As the war in Ukraine rages on, China and Russia are hosting joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan that analysts say are the latest sign of deepening cooperation between the two military powerhouses. The drills are also part of an effort to counter growing partnership of the U.S. and its allies in the region, they add.

“Russia and China are trying to convey to Japan and the U.S. that they are very unhappy with their cooperation in NATO and the [Indo-Pacific] region, and they want to prove that they can achieve the same level of cooperation in the region as [Washington and its allies,]” Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University, told VOA.

For Russia, Nagy added, the drills are a way of showing “that they still have the capacity to manage conflicts on the eastern front but also provide capabilities to the Indo-Pacific region to work with China and pressure the U.S.” 

“They want to prove that they can still work with China to cause major disruption, especially in Japan’s backyard,” he said.

On Thursday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that the “Northern/Interaction-2023” drills had begun in the Sea of Japan and would last until Sunday July 23. The ministry said that in addition to live artillery fire, the exercises will also include “anti-submarine and naval combat” drills.   

The drills main aim, Russia’s ministry said, is to “strengthen naval cooperation” between the two countries and “maintain peace and stability in the Asia Pacific.” Russia and China say they have deployed more than 10 naval vessels and more than 30 military aircraft to take part in the exercise.  

According to China’s state-run Global Times, the exercise marks the first time that both Russia’s navy and air force will participate in a joint exercise led by China. 

Northern/Interaction-2023 is the first joint military exercise conducted near Japan this year, but according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia and China conducted at least five military exercises in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea last year.  

Forceful response?

The announcement of the exercise comes as ties are strengthening between the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, and follows a trilateral missile defense drill involving the three in the Sea of Japan this week aimed at countering North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.  

Some Chinese military commentators say China and Russia’s joint exercise is a forceful response to the trilateral drill conducted by the U.S. and its allies. 

“The Chinese and Russian drills will focus on air defense exercise, anti-missile exercise, anti-submarine exercise, and anti-ship exercise,” Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping said in a video he released last Saturday. He added that he thinks Russia and China will conduct joint sea and air patrols following the exercise.

Since the waterways around the Sea of Japan are all crucial passages for the Chinese and Russian navies to get to the Western Pacific, Song added that China and Russia should challenge the trilateral military alliance because their presence threatens the security of that strategic waterway.

Beijing’s remarks about the drills have not been as explicit. A statement released on China’s defense ministry’s official social media account on WeChat Sunday, when Chinese vessels set out for the exercise, said the drill is aimed at “safeguarding the security of strategic waterways” in the Sea of Japan.

Multiple strategic goals 

The military exercise is not just about countering the U.S. and its allies. Some experts think China and Russia also hope to fulfill some strategic goals through the drills. 

Lin Ying-yu, a China military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan told VOA that Beijing wants to learn from Moscow’s experience of countering attacks on their navy from land in the Ukraine war. 

“During the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have used missile or fighter jets to attack Russian ships at sea, so Russian forces have experience coping with this kind of attack,” he said. 

Lin adds that the People’s Liberation Army could face similar situations if it attacked Taiwan and the island’s military could use anti-ship missiles or drones to target Chinese naval vessels in a cross-Strait conflict.  

“Scenarios from the Ukraine war may be simulated in the China-Russia joint military exercise,” he said.

Nagy said the drill is also about demonstrating cohesiveness with the Russians, especially in the wake of the Wagner rebellion.

“These kinds of military activities demonstrate that the Chinese are firmly wedded to their relationship with Russia,” he said. “While they are not supportive of the conflict with Ukraine, they want to ensure that Putin remains in power.” 

More drills for the Indo-Pacific

As Beijing and Moscow look to double down on their “no limits” partnership, Lin said he thinks this drill is just the beginning and it is likely that the two countries will increase the number of joint military exercises. 

He argued that maintaining close interaction with China has become critical for Russia as it becomes more and more isolated diplomatically. Just before the drill in the Sea of Japan, the two Russian frigates that will participate docked in Shanghai, hosting visitors for a week according to the Global Times.

At the same time, Shen Ming-shih, Director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, said he expects the U.S. and its allies to hold more joint military exercises to counter the growing Russian and Chinese presence in the region. 

“The U.S., Japan, and South Korea will strengthen their military capabilities in maritime warfare, as well as increase the number of relevant exercises,” he told VOA. 

However, one thing that remains to be seen, Lin said, is whether Japan will amend or adjust its security treaties, as it faces security threats from multiple fronts, including Russia to the north, China to the Southwest, and North Korea’s constant missile firing. 

