It’s mid-afternoon in late summer and a fresh North Sea breeze blows through the vines at Kullabergs Vingård, a vineyard and winery at the vanguard of producers seeking to redefine what Swedish wine can be.

Scandinavia isn’t exactly what connoisseurs would define as prime wine country and commercial vineyards are still tiny compared to France, Italy or Spain. But with climate change making for warmer and longer growing seasons, and new varieties of grapes adapted to this landscape, the bouquet of Swedish wines is maturing nicely.

As drought, rising heat and other extreme weather events are forcing traditional wine-growing regions to reassess their methods, Swedish winemaking is shifting from mostly small-scale amateurs to an industry with growing ambition.

Kullabergs Vingård stretches over 14 hectares (about 34 acres) and most of the vines were planted less than a decade ago. By 2022, the winery had reached an annual output of over 30,000 bottles — mostly whites that can be found in high-end restaurants from Europe to Japan to Hong Kong and that have won multiple international prizes.

“Where vineyards in more traditional countries are suffering, we are gaining momentum,” said Felix Åhrberg, a 34-year-old oenologist and winemaker who returned to Sweden in 2017 to lead Kullabergs Vingård after working in vineyards around the world.

Grapevines can tolerate heat and drought, and farming without irrigation is traditionally practiced in parts of Europe. But the past decade has seen the planet’s hottest years on record, and more warming is expected. That can hit wine, where even minor weather variations can change grapes’ sugar, acid and tannin content.

Climate change can make areas once ideal for certain grapes more challenging. Extreme heat ripens grapes faster, leading either to earlier harvests that can diminish quality, or to stronger, less balanced wines if left to ripen too long.

In recent years, grapevines have been planted farther and farther north, with commercial vineyards appearing in Norway and Denmark and others, including in the American West, expanding into cooler zones. The United Kingdom, famous for its ales and bitter beers, expects the area under vines to double in the next 10 years fueled by demand for its sparkling wines.

“This is the new frontier of winemaking and grapes grow best on their coolest frontier,” Åhrberg said as he walked through Kullabergs Vingård’s newly built winery, an Instagram-friendly gem worthy of design magazines that was built with sustainability in mind and capacity of three times the current volume.

Temperatures in southern Sweden have increased by about 2 degrees Celsius over the past 30 years compared to the 30 years before that, according to data from the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute. And the growing season has lengthened by about 20 days. 

The widespread adoption of new varieties of disease-resistant grapes is also credited with Swedish wine’s growth. Most vineyards have planted a grape called Solaris, developed in Germany in 1975, that is adapted to the cooler climate and more resistant to diseases. That enables most vineyards to avoid using pesticides.

“Solaris is like the national grape variety here in Sweden,” said Emma Berto, a young French oenologist and winemaker at Thora Vingård on the Bjäre peninsula, about 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) north of Kullabergs Vingård.

She and her partner, Romain Chichery, moved to Sweden shortly after finishing their viticulture studies in France, attracted by the chance to run a vineyard and winery so early in their careers. They’re intent on combining traditional winemaking with updated environmental practices like avoiding pesticides and using extensive cover crops to improve soil quality and encourage beneficial insects and biodiversity.

They say they face fewer extreme climate incidents in Sweden than in France, where warming winters can cause grape vines to produce early buds vulnerable to frost, and violent hailstorms can destroy a year of work in minutes. And Chichery said they have greater freedom to experiment in Sweden than in countries steeped in tradition and regulations, like France.

But working in cooler and damper conditions has meant learning new methods. While vineyards in hot climates would protect their grapes with more leaf canopy, here it’s the opposite. Leaves are picked from the bottom of the plant to let more sunshine reach the grapes and reduce humidity.

Attracting trained wine professionals is a hurdle, too, along with difficulty getting wine barrels and other equipment to scale up. 

Thora Vingård owners Johan and Heather Öberg said Swedish universities offer little on winemaking or viticulture, something they hope will change soon.

For now, lots of the talent comes from abroad — like Iban Tell Sabate, who comes from the wine-growing Priorat region in Spain and has spent decades in the industry.

He had read about Sweden’s wine industry but said most people he spoke to back home didn’t know of it. He’s working the season at the Kullabergs Vingård alongside colleagues from France and Austria. 

“Italy, Greece, Spain, all these countries are going to face problems. There’s not enough water, and the winters are too warm,” Sabate said.

“With global warming, Sweden’s in a good position and it’s a good wine too.”

Maarten van Aalst, director general of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and a professor in climate and disaster resilience at the University of Twente, saw the optimism for growth in Swedish wine as an indicator of how quickly the world’s climate is changing. Businesses “have good feelers for that,” he said, and called it positive that “climate change is partly something we can adapt to.”

But van Aalst noted the days of torrential rains that battered Scandinavia in early August, overwhelming dams, destroying roads, forcing thousands to evacuate and causing more than $150 million in damage. Human-caused climate change is making such extreme and destructive weather events more common.

Both Kullabergs Vingård and Thora came through that storm without major damage, free to turn their attention to what businesses do — try to grow.
…

The British Defense Ministry said Sunday in its daily report about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that Ukraine is striking deep inside Russia and the leadership of Russia’s Aerospace Forces is “highly likely” being pressured to improve its defenses over western Russia.

The ministry said Russian President Vladimir Putin “almost certainly” invaded Ukraine believing that it “would have little direct effect on Russians.”  Uncrewed aerial vehicles are regularly hitting Moscow, the ministry’s report said.

There have been “increasing reports” of SA-5 GAMMON missiles hitting Russia.  The ministry said the 7.5-ton Soviet-era GAMMON had been retired from Ukraine’s defense inventory but has been apparently resurrected “as a ground attack ballistic missile.”

In his daily address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed retaliation for the deadly attack Saturday on a historic city that killed seven people, including a child.  “I am sure,” the president said, “our soldiers will respond to Russia for this terrorist attack.  Respond tangibly.”

The Russian missile attack Saturday killed seven people, including a 6-year-old child, and injured 144 near the central square in the historic Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, about 145 kilometers north of Kyiv.

The missile struck while people were heading to church to celebrate a religious holiday. Twelve of the wounded were children and 10 were police officers, according to the interior ministry.

Zelenskyy posted a video on the Telegram messaging app showing harrowing images from the aftermath of the attack, including a body in a car surrounded by debris.

“A Russian missile hit right in the center of the city, in our Chernihiv. A square, the polytechnic university, a theater,” Zelenskyy wrote while visiting Sweden to discuss a new military aid package of more than $313 million from the Nordic country.

During his first visit to Stockholm since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Zelenskyy asked the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson for Swedish-made Gripen fighter jets to help Ukraine boost its air defenses.

In June, the Swedish government said it would give Ukrainian pilots the opportunity to test its Saab-made jet, but it also has said it needs all its planes to defend Swedish territory.

Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukrainian pilots have begun training on the planes.

During a joint news briefing, Kristersson did not comment on the Gripens, but -condemned the Russian missile attack on Chernihiv.

Sweden changed its long-established policy of military nonalignment to back Ukraine with weapons and other support in the war against Russia. Sweden has applied for NATO membership and is in the process of joining the alliance.

Ukrainian pilots also have begun training on U.S. F-16 fighter jets, a process that would take at least six months and possibly longer, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said Saturday, two days after a U.S. official said F-16s would be transferred to Ukraine once its pilots were trained.

Reznikov said in a TV interview that six months of training was considered the minimum for pilots, but it was not yet clear how long it would take to train engineers and mechanics.

Ukraine says these modern U.S. fighter jets are necessary so it can counter the air superiority of the Russian invaders.

