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A Russian court on Tuesday dismissed U.S. WNBA basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against a nine-year sentence for possessing and smuggling vape cartridges containing cannabis oil.

Griner and her lawyers had asked for acquittal or at least a reduction in her sentence, which they said was disproportionate to the offense and at odds with Russian judicial practice.

After retiring for no more than 30 minutes to consider the appeal, the presiding judge said the original verdict was upheld “without changes” except for the counting of time served in pretrial detention as part of the sentence.

Griner, a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was arrested on Feb. 17 at a Moscow airport, a week before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, and her case has inevitably been viewed in the context of the ensuing crisis in U.S.-Russian relations.

Washington was quick to respond to the verdict.

“We are aware of the news out of Russia that Brittney Griner will continue to be wrongfully detained under intolerable circumstances after having to undergo another sham judicial proceeding today,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement

He said the United States would “continue to engage with Russia” to bring her home.

The state prosecutor had said Griner’s Aug. 4 sentence of nine years in a penal colony was “fair,” but Alexander Boykov, one of her lawyers, had told the three-judge panel sitting in Krasnogorsk, on the outskirts of Moscow:

“No judge, hand on heart, will honestly say that Griner’s nine-year sentence is in line with Russian criminal law.”

He listed a series of what he said were procedural flaws in Griner’s conviction and requested an acquittal, but asked that “if the court wants to punish her, [it should] give her a new, ‘fair’ verdict and mitigate the punishment.”

“The severity and cruelty of the sentence applied to Griner shocks people around the world,” he said.

Permitted to make a final statement by live video link from her detention center in the town of Novoye Grishino, just outside Moscow, Griner spoke of how stressful her eight-month detention and two trials had been.

“I was barely over the significant amount [of cannabis oil] … People with more severe crimes have gotten less than what I was given,” she said.

‘I did not intend to do this’

Griner apologized for what she said was an honest mistake, as she had at her original trial, saying, “I did not intend to do this,” and asking the court to take into account the fact that she had pleaded guilty.

She has said she used medical cannabis to relieve the pain from a series of sports injuries. Both recreational and medicinal uses are prohibited in Russia.

Wearing a black and red lumberjack shirt over a black hooded top, the 32-year-old alternately sat or stood in her cell, sometimes with head lowered, sometimes leaning against the white bars.

When asked if she had understood the verdict, she merely replied “Yes” before being led away.

U.S. President Joe Biden had called the original verdict “unacceptable.”

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday that Washington was working to free Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, serving 16 years in prison after being convicted of spying, and that there had been “active discussions, including in recent days.”

“We have not weighed in on the various judicial proceedings and judicial steps because as we’ve made clear, we believe that these proceedings have been largely shambolic,” Price told reporters.

U.S. Charge d’Affaires Elizabeth Rood, the ranking U.S. diplomat in Moscow, told media waiting outside the court that she had not been allowed to speak to Griner before or after the hearing.

But Griner’s lawyers said in a statement: “Brittney’s biggest fear is that she is not exchanged and will have to serve the whole sentence in Russia. She had hopes for today as each month, each day away from her family and friends matters to her.”

They said it would be some time before Griner was moved to a prison colony, and that they had not yet decided whether to try to launch another appeal.

“We generally think we must use all the available legal tools, especially given the harsh and unprecedented nature of her verdict,” the statement said.

 
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A Uyghur organization and a human rights group are taking the U.K. government to court to challenge Britain’s failure to block the import of cotton products associated with forced labor and other abuses in China’s far western Xinjiang region.

Tuesday’s hearing at the High Court in London is believed the first time a foreign court hears legal arguments from the Uyghurs over the issue of forced labor in Xinjiang. The region is a major global supplier of cotton, but rights groups have long alleged that the cotton is picked and processed by China’s Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim minorities in a widespread, state-sanctioned system of forced labor.

The case, brought by the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress and the Global Legal Action Network, a nonprofit, is one of several similar legal challenges aimed at putting pressure on the U.K. and European Union governments to follow the lead of the United States, where a law took effect this year to ban all cotton products suspected of being made in Xinjiang.

Researchers say Xinjiang produces 85% of cotton grown in China, constituting one-fifth of the world’s cotton. Rights groups argue that the scale of China’s rights violations in Xinjiang – which the U.N. says may amount to “crimes against humanity” – means that numerous international fashion brands are at high risk of using cotton tainted with forced labor and other rights abuses.

