China’s plans to build a new embassy near the Tower of London have stalled following local opposition to what would be the biggest diplomatic compound in Britain.

The borough of Tower Hamlets, the local government council in London responsible for the area, blocked the project in February, citing concerns about the increased risk of terror attacks, protests and traffic in an area visited by millions of tourists each year.

Chinese authorities had until Thursday to appeal the decision to the U.K. government but did not, Tower Hamlets said.

“If the applicant wanted to appeal through the public inquiry procedure then they would have already needed to have given notice to us as the local planning authority,” Tower Hamlets said in a statement. “We haven’t received any such notification from the applicant.”

China’s plans called for comprehensive redevelopment of a 5.2-acre site that was home to the Royal Mint from 1811 to 1968, demolishing some of the existing buildings and restoring others. The new embassy compound would include some 57,000 square meters of floor space, including offices, a cultural exchange building and 225 apartments.

That’s about 18% bigger than the new U.S. Embassy in London, which opened in 2018 with 48,000 square meters of space.

While Tower Hamlets planning officials recommended authorizing the project, the borough council voted on Feb. 10 to refuse planning permission.

The Chinese Embassy in London called on the British government to intervene.

“It is the international obligation of the host country to provide facilitations and support for the construction of diplomatic premises,” the embassy in a statement. “We urge the U.K. side to fulfill its relevant international obligations.”

British authorities did not comment on the Chinese Embassy proposal, which in theory could come before the central government, where the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities oversees the planning system.

But the government said it takes its “obligations under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations extremely seriously and we will continue to do so,” and stressed that planning decisions are made by local councils, which give applicants the opportunity to appeal.

There is growing concern in the U.K. about Chinese investments in critical infrastructure, as well allegations that it has attempted to influence British politicians and university researchers.

The decision in February to block the embassy project came four months after a pro-democracy protester had to be rescued by police after he was dragged onto the grounds of the Chinese consulate in Manchester. After that incident, Britain’s foreign secretary summoned the Chinese ambassador’s deputy to his office and demanded an explanation.

The Tower Hamlets council said the proposed embassy compound would strain local police resources, increase road congestion and have a negative impact on the area surrounding Tower of London.

“The proposed embassy would result in adverse impacts on local tourism, due to concerns over the effect of potential protests, acts of terrorism and related security mitigation measures on the sensitive backdrop of nationally significant tourist attractions,” the council said in announcing its decision.
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Since Russia’s Wagner Group paramilitary forces moved to Belarus after their failed mutiny in July, that country’s three NATO neighbors – Poland, Lithuania and Latvia – have been building up their border defenses and preparing for a range of possible provocations. 

In the case of Lithuania, authorities are planning for contingencies including infiltration of hostile migrants, cross-border shootings and a repetition of recent Belarusian helicopter flights that crossed into Polish airspace. Plans are also underway to close some border crossings.

Rustamas Liubajevas, the commander of Lithuania’s State Border Guard Service, assessed the current threat and described the measures taken to improve his service’s readiness in an interview Friday with VOA Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze.

The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: Thank you very much, General, for this opportunity. So, what is the situation on the Polish-Lithuanian-Belarusian border? 

Rustamas Liubajevas, commander of the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania: I would probably say that the situation is stable, however very tense, because we can see that Belarus is actively participating in the aggression against Ukraine. And the security situation in our region is very tense also because of the presence of the Wagner Group in Belarus.

VOA: In response to Wagner presence in Belarus, Poland recently sent an additional 2,000 troops to the border. Lithuania is planning to do something as well in that regard.

Liubajevas: Absolutely right. We plan to increase border security in terms of deploying additional resources, human resources, technical equipment. The border is being now surveilled, while on high alert, because we still believe that there might be certain provocations at the border organized by [Belarusian President Alexander] Lukashenko’s regime together with the Kremlin regime, of course, also with participation of Wagner persons. Well, we also will increase our staff number at the border with Belarus.

VOA: There was a question of possibly closing the border. What is the status of that?

Liubajevas: Apparently, the decision will be taken to close down two of six border crossing points. But we’re talking about those at the border with Belarus used for cars to cross the border. I think it’s very important to be in very close contact with the partners like Poland, Latvia, also Estonia. And the decision will be taken together with the countries of the region.

VOA: Does it mean that other countries would close their border crossing as well with Belarus?

Liubajevas: At least, this was discussed on the highest level between the countries. There was an agreement to have additional consultations in case of provocations. We also have a border with the Russian Federation, as you might know. So this will be further discussed, and apparently an appropriate decision will be taken.

VOA: How close is your cooperation with other NATO countries in this regard?

Liubajevas: I would say very good cooperation, everyday contacts, exchange of information, exchange of intelligence as well. That proved to be a very, very good tool. And next week or one week later, we are also planning to have a trilateral meeting with Poland and Latvia on the level of border guard services in order to discuss further cooperation in case of provocations or aggregation of the security situation at the border.

VOA: You mentioned provocation. What kind of provocation are you expecting? 

Liubajevas: Well, we have identified a number of scenarios. For example, this might be a big group of migrants who might well act very aggressively and use weapons against border guards, infiltration of the smaller groups into Lithuania. Intentional border violations, like the one made just a couple of days ago at the border between Belarus and Poland, made by helicopter. So it might be persons, might be vehicles, it might be aircraft. So, also it might be shooting from the Belarusian territory at border guards on our side. We have identified courses of action for border guards — how they should act in that or another situation. We also plan to carry out, I would say, tactical exercises very soon together with our partners. 

VOA: How are you seeing Wagner mercenaries right now – as a threat?

Liubajevas: I would not overestimate the risks. We have to take a really good note of their presence, because they are a destabilization factor in the region. However, I would not overestimate the capacities and capabilities of the Wagner Group. And while I would not really expect open military aggression against an EU and NATO country, however, the risk of death and provocations, incidents at the border remains very high.

VOA: For a couple of years, your country, Poland, Estonia, other countries bordering Russia and Belarus have been experiencing this border crisis or border tension. How has the life of your unit changed since that started? And how much effort are you putting into changing and training new forces?

Liubajevas:  First of all, I have to say that the security system we have in our country proved to be very efficient, even taking into account those challenges of the last year starting from the pandemic, regular migration crisis, war in the neighborhood of Lithuania, and the security situation. We are much stronger than three and four years ago, from the technical perspective, because we have invested quite a lot of financial resources in order to strengthen our capacity and capabilities. And two or three years ago, we theoretically could speak about cooperation, and we had, well, some formal agreements, nice papers. But now we know that the system works. It works very good. And we are much stronger. 

VOA: And the last question, about Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine: How does it change the perspective and thinking in your country and other countries about the risks that Russia is posing to the region?

Liubajevas: Well, it has definitely changed, drastically, the mentality, changed the perception of the security situation by the public, as well as by the law enforcement community. From our perspective, speaking about border guards, we started to pay much more attention to the national security issues. In accordance with our national legislation, the State Border Guard Service became part of the national defense forces in case of military conflict, in case of aggression. So it’s a little bit challenging, but we really see now the high need of that work.
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IPVM, a U.S.-based security and surveillance industry research group, says the Chinese surveillance equipment maker Dahua is selling cameras with what it calls a “skin color analytics” feature in Europe, raising human rights concerns. 

