Russia claims to have thwarted ‘large-scale’ Ukraine attack

Claim comes as Ukraine prepares for a major counteroffensive to retake territory occupied by Russia.

Russia has said its forces thwarted a major Ukrainian offensive in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, killing 250 Ukrainian troops and destroying tanks and armoured vehicles.

“On the morning of June 4, the enemy launched a large-scale offensive in five sectors of the front in the South Donetsk direction,” the Russian defence ministry said on its Telegram channel early on Monday.

There was no update from Ukraine on the alleged offensive. In its evening update on June 4, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Moscow was focusing its military efforts on the full occupation of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian territories that Russia annexed last September, along with Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson.

“During the day, the occupiers made 23 attacks, but all of them were repulsed by units of the defence forces,” it said.

It was not possible to immediately verify the Russian or Ukrainian claims.

The Russian defence ministry said Ukraine had launched the attack using six mechanised and two tank battalions.

“The enemy’s goal was to break through our defences in the most vulnerable, in its opinion, sector of the front,” the defence ministry said. “The enemy did not achieve its tasks, it had no success.”

Ukraine has been preparing for a counteroffensive to take back territory occupied by Russia since it began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, as as well as the Crimean Peninsula it seized in 2014.

But it has given mixed signals about what the counteroffensive would involve — preliminary, limited attacks to weaken Russian forces and military facilities, or a large scale simultaneous assault across the entire 1,100-kilometre (684-mile) front line.

Russia said its forces killed 250 Ukraine soldiers and also destroyed 16 tanks, three infantry fighting vehicles and 21 armoured combat vehicles.

The ministry added that Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov “was at one of the forward command posts” at the time.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made no mention of the alleged assault in his evening video address on Sunday night. He said earlier that Kyiv was ready to act.

Ukraine has in recent weeks sought to weaken Russian positions. Late last month, a senior official said preliminary operations such as destroying supply lines or blowing up depots had already begun.

A drone attack set an energy facility on fire in Russia’s Belgorod region in the early hours of Monday, and regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported more incursions by pro-Ukrainian, anti-Kremlin Russian Volunteer Corps and the Freedom of Russia Legion armed groups.

The fighters said they had also taken Russian troops captive and would hand them over to Ukraine.

The Belgorod region borders Ukraine and has come under frequent shelling in recent weeks.

Pavel Felgengauer, Russian defence analyst, believes that attacks in the bordering region are part of a plan to force Moscow to direct more troops away from the front lines.

“Ukrainians hope that Russia will remove reinforcement … maybe the Wagner storm troops will be moved to Belgorod meaning that they will be removed away from the south, where most likely the real fighting is going to take place in the coming weeks or couple of months,” said Felgengauer.

“These small troops cannot really achieve a strategic objective by their raids, their only real objective is to pester the Russian and to make them reinforce forces in Belgorod at the expenses of other places,” he added.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA, REUTERS

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Scientists say world’s oldest-known burial site found in S Africa

The site in the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg contains remains of a small-brained distant relative of humans, scientists say.

Palaeontologists in South Africa said they have found the oldest-known burial site in the world, containing remains of a small-brained distant relative of humans previously thought incapable of complex behaviour.

Led by renowned palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger, researchers said on Monday that they discovered several specimens of Homo naledi – a tree-climbing, Stone Age hominid – buried about 30 metres (100 feet) underground in a cave system within the Cradle of Humankind, a UNESCO World Heritage Site near Johannesburg.

“These are the most ancient interments yet recorded in the hominin record, earlier than evidence of Homo sapiens interments by at least 100,000 years,” the scientists wrote in a series of yet-to-be-peer-reviewed and preprint papers to be published in eLife.

National Geographic’s explorer-in-residence Lee Berger’s daughter, Megan, and underground exploration team member Rick Hunter navigate the narrow chutes leading to the Dinaledi Chamber of the Rising Star Cave in South Africa 

The findings challenge the current understanding of human evolution, as it is normally held that the development of bigger brains allowed for the performing of complex, “meaning-making” activities such as burying the dead.

The oldest burials previously unearthed, found in the Middle East and Africa, contained the remains of Homo sapiens – and were around 100,000 years old.

Those found in South Africa by the research team led by Berger, whose previous announcements have been controversial, date back to at least 200,000 BC.

“Homo naledi tells us we’re not that special,” Berger, a United States-born explorer, told AFP news agency. “We ain’t gonna get over that.”

Homo naledi, a primitive species at the crossroads between apes and modern humans, had brains about the size of oranges and stood about 1.5m (5 feet) tall.

With curved fingers and toes, tool-wielding hands and feet made for walking, Homo naledi was discovered in 2013 by Berger, helping upend the notion that our evolutionary path was a straight line.

The species is named after the “Rising Star” cave system where the first bones were found in 2013.

The oval-shaped interments at the centre of the new studies were also found there during excavations started in 2018.

The holes, which researchers say evidence suggest were deliberately dug and then filled in to cover the bodies, contain at least five individuals.

“These discoveries show that mortuary practices were not limited to H. sapiens or other hominins with large brain sizes,” the researchers said.

The burial site is not the only sign that Homo naledi was capable of complex emotional and cognitive behaviour, they added.

