Former British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was frontrunner Sunday in the Conservative Party’s race to replace Liz Truss as prime minister, as he garnered the public support of over 100 Tory lawmakers to forge ahead of his two main rivals — ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt.

But widespread uncertainty remained after British media reported that Sunak had held late-night talks with Johnson Saturday, and speculation mounted that the pair could strike a deal to unite the fractured governing party after it was left reeling from Truss’ rapid downfall.

The Conservative Party hastily ordered a contest that aims to finalize nominations Monday and install a new prime minister — its third this year — within a week.

Sunak, 42, confirmed Sunday he was running in the leadership race. He has the backing of at least 124 Conservative lawmakers, according to unofficial tallies by the BBC and Sky News. That’s well ahead of the 100 nominations required to qualify.

“There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done,” Sunak said in a statement.

Mordaunt garnered about 24 lawmakers’ public support, while Johnson, who has not yet declared if he is running, has about 50 so far. Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC Sunday he spoke to Johnson and that “clearly he’s going to stand” after Johnson flew back to London Saturday from his vacation in the Dominican Republic.

A possible return to power for Johnson, 58, who was forced out of office just weeks ago by a string of ethics scandals, has deeply divided the Conservatives and thrown unpredictability into the race. Supporters say he is a vote winner and has enough support from lawmakers, but many critics warn that another Johnson government would be catastrophic for the party and the country.

Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker, a former backer of Johnson and an influential politician within the Conservative Party, warned a Johnson comeback would be a “guaranteed disaster” because he still faces an investigation into whether he lied to Parliament while in office that could lead to his suspension as a lawmaker.

“This isn’t the time for Boris and his style,” Baker told Sky News on Sunday. “What we can’t do is have him as prime minister in circumstances where he’s bound to implode, taking down the whole government … and we just can’t do that again.”

But Johnson won the backing of several senior Conservatives, including Nadhim Zahawi, another former Treasury chief.

“He was contrite and honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No 10 and the country better,” Zahawi said.

Truss quit Thursday after a turbulent 45 days, conceding that she could not deliver on her botched tax-cutting economic package, which she was forced to abandon after it sparked fury within her party and weeks of turmoil in financial markets.

Sunak, who was Treasury chief from 2020 until this summer, steered Britain’s slumping economy through the coronavirus pandemic. He quit in July in protest against Johnson’s leadership. In the contest to replace Johnson, Sunak argued that climbing inflation must be controlled first, and called promises by Truss and other rivals to immediately slash taxes reckless “fairy tales.”

Tory voters backed Truss over Sunak, but he was proved right when Truss’ unfunded tax-cutting economic stimulus package triggered chaos in the markets in September.

Dozens among Britain’s 357 Conservative lawmakers have not yet publicly declared whom they are backing to replace Truss.

Mordaunt and Johnson — if he confirms he is running — have until Monday afternoon to garner 100 nominations. If all three meet that threshold, lawmakers will vote to knock out one and then hold an indicative vote on the final two. The party’s 172,000 members will then get to decide between the two finalists in an online vote. The new leader is due to be selected by Friday.
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A Russian fighter plane crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Sunday and the two pilots were killed, officials said.

In a post on Telegram, Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev said the plane crashed into a two-story house in the city. The emergencies ministry said the pilots died, but there were no other casualties.

It was the second such incident in six days. Last Monday, a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter plane crashed into an apartment block in the southern city of Yeysk, near Ukraine, and at least 15 people were killed.

Russian news agencies said the plane in Sunday’s incident was an Su-30. In a statement, the emergencies ministry said the plane crashed during a test flight.

Footage shared on social media showed what appeared to be several buildings on fire and dense black smoke rising into the sky.
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Russia’s military leadership has withdrawn its officers in the Russian-annexed city of Kherson across the Dnieper River in anticipation of an advance of Ukrainian troops, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said Sunday.

To delay the Ukrainian counteroffensive as the Russians complete their retreat, Moscow has left newly mobilized, inexperienced forces on the other side of the wide river, it added.

The troop movements come as the Ukrainian military said its forces have continued their counteroffensives in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

On Saturday, Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all Kherson residents to leave immediately ahead of the expected action by Ukrainian troops to take back the city.

Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the eight-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city.

The ISW think tank also said Sunday that Russia’s latest war strategy of targeting power plants in recent days appears to be aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing Ukraine’s government to spend additional resources to protect civilians and energy infrastructure. It said the effort was unlikely to damage Ukrainian morale but would have significant economic impact.

The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russian forces are now mostly on the defensive but are keeping up offensive attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and on several towns in the eastern Donbas area.

Nine regions across Ukraine, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast, saw attacks again targeting energy and other critical infrastructure over the past day, the Ukrainian general staff said. It reported a total of 25 Russian air strikes and more than 100 missile and artillery strikes around Ukraine.

Ukrainian counteroffensive forces in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, meanwhile, targeted Russian-held facilities, notably in the town of Nova Kakhovka, and carried out 17 air strikes in the overall campaign, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

In a Telegram post Sunday, the Ukrainian military claimed to have destroyed 14 Iranian-made Rian drones over the past day.

Russian S-300 missile strikes overnight hit a residential neighborhood in the city of Mykolaiv, injuring three people, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command.

Two apartment buildings, a playground and a warehouse were damaged or destroyed, it said in a Facebook post. The reports could not be immediately verified.
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Norwegian oil and gas workers normally don’t see anything more threatening than North Sea waves crashing against the steel legs of their offshore platforms. But lately they have noticed a more troubling sight: unidentified drones buzzing in the skies overhead.

With Norway replacing Russia as Europe’s main source of natural gas, military experts suspect the unmanned aircraft are Moscow’s doings. They list espionage, sabotage and intimidation as possible motives for the drone flights.

The Norwegian government has sent warships, coastguard vessels and fighter jets to patrol around the offshore facilities. Norway’s national guard stationed soldiers around onshore refineries that also were buzzed by drones.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has invited the navies of NATO allies Britain, France and Germany to help address what could be more than a Norwegian problem.

Precious little of the offshore oil that provides vast income for Norway is used by the country’s 5.4 million inhabitants. Instead, it powers much of Europe. Natural gas is another commodity of continental significance.

“The value of Norwegian gas to Europe has never been higher,” Ståle Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said. “As a strategic target for sabotage, Norwegian gas pipelines are probably the highest value target in Europe.”

Closures of airports, and evacuations of an oil refinery and a gas terminal last week due to drone sightings caused huge disruptions. But with winter approaching in Europe, there is worry the drones may portend a bigger threat to the 9,000 kilometers of gas pipelines that spider from Norway’s sea platforms to terminals in Britain and mainland Europe.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February, European Union countries have scrambled to replace their Russian gas imports with shipments from Norway. The suspected sabotage of the Nordstream I and II pipelines in the Baltic Sea last month happened a day before Norway opened a new Baltic pipeline to Poland.

Amund Revheim, who heads the North Sea and environment group for Norway’s South West Police force, said his team interviewed more than 70 offshore workers who have spotted drones near their facilities.

“The working thesis is that they are controlled from vessels or submarines nearby,” Revheim said.

Winged drones have a longer range, but investigators considered credible a sighting of a helicopter-style bladed model near the Sleipner platform, located in a North Sea gas field 250 kilometers from the coast.

Norwegian police have worked closely with military investigators who are analyzing marine traffic. Some platform operators have reported seeing Russian-flagged research vessels in close vicinity. Revheim said no pattern has been established from legal marine traffic and he is concerned about causing unnecessary, disruptive worry for workers.

But Ulriksen, of the naval academy, said the distinction between Russian civilian and military ships is narrow and the reported research vessels could fairly be described as “spy ships.”

The arrest of at least seven Russian nationals caught either carrying or illegally flying drones over Norwegian territory has raised tensions. On Wednesday, the same day a drone sighting grounded planes in Bergen, Norway’s second-biggest city, the Norwegian Police Security Service took over the case from local officers.

