NEW YORK - The U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency open meeting on the attack on Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant.
The meeting, to be held at 1630GMT Friday, was requested by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Norway and Albania.
Council diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency will brief council members. Russia’s shelling of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant in Ukraine received widespread international condemnation on Friday. The shelling at the Zaporizhzhia plant in Enerhodar had touched off a fire that was extinguished. Russian forces have taken control of the site.
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TOKYO - Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has condemned Russia’s attack on Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine, calling it “unforgivable reckless act.”
Kishida said he talked on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and told him that “Russian attack on the nuclear plant was an unforgivable reckless act.”
Russian forces shelled Europe’s largest nuclear power plant Thursday, causing a fire there that was extinguished overnight but sparking global fear of radiation leaks. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, says there was no sign on Friday of radiation leaks.
A massive earthquake and tsunami in March, 2011 destroyed power and cooling systems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, causing its triple meltdowns, spewing large amounts of radioactive materials in its surroundings and keeping part of the region still uninhabitable.
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VATICAN CITY - The head of the Polish bishops’ conference has written directly to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church urging him to appeal to President Vladimir Putin to stop the war and to urge Russian soldiers to disobey orders on moral grounds and stand down.
“The time will come to settle these crimes, including before the international courts,” In his Mar. 2 letter to Patriarch Kirill, Archbishop Stanisław Gądecki warned that “the time will come to settle these crimes, including before the international courts." He added that even if someone avoids human justice, “there is a tribunal that cannot be avoided.”
Gądecki’s tone was significant, given its sharp contrast to the comparatively neutral tone used by the Vatican and Pope Francis. The Holy See to date has called for peace and a return to negotiations, and even offered itself as a mediator, but has not condemned Russia by name or its invasion.
The Vatican has a tradition of such diplomacy, believing that it can facilitate dialogue better if it doesn’t take sides or call out an aggressor. In the case of Ukraine, however, Francis has been criticized for selling out Ukrainian Catholics at the expense of his longer-term goal of improving relations with the Russian Orthodox Church.
As recently as December, Francis had expressed hope that a second meeting with Kirill could soon be organized, after their historic encounter in 2016, the first between a pope and Russian patriarch.
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MOSCOW — Russians could face prison sentences of up to 15 years for spreading information that goes against the Russian government’s position on the war in Ukraine, a move that comes as authorities block access to foreign media outlets.
The Russian parliament voted unanimously Friday to approve a draft law criminalizing the intentional spreading of what Russia deems to be “fake” reports.
Russian authorities have repeatedly decried reports of Russian military setbacks or civilian deaths in Ukraine as “fake” reports. State media outlets refer to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion.”
State news agencies said the draft law was approved by the lower and upper houses of parliament in quick succession. It could be signed into law by President Vladimir Putin and take effect as soon as Saturday, the speaker of the lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin, said
The blocks affect the BBC, the U.S. government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza. Together, they are among the most influential and often critical foreign media publishing in Russian.
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SOFIA, Bulgaria - The Jewish Shalom organization in Bulgaria rejected as “absolutely unjustifiable and inappropriate” Russian propaganda claims that Ukraine is a Nazi state that has to be de-Nazified.
Shalom said in a statement Friday that Ukraine is one of the few countries in the world to pass a law criminalizing antisemitism.
The organization said it strongly condemns Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, which President Vladimir Putin is trying to justify, claiming that the goal of his military aggression was “the demilitarization and de-Nazification” of Ukraine.
Shalom said its members mourn together with those who died in the first days of the conflict and expressed sympathies to “the hundreds thousands of Ukrainians who lost their homes, who were separated from their loved ones, and forced to flee the borders of their homeland, including thousands of Jewish families.”
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BRUSSELS - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the military organization will not police a no-fly zone over Ukraine and is warning that such a move could end in a wide-spread war in Europe.
Speaking Friday after chairing a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, Stoltenberg said “we are not going to move into Ukraine, neither on the ground, nor in the Ukrainian airspace.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have ramped up their attacks in Ukraine, launching hundreds of missiles and artillery strikes on cities and making significant gains in the south.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has appealed to the West to enforce a no-fly zone over his country, most recently after a fire overnight at one of Ukraine’s nuclear plants, the largest in Europe.
“The only way to implement a no-fly zone is to send NATO fighter planes into Ukrainian airspace, and then impose that no-fly zone by shooting down Russian planes,” Stoltenberg said. “We understand the desperation, but we also believe that if we did that, we would end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe.”
“We have a responsibility as NATO allies to prevent this war from escalating beyond Ukraine,” he said.
AP
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