Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) – Russia announced on Saturday that it will suspend implementation of a UN-brokered grain deal that has exported more than 9 million tons of grain from Ukraine during the war and cut soaring world food prices.

The Russian Defense Ministry cited an alleged Ukrainian drone attack on ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet anchored off the coast of occupied Crimea as the reason for the move, which Russian sources said took place early on Saturday. Ukraine has denied the attack, saying the Russians mishandled their own weapons.

The Russian statement came a day after UN chief Antonio Guterres urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain export agreement. Guterres also called on other countries, mainly in the west, to speed up the removal of barriers blocking Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

The UN chief said the grain deal – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey in July and set to expire on November 19 – is helping “mitigate the suffering this global cost-of-living crisis is inflicting on billions,” his spokesman said said.

A Guterres spokesman said UN officials are in contact with Russian authorities about the announced suspension.

“It is vital that all parties refrain from doing anything that would jeopardize the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which is a crucial humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people,” said spokesman Stephane Dujarric .

The Russian Foreign Ministry on Saturday accused British specialists of being involved in the alleged drone attack on Russian ships in Crimea.

“In connection with the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, led by British specialists, aimed, among other things, at Russian ships that ensure the functioning of the humanitarian corridor in question (which cannot be qualified otherwise than as a terrorist attack), the Russian side can the We do not guarantee the safety of civilian dry cargo vessels participating in the Black Sea Initiative and are suspending their implementation indefinitely from today,” the Russian statement said.

The British Ministry of Defense had no immediate comment.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of playing “hunger games” by jeopardizing global food supplies.

“We have warned of Russia’s plans to destroy the[Korn Agreement]. Now, under false pretenses, Moscow is blocking the grain corridor that ensures food security for millions of people,” he tweeted on Saturday.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, denounced the suspension as “primitive blackmail”.

Turkish officials said they had received no official notice of the deal’s suspension.

Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow is ready to “completely replace Ukrainian grain and provide supplies at affordable prices to all interested countries.” Speaking on state television channel Rossiya 24, Dmitry Patrushev said Moscow is ready, with the help of Turkey, “to deliver up to 500,000 tons of grain free of charge to the poorest countries over the next four months”.

Patrushev also reiterated the Kremlin’s previous claims that a disproportionate amount of grain exported from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports was destined for European destinations.

Earlier on Saturday, Ukraine and Russia offered differing versions of the 2014 drone strike in Crimea that damaged at least one Russian ship in port on the Moscow-annexed Ukrainian peninsula.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a minesweeper suffered “minor damage” during a suspected Ukrainian attack on naval and civilian ships in Sevastopol, where the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is located. The ministry claimed Russian forces “fended off” 16 attacking drones.

Sevastopol Region Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said the port had experienced “probably the most massive attack” by air and sea drones. He offered no evidence and said all videos from the area were being withheld for security reasons.

However, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Ministry claimed that “careless handling of explosives” caused explosions on four Russian Black Sea Fleet warships. Anton Gerashchenko wrote on Telegram that the ships were a frigate, a landing ship and a cruise missile ship used in a deadly attack on a western Ukrainian city in July.

In other developments on Saturday, Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region and stripped the facilities of medical equipment, Ukrainian officials said, as their forces fought to retake the province.

Kremlin-installed authorities in the largely Russian-held region had earlier urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital — and reportedly joined the tens of thousands who had fled to other Russian-controlled areas.

“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including medical facilities, continues,” said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied territories.

“The occupiers decided to close medical facilities in the cities, take away equipment and ambulances. everything,” Zelensky said.

Kherson is one of four regions in Ukraine that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhia.

While Kiev’s forces sought reinforcements in the south, Russia continued shelling and rocket attacks in the east of the country, Ukrainian authorities said on Saturday. Three more civilians died and eight others were wounded in the Donetsk region, which has once again become a frontline hotspot as Russian soldiers attempt to seize the town of Bakhmut, a key target in Russia’s stalled eastern offensive.

Russian shelling also hit an industrial building in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region. About a quarter of the region – including the capital Zaporizhia – remains under Ukrainian military control.

In the most recent prisoner exchange, 52 Ukrainians, including two former defenders at the Azovstal Steel Works in Mariupol, were released on Saturday as part of an exchange with Russia, according to Yermak. Today, the steelworks in the bombed-out port city symbolize the Ukrainian resistance.

Also released was a sailor who had been defending Ukraine’s Snake Island, a strategic Black Sea outpost captured by Russia in the early hours of the war. Others returning home were Ukrainian soldiers captured by Moscow near the Chernobyl nuclear power plant – the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 – which was briefly occupied by Russian forces in February-March.

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This version has been corrected to show that the Russian Defense Ministry said one ship, not two, was slightly damaged in Crimea port.

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For the first time since the wave of demonstrations in the country following the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, the head of the Revolutionary Guards is warning the population.

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Posted on 10/29/2022 5:02 PM

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This is the first time since the protests began that the head of the Revolutionary Guards has made such a statement: General Hossein Salami warned the demonstrators on the night of Saturday 29 October. At the funeral of the fifteen dead from the attack on the Shia shrine in Shiraz, which was claimed by the Islamic State group, he urged the population to stay at home and not go out into the streets.

