The military government promises a return to civilian rule, but opponents argue changes would give excessive power to the president.

Malians will vote on Sunday in a referendum on changing the constitution that the military rulers and regional powers have said will pave the way to elections and a return to civilian rule.

The military government, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, promised to hold the plebiscite as part of a transition to democracy under pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Voting began at 08:00 GMT and results are expected within 72 hours. Presidential elections are scheduled for February 2024.

Election turnout is expected to be low in the country of 21 million due to armed conflict.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque said that although around 8 million Malians are eligible to vote today, “many of them will not be able to cast their ballots because there are large swaths of land in the north in the centre of the country that are in the hands of armed groups linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS)”.

Reporting from the capital Bamako, Haque said that in the northern city of Kidal, there is no vote taking place, and in Timbuktu, armed groups have threatened to attack polling stations.

However, he added that in Bamoko, there is “an element of defiance” and a palpable sense that “Malians really want to get their voices heard and really want to push forward in this referendum and this change in the constitution”.

Some of the changes in the committee-drafted constitution are contentious, with proponents saying they would strengthen fragile political institutions and opponents saying they would give excessive power to the president.

But regional bodies and the United Nations see the referendum as a crucial test of the military’s willingness to stick to the transition and hold a nationwide democratic process, particularly when violent religious groups are stepping up attacks.

“With this project, we are betting on the future of our state, the restoration of its authority, and the regained trust between institutions and citizens,” interim President Assimi Goita said in a televised speech on Friday.

“Now is the time to confirm our commitment to the new Mali,” Goita, in his trademark beret and military fatigues, added.

Al Jazeera’s Haque said this was a moment 30 years in the making, adding that “the leader of the Malian military junta has succeeded where previously elected presidents have failed in organising this vote and organising conversation around this referendum”.

The vote, he said, is about creating “legitimacy and sovereignty for millions that have felt torn with violence in a country that’s been under attack for almost ten years”.

The draft includes updates that have been proposed in the past failed efforts to revise the constitution that supporters hope will reinforce democracy and address divisions, including the creation of a second parliamentary chamber to boost representation from across Mali.

The proposed establishment of a separate court of auditors for state spending will bring Mali in line with a directive from the West African Economic and Monetary Union from 2000.

But some opposition parties, pro-democracy groups and campaigners for the “No” vote say the non-democratically elected authorities, such as the military, have no right to oversee such a substantial constitutional overhaul.

They also say the proposed constitution hands excessive authority to the president, including over the legislative process.

“I am for a revision of the constitution but not this referendum. The legitimacy of the actors, the process … I think we could have done better,” lawyer Fousseini Ag Yehia told Reuters news agency in the capital, Bamako, on Saturday.

The June 18 referendum could pave the way for presidential elections to hold in Mali in February 2024.

Malians will vote on Sunday to approve or reject constitutional amendments that would reinforce presidential powers before a promised transition from military rule back to democracy in the West African nation.

The referendum is the first in a series of scheduled polls meant to pave the way for presidential elections in February 2024, which Mali’s military leaders committed to hold following pressure from regional powers.

The military government delayed the referendum for three months citing logistical problems. Sunday’s vote is seen as an indicator of its commitment and capacity to organise voting in a country where armed groups have overrun swaths of its arid north and centre.

Frustrations about spiralling insecurity spurred two military takeovers in 2020 and 2021, but the government has been unable to tamp down the rebellion or improve livelihoods in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Last July, the Economic Community of West African States lifted a set of trade and financial sanctions against Mali after the military government committed to a March 2024 handover.

The sanctions were imposed in January 2022 when the military government was considering remaining in power for up to five years.

No clear consensus has emerged before Sunday’s vote.

Political parties have been split and the government has struggled to build momentum for its “Yes” campaign.

A rally at a 50,000-seat stadium in the southern capital Bamako was sparsely attended last week, prompting the authorities to offer free petrol and cash to citizens if they attend a similar event planned for Friday.

Opponents of the amendments have been concerned that the new constitution places more power in the president’s hands before the elections amid uncertainty over whether interim leader Assimi Goita will run. They have also questioned the legality of amendments carried out by a non-democratically elected government.

“Too much power in the hands of the future president will squash all the other institutions,” said Sidi Toure, a spokesperson for the opposition party PARENA, noting that the new constitution excludes citizens with dual nationality from running for president.

