WELLINGTON, NEW ZEALAND – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday raised the possibility of New Zealand and other nations taking part in the AUKUS defense pact, cooperation that could rile Wellington’s key trade partner China.

“The door’s very much open for New Zealand and other partners to engage as they see appropriate going forward,” Blinken said, as Wellington mulls cooperation on non-nuclear aspects of the joint Australia-U.K.-U.S. accord.

New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins on Wednesday said New Zealand was “open to conversations” about a possible role in AUKUS, so long as it did not relate to the development of nuclear-powered submarines.

New Zealand has been nuclear-free since the mid-1980s.

Instead, officials appear to be eying cooperation on defense technologies such as cyber, artificial intelligence and hypersonic weapons, which fall under the AUKUS agreement’s so-called “pillar two.”

New Zealand and Australia are the main allies of the United States in the South Pacific.

But New Zealand has recently been accused of putting its trading relationship with China ahead of its friendships with fellow Five Eyes spy group members the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.

Beijing has vehemently opposed AUKUS, describing the pact as destabilizing for the region.

New Zealand Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said that “nothing has been agreed to” on AUKUS yet, and the country’s Cabinet would have to consider any proposals before any agreement is made.  
…

Sinead O’Connor, the gifted Irish singer-songwriter who became a superstar in her mid-20s but was known as much for her private struggles and provocative actions as for her fierce and expressive music, has died at 56.

“It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved Sinead. Her family and friends are devastated and have requested privacy at this very difficult time,” the singer’s family said in a statement reported Wednesday by the BBC and RTE. No cause was disclosed.

She was public about her mental illness, saying that she’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. O’Connor posted a Facebook video in 2017 from a New Jersey motel where she had been living, saying that she was staying alive for the sake of others and that if it were up to her, she’d be “gone.”

When her teenage son Shane died by suicide in 2022, O’Connor tweeted there was “no point living without him” and was soon hospitalized.

Recognizable by her shaved head and elfin features, O’Connor began her career singing on the streets of Dublin and soon rose to international fame. She was a star from her 1987 debut album “The Lion and the Cobra” and became a sensation in 1990 with her cover of Prince’s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U,” a seething, shattering performance that topped charts from Europe to Australia and was heightened by a promotional video featuring the gray-eyed O’Connor in intense close-up.

She was a lifelong nonconformist — she would say that she shaved her head in response to record executives pressuring her to be conventionally glamorous — but her political and cultural stances and troubled private life often overshadowed her music.

A critic of the Catholic Church well before allegations sexual abuse were widely reported, O’Connor made headlines in October 1992 when she tore up a photo of Pope John Paul II while appearing live on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” and denounced the church as the enemy. The next week, Joe Pesci hosted “Saturday Night Live,” held up a repaired photo of the pope and said that if he had been on the show with O’Connor, he “would have gave her such a smack.”

Days later, she appeared at an all-star tribute for Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden and was immediately booed. She was supposed to sing Dylan’s “I Believe in You,” but switched to an a cappella version of Bob Marley’s “War,” which she had sung on “Saturday Night Live.”

Although consoled and encouraged on stage by her friend Kris Kristofferson, she left and broke down, and her performance was kept off the concert CD. (Years later, Kristofferson recorded “Sister Sinead,” for which he wrote, “And maybe she’s crazy and maybe she ain’t/But so was Picasso and so were the saints.”)

She also feuded with Frank Sinatra over her refusal to allow the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at one of her shows and accused Prince of physically threatening her. In 1989 she declared her support for the Irish Republican Army, a statement she retracted a year later. Around the same time, she skipped the Grammy ceremony, saying it was too commercialized.

In 1999, O’Connor caused uproar in Ireland when she became a priestess of the breakaway Latin Tridentine Church — a position that was not recognized by the mainstream Catholic Church. For many years, she called for a full investigation into the extent of the church’s role in concealing child abuse by clergy.

In 2010, when Pope Benedict XVI apologized to Ireland to atone for decades of abuse, O’Connor condemned the apology for not going far enough and called for Catholics to boycott Mass until there was a full investigation into the Vatican’s role, which by 2018 was making international headlines.

“People assumed I didn’t believe in God. That’s not the case at all. I’m Catholic by birth and culture and would be the first at the church door if the Vatican offered sincere reconciliation,” she wrote in The Washington Post in 2010.

O’Connor announced in 2018 that she had converted to Islam and would be adopting the name Shuhada’ Davitt, later Shuhada Sadaqat — although she continued to use Sinead O’Connor professionally. 

“Her music was loved around the world and her talent was unmatched and beyond compare,” Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said in a statement on social media. 

O’Connor was born on December 8, 1966. She had a difficult childhood, with a mother whom she alleged was abusive and encouraged her to shoplift. As a teenager she spent time in a church-sponsored institution for girls, where she said she washed priests’ clothes for no wages. But a nun gave O’Connor her first guitar, and soon she sang and performed on the streets of Dublin, her influences ranging from Dylan to Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Her performance with a local band caught the eye of a small record label, and, in 1987, O’Connor released “The Lion and the Cobra,” which sold hundreds of thousands of copies and featured the hit “Mandinka,” driven by a hard rock guitar riff and O’Connor’s piercing vocals. O’Connor, 20 years old and pregnant while making “Lion and the Cobra,” co-produced the album.

“Nothing Compares 2 U” received three Grammy nominations and was the featured track off her acclaimed album “I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got,” which helped lead Rolling Stone to name her Artist of the Year in 1991.

O’Connor announced she was retiring from music in 2003, but she continued to record new material. Her most recent album was “I’m Not Bossy, I’m the Boss,” released in 2014 and she sang the theme song for Season 7 of “Outlander.”

The singer married four times; her union to drug counselor Barry Herridge, in 2011, lasted just 16 days. O’Connor had four children: Jake, with her first husband John Reynolds; Roisin, with John Waters; Shane, with Donal Lunny; and Yeshua Bonadio, with Frank Bonadio.

In 2014, she said she was joining the Irish nationalist Sinn Fein party and called for its leaders to step aside so that a younger generation of activists could take over. She later withdrew her application.
…

The past year has lifted Poland’s image in the European Union from rule-of-law defier to leading Ukraine champion, welcoming more than a million refugees since Russia’s invasion and providing billions of dollars in military aid to neighboring Kyiv.

