The Russian Defence Ministry has dismissed Ukraine reports that Russia launched a missile attack on a railway station in the Donetsk region on Friday resulting in multiple civilian casualties.
The Russian Embassy in Bangkok on Saturday published the Russian Defence Ministry’s statement on its Facebook page.
“All statements by representatives of the Kyiv nationalist regime about an alleged missile attack by Russia on the railway station in Kramatorsk city on April 8 are a provocation and absolutely untrue,” the statement said.
It maintained that the Russian armed forces had no plans to carry out any attacks on the city that day.
The Russians also claimed that the Tochka-U tactical missiles, the wreckage of which was found near the Kramatorsk railway station and published by eyewitnesses, are used by the Ukrainian armed forces only.
On March 14, 2022, a Tochka-U missile struck the centre of Donetsk, killing 17 people on the spot and injuring another 36 civilians, the statement said.
The Ax-1 mission is the first American all-private human spaceflight mission to the ISS.
NASA, Axiom Space, and SpaceX launched a first private astronaut mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday.
The four-person multinational crew is composed of Commander Michael López-Alegría and Pilot Larry Connor of the United States, Mission Specialist Eytan Stibbe of Israel, and Mission Specialist Mark Pathy of Canada.
The mission, codenamed Ax-1, was launched on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket at 11:17 a.m. Eastern Time from the historic Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
About three minutes after launch, SpaceX confirmed main engine cutoff and stage separation.
Following stage separation, Falcon 9’s first stage landed on the A Shortfall of Gravitas droneship stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Dragon spacecraft supporting this mission previously flew the Demo-2 and Crew-2 missions.
The crew is scheduled to dock with the ISS at approximately 5:30 a.m. Eastern Time on Saturday.
During the 10-day mission, the crew will spend eight days on the International Space Station, conducting scientific research, outreach, and commercial activities, according to NASA.
Their scientific research includes self-assembling technology for satellites and future space habitats, cancer stem cell study, and air purification, according to Axiom Space.
The Ax-1 mission is the first American all-private human spaceflight mission to the ISS.
The mission represents both a culmination of NASA’s efforts to foster a commercial market in low-Earth orbit, and a beginning of a new era of space exploration that enables more people to fly on more kinds of missions, said NASA.
“This private astronaut mission is one part of our overall effort,” said Angela Hart, manager for NASA’s Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development program.
“We’re also enabling the commercial activities the crew will conduct on the space station, and we’re working with private industry to develop future commercial stations in orbit to create a robust ecosystem of destinations for future space travelers,” Hart said.
One reason why many cancers are so dangerous is that they metastasize. A new study led by Chinese scientists revealed that the bacteria in the tumor cells assist cancer’s relocation and promote cell survival during tumor progression.
Researchers from the Westlake Laboratory of Life Sciences and Biomedicine found that microbes could hijack tumor cells and bolster the strength of those host cells against mechanical stress in the bloodstream.
“Our study reveals that the cancer cell’s behavior is also controlled by the microbes hiding inside tumors, the majority of which were originally thought to be sterile,” said the paper’s senior author Cai Shang with the laboratory.
Cai and his collaborators used a mouse model of breast cancer with significant amounts of living bacteria inside cells, similar to human breast cancer.
The bacteria in the cancer tissue is about 10 times richer than those in normal mammary tissue, according to the study published on Thursday in the journal Cell.
They found that the microbes can travel through the circulatory system with the cancer cells and those passenger bacteria are able to regulate the network of cellular actin, a protein that participates in many kinds of cell movement, including muscle contraction.
The study also showed that those microbes specialized in relocating cancer cells, instead of affecting the carcinoma in situ.
“Only one shot of bacteria injection into the breast tumor can cause a tumor that originally rarely metastasizes to start to metastasize,” said Cai.
Then, the researchers injected antibiotics into the mice’s blood to specifically eliminate the tumor bacteria. They found that the tumor did not shrink but the lung metastasis noticeably decreased.
Also, injecting those microbes back into the mice, metastasis noticeably increased, according to the study.
Tumor cells in the blood tend to die under mechanical stress called “flow shear pressure,” but the microbes within could make them stronger by rebuilding their skeletons, the researchers tried to explain.
The study did not explain how the bacteria manage to invade and thrive in the tumor cells so as to render such postitive mutualism.
The researchers said a further in-depth study could lend a clue to a new strategy in properly implementing antibiotics for cancer therapeutics in the clinic.
Currently, the findings do not prove that using antibiotics during cancer treatment will benefit patients, said Cai.