He thinks it’s worth observing whether the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan pursue more security and military cooperation against this backdrop.
…

Now that Sweden’s ascension into NATO appears closer to approval following developments during the NATO summit last week, many wonder what power Sweden’s military can bring to the alliance. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb explains more about Sweden’s military might beneath the surface of the Baltic Sea.
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Baghdad, July 20, 2023 (AFP) – 

Protesters set fire to Sweden’s embassy in the Iraqi capital Baghdad early Thursday, an AFP journalist said, ahead of a planned burning of a Quran in Sweden. 

Swedish authorities approved an assembly to be held later Thursday outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm, where organizers plan to burn a copy of the Quran as well as an Iraqi flag. 

Iraqis have been angered by events in Sweden, and Thursday’s protest in Baghdad was organized by supporters of the turbulent religious leader Moqtada Sadr. 

Iraqi riot police fired water cannon to disperse demonstrators away from the embassy while security forces armed with electric batons chased protesters, an AFP photographer on the scene said. 

“We are mobilized today to denounce the burning of the Koran, which is all about love and faith,” protester Hassan Ahmed told AFP. “We demand that the Swedish government and the Iraqi government stop this type of initiative.” 

Some protesters had raised copies of the Quran into the air, while others held portraits of Mohamed al-Sadr, an important religious cleric and the father of Moqtada Sadr. 

“We didn’t wait until morning, we broke in at dawn and set fire to the Swedish Embassy,” a young demonstrator in Baghdad told AFP on Thursday, before chanting Moqtada’s name. 

Sweden’s foreign ministry told AFP its embassy staff in Baghdad were “safe” following the incident. 

“The Iraqi authorities are responsible for the protection of diplomatic missions and their staff”, the ministry said, adding that attacks on embassies and diplomats “constitute a serious violation of the Vienna Convention.” 

Several trucks to extinguish the fire had arrived at the embassy, where skirmishes between Iraqi security forces and demonstrators had broken out, an AFP photographer said. 

It was not immediately clear whether the embassy was empty at the time of the attack or if staff had been evacuated. 

‘Urgent investigation’ 

Iraq’s foreign ministry condemned the embassy torching and called on security forces to identify those responsible. 

“The Iraqi government has instructed the relevant security services to conduct an urgent investigation and take all necessary measures to uncover the circumstances of the incident and identify the perpetrators,” the ministry said in a statement. 

Swedish media reported that Salwan Momika, an Iraqi refugee in Sweden, had organized the event in Stockholm on Thursday. 

Salwan burned a few pages of a copy of the Quran in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque on June 28 during Eid al-Adha, a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world. 

That incident prompted supporters of Moqtada, an influential religious leader and political dissident in Iraq, to storm the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad the following day. 

Moqtada has repeatedly mobilized thousands of demonstrators in the streets. 

In the summer of 2022, his supporters invaded Baghdad’s parliament building and staged a sit-in that lasted several weeks. 

At the time, Moqtada was involved in a political spat over the appointment of a prime minister. 

  
…

WASHINGTON – Russia is considering attacking civilian ships on the Black Sea and then putting the blame on Ukrainian forces, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

“The Russian military may expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities to include attacks against civilian shipping,” National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said.

He said the allegation was based on newly declassified intelligence.

It came in the wake of missile and drone attacks by Russia against the port city of Odesa, as well as the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of an international deal allowing safe passage of massive Ukrainian grain exports across the Black Sea to world markets.

Moscow said its missiles targeted military objectives in Odesa, but Hodge backed Ukrainian accusations that the attack destroyed “agricultural infrastructure and 60,000 tons of grain” ready for export.

According to the White House official, those kinds of attacks could now expand to civilian ships. And Russia is mounting an operation to make such attacks look like they were carried out by Ukraine, he said.

Hodge cited Russia’s release of a video showing its forces detecting and destroying an “alleged Ukrainian sea mine” Wednesday.

At the same time, “our information indicates that Russia laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We believe that this is a coordinated effort to justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea and lay blame on Ukraine for these attacks.”

The Russian defense ministry said all vessels sailing to Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea from Thursday on will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo and its flag states “will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” 
…

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian women serve alongside men in the military, both in combat and noncombat roles against Russian aggression. Meanwhile, other women face mental and physical pressures as they work behind front lines to care for families and rebuild their lives. Anna Chernikova in Kyiv tells the story of one woman’s transformation. Camera: Eugene Shynkar.
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CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned rights researcher Patrick Zaki a day after he was handed a three-year prison term on charges of spreading false news in a case that drew new attention to Egypt’s crackdown on dissent. 

Zaki had been studying in Italy before his detention during a trip home in 2020 over a news article in which he documented life as a Coptic Christian in Egypt.  

He will return to Italy on Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement in which she thanked Sisi for a “very important act.”  

