Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

U.S. helps Ukraine to strengthen its border with Russia, Belarus

KYIV (Reuters) – The United States will finance projects including surveillance and monitoring equipment to strengthen Ukraine’s borders with Russia and Belarus, amid continuing escalation with Moscow, Ukraine’s border service said on Tuesday.

Kyiv accuses Moscow of massing tens of thousands of troops near its borders in preparation for a possible offensive.

Russia denies planning any attack but accuses Ukraine and the United States of destabilizing behavior, and has sought security guarantees against NATO’s eastward expansion.

The border service said in a statement the projects worth $20 million involved the purchase of video recording systems and drones, as well as personal protective equipment for border guards.

Ukraine, which seeks to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), has since 2018 also received a series of consignments of U.S. ammunition and Javelin missiles, prompting criticism from Moscow.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Gunman kills four in Denver-area shooting spree before he is killed by police

By Keith Coffman

DENVER (Reuters) -A lone gunman shot four people to death and wounded three, including a police officer, on Monday in a Denver-area shooting spree that unfolded at several locations and ended with police killing the suspect, authorities said.

Investigators have yet to determine a motive for the rampage, which began around 5 p.m. when the gunman shot and killed two women and wounded a man near downtown Denver, Police Chief Paul Pazen said a news briefing.

The suspect then fled in a car and fatally shot a man in east Denver’s Cheesman Park neighborhood, before opening fire again in a west Denver community where no one was hit, Pazen said. According to Pazen, the suspect twice exchanged gunfire from his vehicle with Denver officers pursuing him, disabling a police cruiser.

From there, the gunman drove into the neighboring city of Lakewood, where he shot and killed a fourth person inside an unspecified business, according to Lakewood Police spokesman John Romero.

The gunman fled from Lakewood police when they attempted to pull him over and engaged in a running gun battle with officers before fleeing on foot and entering a hotel, where he shot and wounded a clerk, Romero said.

He then shot at police officers again, wounding one of them, before police shot him dead, Romero told reporters. Authorities did not publicly identify the suspect, and said circumstances leading to the shooting remained under investigation.

The conditions of the wounded officer and civilians were not immediately known, Romero said.

Anne Wilson, a shopper who was inside a cellular phone store in Lakewood when gunfire erupted nearby, told a Denver-based NBC-affiliate TV station she heard “seven or eight gunshots, and then like another set of maybe five more.”

Wilson said she and other customers were quickly ushered by store employees into a back room behind security gates until the danger had passed. “It is scary, scary times we live in,” she said.

(Reporting by Keith Coffman in Denver; Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Shri Navaratnam, Robert Birsel)

CDC cuts quarantine time for all Americans with COVID-19 to 5 days

(Reuters) -U.S. health authorities on Monday shortened the recommended time for isolation for asymptomatic Americans with COVID-19 to five days from the previous guidance of 10 days.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said the people who test positive after quarantining should follow five days of wearing a mask when around others.

Omicron accounts for 73% of U.S. coronavirus infections, the federal CDC had said last week.

Breakthrough infections are rising among the fully vaccinated population, including those who have had a third booster shot. However, Omicron appears to be causing milder symptoms in those people, some of whom have no symptoms at all.

Reducing the CDC’s 10-day quarantine recommendation would help asymptomatic people return to work or school, with proper precautions, White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci had told CNN last week.

The CDC on Monday also gave guidance for people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose or more than two months after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and not yet boosted. It recommended quarantine for them for five days followed by strict mask use for an additional six days.

Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure should wear a mask for 10 days, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

Yemen’s Houthis say allowed temporary resumption of U.N. flights to Sanaa airport

CAIRO (Reuters) -The aviation authority run by the Houthi administration in Yemen has allowed temporary resumption of flights by the United Nations and other organizations to Sanaa international airport on Monday, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said.

The Iran-aligned Houthi movement said earlier this month that the capital’s airport had been put out of operation after air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen.