>> IN PICTURES. A month of protests in Iran and around the world following the death of Mahsa Amini

“The Iranian people will not tolerate behavior that goes against the rules of the regime and the rules of Islam,” General Hossein Salami said. The head of the Revolutionary Guards also claimed that the American and Israeli intelligence services had planned the protest movement with the help of Saudi Arabia.

“We say to the youth, to this minority of betrayed youth, we repeat to them: ‘Stop the rebellion!’

General Salami

in a statement to the protesters

This speech is seen as a sign of Iran’s hardening of power in the face of the protest. In the past few days there have been renewed demonstrations in Tehran and in provincial towns with dead people, especially in Iranian Kurdistan, Mahsa Amini’s home region.

Following the death in custody on September 16 of this young woman, arrested for wearing a veil deemed illegal, anti-government demonstrations have multiplied in recent weeks in Iran, Tehran and provincial cities. There have been several deaths, particularly in Iranian Kurdistan, Mahsa Amini’s home region. Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights estimated on Tuesday October 25 that 141 people, including children, have died since the protest erupted.

Split :

As confirmed by official sources area that Massa hopes that the agreement will be signed before the end of the year. It is not easy and work is being done at both technical and political levels to get a quick signature. “There are only a few weeks left,” says the lawyer.

massa us senators.jpg

“On a technical level, it is closed, the text is agreed and it only remains to sign it,” he told this medium William Michael, Customs Holder. “Massa spoke on the subject yesterday on a political level and the conversation is going very well. The “Power of Attorney” has already been drafted, a decree authorizing Massa to sign it for Argentina. This decree needs to be signed, it’s coming out these days,” said Michel.

Bob Menendez and Sergio Massa

Thus, Massa would be responsible for signing the automatic exchange for the country. Although this is normally a job for the State Department, “full power” allows it to do so. Which agency will be their counterpart in the US is not yet known.

As this outlet has learned, AFIP held new virtual meetings with the IRS last week to confirm everything is online at a technical level, and last week held a meeting with the US Embassy in the country and government officials where the Topic was discussed in the same spirit. For faster processing and to complete the process, a text of the agreement was validated directly in English.

The central aim of the agreement is to uncover tax evasion and undeclared accounts in the USA. According to official calculations, at least it would be $100,000 million that would be in the accounts of Argentines in this country. The aim is to collect personal wealth tax on the money that is not taxed in the country and the income from the interest they generate.

massa.jpg

The candidate for national deputy for the Frente de Todos, Sergio Massa in the US, spoke about Argentina’s future and the challenges the country faces during a meeting at the Woodrow Wilson Center there.

NA photo

All in all, possibly because of positions, the US has always been very reluctant to finalize the dealthe Argentine government on foreign policy issues, especially when it comes to authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia, Venezuela and Nicaragua, among others.

Along with Menéndez, the Democrat who chairs the US Senate International Relations Committee, there were also Republican senators in Tigre. Rob Portman, Richard Burr Y ben sasse, and the ambassador Mark Stanley. Massa was accompanied by Flavia RoyonSecretary of Energy, and by his international adviser, Gustavo Martinez Pandiani.

The deal

Massa discussed the issue in several meetings he held during his trip to the US in September. He proposed the new scheme at the White House With the National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, With Mike PyleDeputy International Economic Advisor to the National Security Council, and with John Gonzalez, Senior Advisor for Latin America. Also in the American Department of Stadiums and Treasury, the body that must leave the final signature of the agreement by the Argentine counterpart.

At the moment, current exchanges with the IRS are “on a case by case” basis, not automatic like those with other countries, but nonetheless the AFIP can count on valuable information in a dropper. The new system would be much more direct and the tax action on undeclared funds would be automatic.

2022.10.29 11:03 (act 10.29.2022 16:24)

Praises Ukrainian Resistance: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. ©AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expects more partial mobilization of reservists in Russia for the war against his country.

“We are preparing for this,” Zelenskyy said in a video message distributed in Kyiv on Friday night. He was reacting to the end of the call for 300,000 reservists to war against Ukraine announced by Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Moscow.

Partial mobilization is controversial in Russian society – also because it means that war is becoming tangible in most families for the first time. Many recruits have already been transferred back to Russia in coffins.

strong resistance

Zelenskyy stressed that Ukrainian resistance is so strong that Russia will be forced to order new mobilizations. Russian troops are so poorly trained and equipped that the country will soon have to mobilize more people, the president said, referring to losses among Russian soldiers.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians have left the country for fear of being drafted into military service. In Russia, many jobs are orphaned because people are serving in the war or fleeing. The fact that Putin is now announcing the end of the mobilization was seen as an attempt to attract men back to the country. However, experts warn against returning to Russia because the end of partial mobilization has yet to be sealed by a presidential decree. So far this has not happened.

looted hospitals

Zelenskyy once again commented on the power cuts in the country caused by the energy infrastructure destroyed by Russian missiles. Currently, four million Ukrainians live with the restrictions. Among other things, the capital Kyiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions are affected. In the occupied regions, Russian occupiers also stole medical equipment from hospitals to destabilize the situation. The Kherson region in the south is affected, for example, which is making Russia a no-civilization zone through evacuations.

Zelenskyy thanked the US for a new $275 million military aid package that will help liberate the occupied territories. He especially praised Canada for being the first country to issue bonds worth half a billion dollars to help Ukraine. Zelenskyy also reported on a phone call with new Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, with whom he discussed cooperation issues in various fields.