Ukraine’s presidential office reported heavy fighting Tuesday in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, an area occupied by Russian forces where Ukraine says it has launched a counteroffensive to try to retake territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed in his nightly address Monday that Ukrainian forces would take back their territory. He said Ukraine would chase Russia’s forces “to the border.”

“If they want to survive — it’s time for the Russian military to run away. Go home,” he said.

Britain’s defense ministry said Tuesday that as of early Monday, “several brigades of the Ukrainian Armed Forces increased the weight of artillery fires in front line sectors across southern Ukraine.”

It added that since the start of August, Russia has worked to reinforce its presence on the western bank of the Dnipro River in the Kherson area.

“Most of the units around Kherson are likely undermanned and are reliant upon fragile supply lines by ferry and pontoon bridges across the Dnipro,” the British defense ministry said.

Russia’s defense ministry said Monday that Russian forces had stopped Ukrainian attacks in the Kherson and Mykolaiv regions and inflicted “heavy losses” on Ukrainian forces.

A senior U.S. defense official told reporters Monday that the United States would know more about Ukraine’s offensive near Kherson “in the next 24-36 hours.” The official said Ukrainian force numbers are gaining parity with Russian forces in the south.

“Are they on the offensive? I think they are,” the official said.

Russia failed to capture the capital, Kyiv, in northern Ukraine in its initial attack that began in late February, but later took control of wide swathes of land in the south along the Black Sea coast.

Fighting for months has centered on eastern Ukraine in the Donbas region, where Russia-supported separatists and Kyiv’s forces have fought since 2014, the same year Moscow seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in a move not recognized by the international community.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been at somewhat of a standstill for weeks, with Russia and Ukraine gaining or losing territory incrementally.

But Western allies, led by the United States, have continued to ship armaments to the Kyiv government, possibly giving Ukraine new confidence to attack farther in the southern reaches of the country.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. VOA’s Carla Babb contributed to this report.
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An Istanbul court has released Turkish pop star Gulsen from pretrial detention but put her under house arrest with judicial control on Monday over a remark she made about religious schools in Turkey.

The 46-year-old singer-songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken into custody for questioning on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity among the public” and put in pretrial detention last Thursday.

The charges were based on a joke she made onstage about Turkey’s religious Imam Hatip schools in April.

“He studied at an Imam Hatip [school] previously. That’s where his perversion comes from,” Gulsen says in a video of the incident, referring to a musician in her band.

The video was circulated by pro-government daily Sabah a day before her detention and widely shared on social media by pro-government accounts.

Several ministers condemned her words on Twitter, including Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag.

“Inciting one part of society towards another using begrudging, hateful and discriminating language under the guise of being an artist is the biggest disrespect to art,” Bozdag tweeted.

Imam Hatips are state-run middle and high schools providing religious education for boys and girls ages 10 to 18 in Turkey. There are several graduates of Imam Hatip schools in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Cabinet, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bozdag.

The AKP government is a staunch supporter of Imam Hatip schools, as Erdogan has said in the past that he aims to raise a “pious generation” in Turkey.

In a statement on her social media accounts, Gulsen apologized for her remark, adding that what she said was used by some people who want to polarize society. She also denied the accusations in her testimony at the police station.

Her lawyer Emek Emre appealed the pretrial detention decision last Friday and said he will appeal the house arrest decision Monday.

Reactions

Her arrest has sparked controversy about Turkey’s freedom of expression and judicial independence.

Yigit Acar, a lawyer who specializes in freedom of expression and human rights violations, calls the court decision to keep her under house arrest “a disgrace.”

“This decision meets the wishes of a group of conservative people who are uncomfortable with her and are not a large group. Look at the court decision where the lynching campaign against Gulsen was used as a reason for the arrest,” Acar told VOA.

Acar believes that putting the singer under house arrest is intended to be a deterrent.

“The purpose has already been accomplished. The purpose was to keep Gulsen away from the stage and to make her modern, secular view invisible,” Acar said, adding that the government is sending a message to millions of people by putting the singer under house arrest.

The singer has long been a target of conservative circles in Turkey because of her revealing stage outfits and support for the LGBTQ community.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), called for her release, saying that her arrest was aimed at polarizing society to keep Erdogan’s government in power. The next parliamentary and presidential elections are scheduled for June 2023, but the opposition parties are calling for snap elections, which Erdogan has repeatedly rejected.

Responding to an inquiry from VOA on the pop star’s arrest, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said, “The right to exercise freedom of expression, even when it involves speech which some find controversial or uncomfortable, strengthens democracy and must be protected.”

“The United States remains concerned by widespread use of censorship, criminal insult suits, and other forms of judicial harassment to restrict freedom of expression in Turkey. We urge Turkey to respect and ensure freedom of expression,” the spokesperson said, adding that the U.S. “opposes discrimination against LGBTQI+ persons and those who support LGBTQI+ rights.”

The Turkish government has argued that the judiciary is free from political interference.

Cultural hegemony

Yuksel Taskin, deputy leader of the CHP and a former professor of political science at Istanbul’s Marmara University, argues that the singer’s arrest was part of the government’s efforts to establish cultural hegemony among the Turkish public through its ideological lens.

Taskin recalls Turkish presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun’s tweet from 2018: “Your political hegemony is over. Your cultural hegemony will also end,” referring to Turkey’s Kemalist elites before the AKP came into power. Kemalism, as an ideology, is based on the principles of modern Turkey founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which include secularism.

“A cultural hegemony based on intimidation and oppression has no chance to survive,” Taskin told VOA.

Ezel Sahinkaya contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press and Reuters.

This story originated in VOA’s Turkish Service.
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In the Russian government’s latest move to reduce its reliance on a global financial system dominated by the United States and its allies, Kremlin authorities Monday began a policy of barring the use of U.S. dollars as collateral for transactions on the Moscow Exchange, Russia’s largest financial services marketplace.

According to experts, the change was more symbolic than practical, because a broad slate of sanctions imposed on Russia over its expanded invasion of Ukraine have made it almost impossible for Russian businesses to make dollar-based transactions. The change comes just a few weeks after the Moscow Exchange reduced the acceptable percentage of U.S. dollars in collateral from 50% of total value to 25%.

Still, the change underlines Moscow’s efforts to chart a path through the maze of economic barriers constructed by the U.S. and its allies over the more than six months since the invasion began. Kremlin officials have called on Russian businesses and individuals to divest themselves of “toxic” currencies issued by governments that have acted to thwart President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to expand Russian territory by force.

“The blocking of Russian assets by unfriendly countries, as well as operational restrictions on settlements in the world’s major reserve currencies, create risks for citizens and businesses when using the U.S. dollar and the euro,” the Russian central bank said in a statement issued last month.

Heavy sanctions

In the days after Russian troops crossed into Ukraine in February, the U.S. and its allies, including most of the European Union, Canada, Japan, Australia and almost all other major Western economies began applying unprecedented economic pressure in an effort to get Putin to reverse course.

A large portion of the assets of the Russian central bank held overseas were frozen, as were the assets of many wealthy Russian businesspeople. U.S. banks were effectively barred from doing business with Russian businesses, with some exceptions for energy payments, which had the result of cutting Russian firms off from the dollar-based transactions that represent a large share of global commerce.