The coalition said it only attacked military targets at the airport, from where drone strikes have been launched against Saudi targets.

The airport has been closed to civilian flights since 2015, after the Houthis ousted the Saudi-backed government from Sanaa, although U.N. planes have been permitted to land there.

The Houthi-run aviation authority said in a statement on Monday it allowed the resumption of the UN flights “after the malfunctions in communications and navigational devices were temporarily fixed,” the agency report said.

The authority complained that it could not guarantee the long-term continuity of these old devices, and urged the UN to help the entry of new devices that it had purchased, it added.

The coalition said that the strikes it had carried would have no effect on operational capacity, airspace management, air traffic, or ground handling operations.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Mourad; Editing by Leslie Adler and Alistair Bell)

Syria denounces Israeli plans to double number of Golan settlers

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Syria on Monday condemned Israeli plans to double within five years the number of Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights captured from Syria in 1967 as a “dangerous and unprecedented escalation,” Syrian state media reported.

Israel’s cabinet approved a blueprint on Sunday to build some 7,300 additional housing units on the strategic plateau in a move that could tighten its hold on the territory.

“Syria strongly condemns the dangerous and unprecedented escalation by the Israeli occupation authorities” in the Golan, the state-run SANA news agency said, adding Damascus would seek to use all legally available means to retake the territory.

Speaking to Syrian TV station al-Ekhbariya, foreign minister Faisal Mekdad called Israel’s actions against Syria “criminal” and said they violated the 1981 U.N. Resolution 497 declaring Israel’s effective annexation of the Golan as “null and void.”

Israel has mounted frequent attacks against what it describes as Iranian targets in Syria, where Tehran-backed forces including Lebanon’s Hezbollah have deployed over the last decade to support President Bashar al-Assad in Syria’s war.

Israel annexed the 1,200-square-kilometre (460-square-mile) Golan Heights in 1981, an action not recognized by the international community. Syria demands the return of the Golan, which also overlooks Lebanon and borders Jordan.

(Reporting by Omar FahmyAdditional reporting by Lilian Wagdy Writing by Ahmad Elhamy in Cairo and Timour Azhari in Beirut; Editing by Howard Goller)

Polish president vetoes media bill, U.S. welcomes move

By Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Pawel Florkiewicz

WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland’s president vetoed a media bill that critics said was aimed at silencing a Discovery-owned news channel that is critical of the government, citing worries about the strain the law would put on relations with Washington.

The move allows NATO-member Poland to sidestep a potentially explosive row with the United States at a time of heightened tension in eastern Europe amid what some countries see as increased Russian assertiveness.

However, the decision means that a project voted through parliament by the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) has been blocked by a president elected as their ally.

President Andrzej Duda said in a televised statement on Monday that if the law came into force it could violate a treaty signed with the United States on economic and trade relations.

“One of the arguments considered during the analyses of this law was the issue of an international agreement that was concluded in 1990 … this treaty speaks about the protection of investments,” he said.

“There is a clause which says that media-related investments may be excluded, but it concerns future investments.”

The United States had urged Duda to use his veto. The U.S. charge d’affaires in Warsaw, Bix Aliu, thanked him on Twitter ” … for leadership and commitment to common democratic values and for protecting the investment climate in Poland.”

MEDIA FREEDOM

Unexpectedly rushed through parliament this month, the legislation would have tightened rules around foreign ownership of media, specifically affecting the ability of news channel TVN24, owned by U.S. media company Discovery Inc, to operate.

TVN24’s parent, TVN, is owned by Discovery via a firm registered in the Netherlands in order to get around a ban on non-European firms owning more than 49% of Polish media companies. The law, which drew nationwide protests, would have prevented this workaround.

“This is a victory for the Polish people,” Discovery said in a statement. “We commend the president for doing the right thing and standing up for the democratic values of a free press and the rule of law.”

Duda told private broadcaster Polsat News mass street protests in December had not influenced his decision as he had already stated his position on the issue in August.

