When asked to respond to the claim from the presumptive Republican nominee, Vassily Nebenzia told reporters Monday that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.”

At a CNN town hall in May 2023, Trump said: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours.” He said that would happen after he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin. And he keeps repeating the claim on the campaign trail.

During last week’s debate with President Joe Biden, Trump claimed, “If we had a real president, a president that knew — that was respected by Putin … he would have never invaded Ukraine.”

Nebenzia said the war could have ended in April 2022 in Istanbul, when Russia and Ukraine were “very close” to an agreement. Moscow invaded its neighbour two months earlier on Feb. 24, 2022, though Russia insists its “special military operation” began in 2014 after clashes in Ukraine’s east resulted in Moscow seizing the Crimea Peninsula.

The Russian ambassador blamed Ukraine’s Western backers for blocking the April 2022 peace deal and telling Kyiv to keep fighting Russia.

Now, he said, Zelenskyy “is running around with his so-called peace plan which, of course, is not a peace plan but a joke.” While meeting in Switzerland last month, nearly 80 countries called for the “territorial integrity” of Ukraine to be the basis for any peace agreement to end the war. But some key developing nations did not join in, and Russia did not attend the conference.

Nebenzia pointed to Putin’s offer on June 14 to “immediately” order a cease-fire in Ukraine and start negotiations if Kyiv begins withdrawing troops from the four regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 and renounces plans to join NATO.

Zelenskyy, who has vowed not to give up any territory, rejected what he called an ultimatum by Putin to surrender more land.

The Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment about Nebenzia’s remarks.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainian forces thwarted their drive to the capital. Much of the fighting has been focused in Ukraine’s south and east, where Moscow illegally seized four regions, although it doesn’t fully control any of them.

But Ukraine is still struggling to stabilize parts of its front line after desperately needed military assistance from the United States was delayed for months before being approved in April. And Russia took advantage of the Ukrainian weapons shortage to launch an offensive and has made gains.

Nebenzia called Zelenskyy’s peace formula “a non-starter” and said he needs to be “realistic” and take into account what’s happened since April. The more difficult the situation becomes for Ukraine on the ground, he warned, the more difficult diplomacy will become to end the war.

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The weapons were part of a $300m (£240m) aid package approved by US President Joe Biden in March, and they arrived this month.

They have already been used at least once to strike Russian targets in occupied Crimea, US media report.

Mr Biden has now signed a new $61bn package of aid for Ukraine.

The US previously supplied Ukraine with a mid-range version of the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) but had been reluctant to send anything more powerful, partly over concerns about compromising US military readiness.

However, Mr Biden is said to have secretly given the green light to send the long-range system – which can fire missiles to distances of up to 300km (186 miles) – in February.

“I can confirm that the United States provided Ukraine with long-range ATACMS at the president’s direct direction,” state department spokesman Vedant Patel said.

The US “did not announce this at the onset in order to maintain operational security for Ukraine at their request”, he added.

It is not clear how many of the weapons have already been sent, but US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Washington planned to send more.

“They will make a difference. But as I’ve said before at this podium… there is no silver bullet,” he said.

The longer-range missiles were used for the first time last week to strike a Russian airfield in occupied Crimea, Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed US official as saying.

And the new missiles were also used in an attack on Russian troops in the occupied port city of Berdyansk overnight on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.

Recent months have seen Kyiv step up its calls for Western assistance as its stocks of ammunition are depleted and Russia makes steady gains.

The new aid package follows months of gridlock amid opposition to the aid from some in Congress.

“It’s going to make America safer, it’s going to make the world safer,” Mr Biden said after signing it into law.

Reacting to the package, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Now we will do everything to make up for half a year spent in debates and doubts.

“What the Russian occupier was able to do during this time, what Putin is now planning, we must turn against him.”

Mr Zelensky recently warned that a Russian offensive was expected in the coming weeks after Ukraine’s loss of the city of Avdiivka during the winter.

