Greek rescuers on Friday scanned the Ionian Sea by air and boat for survivors of a migrant boat sinking, as hope faded of finding more people alive two days after the disaster.

On Wednesday, a fishing boat overloaded with migrants capsized and sank, killing at least 78 people, off the Peloponnese. Some 104 people were found alive.

The exact number of people aboard the boat is unknown, with one survivor telling hospital doctors in Kalamata he had seen 100 children in the boat’s hold, broadcaster ERT reported.

“Hopes of finding survivors are fading each minute after this tragic sinking, but the search must continue,” Stella Nanou, a spokesperson for the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR, told AFP.

“According to broadcast images and accounts of some of the survivors, hundreds of people were aboard” she said.

The Greek coast guard said that rescuers scoured the sea through the night.

A helicopter, a frigate and three boats were scanning the waters Friday, a coastguard spokesperson told AFP.

Police on Thursday arrested nine Egyptians on suspicion of people smuggling — one of them the captain of the boat carrying the migrants.

They were detained at the port of Kalamata, where the survivors are being cared for, said Greek news agency ANA.

The survivors, mainly from Syria, Egypt and Pakistan, were being housed in a Kalamata warehouse.

Greece, Italy and Spain are among the main landing points for tens of thousands of people who seek to reach Europe as they flee conflict and poverty in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.
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Defense leaders from about 50 nations held another meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on Thursday at NATO headquarters to discuss Kyiv’s current needs following the start of its latest counteroffensive. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has more from Brussels.
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Can you pay my bills?

That seems to be what Sweden is asking Beyoncé after the star came to town.

When the singer launched her global tour last month in Stockholm, tens of thousands of fans from around the world swarmed the Swedish capital. But it’s not all fun and games for the host of the kickoff of Beyoncé’s first solo tour in seven years.

A senior economist at a top Scandinavian bank says Beyoncé had something to do with Sweden’s higher-than-expected inflation rate last month.

Consumer prices rose 9.7% last month in Sweden compared with a year earlier, the country’s statistics agency, Statistics Sweden, said Wednesday. Costs for certain goods and services, including hotels, rose.

That was a drop from 10.5% in April — the first time that inflation in Sweden has fallen below 10% in more than six months — but it was still slightly higher than economists had predicted.

Michael Grahn, chief economist for Sweden at Danske Bank, thinks Beyoncé’s concert may help explain why.

“Beyonce’s start of her world tour in Sweden seems to have coloured May inflation,” he said on Twitter on Wednesday.

“How much is uncertain,” he added, but the concert “probably” contributed to 0.2 of the 0.3 percentage points that restaurant and hotel prices added to the monthly increase in inflation.

An estimated 46,000 people attended each of Beyoncé’s two Stockholm concerts. Fans from around the world took advantage of Sweden’s relatively weaker currency to buy tickets that were cheaper than in other countries, such as the United States.

“The main impact on inflation, however, came from the fact that all fans needed somewhere to stay,” Grahn told The New York Times. The popularity of the concerts meant some fans had to venture up to 40 miles [64 kilometers] away to find a room, he said.

Grahn told the Financial Times that the phenomenon was “quite astonishing.”

But he added on Twitter that he predicts the situation will return to normal in June.

“We expect this upside surprise to be reversed in June as prices on hotels and tickets reverse back to normal,” he said.
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The Biden administration says it remains “hopeful” about Sweden’s application to join the NATO security alliance, despite tepid words from NATO’s main holdout, Turkey.

But the White House declined to say whether that could happen before a NATO summit scheduled for next month.

With less than a month before alliance members meet July 11 in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that the White House was optimistic.

“We are still hopeful that this will get done,” she said, “I don’t have a timeline, certainly. The sooner, the better, as I said, without delay. And so, we’ll continue to be very clear. We’ll continue to communicate that with Turkey.”

Sweden needs unanimous support from all 31 NATO members before it can join. So far, all but Hungary and Turkey have given it, diminishing hopes that Sweden can join by the summit.

Ankara has accused Stockholm of not doing enough to crack down on its branch of a political party that Turkey’s government sees as extremists. And Hungary’s leader objects to Sweden’s criticism of his record on democracy and the rule of law.