Gearóid Ó Cuinn, the Global Legal Action Network’s director, said the group submitted almost 1,000 pages of evidence — including company records, NGO investigations and Chinese government documents — to the U.K. and U.S. governments in 2020 to back its case. British authorities have taken no action so far, he said.

“Right now, U.K. consumers are systematically exposed to consumer goods tainted by forced labor,” Ó Cuinn said. “It does demonstrate the lack of political will.”

Researchers and advocacy groups estimate 1 million or more people from Uyghur and other minority groups have been swept into detention camps in Xinjiang, where many say they were tortured, sexually assaulted, and forced to abandon their language and religion. The organizations say the camps, along with forced labor and draconian birth control policies, are a sweeping crackdown on Xinjiang’s minorities.

A recent U.N. report largely corroborated the accounts. China denounces the accusations as lies and argues its policies were aimed at quashing extremism.

In the U.S., a new law gives border authorities more power to block or seize cotton imports produced partly or wholly in Xinjiang. The products are effectively banned unless the importer can show clear evidence that the goods were not produced using forced labor.

The European Commission last month proposed prohibiting all products made with forced labor from entering the EU market. The plans haven’t been agreed upon yet by the European Parliament.

The British government’s Modern Slavery Act requires companies operating in the U.K. to report what they have done to identify rights abuses in their supply chains. But there is no legal obligation to undertake audits and due diligence. In a statement, the U.K.’s Conservative government said it is “committed to introduce financial penalties for organizations that do not comply with modern slavery reporting requirements.”

Lawyers representing the Uyghurs will argue at the High Court on Tuesday that the British government’s inaction breaches existing U.K. laws prohibiting goods made in foreign prisons or linked to crime.

Former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith, one of the most vocal China critics in Britain’s Parliament, said the U.K. has been “dragging its feet” on the issue because of “huge institutional resistance to change” after years of dependence on trade with China. Britain’s Conservative government has not taken the China threat seriously enough, he argued.

“Treasury and the business department are desperate not to destroy ties with China and (officials) are still living in project kowtow,” Duncan Smith said. Compared to the U.S. and the EU, “we are bringing up the rear” on the cotton issue, he added.

Earlier this month, Ó Cuinn’s organization made a separate submission to the Irish government demanding a halt to the import of forced labor goods from Xinjiang. Meanwhile, lawyers representing a survivor of detention and forced labor in Xinjiang have also written to the U.K. government threatening to sue over the issue.

The claimant in that case, Erbakit Ortabay, said he was detained in internment centers, where he was tortured and beaten, and later forced to work for no pay in a clothing factory. Ortabay, who was eventually released in 2019, is currently seeking asylum in Britain.

Clothing is among the top five type of goods the U.K. imports from China, accounting for about 3.5 billion pounds ($4 billion) in imports in 2021. The U.K. does not publish shipping data detailing trade with the Xinjiang region.

But Laura Murphy, a professor of human rights at Sheffield Hallam University, has identified 103 well-known international fashion brands – including some trading in the U.K. — at high risk of having Xinjiang cotton in their supply chains because they buy from intermediary garment manufacturers, which in turn are supplied by Chinese companies that source cotton in Xinjiang. 

“What we find is that a lot of Xinjiang cotton is also sent out to other countries to be manufactured into apparel. So, it’s not always coming directly from there — it might be coming from a company making clothes in Indonesia or Cambodia,” Murphy said.

In the U.S., the new ban on Xinjiang cotton has forced apparel companies to step up tracking technologies to map out routes for their products’ origin, according to Brian Ehrig, partner in the consumer practice of management consulting firm Kearney. The ban is also accelerating the migration of apparel production in China to other regions like Vietnam and Cambodia.

Some experts believe that the U.S. law has also compelled companies to block Xinjiang cotton products from other markets. Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, a labor rights monitoring organization, said even if companies want to reroute Xinjiang-linked products to other markets, it would require a ”substantial reorganization” of their supply networks.

Figures from the China National Cotton Information Center show that sales of cotton produced in Xinjiang in the year to mid-June fell 40% from a year earlier to 3.1 million tons. The commercial inventory of cotton produced in Xinjiang was 3.3 million tons at the end of May, up 60% from a year earlier, according to Wind, a Chinese financial information provider.
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged support Tuesday for the “fast rehabilitation” of Ukraine as it faces what she called targeted attacks by Russian forces on civilian infrastructure.