Russian banks were eventually barred from SWIFT, the global messaging network that international banks use to settle cross-border transactions, and export controls have made it difficult for Russia to purchase high-end electronic components and other goods essential to operating a modern economy in the 21st century.

Faulty assumptions

The Kremlin may have been surprised by the unity with which the U.S. and its allies acted. Experts said that Russian leaders likely assumed that it would be cut off from the dollar after invading Ukraine — indeed, Russian has, for years, been taking steps to insulate itself from the dollar.

However, the Kremlin did so on the assumption that other global currencies, primarily the euro, but also the Japanese yen and the British pound, would remain available to it.

“What’s so important to understand about this is that Putin and Elvira Nabiullina, the central bank governor, truly believed that it was OK to be less reliant on the dollar, because they could diversify into euros and other currencies,” Josh Lipsky, the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center, told VOA.

But the world’s seven leading industrialized democracies, the G-7, remain firm on sanctions, and have pledged solidarity with Ukraine.

“What surprised them was the unity amongst the G-7 — that the dollar and the euro and the yen and the pound were acting in tandem,” Lipsky said. “And that gave them no other outlets.”

Other markets

While Russia has found itself largely blocked from doing business with much of the world, a set of exceptions has been put in place that allow the Kremlin to continue selling energy products, primarily oil and gas. Those sales, boosted by months of abnormally high energy prices, have helped Russia avoid the worst potential consequences of its economic isolation.

At the same time, Russia has been working to develop alternatives to its traditional trade and financial flows. Turkey, whose leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has positioned himself as an intermediary between Putin and Western leaders, agreed earlier this month to pay for some Russian natural gas in rubles.

China and India, both major consumers of Russian energy, have both increased their purchases in the months since the invasion, settling transactions in their national currencies rather than in dollars, as is common on global markets.

However, even Russian officials have conceded that creating a system completely independent of the dollar is not feasible.

Commenting on his country’s growing relationship with China in June, Russian Ambassador to China Andrei Denisov said, “Full de-dollarization is impossible in principle, and no one is setting this goal, considering that the dollar is actually a tool, an accounting currency, means for international settlements and international payments.”

Bad options

Jeffrey Mankoff, a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University and a non-resident senior associate with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA that while Russia may be able to make some transactions in non-dollar currencies, the practice is “suboptimal” at best, and the future looks bleak for the Russian economy.

“The problem is, there’s not really a good alternative to the dollar at this point,” Mankoff said. “There’s no other currency that is convertible to the extent the dollar is and has a deep liquid securities market behind it so that you’re not taking on big exchange rate risks by doing business in it.”

While the use of non-dollar currencies for settlement keeps cash flowing into Russian coffers, he said, “The problem is the money can’t really flow out. Or, it can’t flow out to buy the things that Russia needs, which are restricted because of sanctions.”

Russia cannot import many of the consumer goods that its citizens had been used to purchasing, which has eroded living standards. Additionally, Russia cannot import semiconductors and other high-tech components needed for domestic manufacturing operations.

In the end, Mankoff said, Russia’s options are starkly limited if it remains cut off from most global markets, and economic conditions are likely to get worse.

“Manufacturing, anything kind of high-tech related, and that includes military goods, is going to get harder and harder,” Mankoff said. “If this war is still going on six months or 12 months or longer from now, I think you’re going to see the impact of these restrictions increasing over time.”
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Germany has secured a power link to a planned offshore wind hub in the Danish part of the Baltic Sea that will help reduce energy dependence on Russia, Denmark’s energy ministry said on Monday.

The planned energy hub on the island of Bornholm will by 2030 link several offshore wind parks in the Baltic Sea with a total generating capacity of at least 3 gigawatts, enough to power 4.5 million German households, the ministry said in a statement.

The hub will be connected to Germany via a 470 kilometer power cable.

Investment and future profit will be shared equally between Germany and Denmark, the statement said without giving financial details.

“The Danish-German cooperation is a flagship project,” Germany’s Minister of Economy and Climate, Robert Habeck, said in the statement.

“The green electricity from Bornholm Energy Island will supplement the national electricity production and reduce our dependence on importing fossil energy,” he said.

Last year, the two countries began operating a smaller cross-border cable that also connects several wind farms in the Baltic Sea.

Bornholm Energy Island is part of Denmark’s broader plan to increase domestic offshore wind power production five-fold by 2030.

Early plans by Northern European countries to create a common power grid under the North Sea to connect future offshore wind farms have faced financing and regulatory challenges.

Denmark will host an energy summit on the Baltic Sea island on Tuesday.
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Norwegian carbon dioxide (CO2) storage company Northern Lights and its owners have agreed to store emissions captured at fertilizer maker Yara’s Dutch operation from 2025 in what they say is a commercial breakthrough for the business. 

The joint venture founded by oil companies Equinor, TotalEnergies and Shell plans to inject CO2 from industrial plants into rock formations beneath the North Sea ocean floor. 

“With the first commercial agreement for transportation and storage of CO2, we open a value chain that is critical for the world to reach net zero by 2050,” Equinor Chief Executive Anders Opedal said in a statement. 

Under the deal with Yara, 800,000 tons of CO2 per year will be transported on ships from the Netherlands from early 2025. 

Northern Lights also has preliminary deals to store CO2 from a cement plant and a waste plant that, if confirmed, will fill the project’s phase 1 capacity of 1.5 million tons per year. 

Following the Yara deal, the partnership will now work on expansion of its storage capacity to between 5 million and 6 million tons of CO2 per year, Equinor said. 

The International Energy Agency says carbon capture and storage (CCS) is vital to reducing global CO2 emissions, including from hard-to-abate sectors such as cement production, to curb global warming. 

However, there are few commercial projects in existence. 

Norway tried a decade ago to create a carbon capture project at a gas power plant in a plan once touted as the oil-producing country’s “moon landing,” but it failed because of cost issues. 

In addition, some environmentalists say that CCS merely serves to prolong the age of burning carbon for energy and that the world needs a more decisive shift to renewables. 

Yara, one of the world’s largest fertilizer manufacturers, uses natural gas in its production processes and has long sought solutions to cutting the resulting emissions. 

France’s TotalEnergies said the deal to transport CO2 to Norway and store it 2,600 meters (8,500 feet) under the seabed was a breakthrough for commercial CCS operations. 

“TotalEnergies aims to develop CO2 storage capacity of more than 10 million tons per year by 2030, both for its own facilities and for its customers,” Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanne said in a separate statement. 
…

Ernest Marvel has a case full of medals in his Frankford home.

He was awarded his most recent addition, the French Legion of Honor, in July — almost 80 years after he helped liberate the country from the Germans in World War II.

Marvel, now 98, has rarely left the Bethany Beach area, save for the war.

“I’m a home boy,” he said.

He speaks fondly of his family. His garden is his pride and joy. He likes to dance and sing karaoke on the weekends at the local VFW and Eagles Club.

But Marvel also holds dark memories of a different time, when heroes had to fight through Europe to free thousands held in concentration camps under Adolf Hitler’s control.

He was one of those heroes.

In 1945, Marvel made his way through French and German villages, across the Rhine River and to the gates of Dachau.

Marvel’s war story

Pfc. Marvel entered the war late, just after the Battle of the Bulge, according to historian Eric Montgomery. A member of U.S. Army Company B, 179th Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, 45th Infantry Division, the 20-year-old made his way to Europe aboard the Queen Elizabeth troopship.

