The adoption of a law to criminalize defamation in Bosnia’s republic of Srpska has oppositional lawmakers, media watchdogs and the EU concerned. For VOA News, Aid Mrsic has the story. Camera: Dragan Stegic
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Some analysts warn that the choice of countries selected for induction into the BRICS bloc suggests the grouping as a whole may be headed on a path toward decreased tolerance for public dissent and debate.

The five-nation developing bloc, which comprises Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, announced on August 24 the admission of six countries into its fold: Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Their membership is expected to become effective in January 2024.

Of the six states, four — Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia and Iran — have a history of heavily clamping down on dissenting voices. Their inclusion draws them closer to Russia and China, both known as authoritarian regimes that allow little engagement by independent civil society groups.

Neil Melvin, director of International Security Studies at London-based Royal United Security Institute, the U.K.’s oldest defense and security policy group, told VOA the selection of these six nations from among some 40 applicants reflected the disparate interests of the existing BRICS members.

“Argentina is there because of its neighbor Brazil. Russia and China also want to bring in Iran. And Egypt is there primarily because of the centrality of the hydrocarbon sector to many of the BRICS countries. And, for South Africa, it likely wanted Ethiopia because of its centrality for African diplomacy,” he said. The African Union is headquartered in Addis Ababa.

“We do see a group of countries that certainly have a democracy problem, and this is strengthening non-democratic trends in the BRICS, and a human rights problem,” Melvin said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has cited Ethiopia, Iran and China among the 10 most censored countries for journalists in the world. Like political analysts, the advocacy group wants openness on the part of BRICS leaders.

Guillen Kaiser, CPJ’s advocacy and communications director, told VOA that because BRICS makes up “a significant portion of the world’s population,” it is imperative for member states, “many of which are repressive regimes,” to accept that their people want to be informed.

“The public wants transparency and accountability. Journalists provide this every day, with reporting that moves markets and allows people to make informed decisions,” she said. “BRICS leaders must accept that ultimately, their chokehold on the flow of information isn’t grounded in reality and it is in their interest to embrace a free press.”

Melvin noted that the BRICS expansion follows Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the refusal by some countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America to join the United States and most of Europe in retaliatory sanctions.

The expansion, he said, might be a signal of the bloc’s resolve to lead a new kind of Global South movement to broaden its legitimacy. “But I think this is going to be a very difficult agenda because it is relatively easy to complain about the existing [world] order.”

Melvin said if BRICS expects to offer an alternative to the West, it will have to address the challenges faced by its incoming members — an economic crisis in Argentina and massive debts faced by Ethiopia and Egypt.

“The West has been struggling with this for many years,” he said. “So, can China, Russia and the rest actually put something together? That’s the question they have put on themselves, and they’re going to have to answer that.”

Mandeep Tiwana, chief officer for evidence and engagement at CIVICUS, a global civil society alliance, told VOA that many of the newly inducted BRICS members have a record of suppressing human rights and dismantling the democratic aspirations of their people.

“BRICS is, in a sense, trying to reframe global governance,” Tiwana said. “Because when you have governments that are totalitarian in nature, it is going to create more challenges for people around the world rather than resolve challenges or create a better life for all.”

Tiwana said with Russia and China having disproportionate influence within the bloc, it is still not clear whether democratic states like Brazil, India and South Africa can have a positive influence on the other members.

“The leaders have not openly spoken about this, and our research shows that four of the countries BRICS is admitting have serious civic space restrictions, and so it doesn’t augur well for people-centered decision-making when you practically have no independent civil society in these countries,” he said.

“Our hope is that countries with democratic traditions within the BRICS alliance can influence the others to be more open to civil society so they can involve people in their decision-making.”

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa said BRICS would expand more in the future.

This story originated in VOA’s English to Africa Service.
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Ukrainian troops using Android mobile devices are coming under attack from Russian hackers, who are using a new kind of malware to try to steal information critical to the ongoing counteroffensive.

Cyber officials from the United States, along with counterparts from Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand, issued a warning Thursday about the malware, named Infamous Chisel, which aims to scan files, monitor communications and “periodically steal sensitive information.”

The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, describes the new malware as “a collection of components which enable persistent access to an infected Android device … which periodically collates and exfiltrates victim information.”

A CISA report published Thursday shared additional technical details about the Russian campaign, with officials warning the malware could be employed against other targets.

Thursday’s warning reflects “the need for all organizations to keep their Shields Up to detect and mitigate Russian cyber activity, and the importance of continued focus on maintaining operational resilience under all conditions,” said Eric Goldstein, CISA executive assistant director for cybersecurity, in a statement.

According to the report by the U.S. and its allies, the malware is designed to persist on a system by replacing legitimate coding with other coding from outside the system that is not directly attached to the malware itself.

It also said the malware’s components are of “low to medium sophistication and appear to have been developed with little regard to defense evasion or concealment of malicious activity.”

