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The Independent
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Finland's lawmakers vote to leave land mine treaty as Nordic country boosts defenses against Russia
Finland 's parliament voted overwhelmingly to pull out of a major international treaty on antipersonnel land mines Thursday as the Nordic country seeks to boost its defenses against an increasingly assertive Russia next door. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia and joined NATO in 2023. Finland says land mines could be used to defend its vast and rugged terrain in the event of an attack. Finnish lawmakers voted 157-18 to move forward on a government proposal to leave the Ottawa Convention. The Nordics and Baltics have been sounding the alarm on a potential Russian incursion since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Analysts say Ukraine is among the countries that are the most affected by land mines and discarded explosives, as a result of Russia's ongoing war. The Ottawa Convention was signed in 1997, and went into force in 1999. Nearly three dozen countries have not acceded to it, including some key current and past producers and users of land mines such as the United States, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Russia. In a report released last year by Landmine Monitor, the international watchdog said land mines were still actively being used in 2023 and 2024 by Russia, Myanmar, Iran and North Korea. In the Baltics, lawmakers in Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year voted to exit the treaty. Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said civilians will pay the price if more countries leave the treaty. 'The global consensus that once made anti-personnel mines a symbol of inhumanity is starting to fracture,' Spoljaric said in a news release earlier this week. 'This is not just a legal retreat on paper—it risks endangering countless lives and reversing decades of hard-fought humanitarian progress.'
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Associated Press
Finland's lawmakers vote to leave land mine treaty as Nordic country boosts defenses against Russia
HELSINKI (AP) — Finland's parliament voted overwhelmingly to pull out of a major international treaty on antipersonnel land mines Thursday as the Nordic country seeks to boost its defenses against an increasingly assertive Russia next door. Finland shares a 1,340-kilometer (830-mile) land border with Russia and joined NATO in 2023. Finland says land mines could be used to defend its vast and rugged terrain in the event of an attack. Finnish lawmakers voted 157-18 to move forward on a government proposal to leave the Ottawa Convention. The Nordics and Baltics have been sounding the alarm on a potential Russian incursion since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Analysts say Ukraine is among the countries that are the most affected by land mines and discarded explosives, as a result of Russia's ongoing war. The Ottawa Convention was signed in 1997, and went into force in 1999. Nearly three dozen countries have not acceded to it, including some key current and past producers and users of land mines such as the United States, China, India, Pakistan, South Korea and Russia. In a report released last year by Landmine Monitor, the international watchdog said land mines were still actively being used in 2023 and 2024 by Russia, Myanmar, Iran and North Korea. In the Baltics, lawmakers in Latvia and Lithuania earlier this year voted to exit the treaty. Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said civilians will pay the price if more countries leave the treaty. 'The global consensus that once made anti-personnel mines a symbol of inhumanity is starting to fracture,' Spoljaric said in a news release earlier this week. 'This is not just a legal retreat on paper—it risks endangering countless lives and reversing decades of hard-fought humanitarian progress.'
Al Jazeera
03-06-2025
- Health
- Al Jazeera
Israeli fire kills at least 27 aid seekers in Gaza: Health Ministry
Israeli forces have killed at least 27 Palestinians and injured 90 more as they opened fire close to an aid distribution site in Rafah, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza. The latest killings came early on Tuesday at the Flag Roundabout, near an aid hub operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). It was the third such incident around the Rafah hub in as many days. Gaza's authorities report that more than 100 aid seekers have been killed since the United States- and Israel-backed GHF started operating in the enclave on May 27, with reports of violence, looting and chaos rife. The Israeli military said it had fired shots as 'a number of suspects' deviated from the regulated routes, on which a crowd was making its way to the GHF distribution complex. The 'suspects' were about 500 metres (approximately 550 yards) from the site, the military said in a statement on Telegram, adding that it was looking into reports of casualties. The death toll was confirmed by Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Gaza Health Ministry's records department. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Hisham Mhanna, said 184 wounded people had been taken to its field hospital in Rafah, 19 of whom were found dead on arrival, and eight others died later of their wounds. Video verified by Al Jazeera's Sanad fact-checking agency showed the arrival of dozens of injured people at the hospital. Gaza's Government Media Office accused Israel of 'a horrific, intentionally repeated crime', saying it has been luring starving Palestinians to the GHF centres – controversially opened following an 11-week total blockade to take over most aid distribution from the United Nations and other aid agencies – and then opening fire. It said Tuesday's death toll brought the number of aid seekers killed at aid sites in the Rafah governorate and the so-called Netzarim Corridor since GHF launched operations to 102, with 490 others injured. 'We heard from witnesses that there was chaos,' Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary reported from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. 'The Israeli forces just opened fire randomly, shooting Palestinians … using quadcopters and live ammunition.' Health Ministry officials and doctors said most of the wounded have been hit in their chest and head, she added. The bloodshed, she continued, had unfolded in the same way as on the previous two days, amid ongoing chaos around the aid distribution centres. 'There's no process. There's no system,' she said. 'You just need to run first to be able to get the food.' Rasha al-Nahal told The Associated Press news agency that 'there was gunfire from all directions', and that she saw more than a dozen people dead and several wounded on the road. When she finally made it to the distribution hub, there was no aid, al-Nahal said, adding that Israeli troops 'fired at us as we were returning'. Another witness, Neima al-Aaraj, from Khan Younis, described the shooting as 'indiscriminate'. 'I won't return,' she said. 'Either way, we will die.' The Israeli military, in its statement on Telegram, said troops had fired warning shots as people deviated from 'designated access routes' and 'after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects who advanced toward the troops'. However, it denied firing on civilians or blocking them from accessing aid. This account echoes statements around similar incidents on Sunday, when 31 aid seekers were reportedly killed, and on Monday, when three more were killed.