“Therefore, to build reasonable expectations, set a minimum of six months in your mind, but do not be disappointed if it is longer,” Reznikov said.

Washington has approved sending F-16s to Ukraine from Denmark and the Netherlands to defend against Russia as soon as pilot training is completed, a U.S. official said.

Reznikov did not disclose where and when the training was taking place.

The training included technical language training because most of the technical manuals are written in English.

The fighter jets are not likely to affect the trajectory of the war anytime soon, according to U.S. officials.

U.S. Air Force General James Hecker told reporters Friday at a virtual meeting of the Defense Writers Group that there are no prospects currently for either Ukraine or Russia to gain the upper hand in the air.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to get air superiority as long as the number of surface-to-air missiles stays high enough,” Hecker said, responding to a question from VOA.

Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and U.S. Air Forces Africa, did note that if Ukraine runs out of its integrated air and missile defense ammunition, “then it becomes a problem.”

“Both Ukraine and Russia have very good integrated air and missile defense systems,” he said. “That alone is what has prevented [Russia or Ukraine] from getting air superiority.”

In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said: “We welcome Washington’s decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.”

Camp David

At a trilateral summit Friday, the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea pledged to “stand with Ukraine against Russia’s unprovoked and brutal war of aggression.”

Meeting at the U.S. presidential retreat of Camp David, President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said their countries would continue to help Ukraine.

They also pledged to continue sanctions on Russia and to accelerate their countries’ “reduction of dependency on Russian energy.”

Kishida said “the free and open international order based on the rule of law is in crisis,” and pointed the blame at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the continuing North Korean nuclear and missile threats, and a “unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas” — referring lastly to China.

VOA U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Firefighters battling a vast wildfire on Tenerife are facing another difficult night after severe weather conditions worsened the blaze, forcing thousands to flee their homes on the Spanish holiday island, regional officials said. 

The huge blaze that broke out late Tuesday in a mountainous northeastern area of the island quickly morphed into the Canary Islands’ biggest-ever fire. 

“It is a devastating fire … a fire on a completely different scale, a scale that the Canary Islands has never experienced before,” said Rosa Davila, head of the government of Tenerife. 

So far the blaze, which now has a perimeter of 70 kilometers (43 miles), has burned through 8,400 hectares (20,800 acres), the equivalent of just more than 4% of Tenerife’s overall surface area of 203,400 hectares. 

In an update late Saturday, Fernando Clavijo, Canary Islands regional president, said the wildfire had so far displaced nearly 12,300 people, citing figures provided by the Guardia Civil police. 

Earlier, regional officials had given a figure twice as high, with emergency services officials saying, “provisional estimates suggest that more than 26,000 people may have been evacuated,” which government officials later clarified was a number “based on census figures” from the areas subjected to evacuation orders. 

And they did not rule out further evacuations, warning of a difficult night ahead.  

“Last night was very complicated and tonight is likely to be just as bad, if not worse,” said Clavijo of an overnight battle with “severe weather” characterized by strong winds and higher-than-expected temperatures that saw the flames spreading to the north, forcing a fresh wave of evacuations.  

“Tonight’s work is going to be very difficult but it will be vital for containing the fire,” he said. 

As the fire spread down the mountainside toward the northern town of La Matanza de Acentejo, Candelaria Bencomo Betancor, a farmer in her 70s, looked on in anguish. 

“The fire is close to our farm, we’ve got trucks, vans, chickens, everything. … It’s a business that is going well but if the fire comes, it will totally ruin us,” she told AFPTV, on the verge of tears. “They have to do something because the fire is right there.” 

So far the blaze has affected 11 municipalities on Tenerife, the largest of the seven Canary Islands.  

Pedro Martinez, who is in charge of firefighting efforts, told reporters the blaze was “behaving like a sixth-generation wildfire,” a term that refers to a mega forest fire. 

“The fire is beyond our capacity to extinguish it, maybe not in all sectors, but in a large part of them,” he admitted, saying efforts to tackle the flames were being hampered by the huge clouds of smoke and the wind. 

Maria del Pilar Rodriguez Padron, another resident of Matanza, said she was sleeping in her car by the house.  

“They offered us a place to stay but we prefer to stay in the car because we can watch the house and see whether it burns or not. Being elsewhere we just wouldn’t be able to sleep,” she told AFPTV.   

The blaze has generated a vast pillar of smoke that now stretches about 8 kilometers into the air, rising far above the summit of Mount Teide, the volcano that towers over the island. 

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is expected to visit the island on Monday.  

Last year Spain suffered more than 500 blazes that destroyed more than 300,000 hectares, making it the worst-hit country in Europe, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS). 

So far this year, it has had 340 fires, which have ravaged almost 76,000 hectares, EFFIS figures show.   
…

Large wildfires are ravaging northeastern Greece near the border with Turkey. Local authorities have evacuated residents from eight villages where out-of-control flames have reportedly damaged homes and other property. So far, no deaths or injuries have been reported.  

Strong winds have fueled the fires by the village of Melia east of the city of Alexandroupolis, scorching farmland.  

More than 130 firefighters, 14 water-dropping planes and three helicopters are struggling to contain the blaze while reinforcements arrived from other parts of Greece. 

Earlier, Greek Fire Service spokesperson Yiannis Artopoios said the wildfires, that broke out Saturday, were “strong, aggressive and difficult to contain” as strong winds blowing from different directions intensified the flames and fueled new outbreaks.  

Difficult night ahead

Thick smoke from the fires is reducing visibility in the area, making it even harder for the firefighters to bring the wildfires under control.  

Local authorities are advising the residents of Alexandroupolis to stay indoors and keep their windows shut to avoid respiratory issues from the smoke from the forest land burning nearby. 

Officials of the Greek Fire Service are anticipating a difficult night ahead of them and said, they are expecting equally difficult weather conditions with continuing high winds Sunday.  

The fire service has issued a high wildfire alert for the weekend. 

“We have not seen such large wildfires in the area for years,” said the regional governor of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, Christos Metios. He stressed that authorities are doing all they can to protect human life and, if possible, people’s homes and livelihoods.  

The mayor of Alexandroupolis said that so far authorities have evacuated people from residential areas where the flames in some instances reached yards and houses.  

Another smaller wildfire was burning outside Thessaloniki, in the north, the second-largest city in Greece. Earlier, firefighters brought under control a blaze on the western island of Cephalonia. 

Last month, deadly wildfires in central Greece forced the evacuation of about 20,000 tourists on the resort island of Rhodes. Shortly after, two air force pilots were killed when their water-dropping plane crashed while diving low to tackle a blaze on the island of Evia. 

European Union officials have attributed climate change as the main cause for the increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe. 
…

This year’s World Humanitarian Day is being commemorated at a time of increased risk for the thousands of aid workers who put their lives on the line every day to help millions of people affected by conflict and natural and human-made disasters.

The United Nations says humanitarian workers are in far greater danger today than 20 years ago, when the U.N.’s headquarters in the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, was bombed. The attack killed 22 staffers, including Special Representative Sergio Vieira de Mello, and injuring some 150 others.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, says so far this year, 62 humanitarian workers have been killed in crises around the world, a 40% increase from the same period in 2022. Another 84 aid workers have been wounded and 34 kidnapped.

“The statistics are grim,” said Ramesh Rajasingham, head of OCHA’s office in Geneva. “Every year, nearly six times more aid workers are killed in the line of duty than were killed in Baghdad on that dark day.”

“International law is clear,” he said. “Aid workers are not targets. Perpetrators must be held to account. Impunity for these crimes is a scar on our collective conscience.”

OCHA says the highest number of attacks against aid workers is in South Sudan, followed closely by Sudan. Aid worker casualties also have been recorded in the Central African Republic, Mali, Somalia and Ukraine.

