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The thick layer of ice that has covered a Swiss mountain pass for centuries will have melted away completely within a few weeks, a ski resort said Thursday.

Following a dry winter, the summer heatwaves hitting Europe have been catastrophic for the Alpine glaciers, which have been melting at an accelerated rate.

The pass between the Scex Rouge and Tsanfleuron glaciers has been iced over since at least the Roman era.

But as both glaciers have retreated, the bare rock of the ridge between the two is beginning to emerge and will be completely ice-free before the summer is out.

“The pass will be entirely in the open air in a few weeks,” the Glacier 3000 ski resort said in a statement.

While the ice measured about 15 meters thick in 2012, the ground underneath “will have completely resurfaced by the end of September.”

The ridge is at an altitude of 2,800 meters in the Glacier 3000 ski domain and effectively marks the border between the Vaud and Wallis cantons in western Switzerland.

Skiers could glide over the top from one glacier to the other. But now a strip of rock between them has emerged, with just the last remaining bit of ice left.

“No one has set foot here for over 2,000 years; that’s very moving,” said Glacier 3000 chief executive Bernhard Tschannen.

The Scex Rouge glacier is likely to turn into a lake within the next 10 to 15 years. It should be about 10 meters deep with a volume of 250,000 cubic meters.

Covers have been put on sections of the Tsanfleuron glacier by the pass to protect them from the sun’s melting rays.

Glaciologist Mauro Fischer, a researcher at Bern University, said the loss of thickness of the glaciers in the region will be on average three times higher this year compared with the past 10 summers. 
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Wildfires continued to spread through France, Spain and Portugal on Thursday as record-breaking heat waves plague Europe, prompting the head of the European Space Agency to demand immediate action on climate change. 

A “monster” wildfire has destroyed thousands of hectares in the Gironde area of southwestern France just two weeks after another fire tore through the same region. 

More than 1,000 firefighters have struggled to bring the conflagration, which has forced about 10,000 people from their homes, under control. 

About 79% of the 250,000 firefighters in France are volunteers, according to data from the French Fire Fighter Service. And 10,000 of them are deployed across the country to battle wildfires, including the Gironde blaze, which has been exacerbated by drastic heat waves and fierce winds. 

Similar to France, firefighters in Portugal are on their sixth day of fighting a wildfire that has destroyed about 10,500 hectares in the central Covilha region, as well as part of the Serra da Estrela national park. 

Extreme weather and climate change are widely blamed for the increasingly common heat waves, melting glaciers, and flooding. 

The head of the European Space Agency, Josef Aschbacher, reported that these extreme climatological events have begun taking a toll on agriculture and other vital industries. 

“It’s pretty bad. We have seen extremes that have not been observed before,” Aschbacher said to Reuters. 

Extreme drought conditions have also taken a toll elsewhere in the European Union, with France and Germany feeling the effects through slow agricultural production and water shortages. 

 
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The McDonald’s corporation announced Thursday it plans to begin reopening some of its restaurants in Ukraine, after closing them due to Russia’s invasion of that country in February.

In a statement to the company’s employees, the senior vice president of international operated markets, Paul Pomroy, said the decision was made “after extensive consultation and discussion with Ukrainian officials, suppliers, and security specialists.”

He said McDonald’s also considered the “strong desire” to return to work expressed by the company’s more than 10,000 employees in Ukraine.

The statement said McDonald’s will, over the next few months, institute a phased plan to “reopen some restaurants in Kyiv and western Ukraine, where other businesses have safely reopened.”

The statement noted that McDonald’s has continued to pay the salaries of its Ukrainian employees and established an employee assistance fund to support them and help aid the relief efforts.

The Associated Press reports other multinational companies have resumed operating in Ukraine in areas away from fighting. Western businesses like Nike, KFC and Spanish clothing retailer Mango are open in Kyiv.

AP also reports Ukraine’s economy has been severely damaged by the war and restarting businesses like McDonald’s restaurants, even in a limited capacity, would help. The International Monetary Fund expects Ukraine’s economy to shrink 35 percent this year.
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Latvia’s parliament declared Russia a state sponsor of terror Thursday for its targeted military attacks against civilians and public places

Lativia’s unicameral parliament, known as the Saeima, approved a resolution noting that Russia has supported and financed terrorist regimes and organizations for years.

The Saeima used as examples Moscow’s support for the Assad government in Syria shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 and the poisoning of British intelligence agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in 2018.

The Saeima statement said Russia has now used “similarly ruthless, immoral, and illegal tactics in Ukraine, as it uses imprecise and internationally banned weapons and ammunition” on civilians. It also cites reports from human rights groups and international observers, which have documented atrocities committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian civilians, “including torture, rape, killings, and mass detentions of civilians.”

Latvian lawmakers said Russia uses “suffering and intimidation as tools in its attempts to demoralize the Ukrainian people.” They recognize these acts against civilians “committed in pursuit of political aims as terrorism and Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism and calls on other like-minded countries to express the same view.”

They also called on the European Union and the West to “urgently intensify and implement comprehensive sanctions against Russia, as well as call on European Union member states to immediately suspend the issuance of tourist visas and restrict the issuance of entry visas to citizens of the Russian Federation and Belarus, among other measures.”

Latvia shares borders with both Russia and Belarus.

Russia insists it does not deliberately target civilians in what it calls its “special military operation” aimed at safeguarding Russia’s security and protecting Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Reuters news service reports Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, expressed his gratitude for the Latvian parliament’s resolution.

Some information for this report was provided by the Reuters news agency.
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Satellite pictures released Thursday showed devastation at a Russian air base in Crimea, hit days earlier in an attack that suggested Kyiv may have obtained new long-range strike capability with potential to change the course of the war.

Pictures released by independent satellite firm Planet Labs showed three near-identical craters that had precisely struck buildings at Russia’s Saki air base. The base, on the southwest coast of Crimea had suffered extensive fire damage with the burnt-out husks of at least eight destroyed warplanes clearly visible.

Russia has denied aircraft were damaged and said explosions seen at the base on Tuesday were accidental.

Ukraine has not publicly claimed responsibility for the attack or said exactly how it was carried out.

“Officially, we are not confirming or denying anything; there are numerous scenarios for what might have happened… bearing in mind that there were several epicenters of explosions at exactly the same time,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters in a message.

Western military experts said the scale of the damage and the apparent precision of the strike suggested a powerful new capability with potentially important implications.

Russia, which annexed Crimea in 2014, uses the peninsula as the base for its Black Sea fleet and as the main supply route for its invasion forces occupying southern Ukraine, where Kyiv is planning a counter-offensive in coming weeks.

“I’m not an intel analyst, but it doesn’t look good,” Mark Hertling, a former commander of U.S. ground forces in Europe, wrote on Twitter, linking to an image of the devastation at the Russian base.

“I am. It’s very good,” replied his fellow retired four-star American general, Michael Hayden, former head of the CIA and National Security Agency.