Speaking in Berlin at a conference to discuss the recovery and reconstruction of Ukraine, von der Leyen said Russia is clearly working to cut off Ukrainians from water, heat and electricity services as winter approaches. She said such Russian attacks “are pure acts of terror.”

Von der Leyen described the scale of destruction in Ukraine eight months after Russia launched its invasion as “staggering.”

“These are hard, scary and painful days for Ukrainians, but Ukrainians are showing us that they have hope and confidence in the future and they will keep fighting for it. And it is their future that brings us here today,” she said.

The conference involves representatives from national governments, academic institutions and international organizations. The EU said the talks would cover how to prioritize Ukraine’s needs and what options exist for financing projects.

No financial pledges or political agreements are expected.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is addressing the conference.

Ukraine’s government, along with the European Commission and the World Bank, estimated in a September report that it could cost $350 billion to rebuild the country after Russia’s invasion.

The World Bank on Monday disbursed $500 million, supported by loan guarantees from Britain to Ukraine to help the government maintain essential services.

“The Russian invasion continues to cause massive destruction of Ukraine’s infrastructure — including water, sanitation, and electricity networks — just as winter is approaching, further endangering Ukrainian people,” World Bank Group President David Malpass said in a statement.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Monday about meeting Ukraine’s needs for military aid, according to statements from both sides.

Ukraine denies planning to use “dirty bomb”

They also discussed U.S. support for Ukraine amid Russia’s claims that Ukraine was preparing to use a “dirty bomb,” an allegation Ukraine and its allies have dismissed.

Diplomats said Russia told its counterparts on the U.N. Security Council it will bring up the issue during a close-door meeting of the 15-member body Tuesday.

Russia’s Ambassador to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya sent a letter, seen by VOA, to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the Security Council late Monday, saying Russia “will regard the use of the dirty bomb by the Kiev regime as an act of nuclear terrorism.”

Ukraine has strongly denied Moscow’s allegations that it is planning to detonate a dirty bomb on its own territory and has in turn accused Russia of plotting to use the threat of a bomb laced with nuclear material as a pretext for escalation in Ukraine.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price warned Monday of the “profound nature of consequences” that would befall Russia if it used a dirty bomb or any other nuclear weapon.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that NATO allies rejected Russia’s claims that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory and added “Russia must not use it as a pretext for escalation.”

Stoltenberg said he had a call with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his British counterpart, Ben Wallace, on the matter Monday.

Russian troops prep for “radioactive contamination”

Meanwhile, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical protection troops, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, in a media briefing said Russian forces are “preparing to work under radioactive contamination.”

U.S. officials said Monday there is currently no indication that Moscow has made any efforts to use a dirty bomb or nuclear weapons.

“We continue to see nothing in the way of preparations by the Russian side for the use of nuclear weapons,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi confirmed that “no undeclared nuclear activities or material were found” in Ukrainian nuclear locations.

“The IAEA inspected one of these locations one month ago and all our findings were consistent with Ukraine’s safeguards declarations,” Grossi said.

Grossi confirmed that both locations are under IAEA safeguards and have been visited regularly by IAEA inspectors. He added that the IAEA received a written request from Ukraine Monday to send teams of inspectors to carry out verification activities at the two locations.

Pelosi calls drones “dangerous”

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday that Iran was making the world less safe by supplying Russia with drones to be used against targets in Ukraine.

“I think Iran is making a big mistake,” Pelosi said after meeting Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. “First of all, we have to be able to counter the drones … it is a dangerous technology, and it must be stopped,” she said.

Pelosi arrived in Zagreb Monday to attend “The Crimea Platform Summit,” on Ukraine’s independence and the return of the Crimean Peninsula to Kyiv since its annexation by Russia in 2014.

“We’ve been trying for a while now to have a nuclear agreement with Iran so that we can make the world a safer place, and now they’re going off aiding the Russians and making the world a less safe place,” Pelosi said.

Iran has denied supplying drones to Russia for use in Ukraine and condemned a call by Britain, France and Germany for the United Nations to investigate whether Russia used Iranian-made attack drones.