Ukraine’s SBU security agency first discovered the Russian malware earlier in August, saying it was being used to “gain access to the combat data exchange system of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

Ukrainian officials said at the time they were able to launch defensive cyber operations to expose and block the Russian efforts.

An SBU investigation determined that Russia was able to launch the malware attack after capturing Ukrainian computer tablets on the battlefield.

Ukraine attributed the attack to a cyber threat actor known as Sandworm, which U.S. and British officials have previously linked to the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service.
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It started as one man’s hobby, but watching Russian cargo ships on the Bosphorus Strait and spotting those that are busting sanctions by carrying illegal cargo from occupied ports in Ukraine has become a crucial resource for global media and others who monitor compliance.

From his terrace, Yoruk Isik captures with his camera another Russian cargo ship passing Istanbul’s Bosphorus waterway from the Black Sea to European markets and beyond. It started as a hobby, but for Isik, a regional political analyst, monitoring the ships has become a personal passion.

“I am interested in Russian foreign policy, and watching ships on the Bosphorus really gives clues about Russian foreign policy and what they are engaging in, what they are planning to do in the coming months,” he said. 

With the Bosphorus waterway narrowing to a few hundred meters, monitoring ships is relatively easy. Isik records the name of the ships, the cargo, and the flag it is sailing under. He works with an international network of volunteers and nongovernment organizations that share data online on the movement of Russian cargo ships.

The information is crucial for world media and others who monitor compliance. 

Isik’s website, bosphorusobserver.com, has become an important go-to resource for media including Reuters news agency, which uses his photos. With sanction-busting ships often turning off their Automatic Identification System or AIS that allows them to be tracked by international authorities, monitoring efforts by people like Isik are vital, said George Voloshin, a global financial crime expert at ACAMS, a U.S.-based watchdog.

“I think this (ship monitoring) is very valuable because, actually, a common technique is to manipulate your AIS signal by resample just turning down your transponder or trying to manipulate it, interfere with it so that a ship appears to be in a different place in a different location. So, all those leads are potentially valuable,” he said.

Voloshin said such monitoring helped expose Russia’s exports of stolen Ukrainian grain and coal from Black Sea ports that it occupied in Ukraine, much of which Isik recorded passing through the Bosphorus waterway.

Moscow denies accusations that it is busting sanctions.

The waters off Istanbul are under limited Turkish jurisdiction and are an international hub for hundreds of empty cargo ships and tankers that frequently change owners. Experts say this makes tracking difficult and creates conditions favorable to those seeking to circumvent a long list of sanctions.

Adding to the difficulties in applying the sanctions is Turkey’s refusal to enforce them. Ankara says it is not bound by them.

Trade between Russia and Turkey has surged since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“Russia is the world’s most sanctioned country. So, most of the people who are engaged in trade with Russia, they are trying to hide their activities because they are worried that somehow some sanctions will come back and haunt them,” said, the Bosphorous Observer analyst Yoruk Isik.

In 2015, Isik exposed Russia’s export of arms by sea to the Syrian government for its fight against rebels. Now, he spends most of his spare time tracking ships, which he expects to continue for many years, as Russia shows no signs of changing its behavior.
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It started as one man’s hobby, but watching Russian cargo ships on the Bosphorus Strait and spotting those that are busting sanctions by carrying illegal cargo from occupied ports in Ukraine has become a crucial resource for global media and others who monitor compliance. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak named Grant Shapps as his new defense minister Thursday following the resignation of defense chief Ben Wallace. 

Shapps had been serving as secretary of energy security.

Wallace, who led Britain’s military response to the war in Ukraine, signaled his intention to step down last month and issued a formal letter of resignation Thursday after four years on the job.

Wallace said the defense ministry is “more modern, better funded and more confident” than when he took the post in 2019.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Russian officials said Thursday the country’s air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone flying toward Moscow.

The Russian defense ministry said the drone was destroyed over the Voskresensky district.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow’s mayor, said on Telegram there were no reports of casualties or damage.

Ukraine on Wednesday launched a wave of drone attacks aimed at six Russian regions, including hitting an airport near Russia’s border with Estonia and Latvia.  That drone ignited a huge blaze and damaged four Il-76 military transport planes, which can carry heavy machinery and troops, the Russian news agency Tass reported, quoting emergency officials.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Russian military would undoubtedly analyze “how this was done in order to take appropriate measures to prevent these situations in the future.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Ukraine was relying on foreign help because the drones “simply would not be able to fly such a distance without carefully researched information from Western satellites.”

Meanwhile, Moscow’s forces hit Kyiv with drones and missiles with what Ukrainian officials described as a “massive, combined attack” that killed two people with falling debris.

Sergei Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, described Russia’s attack on the Ukrainian capital as the biggest since the spring, even as Ukraine’s air defenses shot down more than 20 drones and missiles.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Fiji will sign a defense agreement with France, after the Cabinet of the Pacific Islands nation approved the deal, Fiji’s government said in a statement Thursday.