Sisi’s pardon, which was reported by a state news agency and confirmed by lawyers, also included Mohamed El-Baqer, a rights lawyer who represented Egypt’s well-known activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah and was arrested in 2019 while attending his client’s interrogation. 

Zaki’s case gained widespread attention in Italy, which had already been jolted by the killing and torture in Egypt of Italian student Giulio Regeni in 2016. Four Egyptian security officials have been charged in Italy over Regeni’s disappearance and murder, while Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied involvement.  

After Zaki’s sentencing on Tuesday, Meloni had said Italy still had confidence over his case, while a U.S. state department spokesman urged Egypt to release Zaki immediately.  

The head of Egypt’s national dialogue, a state-controlled initiative to debate the country’s future, had appealed to Sisi to use his constitutional powers to have Zaki freed as several members of the dialogue’s board signaled they were quitting over the verdict.  

Zaki, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), had served 22 months in pretrial detention before being released in December 2021 pending the completion of his trial. EIPR said he was subjected to torture following his arrest. 

His arrest came amid a far-reaching crackdown on dissent under Sisi, who led the overthrow of democratically elected Islamist leader Mohamed Mursi a decade ago before becoming president the following year. 

Many of those swept up in the crackdown remain in prison, including senior Muslim Brotherhood figures and Abd el-Fattah. 

Authorities have justified the arrests on security grounds. 

Since late 2021 Egypt has taken a number of steps that it says are aimed at addressing human rights, including amnesties for some prominent prisoners, but critics have dismissed the moves as cosmetic and say arrests have continued. 

“Baqer and Patrick should not have spent one day in jail for their human rights work,” EIPR head Hossam Bahgat said in a tweet. “We welcome the news of their pardon and call for the immediate release of thousands still detained in Egypt on political grounds.”
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Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ended a Persian Gulf trip aimed at securing investments by signing agreements worth more than $50 billion in the United Arab Emirates, Emirati state media said Wednesday. 

His tour, which also included stops in Qatar and Saudi Arabia, saw Erdogan preside over the signing of lucrative deals to boost the ailing Turkish economy. 

Turkey is battling a currency collapse and soaring inflation that have battered its economy. 

Ankara has recently repaired relations with Gulf states including the UAE and Saudi Arabia after years of rivalry following the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. 

Turkish support for organizations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood initially spurred a rupture with Gulf states, which view the movement as a terrorist group. 

Relations soured further following a Saudi-led blockade of Turkish ally Qatar by its Gulf Arab neighbors. The embargo was lifted in 2021 but ties with Turkey remained rocky. 

With relations improving, Erdogan visited the UAE last year to bolster political and economic ties. 

On Wednesday, the Turkish leader flew to the UAE from Qatar, where he met the emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani. 

Earlier, during his stop in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh signed a major drone procurement contract with a Turkish defense firm. The amount involved was not disclosed. 

UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan met Erdogan at the presidential palace in Abu Dhabi and attended the signing of agreements and memorandums of understanding “estimated to be worth $50.7 billion,” the official WAM news agency reported. 

In March, Turkey and the UAE signed a free-trade agreement that aims to increase bilateral commerce to $40 billion annually within five years. 

And last year, the two countries signed a nearly $5 billion currency swap deal to boost Ankara’s dilapidated foreign currency reserves. 

Last month, the UAE’s president met Erdogan in Turkey, shortly after the Turkish leader clinched another five-year term in May elections. 

Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz also met the Emirati president during a June visit to the UAE. 

The diplomatic thaw with the UAE has resulted in increased investment in Turkey. 

Erdogan and the UAE leader on Wednesday “reaffirmed their commitment to promoting stability, both within the region and internationally, stating their shared belief in the importance of dialogue and diplomacy as a means of solving disputes and avoiding conflict,” WAM reported. 

Both nations “share the same ambitions for stability, economic growth and sustainable progress,” the agency quoted the UAE’s president as saying. 
…

South Africa announced Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not be attending an August summit in person, ending controversy over whether Pretoria would abide by its obligations under the International Criminal Court and arrest him.

Putin is wanted by the court for alleged war crimes during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“By mutual agreement, President Putin of the Russian Federation will not attend the [meeting of the BRICS group of emerging economies],” said Vincent Magwenya, spokesman for President Cyril Ramaphosa. “However, Russia will be represented by Foreign Minister Mr. Sergey Lavrov.”

The announcement comes a day after it was revealed that Ramaphosa believed arresting Putin should he set foot in the country would amount to “a declaration of war.”

South Africa, which is a signatory to the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute, had been looking for possible ways out of acting on the warrant despite pressure from the political opposition and rights groups to honor its commitments.  

Mia Swart, a law professor at Johannesburg’s Witwatersrand University, told VOA that South Africa is now relieved of any obligation to act.