Exactly how the attack was carried out remains a mystery. Some Ukrainian officials have been quoted suggesting it may have been sabotage by infiltrators. But the near identical impact craters and simultaneous explosions appear to indicate it was hit by a volley of new long-range weapons, capable of evading Russian defenses.

The base is well beyond the range of advanced rockets that Western countries acknowledge sending to Ukraine so far, but within the range of more powerful versions that Kyiv has sought. Ukraine also has its own surface-to-ship missiles which could theoretically be used to hit targets on land.

New phase

The war in Ukraine is expected to enter a new phase in coming weeks. Ukraine drove Russian forces back from the capital, Kyiv, in March and from the outskirts of the second-largest city, Kharkiv, in May. Russia captured more territory in the east in huge battles that killed thousands of troops on both sides in June.

Since then, front lines have been largely static, but Kyiv says it is preparing a big push to recapture the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, the main slice of territory captured since the Feb. 24 invasion held by Moscow.

Russia has reinforced those regions, but its defense depends on being able to control supply lines to stock its troops with the thousands of shells a day that its artillery-heavy forces are accustomed to firing.

Kyiv hopes the arrival last month of U.S. rocket systems capable of hitting Russian targets behind the front line could tip the balance in its favor. But so far, the West had held off on providing longer-range rockets that could strike deep in Russia itself or hit Moscow’s many bases in annexed Crimea.

Russia says its “special military operation” is going to plan, to protect Russian speakers in the south and east, where it recognizes separatists as independent. Ukraine and its Western allies say the invasion failed in an initial bid to overthrow the government in Kyiv, and Moscow now aims to solidify its grip on as much territory as possible with the ultimate goal of extinguishing Ukraine as an independent nation.

Tens of thousands of people have died; millions have fled and cities have been destroyed since Russia invaded on Feb. 24.

Bombardment

Although there have been few major advances on either side in recent weeks, intense skirmishes are still under way.

Ukraine reported Russian bombardment along the entire front line, from the area around Kharkiv in the northeast, across eastern Donetsk province, and on the banks of the wide Dnipro River in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and adjacent provinces.

Dnipropetrovsk regional governor Valentyn Reznychenko said three people were killed and seven wounded by shelling in Nikopol on the right bank of the Dnipro, which was hit by 120 Grad rockets.

“The enemy is concentrating its efforts on establishing full control over the territories of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in an early Thursday report, citing more than 60 settlements and military targets.

Russian-backed separatists claimed to have captured Pisky, a small town on the outskirts of separatist-held Donetsk city, which has seen fighting in recent days.

“It’s hot in Pisky. The town is ours but there remain scattered pockets of resistance in its north and west,” separatist official Danil Bezsonov said on Telegram.

Ukrainian officials denied that the town had fallen. Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield accounts.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said in an interview posted on YouTube that Russian “movement into Pisky” had been “without success.”

Ukraine accused Russia on Wednesday of killing at least 13 people and wounding 10 with rockets fired from the vicinity of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, in the knowledge it would be risky for Ukrainian forces to return fire.

“The cowardly Russians can’t do anything more, so they strike towns ignobly hiding at the Zaporizhzhia atomic power station,” Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said on social media.

Ukraine says about 500 Russian troops are at the plant, where Ukrainian technicians continue to work. The Group of Seven major industrialized countries on Wednesday told Russia to hand back the plant to Ukraine, after the U.N. atomic energy watchdog sounded the alarm over the possibility of a nuclear disaster.
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A British man accused of being part of an Islamic State (IS) kidnap-and-murder cell known as the “Beatles” was arrested Wednesday when he returned to the UK, media reports said.

Aine Davis, 38, was arrested after landing at Luton airport on a flight from Turkey, where he had been serving a prison sentence for terrorism offenses, according to BBC News and other U.K. outlets.

He is suspected to be a member of the IS cell, which held dozens of foreign hostages in Syria between 2012 and 2015 and was known to their captives as the “Beatles” because of their British accents.

The Metropolitan Police, which leads anti-terror investigations in the U.K., said in a statement that officers had arrested a man at Luton airport.

But the London force, which does not name suspects until they are charged with a crime, did not name the person being held.

“The 38-year-old man was arrested this evening after he arrived into the UK on a flight from Turkey,” the statement said.

The Met said the man was arrested under several different sections of British anti-terrorism laws and taken to a south London police station “where he currently remains in police custody.”

The interior ministry said in a statement that a British national had been deported from Turkey to the U.K.

“It would be inappropriate to comment further while police enquiries are ongoing,” it added.

The four members of the “Beatles” are accused of abducting at least 27 journalists and relief workers from the United States, Britain, Europe, New Zealand, Russia and Japan.

They were all allegedly involved in the murder of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, as well as aid workers Peter Kassig and Kayla Mueller.

The quartet allegedly tortured and killed the four American victims, including by beheading, and IS released videos of the murders for propaganda purposes.

Alexanda Kotey, a 38-year-old former British national extradited from the U.K. to the U.S. in 2020 to face charges there, pleaded guilty to his role in the deaths last September and was sentenced to life in prison in April.

El Shafee Elsheikh, 34, another former British national also extradited to the U.S. at the same time, was found guilty of all charges in April, and will be sentenced next week.

The fourth “Beatle,” Mohamed Emwazi, was killed by a U.S. drone in Syria in 2015.

Elsheikh and Kotey were captured in January 2018 by a Kurdish militia in Syria and turned over to U.S. forces in Iraq before being sent to Britain.

They were eventually flown to Virginia in 2020 to face charges of hostage-taking, conspiracy to murder U.S. citizens and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.

Davis served a 7½-year sentence in Turkey for membership in the terrorist group, according to reports.

In 2014, his wife, Amal El-Wahabi, became the first person in Britain to be convicted of funding IS jihadists after trying to send 20,000 euros, worth $25,000 at the time, to him in Syria.

She was jailed for 28 months following a trial in which Davis was described as a drug dealer before he went to Syria to fight with IS.
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At the end of a dusty track in southwest England where the River Thames usually first emerges from the ground, there is scant sign of any moisture at all.

The driest start to a year in decades has shifted the source of this emblematic English river several miles downstream, leaving scorched earth and the occasional puddle where water once flowed.

It is a striking illustration of the parched conditions afflicting swaths of England, which have prompted a growing number of regional water restrictions and fears that an official drought will soon be declared.

“We haven’t found the Thames yet,” said Michael Sanders, on holiday with his wife in the area known as the official source of the river.

The couple were planning to walk some of the Thames Path that stretches along its entire winding course — once they can find the waterway’s new starting point.

“It’s completely dried up,” the IT worker from northern England told AFP in the village of Ashton Keynes, a few miles from the source, noting it had been replaced by “the odd puddle, the odd muddy bit.”

“So hopefully downstream we’ll find the Thames, but at the moment it’s gone,” he said.