Sweden and Finland applied jointly for NATO membership last May, with both Nordic nations citing overwhelming popular support for the idea amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Finland’s membership was finalized in April.

On Wednesday, newly reelected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters, “The expectations of Sweden do not mean that we will comply with these expectations. In order for us to comply with these expectations, first of all, Sweden must do its part.”

Meanwhile, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that his staff had reported that a meeting between Sweden and Turkey “took place in a constructive atmosphere.”

“Some progress has been made,” he said.

F-16 leverage

Stoltenberg cited the recent extradition from Sweden of suspects related to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK.

“This is good for the fight against terrorism, but also good for Sweden’s efforts to fight organized crime in Sweden, because these groups are very often linked,” he said Wednesday in Brussels.

But Erdogan on Wednesday took a harder line, telling journalists, “What we told [Stoltenberg] was this: ‘If you expect us to respond to Sweden’s expectations, first of all, Sweden must erase what this terrorist organization has done.’ While we were expressing these to Stoltenberg at that particular time, unfortunately, terrorists were demonstrating again in the streets in Sweden.”

Michael Kimmage, a professor at Catholic University and a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA that “there are a few bona fide issues, and then there’s also a little bit of gamesmanship that Ankara is engaging in.”

One thing he pointed to — which Erdogan did not mention Wednesday when speaking to journalists — is that Turkey is seeking to buy 40 American F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits, a purchase that needs congressional approval.

Biden, who called Erdogan in May, has framed the deal for the jets as Washington’s leverage for fast-tracking Turkey’s decision on Sweden.

“He still wants to work on something on the F-16s,” Biden said late last month. “I told him we wanted a deal with Sweden, so let’s get that done.”

The Orban obstacle

Washington appears to be taking a harder line with the other holdout, Hungary. Prime Minister Viktor Orban has bristled under Western criticism — backed up by prominent rights watchdogs — accusing his administration of violating civil liberties, media freedom, the rule of law and democratic governance.

This week, Senator James Risch, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, moved unilaterally to block a $735 million U.S. arms sale to Hungary.

“For some time now, I have directly expressed my concerns to the Hungarian government regarding its refusal to move forward a vote for Sweden to join NATO,” he told U.S. media. “The fact that it is now June and still not done, I decided that the sale of new U.S. military equipment to Hungary will be on hold.”

Analysts say Orban — who has tightened his grip on power — can be unpredictable.

“It is fair to say that he is the loose cannon within NATO and EU,” Jan C. Behrends, a history professor at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt, Germany, said during a discussion with analysts convened by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Europe program.

NATO members agree to come to each other’s defense in the event of an attack. Hungary, a landlocked nation that shares a border with Ukraine, has yet to meet a 2014 pledge to spend at least 2% of its GDP on defense.

And by dragging his feet on letting in two larger, wealthier nations, analysts argue Orban is acting against his own interests.

“Delaying the NATO accession of Finland and further blocking that of Sweden similarly have no justifiable reason and are harmful from a security perspective,” said Zsuzsanna Vegh of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

“What’s more, none of these steps can even be explained by the Hungarian national interest [that] Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz [Party] is so adamant to protect,” he said.

VOA’s Mehmet Toroglu contributed to this report.
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Key African countries stressed the need for grain imports to tackle food insecurity as Russian President Vladimir Putin prepares to discuss with the continent’s leaders the fate of a deal allowing the safe Black Sea export of food and fertilizer from Ukraine. 

Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was considering quitting the Black Sea Grain Initiative – brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July – because its own grain and fertilizer shipments still face obstacles. The pact could expire on July 17. 

A delegation of African leaders is due to visit both Ukraine and Russia soon in a push to end Russia’s 16-month-long war, and Putin has said he plans to raise the Black Sea grain deal. African leaders could also propose to Putin an “unconditional grain and fertilizer deal,” according to a draft framework document Reuters saw Thursday. 

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said he believes Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are aligned with him on the “importance of grain deliveries to Africa for the alleviation of food insecurity,” said Ramaphosa spokesperson Vincent Magwenya. 

“We are therefore not aware of any threats to pull out of the grain deal,” Magwenya told Reuters on Wednesday. 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Moscow had not yet made a decision on withdrawing. 