“It will not be necessary for the government to go through any of the legal maneuvers they’ve been considering over the last month, such as even withdrawing from the statute,” Swart said.

She added that the government’s announcement shows they realized there was no way of escaping their international obligations.

“In some sense this is a good thing, it means that they take the ICC seriously, and one can read into this that there is no, you know, that there is no plan to withdraw from the ICC imminently,” she said. 

Elizabeth Sidiropoulos, director of the South African Institute of International Affairs, said that Ramaphosa’s argument that arresting Putin would have been seen as a “declaration of war” by Moscow – which was rejected by South Africa’s opposition – was not necessarily incorrect.

“I think that isn’t an implausible assumption to make, not only in the case of President Putin but indeed in the case of any other head of state of any other country should … an attempt to arrest them in another country be executed,” Sidiropoulos said. “And certainly, Russia would see it that way.”

South Africa has been widely criticized by the West for what is perceived as its bias toward Moscow, though the government rejects the allegations and insists it has taken an officially neutral stance on the Ukraine war. 

Last month Ramaphosa led a delegation of African leaders to both Ukraine and Russia as part of an unsuccessful peace mission. 

Foreign Minister Lavrov – who will now be attending the BRICS event alongside Ramaphosa and the leaders of China, Brazil and India – was welcomed to the country on a visit earlier this year, shortly before South Africa hosted Russian warships for controversial joint exercises.

Then in May, the U.S. ambassador to the country made the startling allegation that South Africa also had provided arms to Russia – something the government has denied but says it is investigating.
…

Fire planes and ground crews from several European countries are heading to Greece where wildfires have intensified as relentless heat wave conditions are keeping much of southern Europe above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

Three firefighting teams from Poland, Romania and Slovakia are due in Greece on Thursday, while Israel has pledged two firefighting aircraft, adding to the four planes from Italy and France already operating outside Athens.

New evacuations were ordered on Wednesday as wildfires raged near the Greek capital. A second heat wave hit the Mediterranean country from the west following days of record-high temperatures that baked southern Europe.

In a round-the-clock battle to preserve forests, industrial facilities, and vacation homes, evacuations continued for a third day along a highway connecting Athens to the southern city of Corinth.

Temperatures in southern Greece are expected to reach 44 C (111 F) by the end of the week, in the second heat wave to hit Europe’s Mediterranean south in two weeks. Alessandro Miani, who heads the Italian Society of Environmental Doctors, warned that aging populations in Italy and other southern European countries are a concern during heat waves, noting that deaths due to high temperatures most commonly affect people over age 80.

“The excessive heat together with humidity can make difficult for sweat to evaporate, interfering with the body’s ability to regulate its own temperature,” Miani said. The heat in Rome eased only slightly after a sweltering 42-43 C (107-109 F) on Tuesday, while highs in Sicily and Sardinia reached 46 C (114 F). Parts of Spain were as high as 45 C (113 F) on Wednesday. Amador Cortes, a resident in the southern Spanish city of Jaen, said people were doing their best to avoid the sun during midday hours and the early afternoon.

“The truth is, they take shelter at home with the air conditioning, with the fan. In the street, the elderly suffer a lot. Anyway, we have to put up with it,” he said. In the southern Turkish city of Adana, a group of residents handed out desserts in the street, and many paid tribute to the late U.S. engineer Willis Carrier, who invented the air conditioner in 1902.

“The people of Adana really need air conditioners. God bless him for making such an invention,” city resident Mehmet Saygin told Turkey’s DHA news agency.

The latest heat wave prompted renewed concern over the impact of extreme summer heat. The World Meteorological Organization, a United Nations body, said preliminary global figures showed the month of June to be the hottest on record.

“The extreme weather, an increasingly frequent occurrence in our warming climate, is having a major impact on human health, ecosystems, economies, agriculture, energy and water supplies,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said Wednesday.

“This underlines the increasing urgency of cutting greenhouse gas emissions as quickly and as deeply as possible.”

Countries with borders on the Mediterranean Sea weren’t alone in suffering. Authorities in North Macedonia extended a heat alert with predicted temperatures topping 43 C (109 F), while Kosovo also issued heat warnings. Powerful storms that followed a string of extremely hot days caused chaos in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia late Tuesday, toppling trees, tearing roofs off buildings and causing power outages.

Emergency services in the three countries reported hundreds of interventions as the storm swept through the region. It also brought a much-sought relief from the heat. The firefighters were being sent to Greece as part of a European Union civil protection mechanism that includes the planned deployment of international crews to parts of southern Europe over the summer.
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More than 700 people have been sentenced to prison over riots in France late last month, the country’s justice minister said Wednesday, lauding the “firm” response of magistrates.   

