List of All Articles with Tag 'u'

Toxic gray smog has sickened tens of thousands of people in Pakistan’s cultural capital of Lahore, forcing authorities to shut schools, markets and parks for four days

The big bang expected for oil prices this year is turning into a whimper. Just weeks ago, Brent

France and Germany are ramping up efforts to find a joint agreement on new fiscal rules that could

The strong demand for UBS Group AG’s hotly-anticipated sale of additional tier 1 bonds is a positive sign

The cards used to be free - the new charge come amid a cost-of living crisis.

Rates traders are betting that the steepest global tightening cycle in a generation is over and that monetary

Russia is deploying Ukrainian prisoners of war to fight on its behalf against their own country, according to state media reports. The move has attracted concern from experts, who have argued it could amount to a war crime. Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti aired a video purporting to show captured Ukrainian soldiers being voluntarily inducted into the Russian army. They were seen swearing allegiance to Russia, holding rifles and dressed in military fatigues. The authenticity of the report or videos aired by RIA Novosti could not be immediately confirmed. Human Rights Watch said this could be a violation of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war (POWs). Captured soldiers are exempt from being exposed to combat or unhealthy and dangerous conditions regardless of coercion, according to the convention. It is “hard” to confirm if these Ukrainian soldiers have genuinely switched allegiance to Russia out of their own free will, said Yulia Gorbunova, a senior researcher on Ukraine at Human Rights Watch. “Russian authorities might claim they are recruiting them on a voluntary basis but it is hard to imagine a scenario where a prisoner of war’s decision could be taken truly voluntarily, given the situation of coercive custody,” she said. The soldiers were reportedly made a part of a battalion that went into service last month. The battalion is named “Bogdan Khmelnitsky”, after a 15th century medieval nobleman and Russian fighter who brought parts of Ukraine under Moscow’s control. The report said Russian officials have completed training of the battalion and the POWs would soon be deployed into battle. The group comprises about 70 imprisoned Ukrainian fighters from various penal colonies. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said the Ukrainian troops will operate under the larger “Kaskad” formation of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the name for the Russia-backed breakaway region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. This suggests the POWs will be fighting on the frontlines in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions where Kaskad has been active, the ISW said. The entire scenario is “laced with the potential for coercion”, said Nick Reynolds, research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute in London. A POW does not have a “huge amount of agency” and is in a “very difficult situation,” he said. According to the US-based think-tank ISW, this is not the first time Ukrainian POWs have been asked to “volunteer” for the battalion. They were housed in the Olenivka prison, which was blown up in July 2022. Russia said Ukraine had destroyed the prison in the country’s east with a rocket, but Kyiv blamed the blast on Moscow to cover up what it alleged was abuse and killings of the POWs. Russia is also trying to bolster its forces with a “conscription campaign in occupied Ukraine,” said the ISW’s Karolina Hird. Read More Blinken arrives in Seoul for talks focused on North Korea and its military cooperation with Russia Russia-Ukraine war: Putin’s ‘third wave’ advance stalls as Zelensky shows confidence Azerbaijan's president addresses a military parade in Karabakh and says 'we showed the whole world' Ukraine moves step closer to EU membership as European Commission backs talks Ukraine takes credit for the car bomb killing of a Russia-backed official in Luhansk Russia seeks an 8-year prison term for an artist and musician who protested the war in Ukraine

As China's navy grows and its land-based missile systems expand, the United States is reworking its strategy in the Indo-Pacific, particularly as it relates to the defense of Taiwan

China laid out its grievances with the US just before meetings between economic czar He Lifeng and Treasury

London’s home rental cost showed signs of easing, with a drop in demand and evidence that tenants are

Sony has reported that its profit in the July-September quarter slipped 29% from a year earlier, as damage from a strike in the movie sector offset boosts from a favorable exchange rate

MTN Group Ltd. expects Nigeria to overcome the short-term “pain” of President Bola Tinubu’s economic reforms by the