France’s President Emmanuel Macron in July toured the Pacific Islands, where France has overseas territories, denouncing predatory behavior by big powers in a region where China is extending trade and security ties.

Macron’s advisers say France can be an “alternative” and help island nations diversify their partnerships without becoming too reliant on one single country.

A statement from the Fiji Prime Minister’s Office on Thursday said its Cabinet had discussed defense cooperation between Fiji and France and approved a Status of Forces Agreement.

Areas covered by the agreement include joint defense technology research, training, logistical support and emergency and humanitarian assistance.

“The agreement provides a framework for cooperation and assistance through military exchanges and the sharing of expertise between the Republic of Fiji military force and the defense force of the French Republic,” the statement said.

A joint document would be signed by both parties, it said.

France’s embassy in Fiji did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fiji and France began negotiations for a Status of Forces Agreement in 2016, under the Bainimarama government. China instead became a major donor of military vehicles, vessels and other defense equipment around 2018.

The government of Sitiveni Rabuka, elected last year, has shifted attention to the United States and Australia.

France has recently worked with Fiji, Australia and the United States on illegal fishing patrols in the Pacific Ocean.

Rabuka said last week the Pacific Islands should be a “zone of peace, a zone of non-aligned territories”, adding that he hopes the rivalry between the United States and China in the region does not develop into a military conflict or build-up.

The Pacific Islands, pivotal during World War II, are again at the center of a geopolitical contest: Solomon Islands has a security pact with China, while Papua New Guinea signed a defense cooperation deal with the United States.
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England will bring forward the start of its autumn flu and COVID-19 vaccination programs as a precautionary step after the identification of highly mutated COVID variant BA.2.86, which has been found in Britain. 

Scientists have said BA.2.86, an offshoot of the omicron variant, was unlikely to cause a devastating wave of severe disease and death, given immune defenses built up worldwide from vaccination and prior infection. 

However, Britain’s health ministry said annual vaccination programs for older and at-risk groups would start a few weeks earlier than planned in light of the variant. 

“As our world-leading scientists gather more information on the BA.2.86 variant, it makes sense to bring forward the vaccination program,” junior health minister Maria Caulfield said in a statement. 

The variant was first detected in Britain on August 18, and vaccinations will start on September 11, with care home residents and people at highest risk to receive the shots first. 

It is not currently categorized as a “variant of concern” in Britain, and the health ministry said there was no change to wider public health advice. 

The variant was first spotted in Denmark on July 24 after the virus that infected a patient at risk of becoming severely ill was sequenced. It has since been detected in other symptomatic patients, in routine airport screening, and in wastewater samples in a handful of countries. 

England has been without coronavirus restrictions since February 2022, but UK Health Security Agency Chief Executive Jenny Harries said new variants were expected.

“There is limited information available at present on BA.2.86, so the potential impact of this particular variant is difficult to estimate,” Harries said in a statement. 

“As with all emergent and circulating COVID-19 variants … we will continue to monitor BA.2.86 and to advise government and the public as we learn more.”
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United Nations sanctions on Mali will end on Thursday after Russia vetoed a renewal of the measures me that targeted anyone violating or obstructing a 2015 peace deal, hindering aid delivery, committing rights abuses or recruiting child soldiers.

Independent U.N. sanctions monitors reported to the Security Council this month that Mali’s troops and its foreign security partners, believed to be Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, are using violence against women and other “grave human rights abuses” to spread terror.

Thirteen Security Council members voted in favor of a resolution, drafted by France and the United Arab Emirates, to extend the U.N. sanctions and independent monitoring for another year. Russia cast a veto, while China abstained from the vote.

Russia then instead proposed extending U.N. sanctions in Mali for one final year, but immediately ending the independent monitoring now. It was the only country to vote yes, while Japan voted no and the remaining 13 members abstained.

Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood told the council that Russia wanted to eliminate the independent monitoring “to stifle publication of uncomfortable truths about Wagner’s actions in Mali, which require attention.”

In response, Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told Reuters that was speculation and resembled “paranoia,” adding that Russia was “upholding the interests of the affected country — Mali, as the council is supposed to do.”

The U.S. has also accused Wagner, which has about 1,000 fighters in Mali, of engineering an abrupt request by the junta for a 13,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force to leave. The decade-long operation is due to shutdown by the end of the year.

Mali’s junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, teamed up with Wagner in 2021 to fight an Islamist insurgency. Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash in Russia last week and President Vladimir Putin then ordered Wagner fighters to sign an oath of allegiance to the Russian state.

Mali’s military junta wrote to the Security Council earlier this month to ask for the sanctions to be lifted.

The current annual mandate for the U.N. sanctions regime and independent monitoring will expire Thursday. Russian U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia made clear that Russia would not discuss the issue any further after the two votes Wednesday.