But Poland’s newly acquired luster is fast fading, as Warsaw and four other neighboring countries balk at another Ukraine export — millions of tons of grain that have now lost maritime transport routes since Russia’s pullout this month from the year-old Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

The countries, including Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria, argue that Ukrainian cereals are flooding local markets and undercutting local harvests. 

Analysts say money and politics are at stake — not just millions of dollars in EU compensation for farmers from those countries but also key rural votes that governments in Poland and Slovakia are courting ahead of fall legislative elections. 

The grain standoff that is dividing the 27-member bloc — which has largely pulled together since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — may also carry longer-term implications for the EU. 

Looming on the horizon, although with no fixed date, is Ukraine’s hoped-for membership in the bloc, which may divert millions of dollars of funds from Brussels that its eastern EU neighbors currently enjoy.

“What we’re seeing now is the Eastern European countries coming to terms with the economic implications of their political and military support for Ukraine,” said Jacob Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels and the Peterson Institute for International Relations in Washington.

With Kyiv now an EU candidate, “they’re going to have to choose,” Kirkegaard said. “Are they really interested in also supporting Ukraine in the long run? We’re seeing a part of that process playing out now.”

EU agricultural ministers met Tuesday in Brussels to look at ways to expand European overland rail and road “solidarity routes” set up last year to export Ukrainian grain to account for the cutoff of Black Sea routes.

The European Commission is also considering a separate proposal by Lithuania to have the grain exported through five Baltic sea ports. 

Experts have raised questions about whether Europe has the capacity to re-export the extra Ukrainian grain tonnage that previously traveled through the Black Sea. That includes potential problems harmonizing rail gauges — defining the distance between the two rails of the tracks — among member states. 

Tuesday’s meeting reached no agreement on the fate of a temporary deal the EU struck with Poland and four other Eastern European countries in May. That allowed Ukrainian grain shipments to pass through their territories but banned local sale and storage.

Brussels also offered roughly $110 million in compensation for farmers in those countries who were reeling from the cheaper competition.

‘Not European’

The five countries now want the deal — which expires in mid-September — expanded until year’s end.

“I hope that this will be extended,” Polish Agricultural Minister Robert Telus told media website Euractiv. “But if it is not, Poland will still have to tackle the issue, and we have demonstrated we can do that.”

The commission says it will respond before the September deadline. But many other EU members oppose any extension.

“What is not possible is to take the money from Brussels as compensation for the burden, but at the same time close the border to Ukraine,” said German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir.

That would undermine EU solidarity for Ukraine, he said, adding, “The only one who is happy is [Russian President] Vladimir Putin.” 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has criticized the push to extend the restrictions on Ukrainian grain exports, calling them “unacceptable” and “not European” during his evening address Tuesday — echoing remarks made by other critics in recent weeks. 

For its part, France’s Liberation newspaper has claimed Warsaw is using “pirate methods” that threaten the bloc’s unity against Russia, “and puts into peril the rest of the economy of Ukraine that it claims to support.”

Poland, along with Hungary, has faced plenty of other EU criticism over the years — from flouting rule-of-law principles to the bloc’s asylum and migration rules. Earlier this month, the EU Commission cited underwhelming progress by both on judicial reforms that are conditioned to its release of millions of dollars in funds.

But for Poland’s ruling Law and Justice Party, the need to shore up its key rural base is most immediately at stake, observers say, ahead of this fall’s legislative vote.

“Clearly, it’s an electoral strategy of the Polish government,” Kirkegaard said of Warsaw’s push to extend the Ukrainian grain import restrictions. “Are they going to back down? Probably not. Will the rest of the EU accept that? No.”

The prospect of a stable Ukraine one day joining the bloc also weighs into the calculations of Poland and the other four Eastern European countries, he said. While Kyiv’s membership would offer an extra bulwark against Russia, it would likely divert millions of dollars in EU agricultural and other funds that many nations enjoy today.

With discussions over the next 2027 EU budget looming, “they’re putting their markers down,” Kirkegaard said. “They’re positioning themselves for what is going to be a huge fight.” 
…

Major fires raging in Greece and other European countries have advanced. The flames have caused additional deaths, destroying homes and threatening nature reserves during a third successive wave of extreme temperatures, The Associated Press reported.
…

A London jury acquitted Kevin Spacey on sexual assault charges on Wednesday after a four-week trial in which the actor said he was a “big flirt” who had consensual flings with men and whose only misstep was touching a man’s groin while making a “clumsy pass.”

Three men accused the Oscar winner of aggressively grabbing their crotches. A fourth, an aspiring actor seeking mentorship, said he awoke to the actor performing oral sex on him after going to Spacey’s London apartment for a beer and either falling asleep or passing out.

All the men said the contact was unwanted but Spacey testified that the young actor and another man had willingly participated in consensual acts. He said a third man’s allegation that he grabbed his privates like a striking “cobra” backstage at a theater was “pure fantasy.”

He said he didn’t remember a fourth incident at a small party at a home he rented in the country but accepted that he touched the groin of a man he had met at a pub during a night of heavy drinking. He said he had misread the man’s interest in him and said he had probably made an awkward pass.

Defense lawyer Patrick Gibbs said three of the men were liars and incidents had been “reimagined with a sinister spin.” He accused most of them of hopping on a “bandwagon” of complaints in the hope of striking it rich.

Prosecutor Christine Agnew told jurors that Spacey was a “sexual bully” who took what he wanted when he wanted. She said he was shielded by a “trinity of protection”: he knew men were unlikely to complain; they wouldn’t be believed if they did complain; and if they did complain, no action would be taken because he was powerful.

Spacey, who turned 64 on Wednesday, faced nine charges, including multiple counts of sexual assault and one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.

The accusations date from 2001 to 2013 and include a period when Spacey — after winning Academy Awards for “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty” — had returned to the theater, his first love. During most of that period he was artistic director of the Old Vic Theatre in London.

The men came forward after an American actor accused Spacey of an incident of sexual misconduct as the #MeToo movement heated up in 2017.

Several of the men said they had been haunted by the abuse and couldn’t bear to watch Spacey’s films.