World Humanitarian Day was established in response to the attack in Iraq 20 years ago on Aug. 19, 2003. Survivors and family members of victims, as well as U.N. senior officials, diplomats and members of the public, attended a ceremony Friday at U.N. headquarters in Geneva to pay tribute to the workers who have lost their lives in humanitarian service.

“Far from the spotlight and out of the headlines, humanitarians work around the clock to make our world a better place,” said U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“Against incredible odds, often at great personal risk, they ease suffering in some of the most dangerous circumstances imaginable.”

Personal stories

Ahmad Fawzi, who acted as master of ceremonies at the event, was spokesman for Sergio Vieiro di Mello when the terrorist attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad occurred. He escaped death because he was away on mission. However, the scars remain to this day.

“It has been said time heals all wounds. I do not agree,” said Fawzi.

Quoting Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, who lost two of her children to assassins’ bullets, he said that while “the pain lessens, it is never gone.”

With his voice breaking, Fawzi shared a painful memory of accompanying the remains of his lifelong friend Nadia Younus, who was killed in the Baghdad terrorist attack, to her final resting place in Cairo.

“It seems like only yesterday that Nadia and I shared our last dinner together in Baghdad,” he said.

Another emotion-filled memory was conveyed by Mujahed Mohammed Hasan, a survivor of the Canal Hotel bombing. He said he was happily planning his wedding on the day he was injured. He recounted years of painful treatment, of shattered dreams, of fighting for survival.

He told the room full of dignitaries that the support of his family gave him the strength and empowered him “to stand before you now, proudly reflecting on a 20-year journey of my life that has changed me into an ambitious, happy, proud individual determined to make a difference in the lives of those in need.”

“My journey is ongoing, and I continue to heal and grow every single day as I choose not to be a victim,” he said.

The United Nations says 362 million people in the world need humanitarian assistance.

In the face of skyrocketing humanitarian needs and despite security and other challenges, OCHA has vowed that “the U.N. and its partners aim to help almost 250 million people in crises around the world — 10 times more than in 2003.”
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is visiting Sweden on Saturday — his first visit to the country since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the Swedish government said.

It said Zelenskyy will meet Swedish government officials in Harpsund, about 120 kilometers west of Stockholm. He will also meet Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia at a palace in the area.

Sweden abandoned its longstanding policy of military nonalignment to support Ukraine with weapons and other aid in the war against Russia. It also applied for NATO membership but is still waiting to join the alliance.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin visited top military officials in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don near the Ukrainian border.

The Kremlin said that Putin listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the commander in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine, and other top military brass at the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District.

The exact timings of his visit were not confirmed, but state media published video footage that appeared to be filmed at night, showing Gerasimov greeting Putin and leading him into a building. The meeting itself was held behind closed doors.

Putin’s visit was the first since the Wagner mercenary group ‘s attempted mutiny in June, which saw the group’s fighters briefly take control of Rostov-on-Don.

During June’s short-lived revolt, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin repeatedly denounced Gerasimov, who serves as chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces, and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu for denying supplies to his fighters in Ukraine.

Prigozhin claimed that the uprising was not aimed at Putin but at removing Gerasimov and other top brass who he claimed were mismanaging the war in Ukraine.

Ukraine this week has claimed counteroffensive gains on the southeastern front, regaining control of the village of Urozhaine in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region Wednesday.

The leader of the Russian battalion fighting to maintain control of Urozhaine called for “freezing the front” on Thursday, claiming his troops “cannot win” against Ukraine.

“Can we bring down Ukraine militarily? Now and in the near future, no,” Alexander Khodakovsky said in a video posted to Telegram.

Overnight into Saturday, Ukraine’s air force said, it shot down 15 out of 17 Russian drones targeting Ukraine’s northern, central and western regions.

The deputy governor of the western Khmelnytskyi region, Serhii Tiurin, said two people were wounded and dozens of buildings damaged by an attack.

In the northwestern Zhytomyr region, a Russian drone attack targeted an infrastructure facility and caused a fire, but no casualties were reported, said Gov. Vitalii Bunechko.
…

Russia launched an overnight drone attack on Ukraine, with 17 of the unmanned vehicles directed to locations in northern, central and western Ukraine, Ukraine’s air force said Saturday.

The Ukrainian air force said it was able to shoot down 15 of the 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones. It was not clear what happened to the two drones that were not shot down.

Ukraine meanwhile hailed a U.S. decision to allow allies Denmark and the Netherlands to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.  

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov called the development Friday “great news from our friends in the United States.”

It was not immediately clear when Ukraine might receive the jets, and Ukrainian pilots will need extensive training before they can fly them.

The fighter jets are not likely to affect the trajectory of the war anytime soon, according to U.S. officials.

Air Force General James Hecker told reporters at a virtual meeting with the Defense Writers Group on Friday that there are no prospects currently for either Ukraine or Russia to gain the upper hand in the air.

“I don’t think anyone’s going to get air superiority as long as the number of surface-to-air missiles stay high enough,” Hecker said, responding to a question from VOA.

Hecker, commander of U.S. Air Forces Europe and U.S. Air Forces Africa, did note that if Ukraine runs out of its integrated air and missile defense ammo, “then it becomes a problem.”

“Both Ukraine and Russia have very good integrated air and missile defense systems,” he said. “That alone is what has prevented [Russia or Ukraine] from getting air superiority.”

In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said: “We welcome Washington’s decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.”

Camp David

At a trilateral summit Friday, the leaders of the United States, Japan and South Korea pledged to “stand with Ukraine against Russia’s unprovoked and brutal war of aggression.”

Meeting at the U.S. president retreat of Camp David, U.S. President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said their countries would continue to provide assistance to Ukraine.

They also pledged to continue their sanctions on Russia and to accelerate their countries’ “reduction of dependency on Russian energy.”

Kishida said “the free and open international order based on the rule of law is in crisis,” and pointed the blame at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the continuing North Korean nuclear and missile threats, and a “unilateral attempt to change the status quo by force in the East and South China Seas” — referring lastly to China.

Ukraine grain

Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta has emerged as the best shipping route for Ukraine’s grain exports since Russia left the U.N.-brokered Black Sea grain deal, leaving ships traveling the Black Sea corridor vulnerable to Russian attacks.

“We hope that over 60% of the total volume of Ukrainian grain exports will transit Romania,” Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said after meeting Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal in Bucharest.

Constanta has been one of the best alternative seaports for Ukrainian grain shipping even before the Black Sea grain deal was canceled.

Ukraine exported 8.1 million metric tons of grain through Constanta in the first seven months of this year, and 8.6 million metric tons throughout 2022.

While Romania is looking at boosting the transit of Ukrainian grain through Constanta to international markets, it is also looking at ways to protect local farmers from a surge of Ukrainian grain that could depress local grain prices.

Protests from farmers in Romania and four other eastern EU countries prompted the EU to approve temporary trade restrictions of Ukrainian grain imports to the nations.

The import ban expires Sept. 15, and the five states have asked for it to be extended, at least until the end of the year.

Climbing casualties

The number of Ukrainian and Russian troops killed or wounded since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 is nearing 500,000, The New York Times reported Friday, citing unnamed U.S. officials.

The officials cautioned that casualty numbers are not accurate because Moscow is believed to routinely underreport its war dead and injured, and Kyiv does not provide official figures, the newspaper said.

However, the newspaper estimated that Russia’s military casualties are approaching 300,000, including as many as 120,000 deaths and 170,000 to 180,000 injuries. Ukrainian deaths were close to 70,000, with 100,000 to 120,000 wounded, it said.

