KIRKENES, Norway — In a place far above the Arctic Circle, a group of Russian journalists are working with Norwegians to break through the strict state controls that have gripped the media in their homeland.

At the Barents Observer, an online newspaper that has become a leading provider of news from the Far North over the past two decades, the two local journalists are now in the minority.

Based in the town of Kirkenes, close to the Russian border, the news outlet opened its doors to reporters who fled Russia after a clampdown on the press followed the invasion of Ukraine.

Denis Zagore left the Russian city of Murmansk in September, he said.

“When the war started, in my podcasts for Barents Observer, I said ‘dictator Putin,’ I said, ‘not SMO’ (special military operation) or something like that,” Zagore told AFP. “I started to understand it could be unsafe if I continued to do it in Murmansk,” which lies 220 kilometers (137 miles) over the border.

“If you (want to) say Putin is a dictator and war is war, it’s more safe here,” he said.

Blocked in Russia

The Barents Observer now has three Russian reporters and a Russian trainee and has started publishing more articles in Russian than English.

“We were already blocked in Russia and have been in tremendous trouble with the Russian censorship agency,” editor Thomas Nilsen said. “So we said, OK, they want to make more trouble for journalists, then we can make more trouble for them.

“We don’t care about Russian censorship laws. We are here for the freedom of speech and free journalism,” Nilsen said.

Blocked since 2019, the publication is using a multitude of tricks to circumvent Russia’s attempts to limit access. Mirror sites hosted on different addresses, access via VPN services, podcast formats and a presence on YouTube mean tens of thousands of views are maintained, Nilsen said.

Coverage includes general interest news like setbacks facing a marine park in Murmansk or invasions by pink salmon, as well as stories directly linked to the conflict in Ukraine.

“We have a lot of viewers, especially among young people in Russia, that get access and get information about what’s happening with the war, with the repression in Russia, about who ends up in jail and so on,” Nilsen said, “news articles that they don’t get in their local or regional media at home.”

A Putin spider 

Russia has fallen to 164th place — out of 180 — in the annual Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, which Norway has topped for several years.

In early July, Elena Milashina, a Russian journalist with independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was badly beaten in Chechnya.

Foreign media are also on the receiving end. Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal correspondent, has been in prison since March facing espionage charges.

“Every day we were sitting in our office and didn’t know what was going to happen,” said Elizaveta Vereykina, who worked for the BBC in Moscow before joining the Barents Observer. “Would the police suddenly storm into our office and take us?

“It’s hard to live in a society that absolutely despises everything about you,” she said.

The number of Russian journalists in exile has grown in places such as Tbilisi, Yerevan, Vilnius, Riga and Kirkenes.

Trainee Olesya Krivtsova is waiting for a work permit before she can begin contributing.

She has a tattoo on her right leg: an image of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the shape of a spider with the Orwellian inscription “Big Brother is watching you.”

On the other ankle, she once wore an electronic bracelet. Reported by university friends in Arkhangelsk for criticizing the war on social networks, Krivtsova was placed under house arrest pending a trial for justifying terrorism and discrediting the Russian army — charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

“In the end, I realized the injustice of what was happening, so I left,” she said.

After ridding herself of the ankle bracelet, she traveled via Belarus and Lithuania before reaching Kirkenes.

“She said, ‘I want to change Russia and I want to do it through journalism,’” said Nilsen. “We said, ‘OK, welcome.'”
…

Wildfires reached the outskirts of Athens on Thursday as strong gusts of wind caused flare-ups around Greece, disrupting highway traffic and rail services.

The fires have raged across parts of the country during three successive Mediterranean heat waves over two weeks, leaving five people dead, including two firefighting pilots, and triggering a huge evacuation of tourists over the weekend on the island of Rhodes.

Water-dropping helicopters and a ground crew scrambled early Thursday to a blaze in Kifissia, just north of Athens, which was quickly put out.

Near the central city of Volos, a wildfire burned on two fronts, forcing a section of Greece’s busiest highway to close for several hours, while national rail services passing through the area were delayed.

Firefighters also battled flames on Rhodes for a 10th successive day, while flare-ups were reported on the island of Evia.

Wildfire carbon emissions for July in Greece were the highest by a huge margin — totaling over 1 metric megaton and doubling the previous record — since records started 20 years ago, according to the European Union agency that analyzes satellite data, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

“Unfortunately, it is not all that surprising, given the extreme conditions in the region,” said Mark Parrington, a senior scientist at the agency. “The observed intensity and estimated emissions show how unusual the scale of the fires have been for July relative to the last 20 years of data.”

In Athens, senior members of the armed forces paid tribute to the two pilots killed in a firefighting plane crash this week, at a ceremony held at the Defense Ministry.

Cpt. Christos Moulas and Lt. Pericles Stephanidis died during a low-altitude water drop on the island of Evia.

Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said the operators had shown “self-denial in the line of duty.”

“Greece today is in mourning. Their memories will live on,” Dendias said.

Funeral services for the two airmen will be held in northern Greece later Thursday and on the island of Crete on Friday.