In a report released on July 31, IPVM said “the company defended the analytics as being a ‘basic feature of a smart security solution.'” The report is behind a paywall, but IPVM provided a copy to VOA Mandarin. 

Dahua’s ICC Open Platform guide for “human body characteristics” includes “skin color/complexion,” according to the report. In what Dahua calls a “data dictionary,” the company says that the “skin color types” that Dahua analytic tools would target are ”yellow,” “black,” and ”white.”  VOA Mandarin verified this on Dahua’s Chinese website. 

The IPVM report also says that skin color detection is mentioned in the “Personnel Control” category, a feature Dahua touts as part of its Smart Office Park solution intended to provide security for large corporate campuses in China.  

Charles Rollet, co-author of the IPVM report, told VOA Mandarin by phone on August 1, “Basically what these video analytics do is that, if you turn them on, then the camera will automatically try and determine the skin color of whoever passes, whoever it captures in the video footage. 

“So that means the camera is going to be guessing or attempting to determine whether the person in front of it … has black, white or yellow — in their words — skin color,” he added.  

VOA Mandarin contacted Dahua for comment but did not receive a response. 

The IPVM report said that Dahua is selling cameras with the skin color analytics feature in three European nations. Each has a recent history of racial tension: Germany, France and the Netherlands.

‘Skin color is a basic feature’

Dahua said its skin tone analysis capability was an essential function in surveillance technology.  

 In a statement to IPVM, Dahua said, “The platform in question is entirely consistent with our commitments to not build solutions that target any single racial, ethnic, or national group. The ability to generally identify observable characteristics such as height, weight, hair and eye color, and general categories of skin color is a basic feature of a smart security solution.”  

IPMV said the company has previously denied offering the mentioned feature, and color detection is uncommon in mainstream surveillance tech products. 

In many Western nations, there has long been a controversy over errors due to skin color in surveillance technologies for facial recognition. Identifying skin color in surveillance applications raises human rights and civil rights concerns.  

“So it’s unusual to see it for skin color because it’s such a controversial and ethically fraught field,” Rollet said.  

Anna Bacciarelli, technology manager at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told VOA Mandarin that Dahua technology should not contain skin tone analytics.   

“All companies have a responsibility to respect human rights, and take steps to prevent or mitigate any human rights risks that may arise as a result of their actions,” she said in an email.

“Surveillance software with skin tone analytics poses a significant risk to the right to equality and non-discrimination, by allowing camera owners and operators to racially profile people at scale — likely without their knowledge, infringing privacy rights — and should simply not be created or sold in the first place.”  

Dahua denied that its surveillance products are designed to enable racial identification. On the website of its U.S. company, Dahua says, “contrary to allegations that have been made by certain media outlets, Dahua Technology has not and never will develop solutions targeting any specific ethnic group.” 

However, in February 2021, IPVM and the Los Angeles Times reported that Dahua provided a video surveillance system with “real-time Uyghur warnings” to the Chinese police that included eyebrow size, skin color and ethnicity.  

IPVM’s 2018 statistical report shows that since 2016, Dahua and another Chinese video surveillance company, Hikvision, have won contracts worth $1 billion from the government of China’s Xinjiang province, a center of Uyghur life. 

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission determined in 2022 that the products of Chinese technology companies such as Dahua and Hikvision, which has close ties to Beijing, posed a threat to U.S. national security. 

The FCC banned sales of these companies’ products in the U.S. “for the purpose of public safety, security of government facilities, physical security surveillance of critical infrastructure, and other national security purposes,” but not for other purposes.  

Before the U.S. sales bans, Hikvision and Dahua ranked first and second among global surveillance and access control firms, according to The China Project.  

‘No place in a liberal democracy’

On June 14, the European Union passed a revision proposal to its draft Artificial Intelligence Law, a precursor to completely banning the use of facial recognition systems in public places.  

“We know facial recognition for mass surveillance from China; this technology has no place in a liberal democracy,” Svenja Hahn, a German member of the European Parliament and Renew Europe Group, told Politico.  

Bacciarelli of HRW said in an email she “would seriously doubt such racial profiling technology is legal under EU data protection and other laws. The General Data Protection Regulation, a European Union regulation on Information privacy, limits the collection and processing of sensitive personal data, including personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin and biometric data, under Article 9. Companies need to make a valid, lawful case to process sensitive personal data before deployment.” 

“The current text of the draft EU AI Act bans intrusive and discriminatory biometric surveillance tech, including real-time biometric surveillance systems; biometric systems that use sensitive characteristics, including race and ethnicity data; and indiscriminate scraping of CCTV data to create facial recognition databases,” she said.  

In Western countries, companies are developing AI software for identifying race primarily as a marketing tool for selling to diverse consumer populations. 

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2020 that American cosmetics company Revlon had used recognition software from AI start-up Kairos to analyze how consumers of different ethnic groups use cosmetics, raising concerns among researchers that racial recognition could lead to discrimination.  

The U.S. government has long prohibited sectors such as healthcare and banking from discriminating against customers based on race. IBM, Google and Microsoft have restricted the provision of facial recognition services to law enforcement.  

Twenty-four states, counties and municipal governments in the U.S. have prohibited government agencies from using facial recognition surveillance technology. New York City, Baltimore, and Portland, Oregon, have even restricted the use of facial recognition in the private sector.  

Some civil rights activists have argued that racial identification technology is error-prone and could have adverse consequences for those being monitored. 

Rollet said, “If the camera is filming at night or if there are shadows, it can misclassify people.”  

Caitlin Chin is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank where she researches technology regulation in the United States and abroad. She emphasized that while Western technology companies mainly use facial recognition for business, Chinese technology companies are often happy to assist government agencies in monitoring the public.  

She told VOA Mandarin in an August 1 video call, “So this is something that’s both very dehumanizing but also very concerning from a human rights perspective, in part because if there are any errors in this technology that could lead to false arrests, it could lead to discrimination, but also because the ability to sort people by skin color on its own almost inevitably leads to people being discriminated against.”  

She also said that in general, especially when it comes to law enforcement and surveillance, people with darker skin have been disproportionately tracked and disproportionately surveilled, “so these Dahua cameras make it easier for people to do that by sorting people by skin color.”  
…

Despite U.S. efforts to curb migration, the flow of migrants at Mexico’s northern border continues. But it’s not just people from Central and South American nations. Veronica Villafane narrates this story by Vicente Calderon in Tijuana and Victor Hugo Castillo in Reynosa. Camera: Vicente Calderon and Victor Hugo Castillo.
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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

US Move Gives Hope to Stateless People Living in America

Geopolitical events such as war or the dissolution of a government, like the collapse of the Soviet Union, can leave people without a country. In the United States, more than 200,000 people are living in a stateless status. VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros has more. Camera: Adam Greenbaum. 

Ukrainians Move to North Dakota for Oil Field Jobs to Help Families Back Home

Maksym Bunchukov remembers hearing rockets explode in Zaporizhzhia as the war in Ukraine began. Now, about 18 months after the war broke out, Bunchukov is in North Dakota, like thousands of Ukrainians who came over a century ago. Story by The Associated Press.