One of Marvel’s first missions, according to Montgomery, was to crawl “across an enemy-held field (strewn) with mines and booby traps.”

“We had to climb from foxhole to foxhole to get to our headquarters to let them know where we were,” Marvel said. “Each foxhole had two Germans in it, but they were kids. They were maybe 15 or 16 years old, and they were scared to death.”

His division crossed the Rhine River in storm boats as the Germans fired mortars at them.

“About three boats down from me there was a mortar shell landing, and it blew it apart,” Marvel said. “We were about halfway across. It could’ve been us.”

From there, the soldiers moved into Germany, taking village after village, often house by house.

“I was a bazooka man for a good while, and I would knock out the wheels of a tank so they couldn’t move. I’d shoot a phosphorus grenade into the turret, and it’d get so hot, they’d have to come out. Some would come out fighting, some with their hands up,” Marvel said.

He bombed German soldiers shooting from perches in church steeples, as well.

“I could hear ‘em for ages, screaming as it blew ’em out,” Marvel said.

He became reflective as he spoke.

“It’s not a good feeling,” he said. “I’m doing better.”

Marvel said he has post-traumatic stress disorder. After the war, he’d wake his wife up in the night as he experienced flashbacks. Ultimately, he got help from a psychiatrist.

“He said my trouble was it was all bottled up in me; I wouldn’t let it out. He said, ‘You start letting it out and you’ll feel better.’ And I did. I started telling different people about different things and it started coming around, but it’s still never left my mind,” he said.

Liberating Dachau concentration camp

Part of the trauma he experienced was during the liberation of Dachau concentration camp. Marvel’s memories are vivid of the horrific place where thousands of people were killed.

“There was about a half a mile of concrete road, and they had a big German barrack made out of brick on each side of the road. In between was a white-bark tree,” he said.

Marvel and his fellow soldiers moved through the buildings and killed or took prisoner the German soldiers inside.

Elsewhere on the grounds, he opened up a boxcar, only to find it and several others like it full of bodies.

“The smell was terrible. They had … big incinerators that they were burning them with and they couldn’t burn them as fast as they were dying,” he said.

That day, U.S. soldiers found more than 30 railroad cars filled with bodies brought to Dachau, all in an advanced state of decomposition, according to the U.S. National Holocaust Memorial Museum.

He was shocked by the condition of the prisoners still alive inside the camp, who were starving and wracked with diseases.

“You’ve seen ‘The Walking Dead’?” Marvel asked of the zombie apocalypse TV series. “They looked worse than that. They were dying of malnutrition. They were nothing but skin and bones, and their eyes sunk right into their heads.”

Soldiers “tossed candy bars and cigarettes over the barbed wire to the starving prisoners until ordered to stop,” according to the July 2022 National WWII Museum article, “The Last Days of the Dachau Concentration Camp,” but most of them stayed out of the main compound for “fear of disease.”

“Medical staff came, regulated the supply of food and water to those beset with malnutrition and created a typhus ward to respond to the epidemic of that dreaded disease in the camp,” the article states.

U.S. forces liberated 32,000 prisoners at Dachau, according to the Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A connection to the present

The only injury Marvel said he suffered during the war was from being hit by shrapnel on his arm. He still has a scar.

“Our general … he wanted us to take this village. He said they had been flying over and reconnaissance planes saw no activity,” he said. “We got out halfway into the field. It was breaking day, and they started shooting at us. … And the shrapnel was flying everywhere.”

Marvel was one of eight of 28 men to survive the attack, he said.

One of the soldiers who did not survive was Orla Moninger, a man Marvel had become close friends with since arriving in Europe, he said. When they returned to retrieve the bodies the next day, Moninger’s hand was over his heart, holding photos of his family, Marvel said.

Marvel’s grandson, Donnie Carey, knew of Moninger from stories shared by his grandfather. He began wondering if the fallen soldier had any family still alive. The historian he’d been working with, Montgomery, found Moninger did indeed have a living son, and Carey gave him a call.

“He said he heard (his father) was getting off a train in Germany and was shot,” Carey said, recalling the conversation with Moninger’s son. “The hair just stood up on my arm because I knew I had some information he had never heard. … It was right before holidays and he was like, ‘I have a story I can tell now.’ It was a great moment.”

A grandson, a country music singer and the Legion of Honor

Carey said he became interested in learning more about his grandfather’s time in the war about six years ago. That was when his wife read “The Diary of Anne Frank,” the well-known writings of a young Jewish girl who spent two years hiding from Nazis with her family and ultimately died in a concentration camp.

“She said, ‘You know, your grandfather experienced a lot of this stuff at Dachau,’ and I just realized how honored I was to still have the opportunity to help him and learn from him,” Carey said. “He’s my hero.”

Carey and the rest of Marvel’s extended family surprised him last summer when they took him to see country music singer Jamey Johnson at the Freeman Arts Pavilion in Selbyville. Johnson gave Marvel a shoutout before singing “In Color,” a song about a veteran.

The family made their way to the front of the stage and Johnson said, “Thank you for your sacrifice, sir.” He then came down and gave Marvel a handshake, a hug and some guitar pics.

Video of the moment was posted online, and one of those who viewed it reached out to let Carey know Marvel qualified for the Legion of Honor, France’s highest decoration.

“I’m just trying to do everything I can to help him be recognized while he’s still here,” Carey said.

Marvel turned 98 in May.

This summer, he contracted pneumonia on top of COVID-19, but recovered in time for the Legion of Honor ceremony in Washington, D.C. It was held the day before Bastille Day, (July 14) France’s most notable patriotic holiday. Marvel and two other American World War II vets were presented the award by French Ambassador Phillipe Etienne.

The award was created in 1802 “to recognize outstanding services rendered to France by military and civilian personnel,” Etienne said.

An average of 2,200 French citizens and 300 foreigners are decorated each year, according to the Legion of Honor website.
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 Greek surface-to-air missiles locked on to Turkish F-16 fighter jets carrying out a reconnaissance mission in international airspace, Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency said Sunday.

The allegation is the latest claim from Turkey that its neighbor and fellow NATO member Greece has been targeting its aircraft above the eastern Mediterranean and Aegean Seas.

The radar of a Greek S-300 missile system based on the island of Crete locked on to the Turkish jets on Aug. 23, Anadolu reported, citing Defense Ministry sources.

The F-16s were at an altitude of 10,000 feet to the west of Greece’s Rhodes island when the Russian-made S-300’s target tracking radar locked on, the report added. The Turkish planes completed their mission and returned to their bases “despite the hostile environment.”

It added that radar lock-ons are considered an act of hostility under NATO rules of engagement.

Calls to the Greek Embassy in Ankara went unanswered Sunday.

Last week, Turkey summoned the Greek military attaché and filed a complaint with NATO after Greek F-16s allegedly harassed Turkish F-16s that were conducting a mission for the alliance.

Anadolu said the Greek pilots put Turkey’s aircraft under a radar lock over the eastern Mediterranean. Turkey “gave the necessary response” and forced the planes to leave the area, Anadolu said, without elaborating.

Greece rejected the Turkish version of events. The Defense Ministry said five Turkish jets appeared without prior notification to accompany a flight of U.S. B-52 bombers — which hadn’t been due to have a fighter escort — through an area subject to Greek flight control.

It said four Greek fighters were scrambled and chased off the Turkish planes, adding that Athens informed NATO and U.S. authorities of the incident.