In total, 1,278 verdicts have been handed down, with over 95 percent of defendants convicted on a range of charges from vandalism to attacking police officers.   

Six hundred people have already been jailed.   

“It was extremely important to have a response that was firm and systematic,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told RTL radio. “It was essential that we reestablish national order.”    

The most intense urban violence in France since 2005 began on June 27 after a police officer shot dead a 17-year-old boy with North African roots during a traffic stop west of Paris, in an incident recorded by a passerby.   

The riots were contained after four nights of serious clashes thanks to the deployment of around 45,000 security forces, including elite police special forces and armored vehicles.   

Dupond-Moretti had led calls for courts to hand down harsh sentences as a deterrent, with some staying open over the weekend of the clashes to handle a backlog of cases.   

Many suspects faced immediate appearances and some defence lawyers have raised concerns about the fairness of the judicial process and the heavy use of custodial sentences.   

The average age of the over 3,700 people arrested was just 17, with the minors appearing in separate children’s courts.   

The number of people sentenced to prison exceeds the number in 2005 at the time of the last major riots when around 400 people were sent to jail.  
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Latest developments:                      

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Pope Francis' peace envoy, for talks about Vatican efforts to provide humanitarian aid in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 





Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government is working to "preserve Ukraine's global role as a guarantor of food security, our maritime access to the global market, and jobs for Ukrainians in ports and in the agricultural industry" following Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russian forces carried out airstrikes on the Odesa region in southern Ukraine for a second consecutive night. 

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor, urged people to stay in shelters and said air defense systems were activated to repel the attacks. 

After the first night of aerial attacks, which hit Odesa and nearby Mykolaiv, Russia said it was acting in retaliation for an attack Monday that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. 

Russia has used the bridge as a major supply route supporting its forces in their invasion of Ukraine. 

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement Tuesday it targeted facilities involved in what it called “terrorist acts” carried out by seaborne drones, including a shipyard near Odesa and Ukrainian fuel depots.   

The Odesa region is the site of multiple ports that were part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain to the world market. Russia withdrew from the deal earlier this week. 

Ukrainian counteroffensive 

It’s too early to judge the outcome of the seemingly slow-moving counteroffensive of Ukrainian forces against Russian strongholds in eastern and southern Ukraine, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday.  

So far, war analysts say Ukraine has retaken about 250 square kilometers of territory since early June, but Russia has maintained control of large expanses of land.  

Still, General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon, “It is far from a failure, in my view. I think it is way too early to make that kind of call.”  

“First of all, the Russians have had several months to put in a very complex defense,” Milley said. “It’s not quite connected, transform[ing] like World War I, but it’s not dissimilar from that either.”  

Milley said Moscow’s forces had built “lots of complex minefields, Dragon’s Teeth [anti-tank obstacles], barbed-wire trenches.”   

Milley said Russian “morale is low, and now recently because of the [Yevgeny] Prighozin mutiny [of Wagner Group troops], command and control is confusing at best. Significant casualties of their officer corps, so the Russian situation is not very good.”  

He said “what the Ukrainians have, though, is a significant amount of combat power not yet committed. And I will not say what’s going to happen in the future, because that’s going to be a Ukrainian decision… Right now, they are preserving their combat power, and they are slowly and deliberately and steadily working their way through all these minefields.”  

‘Going to do what it takes’

The U.S. military leader said the West’s coalition supporting Ukraine’s forces has trained 17 brigade combat teams and more than 63,000 troops, 15,000 of them by the U.S.  

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “I’ve asked our [Western allies] to continue to dig deep into the military stocks because we’re going to do what it takes to support Ukraine’s sovereign right to live free today and for the future…. They continue to make progress on a cohesive training plan and to help some very eager Ukrainian pilots learn to fly fourth generation aircraft.”  

Milley added, “The problem is control of the air space. The most effective and efficient and cost-effective way to do that right now in Ukraine is ground-to-air [missiles]. And that’s what they’ve been provided.”  

“The casualties that Ukrainians are suffering in this offensive are not so much from Russian airpower but from minefields,” Milley said. “So, the problem to solve is minefields.”  

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

Swathes of Europe baked Tuesday in a heatwave trailed by wildfires and health warnings, as parts of Asia also suffered under extreme weather. 

Firefighters battled blazes in parts of Greece and the Canary Islands, Spain issued heat alerts while some children in Italy’s Sardinia were warned away from sports for safety reasons. 

“You can’t be in the street, it’s horrible,” said Lidia Rodriguez, 27, in Madrid. 

In much of Europe, authorities have warned in recent days of the health dangers of the extreme heat, urging people to drink water and shelter from the sun.  

Several local temperature records were broken in southern France, the weather service said. 