The Times cited the officials as saying the casualty count had risen after Ukraine began its counterattack earlier this year.

The Ukrainian military on Thursday claimed gains in its counteroffensive against Russian forces on the southeastern front. Kyiv said its forces had liberated the village of Urozhaine, about 90 kilometers north of the Sea of Azov and about 100 kilometers west of Russian-held Donetsk city.

The advance is part of a drive toward the Sea of Azov and an effort to split Russia’s occupying forces in half.

However, Kyiv says its counteroffensive is advancing more slowly than it had hoped for because of vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified Russian defensive lines.

“Nothing ever goes as well as you would hope. They put mines everywhere. In a square meter, they’re [Ukrainian soldiers] finding five and six mines,” U.S. Air Force General James Hecker said Friday.

U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer and VOA National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this story. Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

The city where Anne Frank wrote her World War II diary while hiding with her family from the brutal Nazi occupation is hosting an exhibition about the Ukraine war with grim echoes of her plight more than three-quarters of a century later.

The exhibition that opened Thursday at Amsterdam City Hall offers a vision of the war in Ukraine as experienced by children caught in the devastating conflict.

“This exhibition is about the pain through the children’s eyes,” Khrystyna Khranovska, who developed the idea, said at the opening. “It strikes into the very heart of every adult to be aware of the suffering and grief that the Russian war has brought our children.”

“War Diaries” includes writings like those that Anne Frank penned in the hidden annex behind an Amsterdam canal-side house, but also modern ways Ukrainian children have recorded and processed the traumatic experience of life during wartime, including photos and video.

Among them is the artwork of Mykola Kostenko, now 15, who spent 21 days under siege in the port city of Mariupol.

The relentless attack on the southern port city became a symbol of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to crush Ukraine soon after Russia invaded its neighbor in February last year, but also of resistance and resilience of its 430,000 population.

His pictures from that time are in blue ballpoint pen on pieces of paper torn out of notebooks — that’s all Kostenko had. One of them shows the tiny basement where he and his family sheltered from the Russian shells before finally managing to flee the city.

“I put my soul into all of these pictures because this is what I lived through in Mariupol. What I saw, what I heard. So this is my experience, and this is my hope,” Kostenko said through an interpreter.

A way to cope

Curator Katya Taylor said the diaries and art are useful coping mechanisms for the children.

“We talk so much about mental health and therapy, but they know better than us what they have to do with themselves,” she said. She called the diaries, art, photos and videos on display in Amsterdam “a kind of therapeutic work for many of them.”

The plight of children caught in the war in Ukraine has already attracted widespread international condemnation. More than 500 have been killed, according to Ukrainian officials.

Meanwhile, UNICEF says an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainian children are at risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health issues, with potentially lasting effects.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in March for Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, holding them personally responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine.

A way to remember

For Kostenko, drawing and painting is also therapeutic — a way of processing the traumatic events and recording them so they are never forgotten.

“It also was an instrument to save the emotions that I lived through. For me to remember them in the future, because it’s important,” he said.

The youngest diarist, 10-year-old Yehor Kravtsov, also lived in besieged Mariupol. In text on display next to his diary, he writes that he used to dream of becoming a builder. But his experience living through the city’s siege changed his mind.

“When we got out from the basement during the occupation and I was very hungry, I decided to become a chef to feed the whole world,” he wrote. “So that all the people would be happy and there would be no war.”
…

German authorities have said they are investigating an apparent poisoning of an exiled Russian journalist in Munich.

Elena Kostyuchenko, who had worked for the independent Russian media outlet Novaya Gazeta, fell ill with symptoms of being poisoned while traveling from Munich to Berlin last October.

Authorities reopened the investigation into the case in July, according to the British newspaper The Guardian. The inquiry comes as details emerged that two other female journalists or critics experienced similar symptoms.

The independent Russian media outlet The Insider this week revealed that at least three exiled Russians, including Kostyuchenko, appear to have been targeted with poisonings.

About a week after Kostyuchenko reported symptoms, Ekho Moskvy journalist Irina Babloyan had a similar experience while in Georgia, and Natalia Arno, head of the Free Russia Foundation, was affected by what The Insider described as a neurotoxic substance while she was in Prague.

In an interview this week with VOA’s Russian Service, Roman Dobrokhotov, founder and editor in chief of The Insider, said his team’s work on the case was just the beginning.

“Our publication is dictated by the desire to warn [exiled] Russian journalists and activists so that they realize that they need to think about their safety, that there is a real threat to their life and health,” Dobrokhotov said.

Reporters covered war in Ukraine

Kostyuchenko had reported on Russia’s war in Ukraine, including in Kherson, until one of her sources in the Ukraine military warned her of a possible assassination attempt, according to media reports.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has called on authorities in Georgia and Germany to treat the suspected attacks “with the utmost seriousness.”

“Reports that Russian journalists Elena Kostyuchenko and Irina Babloyan may have been poisoned in Germany and Georgia are extremely alarming, and must be investigated at once,” CPJ’s Carlos Martinez de la Serna said in a statement.

He called on both countries to “do all they can to safeguard the lives of journalists living in exile.”

Russian journalists fled after edicts

Many independent Russian journalists have fled since the war in Ukraine began, after Moscow imposed heavy sanctions and edicts on how media can report the war.

Moscow has also targeted foreign journalists. American reporter Evan Gershkovich marked his 20th week in prison this week.

The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested while on assignment on March 29 and was accused of espionage — a charge he and his media outlet denied.

And this week, Russia declined to renew media accreditation for two foreign journalists: Eva Hartog, who works for Politico and a Dutch weekly news publication, and Anna-Lena Lauren, a Finnish reporter who had worked in Russia for 16 years.

In Hartog’s case, a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on social media that its decision to not extend a visa for someone from the Netherlands should not raise questions “given the harassment of Russian journalists and media outlets by the EU.”

Moscow has also previously cited treatment of Russian journalists, including for media accreditation, for its decision to limit U.S. consular visits to Gershkovich.

VOA’s Russian Service contributed to this report.
…

A British nurse who described herself as a “horrible evil person” was found guilty on Friday of murdering seven newborn babies and trying to kill another six in the neonatal unit of a hospital in northwest England where she worked.

Lucy Letby, 33, was convicted of killing five baby boys and two baby girls at the Countess of Chester hospital and attacking other newborns, often while working night shifts, in 2015 and 2016.

The verdict, following a harrowing 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court, makes Letby Britain’s most prolific serial child killer in modern history, local media said.

She was found not guilty of two attempted murders while the jury, who spent 110 hours deliberating, were unable to agree on six other suspected attacks.

“We are heartbroken, devastated, angry and feel numb, we may never truly know why this happened,” the families of Letby’s victims said in a statement.

Prosecutors told the jury Letby poisoned some of her infant victims by injecting them with insulin, while others were injected with air or force-fed milk, sometimes involving multiple attacks before they died.

“I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them,” said a handwritten note found by police officers who searched her home after she was arrested. “I am a horrible evil person,” she wrote. “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.”

Some of those she attacked were twins — in one case she murdered both siblings, in two instances she killed one but failed in her attempts to murder the other.

The youngest victim was just 1 day old.

‘Malevolent presence’

Letby will be sentenced on Monday and faces a lengthy prison term, possibly a rare full life sentence.

Her actions came to light when senior doctors became concerned at the number of unexplained deaths and collapses at the neonatal unit, where premature or sick babies are treated, over 18 months from January 2015.

With doctors unable to find a medical reason, police were called in. After a lengthy investigation, Letby, who had been involved in the care of the babies, was pinpointed as the “constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse,” said prosecutor Nick Johnson.

