RUSSIA, UKRAINE TRADE BLAME OVER ATTACK ON PRISONERS OF WAR IN JAIL

Moscow and Kyiv on Friday accused each other of bombing a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-held territory, with Russia saying 40 prisoners and eight prison staff were killed.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the Ukrainian strikes were carried out with U.S.-supplied long-range missiles, in an “egregious provocation” designed to stop soldiers surrendering.

It said that among the dead were Ukrainian security personnel who had laid down their arms after repelling Moscow’s assault on the sprawling Azovstal steel works in Mariupol.

The claims came as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited a port in southern Ukraine to oversee a ship being loaded with grain for export under a UN-backed plan aimed at easing food crisis.

Ukraine’s presidency said exports could start in the “coming days” under the plan aimed at getting millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain stranded by Russia’s naval blockade to world markets.

Following the strike on the prison, Russian state-television showed what appeared to be destroyed barracks and tangled metal beds but no casualties could be seen.

Ukraine’s military denied carrying out the attack.

It instead blamed Russia’s invading forces for “a targeted artillery shelling” on the detention facility, saying it was being used to “accuse Ukraine of committing ‘war crimes’, as well as to hide the torture of prisoners and executions”.

The Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office opened a pre-trial investigation into the attack.

‘I NEVER TALK ABOUT MY TRAVEL. IT’S A DANGER TO ME’: PELOSI

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi departed on Friday for a tour of Asia that could include a controversial stop in Taiwan, the self-governed island democracy at the heart of rising tensions between Beijing and Washington.

Top experts on China are warning that a visit to Taiwan by Pelosi, who would be flying on a military aircraft, heightens the risk of an "accident" that could spark a military crisis in the region.

"There's a risk of an accident, not a risk of an imminent Chinese attack on Taiwan," Bonnie Glaser, a leading China expert and director of the Asia program at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Insider.

Pelosi would be the highest-ranking US lawmaker in over two decades to visit Taiwan, an island democracy of 23 million that mainland China's rulers, the same that have cracked down on democratic Hong Kong, have long had in their sights.

The possibility of a visit to the island by Pelosi has triggered heated rhetoric and warnings from Beijing, and reports indicate the Pentagon is making plans to possibly call upon US warplanes and ships to provide additional security near Taiwan should the House Speaker visit. And repeated mixed messages from the Biden administration on whether the US would respond militarily to a Chinese attack on Taiwan may be adding to elevated tensions between Beijing and Washington.

China is vehemently opposed to Pelosi visiting Taiwan, warning that such a trip could trigger a possible military response.

MACRON COUNTS ON MBS TO RAISE OIL PRODUCTION

French leader Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) agreed to work “to ease the effects” of the Ukraine war, the President’s office said on Friday.

Like U.S. President Joe Biden who visited Riyadh earlier this month, Mr. Macron had been keen to secure extra oil production from the de facto Saudi leader.

A French statement made no reference to any agreement during a dinner on Thursday night, but said the both leaders had agreed to “intensify their cooperation to ease the effects (of the war) in Europe, the Middle East and the world”.

The meeting outraged rights groups because of Prince Salman’s suspected role in the murder of The Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Western leaders snubbed the 36-year-old Prince after Saudi agents killed Khashoggi inside Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Istanbul.

Analysts say an August 3 meeting of the OPEC oil cartel, of which Saudi Arabia is a key member, will be decisive in showing whether Western pressure for extra output bears fruit.

RUSSIA VOWS SUPPORT FOR CHINA OVER TAIWAN

The Kremlin expressed “solidarity” on Friday with China’s stance on Taiwan after Chinese President Xi Jinping warned his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden not to “play with fire” over the self-ruled island.

“Certainly we are in solidarity,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and believe that no country in the world should have the right to question this or take any provocative or other steps,” he added.

“We are convinced that such behaviour on the international arena can only cause additional tension.”

On Thursday, Mr. Xi warned the U.S. President not to “play with fire” over Taiwan during a lengthy telephone call.