Duda said at the time he believed any take over of media owned by foreign companies should be carried out on market terms instead of introducing compulsory solutions.

Asked whether he was disappointed that PiS lawmakers had tried to proceed with the legislation despite his previous comments he said he was “amazed”.

PiS spokeswoman Anita Czerwinska told state-run news agency PAP the party was “disappointed” by his decision.

Parliament could vote to overturn the president’s veto, but PiS does not have the required qualified majority of votes.

PiS has long argued that foreign media groups have too much power in Poland, distorting public debate.

However, critics say that moves against them seek to limit media freedom and are part of an increasingly authoritarian agenda that has put Warsaw at loggerheads with the European Union.

Duda said during his televised statement announcing his decision that he generally believed limiting foreign ownership of media was sensible, but that any regulation should concern future investments in the sector, not current owners.

(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; Additional reporting: Dawn Chmielewski; Writing by Alan Charlish, Editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Alison Williams)

Death toll from Brazil flooding rises in Bahia’s ‘worst disaster’ ever

By Leonardo Benassatto and Sergio Queiroz

ITABUNA, Brazil (Reuters) – The death toll from floods hammering northeast Brazil rose to 20 on Monday, as the governor of Bahia state declared it the worst disaster in the state’s history and rescuers braced for more rain in the coming days.

Much of Bahia, home to about 15 million people, has suffered from intermittent flooding for weeks, after a long drought gave way to record rains. Flooding in some areas intensified late on Christmas Eve and early on Christmas Day after a pair of dams gave way, sending residents scrambling for higher ground.

Rescue workers patrolled in small dinghies around the city of Itabuna, in southern Bahia, plucking residents from their homes, including some who escaped through second-floor windows.

Bahia Governor Rui Costa said on Twitter that 72 municipalities were in a state of emergency.

“Unfortunately, we’re living through the worst disaster that has ever occurred in the history of Bahia,” he wrote.

Manfredo Santana, a lieutenant-colonel in Bahia’s firefighting corps, told Reuters that emergency workers had rescued 200 people in just three nearby towns. The heavy currents of the swollen Cachoeira River complicated rescue efforts.

“It’s difficult to maneuver even with jet skis,” he said. “Rescue teams had to retreat in certain moments.”

Bahia’s civil defense agency said on Monday afternoon that 20 people had died in 11 separate municipalities.

Newspaper O Globo, citing a state firefighting official, said that authorities are monitoring an additional 10 dams for any signs they may collapse.

The scrutiny of public infrastructure and urban planning comes just a couple years after the collapse of a mining dam in neighboring Minas Gerais state killed some 270 people.

In televised remarks, Costa, the Bahia governor, attributed the chaotic scenes in part to “errors that have been committed over the course of years.”

(Reporting by Leonardo Benassatto; Writing by Gram Slattery; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Fauci suggests air travel vaccine mandate as Omicron grounds U.S. flights

By Gabriella Borter and Aishwarya Nair

(Reuters) -Skyrocketing COVID-19 cases hobbled U.S. airline staff on Monday, causing hundreds of flight cancellations, and prompted the country’s top infectious disease expert to suggest the government consider a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel.

Monday’s air travel woes capped a glum Christmas weekend for thousands of stranded passengers waiting in airport queues and on customer service phone lines to re-book flights, often days after originally planned.

Rising infections from the Omicron variant forced airlines to cancel flights as pilots and cabin crew fell sick and needed to quarantine.

A total 1,130 flights into, within or out of the United States were canceled by Monday afternoon, according to the flight tracking website flightaware.com. Airlines said the virus and bad weather both were to blame.

The average number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States has risen 55% to over 205,000 per day over the last seven days, according to a Reuters tally.

Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top U.S. infectious disease expert, on Monday recommended the federal government consider a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel.

“That is just another one of the requirements that I think is reasonable to consider,” Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease official and a member of the White House COVID-19 response team, told MSNBC in an interview.