Pictures of Letby on social media portrayed a happy and smiling woman with a busy social life, and in one photo she was seen cradling a baby. But, during months of often distressing evidence, her trial heard she was a determined killer.

The jury was told how Letby had tried on four occasions to murder one baby girl before she finally succeeded. When another of the victim’s mothers walked in on her attacking twin babies, she said “Trust me, I’m a nurse.”

At her home after her arrest, detectives found paperwork and medical notes with references to the children involved in the case. She had also carried out social media searches for the parents and families of the murdered babies.

Letby wept when she gave evidence over 14 days, saying she had never tried to hurt the babies and had only ever wanted to care for them, blaming unsafe staffing levels on the hospital ward and its dirty conditions.

She also claimed four doctors had conspired to pin the blame on her for the unit’s failings and said she had written the “I am evil” message because she had felt overwhelmed.

‘They could have stopped it’

But the prosecution said she was a cold, cruel, calculating liar who had repeatedly changed her account of events and said her notes should be treated as a confession.

Detectives said they had found nothing unusual about Letby’s life and could not determine any motive.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever know unless she just chooses to tell us,” said Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, who led the investigation.

One senior doctor at the neonatal unit, Stephen Brearey, told the BBC that hospital bosses had failed to investigate allegations against Letby and failed to act on his and his colleagues’ concerns.

“Our staff are devastated by what has happened, and we are committed to ensuring that lessons continue to be learned,” said Nigel Scawn, medical director at Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.

The government said it had ordered an independent inquiry, which would include how concerns raised by clinicians were dealt with.

The father of twins who survived Letby’s attempts to kill the children demanded answers from the hospital.

“They could have stopped it,” said the father, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Police are carrying out further investigations into all the time Letby had worked as a nurse at the hospital and at another hospital in Liverpool where she had trained, to identify if there were any more victims.

“There is a number of cases that are active investigations that parents have been informed of,” Hughes said.
…

The World Health Organization and U.S. health authorities said Friday they are closely monitoring a new variant of COVID-19, although the potential impact of BA.2.86 is currently unknown.

The WHO classified the new variant as one under surveillance “due to the large number (more than 30) of spike gene mutations it carries,” it wrote in a bulletin about the pandemic late Thursday.

So far, the variant has been detected in Israel, Denmark and the United States.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control confirmed it is also closely monitoring the variant, in a message on the social platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

There are four known sequences of the variant, the WHO has said.

“The potential impact of the BA.2.86 mutations are presently unknown and undergoing careful assessment,” the WHO said.

Francois Balloux, professor of computational systems biology at University College London, said the attention attracted by the new variant was warranted.

“BA.2.86 is the most striking SARS-CoV-2 strain the world has witnessed since the emergence of Omicron,” he said in a comment published Friday, referring to the variant that exploded onto the global stage in the winter of 2022, causing a surge in COVID cases.

“Over the coming weeks we will see how well BA.2.86 will be faring relative to other Omicron subvariants,” he said.

He stressed, though, that even if BA.2.86 caused a major spike in infections, “we are not expecting to witness comparable levels of severe disease and death than we did earlier in the pandemic when the Alpha, Delta or Omicron variants spread.”

“Most people on earth have now been vaccinated and/or infected by the virus,” he said, pointing out that even if people were reinfected with the new variant, “immune memory will still allow their immune system to kick in and control the infection far more effectively.”

The WHO is currently monitoring upwards of 10 variants and their descent lineages.

Most countries that had established surveillance systems for the virus have since dismantled operations, determining it is no longer as severe and therefore could not justify the expense — a move the WHO has denounced, calling instead for stronger monitoring.

In the last reporting period between July 17 and Aug. 13, more than 1.4 million new cases of COVID-19 were detected and more than 2,300 deaths were reported, according to a WHO statement.

The case load represents a rise of 63% from the previous 28-day period, while deaths were down by 56%. 

As of Aug. 13, there were more than 769 million cases of COVID-19 confirmed and more than 6.9 million deaths worldwide, although the real toll is thought to be much higher because many cases went undetected.
…

Firefighters battled overnight to try to bring under control the worst wildfire in decades on the Spanish Canary Island of Tenerife, a major tourist destination, officials said Friday.

The fire in the north of the island, which started late Tuesday, has forced the evacuation or confinement of nearly 8,000 people in eight municipalities.

Television images and videos posted on social media showed the flames coming down the hill close to houses in small neighborhoods and a massive cloud of smoke rising from the area.

The fire is located up in a pine wooded mountain area with several municipalities on its flanks, including Arafo and Candelaria to the east, and La Orotava to the west.

Army captain Rafael San José told Spanish National Television that some progress had been made overnight in stopping the fire’s spread but that rising temperatures during the day would increase difficulties.

The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of the past few years, just like most of mainland Spain. The islands have recorded below-average rainfall in recent years, because of changing weather patterns impacted by climate change.

Canary Islands regional President Fernando Clavijo said late Thursday the blaze, which has scorched 3,200 hectares, was still very virulent but that fortunately there had been no injuries so far.

He said Friday’s efforts would be crucial to containing the fire.

The north of the island was forecast to have a maximum temperature of 84 F Friday with light winds of 20 kph, though temperatures were set to rise further over the weekend.

The flames cover a perimeter of 40 kilometers encircling some 4,000 hectares of land.

Nearly 300 firefighters and Spanish army soldiers are in the area, which is in the northeast of the island, some 20 kilometers away from its main town, Santa Cruz.

Tenerife is one of Europe’s main tourist destinations. Its tourism office stressed Thursday that the most important tourist areas are far from the fire. Business continues as usual in accommodation establishments, beaches and other tourist sites near the coast and in the midlands, the office said.

But access to the Teide National Park, the most important tourist attraction in Tenerife after the beaches, was closed Thursday evening and all tourist facilities around the Teide volcano area, including accommodation, were to be evacuated.

Clavijo claimed the fire was the worst in 40 years. He said the combination of extreme temperatures and the fire had turned the area into a virtual oven.

The seven-island archipelago is located off the northwest coast of Africa and southwest of mainland Spain.

More than 2,000 people were evacuated in a wildfire on the nearby La Palma Island last month that affected some 4,500 hectares.

Wildfires have burned almost 64,000 hectares in Spain in the first seven months of the year, according to Spanish government data. That’s the third highest figure in the last decade.

Spain accounted for almost 40% of the nearly 800,00 hectares burned in the European Union in 2022, according to the European Forest Fire Information System.
…

The United States has given the nod to allies Denmark and the Netherlands to send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to officials. It was not immediately clear when Ukraine might receive the jets, which it has been seeking for a long time to counter Russia’s air superiority.

In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra said: “We welcome Washington’s decision to pave the way for sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.”

The U.S. must approve F-16 transactions because the jets are made in the United States. Despite the news, it was not immediately clear when Ukraine would receive the jets.  Pilots must undergo extensive training before Ukraine can receive the jets.

Earlier Friday, Ukraine attempted to launch a drone attack on Moscow, but Russian forces downed the unmanned aerial vehicle.

After Russia shot down the drone, debris from the attack fell on Moscow’s Expo Center, a massive exhibitions space, located less than 7 kilometers from the Kremlin.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that the wreckage from the drone fell near the Expo Center but “did not cause significant damage.”

The British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily update on Ukraine that Russia has published a new Russian history textbook for schools “in the occupied regions of Ukraine and throughout the Russian Federation,” beginning in September.  The ministry posted on X, that “Russia’s aim is to create a pro-Kremlin information space in the occupied regions in order to erode Ukrainian national identity.”