“We have taken over the investigation because it is our job to investigate espionage and enforce sanction rules against Russia,” Martin Bernsen, an official with the service known by the Norwegian acronym PST. He said the “sabotage or possible mapping” of energy infrastructure was an ongoing concern.

Støre, the prime minister, warned that Norway would take action against foreign intelligence agencies. “It is not acceptable for foreign intelligence to fly drones over Norwegian airports. Russians are not allowed to fly drones in Norway,” he said.

Russia’s Embassy in Oslo hit back Thursday, claiming that Norway was experiencing a form of “psychosis” causing “paranoia.”

Naval academy researcher Ulriksen thinks that is probably part of the plan.

“Several of the drones have been flown with their lights on,” he said. “They are supposed to be observed. I think it is an attempt to intimidate Norway and the West.”

The wider concern is that they are part of a hybrid strategy to both intimidate and gather information on vital infrastructure, which could later be targeted for sabotage in a potential strike against the West.

“I do not believe we are heading for a conventional war with Russia,” Ulriksen said. “But a hybrid war … I think we are already in it.”
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The general carrying out President Vladimir Putin’s new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia’s campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.

Bald and fierce-looking, Gen. Sergei Surovikin was put in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine Oct. 8 after what has so far been a faltering invasion that has seen a number of chaotic retreats and other setbacks over the nearly eight months of war.

Putin put the 56-year-old career military man in command following an apparent truck bombing of the strategic bridge to the Crimean Peninsula that embarrassed the Kremlin and created logistical problems for the Russian forces.

Russia responded with a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, which Putin said were aimed at knocking down energy infrastructure and Ukrainian military command centers. Such attacks have continued daily, pummeling power plants and other facilities with cruise missiles and waves of Iranian-made drones.

Surovikin also retains his job of air force chief, a position that could help coordinate the airstrikes with other operations.

During the most recent bombardments, some Russian war bloggers carried a statement attributed to Surovikin that signaled his intention to pursue the attacks with unrelenting vigor to pound the Kyiv government into submission.

“I don’t want to sacrifice Russian soldiers’ lives in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO,” the bloggers quoted his statement as saying. “We have enough technical means to force Ukraine to surrender.”

While the veracity of the statement couldn’t be confirmed, it appears to reflect the same heavy-handed approach that Surovikin took in Syria where he oversaw the destruction of entire cities to flush out rebel resistance without paying much attention to the civilian population. That indiscriminate bombing drew condemnation from international human rights groups, and some media reports have dubbed him “General Armageddon.”

Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest award, in 2017 and promoted him to full general.

Kremlin hawks lauded Surovikin’s appointment in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef” who owns a prominent military contractor that plays a key role in the fighting in Ukraine, praised him as “the best commander in the Russian army.”

But even as hardliners expected Surovikin to ramp up strikes on Ukraine, his first public statements after his appointment sounded more like a recognition of the Russian military’s vulnerabilities than blustery threats.

In remarks on Russian state television, Surovikin acknowledged that Russian forces in southern Ukraine were in a “quite difficult position” in the face of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

In carefully scripted comments that Surovikin appeared to read from a teleprompter, he said that further action in the region will depend on the evolving combat situation. Observers interpreted his statement as an attempt to prepare the public for a possible Russian pullback from the strategic southern city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.

Surovikin began his military career with the Soviet army in 1980s and, as a young lieutenant, was named an infantry platoon commander. When he later rose to air force chief, it drew a mixed reaction in the ranks because it marked the first time when the job was given to an infantry officer.

He found himself in the center of a political storm in 1991.

When members of the Communist Party’s old guard staged a hardline coup in August of that year, briefly ousting Gorbachev and sending troops into Moscow to impose a state of emergency, Surovikin commanded one of the mechanized infantry battalions that rolled into the capital.

Popular resistance mounted quickly, and in the final hours of the three-day coup, protesters blocked an armored convoy led by Surovikin and tried to set some of the vehicles ablaze. In a chaotic melee, two protesters were shot and a third was crushed to death by an armored vehicle.

The coup collapsed later that day, and Surovikin was quickly arrested. He spent seven months behind bars pending an inquiry but was eventually acquitted and even promoted to major as investigators concluded that he was only fulfilling his duties.

Another rocky moment in his career came in 1995, when Surovikin was convicted of illegal possession and trafficking of firearms while studying at a military academy. He was sentenced to a year in prison, but the conviction was reversed quickly.

He rose steadily through the ranks, commanding units deployed to the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, leading troops sent to Chechnya and serving at other posts across Russia.

He was appointed commander of Russian forces in Syria in 2017 and served a second stint there in 2019 as Moscow sought to prop up President Bashar Assad’s regime and help it regain ground amid a devastating civil war.

In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin, along with Putin, Assad and other figures as bearing command responsibility for violations during the 2019-20 Syrian offensive in Idlib province.

He apparently has a temper that has not endeared him to subordinates, according to Russian media. One officer under Surovikin complained to prosecutors that the general had beaten him after becoming angry over how he voted in parliamentary elections; another subordinate reportedly shot himself. Investigators found no wrongdoing in either case.

His track record in Syria could have been a factor behind his appointment in Ukraine, as Putin has moved to raise the stakes and reverse a series of humiliating defeats.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has repeatedly called for ramping up strikes in Ukraine, praised Surovikin as “a real general and a warrior, well-experienced, farsighted and forceful who places patriotism, honor and dignity above all.”

“The united group of forces is now in safe hands,” the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov said, voicing confidence that he will “improve the situation.”
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Boris Johnson returned to Britain on Saturday as he considers an audacious attempt to win a second term as prime minister only weeks after he was forced to step down, with some colleagues warning his comeback could create more political chaos.

Potential candidates to replace Prime Minister Liz Truss, who quit on Thursday after six weeks in office, were embarking on a frantic weekend of lobbying to secure enough nominations to enter the leadership contest before Monday’s deadline.

Johnson, who was on holiday in the Caribbean when Truss resigned, has not commented publicly about a bid for his old job. He has received the support of dozens of Conservative lawmakers, but he needs to secure 100 nominations to be considered.

Trade department minister James Duddridge said Friday that Johnson told him he was “up for it.” He said Saturday that Johnson had secured 100 nominations, although a Reuters tally put him with about 40. The tally showed former finance minister Rishi Sunak, for now the bookmakers’ favorite, had exceeded 100.

The Sunday Times reported Sunak and Johnson could meet late Saturday, without giving details on the planned discussions.

Only former defense minister Penny Mordaunt has formally declared she will run, although a Reuters tally showed she only had 22 nominations so far before Monday’s 1300 GMT deadline.

The next prime minister, a post that will have changed hands three times in four years, faces a huge inbox after Truss’s economic plans hammered bond markets, raised government borrowing costs and added more strains on households and businesses already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.  

Johnson was booed by some passengers on the plane to Britain, according to a Sky News reporter on the flight, which arrived in London on Saturday morning.

Wearing a dark jacket and backpack, Johnson waved to photographers at London’s Gatwick Airport before driving away.

It would be a stunning comeback for the former journalist and ex-Mayor of London, who left Downing Street shrouded in scandal, saying fellow party lawmakers “changed the rules halfway through” to prevent him serving a full term.

In a boost to Sunak, another potential contender, trade minister Kemi Badenoch who ran in a leadership race earlier this year, backed the former finance minister. The move means she ruled herself out from another bid for the top job.

Divisive twist

The prospect of another Johnson premiership is a polarizing issue for many in the Conservative Party, which is deeply divided after seeing off four prime ministers in six years.

For some Conservative lawmakers, Johnson is a vote-winner, able to appeal across the country with his celebrity image and brand of energetic optimism. For others he is a toxic figure who would struggle to unite the party and so might undermine efforts to build a stable leadership to calm rattled financial markets.

Former interior minister Priti Patel said her old boss had “the mandate to deliver our elected manifesto and a proven track record getting the big decisions right.”

Andrew Bridgen, another Conservative lawmaker, said he might resign from the parliamentary group if Johnson returned and told Conservatives not to create a Johnson “personality cult.”