“Mali and Malians are profoundly divided,” said Toure, whose party has aligned with a “No” vote.

An armed group that signed a major 2015 peace deal – which has been shaky since the military took power – pulled out of the rewriting process and is boycotting the vote, describing the text as “not sufficiently inclusive”.

Religious leaders in the Muslim-majority country have also spoken against the decision not to remove secularism as a defining feature of the state, saying it is a legacy of Mali’s former colonial ruler France.

But advocates have spoken in favour of aspects of the proposed changes, including the creation of a separate court of auditors, the legitimisation of traditional leadership and a clause to include national languages as official alongside French.

Voter turnout

Ibrahima Sangho, the head of a local election monitoring group, said voter turnout would be a bellwether of public support for the interim authorities and their policies.

“A low participation rate will indicate that they have no legitimacy,” he said.

In Bamako, where recurring electricity and water cuts have worsened in recent months, carpenter Sory Diakite complained, “There are grievances that are not being addressed.”

“These problems will not influence my choice,” he added. “I will vote in favour.”

In the central cities of Gao and Mopti, where violence is rife, the blackouts and insecurity have prompted calls from some quarters to snub the referendum.

“I am not voting for any of this,” said Fatouma Harber, a blogger based in the city of Timbuktu.

“My frustration is seeing military officials … organise a referendum and change the constitution.”

Senior US military officials said Ukraine faces a tough fight in the ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces and the campaign to take back territory will likely come “at a high cost”.

The US assessment of Kyiv’s counteroffensive came as Chechen fighters said they had deployed to Russia’s Belgorod region bordering Ukraine to prevent attacks from pro-Ukraine Russian partisan groups and as Ukrainian military officials on Thursday reported advances along the front line in several locations.

“Ukraine has begun their attack, and they are making steady progress. This is a very difficult fight. It’s a very violent fight, and it will likely take a considerable amount of time at a high cost,” US Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.

Milley, speaking after a meeting of the US-led Contact Group of some 50 countries that give military aid to Ukraine, said it was far too early “to put any estimates” on how long the Ukrainian counteroffensive could last.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the meeting that Kyiv needed both short-term and long-term support as the war was a “marathon, not a sprint”, and Ukraine needed even more weapons.

Austin also said that Ukraine still had plenty of firepower left to conduct its counteroffensive, despite initial losses inflicted by Russia.

Moscow has played up video footage showing German Leopard tanks and US-donated Bradley fighting vehicles it claims were captured at the start of Ukraine’s push to take back territory from Russia.

“I think the Russians have shown us [those] same five vehicles about 1,000 times from 10 different angles,” Austin said of the video clips. “But quite frankly, the Ukrainians still have a lot of combat capability, combat power,” he said.

“This is a war, so we know that there will be battle damage on both sides” and more important was Kyiv’s ability to repair damaged equipment, Austin said.

“This will continue to be a tough fight as we anticipate it, and I believe that the element that does the best in terms of sustainment will probably have the advantage at the end of the day,” he added.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive is in its early stages, and military experts say the decisive battles still lie ahead.

Ukraine has captured at least seven settlements and taken back 100 square kilometres (38 square miles) of territory in two major pushes in the south so far, Ukraine’s Brigadier-General Oleksii Hromov said on Thursday.

“We are ready to continue fighting to liberate our territory even with our bare hands,” he said. Ukraine’s army on the southern front had advanced by up to 7km (4.4 miles) in the area along the Mokry Yali, as well as by up to 3km (1.8 miles) on another axis further west near the village of Mala Tokmachka, Ukrainian military officials said.

“Our units and troops are moving forward in the face of fierce fighting [and] aviation and artillery superiority of the enemy,” Valeriy Shershen, a spokesperson for the Tavria military sector of southern Ukraine, told Ukrainian television. Advances in the east around the ruined city of Bakhmut, which Moscow seized last month, were also reported.

But the big test of Ukraine’s offensive still lies ahead as Ukrainian troops have yet to reach the heaviest Russian defensive fortifications, which are set back from the front line. Kyiv is believed to have prepared an attack force of approximately 12 brigades of thousands of soldiers each, most using newly arrived Western armoured vehicles.

Washington, DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), said on Friday that current operations by Ukrainian forces are “setting the conditions for wider Ukrainian counteroffensive objectives that are not immediately clear”.

The current fighting “therefore represents the initial phase of an ongoing counteroffensive”, the ISW said.