Immigration around the world 

VOA in Photos: Migrants of African origin are crammed onboard a small boat as the Tunisian coast guard prepares to transfer them onto their vessel while at sea between Tunisia and Italy.

Boat Carrying Rohingya Migrants Capsizes in Bay of Bengal, Killing at Least 17

A boat carrying minority Rohingya migrants from Myanmar has capsized in the Bay of Bengal, leaving at least 17 people dead and about 30 missing, a rescue official said Thursday. The Associated Press reports.

VOA60 World — Doctors Without Borders Says 41 Migrants Are Dead and 4 Survived a Shipwreck Near Italy

Rescuers say the boat carried migrants from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

UK Moves Asylum-Seekers to Barge Off Southern England in Bid to Cut Costs

A small group of asylum-seekers has been moved onto a barge moored in southern England as the U.K. government tries to cut the cost of sheltering people seeking protection in the country, British news media reported Monday. The Associated Press reports.

Poland Says Belarus, Russia ‘Organizing’ New Migrant Influx

Poland’s government on Monday accused Belarus and Russia of orchestrating another migration influx into the European Union via the Polish border in order to destabilize the region. Reported by Agence France-Presse.

Dozens of Migrants Saved by Italy From Shipwrecks

Dozens of migrants were dramatically rescued by Italy as they foundered in the sea or clung to a rocky reef Sunday after three boats launched by smugglers from northern Africa shipwrecked in rough waters in separate incidents over the weekend. Survivors said some 30 fellow migrants were missing from capsized vessels. Reported by The Associated Press.

Health Conditions Deteriorate as More People Flee Sudan

U.N. agencies warn that health conditions are deteriorating in Sudan and neighboring countries as growing numbers of people flee escalating fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Lisa Schlein reports for VOA from Geneva.

Malawi Seeks Donations to Feed More Than 50,000 Refugees

Malawi is seeking donations to feed more than 50,000 refugees facing shortages at the country’s only refugee camp. Government officials said the camp’s food stock is expected to be depleted by December. The appeal comes after the World Food Program last month cut by half the food rations for the refugees because of funding problems. Reported by Lameck Masina.

Cameroon Government, Aid Groups Begin Emergency Food Distribution

Aid groups and the government of Cameroon say they distributed rice, millet and beans to at least 30,000 people this week along the central African state’s northern border with Chad and Nigeria. Refugee populations and host communities are among the recipients. Reported by Moki Edwin Kindzeka.

News in Brief

— The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced an update and modernization of the Cuban and Haitian family reunification parole processes. According to DHS, applicants will be able to complete most of the process online, “eliminating the burden of travel, time and paperwork and increasing access to participation. The process is still available on an invitation-only basis.”
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China, Iran and Russia are engaged in foreign interference in New Zealand, the nation’s domestic intelligence agency said Friday after making its threat assessment report public for the first time.

In the report, Director-General of Security Andrew Hampton said the Security Intelligence Service sees enormous value in sharing more of its insights publicly.

The agency had previously taken a secretive approach. It decided to change course after it and other agencies were criticized for focusing too much on the perceived threat from Islamic extremism and being blindsided when a white supremacist shot and killed 51 worshippers at two Christchurch mosques in 2019.

In the report, the agency says the most notable case of foreign interference is the continued targeting of the nation’s diverse Chinese communities by people with links to the intelligence arm of China’s ruling Communist Party.

It said China’s efforts to advance its political, economic and military involvement in the Pacific was driving strategic competition. The agency said it was aware and concerned about ongoing Chinese intelligence activity “in and against New Zealand.”

The report said Iran had been engaged in societal interference by monitoring and reporting on Iranian communities and dissident groups in New Zealand.

The agency linked Russia’s war in Ukraine to a number of problems, including increased geopolitical competition, supply chain disruptions, and efforts to spy on other countries and seed disinformation.

“Russia’s international disinformation campaigns have not targeted New Zealand specifically, but have had an impact on the views of some New Zealanders,” the report found.

Domestically, the agency found that violent extremism continued to pose a threat. The report said there were likely some people in New Zealand with the intent and capability to carry out domestic terror attacks, although the agency wasn’t aware of any specific or credible plans.

“We continue to see inflammatory language and violent abuse online targeting a wide variety of people from already marginalized communities,” the report found.

 
…

Several explosions were heard across Kyiv early Friday. Earlier, Mayor Vitali Klitschko had urged residents to go to air raid shelters and Ukrainian officials had issued a nationwide air raid alert.

Ukraine shot down a missile near a children’s hospital in the city Friday. Debris from the missile fell near the hospital in Kyiv, but there were no reported injuries.

Meanwhile, the airspace over two Russian airports – Vnukovo and Kalugo – was temporarily closed Friday due to drone flights. The airports have since reopened.

In its daily intelligence report Friday about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the British Defense Ministry said there is a “realistic possibility” that a “small number” of Wagner Group advisers will be present when Belarussian troops conduct an exercise in the Grodno area of northwestern Belarus, near the Polish and Lithuanian borders, according to the British Defense Ministry.

The British ministry said that Wagner advisers would likely act as trainers in the Belarus exercise. It also noted that the Belarussian Defense Ministry said the exercise in the Grodno area is “intended to incorporate lessons learnt by the Russian military in Ukraine.”

“Russia is almost certainly keen to promote Belarusian forces as posturing against NATO,” the British ministry said. However, it is unlikely that the Belarussian forces will be deployed to Grodno “with the enablers it would need to make it combat-ready.”

On Thursday, a Russian missile hit a hotel United Nations staff members often used in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, leaving one person dead and 16 wounded, Ukrainian officials said.  

“Zaporizhzhia. The city suffers daily from Russian shelling. A fire broke out in a civilian building after the occupiers hit it with a missile,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

U.N. staff reportedly stayed at the Reikartz Hotel when they worked in the city, Denise Brown, the humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, told Reuters.

“I am appalled by the news that a hotel frequently used by United Nations personnel and our colleagues from NGOs supporting people affected by the war has been hit by a Russian strike in Zaporizhzhia shortly ago,” she said in an email. “I have stayed in this hotel every single time I visited Zaporizhzhia.”

Among the 16 injured in the strike, four were children. It was the second strike on Zaporizhzhia in two days.

Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia has also become a focal point of the war because it is the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, the plant lost connection to its last remaining external line and was switched to a reserve line, state-owned power generating company Energoatom said Thursday.

“Such a regime is difficult for the reactor plant, its duration is limited by the project’s design, and it can result in failure of the main equipment of the energy unit,” Energoatom said on Telegram.

A blackout at the power plant is looming, Energoatom added.

Later Thursday, Ukraine’s navy said a new temporary “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea had started working. The first ships are expected to use it within days, the navy said.

The corridor will be for commercial ships blocked at Ukraine’s Black Sea ports and for grain and agricultural products, Oleh Chalyk, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian navy, told Reuters.

Despite the opening of the corridor, the risk posed by mines in the Black Sea, coupled with the military threat from Russia, persisted.

Russia’s decision to back out of the Black Sea grain deal was predicted to feature prominently this past weekend at Saudi Arabia-hosted peace talks about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said the talks were a “breakthrough” for Kyiv.