Russia has issued a list of demands it wants met, including the resumption of its Black Sea ammonia exports and reconnection of the Russian Agricultural Bank to the SWIFT payment system. 

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on Thursday that he hoped the talks between Putin and the African leaders led to “a positive outcome in relation to the Black Sea initiative, as well as in relation to the efforts that we are making for the exports of Russian food and fertilizer.”  

‘Devastating toll’ 

While food and fertilizer exports do not fall under the West’s tough sanctions imposed on Russia over the war, Moscow says restrictions on payments, logistics and insurance create barriers. 

Putin also complained that under the deal “almost nothing goes to African countries” and said Moscow is ready to supply grain for free to the world’s poorest countries. 

The United Nations has long said the Black Sea grain deal is a commercial enterprise, but that it benefits poorer countries by helping lower food prices globally. 

Zambian Foreign Minister Stanley Kakubo said in a statement Wednesday that the war in Ukraine and conflict in Sudan had “taken a devastating toll on African communities, resulting in the loss of life, and food insecurity, due to the rising costs of grain and fertilizer.” 

According to U.N. data, more than 31 million tons of grain have been exported under the pact, with 43% of that to developing countries. The U.N. World Food Program has shipped more than 625,000 tons of grain for aid operations. 

The Black Sea grain deal was initially brokered for 120 days. Russia has agreed to extend it three times but warned on Wednesday that its “goodwill” cannot last forever. 

Not all African states were worried, though. 

“If it’s true that we would starve if that grain deal is disrupted, why is it that it’s the West crying more than us Africans? They are crying crocodile tears,” Uganda’s state minister for foreign affairs, Okello Oryem, told Reuters. 

He added that Uganda would have no qualms about accepting free grain from Russia.
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Spain must do more to prepare for increasingly virulent wildfires stoked by climate change, a large group of the country’s leading wildfire prevention experts said Thursday. 

A declaration backed by 60 experts and institutions said the “increasingly intense fires … are producing unprecedented ecological and social consequences.” 

The experts concluded that Spanish society must come to terms with the emergencies that it will likely face, given that wildfires in increasingly hot and dry conditions in the Iberian Peninsula are often “beyond the capability [of firefighters] to extinguish” with their own means. 

The declaration was the outcome of a two-day meeting in Madrid in March organized by the Pau Costa Foundation, a nonprofit group based in Barcelona that works for fire prevention awareness. That meeting included wildlife and forestry experts drawn from government, academia, NGOs such as Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, and firefighting services. 

They urged Spain to increase its management of wooded areas to compensate for the abandonment of traditional forest industries and to quadruple its budget for prevention. 

Only about 78,000 hectares, or 0.3% of Spain’s woods, are currently managed, the foundation estimates. The declaration calls for that to be increased to 1%, or 260,000 hectares, and for Spanish authorities to dedicate the necessary resources. 

The report sets a recommended figure of $1.09 billion that Spain should be spending on forest management, to help compensate for the abandonment of traditional uses of wooded areas by local communities, such as taking timber or firewood. 

The declaration was presented Thursday simultaneously in Barcelona and Madrid. 

“This declaration is born from the need to create a consensus and bring together voices from different regions to send a powerful message and increase awareness so we can act and prepare for the wildfires of the future,” Miriam Pique, head of the Sustainable Forest Management Unit in the Forest Science Center of Catalonia, said in a wooded area near Barcelona. 

In Spain, each region is charged with managing its forests and fighting wildfires. That has led to considerable differences in the firefighting muscle of poorer and less populated regions like Castilla y Leon, where one firefighter died last year in massive blazes, compared with wealthier ones like Madrid’s central region or northeast Catalonia. 

The emergency firefighting brigades of Spain’s army are often deployed to help put out the worst fires. 

Some 267,000 hectares burned last year in Spain, making 2022 its worst year of fire destruction since 1994, government statistics said. The national average for the past decade was 94,000 hectares. According to the European Union’s Copernicus satellite observation service, Spain accounted for 35% of all burned land in European wildfires last year. 