Ukrainian forces have suffered from a shortage of ammunition and air defence systems in recent months, and officials have blamed delays in military aid from the US and other Western allies for the loss of lives and territory.

Mr Sullivan said on Wednesday it was “certainly possible that Russia could make additional tactical gains in the coming weeks”.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, tens of thousands of people, most of them soldiers, have been killed or injured on both sides and millions of people have fled their homes.

Oksana Balandina and Viktor Vasyliv, both 23, celebrated their nuptials at a hospital in Lviv, according to Reuters – marking a happy moment amidst what has otherwise been a challenging time.

On March 27, Balandina was injured in a landmine explosion while walking “on a familiar path” to their home in Lysychansk, the Lviv Medical Association told British outlet Sky News.

In those chaotic seconds, she was able to warn Vasyliv, who was walking behind her and did not get injured.

“I only managed to shout to him [Vasyliv]: ‘Honey, look!’ ” the nurse told Reuters.

Although Vasyliv said he “did not know what to do” after the explosion, Balandina was able to figure out their next steps.

“If it was not for Oksana, I don’t know what would have happened,” he told Reuters. “She is so strong.”about:blankReport Ad

Since then, Balandina has undergone four operations, and both of her legs as well as four fingers on her left hand have been amputated, according to Sky News.

After being evacuated to Dnipro, where she also received care, the couple traveled to Lviv, which is less than 50 miles away from the Polish border, per The Los Angeles Times.

There, they tied the knot in a civil ceremony at the Lviv Surgery Center on Monday, the newspaper reported.

“Life should not be postponed until later,” the Lviv Medical Association told Sky News of the couple’s decision, adding that “in six years together [they had] never found time for marriage.”

Only patients and volunteers were present for the modest festivities, but now the world can see their first dance thanks to a video posted on the hospital’s social media, per the Times.

In the clip, Balandina, who wore a white dress and a pink flower crown, had her arms around her husband’s neck as held her up in his arms. As their dance came to an end, they shared a kiss while onlookers clapped and cheered.

The bride, who told Reuters that her 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter are with their grandparents in central Ukraine, hopes to travel to Germany soon. There, she hopes to get prosthetics and continue to heal.

Russia’s attack on Ukraine, the first major land conflict in Europe in decades, began when their forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24. The invasion, ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, has drawn condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.

Details of the fighting in Ukraine change by the day, but more than 3,000 civilians have been reported dead or wounded, according to the United Nations. More than 3 million Ukrainians have also fled.

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 40 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.

According to the Russian Embassy in Ghana, the current hardship is a result of high demand and rising prices of food, raw materials, and transportation services.

It argued that the current situation in the agricultural space is not a result of happenings within the last two months, but due to a steady trend of happenings on the global stage in the last two years.

Vice President Dr Bawumia while addressing Ghanaians on the state of the economy at the National TESCON Training and Orientation Conference on April 7, noted that aside from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war is adversely affecting the Ghanaian economy.

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He noted that the prices of food supplies have shot up because the two countries that are exporters of commodities such as wheat, and grains, have withheld supply due to the crisis.

“The increase in commodity prices has been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Russia and Ukraine together account for 30% of global wheat exports; the longer the conflict ensues, the greater will be the disruption to global food supplies. The conflict is also likely to slow down global growth.

pic.twitter.com/oBLpiBSbJf

— Russian Embassy in Ghana (@RusEmbGhanaEng) April 18, 2022

“According to the AfDB, the price of wheat has shot up by 62% since the war began, the price of fertilizer is up by 300%, and the price of maize is up by 36%. Here in Ghana, some 60% of our total imports of iron ore and steel are from Ukraine; Russia accounts for some 30% of Ghana’s imported grains, 50% of flour, and 39% of fertilizer.

“So we are directly affected by the Russian-Ukraine war. Unfortunately, we do not know when it would be over,” he said.

But in a statement on Twitter on Monday, the Russian Embassy in Ghana disagreed saying it cannot be blamed for the current price hikes.