The council established the Mali sanctions regime in 2017, which allowed it to impose travel bans and asset freezes. There are currently eight people subjected to the U.N. sanctions measures. The independent monitors reported to the council twice a year on implementation and potential new designations. 
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Millions of children across Ukraine and in seven neighboring asylum countries are being deprived of an education and the skills needed to help Ukraine recover from the devastation caused by Russia’s invasion of their country, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF.

“Inside Ukraine, attacks on schools have continued unabated, leaving children deeply distressed and without safe spaces to learn,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF’s regional director for Europe and Central Asia.

“Not only has this left Ukraine’s children struggling to progress in their education, but they are also struggling to retain what they learned when their schools were fully functioning,” she said at a Tuesday briefing.

De Dominicis visited Ukraine last week and met several teachers there who she said were injured in an attack on a civilian area in the northern city of Romny.

“The attack ripped through a school where teachers were preparing lessons for the new school year. On the same day, a kindergarten in Kherson city was hit in another attack,” she said, noting that such attacks are not anomalies.

An assessment by UNICEF and the Ukrainian Ministry of Education reports that Russian attacks have destroyed more than 1,300 schools, and that others are damaged and not ready to open for the academic year, which begins this week.

“These senseless and reckless attacks have left many of Ukraine’s children deeply distressed and without a safe space to learn,” De Dominicis said. “As a result, children in Ukraine are showing signs of widespread learning loss, including a deterioration in learning outcomes of the Ukrainian language, reading and mathematics.”

According to the latest UNICEF survey data, up to 57% of teachers report a deterioration in students’ Ukrainian language abilities; up to 45% report a reduction in mathematics skills; and up to 52% report a reduction in foreign language abilities.

Another UNICEF survey finds that just one in three schoolchildren in Ukraine are learning in person full time, and that three-quarters of children of preschool age in front-line areas are not attending kindergarten.

“This war is layering crisis upon crisis,” De Dominicis said. “It is leaving children grappling with mental health problems. It is denying millions a chance to be educated.”

As for Ukraine’s refugee children, UNICEF reports that they, too, are missing out on an education, noting that more than half of children from preschool to secondary school age are not enrolled in the national education systems of their host countries.

De Dominicis cited language difficulties as one of the main reasons children do not attend school.

“In Poland, in Czech Republic, in Moldova — very often, the family were hoping to go back after a couple of months,” she said. “So, they prefer to be hooked to the online Ukrainian language system. Unfortunately, we see that they will reside in these countries for longer, because the war is still ongoing. Many of them are facing difficulty in not having teachers to support their children” in preparing them to attend classes in their host countries.

De Dominicis said that children are resilient and can learn multiple languages, even at a young age.

“So, we hope they will see a richness in actually being included in host country education without losing their right to their culture, to their language,” she said.

UNICEF said schools provide far more than a place of learning in times of crisis or war. They can provide a safe space where children can escape violence, make friends and create a sense of normalcy in an otherwise uncertain environment.

“The war in Ukraine has become a war on children,” De Dominicis said.

When the war ends and the children grow up, they will be essential to the country’s recovery and future. This will require a workforce that is both highly educated and healthy, she said.

“Investing in education for Ukraine’s children, no matter where they reside, is the best investment we can make in the country’s future,” De Dominicis said.
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When Pope Francis travels to Mongolia this week, he will in some ways be completing a mission begun by the 13th-century Pope Innocent IV, who dispatched emissaries east to ascertain the intentions of the rapidly expanding Mongol Empire and beseech its leaders to halt the bloodshed and convert.

Those medieval exchanges between Roman pope and Mongolian khan were full of bellicose demands for submission and conversion, with each side claiming to be acting in the name of God, according to texts of the letters that survive.

But the exchanges also showed mutual respect at a time when the Catholic Church was waging Crusades and the Mongol Empire was conquering lands as far west as Hungary in what would become the largest contiguous land empire in world history.

Some 800 years later, Francis won’t be testing new diplomatic waters or seeking to proselytize Mongolia’s mostly Buddhist people when he arrives in the capital Ulaanbaatar Friday for a four-day visit.

His trip is nevertheless a historic meeting of East and West, the first-ever visit by a Roman pontiff to Mongolia to minister to one of the tiniest, newest Catholic communities in the world.

“In a way, what’s happened is that both sides have moved on,” said Christopher Atwood, professor of Mongolian and Chinese frontier and ethnic history at the University of Pennsylvania. “Once upon a time, it was either/or: Either the world was ruled by the pope, or the world was ruled by the Mongol Empire. And now I think both sides are much more tolerant.”

Officially, there are only 1,450 Catholics in Mongolia and the Catholic Church has only had a sanctioned presence since 1992, after Mongolia shrugged off its Soviet-allied communist government and enshrined religious freedom in its constitution. Francis last year upped the Mongolian church’s standing when he made a cardinal out of its leader, the Italian missionary Giorgio Marengo.

“It is amazing [for the pope] to come to a country that is not known to the world for its Catholicism,” said Uugantsetseg Tungalag, a Catholic who works with Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in a nursing home in the capital. “When the pope visits us, other countries will learn that it has been 30 years since Catholicism came to Mongolia.”