The river begins from an underground spring in this picturesque region at the foot of the Cotswolds hills, not far from Wales, before meandering for 350 kilometers (215 miles) to the North Sea.

Along the way it helps supply fresh water to millions of homes, including those in the British capital, London.

‘So arid’

Following months of minimal rainfall, including the driest July in England since the 1930s, the country’s famously lush countryside has gone from shades of green to yellow.

“It was like walking across the savanna in Africa, because it’s so arid and so dry,” David Gibbons said.

The 60-year-old retiree has been walking the length of the Thames Path in the opposite direction from Sanders — from estuary to source — with his wife and friends.

As the group members reached their destination, in a rural area of narrow country roads dotted with stone-built houses, Gibbons recounted the range of wildlife they had encountered on their journey.

The Thames, which becomes a navigable, strategic and industrial artery as it passes through London and its immediate surroundings, is typically far more idyllic upstream and a haven for bird watching and boating.

However, as they neared the source, things changed.

“In this last two or three days, [there’s been] no wildlife, because there’s no water,” Gibbons said. “I think water stopped probably 10 miles away from here; there’s one or two puddles,” he added from picturesque Ashton Keynes.

Andrew Jack, a 47-year-old local government worker who lives about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the village, said locals had “never seen it as dry and as empty as this.”

The river usually runs alongside its main street, which boasts pretty houses with flower-filled gardens and several small stone footbridges over the water.

But the riverbed there is parched and cracked, the only visible wildlife were some wasps hovering over it, recalling images of some southern African rivers during the subcontinent’s dry season.

‘Something’s changed’

There will be no imminent respite for England’s thirsty landscape.

The country’s meteorological office on Tuesday issued an amber heat warning for much of southern England and eastern Wales between Thursday and Sunday, with temperatures set to reach the mid-30s Celsius.

It comes weeks after a previous heat wave broke Britain’s all-time temperature record and breached 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for the first time.

Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that carbon emissions from humans burning fossil fuels are heating the planet, raising the risk and severity of droughts, heat waves and other such extreme weather events.

Local authorities are reiterating calls to save water, and Thames Water, which supplies 15 million people in London and elsewhere, is the latest provider to announce forthcoming restrictions.

But Gibbons was sanguine.

“Having lived in England all my life, we’ve had droughts before,” he said. “I think that it will go green again by the autumn.”

Jack was more pessimistic as he walked with his family along the dried-up riverbed, where a wooden measuring stick gauges nonexistent water levels.

“I think there are lots of English people who think, ‘Great, let’s have some European weather,’ ” he said. “But we actually shouldn’t, and it means that something’s changed and something has gone wrong.

“I’m concerned that it’s only going to get worse and that the U.K. is going to have to adapt to hotter weather as we have more and more summers like this.”
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Wildfires tore through the Gironde region of southwestern France on Wednesday, destroying homes and forcing the evacuation of 10,000 residents, some of whom had clambered onto rooftops as the flames got closer. 

Black-and-orange skies, darkened by the smoke billowing from forests and lit up by the flames, were seen across the area as the fires continued to burn out of control despite the efforts of firefighters backed by water-bombing aircraft. 

Fires, which have razed about 6,200 hectares, have now crossed into the neighboring Landes region. 

France, like the rest of Europe, has been struggling this summer with successive heat waves and its worst drought on record. Dozens of wildfires are ablaze across the country, including at least eight major ones. 

“Prepare your papers, the animals you can take with you, some belongings,” the Gironde municipality of Belin-Beliet said on Facebook before evacuating parts of the town. 

In the nearby village of Hostens, police had earlier been door to door telling residents to leave as the fire advanced. Camille Delay fled with her partner and her son, grabbing their two cats, chickens and house insurance papers. 

“Everyone in the village climbed onto their rooftops to see what was happening. Within 10 minutes, a little twist of smoke became enormous,” Delay, 30, told Reuters by telephone. 

Firefighters said more evacuations were likely. Even so, some Hostens residents were reluctant to abandon their homes. 

“It’s complicated to go with the dogs, and we cannot leave them here,” said Allisson Horan, 18, who stayed behind with her father. 

“I’m getting worried because the fire is in a plot of land behind ours, and the wind is starting to change direction.” 

Numerous small roads and a highway were closed. 

Heat waves 

More than 57,200 hectares have gone up in flames so far in France this year, nearly six times the full-year average for 2006-2021, data from the European Forest Fire Information System show. 

“The fire is creating its own wind,” senior local official Martin Guespereau told reporters, adding that efforts to fight it were made more difficult by how unpredictable it was. 

Sweden and Italy are among countries preparing to send help to France, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said. 

He repeated calls for everyone to be responsible — nine out of 10 fires are either voluntarily or involuntarily caused by people, he said. 

The Gironde wildfire is one of many that have broken out across Europe this summer, triggered by heat waves that have baked the continent and brought record temperatures. 

In Portugal, nearly 1,200 firefighters backed by eight aircraft have battled a blaze in the mountainous Covilha area 280 km northeast of Lisbon that has burned more than 3,000 hectares of forest since Saturday. 

Spain and Greece have also had to tackle multiple fires over the past few weeks. 

The Gironde was hit by major wildfires in July that destroyed more than 20,000 hectares of forest and temporarily forced almost 40,000 people from their homes. 

Authorities believe the latest inferno was a result of the previous fires still smoldering in the area’s peaty soil. 

Fires were also raging in the southern departments of Lozere and Aveyron. In the Maine-et-Loire department in western France, more than 1,200 hectares have been scorched by another fire.
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A senior U.N. official said Wednesday that a deal to move stranded Ukrainian grain that had been blocked in silos and Black Sea ports is working well, with more than 370,000 tons of food stuffs moved in the first week.

“Three hundred and seventy-thousand metric tons in the initial phase of this operation, I think is a very encouraging sign,” said Fred Kenney, the U.N. representative at the Istanbul-based Joint Coordination Centre, which oversees the deal.

The JCC has representatives from Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations. It was established under the July 22 Black Sea Grain Initiative, signed in Istanbul to monitor the safe movement of commercial ships to and from Ukraine’s southern ports for the purpose of exporting food items to international markets.

More than two dozen ships have been stuck in Ukraine’s ports since Russia invaded on February 24. A dozen have been authorized to sail or left so far.

“It is imperative upon us now, to get those ships out, so that we can bring ships in to load cargos that will be destined for ports that will contribute to reducing global food insecurity,” said Kenney, who is also the director of legal affairs for the International Maritime Organization, the U.N. agency responsible for regulating the global shipping industry.

He told reporters in a video call from Istanbul that the JCC has seen a “tremendous willingness” from shippers to cross the Bosporus into the Black Sea to pick up grain cargo at the ports of Odesa, Chernomorsk and Pivdennyi (also known as Yuzhny) and that there are a number of empty grain vessels waiting in Turkish anchorages for contracts. Four ships have already been authorized to enter Ukraine’s ports.