“The current situation in the food markets is not a result of two months of this year, but a steady trend of at least two years. Food prices started rising in mid-2020 and reached an all-time high in February 2022.

“This is a real market shock caused by high demand and rising prices on food, raw materials, and transportation services, including freight, in the post-Covid recovery period,” the Embassy tweeted.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 following the former Soviet Union leader’s disagreement with NATO’s eastward expansion.

Recent reports have indicated that about 10,000 people have lost their lives following the Russia-Ukraine war.

Several sanctions have been imposed on Russia by developed countries.

Most countries say the Russia-Ukraine war is directly affecting their economies and agricultural value chain.

As he dragged the rotting corpse out of the sea and on to the sand, it was clear this poor soul wasn’t just another victim of the Second World War.

A black attaché case was chained to his belt. A dog tag around his neck revealed he was a high-ranking Royal Marines officer, Major William Martin.

And as Spanish soldiers took charge of the body, German intelligence intercepted British cables expressing the utmost importance of retrieving the documents that were on his person before they fell into Nazi hands.

It soon became clear that the gruesome discovery, on April 30, 1943, was a major coup for the Axis powers.

In the case – among love letters, theatre tickets and an engagement ring – were papers from British commanders indicating that the Allies aimed to invade Greece and Sardinia, not Sicily as the Germans believed.

When word reached Hitler, he ordered that troops, fighter planes and torpedo boats be pulled from their positions in Sicily and sent to Greece, clearly relishing the fact he’d intercepted the Allied plan.

In fact there was no such person as Major William Martin.

The body was that of a homeless man who’d died after eating rat poison, the letters were faked, and even the intelligence chatter made up. The German Fuhrer had been duped in one of the most incredible wartime deceptions ever.

The hoax, called Operation Mincemeat, changed the course of the war. Just over two months later, the Allies invaded Sicily, taking the island with little
resistance and paving the way for the assault on mainland Italy. The amazing story was first told on screen in 1956 film, The Man Who Never was.

Now it is to be retold in new movie Operation Mincemeat, directed by Oscar-nominated British director John Madden. Colin Firth will play
intelligence officer Ewan Montagu who masterminded the plan.

His daughter Jennifer Montagu remembers how she was the first person he told when finally cleared to reveal details of the operation.

She says: “When I was home from boarding school during a half term break, he sat me down and told the whole story. I was fascinated.

“Looking back I think he rather enjoyed creating Major Martin and identified very much with him.

“He’d invented the character and had to think so much about him, what his life would have been like, what he would need in his pockets and that sort of thing, that he’d almost become a shadow of him.

“But he was determined to never reveal the identity of the dead man.

“After my father died and my brother and I were sorting through his things, my brother came across a piece of paper which would have had the name on, but he insisted on destroying it before I could see if and without looking at it himself. He swore that it would never be told.”

It was 11 years after Montagu’s death in 1985 that the man, who had been buried with fully military honours in a Spanish cemetery as William Martin, was finally identified by an amateur historian as Glyndwr Michael, a 34-year-old homeless man from Aberbargoed in south Wales.

Two years later, the British Government formally confirmed his identity. A plaque commemorating his role in the war was added to the war memorial in his home town, headed in Welsh “The Man Who Never Was”.

If that sounds like the title of a James Bond movie, it is perhaps not surprising that the bizarre plan to hoodwink the Germans using a dead body originated in the mind of Ian Fleming, 007’s creator, who worked in naval intelligence during the war.

When war began in 1939 Fleming listed possible deception operations for his boss, Admiral John Godfrey, the model for M in the spy films.

Describing the idea as “not a nice one”, he detailed finding a dead body, equipping it with false documents and leaving it for the Germans to find. As British and American troops massed in North Africa preparing to invade Southern Europe, Churchill remarked: “Anyone but a fool would know it’s Sicily”. British intelligence had to convince Hitler that it wasn’t.