One of the men broke down when speaking with police as he provided details in a videotaped interview about the oral sex incident that he said he’d never told anyone before. Another man said he was angry about the abuse that occurred sporadically over several years and began to drink and work out more to cope with it.

Spacey choked up and became teary eyed in the witness box as he described the emotional and financial turmoil that the U.S. accusations brought and the barrage of criticism that followed on social media.

“My world exploded,” Spacey testified. “There was a rush to judgment and before the first question was asked or answered I lost my job, I lost my reputation, I lost everything in a matter of days.”

Gibbs said Spacey was being “monstered” on the internet every night and became toxic in the industry.

Spacey was booted from “House of Cards” and his scenes in “All the Money in the World,” were scrubbed and he was replaced by Christopher Plummer. Aside from some small projects, he has barely worked as an actor in six years.

A New York jury last year swiftly cleared Spacey in a $40 million lawsuit by “Star Trek: Discovery” actor Anthony Rapp on allegations dating back three decades.

Spacey had viewed the London case as a chance for redemption, telling German magazine Zeit last month that there were “people right now who are ready to hire me the moment I am cleared of these charges in London.”
…

A former U.S. Marine who was freed by Russia last year in a prisoner swap has been injured while fighting for Ukraine against Moscow’s forces, the U.S. State Department said.
The European Union is considering helping fund the costly transportation of grain out of Ukraine after Russia halted a deal that allowed Black Sea exports of Ukrainian grain vital to global food security.

Britain’s defense ministry said Wednesday that Russia has altered its naval activity in the Black Sea, adding that there is a possibility Russian forces were preparing “to enforce a blockade of Ukraine.”

Last week, Russia withdrew from a nearly year-old agreement brokered by the United Nations and Turkey that allowed for the safe passage of grain shipments from Ukrainian Black Sea ports. Before the deal, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had halted the grain exports, worsening a global food crisis.

The British defense ministry said in its daily update that the Russian corvette Sergey Kotov had deployed to the Black Sea to patrol a shipping lane between the Bosporus Strait and Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa.

“There is a realistic possibility that it will form part of a task group to intercept commercial vessels Russia believes are heading to Ukraine,” the British ministry said.

US aid

The United States will send Ukraine an additional $400 million in military aid, including air defense missiles, small drones and armored vehicles, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The weapons are being provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows for the speedy delivery of defense articles and services from U.S. stocks, sometimes arriving within days of approval. The materiel will come from U.S. excess inventory.

The aid announcement comes at a time when Ukrainian troops are involved in a slow-moving counteroffensive against invading Russian forces.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the assistance is aimed at “strengthening Ukraine’s brave forces on the battlefield” and “helping them retake Ukraine’s sovereign territory.”

“The people of Ukraine continue to bravely defend their country against Russia’s aggression while Russia continues its relentless and vicious attacks that are killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying civil infrastructure,” Blinken said in a statement.

The new aid package includes an array of ammunition, ranging from missiles for Patriot air defense systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASMS), Stinger anti-aircraft systems, more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Stryker armored personnel carriers and a variety of other missiles and rockets.

It also will include for the first time U.S.-furnished Black Hornet surveillance drones — tiny nano drones used largely for intelligence-gathering. Ukraine has previously received these drones from other Western allies.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Also Tuesday, Russian lawmakers approved a bill extending the upper age limit for the compulsory military draft from 27 to 30, a move that appears aimed at expanding the pool of recruits for the fighting in Ukraine.

The measure was quickly approved by the lower house on Tuesday. It will need to be approved by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law.

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

North Korea is receiving invited delegates from Russia and China this week for the 70th anniversary celebrations of its self-proclaimed “Victory Day,” an exceptional move in light of the ongoing border closures in place since early 2020 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

July 27, 1953, marks the day the signing of a long-negotiated armistice agreement paused the Korean War. North Korea claims the 1950-1953 war was started by the U.S. and South Korea, and that it ultimately clenched victory.  

North Korean state media on Wednesday published images of Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu arriving at Pyongyang International Airport the night before to be greeted by his North Korean counterpart Kang Sun Nam.  

The “goodwill mission of the Russian army and people will significantly contribute to developing [onto] a high stage the strategic and traditional DPRK-Russia friendly relations … in keeping with the demand of the times,” KCNA said.    

DPRK or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is North Korea’s official name.  

In its statement, Russia’s Defense Ministry characterized the visit as one that will “help strengthen Russian-North Korean military ties and will be an important stage in the development of cooperation between the two countries.”  

Anniversary events are expected to culminate in a large-scale nighttime parade on Thursday, in what is typically an elaborate show of North Korea’s various military hardware developed over the years.  

A parade in February introduced prototypes of the now twice-tested solid-fueled Hwasong-18 intercontinental ballistic missile, in a grand finale of 16 ICBMs that were rolled out on transporter erector launchers to cap the late-night celebration.      

This week’s high-profile visit by the Russian defense minister carries symbolic significance, with the possibility of Sergei Shoigu meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un being raised.  

Analysts will be watching whether the trip could lead to boosted arms sales between Pyongyang and Moscow.  

Washington previously accused North Korea of sending weapons and workers to aid Russia in its war against Ukraine. Both Moscow and Pyongyang dismissed the charge.      

Meanwhile, China will be represented at the anniversary celebrations by the vice chairman of the Chinese National People’s Congress’ Standing Committee, Li Hongzhong, in a visit scheduled to begin Wednesday.  

“Having a high-level Chinese delegation visit North Korea and mark the occasion [of the 70th anniversary of the armistice of the Korean War] shows the high importance both sides attach to our bilateral ties,” said China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning Tuesday.   

South Korea’s foreign ministry said Seoul is watching how Russia and North Korea’s relationship evolves, adding that it hopes the relations moves the peninsula toward peace and stability. 

Washington also voiced hopes that Russia and China will encourage North Korea from “threatening, unlawful behavior,” underlining the potential role they can play in bringing Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.  

“The United States’ point of view on this has been quite consistent, which is that we are open to meeting with Pyongyang without preconditions and we continue to have a commitment for the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” said State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel. 

On U.S. Army private Travis King, who crossed into North Korea last week through the Joint Security Area at the DMZ, Vedant said he had no new updates. Pyongyang has also yet to make any public comments on the soldier believed to be in its custody.  