Former Conservative party leader William Hague said Johnson’s return would lead to a “death spiral” for the party. If Johnson can secure enough nominations, he could go head-to-head with Sunak, who quit as his finance minister in July, saying his former boss was unable to take tough decisions.

Johnson is currently under investigation by Parliament’s Privileges Committee to establish whether he lied to the House of Commons over lockdown-breaking parties. Ministers found to have knowingly misled parliament are expected to resign.

The contest has been accelerated to take only a week. Under the rules, only three candidates will be able to reach the first ballot of lawmakers on Monday afternoon, with the final two put to a vote on Friday that is limited to about 170,000 signed up members of the Conservative Party.
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Thousands of Iranians were among an estimated 80,000 people who joined in a rally Saturday in Berlin, the largest of several protests in cities around the world showing solidarity with women-led protests in Iran. 

Iranians traveled to Berlin for the protests and were in other demonstrations in Sweden, Italy, France, Switzerland and other European cities, photos show. Protests were also reported in London and Finland. 

An Iranian who lives in the Netherlands and traveled to Berlin to participate in the rally sent a photo to Voice of America. 

Music played, including the song “For Freedom,” which has become a symbol of the nationwide protests of Iranians. And various groups chanted together “Death to the Islamic Republic.”  

“Today, thousands of people are showing their solidarity with courageous women and demonstrators in Iran,” tweeted Germany’s Green Party minister for family affairs, Lisa Paus. “We are by your side,” she noted. 

‘Women, Life, Freedom’

At a rally in New Zealand, Iranians held Iran’s lion and sun flag and chanted the slogan “women of freedom.” 

In Brisbane, Australia, Iranians held a demonstration despite the rain. 

At the Berlin rally, called by a women’s collective, some marchers brandished slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom” and some waved Kurdish flags. 

“From Zahedan to Tehran, I sacrifice my life for Iran,” human rights activist Fariba Balouch said after giving a speech at the Berlin gathering, referring to Iranian cities swept up in the protests. The crowd responded with “Death to Khamenei,” referring to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Anti-government activists said the Berlin march was the largest ever demonstration against the Islamic Republic by Iranians abroad.  

“I feel very good, because we are here to [say] ‘We are with you, with all Iranian people.’ I am Mahsa Amini’s voice,” said a protester who gave her name as Maru. 

Participants peacefully made their way toward the city center in radiant autumnal sunshine, as police followed their progress from helicopters. 

Protests around Iran

Iran has seen six weeks of growing women-led protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. She was arrested in mid-September by Iran’s morality police and died in their custody three days later. Amini, 22, was arrested for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress code for women. 

In Iran Saturday, protests were reported in Tehran, where protesters chanted “Death to the dictator” around Tehran’s bazaar, among several cities, and shopkeepers and factory workers went on strike as citizens continue to react angrily to Amini’s death.  

Protests also were reported in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran, and Mashhad. 

In Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city, protesters reportedly chanted, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we are all together” as drivers honked their horns in support. 

The protests are the biggest seen in the Islamic republic for years, harking back to 2019 rallies sparked by rocketing fuel prices. 

The published images from the cities of Sanandaj, Saqqez and Marivan in Kurdistan province, as well as Bukan in the West Azerbaijan province, depict the general strike of workers. 

Young women have led the charge, removing their headscarves, chanting anti-government slogans and confronting the security forces. 

The Oslo-based, Iran Human Rights group says at least 122 people — including some children — have died in the unrest. 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 
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The Vatican said Saturday it and China had renewed a secret and contested agreement on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in the communist country.

It was the second time the accord, which is still provisional, was extended for another two years since it was first reached in 2018. The latest extension had been widely expected, with Pope Francis foreseeing it in an exclusive interview with Reuters on July 2.

The deal was a bid to ease a longstanding divide across mainland China between an underground flock loyal to the pope and a state-backed official church. For the first time since the 1950s, both sides recognized the pope as supreme leader of the Catholic Church.

Critics, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, have denounced it as a sell-out to the communist authorities. Zen is currently on trial over the use of a charity fund for pro-democracy protesters and critics have accused the Vatican of not doing enough to defend him in public.

Zen pleaded not guilty.

The Vatican-China deal centers on cooperation over the appointment of bishops, giving the pope the final and decisive say.

Only six new bishops have been appointed since the deal was struck, which its opponents say proves it is not producing the desired effects. They also point to increasing restrictions on religious freedoms in China for Christians and other minorities.

In the July interview with Reuters, the pope acknowledged the deal “is going slowly” but that the Church needed to take the long view in China and that an imperfect dialogue was better than no contact at all.

Francis compared the deal’s opponents to those who criticized Popes John XXII and Paul VI in the 1960s and 1970s over the so-called small steps policy, in which the Vatican struck sometimes uncomfortable deals with Eastern European communist nations to keep the Church alive during the Cold War and limit its persecution there.

Steps toward healing

Official Vatican media ran interviews with two cardinals defending the deal.

Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the accord’s chief architect, said that while the achievements since 2018 “may seem small,” in the context of a conflicted history they were “important steps toward the progressive healing of the wounds inflicted” on the Chinese Church.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a Filipino whose mother is of Chinese descent, said the challenge was to convince authorities that “belonging to the Church does not represent an obstacle to being a good Chinese citizen.”

The Vatican has insisted that the deal is circumscribed to the Church structure in China and is not in itself a precursor to establishing full diplomatic relations with Beijing, which would necessitate the Holy See severing ties with Taiwan.

The Vatican is the last state in Europe to recognize Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it set great store by the Vatican’s “solemn commitment” that the deal was about religious rather than diplomatic or political matters, adding that it hoped the accord would “help improve China’s growing religious freedom problem.”

The renewal of the Vatican-Beijing deal came as China’s Communist Party wrapped up its twice-a-decade congress on Saturday, approving amendments cementing President Xi Jinping’s iron grip on the party.

Last month, the Vatican tried to arrange a meeting between Xi, 69, and the pope, 85, while both leaders were in Kazakhstan, but China declined.
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Giorgia Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots emerged victorious in recent elections, was sworn in on Saturday as Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. She is also the first woman to be premier.

Meloni, 45, recited the oath of office before President Sergio Mattarella, who formally asked her to form a government a day earlier. 

Her Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012, will rule in coalition with the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini and the conservative Forza Italia party headed by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. Those two parties’ popularity has sagged with voters in recent years. 

Meloni recited the ritual oath of office, pledging to be faithful to Italy’s post-war republic and to act “in the exclusive interests of the nation.” The pledge was signed by her and counter-signed by Mattarella, who, in his role as head of state, serves as guarantor of the Constitution, drafted in the years immediately after the end of war, which saw the demise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Meloni’s 24 ministers followed, similarly swearing in. Five of the ministers are technocrats, not representing any party. Six of them are women. 

In her campaign for the Sept. 25 election, Meloni insisted that national interests prevail over European Union policies should there be conflict. She often railed against EU bureaucracy.

Salvini’s right-wing League party has at times leaned euroskeptic. An admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Salvini has also questioned the wisdom of EU sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that they hurt Italian business interests more than Russian ones. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sounded an upbeat note in her congratulations tweet to Meloni right after she was sworn in and noted that the Italian was the first woman to hold the premiership.

“I count on and look forward to constructive cooperation with the new government on the challenges we face together,” the EU chief said.

One immediate challenge for Meloni will be ensuring that her country stays solidly aligned with other major nations in the West in helping that country fight off the Russian invaders. 

In the days before she became premier, Meloni resorted to giving an ultimatum to her other main coalition partner, Berlusconi, over his professed sympathy for Putin. 

Berlusconi in remarks to his center-right Forza Italia party lawmakers, delivered what was tantamount to justification for the Russian invasion in February to install what he called a “decent” government in the Ukrainian capital.

After making clear she’d rather not govern than lead a coalition with any partner wavering over continued Italian support for Ukraine, aligned with Europe and NATO – “Italy with us in government will never be the weak link of the West” – Meloni tapped as her foreign minister a longtime Berlusconi stalwart with solid pro-Europe credentials. Antonio Tajani formerly was president of the European Parliament. 