Although both NATO members, Turkey and Greece have decades-old disputes over an array of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and disputes over the airspace there. The disputes have brought them to the brink of war three times in the past half-century.

Tensions flared in 2020 over exploratory drilling rights in areas of the Mediterranean Sea where Greece and Cyprus claim exclusive economic zones, leading to a naval standoff.

Turkey has accused Greece of violating international agreements by militarizing islands in the Aegean Sea. Athens says it needs to defend the islands — many of which lie close to Turkey’s coast — against a potential attack from Turkey’s large fleet of military landing craft.
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Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer backs a European Union-wide cap on runaway electricity prices, he said in a statement issued by his office Sunday.  
Austria’s conservative-led government was initially skeptical at the idea of capping power prices, but it has warmed to the idea as they have continued to rise in line with soaring gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“We must finally stop the madness that is taking place in energy markets. And that can only happen through a European solution,” the statement quoted Nehammer as saying, adding that he would seek to convince holdouts in the bloc.

“Something has to happen at last. This market will not regulate itself in its current form. I call on all the EU 27 (member states) to stand together to stop this price explosion immediately.”

Austria is heavily dependent on Russian gas particularly in industry and heating, obtaining about 80% of its supply from Russia before the war. Most of its electricity, however, comes from renewables and there is growing incomprehension among the Austrian public at the market system where gas and power prices are closely linked.

The market price for electricity must come back down and must be decoupled from gas to bring it closer to actual production costs, Nehammer said.

“We cannot let (Russian President Vladimir) Putin determine the European electricity price every day,” he added.

The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, will propose an extraordinary meeting of the EU Energy Council as soon as possible to deal with soaring energy prices, Czech government officials said Friday as they seek to build European support for energy price caps.

The statement by Nehammer’s office said he would push for a sustainable model that can be implemented quickly, without elaborating. It added that he had discussed the issue with his Czech and German counterparts.  

 
…

Italian authorities scrambled Sunday to relieve overcrowding in shelters after scores of boats carrying a total of about 1,000 migrants reached Italy’s southern shores and two of its tiny islands over the weekend.

Nearly 50 boats arrived between Friday night and Saturday on Lampedusa island off Sicily, according to state radio and other Italian media. Other boats carrying migrants reached Pantelleria, another tiny island favored by vacationers.

Hundreds of migrants stepped ashore from the virtual flotilla of smugglers’ vessels on those islands. Several of the vessels launched by migrant smugglers held as few as eight passengers. But others had around 100 passengers aboard, many of them from Tunisia, according to the reports.

Other boats reached the shores of the Italian mainland Saturday, either unaided or assisted by Italian coast guard vessels.

The Italian news agency ANSA said that 92 migrants, most of them from Afghanistan, reached Puglia — the “heel” of the boot-shaped peninsula — in a sailboat Saturday. Still other migrants sailed to Calabria in the “toe” of the peninsula, while other boats reached Sicily and Sardinia, Italy’s two biggest islands, in the last two days.

On Sardinia, Carabinieri paramilitary police spotted 29 migrants walking along a road, ANSA said.

The humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders tweeted that one of its rescue ships, Geo Barents, saved 25 migrants, including five minors, from a small boat in distress in international waters near Libya Saturday night. Geo Barents already had other migrants abroad plucked to safety in other rescue operations, the group said.

With the disembarkation of hundreds of migrants from boats in the last days, the residence temporarily housing rescued migrants on Lampedusa quickly became overcrowded. Corriere della Sera said the residence housed 1,500 asylum-seekers, nearly four times its capacity.

Interior ministry authorities arranged for a commercial passenger ferry to sail from Sicily to Lampedusa, where it was expected to arrive on Sunday night, embark 250 migrants and take them to Sicilian migrant residences to lessen crowding on the tiny island’s facility.

While hundreds of thousands of migrants have set sail from Libyan shores aboard smugglers’ boats in the last decades, many also set out from Tunisia.

Italian media noted the Tunisian coast guard had thwarted at least a score of attempts by vessels filled with migrants to head toward Italy and rescued many others from boats in distress on Friday and Saturday.
…

Pope Francis, who has often said he may step down in the future if bad health impedes him from leading the Catholic Church, on Sunday praised the humility of one of the few popes in history to resign willingly instead of ruling for life.

L’Aquila, a central Italian city which Francis visited briefly, is the burial place of Celestine V, who resigned as pope in 1294 after only five months to return to his life as a hermit, establishing a papal prerogative.

Pope Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in about 600 years to resign willingly, visited L’Aquila four years before stepping down. In the past, Francis has also praised Benedict’s courage.

When the Vatican announced in June Francis’ trip to L’Aquila – to inaugurate an annual “feast of forgiveness” – it fueled speculation that a conjunction of events – including the induction of new cardinals on Saturday and meetings starting on Monday on the Vatican’s new constitution – could foreshadow a resignation announcement.

However, in an interview with Reuters last month Francis, 85, laughed the idea off, saying “it never entered my mind,” while leaving open the possibility that he could step down for health reasons in the distant future.

In the homily of a Mass for thousands of people in a central square, Francis noted that in “The Divine Comedy,” Dante Alighieri condemned Celestine for having carried out what the medieval poet called “The Great Refusal.”

But Francis, who prayed silently before Celestine’s tomb, said that by relinquishing power, Celestine showed the strength that comes from humility.

“In the eyes of men, the humble are seen as weak and losers, but in reality, they are the real winners because they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know His will,” Francis said.

The pope, who has been using a wheelchair and a cane for the past few months because of a knee ailment, sat through most of the Mass but read his homily in a strong voice and often went off script.

He told the crowd how the pilot of the helicopter that brought him from Rome had to circle for some time because of thick fog in the mountainous area before finding an opening in the mist. He compared this to seizing an opening from God in one’s life.

Although Francis has quashed rumors that he plans to resign anytime soon, the visit underscored the Catholic Church’s need to regulate the status of pontiffs who step down.

L’Aquila was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2009 that killed 309 people, injured several thousand, and destroyed many buildings.

At the start of Sunday’s visit, Francis donned a grey fire fighter helmet and was taken around the ruins of the city’s cathedral, which is being reconstructed.
…

The death toll from an accident when a truck drove off a dike and slammed into a community barbecue in a village south of Rotterdam rose to six Sunday and police said a further seven people are in hospital, including one in critical condition.

Police spokeswoman Mirjam Boers said the truck driver, a 46-year-old Spanish man, is suspected of causing the accident that happened early Saturday evening in the village of Nieuw-Beijerland.

The large truck the man was driving left a small rural road and careered down the bank of the dike and plowed into the village gathering. Boers said the driver was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash.

“We are investigating what could have happened,” Boers said.

Forensic investigators worked into the night Saturday around the truck where it stopped at the bottom of the dike. Later, a crane and a tow truck hauled it back onto the road.

Photos of the scene showed bunting hanging between trees and chairs scattered around trestle tables with plates still on them.

Local Mayor Charlie Aptroot visited the scene Saturday night.

“My condolences go out to the victims, their families, eyewitnesses and first responders,” he said in a statement.

He added that he had spoken to many of the people at the scene and expressed “appreciation for the way in which people are there for each other.” 
…

An elaborate fireworks display took place Saturday under calm skies in Hungary’s capital after a postponement of the show last weekend caused controversy when it led to the firing of the country’s top meteorologists over their weather predictions.