Russia and China have both sided with North Korea at several United Nations Security Council meetings convened to condemn North Korea’s ballistic missile tests, outlawed under several UNSC resolutions.  

North Korea has been on a record-setting run of ballistic missile tests since last year. This month alone, it has test fired its latest Hwasong-18 ICBM and launched four short-range ballistic missiles late in the night, local time.   
…

First Lady Jill Biden Tuesday marked the U.S.’ return to the United Nations’ cultural organization after five years away, amid concerns that its absence has let China take a lead in key areas like artificial intelligence and technology education. 

“I was honored to join you today as we raise the flag of the United States, a symbol of our commitment to global collaboration and peace,” Biden said in Paris, as the American flag joined 193 others under the shadow of the city’s major cultural landmark, the Eiffel Tower. “The United States is proud to join as a member state of UNESCO. Madam Director-General, you’ve worked long and hard to help us realize this goal.”   

The roots of the withdrawal date back to 2011, when the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization gave Palestine full membership as a state. Palestine is not a U.N.-recognized state. That led the Obama administration to freeze U.S. financial contributions to UNESCO – about a fifth of the agency’s budget. 

[[https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R42999.html]]. 

In 2017, the U.S. State Department cited “mounting arrears at UNESCO, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias at UNESCO” as reasons to complete the withdrawal the following year. 

The Biden administration now faces a $619 million debt. The Biden administration has asked for $150 million in the 2024 budget. 

UNESCO also has designated 1,157 properties around the world as having major cultural significance, including the ancient town of Bethlehem, technically in Israel but classified by UNESCO as being in Palestine.   

The prominent American Jewish Committee told VOA they supported the U.S. decision to rejoin UNESCO despite its concerns about what it sees as lack of recognition of Jewish culture and the Jewish state.   

“UNESCO is an important agency,” Jason Isaacson, chief policy and political affairs officer for the American Jewish Committee, told VOA. “It’s not perfect. Nor is any other U.N. entity. But it does really important work. And it is a vehicle for soft power, for the exercise of soft power in the United States to not be in that agency meant that other players — competitors, rivals of the United States — could have a seat at the table, could have cultural programs, scientific exchanges, educational programs, in countries all over the world, especially the developing world in places and in ways that the United States could not.”

Recognition of iconic sites

UNESCO’s most famous totems are its world heritage sites, which include monuments that have weathered long stretches of human history. This month, a massive heat wave forced authorities in Athens to close the Acropolis, a massive edifice that has loomed over the Greek capital for three millennia. 

Simmering ethnic conflict in Ethiopia in recent years has hampered religious pilgrims’ access to the massive, ancient rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, a mountain town known in the 13th century as ‘New Jerusalem.’ 

And the COVID pandemic has kept footfalls light on China’s great Great Wall, the massive fortification whose construction began in the 3rd Century B.C. and UNESCO estimates once boasted a total length of 20,000 kilometers. 

This year, UNESCO added another entry to its vaunted list: the historic center of the bustling Ukrainian port city of Odesa, a critical port for Ukraine’s agricultural exports. 

This month, a Russian airstrike tore through the city, dropping a missile through the roof of its soaring cathedral and shattering the altar.   

UNESCO issued a condemnation.   

“On this night alone in Odesa, nearly 50 buildings were damaged, 25 of them architectural monuments,” said Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. “The historic center. A world heritage site that UNESCO has taken under its protection.”   

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, UNESCO has verified damage to 270 of its designated “cultural sites” in Ukraine. 

The heavy responsibility of carrying all this cultural weight is lighter now that the U.S. is back, said UNESCO’s director-general, Audrey Azoulay.   

“In these times of division, rifts and existential threats to humanity, we reaffirm here and today our union,” she said. “The star-spangled banner of the United States of America will float in a few moments over the Paris skies.”   
…

Latest Developments:   

A former U.S. Marine who was freed by Russia last year in a prisoner swap has been injured while fighting for Ukraine against Moscow's forces, the U.S. State Department said. 
Russia's prosecutor-general declared independent TV channel Dozhd to be an undesirable organization, continuing the crackdown on news media and groups regarded as threats to Russia's security. Dozhd, which is often critical of the Kremlin, closed its operations in Russia soon after the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, moving first to Latvia and then to the Netherlands.  
The European Union is considering helping fund the costly transportation of grain out of Ukraine after Russia halted a deal that allowed Black Sea exports of Ukrainian grain vital to global food security. 

The United States will send Ukraine an additional $400 million in military aid, including air defense missiles, small drones and armored vehicles, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. 

The weapons are being provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows for the speedy delivery of defense articles and services from U.S. stocks, sometimes arriving within days of approval. The materiel will come from U.S. excess inventory.

The aid announcement comes at a time when Ukrainian troops are involved in a slow-moving counteroffensive against invading Russian forces.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the assistance is aimed at “strengthening Ukraine’s brave forces on the battlefield” and “helping them retake Ukraine’s sovereign territory.”

“The people of Ukraine continue to bravely defend their country against Russia’s aggression while Russia continues its relentless and vicious attacks that are killing Ukrainian civilians and destroying civil infrastructure,” Blinken said in a statement.

The new aid package includes an array of ammunition, ranging from missiles for Patriot air defense systems and National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASMS), Stinger anti-aircraft systems, more ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), Stryker armored personnel carriers, and a variety of other missiles and rockets. 

It also will include for the first time U.S.-furnished Black Hornet surveillance drones — tiny nano drones used largely for intelligence-gathering. Ukraine has previously received these drones from other Western allies.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has provided more than $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said their air defenses intercepted Iranian-made Shahed drones that Russia fired at Kyiv overnight. It was the sixth drone attack on the capital this month. 

Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said no casualties or damage were reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry said a Russian patrol ship destroyed two Ukrainian sea drones that attacked it in the Black Sea early Tuesday.

Ukrainian officials said Russia used cluster munitions in an attack on Kostiantynivka, in the eastern Donetsk region, late Monday.

Also Tuesday, Russian lawmakers approved a bill extending the upper age limit for the compulsory military draft from 27 to 30, a move that appears aimed at expanding the pool of recruits for the fighting in Ukraine.