More than 20 million tons of grain await export to the world market. The U.N. says global grain prices have already started to drop since the initiative was signed nearly three weeks ago.

The JCC’s role is to make sure ships transit safely along a demarcated humanitarian corridor as much of the Black Sea has been mined.

“Thus far, we haven’t had any safety issues with any of the vessels that transited. None reported any floating hazards to navigation,” Kenney told reporters.

The JCC also is tasked with looking for unauthorized personnel or cargo – be it food items not covered by the terms of the grain deal or illicit weapons.

“We haven’t found anything that would violate the terms of the initiative,” he confirmed.

Commercial ships leaving Ukraine have headed for destinations in Turkey, Britain, China, Ireland, Italy and South Korea, carrying loads of corn, soya, sunflower meal and sunflower oil. Kenney said the first ship that is coming in to pick up wheat has been cleared and should sail out next week.

He described the voyage from Odesa to Istanbul, saying it takes between a day and a half to two days. Inspections take between two to four hours at the Istanbul inspection area. From there vessels transit the Black Sea on a largely open route until they reach the Romanian-Ukrainian maritime border. Ships are forbidden to enter the humanitarian corridor from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. for visibility and safety reasons.

“We are looking at our procedures to see ways we can cut time on the inspection side without sacrificing the accuracy and the completeness of those inspections,” he said.

The JCC also monitors ships to warn them of any military threats. Kenney said they can contact vessels immediately if there is action near the maritime humanitarian corridor and could order them to stop or turn around to avoid danger.
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The U.S. military says Russian military surveillance aircraft entered the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone on two separate occasions over the past two days.

U.S. F-22 fighter jets intercepted the second aircraft upon entering the airspace, a defense official told VOA. Both entries involved the same type of Russian surveillance aircraft, the official added.

An Air Defense Identification Zone extends beyond a country’s airspace to include an area in which a country tries to identify, locate and control aircraft in the interest of national security.

The Russian aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter American or Canadian sovereign airspace, according to social media posts by North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, on Wednesday.

“We remain ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America and Arctic sovereignty,” the post added.

This is the first reported incident of Russian military aircraft nearing Alaskan airspace in 2022, but sightings have become common in recent years.

Russian military aircraft were tracked in the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone 14 times in 2020, a high in recent years, with six such incidents occurring within a span of just one month.

Russia launched a massive invasion into Ukraine in February.

Speaking to VOA earlier this year, Senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska said the U.S. military has had to “scramble” more fighter jets in recent years to intercept Russian military aircraft “probably more than any other time since the mid-1980s.”

“They’re aggressive here, too, and the only thing that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin understands, and the only thing in my view that [Chinese President] Xi Jinping understands in this new era of authoritarian aggression is power,” Sullivan said.

 
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Britain is launching a polio vaccine booster campaign for children in London aged below 10, after confirming that the virus is spreading in the capital for the first time since the 1980s. 

The UK Health Security Agency has identified 116 polioviruses from 19 sewage samples this year in London. It first raised the alert on finding the virus in sewage samples in June.  

The levels of poliovirus found since and the genetic diversity indicated that transmission was taking place in a number of London boroughs, the agency said on Wednesday. 

No cases have yet been identified but, in a bid to get ahead of a potential outbreak, GPs will now invite children aged 1-9 for booster vaccines, alongside a wider catch-up campaign already announced. Immunization rates across London vary, but are on average below the 95% coverage rate the World Health Organization suggests is needed to keep polio under control. 

Polio, spread mainly through contamination by faecal matter, used to kill and paralyse thousands of children annually worldwide. There is no cure, but vaccination brought the world close to ending the wild, or naturally occurring, form of the disease. It paralyses less than 1% of children who are infected. 

The virus found in London sewage is mainly the vaccine-like virus, which is found when children vaccinated with a particular kind of live vaccine — now only used overseas — shed the virus in their feces. This harmless virus can transmit between unvaccinated children, and while doing so, can mutate back into a more dangerous version of the virus, and cause illness. 

Last month, the United States found a case of paralytic polio outside New York in an unvaccinated individual, its first for a decade. The UKHSA said the case was genetically linked to the virus seen in London.  

Britain is also expanding surveillance for polio to other sites outside London to see if the virus has spread further. The risk to the wider population is assessed as low because most people are vaccinated even if rates are below the optimal levels to prevent spread. 
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A beluga whale that captured French hearts when it showed up in the Seine River had to be euthanized Wednesday after it was successfully removed from the French waterway, authorities said.

A rescue team was preparing to transfer the whale to a saltwater pool in Normandy. The male marine mammal was first spotted in the Seine last week after having accidentally veered off its normal path to the Arctic.

During the rescue operation, the dangerously thin animal began to have breathing difficulties, and so experts decided the most humane thing to do was to euthanize the creature.

“During the journey, the veterinarians confirmed a worsening of its state, notably its respiratory activities, and at the same time noticed the animal was in pain, not breathing enough,” Florence Ollivet Courtois, a French wild animal expert, said. “The suffering was obvious for the animal, so it was important to release its tension, and so we had to proceed to euthanize it.”

Conservation group Sea Shepherd France said veterinary exams after the beluga’s removal from the river showed it has no digestive activity. Members of the organization had tried unsuccessfully since Friday to feed fish to the whale.

Courtois said the whale experienced distress after it was moved to a refrigerated truck and during the approximately 160-kilometer (99-mile) drive to the Normandy coast.

The whale was expected to spend several days recuperating in the saltwater pool in the northeastern French port town of Ouistreham before being towed out to sea.

The rescue team said ahead of time that the transfer carried a risk of the whale dying because of the stress involved in the process. However, the move was deemed necessary because the animal would not have been able to survive in much longer in the Seine’s fresh water.

“The decision to euthanize the beluga was taken as it was too weakened to be put back into water,” Guillaume Lericolais, the subprefect of France’s Calvados region, said.
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The U.S. has completed its final step in ratifying NATO’s expansion to include Sweden and Finland. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb reports on the most significant expansion of the military alliance in more than two decades, which needs only seven more countries for completion
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Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda discussed the challenges for his country caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year with VOA’s Eastern Europe Bureau Chief Myroslava Gongadze on Tuesday in Vilnius.

“Nothing less than democracy and the world order is at stake in that war,” Nauseda told VOA. “There is no limit for the appetite of Vladimir Putin. I don’t know who will be the next target, the Baltic countries, Poland, maybe Romania.”

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

VOA: Thank you very much for making time to talk to us. You had been to Ukraine on February 23rd, just before the war. At that moment, did you grasp the risk that Ukrainians are in? And did you expect that war would happen so soon?