Montagu, along with Charles Cholmondeley, an RAF officer working for MI5, decided to put Fleming’s idea into action, and early in 1943 heard that a dead homeless man had been brought into the mortuary at St Pancras in London.

Glyndwr Michael’s body was kept in a mortuary fridge while the spies set about inventing a fake personality for him, including false identity papers, a uniform and orders indicating he was an important courier transporting vital military documents.

They put personal items in his trench coat, including a photo of a non-existent fiancée, Pam, actually that of Joan Leslie, an MI5 secretary.

Most importantly, in an attache case chained to the dead man’s wrist were fake documents marked “personal and most secret”, outlining a plan to invade Greece and Sardinia. The obvious place to leave the body was Spain, which while neutral was teeming with Nazi sympathisers who would undoubtedly pass it on to the Germans.

The plan was also a huge gamble – if the Nazis had an inkling it was a hoax, they might have bolstered their troops in Sicily which could have been disastrous for the Allied bid to retake Italy.

Getting the body to where it would be left to float near Sardinia was perhaps the hardest part of all. Montagu got Charles Fraser-Smith, thought to be the model of Q in the James Bond models, to design a special airtight steel container, packed with dry ice, to slow decomposition.

Leading racing driver St John Horsfall drove the container all the way up to the west coast of Scotland, where it was loaded on the submarine HMS Seraph. Shortly after 4am on April 24, the Seraph surfaced off the coast of Spain and the corpse, fitted with a lifejacket, was slipped gently into the sea.
Captain Norman Jewell sent a wireless message: “Mincemeat completed.”

As they picked up messages revealing the body had been found, and copies of the letters had been sent to Hitler himself, Montagu and his team fired off a telegram to Churchill: “Mincemeat swallowed rod, line and sinker.”

The German leader ordered that the First Panzer Division of tanks and 90,000 soldiers be moved to Greece to defend against the expected landing.

An entire group of torpedo boats was redeployed from Sicily to the Aegean, mines were laid off Greece, and two more Panzer divisions were moved from Russia to Greece, causing German forces to lose the decisive Battle of Kursk. Then, on July 10, 160,000 Allied troops invaded Sicily and met little resistance. Rachel says her dad who wrote The Man Who Never Was, about the operation, was “incredibly proud” of his part in defeating Hitler. “What he did saved countless lives, on both sides,” she says.

“As a Jew himself, and knowing what Hitler was doing to the Jews, he felt he was doing something very important.

“But he also found it paradoxical that he was enjoying the war so much when there was this tragedy going on.

“My aunt had a German friend who said my grandfather had saved his life too, because he was one of the German troops posted to Sicily, and because of the deception was moved to Greece which turned out to be much safer.

“As a lawyer he found it fascinating that he had been sanctioned to be, as it were, criminal, and set up very complicated deceptions.”

There is even a website to guide foreign fighters to enlist with an international legion set up by the defence ministry.

Some countries, including the UK, warn that any of its citizens who travel to take part in combat could be prosecuted under anti-terror legislation.

BBC’s Parham Ghobadi reports from the Polish-Ukrainian border.

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A day after he urged the youth to desist from typing online and hit the streets to vent their spleen, he has equally asked them to do the opposite.

According to Shatta Wale, the citizens shouldn’t be lambasting the politicians but rather encourage them to be rapid in their doings.

Suggesting a more inclined hashtag, he asked the youth to rather project #YouCanDoBetter to motivate the politicians because whoever started the #FixTheCountry wants to destroy Ghana.

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It’s not fix the country It’s #Youcandobetter to encourage them to be rapid in their doings. Whoever start this fix ting dierrrr, why you want bring war? Cuz Twitter people can fight on the streets ooo, we all suffering my guy !! Ghana no easy but let’s respect the peace.

Reacting to the killings and injuries of civilians who were protesting at Ejura by some military men who were deployed to ensure calm, Shatta Wale asked the FixTheCountry conveners to retreat on their actions.

You are there watching bullets enter people’s children and you still screaming fix the country… Let’s stop this it won’t end well … I DONT WANT NO WAR !!! #AYOO.