Berger’s earlier discoveries won the interest of National Geographic, which named him “explorer in residence” and featured his work in television shows and documentaries.

The latest research has not been peer-reviewed yet and some outside scientists think more evidence is needed to challenge what we know about how humans evolved their complex thinking.

“There’s still a lot to uncover,” said Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, who was not involved in the research.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Gaddafi’s Son Goes On Hunger Strike In Lebanon – Lawyer

 One of the surviving sons of the former Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, has gone on hunger strike to protest against his prolonged detention in Lebanon, says his lawyer Paul Romanos.

Hannibal Gaddafi has been held in Lebanon for more than eight years after being abducted by Lebanese militants from Syria, where he had taken refuge after the downfall and death of his father, he adds.

Hannibal Gaddafi was subsequently taken by the Lebanese authorities and has been detained ever since in a jail in Beirut without trial, Mr Romanos says.

Source: BBC

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Brazil’s President Lula unveils plan to end deforestation by 2030

Lula’s proposal would advance a commitment to deforestation made at the 2021 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland.

The administration of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has announced its plan to eliminate deforestation by 2030 as part of an international pledge to protect the environment.

Lula and his Environment Minister Marina Silva unveiled the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Deforestation in the Amazon on Monday, touting it as the latest step in their aggressive platform to combat climate change.

“Brazil has resumed its leading role in tackling climate change, after four years in which the environment was treated as an obstacle to the immediate profit of a privileged minority,” Lula said in a post on Twitter, alluding to the policies of his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.

“But rich countries also need to do their part. They were the ones who over the centuries devastated forests the most.”

Fifteen government ministries collaborated on the plan, which includes advancing techniques for documenting and tracking illegal deforestation.

The plan stipulates increased use of satellite imagery to identify illegal logging, ranching and mining operations. Government databases containing financial intelligence, for example, will also be deployed to track the flow of money from unsanctioned operations in the Amazon rainforest.

Under the terms of the plan, a system will also be developed to certify the origins of wood and agricultural products that might otherwise come from vulnerable or exploited ecosystems.

In addition to its crime-fighting efforts, the plan proposes to standardise land titles and create incentives for sustainable agriculture and other “green” activities.

“Loggers in the country need to be told that, if they want to cut down trees, plant them,” Lula said of the proposed measures.

He also warned there would be no excuse for felling old-growth forests. “In the land of the Brazilian people, we will be very tough in complying with the law.”

Lula’s policies mark a departure from those of Bolsonaro, whose tenure in office, from 2019 to 2022, coincided with record deforestation in Brazil.

Bolsonaro had advocated for more development in the Amazon region, framing the construction as a potential boon for Brazil’s economy and turning a blind eye, according to critics, to illegal operations.

But Bolsonaro’s opponents decried what they saw as an attack on the country’s environmental protections, one that translated into violence against the Indigenous people who call the Amazon home.

In October, the right-wing Bolsonaro was narrowly defeated in a run-off election against the left-leaning Lula, who campaigned on a platform of restoring the Amazon. Parts of the forest, once a major carbon-trapping sink, now release more carbon than they capture as a result of deforestation and fires.

Nevertheless, in November, Lula appeared at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, in a bid to position Brazil as a leader in the fight against climate change.

“There is no climate security for the world without a protected Amazon,” he told the conference.

Still, Lula has faced an uphill battle. Deforestation dropped by 61 percent in January, his first month in office, only to hit a record high in February.

And Brazil’s opposition-led Congress recently delivered a setback to Lula, voting last week to scale down ministries dedicated to environmental protection and Indigenous peoples.

Monday’s deforestation announcement arrives one year after British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were murdered while reporting on the Amazon.

In announcing Monday’s plan, Lula paid tribute to the two men, who had worked to bring attention to deforestation and illegal operations on Indigenous land.

“A year ago, the brutal murder that made them victims shocked the world, which came to see the Amazon as a land without law and on the verge of destruction,” Lula wrote on Twitter. “Today, the world has returned to look at Brazil with hope.”

The announcement lays the groundwork for Brazil to follow through with a 2021 agreement, forged at the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, to halt deforestation by 2030.

An estimated 145 countries joined in the Glasgow declaration, which would cover approximately 85 percent of the world’s forests and woodlands. Among them, 12 governments pledged $12bn to protect and restore forest ecosystems, with funds set aside for Indigenous populations.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Rwandan president reshuffles top military officers

 Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has appointed new military and intelligence chiefs in a major reshuffle.

The president appointed Maj Gen Juvénal Marizamunda as the new defence minister, replacing Maj Gen Albert Murasira, who was in the post since 2018.

A new army chief, Lt Gen Mubarakh Muganga, is taking over from GenJean Bosco Kazura who ran the Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) since November 2019..

A reshuffle in which a defence minister and army chief are fired at the same time is not common in Rwanda.

No reasons have been given for the reshuffle. In previous changes to the upper echelons of the military, Mr Kagame would at times publicly hint at the reason.

In the Monday night reshuffle, Mr Kagame also appointed a new army chief of staff ((land forces) as well as head of military intelligence.

In another move, he changed the top commanders of Rwandan troops deployed in Mozambique to help fight militant Islamists.

Source: BBC

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