“If a country wants to be in the front seat of world politics, it has to become part of these coordination meetings,” Dmytro Kuleba said in a Thursday interview with Reuters.

“We are fully satisfied with the dynamics of this process,” he said. “I believe the meeting in Jeddah was a breakthrough because for the first time, we brought together countries representing [the] entire world, not only Europe and North America.”

In the days leading up to the talks, it was unclear whether China would participate. But officials from China, and more than 40 countries in total, ended up participating.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
…

The U.S. and its European allies are importing vast amounts of nuclear fuel and compounds from Russia, providing Moscow with hundreds of millions of dollars in badly needed revenue as it wages war on Ukraine.

The sales, which are legal and unsanctioned, have raised alarms from nonproliferation experts and elected officials who say the imports are helping to bankroll the development of Moscow’s nuclear arsenal and are complicating efforts to curtail Russia’s war-making abilities.

The dependence on Russian nuclear products — used mostly to fuel civilian reactors — leaves the U.S. and its allies open to energy shortages if Russian President Vladimir Putin were to cut off supplies. The challenge is likely to grow more intense as those nations seek to boost production of emissions-free electricity to combat climate change.

“We have to give money to the people who make weapons? That’s absurd,” said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Washington-based Nonproliferation Policy Education Center. “If there isn’t a clear rule that prevents nuclear power providers from importing fuel from Russia — and it’s cheaper to get it from there — why wouldn’t they do it?”

Russia sold about $1.7 billion in nuclear products to firms in the U.S. and Europe, according to trade data and experts. The purchases occurred as the West has leveled stiff sanctions on Moscow over its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, blocking imports of such Russian staples as oil, gas, vodka and caviar.

The West has been reluctant to target Russia’s nuclear exports, however, because they play key roles in keeping reactors humming. Russia supplied the U.S. nuclear industry with about 12% of its uranium last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Europe reported getting about 17% of its uranium in 2022 from Russia.

Reliance on nuclear power is expected to grow as nations embrace alternatives to fossil fuels. Nuclear power plants produce no emissions, though experts warn that nuclear energy comes with the risk of reactor meltdowns and the challenge of how to safely store radioactive waste. There are about 60 reactors under construction around the world — 300 more are in the planning stages.

Many of the 30 countries generating nuclear energy in some 440 plants are importing radioactive materials from Russia’s state-owned energy corporation Rosatom and its subsidiaries. Rosatom leads the world in uranium enrichment, and it is ranked third in uranium production and fuel fabrication, according to its 2022 annual report.

Rosatom, which says it is building 33 new reactors in 10 counties, and its subsidiaries exported around $2.2 billion worth of nuclear energy-related goods and materials last year, according to trade data analyzed by the Royal United Service Institute, a London think tank. The institute said that figure is likely much larger because it is difficult to track such exports.

Rosatom CEO Alexei Likhachyov told the Russian newspaper Izvestia the company’s foreign business should total $200 billion over the next decade. That lucrative civilian business provides critical funds for Rosatom’s other major responsibility: designing and producing Russia’s atomic arsenal, experts say.

Ukrainian officials have pleaded with world leaders to sanction Rosatom to cut off one of Moscow’s last significant funding streams and to punish Putin for launching the invasion.

Nuclear energy advocates say the U.S. and some European countries would face difficulty in cutting off imports of Russian nuclear products. The U.S. nuclear energy industry, which largely outsources its fuel, produces about 20% of U.S. electricity.

The reasons for reliance on Russia go back decades. The U.S. uranium industry took a beating following a 1993 nonproliferation deal that resulted in the importation of inexpensive weapons-grade uranium from Russia, experts say. The downturn accelerated after a worldwide drop in demand for nuclear fuel following the 2011 meltdown of three reactors at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

American nuclear plants purchased 5% of their uranium from domestic suppliers in 2021, the last year for which official U.S. production data are available, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The largest source of uranium for such plants was Kazakhstan, which contributed about 35% of the supply. A close Russian ally, Kazakhstan is the world’s largest producer of uranium.

Europe is in a bind largely because it has 19 Russian-designed reactors in five countries that are fully dependent on Russian nuclear fuel. France also has a long history of relying on Russian-enriched uranium. In a report published in March, Greenpeace, citing the United Nations’ Comtrade database, showed that French imports of enriched uranium from Russia increased from 110 tons in 2021 to 312 tons in 2022.

Some European nations are taking steps to wean themselves off Russian uranium. Early in the Ukraine conflict, Sweden refused to purchase Russian nuclear fuel. Finland, which relies on Russian power at two out of its five reactors, scrapped a trouble-ridden deal with Rosatom to build a new nuclear power plant.

Despite the challenges, experts believe political pressure and questions about Russia’s ability to cut off supplies will eventually spur much of Europe to abandon Rosatom.

“Based on apparent prospects [of diversification of fuel supplies], it would be fair to say that Rosatom has lost the European market,” said Vladimir Slivyak, co-chair of the Russian environmental group Ecodefense.
…

The Biden administration on Thursday asked Congress to provide more than $13 billion in emergency defense aid to Ukraine and an additional $8 billion for humanitarian support through the end of the year, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces.

The request also includes $12 billion to replenish U.S. federal disaster funds at home after a deadly climate season of heat and storms, and funds to bolster enforcement at the border with Mexico, including money to curb the flow of deadly fentanyl. All told, it’s a $40 billion package.

While the last such request from the White House for Ukraine funding was easily approved in 2022, there’s a different dynamic this time.

A political divide on the issue has grown, with the Republican-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader, Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. And American support for the effort has been slowly softening.

White House budget director Shalanda Young, in a letter to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, urged swift action to follow through on the U.S. “commitment to the Ukrainian people’s defense of their homeland and to democracy around the world,” as well as other needs.

The request was crafted with an eye to picking up support from Republicans, as well as Democrats, particularly with increased domestic funding around border issues — a top priority for the Republican Party, which has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s approach to halting the flow of migrants crossing from Mexico.

Still, the price tag of $40 billion may be too much for Republicans who are fighting to slash, not raise, federal outlays. As a supplemental request, the package the White House is sending to Congress falls outside the budget caps both parties agreed to as part of the debt ceiling showdown earlier this year.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a statement that there was strong bipartisan support in the U.S. Senate.

“The latest request from the Biden administration shows America’s continued commitment to helping Americans here at home and our friends abroad,” he said. “We hope to join with our Republican colleagues this fall to avert an unnecessary government shutdown and fund this critical emergency supplemental request.”

President Joe Biden and his senior national security team have repeatedly said the United States will help Ukraine “as long as it takes” to oust Russia from its borders. Privately, administration officials have warned Ukrainian officials there is a limit to the patience of a narrowly divided Congress — and American public — for the costs of a war with no clear end.

“For people who might be concerned the costs are getting too high, we’d ask them what the costs — not just in treasure but in blood, perhaps even American blood — could be if Putin subjugates Ukraine,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said this week.

Support among the American public for providing Ukraine weaponry and direct economic assistance has waned with time. An AP-NORC poll conducted in January 2023 around the one-year mark of the conflict found that 48% favored the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, down from the 60% of U.S. adults who were in favor of sending weapons in May 2022. While Democrats have generally been more supportive than Republicans of offering weaponry, their support dropped slightly from 71% to 63% in the same period. Republicans’ support dropped more, from 53% to 39%.