Iran will not remain indifferent if it is proved that its drones are being used by Russia in Ukraine, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian was reported as saying by Iranian state media Monday.

He also said that the defense cooperation between Tehran and Moscow will continue.

VOA’s U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer contributed to this article. Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Bees pollinate 71 of the 100 crop species that provide 90% of food worldwide. They also pollinate wild plants, helping sustain biodiversity and the beauty of the natural world.

But climate change, pesticides and parasites are taking a terrible toll on bees, and they need protecting, said European beekeepers, who held their annual congress in Quimper, western France, this week.

The congress, which said some European beekeepers were suffering “significant mortalities and catastrophic harvests due to difficult climatic conditions,” was an opportunity for beekeepers and scientists to respond to the major concerns.

The European Union, the world’s second-largest importer of honey, currently produces just 60% of what it consumes.

French beekeepers, for example, expect to harvest between 12,000 and 14,000 metric tons of honey this year, far lower than the 30,000 tons they harvested in the 1990s, according to the National Union of French Beekeepers (UNAF).

“I’ve been fighting for bees for 30 years, but if I had to choose now, I don’t know if I’d become a beekeeper,” said UNAF spokesman Henri Clement, who has 200 hives in the mountainous Cevennes region in southeastern France.

Clement is 62 and not far off retiring.

“But it’s not much fun for young people who want to take up the profession,” he said.

Many of the topics buzzing around the congress were evidence of this — pesticides, climate change, and Asian hornets, parasitic varroa mites and hive beetles, all invasive alien species in Europe.

Challenges includes rain, drought

With climate change, “the bigger issue is just the erratic weather and rain patterns, drought and things like that,” said U.S. entomologist Jeff Pettis, president of Apimondia, an international federation of beekeeping associations in 110 countries.

“In certain places, the plants had been used to a certain temperature. And now it goes up, and you have a hot dry summer, and there are no flowers,” Pettis told AFP.

No flowers means no pollen, which means bees dying of hunger.

Climate scientists say human-induced global heating is intensifying extreme weather events such as flooding, and heatwaves that exacerbate wildfires.

“The fires seem to be a big issue,” Pettis said. “They come sporadically, and we lose hives directly from flooding and fires.

Pettis, a former scientist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, published a study in 2016 on the quality of pollen produced by goldenrod, a hardy perennial also known as solidago that produces a myriad of small yellow daisy-like flowers.

The study showed that the more carbon dioxide — a greenhouse gas — that accumulates in the atmosphere, the lower the amount of protein in goldenrod pollen.

North America bees are dependent on nourishment from goldenrod pollen to get through the winter, Pettis said.

“Getting inferior food … should affect wintering. It could happen with other pollen sources. We don’t know.”

As in France, 30% to 40% of hives in the United States are dying every winter, Pettis said, decimated by varroa mites, pesticides and the destruction of wild spaces where wild plants grow

“Today, there are even American startups that are developing drones to pollinize plants in the place of bees. It’s utterly appalling,” said Clement.

Toxic threat

Toxic pesticides are another factor decimating bee colonies and other pollinating insects.

French molecular biophysics scientist Jean-Marc Bonmatin said parasites such as varroa were “boosted by the presence of neonicotinide pesticides, which directly poison pollinators.”

Neonicotinoids, chemically similar to nicotine, are systemic pesticides.

Unlike contact pesticides, which remain on the surface of the treated leaves, systemic pesticides are taken up by the plant and transported to its leaves, flowers, roots and stems, as well as to its pollen and nectar.

These toxic substances can remain in the soil for between five and 30 years, Bonmatin said.

The EU restricted the use of three neonicotinoids — but not all — in 2013 and banned them outright in 2018.

But since 2013, several EU states have repeatedly granted “emergency authorizations” to use noxious insecticides on major crops.

He said open-source software called Toxibee was being launched soon to help farmers protect bees by identifying the least toxic molecules to use on their crops.

“Before they spray the crops with pesticides, they can try to limit their noxious effect,” he said. “Because what kills bees will one day damage people’s health, too.”

Pettis strove, however, to remain upbeat, pointing to some of the ways people can help bees.

“[We should] diversify agriculture and try not [to] be driven by chemically dependent agriculture, support organic and more sustainable farming.”

He also stressed the incredible resistance of some bee species, helped by factors in the natural world.