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda: You know, this threat was in the air. And [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy said that they expect[ed] that the war will, uh, break up in the next 24 to 48 hours. And it happened, let’s say, after eight or 10 hours, we left Ukrainian soil. Yes, the war was terrible, and probably our Ukrainian partners just could not imagine that this war will be organized, if I can express it like this, on such broad scale, broad, broad efforts of Russian troops to try to, first of all, to attack Kyiv, and also the war broke up in other parts of Ukraine, and now we see that this war is much longer than Russia could expect, fortunately. Yes, of course, I understand that it brings a lot of casualties, human lives are [at] stake, and of course, destroyed civil infrastructure. But this is also the fight for not only Ukrainian democracy and Ukrainian territorial integrity, but also the fight for democratic values at all. And this is very important to mention, that Ukraine is fighting very bravely, not only for its freedom but for our freedom, too.

VOA: What do you think Russia is doing? What is [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s goal?

Nauseda: I think Putin miscalculated the scenario of this war, the expectations were totally different. Putin expected that they will take over Ukrainian capital Kyiv in a few days, and this war will not bring any huge political and economic consequences on Russia. But we see that it turned out to be totally different. And what is very important to mention that, until the war, the reaction of European politicians, and other countries, too, was, how to say, subdued, if I could express it like this, because nobody expected that this war and the real attempts of Russia are so terrible, and they are ambitions to conquer Ukraine. And afterwards, in the first days of the war, I saw a big commitment and a totally different attitude of my colleagues in [the] European Union to act, to do something, in order first of all to stop the war. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen, but then we realized that if we had to do more in order to, first of all, to bring war to, yes, to bring on the table very clear consequences on Russia, and Russia must see what will be the consequences. So the first package of sanctions, second, third, fifth. And now we see that European politicians and the countries of European Union understand very well what are the threats posed by Russian authorities. It was not the case, because I remember our discussions in European Council, bilateral meetings. We try to convince our partners. …

VOA: Who is we? When you said we, who is we? Because I understand that your country, Poland, other countries. …

Nauseda: … Poland, Romania, all Eastern European countries, which are exposed to these threats very directly, and we hear very well and really, we listen what Putin is saying, because some. …

VOA: And Western European countries didn’t really realize and underestimated. …

Nauseda: Theoretically, maybe, but the real reactions, they’re not adequate to the rhetoric Putin allowed him to express all this time. And this is the reason why I think it’s very important to understand that Europe is different. Europe understands the threats much better. Of course, Europe is still dependent in many areas, for example, energy dependence. Still, this is a very hot issue. This is not the issue in my country. Lithuania implemented all necessary changes, spent a lot of money in order to change the infrastructure, to create the infrastructure, to be independent in energy field, and we did it. And now we can probably say that Lithuania is not dependent, and Lithuania stopped to buy Russian oil, Russian gas, Russian electricity, so they cannot do anything to us in this regard.

VOA: This dependency on energy resources built up in the last 20 years, specifically with Germany, with France, with other countries. Why do you think that such an underestimation of Russian threats was built and kind of persuaded in the minds of politicians in Western Europe?

Nauseda: I cannot reject the assumption that economic interests, first of all, are there. Money, profit, cheaper energy resources and possibilities to do business with. But another reason was assumptions that we have to deal with totally different kind of policy or politicians in Moscow. Because sometimes I think my colleagues thought that probably Putin is a little bit different, but okay, we can do business with him because we can negotiate. We can talk. We can try to convince, to bring our arguments. And he could not understand that the arguments do not play any role to him, because the main ideology with this regime is to conquer as much as possible, to expand, to find the neighbors we could attack, and this is very clear if you read what they are saying in Moscow, they try to rebuild their empire. They try to restore the Soviet Union in one or another shape. And as you mentioned, as you remember that Putin mentioned that the collapse of Soviet Union was the largest disaster of 20th century. And now they consequently and very logically try to reestablish Soviet Union, and this means not only the risk and threats to Ukraine. This means huge threats to all of us and this time maybe even to those countries which were not a part of former Soviet Union, the countries of Western Europe, too.

VOA: Your country was part of Soviet Union. Does your country feel safe in this environment? And do you think that NATO, your allies in NATO would come to defend you, fully? What is your readiness for the threats?

Nauseda: My response will be very simple. We feel safer as we are [from] 2004, because in 2004, Lithuania became the member of two very important organizations, European Union and NATO. I like to say this sentence and I repeated this sentence many times, European Union was for a better life, NATO was for life. And this is still valid, and this is very important. Yes, we strongly believe in Article 5, we strongly believe in the reassurances of our partners to defend each inch of our soil. But this does not mean that we cannot put additional efforts in order to improve our security, too. We did a lot in this country in order to modernize our army, modernize our military forces, to create better infrastructure to be able to accommodate additional troops from our NATO allies. And we increased our military spending up to 2.5 % of our GDP. And we are ready to provide even more financial resources in order to fulfill all the requirements, which could be adequate to the current situation, the geopolitical situation. And this is very important to mention that Lithuania feels safe, but we have to be aware of these risks because we have to deal with a very dangerous neighbor and the best proof is the situation in Ukraine.

VOA: What is at stake in Ukraine today?

Nauseda: Democracy, the world order… international security situation is [at] stake, and of course [it’s] very important to mention that there’s no limit for the appetite of Vladimir Putin. If they will be successful in Ukraine, they will be at our doors, too. And I don’t know who will be their next target, Baltic countries, maybe Poland, maybe Romania, but this is not the most important question. The most important issue is, we have to do or in the NATO format, in European Union format in order to prevent, to stop Putin. Putin has to finalize his operation, as he calls it, in Ukraine. And I hope very much that Ukraine will be successful, and we will stand together with Ukraine until the victory, of course until the victory of Ukraine. And nowadays we see a lot of assurances coming from Western European leaders, and also other leaders in the world that they are ready to provide military assistance to Ukraine. European Union is strongly committed to impose sanctions and to continue sanctions policy in the future. This is very important because so far, we did a lot, but this is not enough to stop Putin. And we have to realize it and to understand it, that we have to do more, especially military assistance, in the short-term military assistance probably this is the most important problem. In the longer run, there will be very important issues related to humanitarian aid, macroeconomic assistance and so on. But now we understand very well that their conflict will be solved, not sitting at the negotiation table. The conflict will be solved in the battlefield.

VOA: I want to ask you about the role of the United States, because they basically pushed this international coalition and they were warning Ukraine about the possible threats from Russia for a couple of months prior to the war. Do you think the United States is doing enough in this fight? And who do you think should be a leader of this push to stop Putin in the region?