Dozens of Republicans in the House and some GOP senators have expressed reservations, and even voted against, spending more federal dollars for the war effort. Many of those Republicans are aligning with Trump’s objections to the U.S. involvement overseas.

That means any final vote on Ukraine aid will likely need to rely on a hefty coalition led by Democrats from Biden’s party to ensure approval.

The funding includes another $10 billion to counter Russian and Chinese influence elsewhere by bolstering the World Bank and providing aid to resist Russian-aligned Wagner Group forces in Africa.

Domestically, there’s an additional $60 million to address increased wildfires that have erupted nationwide. And the request includes $2.2 billion for Southern border management and $766 million to curb the flow of fentanyl. There is also $100 million earmarked for the Labor Department to ramp up investigations of suspected child labor violations.

To ease passage, Congress would likely try to attach the package to a must-pass measure for broader government funding in the United States that’s needed by October 1 to prevent any shutdown in federal offices.

Members of Congress have repeatedly pressed Defense Department leaders on how closely the U.S. is tracking its aid to Ukraine to ensure that it is not subject to fraud or ending up in the wrong hands. The Pentagon has said it has a “robust program” to track the aid as it crosses the border into Ukraine and to keep tabs on it once it is there, depending on the sensitivity of each weapons system.

Ukraine is pushing through with its ongoing counteroffensive in an effort to dislodge the Kremlin’s forces from territory they’ve occupied since a full-scale invasion in February 2022. The counteroffensive has come up against heavily mined terrain and reinforced defensive fortifications.

The U.S. has approved four rounds of aid to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion, totaling about $113 billion, with some of that money going toward replenishment of U.S. military equipment that was sent to the front lines. Congress approved the latest round of aid in December, totaling roughly $45 billion for Ukraine and NATO allies. While the package was designed to last through the end of the fiscal year in September, much depends upon events on the ground.

“We remain confident that we’ll be able to continue to support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Pat Ryder.

There were questions in November about waning Republican support to approve the package, but it ultimately passed. Now, though, House Speaker McCarthy is facing pressure to impeach Biden over unproven claims of financial misconduct and it’s not clear whether a quick show of support for Ukraine could cause political damage in what’s expected to be a bruising 2024 reelection campaign.

Trump contends that American involvement has only drawn Russia closer to other adversarial states like China, and he has condemned the tens of billions of dollars that the United States has provided in aid for Ukraine.
…

A new generation of stars has emerged at the Women’s World Cup.

While the likes of Brazil’s Marta, Canada’s Christine Sinclair and America’s Megan Rapinoe have played in the tournament for the last time, there is a rich flow of talent coming through to take their places.

“We are on the cusp, and what a special moment to be able to sit in a stadium and watch a superstar like Marta and watch her final matches for her national team at a World Cup and watch an up-and-comer like Lauren James,” FIFA’s head of women’s football, Sarai Bareman, told The Associated Press. “Those young athletes that are coming through now, they’re picking up the challenge from those senior players.”

England forward James and Colombia star Linda Caicedo have been among the brightest talents in the tournament so far.

South Korea’s Casey Phair, meanwhile, made history by becoming the youngest person to play at a World Cup when she went on against Colombia in the group stage, aged 16 years and 26 days. While she only had a cameo role at this tournament, she is a name to watch in the future.

The AP takes a look at the rising stars of the World Cup:

Lauren James (England)

It has been a tournament of highs and lows for Chelsea star James.

Having been tipped to be the Lionesses’ breakout star at the World Cup, she started on the bench for their opening game against Haiti.

She started the following game against Denmark and scored within six minutes to earn England a 1-0 win.

James wasn’t finished yet. She scored two stunning goals and assisted on three others in a 6-1 win against China. Her side-footed volley was one of the goals of the tournament so far, and she was denied a hat trick only when a potential wonder goal was ruled out on video assisted referee review for offside.

But the 21-year-old forward was sent off in England’s round-of-16 game after receiving a red card for standing on Nigeria defender Michelle Alozie. She will miss the quarterfinals because of a mandatory minimum one-game ban. The suspension could also be extended after a review by a FIFA disciplinary committee.

Linda Caicedo (Colombia)

Caicedo has lit up the tournament with her dazzling footwork and goals.

Her big moment came in her country’s 2-1 win against Germany in the group stages when beating two players in the box and curling a shot into the top corner.

Caicedo’s performances have helped her team advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup for the first time, with Colombia being the only team from the Americas left in the tournament.

But there have also been concerns around the health of the 18-year-old Real Madrid forward.

Caicedo, who recovered after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 15, has shown signs of serious fatigue and exhaustion at times during the tournament. She was seen holding her chest and then dropping to the ground during a practice session. In a group game against Germany, she dropped to her knees behind play before lying face down on the grass as team medical staff went to her aid.

Precautionary medical tests came back clear, and there were no obvious signs of problems in her following two games against Morocco and Jamaica.

A child sensation who made her senior debut at 14, Caicedo has lived up to her billing as one of the brightest prospects in soccer at this World Cup and will pose a big attacking threat to England in the quarterfinals.

Mary Fowler (Australia)

In the absence of star striker Sam Kerr for most of the tournament so far, Australia has had to look to others for inspiration.

Step forward, Manchester City striker Fowler, who has grown into the World Cup and produced arguably her best performance of the competition in Australia’s 2-0 win over Denmark to advance to the quarterfinals.

Fowler’s perfectly weighted pass set up Caitlin Foord’s opening goal in the game in Sydney. She was involved again as Hayley Raso scored in the second half.

The 20-year-old Fowler was on target herself in Australia’s 4-0 win over Olympic champion Canada in its final group game.

“I think Mary has been class this whole tournament. When she’s on the ball she’s going to create or get a shot off or score a goal,” Foord said.

It is not clear how much of a role Fowler will play once Kerr fully recovers from a calf injury she sustained on the eve of the World Cup, but it will be difficult for Australia coach Tony Gustavsson to bench her.

Sophia Smith (United States)

It all started so well for Smith, who is part of a new generation of American stars.

She scored twice in the United States’ opening 3-0 win over Vietnam but struggled along with her teammates after that.

Smith didn’t score again in the tournament as the back-to-back defending champions were eliminated in the round of 16 on penalty kicks against Sweden. To make matters worse, she missed her spot kick in the shootout and was in tears as the Americans made an early exit.

The 22-year-old Smith can still return to her peak despite failing to live up to expectations placed on her heading into the tournament.

The fact that U.S. coach Vlatko Andonovski kept Smith on for the entire knockout match against Sweden, while substituting Alex Morgan in extra time, was evidence that she is part of the future for the country.

Melchie Dumornay (Haiti)

Dumornay was a near-constant threat to England in Haiti’s opening game on debut at the World Cup.

While Haiti lost 1-0 after a twice-taken Georgia Stanway penalty, the 19-year-old Dumornay repeatedly had the Lionesses on the back foot.

Haiti, ranked 53rd by FIFA, was eliminated after finishing bottom of Group D. It lost all three of its games and was one of only two teams not to score in the tournament, along with Vietnam.