With potential wavering in Parliament by her Russian-sympathizing allies, as well as from former Premier Giuseppe Conte, a populist opposition leader, over continued arms supplies to Ukraine, Meloni appointed one of her party co-founders, Guido Crosetto, as defense minister.

Meloni will lay out her priorities when she pitches for support in Parliament ahead of confidence votes required of new governments. Voting is expected within a few days.

While her government holds a comfortable majority in the legislature, the vote could indicate any cracks in her coalition if any of her partners’ lawmakers, perhaps disgruntled by not getting ministries they wanted for their parties, don’t rally behind her.

Meloni’s government replaces that led by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief who was appointed by Mattarella in 2021 to lead a pandemic national unity coalition. Meloni was the only major party leader to refuse to join that coalition, insisting governments must be decided by the voters.

In any unusual touch for a country used to male-dominated politics and power, attending the swearing-in ceremony in a sumptuous room of the Quirinal Palace was Meloni’s companion, who is a journalist in Berlusconi’s media empire, and their 6-year-old daughter, Ginevra. 

While Meloni didn’t campaign openly to be Italy’s first woman premier, she has said there would be no doubt that her victory would be clearly breaking through the “glass ceiling” that discourages women’s progress.
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France, Germany and Britain called Friday for the United Nations to investigate allegations that Russia is using Iranian drones for attacks in Ukraine.

A letter from the French, German and British missions to the U.N. cited “significant open-source evidence, including photographs and video, of Russia deploying Mohajer and Shahed series UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] in Ukraine.”

It says the transfer of such weapons violates U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Both Iran and Russia deny that Tehran is providing Moscow with drones.

Ukraine says Russia has used the drones to carry out so-called kamikaze attacks, in which the aircraft is intentionally crashed into a target.  The strikes have been terrorizing the country, causing casualties and taking out power facilities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, citing Ukrainian intelligence services, has alleged that Russia ordered 2,400 Shahed drones from Iran and then rebranded them as Geran-2 drones — meaning “geranium” in Russian.

The drones pack an explosive charge and can linger over targets before nosediving into them. They are relatively cheap, costing about $20,000.

Some Ukrainians say they fear the drone attacks could become commonplace as Russia tries to avoid depleting its stockpiles of precision long-range missiles.

The United States, Britain and France – all permanent members of the U.N. Security Council – have recently said that Iran is violating U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 by providing drones to Russia. The U.N. resolution endorsed the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers.

The U.S. Thursday alleged Iranian military personnel are “on the ground” in Ukraine, assisting the Russian military with drone operations.

“Our understanding is that they [Iranian forces] are on the ground in Crimea, assisting Russian military personnel as they conduct these drone operations in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters.

When asked about Russia denying it uses Iran-made drones, Ryder responded, “It’s obvious that they’re lying” and charged Tehran with “exporting terror, not only in the Middle East region but now also to Ukraine.” 
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Germany’s announcement that it will take in 1,000 at-risk Afghans with their families from Afghanistan will be challenging, an Afghan lawyer says, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for Afghans to leave Afghanistan.

In a joint statement, the German Foreign and Interior ministries announced the new humanitarian admission program on Monday.

“The plan is to approve around 1,000 Afghans at particular risk, along with their family members from Afghanistan for admittance every month,” said the statement.

“It is going to be very challenging,” said Abdul Subhan Misbah, former deputy head of Afghanistan’s Lawyers Union who has been involved in the efforts to evacuate judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, adding that “it is not clear who would be included, and it won’t be easy to take people out of Afghanistan that is ruled by the Taliban.”

The German government said that the new program would evacuate at-risk women’s and human rights activists, former government officials, and civil society members. The program also includes those persecuted in Afghanistan because of their gender, sexual orientation, and/or religion.

Misbah said that many employees of the former government and members of civil society want to leave their country.

“Most of the people want to leave,” he said. “What are the criteria based on which people will be admitted? How are they going to help those at risk to get out of Afghanistan? These questions have to be answered.”

Besides the problems they face to get passports and visas, he said, Afghans must travel to a third country because there are no direct flights from Afghanistan to Germany.

“It should be something that the German government has to negotiate with neighboring countries to facilitate the process,” Misbah said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Christopher Burger, told VOA that his government is working with the neighboring countries to help with the process.

“We will continue to work through all channels available to us in order to assure safe passage to the people that we want to bring to safety,” he said.

Germany has admitted 26,000 Afghans since Kabul fell and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Burger said to implement the new program, German authorities would work with organizations already on the ground and involved in helping at-risk individuals leave the country, but the German government would make the final decision on who is the “most vulnerable and most in need of admission to Germany.”

Local contractors

Burger said the program will continue until October 2025 and does not include 12,000 former German contractors who are “officially granted admission” to Germany but are still in Afghanistan.

“Simply, we are not able to bring people outside the country. They do not have a passport,” Burger said. “We are working with the neighboring countries on achieving that.”

He added that a “larger group” of Afghans had “some sort of association” with German organizations in Afghanistan and “are still in the proceedings to be recognized as former German contracts.”

Axel Steier, the founder of the German-based civil society organization Mission Lifeline, told VOA that his organization runs several safe houses for those who worked with the German government.

He added that these local contractors fear for their lives.

Steier said that “the Taliban want to kill them, and [we are] keeping them into safe houses and waiting for a decision from the German government to take them in.”

Difficult to leave

The German government said that Afghans who have left Afghanistan would not be considered under the new humanitarian admission program.

“So, this is a big issue,” said Steier, adding that many at-risk Afghans left Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power. Most of the individuals are staying in Pakistan, Iran or Tajikistan and are unable to return to Afghanistan.

He added that it is difficult for people to get passports and visas to leave the country.

“And for both, you need a lot of money. Because you can get a passport only if you pay $1,200 to $1,500,” he said. “Also, it is very difficult to get [a] visa for Iran. At the moment, it costs $500.”

“For people who are poor … [and have no] money for stuff like a passport or visa, it is almost impossible to come [to Germany],” Steier said. 
…

EU leaders struggled at a European Council summit in Brussels this week to arrive at a common response to the rising economic and diplomatic power of China, even as Chinese leader Xi Jinping signaled his intention to sustain an aggressive foreign policy during a Communist Party congress in Beijing.

While largely preoccupied by the war in Ukraine, the leaders devoted more than three hours of their two-day summit ending Friday to “a strategic discussion on the European Union’s relations with China,” according to a tweet by the South China Morning Post’s Brussels-based correspondent.

Detailed reports of the discussion have yet to emerge, but the difficulty in bringing all 27 EU members to a common position was foreshadowed at a meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers earlier in the week in Luxembourg.

In a brief statement issued at the conclusion of that Foreign Affairs Council meeting, the ministers said the European Council “reconfirmed the validity of the EU’s multifaceted approach on China” and described Beijing as “a partner with whom the EU must engage, a tough competitor and a systemic rival.”

EU sticking to its position

Analysts saw little new in the statement, which sought to bridge “a variety of approaches” by the various member states, according to Filip Sebok, a research fellow with the Prague-based Association for International Affairs.

“Overall, the EU is still sticking to the ‘partner, competitor, rival’ trifecta,” he said in an emailed interview with VOA. Although there is increasing emphasis on the systemic rivalry with China, “we should not expect a departure from the basic definition of the EU policy towards China in [the] short term.”

Charles Parton, a senior fellow at the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies, said the immediate challenge posed by the war in Ukraine “is obscuring the bigger, longer-term threat of China to [Europe’s] security, prosperity, data and values.”

Nevertheless, Parton thinks attitudes in the EU are slowly changing.

“The question is whether EU countries can tolerate the pain of actions, which are required to match that change of attitudes,” he said.

Parton, whose diplomatic career in the British foreign service included years of advising the EU delegation in Beijing on matters pertaining to China, pointed out the difficulty of bringing so many countries together on a common position.

“As ever, a central issue is whether the 27 can achieve unity of purpose and action,” he said. “A lowest common denominator approach may not be sufficient.”