The Mongol Empire under its famed founder Genghis Khan was known for tolerating people of different faiths among those it conquered, and Francis will likely emphasize that tradition of religious coexistence when he presides over an interfaith meeting Sunday. It was after all, one of Genghis Khan’s descendants, Kublai Khan, who welcomed Marco Polo into his court in Mongol-ruled China, providing the Venetian merchant with the experiences that would give Europe one of the best written accounts of Asia, its culture, geography and people.

Invited to Francis’ interfaith event are Mongolian Buddhists, Jewish, Muslim and Shinto representatives as well as members of Christian churches that have established a presence in Mongolia in the last 30 years, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which officially claims more than 12,500 members in Mongolia in 22 congregations.

In a message to Mongolians ahead of his visit, Francis emphasized their interfaith traditions and said he was travelling to the “heart of Asia” as a brother to all.

“It is a much-desired visit, which will be an opportunity to embrace a Church that is small in number, but vibrant in faith and great in charity; and also to meet at close quarters a noble, wise people, with a strong religious tradition that I will have the honor of getting to know, especially in the context of an interreligious event,” Francis said Sunday.

Aside from the historic first, Francis’ trip holds great geopolitical import: With Mongolia sandwiched between China and Russia, Francis will be travelling to a region that has long been one of the thorniest for the Holy See to negotiate.

Francis will fly through Chinese airspace in both directions, allowing him a rare opportunity to send an official telegram of greetings to President Xi Jinping at a time when Vatican-Chinese relations are once again strained over the nomination of Chinese bishops.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine and China’s crackdown on religious minorities grind on, Francis will be visiting a relatively neutral player but one that is striving to show its regional importance in the shadow of its two powerful neighbors, said Manduhai Buyandelger, a professor of anthropology at MIT and a Mongolia scholar.

“I think Mongolia is a very safe arena for the pope to land to demonstrate his outreach, as well as to show Mongolia’s belonging on equal stage with the rest of the world,” she said from Ulaanbaatar.

Mongolia’s environmental precariousness, climate shocks and the increasing desertification of its land are likely to be raised by the pope, given he has made combatting climate change and addressing their impacts on vulnerable peoples a priority of his 10-year pontificate.

Mongolia, a vast, landlocked country historically afflicted by weather extremes, is considered to be one of the most affected by climate change. The country has already experienced a 2.1-degree Celsius increase in average temperatures over the past 70 years, and an estimated 77% of its land is degraded because of overgrazing and climate change, according to the U.N. Development Program.

The cycles of dry, hot summers followed by harsh, snowy winters are particularly devastating for Mongolia’s nomadic herders, since their livestock are less able to fatten up on grass in summer before cold winters, said Nicola Di Cosmo, a Mongolian historian and professor of East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey.

“If these events become more and more common and more frequent … this change interferes with this very delicate pastoral economy, which is a delicate balance between the resources of the grassland and the animals using those resources,” Di Cosmo said.

Already, many of Mongolia’s herders, who comprised about a third of the population of 3.3 million, have abandoned their traditional livelihoods to settle around Mongolia’s capital, stressing social services in a country where already nearly 1 in 3 people live in poverty.

More recently, Mongolia has turned to extraction industries, particularly copper, coal, gold, to fuel the economy, which gets more than 90% of its export revenue from minerals. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said Francis would likely refer to this trend in his remarks; Francis has frequently spoken out about the harm caused by extraction industries, particularly on the natural environment and local populations.

Munkh-Erdene Lkhamsuren, a professor of anthropology at the National University of Mongolia, said he hoped Francis would speak out about “predatory” Western mining companies which, he said, together with Mongolian officials, are robbing Mongolia of its natural wealth.

In December, hundreds of people braved freezing cold temperatures in the capital to protest corruption in Mongolia’s trade with China over the alleged theft of 385,000 tons of coal.

The government has declared 2023 to be an “anti-corruption year” and says it is carrying out a five-part plan based on Transparency International, the global anti-graft watchdog that ranked Mongolia 116th last year in its corruption perceptions index.

“It is well known fact that most common Mongolians now see their country as a victim of a neo-colonialism,” Lkhamsuren said.
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The European Union’s fossil fuel energy production hit a record low the first half of the year, think tank Ember Climate reported Wednesday, although green sources are struggling to fill the gap. 

The decline in coal and gas generation was driven by a drop in electricity consumption across the bloc of 4.6% amid high power prices, which surged after Russia invaded Ukraine, upending gas supplies. 

“The decline in fossil fuels is a sign of the times,” said Ember analyst Matt Ewen.  

Coal generation was down 23%, accounting for less than 10% of the EU’s total electricity production for the first time ever in May, Ember reported. 

While gas prices have fallen from “crisis highs” last year, they remain double the cost compared with the first half of 2021, the report said.  