But Dumornay, who will play for European powerhouse Lyon next season, appears to be a star in the making.
…

A journalist who reports on disinformation for the British broadcaster BBC has spoken out about the level of online harassment she endures over her work.

Marianna Spring, who hosts the podcast “Marianna in Conspiracyland,” said that 80% of the online hate directed at BBC journalists targets her specifically.

The public broadcaster uses software that flags messages containing threats or online violence. Of 14,488 items, 11,771 were directed at Spring.

Speaking about the level of harassment, Spring told The Times of London, “It’s really normal to hate me.” She added that she felt “relieved” when she saw the data because the numbers supported what she was experiencing, proving that she was “not going mad.”

Spring’s experiences reflect a global trend of trolling and online abuse directed at female journalists.

A 2021 study by UNESCO and the International Center for Journalists found that gender is a big factor, with women the target of more online violence and sexual harassment.

The study found that 73% of those surveyed had experienced “online harassment in the course of their work” and many described receiving messages containing threats of sexual violence, bigotry and intimidation against family.

Others who report on or investigate disinformation campaigns have also experienced online hate.

Yaqiu Wang, a senior China researcher for Human Rights Watch, said she has seen an environment of hostility against women on social media.

Wang, an expert on digital censorship and disinformation in China, said she too has been a victim of online hate.

The harassment takes a toll, she told VOA on Tuesday, even when you know the posts are likely generated by a bot.

“Everybody gets affected. I don’t read those comments, [but] knowing there are 100 people writing nasty comments under my tweets, you wonder, ‘Why are people so vicious? Why are people not nice and why do people do that?’ ”

Studies have found that gender-based online violence is a global issue, with female journalists targeted with smear campaigns and online attacks.

An earlier UNESCO study found that the attacks are worse when combined with misogyny and other discrimination, such as racism.

In some cases, online attacks escalate to physical threats, with female journalists the victim of stalking and physical assault or legal harassment.

In countries like Mexico, where journalists are at higher risk of physical violence, the level of online threats is a worry, say analysts.

Online attacks leveled at male and female journalists is common in Mexico, but analysts have long said there is a noticeable difference. When it comes to the digital sphere, threats are more commonly directed at female journalists, studies by Article 19 and other groups have shown. 

Such harassment can take a toll on mental health too, research shows.

But British journalist Spring said that though a lot of people face “awful online abuse,” the attacks directed at her will not distract from her work. 
…

Paris has recently been shivering under the kind of summer for which it was once infamous — before climate change entered mainstream lexicon and thinking. As temperatures soared in parts of southern Europe, rain has lashed the French capital, sending tourists and locals scrambling for umbrellas and thick sweaters.

It’s certain to be a short-term reprieve. By 2050, one recent study said, Paris could have the highest number of heat wave-related deaths of any European capital, with temperatures possibly hitting a scorching 50 degrees Celsius.

“We have to maintain the beauty of Paris, while also finding new tools, new materials to adapt Paris against the heat waves,” said Paris City Councilor Maud Lelievre, who authored a recently released report, Paris at 50C, that calls for dramatically adapting the metropolis to a future of sizzling summers.

“A catastrophic situation,” she added, “could be a city where only the poor and old people stay, without any solutions.”

Paris is hardly alone. A series of alarming climate reports are sending municipal planners worldwide back to the drawing board. That is especially so in Europe, the world’s fastest-warming continent, which endured its hottest summer and second-hottest year in 2022.

Recent weeks alone saw near-record-breaking temperatures in parts of Italy, Spain and Greece. Worldwide, last month was likely the hottest on record, according to the European Union-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service and the World Meteorological Organization.

Even before this latest bout of hot weather, many EU cities had drafted action plans to adapt. More than 100 of them, including Paris, have vowed to become climate neutral by 2030. But turning plans into action is another matter.

“We have approximately 80,000 cities and towns in Europe, and all of them are still lagging behind in regard of the necessity to adapt to a changing climate,” said Holger Robrecht, the Europe region’s deputy regional director of ECLEI, Local Governments for Sustainability, a global network of local and regional governments.

“We don’t have any city in the European region that at this moment is 100% climate resilient,” he added.

Still, Robrecht and other climate experts praise Paris, under leftist Mayor Anne Hidalgo, for strides in greening the city. Recent changes include expanded tramway and metro lines, a raft of pedestrian-only zones and 130 kilometers of bike lanes, with another 50 kilometers expected to be added by next July.

Paris also plans to make next summer’s Olympic Games the most eco-friendly in history, with promises to slash carbon emissions by half compared with those of previous games in London and Rio de Janeiro.

A much more drastic overhaul is needed, experts say, to make the city livable in the years to come. Some draw parallels to the kind of urban revolution nearly two centuries ago under Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, which demolished a tangle of medieval neighborhoods to build elegant avenues that crisscross much of the city today.

City of Lights, and green

“In the next 20 years, we need to adapt all the streets around us with trees and with vegetation to create green corridors,” Lelievre said, adding, “We could have a real green city like Singapore — and also a light city.”

Today, however, the very architecture that makes Paris iconic also makes it a heat trap. The city is densely populated, short on large parks like London has, and despite Haussmann, still has many narrow streets with few if any trees.

Despite Hidalgo’s drive to green the capital, some recent urban renewal plans, including those inherited from her predecessor, favor heat-absorbing concrete over grass and plants. The city’s famous zinc rooftops, candidates for UNESCO World Heritage status, could make top-floor apartments unbearably hot in future summers, if unaltered.

“During a lot of years, we had no idea it was an obligation to adapt cities and especially Paris against heat waves,” Lelievre said, adding, ”We had emergency plans for the winter, but not for summer.”

Adopted unanimously earlier this year, the City Council’s plan sees widening green oases of air corridors and plants now being built in front of schools to all city neighborhoods; reopening fountains and renewing thousands of apartments; and replacing zinc roofs and other surfaces with lighter-colored materials that are more suited for hotter climates.

Some proposals, like creating rooftop terraces with plants and water catchment systems, have already been proposed by Hidalgo. Key to the latest plan — which doesn’t include a price tag — is loosening up strict French building codes. Paris lawmakers hope parts of the plan will be integrated into upcoming urban renewal and biodiversity legislation.

2003 memories 

Other European cities are also getting climate revamps.

Copenhagen, vulnerable to sea-level rise, has rolled out an ambitious flood adaptation management plan after being hit by record-breaking rainfall in 2011.

Barcelona’s climate plan aims to increase solar power and green spaces, sometimes by revamping whole neighborhoods.

Many cities have not forgotten the punishing heat wave of 2003, when an estimated 70,000 people died in Europe, including 15,000 in France. But recent findings also show as many as 60,000 people died in Europe’s 2022 heat wave, suggesting much more needs to be done.

“Cities want to get prepared” for climate change, said ECLEI’s Holger, “but it’s not always reflected in daily decision-making — which may turn a green space into a parking lot, or fell a tree that’s 80 years old and gives shade to its citizens.”

Still, he remains optimistic. “We are still in the early years of our response,” Holger said. 
…

Paris’ escape from record temperatures gripping parts of Europe this summer could be a short-term reprieve. A study finds the city could have the most heatwave-related deaths of any European capital by 2050 — when temperatures may soar to 50 C (122 F). For VOA, Lisa Bryant has more from Paris.
…

Wednesday marks three years since the contested elections in Belarus that resulted in a widescale crackdown on dissent and opposition voices.