Meteo France said a record 29.5 degrees Celsius (85 Fahrenheit) had been reached in the Alpine ski resort of Alpe d’Huez, which sits at an altitude of 1,860 meters (6,100 feet), while 40.6 C (105 F) had been recorded for the first time in Verdun in the foothills of the Pyrenees. 

In a stark reminder of the effects of global warming, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Agency (WMO) said the trend of heatwaves “shows no signs of decreasing.” 

“These events will continue to grow in intensity, and the world needs to prepare for more intense heatwaves,” John Nairn, a senior extreme heat adviser at the WMO told reporters in Geneva.  

Wildfires and scorching heat 

Northwest of the Greek capital of Athens, columns of smoke loomed over the forest of Dervenohoria, where one of several fires around the capital and beyond was still burning.  

Fire spokesperson Yannis Artopios called it “a difficult day.” Another heatwave was on the horizon for Thursday, with expected temperatures of 44 C (111 Fahrenheit).  

Still burning was a forest fire by the seaside resort of Loutraki, where the mayor said 1,200 children had been evacuated Monday from holiday camps. 

In the Canary Islands, some 400 firefighters battled a blaze that has ravaged 3,500 hectares of forest and forced 4,000 residents to evacuate, with authorities warning residents to wear face masks outside due to poor air quality. 

Temperatures were unforgiving in Italy and in Spain, where three regions were put under hot weather red alerts. 

The Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily have been on watch to possibly surpass a continentwide record of 48.8 C (119.8 F), recorded in Sicily in August 2021. 

Many throughout Italy sought escape by the sea, including outside Rome, where the midday heat hit 40 C (104 F). 

“Certainly it’s better at the beach, you can at least get a little wind from the sea. It’s not even possible to remain in the city, too hot,” said Virginia Cesario, 30, at the Focene beach near the capital. 

Climate change impact  

The heatwaves across Europe and the globe are “not one single phenomenon but several acting at the same time,” said Robert Vautard, director of France’s Pierre-Simon Laplace climate institute. 

“But they are all strengthened by one factor: climate change.” 

Health authorities in Italy issued red alerts for 20 cities, from Naples in the south to Venice in the north.  

At Lanusei, near Sardinia’s eastern coast, a children’s summer camp was restricting beach visits to the early morning and forbidding sports, teacher Morgana Cucca told AFP. 

In the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, pharmacist Teresa Angioni said patients were complaining of heat-related symptoms. 

“They mainly buy magnesium and potassium supplements and ask us to measure their blood pressure, which is often low,” Angioni said. 

Heat record in China 

In parts of Asia, record temperatures have triggered torrential rain. 

Nearly 260,000 people were evacuated in southern China and Vietnam before a typhoon made landfall late Monday, bringing fierce winds and rain, but weakening to a tropical storm by Tuesday. 

China reported on Monday a new mid-July high of 52.2 C (126 F) in the northwestern Xinjiang region’s village of Sanbao, breaking the previous high of 50.6 C (123 F) set six years ago. 

The record-setting heat came as U.S. climate envoy John Kerry met with Chinese officials in Beijing, as the world’s two largest polluters revive stalled diplomacy on reducing planet-warming emissions. 

Speaking Tuesday at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, Kerry called for “global leadership” on climate issues. 
…

The Russian private military force known as the Wagner Group captured the world’s attention with its open mutiny and march on Moscow, averted at the last minute through a deal brokered by Belarus. As Wagner’s future role remains uncertain, we take a look at their origins, the role they play in conflicts around the world, and their rise to influence as an unofficial arm of the Kremlin. Story by Alex Gendler; narration by Salem Solomon.
…

Belarusian authorities have detained a prominent journalist who used to work for outlets including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or RFE/RL.

Police on Monday raided the apartment of Ihar Karnei, in the capital Minsk, seized computers and phones and detained the journalist.

Karnei is being held in the Akrestina pretrial detention center and has not had access to lawyers or his family, according to his daughter, Polina.

“Dad was detained for 10 days; he is in Akrestina. The house was searched,” the daughter told RFE/RL.

The Akrestina facility is known for harsh conditions and mistreating detainees, according to Belarusian human rights group Viasna.   

The Belarusian Embassy in Washington declined to comment directly on the case of the jailed journalist and referred VOA to the foreign ministry.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA it is looking into Karnei’s case and that of several other journalists detained recently.

“As is usually the case, the authorities provide very little to no information on these detentions and the charges. Secrecy also surrounds the trials. This is an intentional approach of the authorities who want to keep their repressions against independent voices under a tight lid,” Gulnoza Said, who is CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, told VOA via email.

Karnei is a well-known journalist who has previously worked for outlets including RFE/RL.

