old poet Juraj Cintula, has been charged with premeditated attempted murder and was held in custody following a hearing on Saturday.Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok said that if one of the shots “went just a few centimetres higher, it would have hit the prime minister’s liver”.Sutaj Estok added on Sunday that police were looking into the possibility that the gunman may not have acted alone.“One version is that the culprit was part of a group of people who encouraged each other to commit the crime,” he said, adding the gunman may also have disclosed his intentions to someone. Citing intelligence reports, Sutaj Estok said that someone had erased the gunman’s history and communication on Facebook while he was detained.The attempted assassination has highlighted acute political divisions in the country where 59-year-old Fico took office in October after his centrist populist Smer party won a general election.He is serving his fourth term as prime minister after campaigning on proposals for peace between Russia and Slovakia’s neighbour Ukraine, and to halt military aid to Kyiv, which his government has done.Fico leads a coalition comprising his Smer party, the centrist HLAS and the small nationalist SNS party.Kalinak said the government would carry on without Fico “according to the programme he has outlined”. Slovakia was already sharply divided over politics since the 2018 murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.Kuciak pointed at links between Italian mafia and Fico’s then government, and his murder sparked nationwide protests that resulted in Fico’s resignation in 2018.The divisions deepened further with the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.Following the attack on Fico, outgoing President Zuzana Caputova and her successor Peter Pellegrini, a Fico ally who takes over in June, tried to quell the tensions.Following a proposal by Caputova and Pellegrini, several parties have suspended campaigning for European Parliament elections scheduled for June.But some politicians have been quick to blame the Fico attack on their opponents or media.SNS chairman Andrej Danko blamed the media just after the shooting, and Kalinak took on the opposition and media in an emotional speech on the Smer website on Friday.Pellegrini on Sunday said that a meeting of parliamentary party leaders he was planning to host tomorrow to help ease tensions would probably not take place.“The past few days and some press conferences have shown us that some politicians are simply not capable of fundamental self-reflection even after such a huge tragedy,” said Pellegrini.“It has turned out that the time is not ripe for a round table with the representatives of all parliamentary parties yet,” he added.In a debate on the TA3 news channel, Danko said it was “false to say that a meeting tomorrow would reconcile society”.Police have meanwhile charged several people who expressed approval for the attack on Fico on social media.Sutaj Estok said police were monitoring places with increased movement of people and guarding top politicians and those facing death threats, newspaper publishers and TV studios as well as hospitals.

source https://www.gulf-times.com/article/682895/international/slovak-pms-life-no-longer-in-danger-after-shooting