The measure was quickly approved by the lower house on Tuesday. It will need to be approved by the upper house and signed by President Vladimir Putin to become law.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said its staff saw directional anti-personnel mines located on the perimeter of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

The IAEA said in a statement late Monday that the mines were seen Sunday “in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers.” The agency said no mines were seen “within the inner site perimeter.”

Russia has controlled the site since the early stages of its invasion of Ukraine. The IAEA has repeatedly warned of the potential for a nuclear catastrophe as it advocated for safety and security measures at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said the agency was told the placement of the mines was a military decision and done in an area controlled by the military.

“But having such explosives on the site is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and creates additional psychological pressure on plant staff — even if the IAEA’s initial assessment based on its own observations and the plant’s clarifications is that any detonation of these mines should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems,” Grossi said. 

IAEA experts are also continuing to monitor the availability of water to cool the plant’s reactors following the June destruction of the Kakhovka dam that affected a reservoir near the plant, the agency said.

“The site continues to have sufficient water for some months,” the IAEA said.

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

A former U.S. Marine who was freed by Russia last year in a prisoner swap has been injured while fighting for Ukraine against Moscow’s forces, the U.S. State Department said Tuesday. 

Trevor Reed, who was held by Russia for more than two years before winning his freedom in April 2022, sustained shrapnel wounds after stepping on a landmine about two weeks ago but now is recovering at a German hospital, according to U.S. news accounts. 

The U.S. has repeatedly warned Americans to not visit Ukraine during the war, let alone join Ukrainian forces in the fight against Russia. At some point, however, Reed became one of what is believed to be several thousand U.S. fighters who have joined Kyiv’s forces.

But State Department spokesman Vedant Patel, while acknowledging Reed’s battlefield injury, said Reed “was not engaged in any activities on behalf of the U.S. government.” 

With the help of a nongovernmental organization, Reed “has been transported to Germany, and he is receiving medical care,” Patel said. 

Reed’s condition was not immediately clear. 

Reed was arrested in 2019 for violence against a Russian police officer and later sentenced to nine years in prison. Following his arrest, his family engaged in an extensive public advocacy effort to get him freed. 

Eventually, the administration of President Joe Biden secured his release, swapping Reed for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a convicted Russian cocaine smuggler serving a 20-year sentence in the U.S. 
…

A jury on Tuesday found six people guilty of terrorist murder for extremist attacks in Brussels in 2016 that killed 32 people and were claimed by the Islamic State group, in Belgium’s deadliest peacetime violence, according to Belgian media.

Among those convicted for their role in the suicide bombings at Brussels’ airport and a subway station was Salah Abdeslam, who already is serving a life sentence without parole in France over his role in attacks that hit Paris cafes, the Bataclan theater and France’s national stadium in 2015.

The verdict was reported by public broadcaster RTBF, newspaper Le Soir and news websites HLN and Nieuwsblad.

The chief judge read out the verdict and explanations by the 12-person jury, who made a clear connection to IS and its extremist ideology. The reading of the verdict was expected to take a few hours. Sentencing will be decided in a separate process, not before September.

In addition to the six people convicted of terrorist murder, four others on trial were acquitted or facing other charges.

The biggest trial in Belgium’s judicial history unfolded over seven months in a special court to address the exceptional case. Survivors and families of victims hoped the trial and verdict would help them work through what happened and find closure.

The morning rush hour attacks on March 22, 2016, at Zavantem Airport and on the Brussels subway’s central commuter line deeply shook the city, which is home to the headquarters of the European Union and NATO and put the country on edge. In addition to the 32 people killed, nearly 900 others were wounded or suffered serious mental trauma.

Jamila Adda, president of the Life4Bruxelles victims’ association, gathered a group of survivors at the special courthouse to hear Tuesday’s verdict. Among them was a man named Frederic, who said the ”atrocious crimes” of March 22 still haunt him.

“We have been waiting for this for seven years, seven years that weighed heavily on the victims. … We are waiting with impatience, and with some anguish” for the verdict, he told The Associated Press. Frederic, among the commuters who survived the attack at the Maelbeek metro station, spoke on condition that his last name not be published to protect his identity as a victim of trauma.

Survivors have supported each other through the proceedings, some coming every day. “It is important to be together, to hear the decision of justice,” Frederic said. And then, they hope “to be able to turn the page.”

The 12 jurors had been deliberating since early July over some 300 questions the court asked them to consider before reaching a verdict. Tuesday’s expected decision will address whether or not each of the suspects is guilty of various charges and may take several hours to be read out.

Eventual sentencing will be decided in a separate process. If convicted, some could face up to 30 years in prison.

Abdeslam was the only survivor among the Islamic State extremists who struck Paris in November 2015 and were part of a Franco-Belgian network that went on to target Brussels four months later. After months on the run following the Paris attacks, Abdeslam was captured in Brussels on March 18, 2016, and his arrest may have prompted other members of the IS cell to rush ahead with attack plans on the Belgian capital.

Also convicted of terrorist murder at the trial in Brussels was Mohamed Abrini, childhood friend of Abdeslam and a Brussels native who walked away from Zaventem airport after his explosives failed to detonate.

Oussama Atar, who has been identified as a possible organizer of the deadly attacks on both Paris and Brussels, was convicted of terrorist murder in absentia. He is believed to have died in the Islamic State group’s final months of fighting in Iraq and Syria.
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In Ukraine, even in the face of Russian shelling, some people are staying in cities to rescue pets. Volunteers from Kharkiv are trying to help. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. This video contains images of injured animals that may be disturbing to some viewers. Camera — Pavel Suhodolskiy
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The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.

These unusually strong heat waves are becoming more common, Tuesday’s study said. The same research found the increase in heat-trapping gases, largely from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas has made another heat wave — the one in China — 50 times more likely with the potential to occur every five years or so.

A stagnant atmosphere, warmed by carbon dioxide and other gases, also made the European heat wave 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) hotter, the one in the United States and Mexico 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer and the one in China one 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) toastier, the study found.

Several climate scientists, using tree rings and other stand-ins for temperature records, say this month’s heat is likely the hottest Earth has been in about 120,000 years, easily the hottest of human civilization.