The media outlet, like VOA, is an independent news network under the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

In 2021, Belarusian authorities labeled RFE/RL as an “extremist organization,” along with other independent media and civil rights groups.

Minsk has been clamping down on opposition and critical voices after the August 2020 contested elections and mass protests that followed after President Alexander Lukashenko declared victory.

Dozens of journalists were detained in the lead up and weeks that followed that election, including Karnei.

More than 30 journalists are currently detained, including two contributors for RFE/RL.

Ihar Losik was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year sentence at a hard labor camp. Web editor Andrey Kuznechyk was detained in November 2021 and is serving a six-year sentence.

“This is their sacrifice for freedom of speech,” Volha Khvoin  of the Belarusian Association of Journalists told VOA earlier this year, while discussing the crackdown on critical voices.

Said of CPJ noted that authorities in Belarus have “never eased up on their relentless crackdown on free media.”

“Belarus has never been free under Lukashenko’s rule but it has become one of the most closed off societies in the world since 2020 and one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists,” she said.
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Italy and France are each sending two firefighting planes to Greece to help it cope with wildfires burning on multiple fronts around Athens, with more extreme heat on the way.

The planes and their teams of firefighters are part of an EU civil protection mechanism, and they will join some 30 Romanian firefighters already stationed in Greece as part of a seasonal EU fire program, European officials said Tuesday.

Wildfires continued to burn out of control Tuesday to the north and west of Athens, including a blaze near the resort town of Loutraki, where more homes were damaged and evacuations were expanded.

Several smaller fires also broke out nearer the capital, where winds remained moderate but scrub and forest land has been dried out by extreme temperatures last week.

Police spokeswoman Constantina Dimoglidou said several roads near the fires were closed to allow faster access by emergency services.

Greece also activated a rapid mapping evaluation system, which uses EU satellite data to assess fire damage, for the three large wildfires that burned outside Athens for a second day.

A second heatwave is expected Thursday, with temperatures as high as 44 C (111 F) expected in central and southern parts of the country by the end of the week.
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Tunisia has overtaken Libya as the top embarkation point for African migrants heading to Europe starting in Italy. Tunisia’s leaders have recently signed a deal with the EU to work together to reduce migrant flows, but challenges persist.

Matt Herbert is a senior analyst with the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. He tells VOA there are several factors explaining why Tunisia is overtaking Libya as the main embarkation point to Italy. One is the rapid increase and magnitude in departures from Tunisia that greatly surpasses those from Libya, especially this year. 

Italian interior ministry figures show more than 15,500 people arrived on Italian shores from Tunisia from January until the end of March in over 180 landings per day. Italian officials said it’s a 920-percent increase compared to the 1,525 arrivals in the same period last year. 

As of last week, the Italian interior ministry recorded more than 75,000 migrants that had arrived by boat on Italian shores since the beginning of the year compared to about 31,900 in the same period last year. 

Herbert says Tunisia’s deeply troubled economy in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, terror attacks affecting the Mediterranean country’s prime income earner, tourism, and then COVID-19 are the main factors. He says worsening economic and political situations are hitting Tunisia’s people and adding to that, African migrants are coming to the country for work. 

“The continuing economic challenges have had a real impact on their bottom line. The money they have been able to earn has been drastically reduced,” said Herbert. “They are facing economic difficulties staying in country and so some are leveraging the money they already have to leave. The dynamic of departures is being very closely linked to rising xenophobia.” 

Herbert adds that a multi-year rise in irregular migration from Tunisia has seen a growth in human smuggling networks along the Tunisian coastline, providing more escape routes. At its nearest point, Tunisia lies approximately 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

On Sunday, the European Union committed financial assistance to Tunisia in exchange for its added efforts to combat human trafficking and strengthen its border controls. The EU has already offered Tunisia more than one billion dollars in long-term aid.  

Tunisian analyst Tasnim Abderrahim, a migrant policy analyst with the Washington-based Middle East Institute, debunked the “perception that North African countries are willing to do anything in exchange for money,” saying there are mitigating factors.  

“Now there are concerns that Italy may be seeking to deport sub-Saharan nationals to Tunisia,” she said. “The repatriation of Tunisian nationals is already happening, and Tunisia has very advanced cooperation with Italy in that sense. But the readmission of third country nationals is something that definitely Tunisians–both the government and the population—reject. There are very little incentives on the Tunisian side to engage in such form of cooperation.”

Racial tensions and anti-migrant sentiment are growing in Tunisia following the death of a Tunisian man on July 3 in a fight between locals and migrants.  

Observers say Tunisia does not have a legal framework to welcome migrants. 
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Spain’s general election on Sunday could make the country the latest European Union member swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and its small far-left coalition partner, Unidas Podemos (“United We Can”), took a beating in local and regional elections.