Ukraine claimed Thursday that its counteroffensive had retaken parts of Russian-controlled land in the southeastern part of the country in a push beyond the newly liberated village of Urozhaine.

The advance is an attempted drive toward the Sea of Azov, an effort to split Russia’s occupying forces in half.

“In the direction south of Urozhaine, [Ukrainian troops] had success,” military spokesman Andriy Kovaliov said on national television. He gave no more details.

Urozhaine, in the eastern Donetsk region, was the first village Kyiv said it had retaken since July 27 in what has proved to be a difficult, grinding warfare in heavily mined Russian-controlled territory.

Urozhaine lies just over 90 kilometers north of the Sea of Azov and about 100 kilometers west of Russian-held Donetsk city.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in parts of Zaporizhzhia controlled by Moscow, said Urozhaine and the neighboring village of Staromaiorske were not under Ukrainian control.

Drone footage, however, of the intense fight for Urozhaine, has emerged in which dozens of Russian troops can be seen fleeing to the village’s south.

Russia controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula it annexed in 2014, most of Luhansk region and large tracts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Kyiv says its counteroffensive is advancing more slowly than it had hoped for because of vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified Russian defensive lines.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain facilities

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russia damaged grain infrastructure at a port in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine as part of an overnight drone attack.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Telegram that the attack targeted the port of Reni on the Danube River. 

Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that the attack damaged warehouses and grain storage facilities at the port.

Kiper said there were no reported casualties from the attack, and that Ukraine’s air force had downed 11 Russian drones over Odesa. The Ukrainian military said its air defenses destroyed 13 drones overnight and that Russia had used Iranian-made Shahed drones to target Odesa and Mykolaiv.

Black Sea shipping

The Hong-Kong-flagged container ship Joseph Schulte left Ukraine’s port of Odesa on Wednesday.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the vessel was the first to set off down a temporary Black Sea corridor that Ukraine established for civilian ships following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The Joseph Schulte was carrying 30,000 metric tons of cargo, Kubrakov said. The vessel had been stuck in Odesa since Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia has not said whether it will respect Ukraine’s shipping corridor. On Sunday, a Russian patrol ship fired warning shots at a vessel after what Russia said was a failure by the captain to respond to a request for an inspection.

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

Ukraine attempted to launch a drone attack on Moscow early Friday, but Russian forces downed the unmanned aerial vehicle.

After Russia shot down the drone, debris from the attack fell on Moscow’s Expo Center, a massive exhibitions space, located less than 7 kilometers from the Kremlin.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram that the wreckage from the drone fell near the Expo Center but “did not cause significant damage.”

Ukraine claimed Thursday that its counteroffensive had retaken parts of Russian-controlled land in the southeastern part of the country in a push beyond the newly liberated village of Urozhaine.

The advance is an attempted drive toward the Sea of Azov, an effort to split Russia’s occupying forces in half.

“In the direction south of Urozhaine, [Ukrainian troops] had success,” military spokesman Andriy Kovaliov said on national television. He gave no more details.

Urozhaine, in the eastern Donetsk region, was the first village Kyiv said it had retaken since July 27 in what has proved to be a difficult, grinding warfare in heavily mined Russian-controlled territory.

Urozhaine lies just over 90 kilometers north of the Sea of Azov and about 100 kilometers west of Russian-held Donetsk city.

Vladimir Rogov, a Russia-installed official in parts of Zaporizhzhia controlled by Moscow, said Urozhaine and the neighboring village of Staromaiorske were not under Ukrainian control.

Drone footage, however, of the intense fight for Urozhaine, has emerged in which dozens of Russian troops can be seen fleeing to the village’s south.

Russia controls nearly one-fifth of Ukraine, including the Crimean Peninsula it annexed in 2014, most of Luhansk region and large tracts of the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions.

Kyiv says its counteroffensive is advancing more slowly than it had hoped for because of vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified Russian defensive lines.

Russian attacks on Ukrainian grain facilities

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russia damaged grain infrastructure at a port in the Odesa region in southern Ukraine as part of an overnight drone attack. 

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said on Telegram that the attack targeted the port of Reni on the Danube River. 

Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram that the attack damaged warehouses and grain storage facilities at the port.

Kiper said there were no reported casualties from the attack, and that Ukraine’s air force had downed 11 Russian drones over Odesa. The Ukrainian military said its air defenses destroyed 13 drones overnight and that Russia had used Iranian-made Shahed drones to target Odesa and Mykolaiv.

Black Sea shipping

The Hong-Kong-flagged container ship Joseph Schulte left Ukraine’s port of Odesa on Wednesday.

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said the vessel was the first to set off down a temporary Black Sea corridor that Ukraine established for civilian ships following Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

The Joseph Schulte was carrying 30,000 metric tons of cargo, Kubrakov said. The vessel had been stuck in Odesa since Russian launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Russia has not said whether it will respect Ukraine’s shipping corridor. On Sunday, a Russian patrol ship fired warning shots at a vessel after what Russia said was a failure by the captain to respond to a request for an inspection.

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

Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu on Thursday visited Belarus and said his country would increase military cooperation with Russia’s neighbor and ally, where Moscow is deploying tactical nuclear weapons.

Shangfu met with strongman President Alexander Lukashenko in Minsk and said “the purpose of my visit to Belarus is precisely the implementation of important agreements at the level of heads of state and the further strengthening of bilateral military cooperation.”

Neither side gave details of what the cooperation will entail, but the two countries have agreed to hold joint military exercises next year.

Li visited Russia just before going to Belarus.

Russian troops that were deployed in Belarus were part of Russia’s invading force in Ukraine and Russian troops and weapons remain there.

Belarusian forces have not taken part in the Ukraine war and Lukashenko on Thursday said China’s military assistance would not be directed against third countries. Lukashenko has previously said Belarus has taken delivery of Russian nuclear weapons and on Thursday he said they could only be used by Belarus if the country was under threat.

“Nuclear weapons, which are in Belarus, will not be used if there is no aggression against us,” Lukashenko said, adding that Belarus would not enter into hostilities against Ukraine as long as its border was not violated.

China claims to be neutral in the conflict in Ukraine but accuses the United States and its allies of provoking Russia and maintains strong economic, diplomatic and trade ties with Moscow.

Belarusian analyst Valery Karbalevich said the visit of the Chinese defense minister is “an important signal not only to the EU and the U.S., but also to Ukraine.”

“With this visit, China marks the scope of its military interests and shows that it is interested in building up ties with Minsk and Moscow, including military cooperation, despite the dissatisfaction of Western countries,” he told The Associated Press. “This is also a signal to Ukraine that the prolongation of the war can force China to take one side.”
…

A civilian cargo ship sailing from Ukraine reached Istanbul on Thursday in defiance of a Moscow blockade that sent tensions soaring after Russia open fired on a Turkish-owned ship. 

The Hong Kong-flagged Joseph Schulte left the port of Odesa on Wednesday — the first vessel to directly challenge Russia’s new bid to seal Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. 

Marine traffic sites showed it approaching its final destination in Istanbul after moving along a western route that avoided international waters in favor of those controlled by NATO members Romania and Bulgaria. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the ship was using a “new humanitarian corridor” Kyiv established after Russia last month pulled out of a wartime agreement to export grain along the Black Sea. 

The Joseph Schulte’s mission came days after the Russian navy fired warning shots and boarded a Turkish-owned but Palau-flagged vessel that was sailing to the Ukrainian river port of Izmail. 

The Russian attack put immense pressure on NATO member Turkey to stiffen its officially neutral line in the war. 

The Turkish presidency broke a four-day silence on Thursday by announcing that it had “warned” Moscow about the need to avoid further maritime escalations. 