Certainly, there is concern within the bloc about the intentions of the Chinese leader, who in an address to the party congress Sunday pledged to “resolutely safeguard the security of China’s state power, systems and ideology — and build up security capacity in key areas.”

“We will crack down hard on infiltration, sabotage, subversion and separatist activities by hostile forces,” Xi added in what was widely interpreted as a reference to the United States and its Western allies.

The head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service told the German parliament on Monday that the consensus among Western intelligence chiefs was that China posed the greatest long-term security and overall challenge.

“When I speak with foreign partners about China, they always say: Russia is the storm, China is climate change. So, we’re going to have to brace for this climate change in the coming years,” Thomas Haldenwang said.

“We must not allow a situation where the Chinese state can influence political events in Germany via critical infrastructures, where opportunities for sabotage are perhaps also opened up, where there’s also the possibility of influencing public opinions,” he warned.

Hamburg port

His warning came amid tension in Berlin over whether China should be allowed to purchase significant stakes in a port in Hamburg, one of Europe’s most important hubs.

German media have reported that Haldenwang’s intelligence service is one of six government agencies that oppose the plan. However, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a former mayor of Hamburg, is said to support the Chinese investment.

Scholz confirmed on the sidelines of the Brussels summit that he would lead a delegation including business executives to visit China in the coming weeks.

Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, expressed her reservation when questioned about Scholz’s travel plans, telling reporters Friday that she favored a whole EU approach and cautioning against deals that could threaten the unity of the bloc.
…

Britain expects China to waive diplomatic immunity for officials if the U.K. police determine there are grounds to charge them for an attack on a Hong Kong protester, a British Foreign Office minister said on Thursday.

A protest against the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress occurred last Sunday outside the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester, a city in the north of England. Video of the incident appears to show Chinese officials dragging a protester, former Hong Kong resident Bob Chan, onto consulate grounds before assaulting him. Chan was hospitalized overnight due to injuries, according to Manchester police.

Manchester police officers patrolling the protest of some 30 to 40 people intervened fearing “for the safety of the man … and removed the victim from the Consulate grounds,” according to a police press release.

The episode was “absolutely unacceptable” as the protests were “peaceful and legal,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly told Britain’s Sky News on Thursday. “They were on British soil.”

What happened outside the consulate and on its grounds is now a diplomatic incident when relations between China and the U.K., which turned over control of Hong Kong to Beijing in 1997, are touchy. Hong Kong had been a colony and dependent territory of the British Empire since1841. Since June 2020, when China tightened its authoritarian grip on the once freewheeling Hong Kong, U.K. has issued thousands of British National Overseas (BNO) visas to those born in Hong Kong prior to the handover, citing “China’s failure to live up to its international obligations with respect to Hong Kong.”

Chan, who left Hong Kong in March under a special entry arrangement, is on a BNO visa. He told VOA Cantonese that he was dragged into the consulate. “I was punched and kicked. I have bruises on my face. There was bleeding and swelling. My hair was pulled,” he said on Sunday soon after the incident. “There are many bruises on my neck and back. I feel some pain at my waist.”

Answering an urgent question in the U.K. Parliament on Thursday, Foreign Office Minister Jesse Norman said the government had summoned the Chinese chargé d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in London to demand an explanation, as the Chinese ambassador was not in Britain.

“I’ve instructed our ambassador to deliver a clear message directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing about the depth of concern with the apparent actions by Consulate General staff,” Norman told Parliament.

“Let me be clear that if the police determine there are grounds to charge any officials, we would expect the Chinese Consulate to waive immunity for those officials,” Norman said. “If they do not, then diplomatic consequences will follow.”

Luke de Pulford, executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, told VOA Cantonese that the latest comments by the U.K. were “encouraging.”

“But there’s no way [the People’s Republic of China] is going to waive immunity,” he said. “The most likely outcome for the consul general is therefore now expulsion, and it’s the very minimum we can do to show Hong Kongers that the U.K. is a country that will protect them.”

The Greater Manchester Police are investigating the incident. No arrests have been made. “We are liaising with national policing and diplomatic partners,” the department said.

Assistant Chief Constable Rob Potts said, “I can assure the public that all viable avenues will be explored to bring to justice anyone we believe is culpable for the scenes we saw outside the Chinese Consulate on Sunday.” 

At a press conference on Wednesday, Chan said the injuries at his waist were the most painful and sitting down causes him pain. He denounced the assault as “barbaric.”Chan also said he lost sleep worrying that the safety of his family may be jeopardized. ”This incident made me worry about my own safety, but it does not mean I won’t protest again,” he said at the press conference. “I like to say that the tougher the oppression, the stronger my will is to stand up, because this is my freedom, and it should not be diminished.”

Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, diplomatic staff enjoy immunity to any form of arrest or detention unless the sending state waived their immunity. While diplomatic premises in the U.K. are part of Britain’s territory, they are “inviolable and may not be entered without the consent of the Ambassador or Head of Mission,” according to the U.K. Crown Prosecution Service.

Zheng Xiyuan, the Chinese consul-general who was seen in video footage pulling Chan’s hair, told Sky News on Wednesday that because Chan was “abusing my country, my leader” he was performing his “duty.”

Zheng wrote the Greater Manchester Police, saying the protesters’ banners featured a “volume of deeply offensive imagery and slogans,” including a picture of the Chinese president with a noose around his neck, according to Sky News.

Zheng said it was an emergency situation and his colleagues’ life had been threatened.

After graduating in the early 1980s from Lanzhou University in Gansu Province, one of the poorest regions in China, Zheng started his career as a canned food factory manager there. He joined the Chinese Foreign Ministry in 1992, and had previous postings in New York, Athens and Mumbai. In an interview in 2004, he spoke of his patriotism, saying that “the fundamental quality of a diplomat is the unreserved loyalty for one’s country.”

Beijing’s newly aggressive diplomats are referred to as “wolf warriors” after a movie of the same name that broke box-office records throughout China with its nationalistic theme.

U.K. Parliament member Iain Duncan Smith, a former leader of the Conservative Party who was sanctioned by China for criticizing Beijing’s human rights record, called for declaring any consulate individuals involved in the attack “persona non grata” immediately and expelling them.

“The government has the diplomatic power to dismiss them,” he said during the urgent question session of Parliament on Thursday “Whether or not there are criminal proceedings, the fact is we do not want them here in the U.K. and they must go.”

Catherine West, the Labour Party’s shadow minister for Asia and the Pacific, said at Parliament that the U.K. should summon China’s ambassador to communicate a strong message about the importance of peaceful protests in Britain.

“Is it possible for him (British Foreign Secretary) to expel the individual, and then for that individual to apply to return,” she said. “And … at least we would know the government had taken the strongest action possible.”
…

The war has changed the lives of millions of Ukrainians, especially women who have lost their loved ones. Karyna Synelnykova and Kateryna Karvatko lost their husbands on Ukraine’s front line in the east, where the men were defending the country from Russian assault. Today they both carry on their husbands’ legacy and adapt to a new life. For VOA, Kyiv reporter Anna Chernikova has their story.
…

Britain’s Defense Ministry said Friday that Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko’s assertion early this month that thousands of troops from his country and Russia would form a new Group of Forces is unlikely to come to fruition.

Lukashenko had said 70,000 Belarussian troops and as many as 15,000 Russians would make up a new Russian-Belarussian Group of Forces.

The British ministry said in an intelligence update posted on Twitter that despite a video that Belarussian officials have released to show the arrival of Russian troops in Belarus, “it is unlikely that Russia has actually deployed a significant number of extra troops into Belarus.”

The ministry sized up the capability of both Russia and Belarus to round up troops in the Twitter post: “Russia is unlikely to be able to generate combat-ready formations of the claimed size: its forces are committed in Ukraine. The Belarussian military highly likely maintains minimal capability to undertake complex operations.”

The ministry said the announcement of the combined forces of Russia and Belarus was “likely an attempt to demonstrate Russian-Belarussian solidarity and to convince Ukraine to divert forces to guard the northern border.”