3/ The UKR Tavrisk Group of Forces Press Center notably reported on June 15 that UKR forces have advanced up to one kilometer in the #Vulhedar area, and Tavrisk Commander Brigadier General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi stated that Ukrainian troops continue moving forward in this area.

— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) June 16, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted this week that Russian forces were inflicting 10 times more casualties on Ukrainians than they were enduring and that Kyiv’s offensive had been a failure.

Chechnya ruler Ramzan Kadyrov also said on Thursday that fighters from the “Zapad-Akhmat” battalion had been deployed in Russia’s Belgorod region near the site of a cross-border attack in May by Russian-speaking pro-Ukrainian fighters.

“Residents of the territories adjacent to the border with Ukraine can rest easy … Whoever encroaches on our borders will receive a lightning response,” Kadyrov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

 

 

When details of alleged war crimes involving Ben Roberts-Smith first circulated in the Australian media in 2017, many found it unthinkable that their country’s most decorated living soldier with a dedicated display in the Australian War Memorial for his service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, could be guilty.

After reports appeared in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times newspapers, Roberts-Smith launched a defamation case in an apparent effort to clear his name.

But on June 1, he emerged from civil proceedings in a Sydney court with his reputation in tatters after Judge Anthony Besanko concluded he “had difficulty accepting the applicant’s evidence on any disputed issue” and ruled that the newspapers’ allegations were, on the balance of probabilities, true.

The former special forces corporal was “complicit in and responsible for murder”, the judge said in his full judgement released a week ago.

“Roberts-Smith’s public image accords with the very ingrained image of the understated Aussie hero and this gentle giant mythology,” Kit Messham-Muir, a professor in art at Curtin University’s School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry, and an expert in the art and visual culture of war and conflict, told Al Jazeera.

“It says a lot about Aussie bloke masculinity and the idea of the ‘soft heart and hard fist’. This made him seem very palatable as the public face of the Australian soldier and he was seen as beyond reproach.”

Australians have long venerated their military and their heroes.

Anzac Day is one of Australia’s most important national holidays.

Anzac, which stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, referred originally to the ill-fated World War One effort to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915, which left thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers dead.

But the holiday now commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders who served and died in wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions around the world, built on the idea of heroic sacrifice for a greater good.

Messham-Muir says Anzac Day commemorations have grown in popularity in recent years, even as the number of veterans from the Second World War and other major conflicts such as the Vietnam War had declined.

Experts say the idea of honouring the war hero gained renewed momentum under John Howard, who was prime minister between 1996 and 2007 and encouraged respect for the military as a new kind of neo-patriotism. Howard was also the prime minister who sent Australian troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, giving him a political interest in linking national identity to foreign military adventures.

Given the strong reverence for the military, the Roberts-Smith case has polarised Australia, leading to difficult questions about how the country’s national identity is tied to its armed forces.

“The Roberts-Smith defamation case is the latest and most startling episode in the ongoing story of allegations that Australian personnel committed war crimes while deployed to Afghanistan,” Dean Aszkielowicz, a senior lecturer and fellow of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch University in Perth, told Al Jazeera.

“Details of these allegations first appeared in several press articles and an official inquiry by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, the result of which is known as the Brereton report. To many in the Australian public, and some international observers, the details contained in the Roberts-Smith case and the Brereton Report of actions allegedly taken by Australian personnel, have severely tarnished the reputation of the Australian Defence Force.”

The Brereton report, which was released in heavily-redacted form, in 2020 after a four-year inquiry, shocked the Australian public after revealing a culture of unlawful killings, gruesome initiation rituals and cover-ups by the Australian military in Afghanistan from 2005 to 2016.

The alleged war crimes are now in the hands of the Office of the Special Investigator, which in March charged a 41-year-old former member of the special forces for murder – over a killing in Afghanistan – marking the first time a serving or former member of the armed forces had been charged with a war crime.

Tarnished record

Roberts-Smith’s defamation case included four killings in Afghanistan, including two alleged murders that took place in 2009 at a compound known as Whiskey 108 where two local men were found huddled in a tunnel.

After the unarmed men surrendered, the court heard, Roberts-Smith ordered a junior serviceman to shoot one of the men and throw the other, who had a prosthetic leg, to the ground before shooting him with a machine gun. The prosthetic leg was allegedly taken and kept as a souvenir by another soldier and used as a drinking vessel at the Fat Ladies’ Arms – an Australian bar at the special forces’ base.