“Had there been no climate change, such an event would almost never have occurred,” said study lead author Mariam Zachariah, a climate scientist at Imperial College of London. She called heat waves in Europe and North America “virtually impossible” without the increase in heat from the mid-1800s. Statistically, the one in China could have happened without global warming.

Since the advent of industrial-scale burning, the world has warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit), so “they are not rare in today’s climate and the role of climate change is absolutely overwhelming,” said Imperial College climate scientist Friederike Otto, who leads the team of volunteer international scientists at World Weather Attribution who do these studies.

The particularly intense heat waves that Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua and Coahuila are now roasting through are likely to happen about once every 15 years in the current climate, the study said.

But the climate is not stabilized, even at this level. If it warms a few more tenths of a degree, this month’s heat will become even more common, Otto said. Phoenix has had a record-shattering 25 straight days of temperatures at or above 43.3 degrees Celsius (110 degrees Fahrenheit) and more than a week when the nighttime temperature never dropped below 32.2 Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit).

The heat in Spain, Italy, Greece and some Balkan states is likely to reoccur every decade in the current climate, the study said.

Because the weather attribution researchers started their analysis of three simultaneous heat waves on July 17, the results are not yet peer reviewed, which is the gold standard for science. But it used scientifically valid techniques, the team’s research regularly gets published and several outside experts told The Associated Press it makes sense.

The way scientists do these rapid analyses is by comparing observations of current weather in the three regions to repeated computer simulations of “a world that might have been without climate change,” said study co-author Izidine Pinto, a climate scientist at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute.

In Europe and North America, the study doesn’t claim human-caused climate change is the sole cause of the heat waves, but it is a necessary ingredient because natural causes and random chance couldn’t produce this alone.

Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon said the study was reasonable, but looks at a broad area of the U.S. Southwest, so it may not be applicable to every single place in the area.

“In the United States, it’s clear that the entire southern tier is going to see the worst of the ever-worsening heat and this summer should be considered a serious wake-up call,” said University of Michigan environment dean Jonathan Overpeck.

With heat waves, “the most important thing is that they kill people and they particularly kill and hurt and destroy lives and livelihoods of those most vulnerable,” Otto said.
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June was one of the driest months on record for the state of Illinois, a time when farmers like David Meiss need water to help their corn and soybean crops sprout from the earth early in the growing cycle.

“Here you are at the end of June, with all the money and most of the work [done] — other than the harvest part in a crop — and you are seeing it wither away,” said Meiss.

The drought conditions occurred as Meiss’s initial costs for seed and fertilizer were more expensive than ever. “We were running out of gas, literally,” he said.

Then the weather changed and so did conditions for his family farm in Gridley, which went from almost no rainfall to 18 centimeters of precipitation in just three weeks. “That’s unheard of to get that much rain,” Meiss explained to VOA during an interview in one of the sheds on his farm.

But as he inspects the crops still growing in his fields under the July sun, Meiss worries the damage might already be done. “We know we’ve got some damage, some yield loss, and some of the crop is not where we had intended it to be, being one of the most expensive crops, or the most expensive crop we’ve ever put in the ground. On a year like this, we need more revenue than we normally do.”

While drought conditions at home are fueling uncertainty in the U.S. agricultural sector, conflict abroad could give farmers like Meiss an unexpected income boost this year.

As the war in Ukraine drags on, Russia terminated a 2022 U.N. brokered agreement, which allowed commodities to flow through Ukrainian ports and shipping channels in the Black Sea.

The deal allowed nearly 33 million metric tons of grain to leave Ukraine in the last year, with a large volume of it reaching poorer countries. Interruptions to the flow of wheat and corn are stoking new fears of food shortages in countries where it’s needed most to prevent starvation.

“It’s important to the market because Russia and Ukraine account for about 20% of the world’s wheat and corn exports, so if some of that supply is shut off, there is going to be a shifting balance of trade demand and potentially some that might benefit the U.S. exporter,” said Joe Camp, director of managed programs for CommStock Investments, an agriculture risk management firm. “Now the focus is shifting back towards demand wondering if the U.S. export trade can benefit from some of these trade flows shutting off from some of this key Black Sea region.”

Camp told VOA it could bring other buyers into the marketplace for U.S. supplies.  “Ukraine is top supplier of customers like China, and so that will have an impact of what’s ahead in terms of U.S. trade demand.”  

“I’ve heard people say that this is going to be good for us eventually in the long run, because our commodity is going to be worth more,” said Meiss, who won’t know the full impact of the drought on his crops until he harvests in September. Regardless of the outcome, he is keenly aware that if demand and prices soar, one man’s gain is another’s loss.

“I think about the humanitarian aspect of it,” Meiss admitted. “People are starving already. Suddenly removing that big a portion of the food supply… it gets alarming and, quite frankly, it’s really quite sad. So I would probably literally gladly trade my increased price if I knew people weren’t starving over something like that.”

Wheat prices are down about 50% from all-time highs during the first month of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Corn prices are also lower this year after reaching a ten year high last April. But prices for both crops are rising as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea shipping ports, a key avenue for Ukraine’s crops to reach international markets.
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Greece braced for a new wave of soaring temperatures Tuesday, as wildfires raged on several popular tourist islands, forcing mass evacuations.

In the capital city of Athens the mercury is expected to soar to 41 degrees Celsius, and reach up to 44C in central Greece, according to the national weather forecaster EMY.

Many regions of the country were on “red alert”, meaning there is an extreme risk of dangerous forest fires exacerbated by strong winds.

The very hot weather comes after a weekend of intense heat as thousands of locals and tourists fled forest fires on the Greek islands of Rhodes and Corfu, with the prime minister warning the heat-battered nation is “at war” with the flames.

Authorities evacuated nearly 2,500 people from the Greek island of Corfu on Monday, after tens of thousands of people had already fled blazes on the island of Rhodes, with many frightened tourists scrambling to get home on evacuation flights.

More than 260 firefighters were still battling flames for an eighth consecutive day on Rhodes, supported by two helicopters and two planes.

Fires were also raging on Greece’s second largest island of Evia, where Greek civil protection authorities issued an overnight evacuation order in one northern locality.

The mercury hit 46.4C in Gythio, in the southern Peloponnese peninsula on Sunday, though it failed to reach the hottest temperature nationally on record of 48C.

“We are at war and are exclusively geared towards the fire front,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told parliament on Monday.

