India “accidentally” fires missile into neighboring Pakistan

India says it accidentally fired a missile into Pakistan on Wednesday, blaming the incident on a “technical malfunction” during routine maintenance.

Delhi said it was “deeply regrettable” and expressed relief no one was killed.

Pakistan’s military said a “high-speed flying object” had crashed near the eastern city of Mian Channu and its flight path had endangered passenger flights.

Both countries have nuclear weapons.

In a statement, India’s defence ministry said: “On 9 March 2022, in the course of routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile. The Government of India has taken a serious view and ordered a high-level Court of Enquiry.”

Islamabad warned Delhi to “be mindful of the unpleasant consequences of such negligence” and to avoid a repeat. The object had been launched from Sirsa in Haryana state, it said.

Pakistan’s air force said the missile travelled at Mach 3 – three times the speed of sound – at an altitude of 12,000m (40,000ft) and flew 124km (77 miles) in Pakistani airspace before crashing.

“The flight path of this object endangered many national and international passenger flights both in Indian and Pakistani airspace, as well as human life and property of ground,” said Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Babar Iftikharon Thursday.

On Friday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said it had summoned India’s chargé d’affaires to complain about the incident.

Pakistan also urged India to share the findings of its investigation into what happened.

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The female mechanics breaking barriers in Tanzania

Two Tanzanian women are challenging traditional gender roles in the auto mechanics industry.

Mwasiti Salum and Catherine Kimaro work in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam where majority of the mechanics are men.

The society is yet to accept female mechanics but the two are slowly changing their views.

“I once met a woman whose car had broken down on the road. I offered to help telling her I was a mechanic but she insulted me instead of accepting my help,” Ms Kimaro

She says there is a lot of money to be made in the automotive repairs industry.

“My father convinced me to join this field after seeing the opportunities that were there,” Ms Salum said.

The two women have faced sexual harassment at work which they said was common in most male-dominated fields in the country.

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Rwanda mulls imposing Netflix tax – report

The Rwandan authorities are considering a proposal to impose a tax on online services, the New Times website reports quoting an official from the tax collection authority.

The proposed Value Added Tax (VAT) is considered as “a necessary one”, Jean-Louis Kaliningondo of the the Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) is quoted as saying.

“When you pay for services such as Netflix, you are using money that you have generated in Rwanda. So, we are asking, why don’t we collect VAT on these services if they are being paid for by our citizens?” he posed.

African countries have increasingly been taxing digital services in efforts to broaden revenue collection.

Last year, Kenya introduced the Digital Service Tax (DST) that imposed a 1.5% flat tax on the value of goods or services sold on digital platforms.

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Two dead as UN, AU warn of ‘grave danger’ in Sudan

Two protesters were shot dead during protests in Sudan on Thursday, as UN and African Union officials warned that the country was in “grave danger”.

Hundreds took to the streets across Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman, witnesses said.

Security forces shot dead one protester in Omdurman and another in Khartoum, pro-democracy doctors said.

At least 87 people have been killed and hundreds wounded during more than four months of protests demanding civilian rule and justice for those killed in previous demonstrations, according to medics.

“All indicators available to us at the UN and AU show that the country is in grave danger,” said African Union envoy Mohamed Lebatt at a joint news conference in Khartoum with UN special representative Volker Perthes.

“We are deeply concerned about the state of the country,” he said, calling for a resumption of the transition to full civilian rule.

The AU has suspended Sudan’s membership since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a coup in October.

The military takeover derailed a painstakingly negotiated transition between civilians and military leaders following the April 2019 ouster of dictator Omar al-Bashir following massive street protests.

It triggered international condemnation and regular mass anti-coup protests.

Hundreds of political figures and pro-democracy activists have been rounded up in the broadening crackdown.

On Thursday, Lebatt urged Sudan’s key civilian factions to iron out their differences and seek a consensus.

“If they remain split, they will throw the country’s future in the hands of the military institution,” he said.

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Ukraine war: Large Russian convoy redeploys near Kyiv – satellite images

Satellite images taken by a US firm of a large Russian military convoy near Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, show it has “largely dispersed and redeployed”.

The convoy was last seen near Antonov Airport, north-west of Kyiv, and its movement could signal a renewed push towards the city.

The firm that took the photos, Maxar Technologies, said parts of the convoy were in positions in surrounding towns.

Other parts are further north, with artillery now in firing positions.

Blasts in cities on opposite sides of the country were reported on Friday morning:

• An airfield and jet engine factory were targeted in Lutsk, in the north-west
• In Dnipro, a major stronghold in central eastern Ukraine, one person was reported dead in air strikes
• Explosions also hit airfields at Ivano-Frankivsk, in the south-west, according to Russian defence officials

“Ukrainian big cities are again subjected to devastating blows,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhailov Podolia.

He added that the shelling in Lutsk had shut down two central heating compounds.

“Russia’s destructive war against civilians and major cities continues,” he said.

Russian state media reported that the Ukrainian city of Volnovakha had been captured by Russian-backed separatist forces.

There is no independent confirmation of the capture of the city, which is a northern gateway to the besieged port city of Mariupol.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected Russian claims that chemical weapons or weapons of mass destruction were developed in Ukraine. In a video address, he also warned that Russia would get “the most severe sanctions response” if it were to use such weapons against Ukraine.