Also Friday, the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia experienced a series of explosions, according to a Reuters report. Zaporizhzhia is the home of Ukraine’s nuclear power plant.  The extent of the damage from the blast was not immediately clear.

Meanwhile, Iranian military personnel are “on the ground” in Ukraine, assisting the Russian military with drone operations that have been terrorizing the country and targeting power facilities, the Pentagon said Thursday.

“Our understanding is that they [Iranian forces] are on the ground in Crimea, assisting Russian military personnel as they conduct these drone operations in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters.

When asked about Russia denying it uses Iran-made drones, Ryder responded, “It’s obvious that they’re lying.” Russia seized the Crimea Peninsula in 2014. Since then, it has reopened old Soviet bases and trained troops there.

He added that Russia has turned to countries such as Iran and North Korea for additional ammunition and weapons because its weapons stockpiles, including precision-guided munitions, “are depleting.”

He called out Iran for “exporting terror, not only in the Middle East region but now also to Ukraine.”

NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoană condemned Iran’s behavior and called on Tehran to cease its involvement in Russia’s invasion.

“No country should support in any way this kind of barbaric war,” Geoană said during a virtual event held by German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Also Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby blamed Iranian-made drones launched from Crimea for recent attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

“Russia has received dozens of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] so far and will likely continue to receive additional shipments in the future,” Kirby said.

Kherson

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday night accused Russia of preparing to blow up a hydropower plant in the Kherson region – an area illegally annexed by Russia and the recent focus of intense fighting.

Zelenskyy aide Mykhailo Podolyak said Russia is mining the Kakhovka dam and the transformers at the power plant, according to Agence France-Presse. Destroying the dam would flood the Dnieper River and halt the advance of Ukrainian troops.

But, Zelenskyy said, it also could destroy the North Crimean canal and cut off a water supply to Crimea.

Kherson is the first major city to be captured by Russia at the beginning of its invasion in late February and the largest one it still holds.

Russian-installed civilian officials have urged residents to flee, and massive evacuations began earlier this week, relocating 15,000 residents from the city and surrounding area as of Thursday, the officials said.

Kherson was one of four regions, along with Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia, illegally annexed by Russia. President Vladimir Putin declared martial law in the four regions Wednesday.

Damaged infrastructure

Ukraine restricted power use for the first time Thursday in response to Russian attacks that have damaged parts of the country’s electrical infrastructure. The outage was scheduled so repairs could be made to some of the power plants damaged or destroyed by Russian missiles over the last several days.

Ukraine’s power grid operator said that supply restrictions would be in place from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., and as colder months approach, it may need to take such steps again.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council met in a private meeting at the request of the United States, Britain and France to discuss the issue of Russia using Iranian-made drones in its war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that in the past week alone, more than 100 Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas.

Washington, London and Paris say Tehran’s supplying of these UAVs to Russia is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which allows for transfers of restricted items to or from Iran only when approved on a case-by-case basis by the Security Council. No such approval has been sought.

“We anticipate this will be the first of many conversations at the U.N. on how to hold Iran and Russia accountable for failing to comply with U.N. Security Council-imposed obligations,” said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

“As was outlined during today’s meeting, there is ample evidence that Russia is using Iranian-made UAVs in cruel and deliberate attacks against the people of Ukraine, including against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” he said, adding that the procurement of arms was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Ukrainian officials have said the UAVs used in waves of attacks during the past week include Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones that carry explosives and crash into their targets.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador told reporters that his government categorically rejects the “unfounded and unsubstantiated claims,” which he said were part of a disinformation campaign against his government.

Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy told reporters that the allegations are “baseless.” He said there have been no arms transfers in violation of the resolution, and no Iranian drones were supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Margaret Besheer, Patsy Widakuswara and Jeff Seldin contributed to this article. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Iranian military personnel are “on the ground” in Ukraine, assisting the Russian military with drone operations that have been terrorizing the country and targeting power facilities, the Pentagon said Thursday.

“Our understanding is that they [Iranian forces] are on the ground in Crimea, assisting Russian military personnel as they conduct these drone operations in Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters.

When asked about Russia’s denial that it uses Iran-made drones, Ryder responded, “It’s obvious that they’re lying.”

He added that Russia has turned to countries such as Iran and North Korea for additional ammunition and weapons because its weapons stockpiles, including precision-guided munitions, “are depleting.”

He called out Iran for “exporting terror, not only in the Middle East region but now also to Ukraine.”

NATO Deputy Secretary-General Mircea Geoana condemned Iran’s behavior and called on Tehran to cease its involvement in Russia’s invasion.

“No country should support in any way this kind of barbaric war,” Geoana said during a virtual event held by the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Also Thursday, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby blamed Iranian-made drones launched from Crimea for recent attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

“Russia has received dozens of UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] so far and will likely continue to receive additional shipments in the future,” Kirby said.

Ukraine restricted power use on Thursday in response to Russian attacks that have damaged parts of the country’s electrical infrastructure.

In an address late Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged people to conserve energy.

He said the government was working to create “mobile power supply points for critical infrastructure in cities and villages.”

Ukraine’s power grid operator said that supply restrictions would be in place from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., and as colder months approach, it may need to take such steps again.

On Wednesday, the U.N. Security Council met privately at the request of the United States, Britain and France to discuss Russia’s use of Iranian-made drones in its war in Ukraine.

Washington, London and Paris say Tehran’s supplying of these UAVs to Russia is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which allows for transfers of restricted items to or from Iran only when approved on a case-by-case basis by the Security Council. No such approval has been sought.

“We had a very clear indication that the drones have been delivered from Iran to Russia and they have been used in Ukraine,” France’s Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told reporters as he left the meeting. “This is a violation of Resolution 2231.”

“We anticipate this will be the first of many conversations at the U.N. on how to hold Iran and Russia accountable for failing to comply with U.N. Security Council-imposed obligations,” said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

“As was outlined during today’s meeting, there is ample evidence that Russia is using Iranian-made UAVs in cruel and deliberate attacks against the people of Ukraine, including against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” he said, adding that the procurement of arms was in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Ukrainian officials have said the UAVs used in waves of attacks during the past week include Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones that carry explosives and crash into their targets.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador told reporters that his government categorically rejected the “unfounded and unsubstantiated claims,” which he said were part of a disinformation campaign against his government.

“It is disappointing [that] to pursue their political agenda, these states are trying to launch a disinformation campaign against Iran and make misleading interpretation of the Security Council Resolution 2231 in order to wrongly establish a link between their baseless allegation against Iran with this resolution,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said.

Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy told reporters that the allegations were “baseless.” He said that there had been no arms transfers in violation of the resolution and that no Iranian drones had been supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

“I would recommend that you do not underestimate the technological capabilities of the Russian drone industry,” Dmitry Polyanskiy said. “I can tell you we know what we do, and we know how to do it.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said that in the past week alone, more than 100 Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas.

Margaret Besheer, Patsy Widakuswara and Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday called British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who is stepping down from office after just six weeks of her turbulent tenure, a “good partner” in supporting Ukraine to defend itself against Russian aggression.

Biden declined to weigh in on her resignation.

“That’s for her to decide,” he told reporters at the White House moments before he boarded presidential helicopter Marine One on his way to Pennsylvania. “But look, she was a good partner on Russia and Ukraine, and the British are going to solve their problem.”

Biden dismissed any potential spillover effects from the political turmoil of the United States’ oldest ally.

“I don’t think they’re that consequential,” he said.

Truss stepped down after her unfunded tax-cutting agenda crashed the British pound, raised borrowing costs and triggered financial market turmoil.

Strong allies

Biden, who had spoken by phone with Truss to discuss Ukraine and met with her in person on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly meeting in September, had made clear he opposed Truss’s economic plans to cut taxes on the “super wealthy.”

“I disagreed with the policy, but that’s up to Great Britain to make that judgment, not me,” he told reporters last week.

Earlier Thursday, the White House released a statement expressing Biden’s support for the British government and his appreciation for Truss.

“The United States and the United Kingdom are strong allies and enduring friends — and that fact will never change,” the statement said.