After a record-hot 2022, Spain saw the arrival of forest fires earlier than usual this year. Recent rains have provided some relief despite a record-hot spring, but summer is typically dry, and authorities are on guard for another difficult season.
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Chinese manufacturers of electric vehicles are stepping up their push to dominate the European market. As Amy Guttman reports from London, they are making progress in Britain, where car shoppers are eager to buy the lower-cost electric cars that Chinese automakers are offering.
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A nonprofit in Washington is helping refugees from around the world learn English. Ksenia Turkova met with some Ukrainians who wound up in the U.S. capital and are learning English. Camera: Bogdan Osyka.
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Latest developments:

Speaking ahead of next week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference in London, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country "will rebuild everything, restore everything."
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi postponed a planned trip to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Wednesday due to security reasons.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday the war in Ukraine demonstrates the need to stand with Ukraine and continue to provide support.

Stoltenberg told reporters as he arrived at NATO headquarters that after launching its long-expected counteroffensive, Ukraine has made gains and liberated occupied land from Russian forces during fierce fighting.

“This is due to the courage, the bravery, the skills of the Ukrainian soldiers, but it also highlights and demonstrates that the support NATO allies have been giving to Ukraine for many, many months actually makes a difference on the battlefield,” Stoltenberg said.

He added that the more successful Ukraine is at this stage, the more pressure it will put on Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table and give Ukraine a stronger hand in peace talks.

Stoltenberg said if allies want enduring peace in Ukraine, they have to continue providing Ukrainian forces with military support.

Ahead of the meeting of NATO defense chiefs, the U.S.-led Ukraine Contact Group held its latest session Thursday in Brussels to discuss military assistance for Ukraine.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the opening of the meeting that the fight in Ukraine “is a marathon, and not a sprint.”

“We will continue to provide Ukraine with the urgent capabilities that it needs to meet this moment as well as what it needs to keep itself secure for the long term from Russian aggression,” Austin said.

He highlighted the need to provide Ukrainian forces with air defense systems that are critical in protecting Ukrainian civilians from Russia’s aerial attacks.

“The Kremlin’s imperial ambitions have inflicted unimaginable suffering on the Ukrainian people, yet the Ukrainians continue to inspire us with their resilience, their bravery, and their unwavering commitment to keep their country free and secure,” Austin said.

Norway and Denmark announced a joint effort to provide thousands of artillery rounds to Ukraine.

“Ukraine has an urgent need for artillery ammunition. We have therefore decided to join forces with Denmark for a new donation, so that Ukraine receives the ammunition as quickly as possible,” Norway’s defense minister, Bjørn Arild Gram, said in a statement.

Ukraine’s military said Thursday it intercepted a Russian cruise missile as well as 20 explosive drones launched by Russia.

In Russian-controlled Crimea, Russian officials said their side downed nine Ukrainian drones.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Ukraine’s security needs, both immediate and long-term, are expected to dominate the discussion when NATO defense ministers meet Thursday and Friday in Brussels, where Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov will brief the participants on the progress of the war.

The most urgent of those needs, Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar told VOA in an interview Wednesday, is ammunition for her country to defend its skies against Russian aerial attacks and to sustain its long-awaited bid to recapture some Russian-held Ukrainian territory that began last week.

Kyiv’s longer-term appeal is for early admission to the 30-nation defensive alliance, a request that is likely to get a more serious hearing when the NATO heads of state meet next month in Vilnius, Lithuania.

This week, the ministers are expected to reassess Ukraine’s military needs, coordinate partnerships and review the alliance’s defense capability. The member states are also discussing some measures short of full NATO membership that may be finalized in Brussels.

In her interview, Maliar said Ukrainian forces are moving forward “step by step” in the east and south of the country and have recaptured about 90 square kilometers of territory since the start of the counteroffensive.

But, she said, Russian forces have “increased artillery and mortar shelling, using aviation, making it challenging to advance; there are some difficult weather conditions as well.”

She added that the Russian army is conducting its own offensive operations in some locations, and that Ukrainian forces “are currently in the offensive and defensive stages.”

Maliar confirmed a warning from NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, who said in February that Kyiv is burning through shells much more quickly than Western countries can replenish them — a pattern that has accelerated since the start of the counteroffensive.