Nauseda: I would expect United States should be the leader, but I would say that actually the United States is a leader in providing military assistance, political support, and this is very important. This is very important, but, of course, I would expect that the speed of the decision making, commitment to provide more assistance and … speed is probably the most important issue right now. Yes, we are talking about additional military equipment, lethal weapons and other equipment. But this is very important that Ukrainians need it today not tomorrow or after tomorrow. And each day brings a lot of casualties, as I mentioned, and people are suffering, destroyed cities and so on, and of course we have to stop it as soon as possible, and the United States’ role in this is crucial. The European Union plays also very important role, but I think we have to deal in solidarity, and we have to be solider and they see the solidarity right now, the United States, the European Union, also like-minded countries in Asia. I see this solidarity and they saw their solidarity in NATO summit in Madrid, where we took very important decisions, bold decisions on the NATO strengthening. Defining Russia as a long-term threat, also very important element of our conclusions in the Madrid summit, and for my country and for Eastern European region, there are very important decisions to mention, for example, forward defense status in [the] Eastern European region. Also brigade-size, -level support and military presence in my country. As you’ll know Germany is a leading country of EFP [Enhanced Forward Protection]. And this is very important to our people, especially probably to our people, to hear that our allies are ready to provide additional support to Lithuania, because security right now is even outpacing the importance of economic and social issues.

VOA: We established already that Russia broke international law and they’re trying to push all the boundaries and rules. However, Russia is still a member of the Security Council of the U.N. Russia has a veto position in the OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] organization and many other organizations. Do you think something has to be done with it?

Nauseda: Unfortunately, this is the reason why we have to find additional formats or maybe alternative formats to deal with Russia, because, yes, you mentioned that United Nations’ Security Council … Russia can create a lot of obstacles [there]. … And this is the reason why we have to find some other formats. I still believe the importance in the United Nations in other fields, for example, providing the channels or trying to solve the issue of grain export to the third countries and secretary-general [Antonio Guterres] put a lot of effort in order to solve this issue and probably in such formats, United Nations would be quite effective instrument to provide additional support to Ukraine. But we have to find also other formats, bilateral formats are important, too. I mentioned the European Union and I mentioned NATO, but bilateral support: Germany, France, the United States and even smaller-sized countries. This bilateral support is very important and I heard it from President Zelenskyy during my last visit in Kyiv, which was organized on the statehood day, as you know, Ukraine is celebrating the first time the statehood day. And it was very important to me to attend this event in Kyiv. I held the speech in Verkhovna Rada [parliament] and President Zelensky said to me, Lithuania did a lot and probably it is a good example to other countries. They can provide and they can be even more effective by providing needed support to Ukraine. But we are strongly committed, and this is not only the opinion or commitment of our political elite, this is a commitment of all people of Lithuania or almost all.

VOA: You are committed, Poland is committed. Germany is reluctant. How do you try and do you feel you are successful in persuading other countries to do more?

Nauseda: Maybe someone could be skeptical about the attitude or the German position in the last months, but I see huge progress. Because I couldn’t, I can compare the situation with the situation, let’s say, a few months ago as Germany was reluctant, really reluctant to provide any kind of lethal weapons to Ukraine. Now it’s not the case. Now we are talking about the speed of decision making and this is huge progress. And I think in the thinking we see this shift. The shift of thinking is also evident, and I think this is our contribution, too. We try to talk, we try to establish the needed dialogue with our colleagues in Germany and I think they react also to the public opinion, too, because public opinion is very clear, too. I remember my visit in Berlin at the end of February and I had the possibility to attend the meeting against the war in Ukraine on [February 26, two days after Russia invaded Ukraine]. I returned home and the next day, I heard that there was a meeting on [February 27], 100,000 people [in Germany were protesting], and on Saturday, maybe 500. So you see the dynamic in the public opinion in Germany and this is very important that people understand that they have to do this. Germany is not, how to say, free of threats imposed or posed by Russia. Germany is also the target. Like Lithuania, Romania or other countries of Eastern Europe.

VOA: How do you see this war end?

Nauseda: I do not see any other alternative, and we have to put all efforts in order to achieve the victory of Ukraine in this war, because all other scenarios would be very dark for Ukraine itself, for Lithuania and for the whole democratic world.
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Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya discussed the future of the opposition movement with VOA’s Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze
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An Iranian satellite launched by Russia blasted off from Kazakhstan on Tuesday and reached orbit amid controversy that Moscow might use it to boost its surveillance of military targets in Ukraine. 

As Russia’s international isolation grows following Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin is seeking to pivot Russia toward the Middle East, Asia and Africa and find new clients for the country’s space program. 

Speaking at the Moscow-controlled Baikonur cosmodrome in the Kazakh steppe, Russian space chief Yury Borisov hailed “an important milestone in Russian-Iranian bilateral cooperation, opening the way to the implementation of new and even larger projects.” 

Iran’s Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour, who also attended the launch of the Khayyam satellite, called the event historic and “a turning point for the start of a new interaction in the field of space between our two countries.” 

Nasser Kanani, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said on Twitter that “the brilliant path of scientific and technological progress of the Islamic republic of Iran continues despite sanctions and the enemies’ maximum pressure.” 

Iran, which has maintained ties with Moscow and refrained from criticism of the Ukraine invasion, has sought to deflect suspicions that Moscow could use Khayyam to spy on Ukraine. 

Last week, The Washington Post quoted anonymous Western intelligence officials as saying that Russia “plans to use the satellite for several months or longer” to assist its war efforts before allowing Iran to take control. 

Less than two hours after the satellite was launched on a Soyuz-2.1b rocket, the Iran Space Agency (ISA) said “ground stations of the Iran Space Agency” had received “first telemetric data.”  

The space agency stressed on Sunday that the Islamic republic would control the satellite “from day one” in an apparent reaction to the Post’s report. 

“No third country is able to access the information” sent by the satellite because of its “encrypted algorithm,” it said. 

The purpose of Khayyam is to “monitor the country’s borders,” enhance agricultural productivity and monitor water resources and natural disasters, according to the space agency. 

Iran is negotiating with world powers, including Moscow, to salvage a 2015 deal aimed at reining in Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. 

The United States quit the landmark Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2018 under then-president Donald Trump. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Tehran last month, one of his few trips abroad since Moscow’s February 24 invasion.  

Iran’s Khamenei called for “long-term cooperation” with Russia during their meeting, and Tehran has refused to join international condemnation of Moscow’s invasion of its pro-Western neighbor. 

Iran insists its space program is for civilian and defense purposes only, and does not breach the 2015 nuclear deal, or any other international agreement.  

Borisov, who last month replaced bombastic nationalist Dmitry Rogozin as head of the Russian space agency, had acknowledged that the national space industry is in a “difficult situation” amid tensions with the West. 

Russia will continue its space program but end activities at the International Space Station, an outlier of cooperation between Moscow and the West, after 2024, he said. 

 
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The World Meteorological Organization or WMO reports the month of July was one of the three warmest on record globally. This, despite a weak La Nina event, which is supposed to have a cooling influence.

Meteorologists warn the heatwave that swept through large parts of Europe last month is set to continue in August. They note July was drier than average in much of Europe, badly affecting local economies and agriculture, as well as increasing the risk of wildfires.

WMO Spokeswoman Clare Nullis says Britain’s Met Office has issued another advisory warning of a heat buildup throughout this week. However, she says temperatures are not expected to reach the extreme, record-setting temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius seen in July.