But the Turkish statement stressed that it was technically up to Palau — a Pacific archipelago often used as a “flag of convenience” by global shipping companies — to lodge a formal complaint. 

Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s shipping infrastructure since pulling out of the grain deal mediated by the U.N. and Turkey. 

Ukraine’s decision to confront Russia over sea access comes with world attention focusing on ways to secure grain export routes in time for this autumn’s harvest. 

Ukraine and Russia are major exporters of grain and seed oil. 

New US push

Last year’s grain agreement helped push down global food prices and provide Ukraine with an important source of revenue to fight the war. 

Ukraine is now using the Danube River to ship out its grain. 

Much of that traffic flows down the river and ends up reaching the Black Sea at Ukraine’s border with Romania. 

The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. officials are holding talks with Turkey and both Ukraine and its neighbors about increasing traffic along the Danube route. 

An unnamed U.S. official told the paper that Washington was “going to look at everything” — including the possibility of military support for the Ukrainian ships. 

But a Turkish defense official appeared to push back against Washington’s initiative on Thursday. 

“Our efforts are focused on making the grain corridor deal active again,” the unnamed defense official told Turkey’s NTV television. “We are not working on other solutions.” 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this month for talks focused on the Black Sea. 

Erdogan has tried to use his good relations with Moscow and Kyiv to raise Turkey’s diplomatic profile during the war. 

Turkey hosted two early rounds of Ukraine peace talks and stepped up its trade with Russia while supplying Kyiv with arms. 

Diplomatic ‘counteroffensive’

Russia pulled out of the grain agreement after claiming that the pact had failed to fulfill the goal of relieving hunger across Africa and other famine-stricken regions. 

The Kremlin has since asked Turkey to help Russia export its grain to African countries without any involvement from Ukraine. 

African countries have become an important ally that Russia is using to counter its wartime isolation from the West. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told AFP this week that Kyiv needed to launch a diplomatic “counteroffensive” on the continent. 

“Our strategy is not to replace Russia but to free Africa from Russia’s grip,” Kuleba said in a wide-ranging interview. 

Russia’s attempts to win unilateral control of Black Sea shipping routes come as Ukraine inches forward in its high-stakes but brutal summer offensive. 

Kyiv this week announced the capture of Urozhaine, a small village lying along one of Ukraine’s main lines of attack. 

Kyiv is trying to reach its southern coast and cut Moscow’s access to Ukraine’s Russian-seized peninsula of Crimea. 

NATO row

The offensive is relying on new Western equipment and training but progressing slower than Kyiv and its allies had hoped. 

The strength of Russia’s resistance has intensified debates in some Western capitals about a need to find a diplomatic end to the war. 

A top NATO official this week outraged Kyiv by suggesting that one possible solution to the war could involve Ukraine ceding territory in exchange for Kyiv’s membership in the U.S.-led alliance. 

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg intervened on Thursday, reiterating the alliance’s position that it was “up to Ukrainians, and Ukrainians alone, to decide when the conditions for negotiations are in place.” 

Kuleba insisted that Ukraine was “not feeling” pressure from its Western allies to demonstrate quick results. 

“It’s easy to say that you want everything to be faster when you are not there,” he said.
…

An Iranian journalist said Thursday she had no regrets over posting on social media a picture of herself without a headscarf in defiance of Iran’s dress laws, sharing a similar image following her latest release from jail. 

Nazila Maroufian last year interviewed the father of the young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, whose death in police custody sparked months of protests. 

She walked out of Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday after more than a month behind bars, posting on social media a picture of herself without a headscarf and the slogan “Don’t accept slavery, you deserve the best!” 

She was promptly detained again and moved outside of Tehran to Qarchak women’s prison, where conditions have been criticized repeatedly by human rights groups. 

But Maroufian, whose age is given by Persian media outside Iran as 23, was then released from Qarchak on Wednesday, she posted on social media. 

“Do you regret the photo you posted when you were released? Do you admit you made a mistake?” she asked herself in a rhetorical question in the post.   

“No; I didn’t do anything wrong,” she added in reply, posting a similar image of herself bareheaded in a white shirt with her right arm stretched up in a ‘V’ for victory sign. 

Arrested after publishing interview

Last October, Maroufian published an interview on the Mostaghel Online news site with Amjad Amini, the father of Mahsa Amini whose death in custody last September after she allegedly violated the dress rules sparked months of protests. 

In the interview, Amjad Amini accused authorities of lying about the circumstances of his daughter’s death. 

Iranian authorities have indicated she died because of a health problem, but the family and activists have said she suffered a blow to the head while in custody. 

Maroufian, a Tehran-based journalist from Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province, was first arrested in November.  

She was later released but in January said she had been sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for five years, on charges of propaganda against the system and spreading false news. 

Actions reminiscent of Gholian

Maroufian’s rapid return to prison after posting defiant images upon her release recalled the case of labor activist Sepideh Gholian.  

In March, Gholian was rearrested hours after she walked free from jail bare-headed and chanting slogans against Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Gholian, one of the most prominent female activists detained in Iran, remains in prison. 
…

Sweden raised its terrorism alert level on Thursday one notch to the second highest, following a recent string of public desecrations of the Quran in the Scandinavian country by a handful of anti-Islam activists, sparking angry demonstrations across Muslim countries.

Sweden has in recent weeks asked citizens abroad and businesses linked to the country to “be attentive and aware of the information the authorities communicate,” following a string of public burnings of copies of the Quran by an Iraqi asylum-seeker.

The Scandinavian country’s domestic security service, SAPO, said the overall security situation has deteriorated, and the risk of terrorism in Sweden was now at Level 4, or “high” on its five-point scale, a first since 2016.

“We are in a deteriorating situation, and this threat will continue for a long time,” SAPO head Charlotte von Essen said, adding that “the threat of attacks from actors within violent Islamism has increased during the year.”

She said that Sweden is currently regarded as “a priority target” for such attacks.

While urging people in Sweden to continue to live “normally,” von Essen stressed that there wasn’t a single incident that led to the heightened alert.

Earlier this year, a far-right activist from Denmark burned a copy of Islam’s holy book outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Some 250 people retaliated and gathered outside the Swedish Consulate in Istanbul, where a photo of the Danish-Swedish anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan was set on fire.

Denmark’s national police said Wednesday that “on the recommendation” of the domestic intelligence service PET, it was “necessary to maintain the temporarily intensified efforts at the internal Danish borders.” Sweden has also stepped up border controls and identity checks at crossing points.

On Tuesday, PET and its foreign intelligence counterpart said in a joint statement that the recent Quran burnings “have resulted in considerable, negative attention from, among others, militant Islamists.” The terror alert level in Denmark is also at the second-highest level.

The recent burnings of the Quran have further complicated Sweden’s attempt to join NATO, a step that has gained urgency after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan signaled that the burning incidents would pose another obstacle to Sweden’s bid.

Like many Western countries, Sweden doesn’t have any blasphemy laws that prohibit the burning of religious texts, and Swedish police allowed the protests by a handful of demonstrators, citing freedom of speech.

United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk during a debate last month called for respect of “all others” including migrants, LGBTQ people, and women and girls who wear headscarves, while affirming the right to freedom of expression.
…

A Russian court on Thursday imposed a $32,000 fine on Google for failing to delete allegedly false information about the conflict in Ukraine.

The move by a magistrate’s court follows similar actions in early August against Apple and the Wikimedia Foundation that hosts Wikipedia.

According to Russian news reports, the court found that the YouTube video service, which is owned by Google, was guilty of not deleting videos with incorrect information about the conflict — which Russia characterizes as a “special military operation.”

Google was also found guilty of not removing videos that suggested ways of gaining entry to facilities which are not open to minors, news agencies said, without specifying what kind of facilities were involved.