In another post on Facebook, he said only educated fools and disappointed graduates follow the #FixTheCountry campaign.

Check out the post below:

Israel’s military said air and ground forces were involved in attacks on Friday but had not entered Gaza.

Video from Gaza City showed the night sky lit up by explosions from Israeli artillery, gunboats and air strikes.

Some 119 people have been killed in Gaza and eight have died in Israel since fighting began on Monday.

Meanwhile, Jewish and Israeli-Arab mobs have been fighting within Israel, prompting its president to warn of civil war.

Defence Minister Benny Gantz ordered a “massive reinforcement” of security forces to suppress the internal unrest that has seen more than 400 people arrested.

Police say Israeli Arabs have been responsible for most of the trouble and reject the accusation that they are standing by while gangs of Jewish youths target Arab homes.

This week’s violence in Gaza and Israel is the worst since 2014. It came after weeks of spiralling Israeli-Palestinian tension in East Jerusalem which culminated in clashes at a holy site revered by both Muslims and Jews. Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, began firing rockets after warning Israel to withdraw from the site, triggering retaliatory air strikes.

In Gaza, Palestinians fearing an incursion by Israeli troops have been fleeing areas close to the border with Israel. Residents who had left Shejaiya in Gaza City said shells had been falling on homes.

“There is a lot of shelling and the children are all afraid. Even us adults have been in war since our childhood. We are afraid and cannot bear it anymore,” Um Raed al-Baghdadi told AFP.

The Israeli military said it had conducted an operation overnight to destroy a network of Hamas tunnels that it dubbed “the metro”, but no troops had entered Gaza. It added that – over the course of Thursday evening and Friday morning – 220 more projectiles were fired from the Gaza Strip.

In southern Israel an 87-year-old woman died after falling on her way to a bomb shelter near Ashdod. Other areas including Ashkelon, Beersheba and Yavne were also targeted.

In a statement released early on Friday morning, Mr Netanyahu said the Israeli military operation against Palestinian militants would continue for “as long as necessary”. He added that Hamas would pay a heavy price, as would other “terrorist groups”.

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A Hamas military spokesman said the group was ready to teach Israel’s military “harsh lessons” should it decide to go ahead with a ground incursion.

On Thursday, Israel’s military called up 7,000 army reservists and deployed troops and tanks near its border with Gaza. It said a ground offensive into Gaza was one option being considered but a decision had yet to be made.

As fighting entered its fifth day, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres called for “an immediate de-escalation and cessation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel”.

His plea echoed that of other diplomats – including from Israel’s ally the US – but appeals to Israeli and Palestinian leaders have so far failed to produce a ceasefire agreement.

A senior Hamas official has said the group is ready for a “reciprocal” ceasefire if the international community pressures Israel to “suppress military actions” at the disputed al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Gaza’s health ministry said 27 children were among those killed since fighting began, and many other civilians have died. Another 600 Gazans have also been wounded.

Israel says dozens of those killed in Gaza were militants, and that some of the deaths are from misfired rockets from Gaza.

Israel has also called up 10 reserve border patrol companies to help tackle the worst unrest between Arab and Jewish communities for many years.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has proposed introducing “administrative detention” for rioters. The controversial measure would allow authorities to detain people for extended periods of time without charge.

President Reuven Rivlin described the outbreaks of rioting in several towns and cities as “senseless civil war”.

Meanwhile, attempts by parties in Israel to form a coalition to replace Mr Netanyahu’s government following inconclusive elections in March appear to have collapsed after a key right-wing leader pulled his party out of negotiations, calling the hostilities a “reality changing event”, local media say.

Naftali Bennett is now in discussions with Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party to try to form a “broad national unity government”, according to reports.

What caused the violence?

The fighting between Israel and Hamas was triggered by days of escalating clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police at a holy hilltop compound in East Jerusalem.