“Our military is fighting when the enemy has an advantage in weapons. Russia was preparing for this for 30 years; we were fulfilling our international obligation and did disarmament,” she said. “And we need shells. Some days Russians use 70,000 shells per day. The list of our needs we are sharing with our partners regularly.”

Stoltenberg, who visited Washington this week ahead of the Brussels discussions, announced Wednesday a Defense Production Action Plan designed to “rapidly address shortfalls in our stocks.”

Reuters has reported that the Brussels meeting will, for the first time, include talks with the heads of some 20 of the world’s leading defense companies to find a way to boost the production of what NATO calls “battle-decisive” munitions.

Reznikov told VOA in an exchange of emails that he also expects to discuss plans for the introduction of U.S.-made F-16 jet fighters into the war.

“During the meeting, we will discuss the details of the ‘aircraft coalition’ such as the training of pilots, technicians and engineers who will be engaged in aircraft maintenance because it is a very complex system,” he wrote.

“Subject matters will be discussed with the teams of the defense ministries of the Netherlands, Denmark, the USA, and other countries that have joined this coalition. I included representatives of our Air Force in the Ukrainian delegation. Also, everything related to air defense, ammunition shells, and artillery remains relevant. Our priorities have not changed.”

The longer-term issue of Ukraine’s relationship with NATO figured prominently in Stoltenberg’s meetings in Washington with President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to Ambassador Julianne Smith, the U.S. permanent representative to NATO.

Smith said during a call with journalists on Wednesday that all of the alliance members are “excited about the prospect” of welcoming Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to the summit in Vilnius and that Ukraine’s aspirations for NATO membership will be an essential agenda item at the Brussels meeting.

While there is little prospect of a membership invitation while the war continues, Smith said the NATO members are working in real-time on a more limited support package that will “signal new deliverables in the category of enhancing our political relationship with Ukraine.”

“Not just practical support to assist them in their current efforts to defend their territorial integrity, but practical support tied to the longer-term questions, longer term modernization issues they will be grappling with, questions of standardization, and thinking what type of force they will have in the future,” she said.

Smith added that the NATO countries will not be swayed by Russia’s objections to NATO membership for Ukraine.

“Our positions are clear,” she said. “Russia does not have a voice or a veto on NATO’s open-door policy; we support Ukraine’s aspirations to join the Euro Atlantic community.”
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Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said his country has begun taking delivery of Russian tactical nuclear weapons, some of which he said were three times more powerful than the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

The deployment is Moscow’s first move of such warheads — shorter-range less powerful nuclear weapons that could potentially be used on the battlefield — outside Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“We have missiles and bombs that we have received from Russia,” Lukashenko said in an interview with the Rossiya-1 Russian state TV channel, which was posted on the Belarusian Belta state news agency’s Telegram channel.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Russia, which will retain control of the tactical nuclear weapons, would start deploying them in Belarus after special storage facilities to house them were made ready.

The Russian leader announced in March he had agreed to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, pointing to the U.S deployment of such weapons in a host of European countries over many decades.

The United States has criticized Putin’s decision but has said it has no intention of altering its own stance on strategic nuclear weapons and has not seen any signs that Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon.

The Russian step is nonetheless being watched closely by the United States and its allies as well as by China, which has repeatedly cautioned against the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.

Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, told Russian state TV in the interview, which was released late on Tuesday, that his country had numerous nuclear storage facilities left over from the Soviet-era and had restored five or six of them.

He played down the idea that Russian control of the weapons was an impediment to using them quickly if he felt such a move was necessary, saying he and Putin could pick up the phone to each other “at any moment.”

Lukashenko, who has allowed his country to be used by Russian forces attacking Ukraine as part of what Moscow calls its “special military operation,” says the nuclear deployment will act as a deterrent against potential aggressors.

Belarus borders three NATO member countries: Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.

The 68-year-old former Soviet collective farm boss, who has ruled Belarus since 1994, making him Europe’s longest-serving leader, said he didn’t ask Putin for the weapons, but demanded them.

“We have always been a target,” Lukashenko said. “They [the West] have wanted to tear us to pieces since 2020. No one has so far fought against a nuclear country, a country that has nuclear weapons.”

Lukashenko has repeatedly accused the West of trying to topple him after mass protests against his rule erupted in 2020 in the wake of a presidential election the opposition said he fraudulently won.