The center-right Popular Party emerged from the May 28 elections with the most votes. Polls for the general election have consistently put the PP in first place — but likely needing support from the far-right Vox party to form a government.

Such a coalition would return a far-right force to the Spanish government for the first time since the country transitioned to democracy following the 1975 death of Gen. Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled Spain for nearly 40 years.

The Popular Party and Vox have agreed to govern together in some 140 cities and towns since May, as well as to add two more regions to the one where they already co-governed. Sen. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP’s leader, has not ruled out a partnership at the national level.

Led by former PP member Santiago Abascal, 47, Vox opposes abortion rights, denies climate change and rejects the need for government to combat gender violence. Election polling indicates the party could finish third this weekend, a showing that would put Abascal in a kingmaker’s role.

Nagore Calvo Mendizabal, a senior lecturer in Spanish and European Politics and Society at King’s College London, said the likelihood of Vox entering government frames Sunday’s parliamentary election “in terms of the future of democracy in Spain as being what is at stake.”

Vox’s manifesto is virtually a “copy-and-paste of the tenets of the Franco regime,” Calvo said. It promises, for example, a return to a highly centralized government by scrapping the 17 regions that came into being after Franco’s death.

Beyond Spain, a PP-Vox government would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies, Calvo said.

Spain took over the EU’s rotating presidency on July 1. Sánchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made before a national election originally scheduled for December.

Voter concerns over immigration and costs of living, as well as frustration with the EU’s perceived interference in national affairs, often have been cited to explain increases in right-wing support in other countries.

In Spain, however, the dominant issue is the “honorability” of the Socialist politician who has served as prime minister since June 2018, according to María José Canel Crespo, a political communication professor at Madrid’s Complutense University.

For most of the past year, the PP has pursued a hard-hitting media and parliamentary campaign on the need to defeat what it calls “Sanchismo,” portraying the prime minister as a liar for his U-turns on major issues.

Sánchez said he would never form a government with Podemos, deeming it too radical, but then he did in 2019. Sánchez also said he would not pardon nine separatists who were convicted of sedition after pushing for the Catalonia region’s secession — but then he did.

The PP claims his minority government betrays Spain by aligning itself with extremists in Basque and Catalan regional parties that ultimately want independence.

But the Socialist-Podemos coalition’s biggest blunder came in what was supposed to have been one of its signature pieces of progressive legislation. A sexual consent law passed in October inadvertently allowed more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders to have their sentences reduced, and over 100 gained early release.

Sánchez apologized and the law was amended to close the legal loophole, but the episode provided invaluable material for the right-wing parties and right-leaning media outlets.

Sánchez “has made it easier for him to be perceived as a liar,” Canel said, adding that he did not help his cause when he explained in a television interview that “Sanchismo” stood for evil, lies and manipulation.

The 51-year-old prime minister also performed disastrously in the only televised pre-election debate with the PP’s Feijóo, 61. Polling analyses show anti-Sánchez sentiment and the fear of Vox entering government has led some 700,000 Socialist voters switching to the PP, according to Canel.

“The vote is not going to be about corruption or the economy. It will be motivated by a rejection of Sánchez,” she said.

Sánchez first took office in June 2018 after winning a no-confidence vote that ended an eight-year run in government for the PP on the back of a major corruption scandal. He led a caretaker government until, after two elections in November 2019, he struck a deal with Podemos.

Within months, Spain was one of the countries hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of both deaths and economic impact, severely testing the strength of the left-wing coalition government. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its knock-on financial effects tested it again.

But heading into the May elections, Sánchez could boast of a growing economy, falling unemployment and inflation, pension and minimum wage increases, and the establishment of a minimum vital income. The government also negotiated a deal with the EU that allowed it to slash consumer energy costs driven up Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The various measures helped millions of people but apparently have not translated into voter loyalty. King’s College London’s Calvo thinks the right-wing’s nationalist tactics have put Sánchez on the defensive, while his leftist coalition’s laudably progressive policies have made the government seem out of touch.

A factor that could upset poll predictions is Sumar, a new movement of 15 small left-wing parties, including Podemos, led by Spain’s immensely popular labor minister, Yolanda Díaz. If it beats Vox for third place Sunday, Sumar could provide the Socialists with backing to form another coalition government.

With the election taking place at the height of summer, millions of citizens are likely to be vacationing away from their regular polling places. But postal voting requests have soared, and officials have estimated a 70% election turnout.
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If the flow of foodstuffs through the Black Sea is cut off, millions of people enduring food insecurity around the world will suffer the consequences 
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Russia on Monday ended the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which guaranteed the free flow of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. Poor nations already struggling with food insecurity are expected to be affected the worst. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
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