Roberts-Smith was also accused of kicking an unarmed Afghan villager named Ali Jan, who was handcuffed, off a cliff into a dry riverbed in the village of Darwan. When the man was found to be still alive, Roberts-Smith reportedly ordered a junior officer to shoot him – an allegation the judge also found, on the balance of probabilities, to be true.

“For many Australians, the country’s military and its military history play an important role in the national identity,” Aszkielowicz said. “While Australia has been engaged in difficult conflicts during its history, for the most part, the public has regarded the country’s war record as relatively clean, with few controversies relating to the conduct of Australian personnel and the laws of war.”

He noted that while some high-profile media and political figures sought to defend Roberts-Smith’s reputation when allegations against him first appeared, the former corporal seems destined to be a divisive figure “regarded by most as a notorious war criminal and by others as an unfairly-treated war hero whose actions have more to do with failures of leadership higher up and the necessities of war”.

Roberts-Smith’s downfall is all the more precipitous for the accolades he had received and the esteem in which he was held.

In addition to the Victoria Cross and Medal for Gallantry, the soldier was the subject of a special exhibition at the Australian War Memorial, including his uniform and two specially-commissioned portraits.

Since the defamation judgement was announced, the Greens Party has called for Roberts-Smith’s uniform to be removed and the paintings – one of which, Pistol Grip, depicts him in a fighting stance – have been at the centre of a fierce debate over whether they should remain on display.

In notes accompanying Pistol Grip, the work’s artist Michael Zavros is quoted saying that when he asked Roberts-Smith to pose in a fighting stance, he seemed to go into “this whole other mode. He was suddenly this other creature and I immediately saw all these other things. It showed me what he is capable of … it was just there in this flash”.

When approached for comment by Al Jazeera, the Australian War Memorial referred to a statement by its chair, Kim Beazley, posted on its website.”The Memorial acknowledges the gravity of the decision in the Ben Roberts-Smith defamation case and its broader impact on all involved in the Australian community,” the statement said. It added that the memorial is “considering carefully the additional content and context” to be included in displays of items relating to Roberts-Smith, including his uniform, equipment, medals and associated artworks.

“The Memorial acknowledges Afghanistan veterans and their families who may be affected at this time,” it concluded.

Messham-Muir argues that even if the portraits are removed temporarily, it is important they remain on display over the longer term.

“The portraits form the foundation of a conversation about the representations of our military in contemporary art and how our overseas institutions deliver back to us,” he said.

“They tell a really interesting story about how we create heroes and what we do through our own retelling of these stories.”

Men were previously sentenced for crimes against humanity, including forced disappearances and rape, by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

A Guatemalan appeals court disobeyed a ruling from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by ordering the release of three former high-ranking military officers convicted of crimes against humanity.

In March, the regional human rights court halted the release of the prisoners “to prevent irreparable damage to the right of access to justice for the victims”.

Friday’s verdict was not the first time Guatemala authorities have disregarded rulings by the court – they have been condemned for it 14 times before.

The original 2018 sentencing of the men actually came about as a result of a 2004 condemnation by the rights court, which rebuked decades of impunity in a case centred around the forced disappearance and aggravated rape of members of the Molina Theissen family.

But it was the first case Guatemala authorities have done so in a situation that involves releasing prisoners already convicted of serious crimes.

It also came as watchdogs warned of deteriorating democracy and a growing embrace of authoritarian tendencies in Central America. In Guatemala, critics have gone as far as accusing elites of trying to “hijack Guatemala’s justice system” for political benefit.

The military officials winning out from the appeals court decision are Francisco Luis Gordillo Martinez, Manuel Antonio Callejas y Callejas, and Manuel Benedicto Lucas García.

In 2018, the men were sentenced to between 33 and 58 years in prison for crimes against humanity, the forced disappearance of a 14-year-old boy, and the rape of his sister.

Despite Friday’s decision, the men still have not been released from prison because they still await rulings in two other trials against them for crimes of genocide and forced disappearance.

Jovita Tzul, lawyer for the Molina Thiessen family, rejected the final decision of the appeals court as “a regrettable resolution, which generates serious setbacks in terms of human rights”.

Tehran, Iran – Iran has unveiled Fattah, a hypersonic ballistic missile it says is capable of breaching defence systems, which could cause further concerns for the West and Israel.