ABC News
03-06-2025
- Health
- ABC News
At least 27 Palestinians killed near Gaza aid site, health authorities say
At least 27 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded by Israeli fire near a Gaza aid site for the third day in a row, local health authorities say. The Israeli military (IDF) said its forces had opened fire on a group of people who 'posed a threat to them' after they left designated routes near the US and Israeli backed food distribution site in Rafah on Tuesday. The IDF said they fired warning shots half a kilometre from the aid site. It added it was still investigating what had happened. The deaths came hours after Israel said three of its soldiers had been killed in fighting in the northern Gaza Strip, as its forces pushed ahead with a months-long offensive against Hamas militants that has laid waste to much of the enclave. Reuters could not independently verify the reports in northern and southern Gaza. A spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross told Reuters that its field hospital in Rafah received 184 casualties, adding that 19 of those were declared dead upon arrival, and eight died of their wounds shortly after. More than 35 patients required immediate intervention, the spokesperson added. The US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation launched its first distribution sites last week in an effort to alleviate widespread hunger amongst Gaza's war-battered population. The Foundation's aid plan, which bypasses traditional aid groups, has come under fierce criticism from the United Nations (UN) and established charities which say it does not follow humanitarian principles. The private group, which is endorsed by Israel, said it distributed 21 truckloads of food early on Tuesday and that the aid operation was "conducted safely and without incident within the site". However, there have been reports of repeated killings near Rafah as crowds gather to get desperately needed supplies. On Sunday, Palestinian and international officials reported that at least 31 people were killed and dozens more injured. On Monday, three more Palestinians were reportedly killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military has denied targeting civilians gathering for aid and called reports of deaths during Sunday's distribution "fabrications" by Hamas. On Tuesday, it said IDF forces had identified "a number of suspects" moving towards them while deviating from the access routes. "The forces fired evasive shots, and after they did not move away, additional shots were fired near the individual suspects who were advancing towards the forces," it said. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Monday he was "appalled" by reports of Palestinians killed and wounded while seeking aid and called for an independent investigation. The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders to residents of several districts in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip late on Monday, warning that the army would act forcefully against militants operating in those areas. The military told residents to head west towards the Mawasi humanitarian area. Palestinian and UN officials said there were no safe areas in the enclave, and that most of its 2.3 million population has become internally displaced. The new evacuation orders could halt work at the Nasser Hospital, the largest, still-functioning medical facility in the south, endangering the lives of those being treated there, the territory's health ministry said. Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 assault in which Hamas-led gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, by Israeli tallies. In the subsequent fighting, more than 54,000 Palestinians have been killed, local health authorities say.
Russia Today
28-05-2025
- General
- Russia Today
Force will not resolve South Sudan crisis
Escalating violence in South Sudan cannot be solved by military force, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has warned. Clashes between the East African country's government forces and opposition groups have spiralled into a humanitarian and political catastrophe. Zakharova made the statement during a briefing on Tuesday in Makhachkala, the Republic of Dagestan, which focused on regional and international security issues. 'The sharp deterioration of the situation in South Sudan in recent months is a cause for serious concern,' Zakharova said, noting that the armed confrontations have led to rising casualties, including among civilians. Fighting has intensified in Africa's youngest country since early this year, with alarming reports of ethnic-driven violence and breaches of a fragile 2018 peace deal that had once offered a path to unity. The International Committee of the Red Cross announced on Monday that its medical teams have performed over 1,000 surgeries on weapon-wounded patients in less than three months. More than 130,000 people have reportedly been displaced as airstrikes and fighter jet raids forced residents to flee towns, disrupted humanitarian access, and cut off key trade routes linking South Sudan to neighboring Ethiopia. The situation has been further complicated by political upheaval, including the arrest of First Vice President and opposition leader Riek Machar in March. The landlocked country gained independence from war-torn Sudan in 2011, and has remained unstable since the end of a five-year civil war that erupted in 2013 over a feud between its president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, and Machar. Machar's party has warned that his arrest effectively nullifies the 2018 peace agreement that brought the civil war to an end. Several Western nations, including the US and the UK, have advised their citizens to leave South Sudan amid growing fears that the country could slide back into full-scale conflict. On Tuesday, Zakharova reaffirmed Russia's support for African-led efforts to resolve the crisis in South Sudan, which she noted adds to the existing challenges in neighboring Sudan, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She urged South Sudanese parties, with backing from their African partners, to 'demonstrate political wisdom' and prevent further escalation by recommitting to the framework of the 2018 peace agreement. 'We proceed from the fact that a forceful solution to this conflict is impossible,' Zakharova stated.