The site is revered by both Muslims, who call it the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), and Jews, for whom it is known as the Temple Mount. Hamas demanded Israel remove police from there and the nearby predominantly Arab district of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction by Jewish settlers. Hamas launched rockets when its ultimatum went unheeded.

Palestinian anger had already been stoked by weeks of rising tension in East Jerusalem, inflamed by a series of confrontations with police since the start of Ramadan in mid-April.

It was further fuelled by Israel’s annual celebration of its capture of East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war, known as Jerusalem Day.

The fate of the city, with its deep religious and national significance to both sides, lies at the heart of the decades-old Israel-Palestinian conflict. Israel in effect annexed East Jerusalem in 1980 and considers the entire city its capital, though this is not recognised by the vast majority of other countries.

Palestinians claim the eastern half of Jerusalem as the capital of a hoped-for state of their own.

The rapper, in an Instagram post, was pictured boarding a private jet with the caption: ” I’m out .. moving to Africa.”

Meek Mill, however, failed to disclose his African country of choice even though some fans suggested Ghana for him as part of the popular ‘Year of Return’ initiative.

Tension between US and Iran has heightened fears since the killing of General Qasem Soleimani of Iran by an airstrike ordered by President Trump.

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Soleimani, Iran’s preeminent military commander, was killed on Friday in a US drone strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport.

The attack took long-running hostilities between Washington and Tehran into uncharted territory and raised the spectre of wider conflict in the Middle East.

Iranian MP Abolfazl Aboutorabi has threatened to attack the heart of American politics.

With Iran threatening to attack the US, Trump has stated that he doesn’t need Congressional approval to strike back.

“These Media Posts will serve as notification to the United States Congress that should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly and fully strike back, and perhaps in a disproportionate manner.” ” Such legal notice is not required, but is given nevertheless!”, he wrote.

But Meek Mill reacting to this said President Trump was wrong to order the attack on Iran.

“Trump sending hits involving us in some shit we ain’t got nothing to do with lol I woke up in beef today lol” he tweeted.

Nana Addai Munumkum, chief of Botokrom in the Berekum west District of the Bono region has declared war on illegal chainsaw operators on their land.

According to the chief who says he has the backing of his people, illegal chainsaw operators in the area are gradually destroying their forest reserve which has been preserved through afforestation for the past 40 years.

Speaking in an interview with Adom news, Nana Addai Munumkum was confident the war will help clump down on deforestation in the area.

“We have informed authorities in Berekum, Dormaa and Sunyani but there is no help in curbing the situation so we have declared this war to curb the issue in our own way,” he said.

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Obaahemaa of Botokrom, Nana Yaa Amankwa who added her voice to the fight described the operators as threat to the community who steal from their farms and engage in other criminal activities.

Meanwhile, the community has inaugurated a task force headed by Mr James Effa to monitor the activities of the illegal operators.

The task force has vowed to protect the forest reserve with their last blood and asked government to provide them with security personnel to curb the operation of illegal chainsaw operators in the area.

This was revealed when the Economic, Social and  Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) which is an Organ of the AU held its meeting in Accra last week.

Chairman, Peace and Security Cluster at ECOSOCC, Eugene Ngalim Nyuydine said during the 29th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of AU held from July 3-4, 2017, at Addis Ababa adopted a roadmap on silencing the gun in Africa by 2020.

They also adopted September Month which is meant for the surrender and collection of illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALM) in the Continent as a gateway to silencing the gun in African.

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According to him, Member States are expected to promote and organise initiatives for voluntary surrender of illicit weapons in civilians’ possession on condition of anonymity and immunity from prosecution.

Mr Ngalim Eugene Nyuydine added that various Heads of States can decide to give incentives to those who are possessing arms unlawfully so they will voluntarily submit the weapons which he believes can bring peace to the African Continent.