Saturday’s event, a rescheduling of the display planned for Hungary’s national holiday a week earlier, drew tens of thousands to the Danube River in Budapest in what was billed as Europe’s largest fireworks show.

On Monday, the two top officials at Hungary’s National Meteorological Service were fired after the government committee managing holiday events postponed the show based on the weather service’s prediction of a high probability of heavy rain that evening.

While storms did strike other areas of Hungary that night, they did not hit the capital. Weather service chief Kornelia Radics, who had served since 2013, and her deputy Gyula Horvath, who has served since 2016, lost their jobs.

Gabor Valter Tolczli, a spectator at Saturday’s fireworks show, said, “I was surprised that the fireworks were postponed a week ago because there was no storm then. But today I don’t mind the postponement, because there are fewer crowds.”

He added, however, that he was “outraged that the meteorologists were fired, because you can never predict the weather 100%.”

The firings led to accusations from critics of Hungary’s nationalist government, led by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of punitive political pressure reminiscent of Hungary’s communist past.

Academics and scientists in Hungary have long complained of pressure being exerted on independent scientific bodies and Orban’s government has been accused of corruption, nepotism and anti-democratic tendencies.

This has led to clashes with the European Union, which has withheld billions in pandemic recovery funds from Hungary over what the bloc sees as deficiencies in the Hungarian government’s adherence to basic values and the rule of law.

Hungary’s government says the firings were related to the Aug. 20 forecast but that the minister overseeing the weather service had previously been dissatisfied with its performance. In a news conference Tuesday, Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said the service’s assessment of a high probability of extreme weather — which never came — was “the last straw.”

On Wednesday, Hungary’s government appointed Laszlo Hanyecz, the weather service’s vice president for economic affairs, as its interim head. Of 19 leading officials at the agency, Hanyecz, who is not a meteorologist, was one of only two not to sign a letter demanding the reinstatement of the fired weather chiefs.

Climate Without Borders, an international network of weather presenters, released a letter signed by 76 members from 48 countries expressing solidarity with the fired forecasters.

“As forecasters, our first mission is to protect life and property. When Hungarian meteorologists saw danger in the forecast, they did what any of us would do — warned of the risk to life,” the letter read, condemning the firings.
…

In Poland’s late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as people fearful of winter shortages wait for days to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times.

Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 kilometers from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tons of coal for himself and his family.

“Toilets were put up today, but there’s no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars.

“This is beyond imagination; people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times, but it didn’t cross my mind that we could return to something even worse.”

Artur’s household is one of the 3.8 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating and now face shortages and price hikes, after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Poland banned purchases with an immediate effect in April, while the bloc mandated fading them out by August.

While Poland produces over 50 million tons from its own mines every year, imported coal, much of it from Russia, is a household staple because of competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.

Soaring demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to ration sales or offer the fuel to individual buyers via online platforms, in limited amounts. Artur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected paperwork from his extended family in the hope of picking up all their fuel allocations at once.

The mine planned to sell fuel for some 250 households Friday and would continue sales over the weekend to cut waiting times, Dorota Choma, a representative for the Bogdanka mine told Reuters.

The limits are in place to prevent hoarding and profiteering, or even selling spots in the queue, Choma said.

Like all Polish coal mines, Bogdanka typically sells most of the coal it produces to power plants. Last year, it sold less than 1% of its output to individual clients so it lacks the logistics to sell fuel directly to retail buyers.

Lukasz Horbacz, head of the Polish Coal Merchant Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Russian imports began in January when Moscow started using rail tracks for military transport.

“But the main reason for the shortages is the embargo that went into immediate effect. It turned the market upside down,” he told Reuters.

A spokesperson for the Weglokoks, a state-owned coal trader tasked by the government to boost imports from other countries declined to comment, while the climate ministry was not available for comment. Government officials have repeatedly said Poland would have enough fuel to meet demand.

In recent years, Poland has been the most vocal critic of EU climate policy and a staunch defender of coal that generates as much as 80% of its electricity. But coal output has steadily declined as the cost of mining at deeper levels increases.

Coal consumption has held mostly steady, prompting a gradual rise in imports. In 2021, Poland imported 12 million tons of coal, of which 8 million tons came from Russia and were used by households and small heating plants.

In July, Poland ordered two state-controlled companies to import several million tons of the fuel from other sources including Indonesia, Colombia and Africa, and introduced subsidies for homeowners facing a doubling or tripling of coal prices from last winter.

“As much as 60% of those that use coal for heating may be affected by energy poverty,” Horbacz said.

Back at Bogdanka, Piotr Maciejewski, 61, a local farmer who joined the queue Tuesday, said he was prepared for a long wait.

“My tractor stays in line, I’m going home to get some sleep,” he said.
…

Poland and Czechia signed an agreement Saturday to protect Slovak airspace as Slovakia gives up its old Soviet-made MiG-29 jets.

The vow of protection by NATO allies is to last until Slovakia receives new F-16s from the United States, something expected to happen in 2024.

Under the agreement, Poland and Czechia are providing the necessary forces to quickly react in the case of violations of Slovakia’s airspace.

The agreement was signed at a Slovak air base by defense ministers Mariusz Blaszczak of Poland, Jana Cernochova of Czechia and Jaroslav Nad of Slovakia.

Blaszczak said under the agreement, a pair of Polish F-16 fighter jets would begin patrolling Slovakia’s air space starting Sept. 1. He called the effort a way for the neighbors to “deter a possible aggressor.” Slovakia has a short border with Ukraine, which Russia invaded in February.

Slovakia has a fleet of 11 MiG-29 jets, and last month Nad said Slovakia may consider donating them to Ukraine under certain conditions.

Asked by a reporter at a joint news conference about whether the jets might go to Ukraine, Nad said Slovakia was in talks with Ukraine and European Union allies about how best to help. But he said he could not say what that help might look like yet.

Since the start of the Russian invasion Feb. 24, Ukraine has urged Western allies to provide it with warplanes to challenge Russia’s air superiority.

Poland, Czechia and Slovakia belong to a region that was under Moscow’s control during the decades of the Cold War. Many people here worry that if Russia isn’t stopped in Ukraine, Moscow’s renewed imperial ambitions could target them too.
…

Serbia and Kosovo have settled an ethnic dispute over the movement of citizens across their border, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday.

“We have a deal,” Borrell said in a tweet. “Kosovo Serbs, as well as all other citizens, will be able to travel freely between Kosovo & Serbia using their ID cards. The EU just received guarantees from PM [Albin] Kurti to this end.” 

The dispute stemmed from predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, something Belgrade has refused to recognize.

Serbia and Kosovo still have to agree on the hotly contested use of Serbian car number plates issued in the north of Kosovo where Serbs defy the government in Pristina and see Belgrade as their capital.

Independent Kosovo is recognized by the United States, all but five EU members, but not by a number of other states including Serbia’s allies Russia and China.

The most recent flareup of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo has been triggered by a directive for Kosovo authorities for local Serbs to switch their car number plates from Serbian to Kosovo ones from September 1.

Serbs from northern Kosovo, responded by setting roadblocks and clashing sporadically with police before NATO peacekeepers oversaw their removal.

The talks between EU and U.S. envoys with the authorities in Serbia and Kosovo have so far failed to yield concrete results about the car number plates issue.