In Russia, a magistrate court typically handles administrative violations and low-level criminal cases.

Since sending troops into Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has enacted an array of measures to punish any criticism or questioning of the military campaign.

Some critics have received severe punishments. Opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced this year to 25 years in prison for treason stemming from speeches he made against Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
…

England will play Spain in the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Sydney on Sunday. Spain beat Sweden 2-1 in its semifinal while England defeated co-hosts Australia 3-1 to reach the final.

Thirty-two teams started the 2023 Women’s soccer World Cup co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia. Two remain.

On Tuesday, Spain defeated Sweden by two goals to one at Eden Park in Auckland to reach its first World Cup final.

Spain first qualified for the event in 2015 and will face England, the current European champion, in Sunday’s final at Sydney’s Olympic Stadium.

England defeated co-hosts Australia in front of more than 75,000 supporters in Sydney. It was arguably the biggest match on home soil in the host nation’s football history.

Australian player Mary Fowler told reporters after the game that it was an honor to play in a team that had inspired the nation.

“It was unreal tonight, just like it has been for all the games, actually,” she said. “It is really nice even when we are under the pump and we are down by some goals to hear the crowd get behind us and really try to cheer us on. Not many people get to experience that in their life being able to play at a home World Cup and really feel the support of the country behind them. So, [it is] something, you know, we are all very lucky to be part of.”

The Australians – known as the Matildas – had reached the World Cup semifinals for the first time. Co-host New Zealand failed to advance from the group stage of the competition, where four teams competed in eight sections. The top two countries progressed to the knockout round of 16.

Players – both past and present – as well as coaches and administrators hope that the co-hosts’ world cup journey will leave a legacy for female sport in Australia and New Zealand.  It is hoped the performances of other nations, including Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa, will also promote the sport in other parts of the world.

Angela Iannotta, a former Matilda forward who scored Australia’s first World Cup goal in 1995, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that women’s football is changing dramatically.

“It is quite interesting,” she said, “because I remember when I am sitting at the airport with the Australian tracksuit and people would say, ‘Oh, what are you doing with Australian colors?’ and I said, ‘Oh, I am playing for the Australian women’s football team.’ ‘Oh, have we really got a national team?’ So, yeah, and the crowds were like, you know, 100 people, 200 people and things like that. So, just to see this change and this growth in women’s football in Australia is really unbelievable.”

Australia’s Matildas play Sweden in the World Cup third- and fourth-place playoff in Brisbane on Saturday.

The final takes place between Spain and England in Sydney on Sunday.

England striker Chloe Kelly told reporters after the semifinal victory against Australia that reaching the final was “what dreams are made of.” 
…

A business organization founded by Hong Kongers in London is launching a startup program to help new Hong Kong migrants establish businesses in the United Kingdom.

Hong Kong Business Hub, the organizer, unveiled the program in London on August 8. Successful applicants will each receive a minimum of $64,000 in equity investment, while total investment for the program is slightly more than $635,000.

Puifung Leung, co-founder and director of the Hong Kong Business Hub,  said that many Hong Kongers who move to the U.K. are interested in entrepreneurship but might not be familiar with the local business environment. Many of the hub’s members and potential program participants fled Hong Kong after 2019, when China began clamping down on the pro-democracy movement in the former British colony.

“They might have great ideas, but they might not have enough funds, experience, resources or knowledge to make it happen,” Leung said. “Hong Kong Business Hub hopes to help these friends through this startup training program. They can get funds and directly introduce their products and services to the investor to explain why they need this funding.”

‘Go on a date’

The hub did not reveal the identity of the investor who, Leung said, wants to support Hong Kong entrepreneurs from behind the scenes.

She said the group would ensure sufficient time for matching the parties.

“The investor and investees need to go on a date,” she said, explaining the process. “After they get to know each other, we play the role of a matchmaker. Once they get to know each other, then we will see if they can get married.”

The program is supported by the Federation of Small Businesses and the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, according to the Hong Kong Business Hub.

Founded in 2021, the hub aims to support, promote and connect Hong Kong entrepreneurs and companies developing in the U.K. and the U.S. Other co-founders include Simon Shen, an international relations scholar at Taiwan’s National Sun Yat-sen University, and Patrick Woo, former head of the Department of Microbiology of the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.

Eric Yung, the program director, said that the investor would secure a board seat in the startup that it is funding and may provide access to networks and advice, but it would not be involved in day-to-day management.

The investor’s equity stake would be negotiated with the successful applicant, with the investor’s ownership share usually not exceeding 20%, Yung said.

Successful participants could attend training and networking events for free and meet the potential investor, Yung said.

Requirements

The program will be accepting applications through September 17. Applicants must have established their companies in 2020 or later, the founding team must hold at least half of the shares, and one of the founders must be a new migrant from Hong Kong who holds at least 30% of the company’s shares.

A judging committee will review business elements and consider four additional factors for bonus points, including whether the business benefits the Hong Kong community and aligns with Hong Kong Business Hub core values. Successful applicants will be required to pay 1% of the investment amount as a referral fee to the hub to support the program’s operation and development.

Yung estimated that dozens of companies would apply.

Forster Chiu, a new Hong Kong migrant who runs a cybersecurity company, Cybergroot, in the U.K., is among those interested in joining the incubation program. His company already participates in a mentorship program organized by the Hong Kong Business Hub for its members. He expects that other mentees will be interested as well.

“Companies who wish to develop and grow in the U.K. would gain funding and resources from an external investor, which will support our businesses in a good way,” he told VOA Cantonese.

Chiu said that while he was concerned about learning the identity of the investor, he would accept the initial mystery as long as he learned the name before any agreements were signed.

Another new migrant from Hong Kong, who did not want to reveal his identity, given his immigration status, is applying for asylum and has yet to start his business. He told VOA Cantonese that he believed the program would help those newly arrived Hong Kongers who want to embark on new path.

“It is a rare opportunity for us to work on our dreams after leaving Hong Kong, as we do not have enough funds, training and network,” he said. “The program is a good entry point for people like me, who wish to start their own businesses and had to leave Hong Kong in a hurry.”
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The British Museum said Wednesday that a member of its staff has been dismissed after items dating back as far as the 15th century B.C. were found to be missing, stolen or damaged.

The museum said it has also ordered an independent review of security and a “vigorous program to recover the missing items.”

The stolen artifacts include gold jewelry and gems of semiprecious stones and glass dating from the 15th century B.C. to the 19th century A.D. Most were small items kept in a storeroom and none had been on display recently, the museum said.

“Our priority is now threefold: first, to recover the stolen items; second, to find out what, if anything, could have been done to stop this; and third, to do whatever it takes, with investment in security and collection records, to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” said George Osborne, the museum’s chair.

“This incident only reinforces the case for the reimagination of the museum we have embarked upon,” Osborne said.

The museum said that legal action would be taken against the dismissed staff member and that the matter was under investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police Service.

The 264-year-old British Museum is a major London tourist attraction, drawing visitors from around the world who come to see a vast collection of artifacts ranging from the Rosetta Stone that unlocked the language of ancient Egypt to scrolls bearing 12th century Chinese poetry and masks created by the indigenous people of Canada.

But the museum has also attracted controversy because it has resisted calls from communities around the world to return items of historical significance that were acquired during the era of the British Empire. The most famous of these disputes include marble carvings from the Parthenon in Greece and the Benin bronzes from West Africa.

Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, apologized and said the institution was determined to put things right.

“This is a highly unusual incident,” said Fischer said. “I know I speak for all colleagues when I say that we take the safeguarding of all the items in our care extremely seriously.”
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