The ban, in the south-eastern Benue state, follows years violent and often deadly clashes between nomadic Fulani herdsman and local farmers.
The herders accuse farmers of killing their cattle while the farmers say the animals are destroying their crops.
Those breaking the law face the possibility of a five year jail sentence.
The Fulani herdsman say it unfairly targets their nomadic way of life, but the Benue state government says its aim is to restore peace, reports the BBC’s Chris Ewokor from the capital, Abuja.

Destruction of communities

The herders have been forced from their more traditional grazing lands in the north by the Boko Haram insurgency, and the encroaching desert.
It has put them in direct conflict with local farmers, resulting in death and the destruction of entire communities.
The Global Terrorism Index says Fulani militants were responsible for almost 1,800 deaths during 2014 and 2015, leading to the government ordering a crackdown on the herders.
It considers the herders’ raids as the second-biggest threat to peace in the country after the Islamist Boko Haram militants.
However, the Fulani insist they are only trying to defend themselves and preserve their way of life.

• They are believed to be the largest semi-nomadic group in the world and are found across West and Central Africa – from Senegal to the Central African Republic
• In Nigeria, some continue to live as semi-nomadic herders, while other have moved to cities
• Unlike the more integrated city dwellers, the nomadic groups spend most of their lives in the bush and are the ones largely involved in these clashes
• They herd their animals across vast areas, frequently clashing with farming communities
• They are often linked with another group, the Hausas, having lived together for a very long time. Some refer to the Hausa-Fulanis but they are different groups
• The Fulanis played a key role in 19th Century revival of Islam in Nigeria

Ri Yong-ho told reporters in New York that North Korea reserved the right to shoot down US bombers.

This applied even when they were not in North Korean airspace, the minister added. The world “should clearly remember” it was the US that first declared war, Mr Ri said.

The two sides have been engaged in an increasingly angry war of words.

Despite weeks of tension, experts have played down the risk of direct conflict between the two.

After Mr Ri addressed the United Nations on Saturday, the US president responded by tweeting that Mr Ri and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un “won’t be around much longer” if they continued their rhetoric.

Mr Ri’s response came as he was leaving New York, following the UN General Assembly.

“In light of the declaration of war by Trump, all options will be on the operations table of the supreme leadership of the DPRK [North Korea],” he added.

North Korea has continued to carry out nuclear and ballistic missile tests in recent weeks, in defiance of successive rounds of UN sanctions.

The country’s leaders say nuclear capabilities are its only deterrent against an outside world seeking to destroy it.

After the North’s latest and most powerful nuclear test earlier this month, the UN Security Council approved new sanctions on the country.

Thousands of opposition supporters in the French-speaking country have been holding a series of target protests to demand a return to the use of the 1992 constitution which imposes limits on presidential terms.

They want an end to the Faure Gnassingbé rule which has been in power since 2005 after his father, who had also ruled the country for decades, passed away.

Protesters have rejected a government proposal to bring about a two-term presidential limit, saying it is a ploy to extend the president’s rule.

Internet access in Togo was severely restricted on Wednesday as opposition supporters started another protest.

Although the anti-Gnassingbe protests have been going on for close to a month, sub regional leaders are yet to be heard on the matter.

Vice General Secretary of the opposition party Democratic Convention of African Peoples (CDPA), Pascal Odonkor, told Joy News in an interview that Togo risks getting plunged into a civil war if the political tensions are left unresolved.

“If nobody will help Togo now, we will have a civil war in this country because we are tired; it’s enough. So I call the head of state of Ghana, head of state of Ivory Coast, head of state of Benin, Nigeria, all these persons I call to come to help Togolese,” he said.

The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), a leading Regional Peacebuilding organization, has also urged the international community to put an eye on Togo, in order to prevent the ongoing unrest from degenerating into a conflict situation.

The Executive Director of WANEP, Mr Chukuemeka B. Eze, said the international community should be concerned about Togo because when the state fails to protect its citizens under the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm, which all countries of the world have assented to, it was the responsibility of the international community to apply that R2P Act to Togo.

The R2P is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

Mr Eze made the appeal on Wednesday in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Accra on the sideline of a roundtable on “Reflection on Security Series”.