Earlier in the day, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said he was hoping the EU would provide guarantees for the personal documents agreement. He also said Serbia would be issuing a “a general disclaimer” in which it would be written that the use of identity cards issued by Pristina was allowed for practical reasons with an aim of facilitating the freedom of movement but not tantamount to the recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

“Under the EU-facilitated Dialogue, Serbia agreed to abolish entry/exit documents for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo agreed to not introduce them for Serbian ID holders,” Borrell tweeted.

Belgrade and Kosovo’s Serb minority also claim entitlement under a 2013 EU-brokered agreement to an association of semi-autonomous majority-Serb municipalities, which Pristina has refused to implement.
…

Greece’s main opposition leader has called on the country’s prime minister to resign after he admitted that the nation’s spy chief bugged the phone of a senior political leader. The scandal is being dubbed Greece’s Watergate.  

Speaking before Greece’s Parliament, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis took the stage, defending what he called “a mistake.”

The minute he found out, he said, he looked the Greek people in the eye and told them he knew nothing of what was going on. 

It was wrong, he said, adding, however, that it was legal on national security grounds.

Greek law allows eavesdropping on criminal suspects, terrorists, and pedophiles,

but the Greek constitution bars phone-tapping of political leaders except on national security grounds.

Mitsotakis was hammered with complaints, charges, and demands during the heated debate Friday for failing to explain why the phone of Nikos Androulakis, the head of Greece’s Socialist party, had been tapped.

Instead, Mitsotakis added to conspiracy theories whirling since the scandal broke earlier this month that suggest Androulakis’ phone was hacked at the behest of foreign spy agencies.

Forces outside the country can only benefit from seeing this slip-up cause instability and a political crisis, he said.

Mitsotakis refused to elaborate, but Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s main opposition leader and a former prime minister, insisted the nation had to know why Androulakis’ phone tapping was allowed on grounds of national security.

“Is he a foreign agent, a spy? Your refusal, to tell the truth, is in itself an answer,” Tsipras said.

Local media loyal to the government have suggested Androulakis’s phone was hacked at the request of spy agencies from China, Armenia and Ukraine – allegations that the three countries have categorically denied.

Still, the scandal adds to fears of widespread surveillance across Europe at a moment when democracies feel threatened by Russian aggression. The European Union has begun to regularly check phones and other devices for listening applications and espionage.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has also been a target recently, along with President Emmanuel Macron of France, the former prime minister of Belgium and top EU officials.

During the heated parliamentary debate, Tsipras urged the government to resign, accusing it of defying democratic practices and acting in a way that was a disgrace to the Greek people.

Parliamentary probes are set to begin in the coming weeks.
…

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the decision to cancel the September 12-18 EuroPride celebration during a news conference where he also proposed extending the term of Serbia’s prime minister, who identifies as a lesbian.

Members of the European Pride Organizers Association chose Serbia’s capital three years ago to host the annual event. Vucic said a crisis with neighboring Kosovo and various economic problems were among the reasons why the Balkan nation’s authorities did not think they could handle EuroPride, which features a Pride parade.

“This is a violation of minority rights, but at this moment the state is pressured by numerous problems,” he said.

EuroPride organizers said Serbian authorities must provide security against “bullies” who threaten the march and seek to discredit it. European Pride Organizers President Kristine Garina urged Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to honor a promise to support the event.

“President Vucic cannot cancel someone else’s event,” Garina said. “The right to hold Pride has been ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to be a fundamental human right.”

An organizer in Serbia, Goran Miletic, said police must formally ban the march to prevent it from happening. If they issue a ban, organizers would file a complaint at Serbia’s Constitutional Court. He insisted that indoor events planned as part of the week-long celebration can’t be banned.

“The only thing that can happen is for the police to ban the [pride] march,” Miletic said. “However, such a hypothetical decision would be contrary to the constitution.”

Serbia pledged to protect LGBTQ rights as it seeks EU membership, but increasingly vocal right-wing supporters harass and sometimes attack people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Serbia’s right-wing and pro-Russian groups have gained strength in the past several years and some secured parliament seats during the country’s April general election. Several thousand people recently joined a march in Belgrade against LGBTQ Pride.

“It’s not the question of whether they [extremists] are stronger, but you just can’t do it all at the same moment, and that’s it,” Vucic said. “I am not happy about it, but we can’t manage.”

Vucic won another five-year term in the first round of April’s vote, and his Serbian Progressive Party won the general election in a landslide. The president said Saturday that Brnabic, who has led the previous two governments in Serbia, should lead the new Cabinet that is expected to be formed in the coming weeks.

Brnabic first became Serbia’s prime minister in 2017, in what was seen as major change for the country that is predominantly conservative and male-dominated. Brnabic lives with her female partner, but LGBTQ groups have criticized the prime minister, saying she has done little to improve the position of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals in Serbian society.

After Belgrade’s 2010 pride march produced clashes, subsequent marches took place with strong police protection.

EuroPride was first celebrated in London in 1992, and Belgrade was set to be the first city in southeast Europe to host the event, according to organizers. Next month’s event was expected to attract thousands of people from throughout Europe.

Vucic said the celebration could be postponed for “happier times.” He insisted that state authorities must plan instead for energy problems anticipated for the winter, partly as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Serbian government has condemned the Russian invasion but has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia.

Vucic said tensions with Kosovo, a former Serbian province whose independence the government in Belgrade has refused to recognize, were another source of pressure on authorities.

The tensions soared last month from a dispute over travel documents and license plates, and have raised concerns about instability in the Balkans, where multiple wars were fought amid the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia relies on support from Russia and China to continue claiming that Kosovo is part of its territory.

Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo independence. U.S. and EU envoys visited Kosovo and Serbia earlier this week in an effort to ease the tensions.

 
…

Tensions remain high in and around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as international investigators prepared to inspect the endangered facility. It comes as renewed shelling was reported Saturday around the facility.  

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused its forces of firing artillery shells at Europe’s largest nuclear plant. The state-run energy operator Energoatom said Saturday Russian troops had “repeatedly shelled” the site over the past day. 

In countering the claims, Russia’s defense ministry said Ukrainian forces “shelled the territory of the station three times” in the past day. “A total of 17 shells were fired,” the ministry said in a communique.  

A team from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is expected to send a mission soon to inspect the power station. Officials are concerned about the potential risk of a radioactive leak if certain sections of the nuclear complex are hit by weapons fire.

The Zaporizhzhia facility was seized by Russian troops in the opening weeks of the February invasion and has remained on the front line ever since. The power plant is being operated by Ukrainian workers. The operator of the plant also accused Russian soldiers of torturing workers. Moscow said it supports the work of the IAEA but is refusing to withdraw its soldiers from the plant to create a demilitarized zone.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant remains “very precarious and dangerous” after the plant resumed electricity supplies to Ukraine following an outage. The plant was disconnected from the electric grid for the first time in its history Thursday after a fire caused by shelling damaged a power line.

Zelenskyy said in his address, “Any actions by Russia that could trigger the shutdown of the reactors will once again put the station one step away from disaster.”

The plant needs power to run the reactors’ cooling system, and any extended power failure could put the plant in jeopardy of a meltdown.

The power outage at the plant heightened dread of a nuclear disaster in a country still haunted by the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl. 