So, what are hypersonic missiles, who has them, what is the Iranian version capable of, and what’s the context of their unveiling?

What are hypersonic missiles?

Hypersonic missiles are projectiles that can move at a speed of at least Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. That is 1.7km (1.05 miles) per second or 6,174km (3,836 miles) per hour.

Some ballistic missiles already reach these speeds, but this new class of weapon separates itself from the pack as it can take a more random path to its intended target after plunging back into the earth’s atmosphere.

This makes it far more difficult to be detected by radar systems and to be destroyed by defence shields.

More countries are pursuing hypersonic weaponry in hopes they will provide them with a military edge, but the challenges remain formidable.

For one, friction from the upper atmosphere produces extremely high temperatures, while the intense speed of the missile produces superheated particles surrounding it that make it harder for radio communications to get through.

So far, Russia and China have displayed an array of hypersonic weapons, with Moscow being the only one thought to have tested them in combat. The United States has also tested hypersonic missiles but lags slightly behind its two rivals.

What does the Iranian missile look like?

Several months after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) first announced in November that it had a hypersonic missile, the Fattah was displayed on Tuesday.

Iran says the projectile has a range of 1,400km (870 miles) and can move at a massive speed of up to Mach 15 (5.1 km or 3.2 miles per second) before hitting its target.

It is also said to feature a moveable secondary nozzle and employ solid propellants that allow for high manoeuvrability within and outside the atmosphere, which top IRGC commanders have claimed means no missile defence system in the world is a match for it.

Iranian authorities have also praised a “generational leap” in missile technology on the back of the Fattah, which they have said will give Iran new levels of deterrence.

They have dismissed Western scepticism of Iran’s development of hypersonic missiles, saying the truth will be revealed “on the day” such arms may be used, and that the US is only sceptical as the technology undermines its efforts to sell arms to the region.

مجموعه تصاویر باکیفیت از موشک هایپرسونیک فتاح pic.twitter.com/MZRJxnIICx

— Mohammad Shaltouki | محمد شلتوکی (@mohshaltouki) June 6, 2023

Should Israel and the West be concerned?

Iran has refrained from directly threatening its arch foe Israel in unveiling its latest missile, as it had with some of its previous ones, but the signs are there.

Fattah’s current range is just short of the distance between Tehran and Tel Aviv, but IRGC aerospace chief commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh suggested on Tuesday that the elite force could look to hypersonics with a range of 2,000km (1,242 miles) in the near future.

That is a cap Iran has self-maintained for its expanding range of missiles to assuage Western, and particularly European, concerns about the reach of its projectiles.

At the claimed speeds, Fattah could theoretically reach Israeli targets in under seven minutes. That will leave little room for detection and interception, even for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system.

When covering news of the missile’s unveiling, Israeli media widely focused on a previous threat by Iranian media that an Iranian hypersonic projectile could reach Israel in 400 seconds.

Washington, for its part, did not directly comment on the hypersonic missile, but National Security Council official John Kirby said the Biden administration “has been very … firm on pushing back on Iran’s destabilising activities in the region, to include the development of an improving ballistic missile programme”.

The US also introduced a new round of sanctions on Tehran after the unveiling, including sanctions around its ballistic missile programme.

What’s the context?

Iran joins the limited ranks of countries with hypersonic weaponry at a time of significant political and military developments.

The country’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers remains in limbo, but still alive, and the United Nations resolution underpinning it is set to lift some restrictions on the development of ballistic missiles in October.

Western powers continue to express concern over a growing military alliance between Tehran and Moscow.

Iran has been accused of supplying Russia with attack drones for its war in Ukraine, something it has denied. There have also been reports that Russia is looking to purchase Iranian missiles, but no such deal has been said to have been finalised.

But Iran has said it is looking to purchase advanced Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets from Russia.

Meanwhile in the region, a China-brokered rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia has opened the way for a flurry of diplomatic activity. Tehran officially reopened its embassy in Riyadh on Tuesday, and the kingdom is expected to follow suit shortly.

Speaking during Fattah’s unveiling on Tuesday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi sought to reassure neighbours of Tehran’s intentions, saying the missile marks a “point of sustainable peace and security” for the region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine an act of “mass environmental destruction” and said the attack on such critical infrastructure would not alter Ukraine’s plans to retake territory from occupying Russian forces.