U.S. President Joe Biden, speaking to reporters on Monday, declined to say whether he endorsed a vaccine mandate for domestic air travel.

He did say he was open to reducing quarantine times for other Americans after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last week said healthcare workers could isolate for seven instead of 10 days.

In another instance of Omicron-induced travel misery, the CDC said on Monday it was investigating 68 cruise ships after reports of COVID-19 cases on board.

SEVEN-HOUR HOLD TIME

On Monday, snowy weather in the Pacific Northwest was also part of the reason for more than 90 canceled flights that were due to land at Seattle-Tacoma Airport.

A representative for Alaska Airlines, which canceled more than 140 flights on Monday due partly to snowy conditions in Seattle, told a passenger on Twitter that it would be hours before someone from customer service could speak by phone, signaling the extent to which airline phone lines were overwhelmed with frustrated passengers.

“The hold time is about 7 hours. I am so sorry,” Alaska Airlines wrote on Twitter in response to a customer complaint.

Harley Garner, a 27-year-old creative strategist from Portland, and his brother from Seattle were staying with their parents in Pahrump, Nevada, over the holidays and had planned to fly home on Sunday evening. Both brothers’ respective flights -to Portland via Alaska Airlines and to Seattle via Allegiant Airlines – were canceled on Sunday afternoon. Both managed to book seats on later flights – Garner’s brother got one late Sunday night, and Garner booked one for 6 a.m. on Monday.

Then their second flights were canceled. They decided to drive and got on the road shortly after 3 a.m. on Monday. Garner’s father was driving his sons to Bakersfield, California, where they planned to rent a car and then drive up to Portland and Seattle, totaling some 17 hours on the road.

Garner said the most frustrating part of the travel nightmare, which Alaska Airlines said was weather-related, although Portland was not experiencing severe weather on Monday, was the last-minute notification of cancellations.

“If you know a plane isn’t going to leave one place and that’s a connector flight, then just cancel that flight,” he said. “Don’t play these games like you don’t know that there’s a staff shortage because of the coronavirus.”

Southwest Airlines and Alaska Airlines said on Monday that their cancellations were due to weather. Delta Airlines said in a statement that its 200 Monday cancellations were due to weather and the Omicron variant. JetBlue said crew shortages were behind its dozens of Monday flight cancellations.

(Reporting by Gabriella Borter, Aishwarya Nair, Jonathan Allen and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Dan Grebler and Howard Goller)

Lebanon’s Aoun calls for defense dialogue, hinting at friction with Hezbollah

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Lebanese President Michel Aoun called on Monday for national dialogue on matters including a defense strategy which he said it was the state’s responsibility alone to implement, hinting at friction with his allies in the heavily armed Hezbollah.

In a televised speech, Aoun also said he wanted the best ties with Gulf Arab states, asking why relations were being put under strain following comments by a Hezbollah-aligned minister on the Yemen war that triggered a diplomatic crisis in October.

The alliance between Aoun, a Maronite Christian, and the Iran-backed Shi’ite Hezbollah has shaped Lebanese politics for 16 years.

But tensions have surfaced of late, pointing to the possibility of realignments ahead of a May parliamentary election in which Hezbollah’s adversaries hope to overturn the majority won by the group and its allies in 2018.

The new parliament will elect a new head of state next year.

Hezbollah helped propel Aoun to the presidency in 2016, while the president and his Free Patriotic Movement have provided vital political support for Hezbollah’s possession of an arsenal more powerful than the Lebanese army’s.

Aoun is nearing the end of his six-year term with Lebanon in the throes of what the World Bank has called one of the sharpest economic meltdowns ever recorded.

Warning the state was “falling apart,” Aoun called for urgent dialogue on a financial recovery plan, administrative and financial decentralization, and the defense strategy.

“It is true that defending the nation requires cooperation between the army, the people and the resistance, but the main responsibility is the state’s. The state alone puts in place the defense strategy and attends to its implementation,” Aoun said in a televised speech, without naming Hezbollah.

