Biden and Putin to offer rival visions a year into Ukraine war

JOE Biden and Vladimir Putin are set to give duelling speeches Tuesday promising two starkly differing takes on Russia’s Ukraine invasion, a day after the US president’s surprise visit to Kyiv.

Biden met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday—pledging fresh arms deliveries and “unwavering” American support—days before the first anniversary of Russian tanks rolling over the border.

“One year later, Kyiv stands. And

Ukraine stands. Democracy stands,” he said at the Mariinsky Palace, the Ukrainian president’s official residence. And on Tuesday, from Warsaw’s historic Royal Castle, Biden will “make it clear that the United States will continue to stand with Ukraine... for as long as it takes,” according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, who spoke to reporters last week.

In a visit to rally Washington’s eastern European allies, Biden will also meet Polish President Andrzej Duda on Tuesday. He will also speak by phone with the leaders of Britain, France and Italy, the White House has said. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is due in Washington on March 3.

“You’ll hear messages in the president’s speech that will certainly resonate with the American people, cer-

New quake hits Turkey and Syria, killing 3

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A 6.4-magnitude earthquake on Monday rocked Turkey’s southern province of Hatay and northern Syria, killing three people and sparking fresh panic after a February 6 tremor that left nearly 45,000 dead in both countries.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said three people were killed and 213 were taken to hospital, while in Syria White Helmets said more than 130 people were injured and that some already damaged buildings had collapsed.

Monday’s quake hit the Turkish town of Defne at 8:04 pm (1704 GMT) and was strongly felt by AFP teams in Antakya city. It was also felt in Lebanon.

Turkey’s disaster management agency said on Twitter another 5.8-magnitude quake followed three minutes later and its epicentre was Samandag district in Hatay.

The agency recorded two more tremors of 5.2 magnitude around 20 minutes after the first on Monday.

Images from the DHA news agency showed a hospital in Antakya being evacuated, while broadcaster NTV reported another hospital was evacuated in the city of Iskenderun.

DHA said patients in an intensive care unit were taken by ambulance to field hospitals to continue their treatment.

Soylu said rescue workers were trying to find people trapped under rubble.

An AFP journalist reported scenes of panic in Antakya, adding that the new tremors raised clouds of dust in the devastated city.

The walls of badly damaged buildings crumbled while several people, apparently injured, called for help.

On a street in Antakya, Ali Mazlum, 18, told AFP: “We were with (disaster response agency) AFAD who were looking for the bodies of our family when the quake hit.

“You don’t know what to do... we grabbed each other and right in front of us, the walls started to fall. It felt like the earth was opening up to swallow us up.”

Mazlum, who has lived in Antakya for 12 years, was looking for the bodies of his sister and her family as well as his brother-in-law and his family. AFP

Sokor court rules on same-sex couple’s rights

A SOUTH Korean court delivered a landmark ruling on Tuesday recognizing the rights of a same-sex couple for the first time, with activists hailing the verdict as a major victory for LGBTQ rights in the country.

The case—which will now go to the Supreme Court—was brought by a gay couple, So Seong-wook and Kim Yongmin, who live together and held a wedding ceremony in 2019.

It had no legal validity, however, as South Korea does not recognise samesex marriage.

In 2021, So sued the National Health Insurance Service because it terminated benefits for his partner – whom he had registered as a dependent -- after discovering they were a gay couple.

A lower court ruled in favour of the NHIS last year but in a significant turnaround, the High Court in Seoul overturned that decision on Tuesday, effectively ordering the insurance provider to resume benefits to So’s partner as a dependent.

“Today, we have our rights recognised within the legal system,” So’s partner Kim said after the ruling, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

“This represents a victory for everyone wishing for equality for samesex couples.”

The court did not give a detailed reasoning for its decision.

The NHIS told AFP it will appeal.

“This ruling is significant as the first decision legally recognising same-sex couples to be made by a court at any level in South Korea,” Jang Boram of Amnesty International said in a statement.

Though South Korea still has a “long way to go to end discrimination... this ruling offers hope that prejudice can be overcome.”

While the country does not recognise same-sex marriages, gay relationships are not criminalized. LGBTQ people tend to live largely under the radar. AFP tainly will resonate with our allies and partners, without question resonate with the Polish people,” Kirby said of the Warsaw address.

“And I would suspect that you’ll hear him messaging Mr Putin as well, as well as the Russian people.”

Putin will speak in Moscow a few hours earlier, according to the Kremlin, delivering a state-of-the-nation address that will be largely devoted to the conflict.

In previous addresses, he has railed against NATO’s perceived threat to Russia, and drawn on his country’s history to buttress his rationale for launching the invasion, and sticking with it in the face of unexpected Ukrainian resistance.

The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War has said Putin is “unlikely to announce measures for further escalation of the war in Ukraine, major new Russian mobilization initiatives, or any other significant policy” in the speech, which is delivered to the legislature and televised on national channels.

When it was launched, the so-called special military operation was planned to be a rapid conquest, leading to capitulation and the installation of a pro-Russian regime.

“Putin thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided,” Biden said Monday. “He thought he could outlast us.”

“He’s just been plain wrong,” he added.

On Tuesday, China said it was “deeply concerned” about the war, which it said was “intensifying and even getting out of control.”

Foreign Minister Qin Gan said Beijing would “urge the countries concerned to stop adding fuel to the fire as soon as possible, to stop shifting the blame to China,” following US claims that Beijing may be considering sending arms to Moscow.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, is due in Moscow on Tuesday for talks, in his final stop of a European tour.

The Kremlin has said Wang may meet Putin during his visit, according to the official TASS news agency.

According to the latest estimates from Norway, the conflict has wounded or killed 180,000 Russian soldiers and 100,000 Ukrainian troops.

Other Western sources estimate the war has caused 150,000 casualties on each side. AFP

In Brief

‘Silence’ on Nokor missiles ‘dangerous’

THE United States on Monday denounced a “dangerous” lack of action by the UN Security Council on North Korea’s missile launches, accusing – but not naming – China and Russia of having “forced” the body “into silence.”

The reclusive North Korean state test-fired dozens of missiles in 2022, setting security postures in East Asia on edge. It fired two ballistic missiles Monday, 48 hours after it test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile.

“In the face of unprecedented launches last year, two permanent members forced us into silence in spite of countless DPRK (North Korean) violations,” Washington’s UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, referring to vetoes by China and Russia last May of a resolution that would have imposed new sanctions against Pyongyang.

“On this vital matter, silence leads to irrelevance,” she added at an emergency meeting of the Security Council.

The 15-member panel’s “lack of action is worse than shameful. It is dangerous,” Thomas-Greenfield warned, saying the “repeated failures to respond emboldens the DPRK,” the official acronym for North Korea, to conduct such destabilizing launches without fear of consequences. AFP

UN tries to nish high seas treaty

UN member states embraced “positive energy” Monday as they launched two weeks of negotiations aimed at finally reaching a treaty meant to protect and preserve vast areas of the world’s oceans.

After more than 15 years of formal and informal talks, this is the third time in less than a year that negotiators have converged on New York in what, yet again, is supposed to be a final and conclusive round.

But as the talks, set to run through March 3, opened on Monday, cautious optimism appeared to be taking hold.

“I hope we’ve come together here with a will to get us to the finish line,” conference chair Rena Lee said as the talks began, adding that “an agreement that is universal, that is effective, that is implementable and that is future-proof is within our reach.”

At the conclusion of the opening day, she added: “There is a lot of positive energy in this room. So it behooves us to enhance this positive energy, keep our focus, keep our eyes on the prize, and really work to make this (conference) final.” AFP