When longtime leader Alexander Lukashenko claimed victory in a presidential election in which members of the opposition were jailed or threatened, mass protests broke out across the country.

Security forces responded with violence and mass arrests of journalists, protesters and others, with large numbers of opposition voices still being detained or silenced, according to international rights organizations.

“Three years after the start of mass pro-democracy protests in Belarus, there is no end in sight to the horrendous crackdown on free media and journalists in the country,” said International Press Institute deputy director Scott Griffen in a statement. “The Lukashenko regime is determined to silence any independent reporting in the country as part of its effort to cling to power.”

Belarus ranks as the worst jailer of journalists in Europe, with 35 journalists and media workers imprisoned as of August 2022, including some who had contributed to VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.

The media arrests are part of a sweeping number of detentions with nearly 1,500 people currently detained, according to the Belarusian rights group Viasna.

The Belarus Foreign Ministry did not respond to VOA’s email requesting comment.

Following the presidential election, Minsk banned most if not all independent news outlets and branded them “extremist.” Most independent journalists have either fled the country to continue working from exile — or stopped reporting altogether.

The government has even targeted journalists at media outlets that have not taken an overly critical stance against the Lukashenko administration, according to media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF.  

Yulia Davletova, a journalist who had worked for the local TV channel Ranak, surrendered to the police outside her apartment on August 3.

Ranak had never directly contradicted the government, says RSF. But after covering an industrial accident in June, the media outlet was labeled “extremist” and forced to close.

Davletova was forced to record a video repenting for her “errors” before being released from custody later that same day.

In response to the targeting of state and non-critical reporters, RSF’s Jeanne Cavelier said in a statement that as Belarus “continues to step up its censorship, it is now carrying out a purge within its own media of those who fall under the slightest suspicion of a lack of loyalty.”

RSF ranks Belarus as 157 out of 180 on its press freedom index, where 1 shows the best media environment.

On July 1, Lukashenko — in power since 1994 — signed a new law that permits authorities to expel foreign outlets from countries that Minsk deems “unfriendly.” Just days later, Justyna Prus, the Minsk correspondent for Poland’s national press agency PAP, was forced to leave the country.

“If we fail to protect Belarusian writers and artists, including those in exile, we will jeopardize the last brave and independent voices from Belarus and as a result, the battle for freedoms and democracy in the region,” Polina Sadovskaya, free expression group PEN America’s Eurasia and advocacy director, said in a statement.

Media and civil rights groups have called for global solidarity with Belarusian news outlets, with the IPI’s Griffen saying the international community must ensure “the proper support and conditions for journalists in exile, keeping the foundations for journalism in a future democratic Belarus alive.”
…

The United States is providing up to $200 million in additional military aid for Ukraine, two U.S. officials told VOA, in a package that is expected to include more rockets for HIMARS and more munitions for Patriot surface-to-air missile defense systems.

The officials, who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity ahead of the expected release of the package later this week, said the aid also includes mine clearing equipment and anti-tank weapons such as TOW missiles and shoulder-fired AT4s.

The latest aid package will mark the 44th authorized presidential drawdown of military equipment from Defense Department inventories since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.  

Moscow began a renewed offensive in Ukraine earlier this year that has stalled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has characterized the current counteroffensive against Russian forces as slow but steady, as Ukrainian forces have inserted reserve troops and broken through some elements of Russian forces’ southeastern defensive lines in recent days.
…

A dam partially burst on Wednesday following days of heavy rain that triggered landslides and flooding in mountainous southern Norway, a police official said. Communities downstream already had been evacuated.

The Glomma, Norway’s longest and most voluminous river, is dammed at the Braskereidfoss hydroelectric power plant, which was under water and out of operation.

Authorities initially considered blowing up part of the dam to prevent communities from getting deluged. But the idea was scrapped since water later broke through the dam, police spokesman Fredrik Thomson told reporters.

“We hope that we will get a gradual leveling of the water and that we will get an even leveling,” he said.

Huge volumes of water were pouring over the western parts of the dam, Thomson said.

“The water has gradually begun to seep through the side of the dam, and as of now it is not appropriate to take any measures at the power plant,” Thomson said, adding that the situation is being assessed continuously.

At least 1,000 people live in communities close to the river in the area, and authorities said that all had been evacuated before the dam partially burst.

Hatches in the hydroelectric power plant failed to open automatically as they are supposed to when there is more water in the dam, according to Alexandra Bech Gjorv, chair of the board at operator Hafslund Eco. The reasons for the failure are unknown, she said.

Separately, a Norwegian woman in her 70s died early Wednesday after falling into a stream the day before. She managed to crawl up onto the banks, but because of the floods, it took several hours before rescue teams could take her to the hospital, where she died, police said.

Police in southern Norway said more than 600 people were evacuated in a region north of Oslo overnight and said the situation there was “unclear and chaotic.” The Norwegian Public Roads Administration said Wednesday that all main roads between Oslo and Trondheim, Norway’s third-largest city, were closed.

“We are in a crisis situation of national dimensions,” Innlandet country Mayor Aud Hove said. “People are isolated in several local communities, and the emergency services risk not being able to reach people who need help.”

Storm Hans has battered parts of Scandinavia and the Baltics for several days, causing rivers to overflow, damaging roads and injuring people with falling branches.

More heavy rain was expected over southern Norway and central Sweden Wednesday, as sheds, small houses and mobile homes floated in rivers or were carried away by strong currents.

Norwegian meteorologists said that up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) of rain could be expected by Wednesday evening, saying “the quantities are not extreme, but given the conditions in the area, the consequences may be.”

In Goteborg, Sweden’s second-largest city, large parts of the harbor were under water.

The meteorological institutes for both countries issued extreme weather warnings Wednesday.

“This is a very serious situation that can lead to extensive consequences and damage,” the Norwegian Meteorological Institute said. Its Swedish counterpart issued a red warning for the west coast, saying “very large amounts of rain causing extremely high flows in streams” could be expected. 

Erik Hojgard-Olsen, a meteorologist with the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute, was quoted as saying by the Aftonbladet newspaper that the weather was unusual for this time of year.

“It is exceptional to have such a low pressure (system) as Hans, which has brought so much rain for several days in a row,” he said. “Especially for being a summer month, it has lasted a long time.”

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate upgraded its warning for floods and landslides from orange to red for parts of southern Norway. The directorate said record-high flood levels were recorded in several places in the Drammensvassdraget, a drainage basin west of Oslo, the capital.

Erik Holmqvist, a senior engineer at the agency, said four lakes, including the Randsfjorden, the fourth-largest in Norway, were particularly vulnerable to flooding.

“We have to go all the way back to 1910 to get the same forecasts for the Randsfjorden,” Holmqvist told the VG newspaper.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store visited the affected areas of southern Norway. “When the rain stops, another challenge begins: the water needs to get out,” he said.
…

At a youth forum near the Moscow region last week , Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed that Western media take orders and “professionally prepared falsehoods” from intelligence services.