Describing the explosion that destroyed the dam as a deliberate and chaotic act by Russia, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that the dam was blown up in a bid to “use the flood as a weapon” to hamper Ukrainian forces.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskyy said Moscow was resigned to losing control of Russian-annexed Crimea and, therefore, had destroyed the region’s water supply.

“The fact that Russia deliberately destroyed the Kakhovka reservoir, which is critically important, in particular, for providing water to Crimea, indicates that the Russian occupiers have already realised that they will have to flee Crimea as well,” he said.

“We will still liberate all our land,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the blowing up of the dam would not avert a Russian defeat but would add to the post-war reparation costs that Moscow will have to pay to Ukraine one day.

The Kremlin blamed Ukraine for the dam’s collapse on Tuesday, saying Kyiv had destroyed the site to distract from the faltering launch of its counteroffensive that Moscow had already blunted.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said his forces had thwarted the first three days of Ukraine’s counteroffensive in battles that had left thousands of Ukrainian soldiers dead or wounded. The decision to destroy the dam was to slow the attacking Russian forces, he said.

Neither Moscow nor Kyiv provided evidence for their claims regarding the dam’s destruction.

The dam’s collapse presents a new humanitarian disaster in the centre of a war zone and as Ukraine prepares for its long-awaited counteroffensive.

‘Grave and far-reaching consequences’

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from the dam’s reservoir in Ukraine’s Zaporizhia region, said that before its destruction, the dam had provided electricity and drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in Ukraine.

“The locals that we’ve spoken to here say … that the water level today has dropped anywhere between a metre and two metres, and we expect in the coming hours and days for the level to continue dropping and on that basis, one can only imagine the kind of devastating effect that it is having on affected areas south of the dam,” Stratford said.

Ihor Syrota, head of Ukraine’s hydroelectric power authority, told the United States-funded radio station Donbas Realii that flooding had caused waters to rise by 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) and that Ukrainian officials believe the flood waters would crest on Wednesday, then levels would begin to fall within three to four days.

The flooding has already submerged villages and towns around the city of Kherson and Russian officials warned that the main canal supplying water to the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula is receiving drastically less water.

Ukrainian authorities said 17,000 people were being evacuated from Ukrainian-held territory and a total of 24 villages had been flooded.

“Over 40,000 people are in danger of being flooded,” Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said, adding that 25,000 more people should be evacuated in the most critical areas at risk on the Russian-occupied side of the Dnipro River.

Vladimir Leontyev, the Moscow-installed mayor of Nova Kakhovka where the dam is located, said the city was underwater and hundreds of people had been evacuated.

The United Nations said at least 16,000 people have already lost their homes and that efforts were under way to provide clean water, money, and legal and emotional support to those affected. People on the Ukrainian-controlled side of the river were being evacuated by ferries to cities including Mykolaiv and Odesa to the west.

UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths told the Security Council on Tuesday that the full “magnitude of the catastrophe” will only become fully realised in the coming days.

The damage caused by the Kakhovka dam destruction in #Ukraine means that life will become intolerably harder for those already suffering from the conflict.

Our urgent humanitarian task is to continue to help them to survive, be safe and get a future.

My remarks at the #UNSC:

— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) June 6, 2023

“But it is already clear that it will have grave and far-reaching consequences for thousands of people in southern Ukraine – on both sides of the front line – through the loss of homes, food, safe water and livelihoods,” Griffiths said.

Russia and Ukraine traded blame for the disaster at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor reporting from the UN’s headquarters in New York, said the Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors at the council meeting gave “completely different accounts of what’s happened” to the dam.

The Russian ambassador made the point that there had been previous threats to the dam by Ukraine, Bays said, and Ukraine made the point that the dam was situated in territory controlled by Russian forces and that only mining the dam could have destroyed it, not an attack from afar.

“Those are the clear positions of the two sides and really what you need is someone to properly investigate which of these two completely different stories is true. I don’t think that is very likely to happen anytime soon,” Bays said, noting that the dam remains a military front line.

Ukraine’s interior minister said on Tuesday that Russia was shelling areas from where people were being evacuated from the dam’s flood waters and that two police officers had been wounded.

Ben Barry, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said flooding from the dam would be to Moscow’s advantage in the short term.

“Bearing in mind Russia is on the strategic defensive and Ukraine on the strategic offensive, in the short term it’s an advantage to Russia, definitely,” Barry said.