Hezbollah’s opponents have long said its arsenal has undermined the state, embroiled Lebanon in regional conflicts, and damaged ties with wealthy Gulf Arab states that once invested heavily in Beirut but have shunned it for years.

Hezbollah, formed in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, says its weapons are vital to defending Lebanon from Israel. It also says its fighters shielded Lebanon from jihadists such Islamic State in Syria.

Aoun said: “I wish for the best relations with the Arab states, specifically the Gulf states. I ask: what is the justification for straining ties with these states and interfering in matters that do not concern us.”

He also said it was imperative that the government convene after going more than two months without a meeting.

Hezbollah and its Shi’ite ally Amal want the judge leading the probe into the 2020 Beirut port explosion removed and have refused to allow cabinet to meet until the issue is on the agenda. Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said the issue falls outside cabinet’s powers.

(Reporting by Lilian Wagdy and Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Philippa Fletcher and Alison Williams)

Iran nuclear talks resume with Tehran focused on sanctions relief

By Francois Murphy

VIENNA (Reuters) -Indirect talks between Iran and the United States on salvaging the 2015 Iran nuclear deal resumed on Monday with Tehran focused on one side of the original bargain, lifting sanctions against it, despite scant progress on reining in its atomic activities.

The seventh round of talks, the first under Iran’s new hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, ended 10 days ago after adding some new Iranian demands to a working text. Western powers said progress was too slow and negotiators had “weeks not months” left before the 2015 deal becomes meaningless.

Little remains of that deal, which lifted sanctions against Tehran in exchange for restrictions on its atomic activities. Then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of it in 2018, re-imposing U.S. sanctions, and Iran later breached many of the deal’s nuclear restrictions and kept pushing well beyond them.

“If we work hard in the days and weeks ahead we should have a positive result…. It’s going to be very difficult, it’s going to be very hard. Difficult political decisions have to be taken both in Tehran and in Washington,” the talks’ coordinator, European Union envoy Enrique Mora, told a news conference.

He was speaking shortly after a meeting of the remaining parties to the deal – Iran, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and the European Union – formally kicked off the round on Monday evening.

“There is a sense of urgency in all delegations that this negotiation has to be finished in a relatively reasonable period of time. Again, I wouldn’t put limits but we are talking about weeks, not about months,” Mora said.

Iran refuses to meet directly with U.S. officials, meaning that other parties must shuttle between the two sides. The United States has repeatedly expressed frustration at this format, saying it slows down the process, and Western officials still suspect Iran is simply playing for time.

The 2015 deal extended the time Iran would need to obtain enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, if it chose to, to at least a year from around two to three months. Most experts say that time is now less than before the deal, though Iran says it only wants to master nuclear technology for civil uses.

END OF THE ROAD

“The most important issue for us is to reach a point where, firstly, Iranian oil can be sold easily and without hindrance,” Iranian media quoted Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian as saying.

Mora, however, said both the lifting of sanctions and Iran’s nuclear restrictions would be discussed.

Iran insists all U.S. sanctions must be lifted before steps are taken on the nuclear side, while Western negotiators say nuclear and sanctions steps must be balanced.

U.S. sanctions have slashed Iran’s oil exports, its main revenue source. Tehran does not disclose data, but assessments based on shipping and other sources suggest a fall from about 2.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2018 to as low as 200,000 bpd. One survey put exports at 600,000 bpd in June.

Mora said he decided to reconvene the talks during many officials’ holidays between Christmas and the New Year so as not to lose time, but he added that talks would stop for three days as of Friday “because the facilities will not be available”, referring to the luxury hotel hosting most meetings.

When the seventh round wrapped up, incorporating some Iranian demands, negotiators from France, Britain and Germany said in a statement: “This only takes us back nearer to where the talks stood in June”, when the previous round ended.

“We are rapidly reaching the end of the road for this negotiation,” they added.

(Additional reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie, David Goodman, Philippa Fletcher and Alison Williams)