He warned that the country faced “another three difficult days ahead” before high temperatures are forecast to ease.

‘Protect our home’

The severe heatwave in Greece has also been reflected across much of southern Europe and Northern Africa.

In Algeria at least 34 people have died as wildfires raged through residential areas, forcing mass evacuations.

In southeastern France officials Monday issued a fire warning at the highest level in the Bouches-du-Rhone region, warning that the weather conditions make the risk of flames “very high compared to normal summers”.

The exceptional temperatures in Greece have forced key tourist sites such as the Acropolis in Athens to close at the hottest times of the day.

Vassilis Kikilias, Greece’s civil protection minister, said crews had battled over 500 fires around the country for 12 straight days.

The fires are particularly devastating on very touristic islands such as Rhodes and Corfu where the season is in full swing and hotels are often full.

Volunteers had come to the aid of foreign tourists in the north of the island where nearly 200 people are still camped out at a school after being evacuated from the fires on Saturday.

School director Kyriakos Kyriakoulis told AFP that dozens of local volunteers and school staff had come forward to help those stranded.

“I can’t believe they are so nice, they gave so much in every way,” said 69-year-old British tourist Christine Moody, who was spending her first vacation in Greece when the fires hit.

“I am very moved,” she said.

In the village of Vati, in the southeast of the island, local mayor Vassilis Kalabodakis said that the impact on the region was “tragic”.

“The village has been ordered to evacuate but we can’t abandon it,” he said. “We are leading the fight to protect our home”.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution group said Tuesday that the heatwaves that have hit parts of Europe and North America this month would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change.
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Latest Developments:

Between 3,450 and 3,650 Wagner group mercenaries have arrived in Belarus since the group’s short-lived rebellion, a military monitoring group said Monday. The fighters are camped close to Asipovichy, a town 230 kilometers north of the Ukrainian border. The Wagner mercenaries are training Belarusian troops as part of an agreement to end the Wagner revolt brokered by the Belarusian president between the Kremlin and Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin.





The Russian defense industry says it is now producing more munitions per month than it did in the whole of 2022, the RIA news agency reported.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said its staff saw directional anti-personnel mines located on the perimeter of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

The IAEA said in a statement the mines were seen Sunday “in a buffer zone between the site’s internal and external perimeter barriers.” The agency said no mines were seen “within the inner site perimeter.”

Russia has controlled the site since the early stages of its invasion of Ukraine. The IAEA has repeatedly warned of the potential for a nuclear catastrophe as it advocated for safety and security measures at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said was told the placement of the mines was a military decision and done in an area controlled by the military.

“But having such explosives on the site is inconsistent with the IAEA safety standards and nuclear security guidance and creates additional psychological pressure on plant staff — even if the IAEA’s initial assessment based on its own observations and the plant’s clarifications is that any detonation of these mines should not affect the site’s nuclear safety and security systems,” Grossi said.

IAEA experts are also continuing to monitor the availability of water to cool the plants reactors following the June destruction of the Kakhovka dam that affected a reservoir near the plant, the agency said.

“The site continues to have sufficient water for some months,” the IAEA said.

Grain exports

The U.S. Treasury Department said Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson will address how Russia’s exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative will hurt African states as he makes a visit this week to Kenya and Somalia.

A Treasury spokesperson said Nelson will argue that Russia abandoned the grain deal despite U.S. efforts to facilitate the flow of Russian grain and fertilizer exports.

Russia withdrew from the grain deal last week, arguing it was not benefitting enough from a parallel initiative allowing Russian food and fertilizer exports despite Western sanctions.

“He will highlight the exemptions in U.S. sanctions that have always allowed the continued flow of food and agriculture transactions,” the spokesperson said.

Putin courts African leaders

Nelson’s trip comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to host African leaders in St. Petersburg Thursday and Friday promising them free Russian grain “to replace Ukrainian grain.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to Russia to revive the U.N.-brokered grain deal to allow the flow of grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

During his speech at the opening of a three-day food summit in Rome, Guterres said the world’s hungry will be the most adversely affected if the deal is not renewed. “The most vulnerable will pay the highest price,” he said.

Some information was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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The French president is pressing his country’s interests in the South Pacific this week and trying to make France’s voice heard in a region shaping up as a prime geopolitical battleground for China and the U.S. 

President Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and New Caledonia starting Monday comes as French forces take part in massive U.S.-Australian-led military exercises in the region. With troops, citizens and resources spread across its Pacific territories, France wants to protect its interests and project its power alongside like-minded democracies worried about China’s growing assertiveness. 

The most strategically important stop is Thursday in Papua New Guinea, which has seen growing Chinese influence and signed a new security cooperation pact with the U.S. in May. The most populous Pacific Island nation is also negotiating a security treaty with Australia. 

Macron’s office insists the trip is not aimed at pressing an ”anti-China policy,” but at encouraging regional powers to diversify their partnerships beyond Beijing and Washington. He felt the trip was needed because of “new, more intense threats” to security, institutions and the environment in the region, according to an official in Macron’s office who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. 

His chief diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, speaking at the Aspen Security Forum last week, said “China is a global challenge. It is a challenge for the U.S. as well as for the EU,” adding that “there is kind of a strategic awakening in Europe today” of the need for tougher policy toward China. 

But he insisted that Europe shouldn’t “delegate” its global security needs to the U.S. and should craft its own strategic policies. “If we want to remain relevant in today’s world and to tomorrow’s world as France, as Europeans, we need to be much more robust,” he said. 

Macron’s office says he plans to visit a French patrol ship in the area and offer infrastructure projects and a partnership to save forests and mangroves while ensuring jobs in Papua New Guinea, where France’s TotalEnergies is leading a liquefied natural gas project. 

The French tour is coinciding with trips by some top U.S. officials to the region, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Tonga, New Zealand and Australia this week after a visit to Papua New Guinea in May. 

Macron began Monday in the French archipelago of New Caledonia, trying to rebuild trust after voters rejected a string of independence referendums that exposed entrenched frustrations of native Kanaks and inequalities with the mainland, and divisions over management of the region’s rich nickel reserves. Negotiations are underway for a new status for the territory and its institutions. 

“I am at our compatriots’ side to define the basis of this new path,” Macron said in a televised interview after arriving. 

