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14 Mar 2022
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New Iran deal ‘will not survive’: 49 Republican senators warn Biden

March 14, 2022

All but one of the Republican senators released a statement on Monday saying they told US President Joe Biden that any deal with Iran would not survive without “broad congressional support.”“By every indication, the Biden Administration appears to have given away the store. The administration appears to have agreed to lift sanctions that were not even placed on Iran for its nuclear activities in the first place, but instead because of its ongoing support for terrorism and its gross abuses of human rights,” a joint statement by the lawmakers said.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Rand Paul was the only Republican senator who did not sign the statement.The letter cited public reports suggesting the Biden administration would weaken sanctions and lessen restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program.“What is more, the deal appears likely to deepen Iran’s financial and security relationship with Moscow and Beijing, including through arms sales,” the lawmakers wrote.They also rebuked the Biden administration for refusing to commit to submitting a new Iran deal to the Senate for ratification or for review “under statutory requirements that passed on a bipartisan basis in response to the 2015 deal.“Additionally, despite earlier promises to the contrary, the administration has failed to adequately consult with Congress.”The senators said they would support an Iran policy that “completely blocks” Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, constrained its ballistic missile program and addressed Iran’s support for terrorism.“But if the administration agrees to a deal that fails to achieve these objectives or makes achieving them more difficult, Republicans will do everything in our power to reverse it,” the letter read.“We strongly urge the administration, our Democrat colleagues, and the international community to learn the lessons of the very recent past. A major agreement that does not have strong bipartisan support in Congress will not survive.”Read more: Iran nuclear talks stumble over unresolved Russia demands
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: New Iran deal ‘will not survive’: 49 Republican senators warn Biden

14 Mar 2022
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Pregnant woman, baby die after Russia bombed maternity ward

March 14, 2022

A pregnant woman and her baby have died after Russia bombed the maternity hospital where she was meant to give birth, The Associated Press has learned. Images of the woman being rushed to an ambulance on a stretcher had circled the world, epitomizing the horror of an attack on humanity’s most innocent.In video and photos shot Wednesday by AP journalists after the attack on the hospital, the woman was seen stroking her bloodied lower abdomen as rescuers rushed her through the rubble in the besieged city of Mariupol, her blanched face mirroring her shock at what had just happened. It was among the most brutal moments so far in Russia’s now 19-day-old war on Ukraine.The woman was rushed to another hospital, yet closer to the frontline, where doctors labored to keep her alive. Realizing she was losing her baby, medics said, she cried out to them, “Kill me now!”Surgeon Timur Marin found the woman’s pelvis crushed and hip detached. Medics delivered the baby via cesarean section, but it showed “no signs of life,” the surgeon said.For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Then, they focused on the mother.“More than 30 minutes of resuscitation of the mother didn’t produce results,” Marin said Saturday.“Both died.”In the chaos after Wednesday’s airstrike, medics didn’t have time to get the woman’s name before her husband and father came to take away her body. At least someone came to retrieve her, they said — so she didn’t end up in the mass graves being dug for many of Mariupol’s growing number of dead.Accused of war crimes, Russian officials claimed the maternity hospital had been taken over by Ukrainian extremists to use as a base, and that no patients or medics were left inside. Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. and the Russian Embassy in London called the images “fake news.”Associated Press journalists, who have been reporting from inside blockaded Mariupol since early in the war, documented the attack and saw the victims and damage firsthand. They shot video and photos of several bloodstained, pregnant mothers fleeing the blown-out maternity ward, medics shouting, children crying.The AP team then tracked down the victims on Friday and Saturday in the hospital where they had been transferred, on the outskirts of Mariupol.In a city that’s been without food supplies, water, power or heat for more than a week, electricity from emergency generators is reserved for operating rooms.As survivors described their ordeal, explosions outside shook the walls. The shelling and shooting in the area is sporadic but relentless. Emotions are running high, even as doctors and nurses concentrate on their work.Blogger Mariana Vishegirskaya gave birth to a girl the day after the airstrike, and wrapped her arm around newborn Veronika as she recounted Wednesday’s bombing. After photos and video showed her navigating down debris-strewn stairs and clutching a blanket around her pregnant frame, Russian officials claimed she was an actor in a staged attack.“It happened on March 9 in Hospital No. 3 in Mariupol. We were laying in wards when glasses, frames, windows and walls flew apart,” Vishegirskaya, still wearing the same polka dot pajamas as when she fled, told The AP.“We don’t know how it happened. We were in our wards and some had time to cover themselves, some didn’t.”Her ordeal was one among many in Mariupol, which has become a symbol of resistance to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to crush democratic Ukraine and redraw the world map in his favor. The failure to subordinate Mariupol has pushed Russian forces to broaden their offensive elsewhere in Ukraine.Meanwhile, the Azov Sea port city of 430,000, key to creating a land bridge from Russia to Russian-annexed Crimea, is slowly starving.In the makeshift new maternity ward, each approaching childbirth brings new tension.“All birthing mothers have lived through so much,” said nurse Olga Vereshagina.One of the distraught mothers lost some of her toes in the bombing. Medics performed a C-section on her Friday, carefully pulling out her daughter and rubbing the newborn vigorously to stimulate signs of life.After a few breathless seconds, the baby cries.Cheers of joy resonate through the room. Newborn Alana cries, her mother cries, and medical workers wipe the tears from their eyes.Read more:Watch: Zelenskyy says children under wreckage as Russia strikes Mariupol hospitalThree killed, including child, in attack on Mariupol hospital: Ukraine officialsBesieged Ukraine city of Mariupol buries dead in mass grave
Source: Al Arabiya
Full Article: Pregnant woman, baby die after Russia bombed maternity ward