The US said earlier that Russia’s claims of Ukraine hosting US-backed chemical weapons facilities was a “false flag”, intended to justify Russia’s possible use of such weapons.

Russia has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to discuss the alleged manufacture of biological weapons in Ukraine.

Russian forces moved three miles (5km) closer to Kyiv in the past 24 hours, a senior US defence official said on Thursday.

That meant Russian troops advancing from the north-west were now just nine miles from the city centre, the official – who spoke on condition of anonymity – told reporters.

Russian forces were also trying to close in on the city from the north-east, and were now about 25 miles (40km) away, the official added.

The official also said that the northern city of Chernihiv was now “isolated”.

 

The convoy was earlier seen stalled not far from the capital, where US officials said it was targeted by Ukrainian troops with anti-tank missiles. It is not clear how many of the vehicles currently seen on the move may have been an initial part of that first group.

Troops and equipment wind their way through a junction in Ozera, near Antonov Airport

Fierce battles have been raging in recent days in Irpin and Buchan, satellite towns just a few kilometers north-west of Kyiv. Thousands of civilians have been forced to flee their homes.

On Thursday, footage emerged apparently showing a Russian military column being hit by Ukrainian forces near the city of Bovary, just outside the capital.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko says that half the population of the city of about three million has already fled, adding that Kyiv “has been transformed into a fortress”.

“Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified,” the mayor said.

Tens of thousands of civilians have formed Territorial Defence units to help the Ukrainian armed forces defend the capital.

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Russian strikes hit western Ukraine far from main offensive

Russian strikes hit near airports Friday in the western Ukrainian cities of Ivano-Frankiivsk and Lutsk, far from Russia’s main offensive, possibly indicating a new direction in the war.

The mayor of Ivano-Frankiivsk, Ruslan Martsinkiv, ordered residents in neighboring areas to head to shelters after an air raid alert. The mayor of Lutsk also announced an airstrike near the airport. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

New satellite photos, meanwhile, appeared to show a massive convoy outside the Ukrainian capital had fanned out into towns and forests near Kyiv with artillery pieces raised for firing in another potentially ominous movement.

The photos emerged amid more international efforts to isolate and sanction Russia, particularly after a deadly airstrike on a maternity hospital in the port city of Mariupol that Western and Ukrainian officials decried as a war crime. The U.S. and other nations were poised Friday to announce the revocation of Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status, which would allow higher tariffs to be imposed on some Russian imports.

Unbowed by the sanctions, Russia kept up its bombardment of the besieged southern seaport of Mariupol while Kyiv braced for an onslaught, its mayor boasting that the capital had become practically a fortress protected by armed civilians.

Three Russian airstrikes hit the eastern industrial city of Dnipro on Friday, killing at least one person, according to Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko. Meanwhile, Russian forces were pushing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east but were repulsed from Chernihiv as Ukrainian fighters regained control of Baklanova Muraviika, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement.

The convoy seen in satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed the 40-mile (64-kilometer) line of vehicles, tanks and artillery had been redeployed, the company said. Armored units were seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. Some vehicles moved into forests, Maxar reported, with towed howitzers nearby in position to open fire.

The Russian column massed outside the city early last week, but its advance appeared to stall as reports of food and fuel shortages circulated. U.S. officials said Ukrainian troops also targeted the convoy with anti-tank missiles.

Still, the immediacy of the threat to Kyiv was unclear. A U.S. defense official speaking on condition of anonymity said Russian forces moving toward Kyiv had advanced about 5 kilometers (about 3 miles) in the past 24 hours, with some elements as close as 15 kilometers (about 9 miles) from the city.

The official did not indicate if the convoy had dispersed or otherwise repositioned in a significant way, saying some vehicles were seen moving off the road into the tree line in recent days.

In Mariupol, a city of 430,000, the situation was increasingly dire as civilians trapped inside the city scrounged for food and fuel. More than 1,300 people have died in the 10-day siege of the frigid city, said Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

Residents have no heat or phone service, and many have no electricity. Nighttime temperatures are regularly below freezing, and daytime ones normally hover just above it. Bodies are being buried in mass graves. The streets are littered with burned-out cars, broken glass and splintered trees.

“They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock it, to constantly bomb and shell it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. He said the Russians began a tank attack right where there was supposed to be a humanitarian corridor.

On Thursday, firefighters tried to free a boy trapped in the rubble. One grasped the boy’s hand. His eyes blinked, but he was otherwise still. It was not clear if he survived. Nearby, at a mangled truck, a woman wrapped in a blue blanket shuddered at the sound of an explosion.

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Putin says Mideast volunteers can fight for Russia in Ukraine

President Vladimir Putin has given the go-ahead for Volunteers from the Middle East to fight for Russia in eastern Ukraine.

“If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone,” he told Russia’s Security Council.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told him there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to come to Donbas.

There has been speculation that battle-hardened Syrian government troops could be paid by Russia to fight in Ukraine. Russia’s air force and some specialized units have played a key role backing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Earlier the Ukrainian government said it was forming a force of foreign volunteers willing to help it fight the Russian army.

President Putin told the Council that “Western sponsors” were recruiting mercenaries for the Ukraine conflict “openly, violating all the norms of international law”.

He also agreed with Shoigu’s suggestion that captured Western arms – notably Javelin anti-tank missiles and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles – could be handed over to the pro-Russian fighters in Donbas.

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