Washington, Mar 4 (AP): The Department of Homeland Security will grant temporary legal status to Ukrainians living in the US.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Thursday that Temporary Protected Status would be extended for 18 months.
“Russia's premeditated and unprovoked attack on Ukraine has resulted in an ongoing war, senseless violence, and Ukrainians forced to seek refuge in other countries,” Mayorkas said in a statement.
Temporary Protected Status is given to citizens of countries devastated by war or natural disasters.
It comes as pressure was mounting on the Biden administration from members of Congress, including the Senate's top Democrat, to grant the status to Ukrainians following Russia's invasion of their country.
In order to be eligible for the protection, individuals would have to have been in the US since at least Tuesday.
___ Enerhodar: Ukrainian officials say a column of Russian forces is headed toward Europe's largest nuclear plant, which accounts for about one quarter of Ukraine's power generation.
Both the Ukrainian state atomic energy company and the mayor of Enerhodar, Dmytro Orlov, said Russian troops were approaching the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Officials said loud shots were heard in the city late Thursday.
“Many young men in athletic clothes and armed with Kalashnikov have come into the city. They are breaking down door and trying to get into the apartments of local residents,” the statement from Energoatom said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal has joined Ukraine's president in calling on the West to close the skies over Ukraine's nuclear plants as fighting intensified around the major energy hub on the left bank of the Dnieper River and the Khakhovka Reservoir.
Shmyhal said he already had appealed to NATO and the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' atomic watchdog.
“Close the skies over Ukraine! It is a question of the security of the whole world!” Shmyhal said in a statement Thursday evening.
The US and NATO allies have ruled out creating a no-fly zone since the move would directly pit Russian and Western militaries.
___ Berlin: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Thursday asked former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder to resign from his posts at Russian state-owned companies.
Schroeder, 77, is considered a longtime friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin — a relationship that has led to much criticism in Germany, especially since Russia invaded Ukraine last week.
Schroeder is chairman of the supervisory board of Russian state energy company Rosneft and also holds leading positions in the controversial Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipeline projects that aim to bring Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing Ukraine.
He is also slated to take on a supervisory board post for Gazprom, a Russian majority state-owned multinational energy corporation.
“My advice to Gerhard Schroeder is, after all, to withdraw from these posts,” Scholz said on the ZDF Television, according to the German news agency dpa.
Scholz stressed that Schroeder's ties to Russian companies were not a private matter since he is a former chancellor.
“This obligation does not end when one no longer holds the office, but it also continues,” he said.
Schroeder, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005, has long been criticised for his close ties to Russia.
___ New York: The US fossil fuel industry's top lobbying group is calling on the Biden administration to create policies that would encourage oil and gas companies to ramp up production.
The American Petroleum Institute says the federal government should create a more favourable climate for drilling and should streamline the permitting process for liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals to expand so that the US can rely less on oil imports and export more natural gas in liquid form to Europe, which relies heavily on Russia for fossil fuels.
“This shift away from Russia will not happen overnight, and we need to be clear about that,” said Dustin Meyer, vice president of natural gas markets at API.
“But for it to happen at all, we need clear and consistent energy policy here in the US. Unfortunately, that's not really what we have right now.” A number of new LNG export terminals and several export terminal expansions have been proposed but are awaiting approval or permits from the Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, with no clear timeline for decisions, he said.
Biden has been under pressure to rein in rising energy costs even if those moves run counter to his agenda for addressing climate change.
On Tuesday he announced he is releasing 30 million barrels of oil from US strategic reserves as part of a 31-nation effort to help ensure that supplies will not fall short after Russia's invasion of its European neighbour.
___ Washington: The Pentagon has established a channel of direct communication with the Russian ministry of defense to avoid unintended conflict related to the war in Ukraine.
A US defense official said the “de-confliction line” was established March 1 “for the purpose of preventing miscalculation, military incidents, and escalation.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the communication line has not been announced. (AP) VM VM
(This story is published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. No editing has been done in the headline or the body by ABP Live.)