The drop in electricity consumption resulted from emergency measures implemented by nearly all EU members between November and March to combat rising prices.  

Industrial demand, notably in Germany, had also declined over the period, the report said.  

Fossil fuels now make up the “lowest share ever of the power mix” at 33%, Ember said.  

The greatest declines in fossil fuel use year-over-year at more than 30% were seen in Portugal, Austria, Bulgaria, Estonia and Finland.  

But reduced demand being the driver for the decline in fossil fuel use is not “sustainable or desirable,” Ember warned.  

With demand expected to rise in the future, replacing fossil fuels with alternative sources needs to happen faster, Ewen said.  

Solar power generation was up 13% in the first half of this year compared to the same period in 2022, while wind was up a more modest 4.8%.  

Denmark and Portugal saw renewables account for more than 75% of the electricity mix while in Greece and Romania renewables for the first time exceeded 50% of the share of supply.  

However the growth in clean energy was still not enough to compensate for the gap left by the fall in fossil fuels, the report found.  

“A massive push, especially on solar and wind, is urgently needed to underpin a resilient economy across Europe,” Ewen said.  
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Historic rivals Greece and Turkey are stepping up efforts to improve ties after the two countries’ leaders received strong election mandates this year. Next week, Turkish and Greek foreign ministers are scheduled to meet in Turkey, but analysts warn substantial obstacles remain between the neighbors. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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While it might be too early to assess the effects the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin and other leaders on the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa, some analysts say there will be short-term disruptions.

Given Prigozhin’s reach on the continent the past few years, it will take time to replace Wagner’s top man, said Steven Gruzd, head of the Africa Russia Project at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg.

“There’s going to be a period of uncertainty; of people jockeying for position, of seeing who wants to take over,” Gruzd said. “There’s also the talk of Russia incorporating it into the army, taking it out of private hands.”

But the International Crisis Group’s Charles Bouessel told VOA the private mercenary group’s activities in Africa will be disrupted because of the relationships the Wagner boss and some of his associates, including Valery Chekalov and Dmitry Utkin, who all died with him in a plane crash — were able to cultivate the past few years.

“Prigozhin and Utkin especially had deep knowledge,” Bouessel said, “and they had all the connections with the African regimes where Wagner is working. It will take time for Russia to take it over and to rebuild relations with these countries.”

Wagner’s influence stretches across the continent, Gruzd said.

“The Wagner presence in Africa is large,” he said. “Reportedly over 5,000 soldiers [are] spread across the various countries, embedded in countries like Central African Republic and Mali, less so in Libya and Sudan. Even as late as last week, it looked like Niger and Burkina Faso, the countries that have undergone coups in West Africa across the Sahel, are targets for Wagner.”

The U.S. Treasury Department accused the Wagner Group of mass executions, rape and physical abuse in Mali and the Central African Republic, or CAR, and designated it a “criminal organization.”

In the CAR, in particular, it’s too early to assess the impact Prigozhin’s death will have, but it’s important to remember the role the group had under its leader, said Bouessel.

“The Central African Republic signed a deal with Russia in late 2017,” he said. “This deal included the arrival of Wagner and assistance of Wagner toward the president. Since then, Wagner was able to oust the former colonizer France out of the country and out of the decision-making part of the country. They also managed to secure [Faustin] Touadera’s power and make him re-elected. They managed to deter rebel groups from attacking the capital again. And they managed to weaken the armed groups.”

In the CAR, Bouessel said, the group controlled businesses in the mining of gold and diamonds. They are also present in the timber industry and beverage sector.

Dr. Edgar Githua, a lecturer at the United States International University in Nairobi and Strathmore University who specializes in international relations, peace and conflict, said that Prigozhin’s death will affect the group’s finances, and that its global influence might take a hit.

“Prigozhin is the one who had the financial streams of the Wagner Group,” Githua said. “He’s the one with the international connections. He’s the one who was getting all the international contracts.

“It was a one man show. Prigozhin had a lot of power and a lot of say within that group. With his demise, that group is going to find itself rudderless for some time,” he said.

Prigozhin died a couple of months after he staged an unsuccessful rebellion against top Russian military commanders. After that failed mutiny, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that operations in the CAR and Mali would not be affected.
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Dutch prosecutors demanded a 12-year prison sentence Tuesday for a former Pakistani cricketer accused of incitement to murder firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.

The suspect, identified by Wilders as Khalid Latif, is accused of offering a bounty of some 21,000 euros ($23,000) to anybody who killed Wilders.

Latif did not appear in the high-security courtroom near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for the trial. He is believed to be in Pakistan.

Prosecutors did not name Latif, but said in a statement that a video posted online in 2018 showed a famous Pakistan cricketer offering the money for killing Wilders. The lawmaker has lived under round-the-clock protection for years because of repeated threats to his life sparked by his fierce criticism of Islam.

The threat came after Wilders said he would organize a competition of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depictions of Muhammad to be blasphemous. Ultimately, the contest did not go ahead, but the plan sparked outrage in the Muslim world.