Meanwhile, China announced via state media that it will hold live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait on Saturday, raising the stakes ahead of a possible trip to the island by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The manoeuvrers will be limited in scope and will “take place off the island of Pingtan in Fujian province”.

ZELENSKY: PORTS READY TO SHIP GRAIN UNDER UN DEAL

Odesa : President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, visiting aport in the Odesa region on Friday, expressed hope that grain exports could begin within the coming days, as US and European ambassadors called on Russia to heed a deal to get the grain moving. Zelensky said his visit to the Black Sea port of Chernomorsk, where the first shipment of grain since the beginning of the war was being loaded onto a Turkish freighter, was meant to convey that Ukraine’s ports were ready, the president’s press service said.

The visit came less than a week after Russian cruise missiles struck at the nearby Port of Odesa, threatening to upend a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to allow Ukraine to begin exporting grain to countries hit hard by food shortages. Ukrainian ports have been sealed by a Russian naval blockade of the Black Sea since troops invaded the country February 24. “Our side is fully ready,” Zelensky said. “We’ve given our partners, the UN and Turkey, the signal and our military will guarantee security. ”

His visit followed a trip Friday to the Port of Odesa by ambassadors from the U and Europe, who, together with Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure, Oleksandr Kurbakov, pressed Russia to abide by the deal and said it was possible that the shipments could get under way as early as Friday.

AT LEAST 16 DEAD IN U.S. FLOODING

Search and rescue teams backed by the National Guard looked on Friday for people missing in record floods in Kentucky. Governor Andy Beshear said 16 people have died, a toll he expected to climb.

Mr. Beshear said that children were among the victims, and that the death toll could more than double as rescue teams search the disaster area.

“The tough news is 16 confirmed fatalities now, and folks that’s going to get a lot higher,” the Governor said later at a briefing. He said the deaths were in four eastern Kentucky counties.

Powerful floodwaters swallowed towns that hug creeks and streams in Appalachian valleys, swamping homes and businesses, trashing vehicles in useless piles and crunching runaway equipment and debris against bridges. Mudslides marooned people on steep slopes and at least 33,000 customers were without power. Numerous state roads were blocked by high water or mud, and crews were “unable to even get to some of these roadways it is so bad,” Mr. Beshear said.

“We’ve still got a lot of searching to do,” said Jerry Stacy, the emergency management director in Kentucky’s hard-hit Perry County. “We still have missing people.”

UNDER PRESSURE FROM ELITE, PAK LIFTS IMPORT BAN ON LUXURY ITEMS

The Pakistan government has decided to lift a ban on the import of “non-essential and luxury items”. Pakistan had slapped aban on import of 33 categories of goods on May 19 to control the cash-strapped nation’s depleting foreign reserves.The move was, however, criticised by importers and the powerful elite — the main consumer of such goods.

CASH-STRAPPED PAK TO PAY $11M TO CHINESE TERROR ATTACK VICTIMS

Pakistan has decided to pay over $11.5 million in compensation to 36 Chinese nationals working on a major hydropower project who either died or were injured in a terror attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last year.The cash-strapped country agreed to compensate the Chinese citizens despite it not being legally bound to pay.

PAK GETS ITS FIRST HINDU WOMAN DSP

Karachi : Beating all odds and rising to become Pakistan’s first Hindu woman deputy superintendent of police, Manisha Ropeta is thrilled to have “proven wrong” her relatives and is looking forward to take on new challenges: to be a “women protector” by leading a feminism drive and encourage gender equality in a patriarchal society.

Ropeta, 26, who is from Jacobabad in interior Sindh province, believes women are the target of many crimes and are the “most oppressed” population in male-dominated Pakistan. Physical and sexual violence, honour killings and forced marriages make Pakistan one of the worst countries for women. The ‘Global Gender Gap Index’ of the World Economic Forum, had ranked Pakistan third from the bottom a couple of years ago. Pakistan was ranked 151 out of 153 countries.

Ropeta cleared the Sindh Public Service Commission examination last year. She ranked 16th on a merit list of 152 successful candidates. She is undergoing training and will be posted as the DSP in the crime-infested area of Lyari.