Shanghai has built over 100 makeshift hospitals for COVID-19 treatment with over 160,000 beds, the Shanghai municipal government said at a press conference on Saturday.
There are also eight designated hospitals with over 8,000 beds in Shanghai, and more will come into operation this weekend. Resources will be further transferred to and reserved in the designated hospitals and makeshift hospitals, said Zong Ming, vice mayor of Shanghai.
Shanghai reported 1,015 new locally-transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 22,609 local asymptomatic carriers on Friday.
Citywide antigen testing is being carried out on Saturday and another citywide nucleic acid testing is planned to contain the epidemic, according to the press conference.
The Thai government said it abstained from the vote to suspend Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) because it favours a “transparent, impartial and inclusive” approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The UN General Assembly on Thursday suspended Russia’s membership of the Human Rights Council (HRC) with a vote of 93 in favour, 24 against, and 58 abstentions. The suspension came after reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Among those that voted against were China, Cuba, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Laos, Syria, Belarus and Russia, while Thailand abstained along with fellow Asean members Brunei, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
“Thailand voted to abstain on the resolution because of the overriding importance that Thailand attaches to a transparent, impartial and inclusive approach in the multilateral regime,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Tanee Sangrat said on Friday.
“Thailand supports the United Nations secretary-general’s call for an independent international commission of inquiry established by the HRC to commence investigations as soon as possible into the serious allegations in an impartial, transparent and comprehensive manner.”
Tanee said Thailand was concerned over the escalation of conflict and humanitarian crises in Ukraine.
“Thailand renews our call for peace and for all parties to enhance dialogue through various means to truly realise a peaceful settlement of the situation,” added the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s donation of 2 million baht for humanitarian aid in Ukraine would be followed by further relief efforts.
“Thailand will expand partnership with the Thai public and private sector as well as international organisations in providing humanitarian assistance to Ukraine,” Tanee said.
U.S. authorities have arrested a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate on charges of plotting to distribute drugs in the United States and purchase weapons including U.S.-made surface-to-air missiles, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Takeshi Ebisawa, who they described as a leader in a network of Japanese crime families known as Yakuza, and a co-conspirator agreed to buy the missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar during conversations with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
The weapons were intended to protect drug shipments, according to a criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday. Ebisawa planned to distribute heroin and methamphetamine in the United States, prosecutors said.
“The drugs were destined for New York streets, and the weapons shipments were meant for factions in unstable nations,” Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. “Members of this international crime syndicate can no longer put lives in danger.”
Ebisawa, 57, and three co-conspirators were detained in Manhattan this week on charges including narcotics importation conspiracy and conspiracy to possess firearms, prosecutors said. A lawyer for Ebisawa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Each of the four co-conspirators faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
The U.S. Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for the Supreme Court in a 53-47 vote on Thursday. Only three Republicans joined Democrats and independents in supporting Jackson to be the first African American woman on the highest court.
WASHINGTON, April 7 (Xinhua) — At age 51, Jackson has sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit – often referred to as the nation’s second most powerful court – since June 2021.
U.S. President Joe Biden announced in late February the nomination of Jackson to succeed liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, who is about to retire this summer.
Jackson will not be sworn in until after Breyer leaves the post.
Biden and Jackson watched the Senate vote, which fell largely along party lines, from the Roosevelt Room at the White House on Thursday afternoon.
“Judge Jackson’s confirmation was a historic moment for our nation,” Biden tweeted with a photo of him taking a selfie with the judge.
“We’ve taken another step toward making our highest court reflect the diversity of America,” he said. “She will be an incredible Justice, and I was honoured to share this moment with her.”
The White House has scheduled an event for Friday to celebrate the confirmation.
While Senate Democrats have praised Jackson’s qualifications, as well as the historic nature of her nomination, most Republicans have cast doubt on her past rulings.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who voted against the nomination, voiced concern about what he saw as a “long and disturbing record of using judicial activism to go soft on crime.”
It was one of Biden’s major campaign promises to fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy with an African American woman.
Since the Supreme Court was established in the United States in 1789, 115 justices have served on the bench. Of them, 108 were white men. The justices have life tenure and can serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and removed from office.
Born in Washington, D.C. but raised in Miami, Florida, Jackson received her law degree from Harvard University and graduated cum laude in 1996. Earlier in her legal career, she worked as an assistant federal public defender in D.C. and served as vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission for four years.
Jackson served more than eight years as a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before being elevated to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
This year, the Supreme Court will rule on cases involving a series of major issues, including abortion, affirmative action and gun control.