“The video message was extra toxic because it was issued during a period in which there was a lot of hatred and anger towards Geert Wilders,” the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague said in its written statement.

The prosecution office said that killing Wilders would not just have “caused unbearable pain to his loved ones. It would also have been an attack on the rule of law itself.”

Wilders said in court that a conviction would send a “powerful signal to all other others who issue threats: we won’t accept it.”

And in comments he addressed directly to Latif, he added: “As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is abject and will not silence me.”

An international warrant has been issued for Latif’s arrest. Dutch prosecutors said they had been trying to contact him since 2018, first as a witness and then to answer the charges. However, they said they hadn’t received any reply from the Pakistani authorities.

In 2017, Latif, 37, was banned for five years from all forms of cricket for his role in a match-fixing scandal in the Pakistan Super League.

Tuesday’s case comes at a time when parts of the Muslim world have been angered by a series of Quran burnings in Sweden. Swedish police have allowed the demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, but have filed preliminary hate speech charges against a refugee from Iraq who has carried out a series of such desecrations.
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Ever since American Glenna Manchego joined the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine in April 2022, she has been risking her life to help Ukrainians. Manchego is a trained paramedic who traveled to Ukraine soon after Russia’s invasion. Anna Kosstutschenko met with her just a few kilometers from the front line. Camera – Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin said, following reports that the mercenary chief who challenged the Russian leader’s authority would be buried Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say where or when the chief of the Wagner Group military company would be buried, adding that he couldn’t comment on a private family ceremony.

St. Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and some other media said the 62-year-old Prigozhin could be laid to rest as early as Tuesday at the city’s Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has been used for high-profile military burials. Heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, where Putin’s parents are also buried, but no service was immediately held and increased police patrols also were seen at some other city cemeteries.

Later in the day, a funeral was held at St. Petersburg’s Northern Cemetery for Wagner’s logistics chief Valery Chekalov, who died in the Aug. 23 crash alongside Prigozin. Several hearses were seen driving from a central hall used for memorial ceremonies to Beloostrovskoye cemetery on the city’s outskirts, but they later drove away.

The tight secrecy and confusion surrounding the funeral of Prigozhin and his top lieutenants reflected a dilemma faced by the Kremlin amid swirling speculation that the crash was likely a vendetta for his mutiny.

While it tried to avoid any pomp-filled ceremony for the man branded by Putin as a traitor for his rebellion, the Kremlin couldn’t afford to denigrate Prigozhin, who was given Russia’s highest award for leading Wagner forces in Ukraine and was idolized by many of the country’s hawks.

Putin’s comments on Prigozhin’s death reflected that careful stand. He noted last week that Wagner leaders “made a significant contribution” to the fighting in Ukraine and described Prigozhin as a “talented businessman” and “a man of difficult fate” who had “made serious mistakes in life” but “achieved the results he needed — both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last months.”

Although both were from St. Petersburg, Prigozhin and the Russian leader were not known to be particularly close.

Prigozhin, an ex-convict who earned millions and his nickname “Putin’s chef” from lucrative government catering contracts, served Kremlin political interests and helped expand Russia’s clout by sending his mercenaries to Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and other countries. Wagner, one of the most capable elements of Moscow’s forces, played a key role in Ukraine where it captured the Ukrainian eastern stronghold of Bakhmut in late May.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, noted that Prigozhin has become a legendary figure for his supporters who are increasingly critical of the authorities.

“Prigozhin’s funeral raises an issue of communication between the bureaucratic Russian government system that doesn’t have much political potential and politically active patriotic segment of the Russian public,” Markov said.

The country’s top criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, officially confirmed Prigozhin’s death on Sunday.

The committee didn’t say what might have caused Prigozhin’s business jet to plummet from the sky minutes after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg. Just before the crash, Prigozhin had returned from a trip to Africa, where he sought to expand Wagner Group’s activities.

Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, a retired military intelligence officer who gave the mercenary group its name based on his own nom de guerre, was also among the 10 people who died in the crash.

A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane to crash, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin’s foes who have been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations the president was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”

The crash came exactly two months after Prigozhin launched a rebellion against the Russian military leadership. The brutal and profane leader ordered his mercenaries to take over the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then began a march on Moscow. They downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen pilots.

Putin denounced the revolt as “treason” and vowed to punish its perpetrators but hours later struck a deal that saw Prigozhin ending the mutiny in exchange for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to move to Belarus.

The fate of Wagner, which until recently played a prominent role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine and was involved in a number of African and Middle Eastern countries, is uncertain.

Putin said Wagner fighters could sign a contract with the Russian military, move to Belarus or retire from service. Several thousand have deployed to Belarus, where they are in a camp southeast of the capital, Minsk.
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The nightmare repeats itself every year: A towering wall of flames devours forests, farmland and homes, forcing animals and people to flee for their lives.