Coastal erosion and other impacts of climate change top the agenda at each stop on Macron’s trip, in a region replete with islands that see periodic tsunamis and risk disappearing to rising seas, according to his advisers. 

France has been an uninterrupted presence in the region since the 19th century, thanks to its colonial history and continued control over territories that are home to 1.5 million citizens and some 7,000 troops across the Indo-Pacific. 
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Lithuania on Monday urged the European Union to use Baltic ports to export Ukrainian grain after Moscow declined to renew a 2022 deal on their safe passage through the Black Sea.

Russia has said it is ready to return to the agreement, which has allowed the export of nearly 33 million tons of grain from Ukrainian ports, if its demands are met “in their totality.”

Moscow says its own deliveries of agricultural products and fertilizers under the deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey were hampered by Western sanctions.

A letter by three Lithuanian ministers to EU commissioners said Baltic ports could “serve as a reliable alternative for transiting Ukrainian products, including cereals.”

The letter, seen by AFP, said Baltic ports could help transport 25 million tons of grain annually.

It also asked the EU to cut red tape on Ukraine’s border with Poland, a member of the bloc.

Last week, Ukraine’s European neighbors urged the EU to extend a grain import ban until the end of the year, amid fears local farmers would be undercut by diverted Ukrainian supplies.

In June, Brussels agreed to allow Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania to restrict imports of grain from Ukraine through September.

Ukraine has accused Russia of stepping up attacks on ports, grain supplies and infrastructure vital to grain exports after refusing to renew the agreement.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the European Union on Monday to ensure that an “unacceptable and clearly non-European” ban on Ukrainian grain imports to five countries is lifted by a mid-September deadline.

The five central European countries want the EU ban extended at least until the end of the year. The ban is set to expire on September 15.

In his nightly video address delivered after a meeting with government officials, Zelenskyy said there could be no question of extending the restrictions beyond the deadline.

“We believe that the European side will fulfill its obligations regarding this date, when the temporary restrictions will cease to apply,” Zelenskyy said. “Any extension of these restrictions is entirely unacceptable and clearly un-European. Europe has the institutional capacity to act more rationally than closing this or that border to this or that type of good.”

Ukraine, he said, was “actively working with everyone to find a solution that is in line with the spirit of our Europe.”

The president had earlier written on the Telegram messaging app that any extension was “unacceptable in any form.”

The EU in May allowed Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia to ban domestic sales of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seeds, while permitting transit of such cargoes for export elsewhere.

The countries include some of Kyiv’s staunchest diplomatic supporters in its war against Moscow, but they say inflows of Ukrainian grain have hurt their farming sectors.

Poland will not lift the ban on September 15 even if the EU does not agree on its extension, its prime minister said last week.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin Monday signed new legislation which marked the final step in outlawing gender-affirming procedures, a crippling blow to Russia’s already embattled LGBTQ+ community.

The bill, which was approved unanimously by both houses of parliament, bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records. The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies.

It also annuls marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bars transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents.

The ban is said to stem from the Kremlin’s crusade to protect what it views as the country’s “traditional values.” Lawmakers say the legislation is to safeguard Russia against “Western anti-family ideology,” with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism.”

Russia’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ people started a decade ago when Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values,” supported by the Russian Orthodox Church.

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted legislation that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, Putin pushed through constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage, and last year signed a law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” among adults as well.
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High-profile British radical preacher Anjem Choudary appeared in a London court Monday, charged with leading a terrorist organization.

Choudary, 56, was charged Sunday with three counts under the Terrorism Act: directing a terrorist organization, membership in a banned organization and addressing meetings to encourage support for the organization between June 2022 and this month.

Prosecutors say the charges relate to the group al-Muhajiroun, which was outlawed by the British government in 2010. It has since operated “under many names and guises,” including the Islamic Thinkers Society, prosecutors say.

Choudary is alleged to have provided lectures to the Islamic Thinkers Society.

He was arrested at his home in London on July 17. He was charged alongside with Canadian national Khaled Hussein, 28, who was arrested at Heathrow Airport the same day after arriving on a flight.

Hussein, from Edmonton, Alberta, is charged with membership in a proscribed organization. Prosecutors say he worked with Choudary to provide “a platform” for the group’s views.

Neither man entered a plea during separate hearings at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Both were ordered detained until their next hearing at the Central Criminal Court on Aug. 4.

Nick Price, from the Crown Prosecution Service Counter Terrorism Division, said that “criminal proceedings against Mr. Choudary and Mr. Hussein are now active and they each have the right to a fair trial.”
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An associate of imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was convicted on extremism charges Monday as the Kremlin continues to crack down on political activists.

Vadim Ostanin, who previously headed Navalny’s office in the southern Siberian city of Barnaul, was sentenced to nine years in a penal colony after being found guilty of organizing an extremist community and belonging to a nonprofit that “infringes on citizens’ rights,” Navalny’s team wrote on social media.

Prosecutors had previously asked for the 46-year-old to be imprisoned for 11 years.

Ostanin was detained in November 2021, several months after Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and his regional offices were labeled as “extremist organizations” by the Russian government.

Ostanin’s case is the latest in a string of recent convictions against regional activists linked to Navalny’s work.

Lilia Chanysheva, who headed Navalny’s headquarters in the central Russian city of Ufa, was sentenced to 7½ years in prison on similar charges on June 14. Chanysheva described her case as politically motivated.

Navalny himself is also facing a new trial on extremism charges that could keep him in prison for decades. It is due to begin next week at a maximum-security prison 250 kilometers (150 miles) east of Moscow where the 47-year-old politician is already serving time on two different convictions.

Navalny, who exposed official corruption and organized massive anti-Kremlin protests, was arrested in January 2021 upon returning to Moscow after recuperating in Germany from nerve-agent poisoning that he blamed on the Kremlin. He initially received a 2½-year prison sentence for a parole violation. Last year, he was sentenced to a nine-year term on fraud and contempt of court charges.

The new charges relate to the activities of Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation and statements by his top associates. His allies said the charges retroactively criminalize all the foundation’s activities since its creation in 2011.

Navalny has rejected all the charges against him as politically motivated and has accused the Kremlin of seeking to keep him behind bars for life.
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