Moscow (AFP) -- Russia has decided to quit the International Space Station “after 2024”, the newly-appointed chief of Moscow’s space agency told President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday. Russia and the United States have worked side by side on the ISS, which has been in orbit since 1998.  “Of course, we will fulfil all our obligations to our partners, but the decision to leave this station after 2024 has been made,” Yury Borisov, who was appointed Roscosmos chief in mid-July, told Putin. “I think that by this time we will start putting together a Russian orbital station,” Borisov added, calling it the space program’s main “priority”. “Good,” Putin replied in comments released by the Kremlin. Until now space exploration was one of the few areas where cooperation between Russia and the United States and its allies had not been wrecked by tensions over Ukraine and elsewhere. Borisov said the space industry was in a “difficult situation”. He said he would seek “to raise the bar, and first of all, to provide the Russian economy with the necessary space services”, pointing to navigation, communication, and data transmission, among other things.

 

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GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) -- At least five people have been killed and dozens injured during anti-UN protests in eastern DR Congo, a government spokesman said Tuesday as the unrest spread. On Monday, hundreds of people blocked roads and chanted hostile slogans before storming the UN peacekeeping mission’s headquarters and a supply base in Goma, the main city in North Kivu province. Protesters smashed windows and looted valuables, while helicopters airlifted UN staff from the premises and security forces fired teargas in a bid to push them back. 

 

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) -- At least 471 people were killed, injured or missing as a result of fierce clashes this month between rival gangs in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince, the United Nations said. “Serious incidents of sexual violence against women and girls as well as boys being recruited by gangs have also been reported,” the United Nations said in a statement on the toll from violence between July 8 and 17 in the impoverished neighborhood of Cite Soleil.  It did not specify how many of those people were killed. Some 3,000 people have fled their homes, among them hundreds of unaccompanied children, and at least 140 houses have been destroyed, the statement said. Gangs that operate with widespread impunity have extended their reach beyond the slums of the Haitian capital, carrying out a wave of kidnappings. At least 155 kidnappings took place in the month of June, compared to 118 in May, according to a report released by the Center for Analysis and Research in Human Rights.

 

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ATHENS (AFP) -- Hundreds of firefighters on Tuesday fought for a sixth day to save one of Greece’s most important national parks from a fire that has already devastated vast swathes of forest. More than 2,500 hectares (6,178 acres) of pine forest are already estimated to have been lost to the fire that erupted last Thursday. More than 300 firefighters, four aircraft and six helicopters are active in the area, a fire department spokesman told AFP. Dadia, around 900 kilometers, (560 miles) northeast of Athens, calls itself one of the most important protected areas in Europe, offering ideal habitat for rare birds of prey, and says it is home to the only breeding population of black vultures in the Balkans. The park’s deputy manager Anna Konstandinidou said the 428-square-kilometre (165 square-mile) facility has already sustained “incalculable” damage. “It’s been a great shock,” she told state television ERT. 

 

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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) -- ASEAN chair Cambodia has called the timing of the Myanmar junta’s execution of four activists “highly reprehensible” and said it has presented a gross lack of will to support the bloc’s peace efforts in the country. In a statement issued on Tuesday, dated July 25, Cambodia, which heads the Association of Southeast Asian Nations this year, said it was extremely saddened and deeply troubled by the executions. It said the executions were a setback, just a week ahead of an ASEAN ministerial meeting. 

 

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DHAKA (Reuters) -- Bangladesh has sought a $4.5 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the Daily Star newspaper reported on Tuesday, joining South Asian neighbors Pakistan and Sri Lanka in seeking help to cope with mounting pressure on their economies. Known for its big garment-exporting industry, Bangladesh has sought the funds for its balance of payment and budgetary needs, as well as for efforts to deal with climate change, the Daily Star reported, citing documents it had seen. It said Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal wrote to IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Sunday. The Bangladesh Bank recently announced a policy to preserve dollars by discouraging imports of luxury goods, fruit, non-cereal foods, and canned and processed foods. The bank’s foreign-exchange reserves fell to $39.67 billion as of July 20 - sufficient for imports for about 5.3 months - from $45.5 billion a year earlier.