Lukashenko said he had won fairly, while conducting a sweeping crackdown on his opponents.
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Three Kosovo police officers were detained by Serbian forces on Wednesday but officials from Kosovo and Serbia gave different locations for the arrest, accusing each other of crossing the border illegally.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti demanded the release of the three officers. He said they had been arrested 300 meters inside Kosovan territory, near the border with Serbia.

“The entry of Serbian forces into the territory of Kosovo is aggression and aimed at escalation and destabilization,” Kurti wrote on his Facebook page.

In response to the detentions, Kosovo’s interior minister, Xhelal Svecla, told reporters he had ordered officers at border crossings to stop all trucks with Serbian plates and trucks carrying Serbian goods.

But Petar Petkovic, the head of the Serbian government office for Kosovo, said the three were arrested “deep inside” Serbian territory.

He told a news conference in Belgrade that the arrest took place in the village named Gnjilica, a few kilometers from the border, and that Serbia was willing to accept an international investigation into the arrest.

The detentions may further fuel tensions in the predominantly Serb northern part in Kosovo which borders Serbia and which has seen violence in recent weeks.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nearly a decade after an uprising by the 90% ethnic Albanian majority against repressive Serbian rule.

In 1999, a NATO bombing campaign drove Serbian security forces out of Kosovo but Belgrade continues to regard it as a southern province.

Violence flared last month when 30 peacekeepers and 52 Serbs were injured in clashes in four predominantly Serb municipalities in northern Kosovo just outside Serbia.

It erupted after Serbs rallied against ethnic Albanian mayors who moved into their offices following a local vote in which turnout was just 3.5%. Serbs in the area boycotted the election.

The arrest on Tuesday of a Serb identified by the Kosovo Albanian interior minister as an organizer of assaults on NATO peacekeepers during unrest last month stirred more anger in the region and triggered protests on Wednesday. 
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EU lawmakers on Wednesday voted for tougher landmark draft artificial intelligence rules that include a ban on the use of the technology in biometric surveillance and for generative AI systems like ChatGPT to disclose AI-generated content.

The lawmakers agreed to the amendments to the draft legislation proposed by the European Commission which is seeking to set a global standard for the technology used in everything from automated factories to bots and self-driving cars.

Rapid adoption of Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s ChatGPT and other bots has led top AI scientists and company executives including Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to raise the potential risks posed to society.

“While Big Tech companies are sounding the alarm over their own creations, Europe has gone ahead and proposed a concrete response to the risks AI is starting to pose,” said Brando Benifei, co-rapporteur of the draft act.

Among other changes, European Union lawmakers want any company using generative tools to disclose copyrighted material used to train its systems and for companies working on “high-risk application” to do a fundamental rights impact assessment and evaluate environmental impact.

Microsoft, which has called for AI rules, welcomed the lawmakers’ agreement.

“We believe that AI requires legislative guardrails, alignment efforts at an international level, and meaningful voluntary actions by companies that develop and deploy AI,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

However, the Computer and Communications Industry Association said the amendments on high-risk AIs were likely to overburden European AI developers with “excessively prescriptive rules” and slow down innovation.

“AI raises a lot of questions – socially, ethically, economically. But now is not the time to hit any ‘pause button’. On the contrary, it is about acting fast and taking responsibility,” EU industry chief Thierry Breton said.

The Commission announced its draft rules two years ago aimed at setting a global standard for a technology key to almost every industry and business and in a bid to catch up with AI leaders the United States and China.

The lawmakers will now have to thrash out details with European Union countries before the draft rules become legislation. 
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Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was honored Wednesday with a state funeral in Milan’s Duomo cathedral and a day of national mourning, as his legacy — positive or negative — was being hotly debated among Italians. 

Thousands of people outside the Duomo and within erupted in applause as a sign of respect as Berlusconi’s flower-draped casket was hoisted out of the hearse and into the cathedral. His children and companion teared up as the casket was placed in front of the altar. 

Most Italians identify Berlusconi, a media mogul, soccer entrepreneur and three-time former premier, as the most influential figure in Italy over recent decades. But they remain sharply divided on whether his influence was for the better or worse, extending to whether the three-time former premier merits all the fuss and ceremony. 