 
…

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin says Ukrainian forces have been deliberate in their counteroffensive against Russia and have been “conserving manpower and equipment.”
Russia’s Federal Security Service said it found traces of explosives on a vessel en route from Turkey to Russia that had previously visited a Ukrainian port.

A Ukrainian official said Thursday that Russian forces carried out an overnight missile strike on the Odesa region in southern Ukraine, killing at least one person.

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor, said the attack damaged a small security building, equipment at a cargo terminal and two cars.

Kiper said the attack involved missiles fired from a submarine in the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s air force said it shot down one of two missiles Russia fired targeting Odesa, while air defense also downed eight drones that Russia launched overnight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media that he visited the city of Dnipro, in southeastern Ukraine, to meet with military commanders and discuss issues regarding supplies and strengthening air defenses.

UN meetings

Russian bombardments are taking a heavy toll on Ukrainian cultural sites as well as grain supplies that Kyiv had been shipping to impoverished countries.

The mounting damage was spelled out Wednesday at unusual back-to-back U.N. Security Council meetings on Ukraine.

According to UNESCO, since the war began in February 2022, at least 274 Ukrainian cultural sites have been damaged, including 117 religious sites.

“Religious sites should be places of worship, not places of war,” Nihal Saad, director of the U.N. Alliance of Civilizations, told the council in her briefing.

But Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy permanent U.N. ambassador, said Zelenskyy’s government was conducting a “campaign” to destroy orthodoxy in Ukraine.

He dismissed condemnations of Russia’s missile strike Sunday on the Transfiguration Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the southern city of Odesa, and suggested it was Ukraine’s fault.

“If the Russian missile truly struck the cathedral, as the Zelenskyy regime claims, then there would be nothing left of the cathedral at all,” Polyansky told the Security Council. “But it was damaged and not completely destroyed.”

At the second hearing, requested by Kyiv, Khaled Khiari, assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, Asia and the Pacific, told the council that Russian strikes on grain facilities are “a calamitous turn for Ukrainians and the world.” Moscow withdrew last week from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which protected Ukrainian shipments to other countries.

“Port cities that allow for the export of grain, such as Odesa, Reni and Izmail, are a lifeline for many,” Khiari said. “Now, they are the latest casualties in this senseless, brutal war.”

Officials say that strikes on Odesa have damaged infrastructure important for future grain exports. A strike on the port of Chornomorsk last week destroyed 60,000 metric tons of grain, enough to feed 270,000 people for one year, the Word Food Program said.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Russia’s attacks have global consequences for the world’s food supply, especially in parts of the world struggling with hunger and malnutrition.

“Russia is hell-bent on preventing Ukrainian grain from reaching global markets, which is why it unilaterally suspended its participation in Black Sea Grain Initiative,” she said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was continuing to try to find a way to restart the deal.

Russia has altered its naval activity in the Black Sea, Britain’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday, adding that there is a possibility Russian forces are preparing “to enforce a blockade of Ukraine” after withdrawing from the year-old grain shipment deal.

The Defense Ministry said in its daily update that the Russian corvette Sergey Kotov had deployed to the Black Sea to patrol a shipping lane between the Bosporus and Odesa.

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

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

PORT MORESBY, PAPUA NEW GUINEA – U.S. defense officials watching Ukraine’s slow-moving counteroffensive against Russia are not yet ready to sound any alarms, despite the lack of a major breakthrough.

There had been hope that an influx of U.S. and Western tanks and armored vehicles, as well as new supplies of ammunition, artillery and missile systems might allow Kyiv’s forces to punch through Russian lines.

Speaking during a visit to Papua New Guinea on Thursday, though, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukraine still has time.

“They still have a lot of options available to them,” Austin told a news conference with Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape.

“They’ve been very deliberate. They’ve been conserving manpower and equipment,” he added. “I think you can expect them to continue to press.”

Ukrainian officials have blamed Russian defenses, specifically minefields laid down by Russian forces as they dug in over the winter, for stalling their advances.

Top U.S. military officials acknowledge the Russian minefields are a problem. However, current and former officials, as well as some analysts, have expressed concerns that Ukrainian commanders have fallen back on old, Soviet-style tactics instead of embracing U.S. doctrines that could speed Kyiv’s advance.

Austin cautioned, however, that some of the expectations for Ukraine’s counteroffensive may have been too optimistic.

“We said throughout that this would be a tough fight and that this would be a long fight,” he said. “We’ve seen a great bit of that play out.”

Austin would not comment on details of Ukraine’s counteroffensive or on media reports quoting U.S. officials as saying that the counteroffensive is now in full swing with additional Ukrainian forces being thrown into the fight.

Still, he held out hope that Ukraine may see increasing victories in coming weeks.

“They have a lot of combat power,” Austin said. “Ukraine is well-trained and well-prepared to be successful.”
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SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA – Russia’s defense minister accompanied North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to a defense exhibition that featured the North’s banned ballistic missiles as the neighbors pledged to boost ties, North Korean state media reported Thursday.

The Russian minister, Sergei Shoigu, and a Chinese delegation including a Politburo member arrived in North Korea this week for the 70th anniversary of the end of the Korean War celebrated in North Korea as “Victory Day.”