“It’ll help the Russians until the water subsides because it makes it more difficult for Ukraine to do assault river crossings,” he said.

Flood water inundating the region will also prevent the use of heavy weaponry such as tanks for at least a month, said Maciej Matysiak, a security expert at the Stratpoints Foundation and ex-deputy chief of Polish military counter-intelligence.

“(This) creates a very good defending position for Russians who expect Ukrainian offensive activity,” Matysiak said.

The US Navy releases a video showing Chinese warship nearly hit US destroyer in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend.

The United States military released a video on Monday of what it described as an “unsafe” manoeuvre by a Chinese warship in the Taiwan Strait on the weekend amid sharpening rhetoric between the two powers.

During the incident, which took place on Saturday, a Chinese navy ship, Luyang III, is seen cutting sharply across the path of a US destroyer which slowed down to avoid a collision. The Chinese ship then straightened up and continued on a parallel course.

The US destroyer USS Chung-Hoon and Canadian frigate HMCS Montreal were conducting a so-called “freedom of navigation” transit of the strait between Taiwan and mainland China.

The Chinese guided-missile destroyer overtook the Chung-Hoon on its port side, then veered across its bow at a distance of some 137 meters (150 yards), according to the US Indo-Pacific Command.

Similar incidents ratchet up tensions

China claims the democratic self-governing island of Taiwan as part of its own territory, and maintains the strait is part of its exclusive economic zone, while the US and its allies regularly sail through and fly over the passage to emphasise their contention that the waters are international.

The US Indo-Pacific Command said the actions violated maritime rules of safe passage in international waters.

The Chinese ship did not attempt a similar manoeuvre on the Canadian frigate, which was sailing behind the US destroyer.

“Chung-Hoon and Montreal’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the combined US-Canadian commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” the US Indo-Pacific Command said. “The US military flies, sails, and operates safely and responsibly anywhere international law allows.”

The US recently accused China of also performing an “unnecessarily aggressive manoeuvre” in the air, saying a Chinese J-16 fighter jet late last month flew directly in front of the nose of a US Air Force reconnaissance aircraft over the South China Sea.

Such incidents have raised concerns over a possible accident that could lead to a military escalation between the two countries at a time when tensions in the region are already high.

The incident in the Taiwan Strait came on a day when both US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and Chinese defence minister Li Shangfu were in Singapore for an annual defence conference.

Li on Sunday suggested that the US and its allies have created the danger with their patrols, and were intent on provoking China.

“The best way is for the countries, especially the naval vessels and fighter jets of countries, not to do closing actions around other countries’ territories,” he said through an interpreter. “What’s the point of going there? In China, we always say, ‘Mind your own business.’”

He also said Beijing seeks dialogue over confrontation with the United States, warning that any conflict between the two nations would bring “unbearable disaster for the world”.

The Cessna, with an unresponsive pilot, later crashed in Virginia and officials say no survivors were found.

The United States military has scrambled F-16 fighter jets in a supersonic chase of a wayward and unresponsive plane that flew over Washington, DC before crashing into the mountains of Virginia.

No survivors were found at the crash site on Sunday, Virginia state police said.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the Cessna Citation took off from Elizabethtown, Tennessee, earlier in the day and was headed for New York’s Long Island.

Inexplicably, the plane turned around over Long Island and flew a straight path down over the US capital before it crashed over mountainous terrain near Montebello, Virginia, at about 3:30pm local time (19:30 GMT).

Four people were onboard the Cessna, a source familiar with the matter told the Reuters news agency. A Cessna Citation can carry as many as 12 passengers.

It was not immediately clear why the plane was unresponsive or why it crashed.

The Cessna was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne, Florida, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware.

John Rumpel, who runs the company, told The New York Times that his daughter, two-year-old granddaughter, her nanny and the pilot were onboard the plane. They were returning to their home in East Hampton, Long Island, after visiting his house in North Carolina, he said.

Rumpel, a pilot, told the newspaper he did not have much information from authorities but hoped his family did not suffer and suggested the plane could have lost pressurisation.

“It descended at 20,000 feet [6,000 metres] a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed,” he said.

The US military scrambled F-16 fighter jets and attempted to contact the pilot, who was unresponsive, North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) said in a statement.

The jets created a sonic boom over the US capital as they pursued the Cessna, officials said.

Residents of the city and its suburbs reported hearing the thundering noise, which rattled windows and shook walls for miles and caused social media to light up with people asking what had happened.