With their hot, dry summers, Greece and its southern European neighbors experience hundreds of devastating wildfires each year. Last week alone, wildfires killed 21 people in Greece. The country’s deadliest, in 2018, cost more than 100 lives. And experts warn climate change is likely to exacerbate extreme weather, fueling more wildfires.

This summer, a group of residents in a suburb of the Greek capital united in determination to prevent the nightmare from reaching their homes. 

In less than a week in early August, an initial group of three people with a shared concern grew to an online community of about 320 offering donations to hire a company using long-range drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras as a sophisticated early warning system to catch wildfires before they can spread.

It’s a tried and tested system. Designed and set up with the help of Grigoris Konstantellos, a commercial airline pilot and mayor of the southern Athens seaside suburbs of Vari, Voula and Vouliagmeni, the drones began operating there last year.

“We didn’t discover it, we created it,” Kontantellos said of the program. “We said, ‘Why shouldn’t this capability exist?'”

The system seemed the perfect solution for the concerned residents in the northern suburbs.

“We’re all worried, we’re all anxious,” said Melina Throuvala, a psychologist and one of the initial group of three. “We don’t want to mourn victims, or to see our environment and our forests burning or our homes threatened. That was the main incentive.”

And with wildfires, prevention is the key.

Operated by drone pilots with advanced training to fly beyond the visual line of sight and with permission from civil aviation authorities, the drones provide live images and detect changes in temperature, alerting their handlers in the critical early stages before a fire spreads. The drones run 24/7, with pilots working in six-hour shifts.

“The first few minutes are the most crucial for a fire,” said Giorgos Dertilis, who heads the local volunteer firefighting unit. “At the start it’s easier to put out the fire. The more the minutes go by, the harder our job becomes.”

Volunteer units are integrated into Greece’s Civil Protection system, working closely with professional fire departments. With no fire station in the wider Kifissia area, volunteers often can get to local blazes faster.

The drone company operates from the volunteer firefighters’ headquarters, so they can react immediately to any signs of a fire.

The drone program’s value was quickly apparent. In the first couple of days, it picked up the start of a fire near a shuttered hotel, “so when we were on our way … we knew, we were prepared to see a fire,” Dertilis said. They quickly extinguished the blaze. “It’s very important to know what to expect.”

The system’s innovation, said Emmanouil Angelakis, managing director of the company operating the drones, is that it includes specialized personnel, software, servers and satellite antenna so “drones, day and night, can scan all the forest areas with thermal cameras and sensors and give live images and coordinates of where a fire starts.”

The idea for the system came in June 2022, after a wind-whipped wildfire descended on Konstantellos’ municipality from a mountain ridge. As they coordinated the response, authorities realized they had a problem.

“We were chasing the fire,” the mayor said. With the flames moving rapidly, keeping track of where water trucks were needed was a challenge. “We couldn’t see basic things on the ground. We’d see them with a delay, because we weren’t right in front of them.”

An extensive review of the emergency response followed.

“We saw that what was missing is for us to not chase the fire, but to be able to have a live image of the fire, of where our assets are and where the threat is,” Konstantellos said. They thought of drones.

The fire department already uses drones during an active blaze, covering a small area. What was needed was to see a fire when it starts and stop it in its tracks.

Getting in touch with the drone company, the fire prevention program was born. In the year and a half it’s been operational, it’s given early warnings for fires 12 times, Konstantellos said.

“We’ve caught fires at 3:30 in the morning,” the mayor said. “When we sent the Civil Protection, they couldn’t even find the fire. We could see it on the drone.”

Then on Saturday, 270 lighting strikes sparked six blazes, starting at 5:30 a.m. The drones saw them immediately, Konstantellos said Monday. With live drone images relayed to his cellphone, “we had amazing coordination, and in less than 40 minutes we had put out six fires in hard-to-reach places.”

The drones have a range of 15 kilometers (nearly 10 miles) and are equipped with loudspeakers and searchlights to warn off people doing banned outdoor work on high fire-risk days — or to frighten off potential arsonists. The municipality is even running a pilot program to prevent drownings, whereby drones can drop lifejackets to swimmers in distress.

The municipality pays 13,000-14,000 euros ($14,000-$15,000) per month for 24/7 coverage. “For a municipality, it’s a viable number to have peace of mind from the fires,” Konstantellos said.

The drone company’s Angelakis said the Kifissia residents’ privately funded initiative “was the first time this happened on a volunteer basis and not by a state body.”

Kifissia’s nearby municipality of Dionysos followed, with its privately funded operation working out of the town hall.

Residents of less affluent areas would be less able to afford private funding. But other municipal and regional authorities are interested, said Konstantellos, who noted the system can be used to coordinate responses to other events such as floods, earthquakes or traffic accidents.

“As we say in aviation, ‘A well-trained pilot is the best safety device,'” he said. “We convert this to the civil protection, and we say: ‘A well-prepared city is the best defense of a city against crisis.'”
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