Court watchers have argued Jackson is expected to vote very similarly to Breyer and her ascension won’t change the Supreme Court’s ideological balance, in which conservatives have a 6-3 majority over liberals.
The Supreme Court is the final appellate court of the U.S. judicial system, with the power to review and overturn lower court decisions, and is also generally the final interpreter of federal law, including the country’s constitution. ■
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan is set to face a vote to oust him on Saturday (April 9) after a court overturned his move to block the vote.
The former cricket star had moved to break up the lower chamber ahead of a no-confidence vote against him that he had looked destined to lose. When opposition parties united against Khan last week to push for the no-confidence motion, the deputy speaker of parliament, a member of Khan’s party, threw out the motion, ruling it was part of a foreign conspiracy and unconstitutional. Khan then dissolved parliament.
The court has said in its judgment that the vote should now go ahead. Thursday’s ruling in the capital Islamabad could spell the premature end of Khan’s tenure in a country where no elected leader has finished their full term in office.
The constitutional crisis has threatened economic and social stability in the nuclear-armed nation of 220 million people, with the rupee currency hitting all-time lows earlier on Thursday and foreign exchange reserves tumbling. He is set to address the nation on Friday (April 8).
The 69-year-old, who steered Pakistan to cricket World Cup victory in 1992, came to power in 2018 after rallying the country behind his vision of a corruption-free, prosperous nation respected on the world stage.
But the firebrand nationalist’s fame and charisma may not be enough to keep him in power. He could not deliver on all of his lofty promises and failed to avert an economic decline partly sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The opposition has said it wants early elections, but only after delivering a political defeat to Khan and passing legislation it says is required to ensure the next polls are free and fair. Pakistan’s election commission said on Thursday the earliest it could hold the ballot was October.
Germany will need to use the full four-month phase-out period to implement a ban on Russian coal under European Union sanctions, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday (April 7).
The EU’s ambassadors agreed on a fifth sanctions package against Russia, including a ban on Russian coal deliveries and closure of EU ports to Russian ships.
Scholz said the sanctions were a “big, decisive further step”, adding that the sanctions showed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was destroying the future of his own country with the invasion of Ukraine.
The package includes a 120-day wind-down period to give EU member states time to find alternative suppliers.
“We will need to use this period,” Scholz told a news conference following a meeting with the leaders of Germany’s 16 federal states.
“If it’s faster, that’s good. But we will need some time, and the companies will need it as well, though they have been looking for new suppliers for a while already,” he added.
A German economy ministry report prepared for parliament warned earlier this week that the country would likely have to switch off some of its power plants if it ended Russian coal imports straight away.
Scholz also announced that the German government will give 2 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to the federal state to cover the cost of caring for and integrating Ukrainian refugees in Germany.
“This is a clear message: We are doing it better, we are doing it differently and we have learned from the mistakes of the past,” Berlin Mayor Franziska Giffey added, referring to the 2015 migrant crisis which almost toppled the Merkel government and helped the rise of the far-right AfD party.
“The agreement is a good basis for our country to stand together in the long term,” Scholz said after a meeting with the premiers of Germany’s 16 states.
“(It will) concentrate on the concrete task of providing assistance and integration instead of fighting with each other institutionally,” he added.
Germany has registered around 316,000 refugees from Ukraine, according to federal police. Berlin estimates that up to 60,000 of the refugees are currently residing in the German capital.
Berlin and the neighbouring state of Brandenburg have been calling for federal support to accommodate, care for and integrate Ukraine refugees.
Shrugging off his low ratings in the opinion polls, Philippine politician and former boxing star Manny Pacquiao on Thursday (April 7) said his impoverished roots make him the best person to be president, as he warned voters to avoid corruption-tainted candidates.
In a jab at the current frontrunner for the May 9 election, Pacquiao questioned why people were supporting Ferdinand Marcos Jr, pointing to the plundering of the country’s wealth during the harsh authoritarian rule of his late father and namesake. Marcos’s family was accused of plundering an estimated $10 billion during his late father’s two-decade rule.
Pacquiao, an incumbent senator who has made fighting corruption a centrepiece of his presidential campaign, is trailing in fourth place on 6% in the latest opinion poll, well behind Marcos, who is leading with 56% support. If elected president, Pacquiao has vowed to strengthen efforts to recover billions of dollars missing since the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, as part of his anti-graft platform.
The only man to hold boxing world titles in eight different divisions, Pacquiao retired from boxing in September after the sport propelled him to fame and fortune from humble beginnings as a dirt-poor youngster doing odd jobs to survive.
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