“But it is well above average. Temperatures in France this week, well above average. In Switzerland, many parts of Switzerland well above average. And as I said, continuing the trend that we saw in July, Spain saw its hottest ever month in July. So, not just the hottest July but the hottest ever month on record.”

Nullis says Europe and other parts of the world will have to get used to and adapt to the kind of heatwaves WMO’s Secretary-General Petteri Taalas calls “the new normal.”

While Europe was sweltering under extreme heat in July, WMO reports Antarctic Sea ice reached its lowest July level on record. This follows a record low Sea ice level in June. While Europe saw a lot of heat in July, Nullis notes big chunks of the Antarctic did as well.

“It is important to bear in mind there is quite a big sort of monthly and year-to-year variability in Antarctica. So, the fact that it was the lowest on record in June and in July does not mean necessarily that this is a long-term irreversible trend.”

WMO reports the long-lasting drought in parts of Europe also is set to continue. It warns below-normal precipitation in many parts of Europe will cause or worsen drought conditions and likely trigger more forest fires.
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Powerful explosions erupted at a Russian air base in Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula on Tuesday, killing one person and wounding five others, authorities said, but the cause of the blasts was unknown.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said munitions blew up at the Saki base in the region seized by Russia in 2014, but it emphasized the installation had not been shelled.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities, but there was widespread speculation on Ukrainian social networks that Kyiv’s forces had hit the base with long-range missiles. Sunbathers fled a nearby beach as huge clouds of smoke from the explosions rose over the horizon, while authorities sealed off the area around the base within a radius of five kilometers.

Ukraine’s forces have not attacked Crimea during Russia’s offensive, now in its sixth month, with officials in Moscow warning Ukraine that any attack on Crimea would trigger massive retaliation, including strikes on “decision-making centers” in Kyiv.

But a small-scale, makeshift drone hit the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol last month, an attack blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs. The Saki base has been used by Russian warplanes to strike areas in Ukraine’s southern region.

Ukrainian officials said earlier Tuesday that in the last day at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 were wounded by Russian shelling, including an attack not far from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said Russian forces fired more than 120 rockets at the town of Nikopol, which is across the Dnieper River from the nuclear facility. Several apartment buildings and industrial sites were damaged, he said.

In recent days, Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the power station, the biggest nuclear plant in Europe, and officials have been worrying about a nuclear catastrophe.

In his nightly video address Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invoked the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine, which at the time was a Soviet republic. He called for new sanctions against Russia, accusing it of risking another nuclear disaster with its shelling of the Zaporizhzhia plant. Russia has blamed Ukraine for the attacks on the complex.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Army’s General Staff said early Tuesday that a Russian offensive is continuing toward the hub cities of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in the eastern Donetsk region as Moscow tries to inflict “maximum losses” on Ukrainian forces. 

Ukraine said the Russian Air Force was bombarding military facilities in the direction of Donetsk in support of artillery and other ground operations aimed at dislodging Ukrainian units from the front lines. 

British intelligence warned Monday that Russia was using anti-personnel mines in an effort to defend and hold its defense lines in the eastern Donbas region, with resulting risks to both the military and local civilian populations. 

But Kyiv’s military planners said their forces had repelled reconnaissance and offensive operations in a handful of settlements around Ivano-Daryivka, Bakhmut, and Zaitsevo. 

They said Russian forces had withdrawn after unsuccessful pushes around Avdiyivka and Krasnohorivka.  

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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In what he calls his humanitarian voyage, American Neale Bayly has been riding his motorcycle around Ukraine — not only to see the sights, but also to bring attention to its war against Russia, and raise funds for the children he meets along the way. Omelyan Oshchudlyak has the story. VOA footage by Yuriy Dankevych.
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A Russian offensive is continuing toward the hub cities of Bakhmut and Avdiyivka in the eastern Donetsk region as the enemy tries to inflict “maximum losses” on Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian Army’s General Staff said early on August 9.

It said the Russian Air Force was bombarding military facilities in the direction of Donetsk in support of artillery and other ground operations aimed at dislodging Ukrainian units from the front lines.

British intelligence warned on August 8 that Russia was using anti-personnel mines in an effort to defend and hold its defense lines in the Donbas, with resulting risks to both the military and local civilian populations.

Battlefield reports from either side in the rapidly developing conflict are difficult to confirm.

But Kyiv’s military planners said their forces had repelled reconnaissance and offensive operations in a handful of settlements around Ivano-Daryivka, Bakhmut, and Zaitsevo.

They said Russian forces had withdrawn after unsuccessful pushes around Avdiyivka and Krasnohorivka.

Kyiv said two Russian warships armed with Kalibr cruise missiles are poised for battle off Ukraine’s Black Sea coast.

Meanwhile, international concern persisted over the weekend shelling of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant over the potential for a disaster at Europe’s largest atomic facility.

The head of the Ukrainian nuclear power company Enerhoatom has urged that Zaporizhzhya be declared a military-free zone to avoid nuclear catastrophe.

Zaporizhzhya was seized early in the five-month-old invasion but continues to be manned by Ukrainian staff.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “any attack to a nuclear plant is a suicidal thing” in calling on August 8 for international inspectors to be given access to Zaporizhzhya.

The Russian-installed head of the local administration was quoted by Interfax as saying on August 8 that the facility was operating “in normal mode.”

Washington and the World Bank announced more support for Ukraine on the heels of U.S. President Joe Biden’s committing this week to the single largest package of security assistance under his so-called drawdown authority with $1 billion in aid that includes long-range weapons and medical transport vehicles.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, said on August 8 that Washington would provide $4.5 billion more in economic funding, nearly doubling the budgetary support so far since Russia’s invasion began in February.

The World Bank said it will implement the U.S. grant, which it said is aimed at urgent needs including healthcare, pensions, and social payments.

Also, Reuters cited a document in which Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the United Nations pledged to ensure a 10-nautical-mile buffer zone for ships exporting Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

The long-awaited procedures are part of intense international efforts to unblock millions of tons of grain stuck at Ukrainian ports since the invasion began.

Some information in this report came from Reuters and the Asssoiated Press.
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The first cargo ship to reach its final destination after departing from Ukraine under a deal between Moscow and Kyiv docked in Turkey on Monday, Kyiv said, while a consignment due in Lebanon reported delays.

Ukraine, one of the world’s largest grain exporters, was forced to halt almost all deliveries after Russia’s invasion, but Black Sea exports recently restarted under a deal brokered by the U.N. and Turkey.

The Turkish cargo ship — the Polarnet — that reached its final destination left the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk last week carrying 12,000 metric tons of corn.

It arrived in Turkey as scheduled after being inspected by the Joint Coordination Center (JCC) established in Istanbul under the international agreement signed last month, Kyiv said.

“This first successful completion of the implementation of the ‘grain deal’ means it is possible to be optimistic about future transportation,” Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov was quoted as saying in a statement by the ministry.

The statement did not give the ship’s destination, but the website vesselfinder.com gave its location as the port of Derince, Turkey.