The missiles were banned under U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted with Russian and Chinese support but this week they provided a striking backdrop for a show of solidarity by three countries united by their rivalry with the U.S.

Shoigu is making the first visit by a Russian defense minister to North Korea since the fall of the Soviet Union.

For North Korea, the arrival of the Russian and Chinese delegations marks its first major opening up to the world since the coronavirus pandemic.

Shoigu gave Kim a letter from Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean media reported.

Kim thanked Putin for sending the military delegation led by Shoigu, saying the visit had deepened the “strategic and traditional” relations between North Korea and Russia.

“(Kim) expressed his views on the issues of mutual concern in the struggle to safeguard the sovereignty, development and interests of the two countries from the high-handed and arbitrary practices of the imperialists and to realize international justice and peace,” North Korean media said.

“He repeatedly expressed belief that the Russian army and people would achieve big successes in the struggle for building a powerful country,” it said.

KCNA did not refer to the war in Ukraine but North Korea’s defense minister, Kang Sun Nam, was reported as saying North Korea fully supported Russia’s “battle for justice” and to protect its sovereignty.

Kim led Shoigu on a tour of an exhibition of new weapons and military equipment, KCNA said.

State media photographs showed Kim and his guests at a display of some of the North’s ballistic missiles in multi-axle transporter launchers. Another image showed what analysts said appeared to be a new drone.

One analyst said Shoigu’s inspection of the North Korean missiles visit suggested Russian acceptance of North Korea’s nuclear program.

“We’ve come a long way from when North Korea would avoid showing off its nuclear capabilities when senior foreign dignitaries from Russia and China were in town,” said Ankit Panda of the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, calling the tour “remarkable.”

“The personal tour for Shoigu – and Shoigu’s willingness to be photographed with Kim in the course of this tour – is evidence that Moscow is complacent with North Korea’s ongoing nuclear modernization,” he said.

Kim also met Chinese Communist Party Politburo member Li Hongzhong for talks and was handed a letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping, North Korean media reported.

The visit by Li’s delegation showed Xi’s commitment to “attach great importance to the DPRK-China friendship,” Kim was quoted as saying by the North’s KCNA state news agency, referring to the North the initial of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 

‘No secret’

The Russian visit raises the prospect of more open support for North Korea, especially with Russia isolated by the West over is invasion of Ukraine, analysts said.

“While Russia has kept its official military cooperation with the North Korea limited, any veritable rupture in the so-called post-Cold War order may see Russia more willing to openly violate sanctions, especially given their relatively lax attitude to the shifts in North Korea’s nuclear status last year,” said Anthony Rinna, a specialist in Korea-Russia relations at the Sino-NK think tank.

Last year, North Korea codified a new, expansive nuclear law declaring its status as a nuclear-armed state “irreversible.”

This month, it threatened nuclear retaliation over a show of force by the United States, saying the deployment of strategic military assets near the Korean peninsula could meet criteria for its use of nuclear weapons.

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said Russia’s overtures to North Korea comes as the Kremlin struggles to procure arms.

“It’s been no secret … Mr. Putin is reaching out to other countries for help and support in fighting his war in Ukraine. And that includes, we know, some outreach to the DPRK,” he said.

North Korea has backed the Kremlin over its war with Ukraine and has shipped weapons including infantry rockets and missiles in support of Russia’s war, the White House has said.

North Korea and Russia deny they have conducted arms transactions.  
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Not European’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

US aid

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recognition of iconic sites

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

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

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

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

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

UNESCO issued a condemnation.   

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

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

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

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

Latest Developments:   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reed’s condition was not immediately clear. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oussama Atar, who has been identified as a possible organizer of the deadly attacks on both Paris and Brussels, was convicted of terrorist murder in absentia. He is believed to have died in the Islamic State group’s final months of fighting in Iraq and Syria.
…

In Ukraine, even in the face of Russian shelling, some people are staying in cities to rescue pets. Volunteers from Kharkiv are trying to help. Anna Kosstutschenko has the story. This video contains images of injured animals that may be disturbing to some viewers. Camera — Pavel Suhodolskiy
…

The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With heat waves, “the most important thing is that they kill people and they particularly kill and hurt and destroy lives and livelihoods of those most vulnerable,” Otto said.
…

June was one of the driest months on record for the state of Illinois, a time when farmers like David Meiss need water to help their corn and soybean crops sprout from the earth early in the growing cycle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wheat prices are down about 50% from all-time highs during the first month of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Corn prices are also lower this year after reaching a ten year high last April. But prices for both crops are rising as Russia steps up attacks on Ukraine’s Black Sea shipping ports, a key avenue for Ukraine’s crops to reach international markets.
…

Greece braced for a new wave of soaring temperatures Tuesday, as wildfires raged on several popular tourist islands, forcing mass evacuations.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Protect our home’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I am very moved,” she said.

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

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

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

Latest Developments:

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





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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grain exports

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

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

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

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

Putin courts African leaders

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

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

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

Some information was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
…