An engineer working under Russian occupation since March 4 at the nuclear power plant has told VOA that Russian forces have placed artillery and missile installations within and around the property of the plant.  

The engineer, whose identity is being withheld for fear of retaliation by the occupying authorities, supports Ukrainian government claims that Russia itself is responsible for the explosions.

In other developments, fighting continues to rage in the south and eastern sections of Ukraine. Ukraine said its troops had repulsed Russian assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region, and they also struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the southern Kherson region. Reports of the assault could not be independently confirmed. 

Meanwhile, Ukraine accused Russia of preparing to hold referendums in areas it occupies over whether to join Russia. Ukrainian officials have called the possible vote “a sham.” Ukraine’s security and defense council said anyone who helps to organize Russian referendums will be tried in court and could be sentenced to death.  

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters. 
…

Authorities transferred some 400 asylum-seekers away from a makeshift camp outside an overcrowded migrant reception center in the northeastern Netherlands after a damning report called the site where hundreds of people were sleeping rough a health hazard.

Leon Veldt, a spokesperson for the government’s asylum-seeker accommodation organization, said Saturday that the migrants were moved overnight to alternative accommodations in other locations.

The move came after a team from the Inspectorate for Health Care and Youth visited the squalid, temporary camp in the village of Ter Apel and said there was “a serious risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases as a result of the total lack of hygiene.”

A day earlier, 150 people were transferred to two sports halls in a central city in a bid to alleviate the crisis that has seen some 700 people sleeping outside the packed center this week. Refugee advocates likened the situation to overcrowded camps in Greece and Italy, which are common first destinations of Europe-bound asylum-seekers.

A 3-month-old baby died this week in a sports hall at the Ter Apel center, and authorities are investigating the cause of death. Two men were taken to the hospital, one for a heart attack and another for diabetes that had gone untreated for weeks.

The conditions were so bad that the Dutch branch of Doctors Without Borders sent a team there on Thursday, the relief agency’s first deployment in the Netherlands.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Friday he was ashamed of the scenes in Ter Apel. On Friday night, Rutte’s government announced a raft of measures aimed at easing the country’s asylum-seeker accommodation crisis.

They include temporarily reining in refugee family reunions and the number of arriving migrants earmarked for the Netherlands under a 2016 deal between the European Union and Turkey.

The government said it also was working with local municipalities to create more homes for people who receive refugee status so they can more quickly move out of asylum-seeker centers, freeing up space for new arrivals.

The Dutch military was tasked with setting up a new camp to house people who are waiting to register asylum claims at the Ter Apel center.

Milo Schoenmaker, the board chairman of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers, welcomed the moves, saying: “With the measures that have been announced, the application center in Ter Apel can hopefully be relieved quickly. At the same time, there are still insufficient available places to accommodate everyone.”

While many Dutch towns and cities have offered places to stay to Ukrainians who fled the war in their country, the welcome has worn thin for asylum-seekers from other countries. Most people arriving in Ter Apel are Syrians fleeing their nation’s grinding civil war.
…

As Friday’s end to a four-week conference to review the landmark U.N. treaty aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons neared, delegates scrambled to reach agreement on a final document with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and takeover of Europe’s largest nuclear power a key obstacle.

Argentine Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the conference reviewing the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, circulated a revised 36-page draft final document that aimed to address some of China’s concerns. But it still made the same four references to Russia’s occupation of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine — though without naming Russia.

Any document must be approved by all 191 countries that are parties to the treaty, and the closing plenary meeting to consider the revised draft was delayed while delegates met behind closed doors to try to get all countries on board.

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that the Biden administration is seeking a consensus final document that strengthens the nuclear treaty and acknowledges “the manner in which Russia’s war and irresponsible actions in Ukraine seriously undermine the NPT’s main purpose.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States and its allies at that council meeting of “politicizing the work on the final document, putting their geopolitical interests in punishing Russia above their collective needs in strengthening global security.”

“Against the backdrop of the actual sabotage by the collective West of the global security architecture, Russia continues to do everything possible to keep at least its key, vital elements afloat,” Nebenzia said.

The four references to Zaporizhzhia, where Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling, would have the parties to the NPT express “grave concern for the military activities” at or near the facility and other nuclear plants, recognize Ukraine’s loss of control and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inability to ensure its nuclear material is safeguarded.

The parties would also support IAEA efforts to visit Zaporizhzhia to ensure there is no diversion of its nuclear materials, which the agency’s director is hoping to organize in the coming day. And it would express “grave concern” at the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, in particular Zaporizhzia, and stress “the paramount importance of ensuring control by Ukraine’s competent authorities.”

The NPT review conference is supposed to be held every five years but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last one in 2015 ended without an agreement because of serious differences over establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Those differences haven’t gone away but are being discussed, and both draft documents obtained by The Associated Press would reaffirm the importance of establishing a nuclear-free Mideast zone. So, this is not viewed as a major stumbling block this year.

The issue that has changed the dynamics of the conference is Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia is a “potent” nuclear power and any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” and his decision soon after to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

Putin has since rolled back, saying that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a message reiterated by a senior Russian official on the opening day of the NPT conference on Aug. 2. But the Russian leader’s initial threat and the occupation of Zaporizhzhia by Russian forces soon after the invasion as well as their takeover of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, renewed global fears of another nuclear emergency.

Under the NPT’s provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

India and Pakistan, which didn’t join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel, which is believed to have a nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it, has been an obstacle in discussions of a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (U.S. President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament.

The draft final document would express deep concern “that the threat of nuclear weapons use today is higher than at any time since the heights of the Cold War and at the deteriorated international security environment.” It would also commit the 191 parties to the treaty “to making every effort to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.”

The parties would call on India, Israel and Pakistan to join the NPT “as non-nuclear-weapon states” and on South Sudan to become a party as soon as possible. It would call on North Korea to return to the treaty at an early date and immediately cease its nuclear activities.

Diplomats and nuclear experts monitoring the closed-door negotiations cited differences between China and the West that could have blocked agreement on a final document but appear to have been resolved in the final draft.

China wanted the document to mention the U.S.-UK-Australia deal to provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine, and the final draft notes that parties to the NPT are interested in “the topic of naval nuclear propulsion” and the importance of a transparent and open dialogue on it.

Of the five nuclear powers, China is the only one still producing fissile material — either uranium or plutonium — needed to produce nuclear weapons, and several Western nations wanted to pressure Beijing to halt production.

The original draft included a call to the five nuclear weapon states “to declare or maintain existing moratoria on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other explosive devices.” This was eliminated in the final draft which calls for the immediate start of negotiations on a treaty banning production of fissile material.

The final draft document barely mentions the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying only that it was adopted in July 2017, entered into force in January 2021, and held its first meeting of states parties in June 2022. Some Western countries maintain that calls for immediate nuclear disarmament are totally unrealistic in the current highly polarized and chaotic world.
…

The Ocean Viking, a humanitarian ship of SOS Mediterranee, has rescued 268 people since Thursday during five rescues of migrants mostly found in overcrowded wooden boats between Libya and Malta, the NGO announced Friday.

“Many have high levels of exhaustion and dehydration” and “severe sunburn,” said the NGO, whose headquarters are in Marseille.

Several minors, including unaccompanied minors, pregnant women and even a 3-week-old baby are now cared for by SOS Mediterranee and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on the Viking Ocean.