Aside from the remarks being false, Peskov’s comments are an example of what is known as an “accusation in a mirror” where an aggressor accuses others of taking the actions it instead is taking.

In his remarks, Peskov said that the West has “a lot of talented journalists,” but “since they unleashed this war against us, they absolutely live in a state of military censorship.”

Yet media analysts have documented how it is Russia, not Western governments, that has imposed laws and restrictions, along with a widespread disinformation campaign, as part of its war effort.

And unlike the West — where media are independent and have structures and policies in place to prevent undue political or business influence — independent journalism in Russia has been largely stamped out, data from media watchdogs show.

The country currently ranks 164 out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index, where 1 shows the best environment for media.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, or RSF, which compiles the index, says that since the war “almost all independent media [in Russia] have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents’ or ‘undesirable organizations.’ All others are subject to military censorship.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, ranks at 79 out of 180 countries on the index, with RSF saying that Russia’s war there “threatens the survival of the Ukrainian media” and that the country is “at the frontline of resistance against the expansion of the Kremlin’s propaganda system.”

Years of attacks

Even before the war, independent media in Russia faced harassment, attacks and legal challenges from the state.

Dozens of media outlets and journalists in recent years have been forced to register as “foreign agents,” a designation that forces them to mark all content and social media posts — even personal ones — with a lengthy disclaimer.

Daniel Salaru, a contributor to the Vienna-based International Press Institute, described the foreign agent law as a “key tool for repressing independent media.”

And the European Court of Human Rights in 2022 ruled that the legislation had violated the rights of the groups designated as such.

Investigative journalists in Russia who took on sensitive issues or looked into official corruption have long been targeted with threats, attacks or even killings.

War heightened acrimony

The hostile environment only ramped up when Russian invaded Ukraine. Now, reporting on anything that the Kremlin deems to be false information about the war or the armed forces can be punished by up to 15 years in prison.

Russia’s media regulator has ordered news outlets to use only “information and data” from “official Russian sources.” And access to dozens of websites, including VOA, and social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, have been blocked.

The rash of new laws had an immediate effect, with several prominent independent media outlets shuttering or moving their operations into exile.

Estimates from the legal aid group Setevye Svobody, or Net Freedoms Project, earlier this year estimated that in the first year after the invasion at least 1,000 journalists left Russia “because of the threat of criminal prosecution and a ban on the profession.”

Harassment from afar

But exile is not always a barrier to harassment, as Dozhd TV, which relocated to the Netherlands, has found.

In July, authorities designated the station an “undesirable” organization, meaning that anyone deemed a member of it risks imprisonment.

Already, journalists, social media users and others who are refusing to toe the Kremlin line have faced prosecution.

In April, two Russian journalists from republics in Siberia were arrested on charges of “knowingly publishing false information” about the armed forces. Both could face up to 10 years in prison.

A court in February handed down a six-year sentence to Maria Ponomarenko, another journalist from the Siberian region, over a social media post about Russia’s deadly airstrike on a theater in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in which civilians were sheltering.

She and four others have been recognized with the Boris Nemtsov Award for their “brave defense of democratic rights and freedoms” by speaking out against the war.

The award is named for Boris Nemtsov, an opposition leader assassinated near the Kremlin in Moscow in February 2015. Nemtsov was working on a report, published posthumously, about Russian soldiers secretly fighting in Ukraine at that time.

Others have faced more hefty sentences. A court in April sentenced Vladimir Kara-Murza, an opposition politician and columnist, to 25 years in prison, in part for spreading what authorities called “false” information” about the army.

Amnesty International said the charges against Kara-Murza stemmed “solely from his right to freedom of expression.”

And on August 2, a 67-year-old named Takhir Arslanov was sentenced to three years in prison for saying that “Kremlin fascists” were waging a war of aggression in Ukraine, and for calling for the burning of draft offices.

This article originated in VOA’s fact-checking initiative, Polygraph.info.
…

The United States issued new sanctions against Belarus on Wednesday, the Treasury Department said, adding it was designating eight individuals and five entities to a list for allegedly funding the Belarusian government.  

“This action targets several entities involved in the Belarusian regime’s continued civil society repression, complicity in the Russian Federation’s unjustified war in Ukraine, and enrichment of repressive Belarusian regime leader” Alexander Lukashenko, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the opposition said he had fraudulently won. Lukashenko said he had won fairly, while conducting a sweeping crackdown on his opponents.  

Western sanctions have been imposed on Belarus over the years in relation to that alleged crackdown and election fraud. Minsk also allowed Moscow to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 last year.  

The individuals and entities targeted in the sanctions include three state-owned enterprises and the director and a subsidiary of one of those enterprises, the Treasury Department said.  

It added the sanctions also targeted four employees of a Belarus government agency, three individuals facilitating sanctions evasion in support of Lukashenko’s government, and one aircraft identified as blocked property.

Among the companies targeted was the state-owned Belavia Belarusian Airlines and Byelorussian Steel Works Management Company, which produces steel products and was previously sanctioned by the European Union as well.  

A Florida-based joint venture with Byelorussian Steel Works named BEL-KAP-STEEL LLC was also sanctioned by the Treasury Department, the department said.

Belarus, led by Lukashenko since 1994, is Russia’s staunchest ally among ex-Soviet states. In May, Russia moved ahead with a decision to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

The Treasury Department on Wednesday also issued two general licenses related to Belarus.
…

Eleven people are missing and feared dead after a fire broke out early Wednesday morning at a vacation cottage in the eastern French town of Wintzenheim.

Authorities say the cottage was rented by an association that assists disabled people. The missing residents, including 10 adults with learning disabilities and a staff member, were from the nearby eastern city of Nancy.

Christopher Marot, the secretary-general of the Haut-Rhin district, told reporters it is likely the 11 missing people were unable to escape the blaze.

The BBC says the bodies of three people have been recovered from the rubble.

The fire was quickly brought under control, but Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that “several casualties are reported” from the scene and that rescue operations were still ongoing.

Seventeen others were evacuated from the blaze, with one person transported to a nearby hospital.

French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on X that she was heading to the site of the fire. “My first thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones,” she wrote.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse.
…

Forty-one migrants died in a shipwreck last week in the central Mediterranean, the Ansa news agency reported on Wednesday, citing accounts from survivors who have just reached the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

Ansa said four people who survived the shipwreck told rescuers that they were on a boat carrying 45 people, including three children.

The boat set off on Thursday morning from Tunisia’s Sfax, a hot spot in the migration crisis, but capsized and sank after a few hours, the survivors were quoted as saying.

The survivors – three men and a woman from Ivory Coast and Guinea – said they were rescued by a cargo ship and then transferred onto an Italian coast guard vessel.

The coast guard did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear if the news given by Ansa was linked to the two shipwrecks that the coast guard had reported on Sunday, saying around 30 people were missing from them.

The coast guard had also said they had recovered 57 survivors and two bodies, amid media reports that at least one of the sunken boats had set off from Sfax on Thursday.

Separately, Tunisian authorities said on Monday that they had recovered 11 bodies from a shipwreck near Sfax on Sunday, with 44 migrants still missing from that sinking.

Italy has seen around 93,700 migrant arrivals by sea so far this year, according to interior ministry data last updated on Monday, compared to 44,700 in the same period of 2022.
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