UN head condemns attacks on civilians during Ukraine visit

The head of the United Nations said Ukraine has become “an epicenter of unbearable heartache and pain” — a description underscored a short time later by the first Russian strike on the capital since Moscow’s forces retreated weeks ago.

Russia pounded targets all over Ukraine on Thursday, including the attack on Kyiv that struck a residential high-rise and another building and wounded 10 people, including at least one who lost a leg, according to Ukraine’s emergency services.

The bombardment came barely an hour after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a news conference with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who toured some of the destruction in and around Kyiv and condemned the attacks on civilians.

Meanwhile, explosions were reported across the country, in Polonne in the west, Chernihiv near the border with Belarus, and Fastiv, a large railway hub southwest of the capital. The mayor of Odesa, in southern Ukraine, said rockets were intercepted by air defenses.

Ukrainian authorities also reported intense Russian fire in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland that the Kremlin says is its main objective — and near Kharkiv, a northeastern city outside the Donbas that is seen as key to the offensive.

In the ruined southern port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian fighters holed up in the steel plant that represents the last pocket of resistance said concentrated bombing killed and wounded more people. And authorities warned that a lack of safe drinking water inside the city could lead to outbreaks of deadly diseases such as cholera and dysentery.

In Zaporizhzhia, a crucial way station for tens of thousands of Ukrainians fleeing Mariupol, an 11-year-old boy was among at least three people wounded in a rocket attack that authorities said was the first to hit a residential area in the southern city since the war began. Shards of glass cut the boy’s leg to the bone.

Vadym Vodostoyev, the boy’s father, said: “It just takes one second and you’re left with nothing.”

In Lyman town near Slovyansk, where Russian forces are reportedly trying to advance as part of their Donbas push, another tragedy unfolded on Monday when shelling rained on Tatiana Maksagory’s home.

“There was such a blast and then smoke; you couldn’t hear anything,” she said, crying outside a hospital with a wound in her neck. “You couldn’t see anything in front of your eyes, and then I see that my grandson is lying on the ground.”

Maksagory’s 14-year-old grandson, Igor, was declared dead after emergency services drove him to the hospital. Her daughter was in serious condition and her son-in-law was also killed.

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Afghanistan: Former army general vows new war against Taliban

An ex-general in the Afghan army says he and many other former soldiers and politicians are preparing to launch a new war against the Taliban.

Lt Gen Sami Sadat said that eight months of Taliban rule has convinced many Afghans that military action is the only way forward.

He said operations could begin next month after the Islamic Eid festival, when he plans to return to Afghanistan.

The Taliban took control of the country in a rapid offensive last August.

The hard-line Islamists swept across the country in just 10 days, as the last US-led Nato forces left following a 20-year military campaign.

Speaking for the first time about the plans, Lt Gen Sadat told the BBC he and others would “do anything and everything in our powers to make sure Afghanistan is freed from the Taliban and a democratic system is re-established”. “Until we get our freedom, until we get our free will, we will continue to fight,” he said, while refusing to be drawn on a specific timeline.

The general underscored how the Taliban had been reintroducing increasingly harsh rule – including severe restrictions on the rights of women and girls – and it was time to stop their authoritarian order and start a new chapter.

“What we see in Afghanistan in eight months of Taliban rule has been nothing but more religious restrictions, misquotation, misinterpretation and misuse of the scripts from the Holy Koran for political purposes.”

He initially planned to give the Taliban 12 months to see if they would change, he said. “Unfortunately, every day you wake up the Taliban have had something new to do – torturing people, killing, disappearances, food shortages, child malnutrition.”

He said he received hundreds of messages daily from Afghans asking him what he was going to do about it.

But in a country shredded by more than forty years of conflict, many Afghans are weary of war, desperate to leave, or struggling to survive in the midst of a deepening economic crisis. The UN speaks of a country marked by “combat fatigue” with millions on the brink of starvation.

Many in rural areas which bore the brunt of Nato’s war against the Taliban have welcomed the relative calm now that US and Afghan warplanes have left the skies and Taliban attacks have ended.

Lt Gen Sadat, who commanded Afghan government forces in the southern province of Helmand in the last months of the Taliban offensive, is also accused of ordering attacks which killed civilians. When questioned about the charges he denied them.

In August last year he was appointed to head the Afghan special forces and arrived in Kabul the day the Taliban swept in and his commander-in-chief President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.

Asked whether there was any alternative to another war, Lt Gen Sadat said he hoped that moderate Taliban, known to be uncomfortable with a growing raft of restrictions reminiscent of draconian Taliban rule in 1990’s, could be part of a new government.

“We are not against the Taliban,” he said, just against their current “textbook,” describing an Afghanistan where “everyone fits in, not a country only for Taliban.”

In recent weeks, an audio message in which the general speaks about an armed fight against the Taliban with the aim of “re-liberating” Afghanistan was leaked to the media.

In the past, armed groups including the Taliban won Afghan wars with the support of neighbouring countries, a foothold in the country, and foreign funding.

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Meta Spreads Cheer On Wall Street As Facebook Adds More Users

Shares of Meta Platforms Inc (FB.O) rose 17% in a relief rally on Thursday after having lost nearly half their value this year, as the social media giant surprised Wall Street with a better-than-expected rise in users joining the platform.

The stock helped lift the tech-heavy Nasdaq in premarket trading, spreading cheer to several internet and technology names. Apple, Amazon and Alphabet were all up more than 2%.

“Investors seem to be clamoring for good news and Meta’s results coming within touching distance of expectations scratched that itch,” said Laura Hoy, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Analysts appeared mixed in their views on the results. At least five brokerages cut their price targets on the stock, while three raised their expectations.

Of the 63 analysts covering the stock, 46 have a “buy” or higher rating and only two analysts rate the stock “sell” or lower. The median price target on the stock is $300, well above its current trading price of $200.

Facebook’s daily active users (DAU), a key metric for advertisers, came in at 1.96 billion, slightly higher than the estimate of 1.95 billion.

While that was enough to send the shares soaring, Wall Street analysts took a more cautious tone, citing worries ranging from the war in Ukraine, Apple’s App Store policy changes to competition from ByteDance’s TikTok.

“We do not believe the overall FB business has changed much over the past 90 days, but headwinds related to iOS changes, TikTok competition & Reels monetization are better understood,” J.P Morgan’s lead analyst Doug Anmuth said in a note.

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