On Tuesday, the ship said it had spotted four empty boats in this area, including one without a motor. But “without communication from the maritime authorities, the fate of the people on board remains unknown,” the ship communicated.

Since the beginning of the year, 1,161 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean, including 918 in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The U.N. agency estimated the number of dead and missing in 2021 at 2,048 in the Mediterranean, including 1,553 for the central Mediterranean alone.

Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are 300 kilometers from Italy.
…

Turkish pop star Gulsen has been arrested on charges of “inciting hatred and enmity” with a joke she made about Turkey’s religious schools, the country’s state-run news agency reported.

The 46-year-old singer and songwriter, whose full name is Gulsen Colakoglu, was taken away from her home in Istanbul for questioning and formally arrested late Thursday. She was then taken to a prison pending trial.

The arrest sparked outrage on social media. Government critics said the move was an effort by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to consolidate support from his religious and conservative base ahead of elections in 10 months.

The charges were based on a joke Gulsen made during an April concert in Istanbul, where she quipped that one of her musicians’ “perversion” stemmed from attending a religious school. A video of the singer’s comment began circulating on social media recently, with a hashtag calling for her arrest.

Gulsen — who previously became a target in Islamic circles due to her revealing stage outfits and for unfurling an LGBTQ flag at a concert — apologized for the offense the joke caused but said her comments were seized on by those wanting to deepen polarization in the country.

During her questioning by court authorities, Gulsen rejected accusations that she incited hatred and enmity, and said she had “endless respect for the values and sensitivities of my country,” the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Her request to be released from custody pending the outcome of a trial was rejected.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of Turkey’s main opposition party, called on Turkey’s judges and prosecutors to release Gulsen.

“Don’t betray the law and justice; release the artist now!” he wrote on Twitter.

The spokesperson for Erdogan’s Justice and Development party, known by its Turkish acronym AKP, appeared however, to defend the decision to arrest the singer, saying “inciting hatred is not an art form.”

“Targeting a segment of society with the allegation of “perversion” and trying to polarize Turkey is a hate crime and a disgrace to humanity,” AKP spokesperson Omer Celik tweeted.

Erdogan and many members of his Islam-based ruling party are graduates of religious schools, which were originally established to train imams. The number of religious schools in Turkey has increased under Erdogan, who has promised to raise a “pious generation.”

Among those calling for Gulsen’s release was Turkish pop star, Tarkan, best known internationally for the song Kiss Kiss.

“Our legal system, which turns a blind eye to corruption, thieves, those who break the law and massacre nature, those who kill animals and those who use religion to polarize society through their bigoted ideas — has arrested Gulsen in one whack,” Tarkan said in a statement posted on Twitter.  
…

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Friday about Russia’s military buildup in the Arctic and China’s increasing interest in that part of the world.

During a visit to Canada’s north, Stoltenberg said the shortest path to North America for Russian missiles and bombers is over the North Pole. He said Russia has set up a new Arctic Command and has opened hundreds of new and former Soviet-era Arctic military sites, including airfields and deep-water ports.

“We see a significant Russian military buildup with new bases, new weapons systems, and also using the High North as a test bed for their most advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles,” Stoltenberg said at a Canadian military base in Cold Lake, Alberta.

Stoltenberg also noted China has declared itself a “near Arctic” state. He said Beijing plans to build the world’s largest icebreaker and is spending tens of billions of dollars on energy, infrastructure and research projects in the north.

“Beijing and Moscow have also pledged to intensify practical cooperation in the Arctic. This forms part of a deepening strategic partnership that challenges our values and interests,” Stoltenberg said.

He also noted climate change is making the Arctic more accessible for militaries and welcomed Canada’s recent announcement that it will bolster its spending on defense.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who accompanied Stoltenberg, showcased some of Canada’s spending and activities in the north. It is promising to allocate billions of dollars for new military equipment and capabilities, including plans to purchase new fighter jets and modernize North America’s aging NORAD early-warning system with Washington.

“The ill-fated, unjustifiable decision of Russia to upend nearly 70 years of peace and stability of a rules-based order by invading a peaceful neighbor has changed the way we need to look at the Arctic,” Trudeau said, alluding to the Russian attack on Ukraine.
…

The Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant resumed electricity supplies to Ukraine on Friday after one of its six reactors was reconnected to the Ukrainian grid, state nuclear company Energoatom said.

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is located in southern Ukraine, was disconnected from the Ukrainian grid for the first time in its history on Thursday after a fire caused by shelling damaged a power line, Kyiv said earlier.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is connected to the grid and is producing electricity for the needs of Ukraine,” Energoatom said in a statement on Friday.

Authorities began providing iodine tablets Friday to residents who live around the nuclear power plant in the event of a radiation leak, as fears grow that the fighting around the plant could spark a catastrophe.

Iodine tablets help block the absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland, and they were handed out to people in the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is about 45 kilometers from the plant.  

The move came a day after the plant was temporarily knocked offline because of what officials said was fire damage to a transmission line. The incident heightened dread of a nuclear disaster in a country still haunted by the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl.

Continued shelling was reported in the area overnight, and satellite images from Planet Labs showed fires burning around the complex over the last several days.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February and took control of the nuclear plant in March, though it is still operated by Ukrainian technicians working for Energoatom.

The nuclear plant remains near the frontline and repeatedly has come under fire in recent weeks. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the facility.

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a nuclear radiation disaster was narrowly avoided after Russian shelling in the area caused the electricity to be cut for hours.

“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster,” he said.

Russian bombardment triggered fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the Russian-controlled plant from the power grid, Zelenskyy said, but backup diesel generators provided the electricity supply vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant.

An engineer working under Russian occupation since March 4 at the nuclear power plant has told VOA that Russian forces have placed artillery and missile installations within and around the property of the plant.

The engineer, whose identity is being withheld for fear of retaliation by the occupying authorities, supports Ukrainian government claims that Russia itself is responsible for the explosions.

Western leaders have demanded that Russia hand the plant back to Ukraine, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for it to be “demilitarized.”

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war.

“War in any case must not undermine the nuclear safety of the country, the region, and all of us. Civil nuclear power must be fully protected,” Macron said during a visit to Algeria.

A team from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to send a mission soon to inspect the power station.

In Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that “Russia should agree to the demilitarized zone around the plant and agree to allow an International Atomic Energy Agency visit as soon as possible to check on the safety and security of the system.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday its forces had destroyed a U.S.-made M777 howitzer, which it claimed Ukraine had used to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Reuters reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the howitzer had been destroyed west of the town of Marganets, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

On the battlefield, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said its troops had repulsed Russian assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region, and they also struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the southern Kherson region.

In Geneva on Thursday, Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing United Nations human rights chief, described Russia’s continuing attacks on Ukraine as “unimaginably horrifying.” She called on Russian President Vladimir Putin “to halt armed attacks against Ukraine.”

In other news, Ukraine summoned the papal ambassador on Thursday to complain about latest comments about the war by Pope Francis.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters in Kyiv that “the Ukrainian heart is torn apart by the pope’s words.”

Kuleba was responding to the pope’s comments about last weekend’s car bomb slaying in Moscow of Darya Dugina, a nationalist Russian TV commentator and daughter of a right-wing political theorist who ardently supports the war.

Francis referred to her as the “poor girl” among the “innocents” who have been victimized by the “insanity of war.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.  
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