The deal brokered by Turkey and the U.N. lifted a Russian blockade of Ukraine’s ports and set terms for millions of tons of wheat and other grain to start flowing from silos and ports.

The Razoni was the first ship to leave Ukraine under the deal.

It left the port of Odesa August 1 carrying 26,000 tons of corn and was expected in Tripoli in Lebanon this weekend but has yet to reach the destination.

The Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon explained on social media that the consignment was delayed after the original buyer refused delivery, citing a five-month delay in shipment.

“The sender is therefore looking for another recipient. This may be in Lebanon or in another country,” it added in a statement on Twitter.

Eight ships have left Ukrainian ports since the agreement was signed, Kyiv said Monday, and it hoped that between three and five ships would be able to depart daily within two weeks.
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The European Union on Monday said it put forward a “final” text to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal as four days of indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials wrapped up in Vienna.

“What can be negotiated has been negotiated, and it’s now in a final text. However, behind every technical issue and every paragraph lies a political decision that needs to be taken in the capitals,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell tweeted.

“If these answers are positive, then we can sign this deal,” he added as EU, Iranian and U.S. prepared to leave Vienna.

Earlier, a senior EU official told reporters that no more changes could be made to the text, which has been under negotiation for 15 months, and said he expected a final decision from the parties within a “very, very few weeks.”

“It is a package proposal. … You cannot agree with page 20 and disagree with page 50. You have to say yes or no,” he said.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson said Washington was ready to quickly reach an agreement to revive the deal, formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), on the basis of the EU proposals.

Iranian officials suggested that they did not regard the EU proposals as final, saying they would convey their “additional views and considerations” to the European Union, which coordinates the talks, after consultations in Tehran.

Iran has also made demands the United States and other Western powers view as outside the scope of reviving the deal.

For example, Iran has insisted the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, drop its claims Iran has failed to fully explain uranium traces at undeclared sites.

Each side sought to put the onus on the other to compromise.

“They (the Iranians) repeatedly say they are prepared for a return to mutual implementation of the JCPOA. Let’s see if their actions match their words,” the U.S. spokesperson said.

Iran and six major powers struck the original accord in 2015 under which it agreed to restrict its nuclear program to make it harder to use it to develop atomic weapons — an ambition it denies — in return for relief from U.S., EU and U.N. sanctions.

In 2018, then U.S. President Donald Trump ditched the deal and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions designed to choke off Iran’s oil exports, its major source of export income and government revenue.

In response, Tehran — which says its nuclear program is for power generation and other peaceful purposes — began about a year later to breach the agreement in several ways, including rebuilding stocks of enriched uranium.

It has also enriched uranium to 60% purity — far above the 3.67% that is permitted under the deal but below the 90% that is regarded as weapons grade.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to revive the agreement since he took office in January 2021 and negotiations — indirect because Iran refuses to deal directly with the United States on the issue — began in Vienna in April 2021.

Iran has also sought to obtain guarantees that no future U.S. president would renege on the deal if it were revived, as Trump did in 2018. Washington cannot provide such ironclad assurances because the deal is a political understanding rather than a legally binding treaty.

Iranian state media hinted at this issue on Monday.

“The final agreement must ensure the rights and interests of the Iranian people and guarantee the effective and stable removal of sanctions,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian told Borrell in a call, state media reported.
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The Balkan country of Kosovo has recently been at the receiving end of what its leaders say is Russian disinformation. Leonat Shehu and Artan Haraqija have more from Pristina, Kosovo.
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A London museum agreed Sunday to return a collection of Benin Bronzes looted in the late 19th century from what is now Nigeria as cultural institutions throughout Britain come under pressure to repatriate artifacts acquired during the colonial era. 

The Horniman Museum and Gardens in southeast London said that it would transfer a collection of 72 items to the Nigerian government. The decision comes after Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments formally asked for the artifacts to be returned earlier this year and following a consultation with community members, artists and schoolchildren in Nigeria and the U.K., the museum said. 

“The evidence is very clear that these objects were acquired through force, and external consultation supported our view that it is both moral and appropriate to return their ownership to Nigeria,” Eve Salomon, chair of the museum’s board of trustees, said in a statement. “The Horniman is pleased to be able to take this step, and we look forward to working with the NCMM to secure longer term care for these precious artifacts.” 

The Horniman’s collection is a small part of the 3,000 to 5,000 artifacts taken from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 when British soldiers attacked and occupied Benin City as Britain expanded its political and commercial influence in West Africa. The British Museum alone holds more than 900 objects from Benin, and National Museums Scotland has another 74. Others were distributed to museums around the world. 

The artifacts include plaques, animal and human figures, and items of royal regalia made from brass and bronze by artists working for the royal court of Benin. The general term Benin Bronzes is sometimes applied to items made from ivory, coral, wood and other materials as well as the metal sculptures. 

Increasing demand for returns

Countries including Nigeria, Egypt and Greece, as well indigenous peoples from North America to Australia, are increasingly demanding the return of artifacts and human remains amid a global reassessment of colonialism and the exploitation of local populations. 

Nigeria and Germany recently signed a deal for the return of hundreds of Benin Bronzes. That followed French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision last year to sign over 26 pieces known as the Abomey Treasures, priceless artworks of the 19th century Dahomey kingdom in present-day Benin, a small country that sits just west of Nigeria. 

But British institutions have been slower to respond. 

Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture formally asked the British Museum to return its Benin Bronzes in October of last year. 

The museum said Sunday that it is working with a number of partners in Nigeria and it is committed to a “thorough and open investigation” of the history of the Benin artifacts and the looting of Benin City. 

“The museum is committed to active engagement with Nigerian institutions concerning the Benin Bronzes, including pursuing and supporting new initiatives developed in collaboration with Nigerian partners and colleagues,” the British Museum says on its website. 

BLM inspires museum to ‘reset’

The Horniman Museum also traces its roots to the Age of Empire. 

The museum opened in 1890, when tea merchant Frederick Horniman opened his collection of artifacts from around the world for public viewing. 

Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, the museum embarked on a “reset agenda,” that sought to “address long-standing issues of racism and discrimination within our history and collections, and a determination to set ourselves on a more sustainable course for the future.” 

The museum’s website acknowledges that Frederick Horniman’s involvement in the Chinese tea trade meant he benefitted from low prices due to Britain’s sale of opium in China and the use of poorly compensated and sometimes forced labor. 

The Horniman also recognizes that it holds items “obtained through colonial violence.” 

These include the Horniman’s collection of Benin Bronzes, comprising 12 brass plaques, as well as a brass cockerel altar piece, ivory and brass ceremonial objects, brass bells and a key to the king’s palace. The bronzes are currently displayed along with information acknowledging their forced removal from Benin City and their contested status. 

“We recognize that we are at the beginning of a journey to be more inclusive in our stories and our practices, and there is much more we need to do,” the museum says on its website. “This includes reviewing the future of collections that were taken by force or in unequal transactions.” 
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