Several residents said they heard the noise as far away as northern Virginia and Maryland.

“The NORAD aircraft were authorised to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region,” the statement said, adding that fighter jets also used flares in an attempt to gain the pilot’s attention.

The US Capitol Complex in Washington, DC, meanwhile, “was briefly placed on an elevated alert until the airplane left the area”, Capitol Police said on Twitter.

The episode brought back memories of the 1999 crash of a Learjet that lost cabin pressure and flew aimlessly across the country with professional golfer Payne Stewart on board. The jet crashed in a South Dakota pasture and six people died.

In the case of Stewart’s flight, the plane lost cabin pressure, causing the occupants to lose consciousness because of oxygen deprivation.

Similarly, a small US private plane with an unresponsive pilot crashed off the east coast of Jamaica in 2014 after veering far off course and triggering a US security alert including a fighter jet escort.

Pakistan’s embattled former Prime Minister Imran Khan has accused the powerful military and its intelligence agency of openly trying to destroy his political party, saying he has “no doubt” he will be tried in a military court and thrown in jail.

Khan has hinted previously at the military’s hand in a crackdown on his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, but his comments in an interview at his Lahore home on Saturday night were the most blunt yet.

“It is completely the establishment,” the former cricket hero told Reuters news agency when asked who was behind the crackdown. “Establishment obviously means the military establishment, because they are really now openly – I mean, it’s not even hidden now – they’re just out in the open.”

A spokesman for the military – which has run the country directly or indirectly for its 75-year history, and which has seldom faced the sort of public challenge to its power that it has from Khan – did not respond to a request for comment.

A bruising year-long standoff between Khan, Pakistan’s most popular leader according to polls, and the army came to a head when military buildings and property were ransacked last month, allegedly by his supporters.

The political unrest has increased uncertainty in the nuclear-armed country of 220 million, which is also beset by financial turmoil. Its $350bn economy is struggling to stave off default, control record inflation and deal with a plummeting currency.

Khan described the violent protests, which erupted after he was briefly arrested, a “false flag operation” meant to target him.

Authorities have begun the process of trying dozens of people, including members of Khan’s party, suspected of involvement in the protests in military court – usually reserved for service members or those categorised as enemies of the state.

“That’s the only way they are going to get me into prison,” Khan said, adding the military wanted to stop him from returning to power in elections due by November.

He said about 150 criminal cases filed against him were frivolous and would get thrown out in any civilian court.

“So their only hope, and because they are determined to get me out of the way, I think they will, their whole charade of military courts is to imprison me,” he said. “I have absolutely no doubt that the military courts are meant for me,” added Khan, who is out on bail.

Amnesty International says Pakistan’s military courts have previously shown disregard for due process, lack of transparency, coerced confessions and executions after unfair trials.

Spy agency

Khan said the country’s most powerful spy agency, the military’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was deeply involved in the crackdown.

He said two senior members of his party were called by the agency for talks. “And when they went there, just they shut them up and said ‘You [won’t] leave unless you renounce being part of PTI.’”

Khan said he has tried to contact the military for talks to find a way out of the current crisis but got no response, and he did not know why the army chief, General Asim Munir, was “fixated” on sidelining him.

Before becoming army chief in November 2022, Munir was the head of the ISI – a post from which he was suddenly removed in 2019 while Khan was prime minister.

Khan himself was ousted from office in a parliamentary vote last year that he said was orchestrated by Pakistan’s top generals. The military denies this.

‘Enemy of the state’

No official reason was given for Munir’s removal, but Khan acknowledged in the interview, for the first time, that he had wanted him gone from the role.

“I think that maybe he has a grudge because I asked him to resign” as ISI chief, Khan said. “I don’t know.”

When asked why he had asked Munir to resign, Khan said: “You know, I, as prime minister, felt that how the intelligence agency was run … I had my issues with that.” He did not elaborate.

Munir was later selected as the country’s top general by Khan’s successor and political rival, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

“He shouldn’t have issues with that now because he is the army chief,” Khan said, referring to Munir’s removal as ISI head. “So why would he harbour that grudge?”

Khan said he was puzzled by the campaign against him.

“[I am] someone who’s been known in this country for 50 years, who’s probably won all the awards in this country and probably the most well-known Pakistani, and suddenly being treated as a sort of alien, as an enemy of the state.”