Observers agree. Of all the issues that divide the British Conservative Party, they all agree on the centrality of the U.K.’s relationship with the U.S., said David H. Dunn, chair of the department of political science and international studies at the University of Birmingham.

Following Brexit, the Conservative Party became more right wing, with more libertarian members among its ranks, Dunn told VOA.

“This, together with an antipathy towards the EU, makes them even more predisposed to look across the Atlantic for their natural ally rather than across the Channel to Europe,” Dunn said.

The Conservative Party holds a big majority in parliament and need not call a nationwide election for another two years. They are scheduled to elect a new leader by October 28; former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak is set to compete for the post against ex-Defense Minister Penny Mordaunt.

Boris Johnson, who was ousted as prime minister in July following mass resignations by his ministers, is also reportedly weighing a comeback.

Whoever emerges as the next prime minister will carry the burden of Britain’s weakness at home, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House.

“This inevitably means that the new PM will be far more inclined to align itself closely with the U.S., and I would guess, also to sort out a good relationship with Europe,” Vinjamuri told VOA.

Support for Ukraine

Despite the change in leadership, the U.K. will remain a steadfast supporter of Ukraine in its fight against Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Jason Moyer, program associate for the global Europe program at the Wilson Center.

“The U.K. is the third-largest provider of military and financial support to Ukraine, behind only the United States and the European Union, and is hosting a training program for up to 10,000 Ukrainian soldiers,” Moyer told VOA.

On Tuesday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Ben Wallace, the U.K.’s secretary of state for defense. The two underscored their commitment to continue providing Ukraine with security assistance.

Observers say that Britain’s next leadership will likely adhere to a more mainstream conservative foreign policy — tough on Russia and China and recognizing that Europe is essential to Britain’s economic success.
…

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed up to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plan to turn Turkey into a Russian natural gas hub.

Erdogan, addressing his parliamentary deputies Wednesday, said Turkey had secured a vital opportunity by agreeing to Putin’s plan.

“European countries are currently searching to find where to get natural gas supplies,” he said. “Thank God Turkey does not have such a problem. Hopefully, we will soon become a hub for natural gas.”

Last week, Putin said the gas would be redirected through Turkey from the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea, which were damaged by blasts last month.

Russia already supplies Turkey’s TurkStream pipeline gas under the Black Sea. But the Kremlin admitted the pipeline has limited extra capacity. By the time new capacity has been created, said international relations professor Senem Duzgit of Istanbul’s Sabanci University, Europe will likely have secured alternative supplies.

“I mean, who’s going to buy that energy?” he said, “I mean, realistically speaking, if the Europeans refuse to buy that gas, who’s going to buy it? So who will Turkey be a center for? Right? Who will be the destination of that gas? That’s what I’m just not convinced about.”

Putin’s hub proposal comes as Ankara is seeking to position itself as an alternative to Russian energy for Europe, as Turkish presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin underlined Wednesday.

Kalin said, “The offer by Putin is very important. But if Europe is looking for alternatives from Russian gas, there are two places it can find it: through a pipeline from Azerbaijan running through Turkey, and possible Iranian gas in the future, again, using Turkish pipelines.”

Putin appeared to take Ankara by surprise with his gas hub plan. The proposal came as Turkey has faced growing scrutiny from its Western allies over its refusal to enforce sanctions against Russia. Washington and the European Union have warned that Turkey could face secondary sanctions if it violated its measures against Russia.

Ankara denies any wrongdoing, but Putin’s gas proposals come as the West’s patience may be running out, warned Maria Shangina, a specialist on international sanctions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

“The more Turkey explodes this space between legal and illegal activities with Russia, I think there might be a snapping point from the West to impose sanctions,” she said.

But some analysts point out that Erdogan will try to accommodate Putin, given that he is trying to negotiate a cut in the price of Russian gas and a deferral of payments until after next year’s Turkish presidential elections. Erdogan is seeking to cut near triple-digit inflation, as most opinion polls indicate his electoral defeat.
…

British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned Thursday after just 44 days in office, prompted by an economic plan that sent financial markets into a tailspin, led to shake-ups in her Cabinet and divided her ruling Conservative Party.

She is the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. 

In comments delivered at a podium in front of the prime minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing Street in London, Truss said that while she set out a vision for a “low tax, high growth economy,” she recognized she could not deliver the mandate on which she was elected by the Conservative Party.

Truss said she will serve until a replacement is selected. Graham Brady, chairman of the Conservative Party’s special parliamentary body, the 1922 Committee, told reporters that party leadership has indicated it could conduct a ballot and conclude an election as early as October 28, and possibly have a new prime minister in place by October 31.

The 1922 Committee is made up of Conservative Party members of parliament and has the power to force a prime minister from within the party to resign. 

Analysts suggest former Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, who lost to Truss in the last leadership contest in August, is the leading candidate to replace her.

In an interview, opposition Labor Party leader Keir Starmer referred to the situation in the ruling Conservative — or Tory Party — as a “soap opera” and called for an urgent general election “so the public can make their minds up about this utter chaos.”

In a statement issued by the White House, U.S. President Joe Biden thanked Truss for her partnership “on a range of issues, including holding Russia accountable for its war against Ukraine.” He later reiterated that point to reporters as he left the White House and expressed confidence “the British are going to solve their problem.”

Truss succeeded Boris Johnson in September after he resigned following a series of scandals, including holding gatherings in violation of his government’s COVID-19 restrictions.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

Liz Truss said on Thursday she was resigning as British prime minister just six weeks after she was appointed. 

A leadership election will be completed within the next week to replace Truss, who is the shortest-serving prime minister in British history. George Canning previously held the record, serving 119 days in 1827 when he died. 

Given the divisions in the party there is no obvious candidate and any replacement would face a country likely heading into a recession. Leading names are below: 

Rishi Sunak 

Britain’s former finance minister was the most popular candidate among Conservative lawmakers at Westminster in a leadership contest earlier this year but, after getting through to a run-off against Truss, he lost out in a vote involving some 170,000 party members who made the final decision. 

Many members were angry when Sunak quit in July, helping to trigger a rebellion that eventually brought down former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. They also ignored his warning that markets could lose confidence in Britain if Truss delivered her unfunded tax cuts. 

Betting exchange Betfair puts Sunak as the favorite to replace Truss, but those lawmakers who remain loyal to Johnson would most probably oppose that move. 

Sunak is “certain to stand” for the leadership, according to the Telegraph. 

Penny Mordaunt 

A former defense secretary, Mordaunt was a passionate supporter of leaving the European Union who only just missed out on the final two-place run-off in the recent leadership challenge. 

Mordaunt won plaudits for her performance in parliament on Monday, when she defended the government even as it reversed most of its policies. 

One lawmaker has described Mordaunt as having “broad appeal,” referring to her ability to find friends in the various tribes of the party. 

Mordaunt is believed to be in the running to become the next prime minister, Sky News reported. 

Boris Johnson 

Former prime minister Johnson is expected to stand in the Conservative Party leadership contest, the Times reported. 

Johnson, once a journalist, has loomed large over British politics ever since he became London Mayor in 2008. After causing trouble for leaders such as David Cameron and Theresa May, he finally became prime minister in 2019 and went on to win a landslide election victory. 

Johnson was the face of the Brexit vote and won votes in parts of the country that had never voted Conservative before. But he was forced out by a string of scandals. 

Some closest to him say at the moment he is more interested in making money on the speech circuit than returning to frontline politics. 

Jeremy Hunt 

After Truss’s economic program collapsed and she fired her finance minister, she turned to Hunt, a former health and foreign minister, to put things right. 

A series of confident performances on television and in the House of Commons, as he ripped up Truss’s economic manifesto, have already led to some Conservative lawmakers referring to Hunt as the “real prime minister.” 

He has insisted he does not want the top job, despite entering two previous races to become prime minister, including in 2019 when he lost out in the final round to former prime minister Boris Johnson. Hunt does not have the obvious support of a large group of lawmakers in parliament. 

The BBC and other outlets said he was not considering running. 