Berlusconi died at the age of 86 on Monday in a Milan hospital where he was being treated for chronic leukemia. His family held a private wake Tuesday at one of Berlusconi’s villas near Milan, the city where he made his billions as the head of a media empire before entering politics in 1994. 

Political opponents are questioning not only the decisions of Premier Giorgia Meloni’s government to hold a state funeral — an honor that can be afforded all former premiers — but to also declare a national day of mourning, which is more rarely invoked. In the case of the latter, flags were flown at half-staff and all political events not involving charity were put on hold, but it is otherwise business as usual. 

“Berlusconi split Italy, he insulted adversaries for 30 years, he criminalized the magistrates and he didn’t recognize laws. What are we talking about?” journalist Marco Travaglio, a long-time Berlusconi critic and co-founder of the il Fatto Quotidiano daily, told private La7 TV on Tuesday. 

Nevertheless, thousands of Italians filled the piazza outside Milan’s Duomo to follow the funeral on two giant video screens while carabinieri in full ceremonial regalia stood guard, surrounded by floral wreaths. Family members, political allies and opponents took up the pews inside. 

Hungarian President Viktor Orban and Qatar’s ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, were among the highest-ranking foreign dignitaries attending. 

Meloni, who got her first government experience as a minister in a Berlusconi coalition, also attended, along with League leader Matteo Salvini, whose party has long been allied with Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Opposition politicians were also on hand in a show of respect for a political figure with whom many had sparred. 

Barbara Cacellari, a Forza Italia councilwoman and one-time candidate for the European Parliament, said protests over how to officially mark Berlusconi’s death showed a lack of respect. 

“The person must be respected per se. He is a person who represents the history of this country,” she said outside the cathedral, adding: “No one is without stains, I think.” 

Berlusconi is widely recognized as a precursor to the type of populist politics that later would bring Donald Trump to power in the United States, both using their high profile as businessmen to springboard into the political arena, upending politics as usual along the way. 

Supporters of Berlusconi’s legacy cite his success in unifying the Italian center-right after the collapse of the post-war political landscape with the 1990s “Clean Hands” corruption scandal. They also see his years as leader as periods of stabilization, after years of quickly rotating governments, while admiring his bold rule-breaking and irreverence, perhaps especially in the face of other global leaders. 

Berlusconi’s detractors’ list of political damage is long, including conflicts of interest relating to his media empire, dozens of trials mostly for business dealings, revelations of sex-fueled bunga-bunga parties at his villa near Milan and questionable associations, including his enduring friendship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. 

“He is not a leader who helped us grow,” said Beppe Severgnini, a long-time foreign correspondent and writer for Corriere della Sera. “He tapped all of our weaknesses: moral, fiscal, sexual, everything.” 
…

 British police were questioning a man on suspicion of murder Wednesday as they sought the motive for a stabbing and van attack in the central English city of Nottingham which had left three people dead and another critical.

Two 19-year-olds, a man and a woman who were university students, were found dead on a city center street with stab wounds after police were alerted at about 4 a.m. (0300 GMT) on Tuesday. Another 50-year-old man then also found dead with knife wounds on a road about two miles away.

A van, stolen from the 50-year-old victim, was then driven at three people, leaving one critically injured in hospital.

After the vehicle was stopped, police used a stun gun to arrest a 31-year-old man, and say they are not looking for any other suspects.

Counter-terrorism officers are helping with the investigation, but Nottinghamshire Police’s Chief Constable Kate Meynell said they were keeping an open mind as to what happened.

The BBC reported that the suspect was believed to be a migrant of West African origin with a history of mental health issues.

“We are still in the early stages of the investigation and need to determine the motives behind these attacks,” Meynell said.

The incident has shocked the city, particularly the student community, with Nottingham home to two universities with more than 50,000 students.

British media said one of the two teenage victims, named as Grace Kumar, had played hockey for England’s Under 18 team. The other, Barnaby Webber, was said to be a keen cricket player.

The University of Nottingham students were attacked as they returned home from a post-exam party, the Times reported.

“Barnaby’s parents are in bits as you can imagine,” his grandfather Phil Robson was quoted by newspapers as saying.
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