Kemi Badenoch 

After losing out in the previous leadership contest, where she won support on the right wing of the Conservative party, Badenoch was appointed a cabinet minister by Truss. 

A source close to Badenoch said: “The Party must unite around a new leader who restores trust in politics and delivers good government for the British people. Kemi is in conversations with colleagues about how best to achieve this.” 

The trade secretary, born in London to Nigerian-origin parents, has said Britain has been falsely criticized as oppressive to minorities. She has also opposed gender-neutral toilets as causing a “significant disadvantage” to women. 

Suella Braverman 

Braverman, who resigned less than 24 hours ago as home secretary after criticizing Truss, is “widely expected to stand” to be the leader of the Conservatives, the Guardian reported, adding that an adviser to her declined to say if she plans to run. 

Braverman, born to parents of Indian origin, wants to reduce overall migration into Britain and has said the country has too many low-skilled migrant workers and very high numbers of international students. 

She previously served as a Brexit minister and has advocated for Britain pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights. She was also a leadership contender in the previous contest, winning the backing of prominent anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage. 

Braverman quit as interior minister on Wednesday, saying she had to go after she breached government rules but said in a critical resignation letter that she had concerns over the direction of Truss’s government.  

Ben Wallace 

Britain’s defense secretary is one of the few ministers to have emerged from recent political turmoil with his credibility enhanced. Wallace, a former soldier, was defense minister for both Johnson and Truss, leading Britain’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Popular with party members, he surprised many earlier this year when he said he wouldn’t run for the leadership, saying he wanted to focus on his current job. He told the Times newspaper this week that he still wanted to stay as defense secretary. 

 
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Liz Truss said on Thursday she was resigning as British prime minister just six weeks after she was appointed, brought down by an economic program that sent shockwaves through financial markets last month and divided her Conservative Party.

Speaking outside the door of her Number 10 Downing Street office, Truss accepted that she could not deliver the promises she made when she was running for Conservative leader, having lost the faith of her party.

A leadership election will be completed within the next week to replace Truss, who is the shortest serving prime minister in British history. George Canning previously held the record, serving 119 days in 1827 when he died.

“I recognize though, given the situation, I cannot deliver the mandate on which I was elected by the Conservative Party. I have therefore spoken to His Majesty the King to notify him that I am resigning as leader of the Conservative Party,” she said.

Earlier, Conservative Party officials had gathered at Downing Street while a growing number of her own lawmakers called on her to quit.

Appointed on Sept. 6, Truss was forced to sack her finance minister and closest political ally, Kwasi Kwarteng, and abandon almost all her economic program after their plans for vast unfunded tax cuts crashed the pound and British bonds. Approval ratings for her and her Conservative Party collapsed.

On Wednesday she lost the second of the government’s four most senior ministers, faced laughter as she tried to defend her record to parliament and saw her lawmakers openly quarrel over policy, deepening the sense of chaos at Westminster.

New finance minister Jeremy Hunt is now racing to find tens of billions of pounds of spending cuts to try to reassure investors and rebuild Britain’s fiscal reputation as the economy heads into recession and with inflation at a 40-year high.
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The European Union agreed Thursday to impose new sanctions on entities supplying Iranian drones to Russia that were used to strike Ukraine.

The Czech presidency of the European Union announced the agreement in a tweet Thursday, saying it came after three days of talks with EU ambassadors and would go into effect Thursday afternoon.

It said the EU was freezing assets of three individuals and one entity “responsible for drone deliveries.”

It added that the EU was also prepared to extend sanctions against four Iranian entities that were previously sanctioned.

Russian forces have intensified their use of airstrikes during the past week that Ukrainian officials have identified as utilizing Iranian-made drones laden with explosives that are crashed into their targets.

Iran has denied supplying the drones to Russia and Russia has denied using them in Ukraine. 
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Ukraine is restricting power use Thursday in response to Russian attacks that damaged parts of the country’s electrical infrastructure.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged people to conserve energy in an address late Wednesday.

He said the government was working to create “mobile power supply points for critical infrastructure in cities and villages.”

Ukraine’s power grid operator said supply restrictions would be in place from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m., and that as colder months approach, it may need to take such steps again in the future.

Drone controversy

Meanwhile, the U.N. Security Council met Wednesday in a private meeting at the request of the United States, Britain and France to discuss the issue of Russia using Iranian-made drones in its war in Ukraine.

Washington, London and Paris say Tehran’s supplying of these unmanned aerial vehicles to Russia is a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which allows for transfers of restricted items to or from Iran only when approved on a case-by-case basis by the Security Council. No such approval has been sought.

“We had a very clear indication that the drones have been delivered from Iran to Russia and they have been used in Ukraine,” France’s ambassador Nicolas de Riviere told reporters as he left the meeting. “This is a violation of Resolution 2231.”

“We anticipate this will be the first of many conversations at the U.N. on how to hold Iran and Russia accountable for failing to comply with U.N. Security Council-imposed obligations,” said Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.

“As was outlined during today’s meeting, there is ample evidence that Russia is using Iranian-made UAVs in cruel and deliberate attacks against the people of Ukraine, including against civilians and critical civilian infrastructure,” he added, “in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”

Ukrainian officials have said drones used in waves of attacks during the past week, including on the capital, Kyiv, were Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones that Russia used to carry explosives and crash into their targets.

Iran’s U.N. ambassador told reporters that his government categorically rejects the “unfounded and unsubstantiated claims,” which he said are part of a disinformation campaign against his government.

“It is disappointing to pursue their political agenda, these states are trying to launch a disinformation campaign against Iran and make misleading interpretation of the Security Council Resolution 2231 in order to wrongly establish a link between their baseless allegation against Iran with this resolution,” Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said.

Russia’s deputy U.N. envoy told reporters that the allegations are “baseless,” there have been no arms transfers in violation of the resolution and no Iranian drones were supplied to Russia for use in Ukraine.

“I would recommend that you do not underestimate the technological capabilities of the Russian drone industry,” Dmitry Polyanskiy said. “I can tell you we know what we do, and we know how to do it.”

Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that in the past week alone, more than 100 Iranian-made drones have slammed into power plants, sewage treatment plants, residential buildings, bridges and other targets in urban areas.

U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this article. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Cattle farmers in Botswana, one of Africa’s top beef exporters to the European Union, have welcomed renewed beef exports to Europe. The move follows a two-month ban that followed an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and the culling of thousands of cows.

Botswana officials on Monday said the August outbreak near the border with Zimbabwe has been brought under control, although a ban on cattle from the area remains in place.

Due to tough restrictions, beef exports to the European Union had been suspended because of the outbreak in August.

But farmers like Bathusi Letlhare said they are now relieved following Monday’s announcement of the partial lifting of the ban.

“It is a welcome development because the EU is one of the main markets for our beef,” Letlhare said. “They pay good prices, and this, in turn, benefits farmers a lot. It is always bad when we have an FMD outbreak and the market has to be closed.”

Letlhare added that the frequent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have had an adverse impact on the economy.

“I can say 80 percent of households have livestock, and when FMD breaks out and certain markets are closed, it becomes a big challenge to farmers,” Letlhare said. “Farmers cannot move cattle to markets, and there is no income to farmers, and the whole economy is affected.”

Letlhare felt the impact, too.

“I run a butchery, and for 10 days we were not selling beef,” Letlhare said. “And you can imagine the money we lost.”

Botswana’s acting director of veterinary services Kefentse Motshegwa said strict export requirements will be followed. This includes placing cattle in holdings approved for EU export for a period of 40 days before slaughter.

Beef exports will only be allowed from seven of the country’s 19 agricultural zones.

Andrew Seeletso of the Botswana National Beef Producers Union said although meat from other agricultural zones remained banned, the partial resumption of beef exports is welcome.

“It is better than nothing,” he said. “We are hoping that soon enough, the rest of the country will be allowed to sell beef for the EU market. But overall, we are very excited. It’s a good development, and we support it.”

In September, Botswana partially resumed the beef trade, including live cattle sales to neighboring countries, but there was no export to the EU.

The country enjoys duty- and quota-free access to the European market.
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