He cited the example of a black bee found on the Ile de Groix in Brittany, which has survived varroa attacks without beekeepers treating them for mites or giving them supplementary feeding.

“We think the bees are dependent on us, but in reality, they survive pretty well even without us,” he said. “And you still have the beauty of the bees. It’s such a good thing to work with bees.”
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A Spanish man trekking from Madrid to Doha for the 2022 FIFA World Cup has not been heard from since the day after he crossed into Iran three weeks ago, his family said Monday, stirring fears about his fate in a country convulsed by mass unrest.

The experienced trekker, former paratrooper and fervent soccer fan, 41-year-old Santiago Sanchez, was last seen in Iraq after hiking through 15 countries and extensively sharing his journey on a popular Instagram account over the last nine months.

Sanchez’s family last heard from him Oct. 2, a day after he crossed the Iraq-Iran border.

“We are deeply worried, we can’t stop crying, my husband and I,” his mother, Celia Cogedor, told The Associated Press.

Cogedor and Sanchez’s father, Santiago, sat next to the fireplace at the family’s home in a hamlet in central Spain. Clearly exhausted, the couple shared with journalists the treasured last audio message their son sent them that morning, allegedly already from Iranian soil, detailing his future plans.

“I’m with a friend who has come to pick me up. I’m going to go to Bandar Abbas, very far away 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) south in Iran, near the island of Hormuz,” Sánchez’s calm voice said.

The Spanish adventurer explained how he planned to go to Tehran, the Iranian capital, the following day, where a television station wanted to interview him. His next step would have been Bandar Abbas, a port in southern Iran where he would hop on a boat to Qatar. But all traces of him evaporated even before he reached Tehran, his parents think.

Sanchez had already warned his family before crossing into Iran that communication wouldn’t be as easy as it had been in previous months.

“After a few days we didn’t worry about him not posting, it matched what he had said. But after eight or nine days, my daughter and his closest friends … we already began to think that we had to report his disappearance,” his mother said.

His parents reported him missing Oct. 17, and they said Spain’s police and diplomats were helping the family.

Spain’s Foreign Ministry said it had no information about Sanchez’s whereabouts, adding that the Spanish ambassador to Tehran was handling the matter. Calls to the Iranian Foreign Ministry seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Sanchez’s reported disappearance in Iran comes as protesters are rising up across the Islamic Republic in the largest anti-government movement in over a decade. The demonstrations erupted Sept. 16 over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman taken into custody by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not adhering to the country’s strict Islamic dress code.

Tehran has violently cracked down on protesters and blamed foreign enemies and Kurdish groups in Iraq for fomenting the unrest, without offering evidence. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry said authorities had arrested nine foreigners, mostly Europeans, over their alleged links to the protests last month.

Sanchez arrived in Iraqi Kurdistan in late September, after trekking thousands of kilometers carrying a small suitcase in a wheeled cart, packed with little more than a tent, water purification tablets and a gas stove for his 11 months on the road. He said he wanted to learn how others lived before reaching Qatar, the first World Cup host country in the Arab world, in time for Spain’s first match Nov. 23.

The day before he disappeared, Sanchez had breakfast with a guide in Sulaymaniyah, a Kurdish city in northeastern Iraq. The guide, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said he tried to warn Sanchez about the dangerous political situation in Iran.

But Sanchez was undeterred and confident, the guide said.

“He didn’t look nervous at all. He told me, ‘I sorted out everything, don’t worry,’” he said.

Sanchez, the guide added, planned to meet an Iranian family in the Kurdish town of Marivan — a scene of recent anti-government protests. The family, delighted by Sanchez’s Instagram posts, had offered to host him.

After Sanchez crossed the border Oct. 1, his messages became sparse and cryptic, the guide said. Sanchez told him that things were “very different” in Iran from Sulaymaniyah, an Iraqi metropolis filled with parks and cafes.

“It’s been a long story,” his last message read.

In his last Instagram update, the night before he crossed the Iranian border, he posted images of his emotional farewell to Iraq and told of a Kurdish family’s generosity. He had planned to camp on a mountain, but the owner of a nearby farm took him in, giving him a bed, a shower and a hearty dinner.

Pictures on Instagram show him eating bread and chicken soup, smiling and posing with young boys from the village and drinking tea over an open fire.
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U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price warned of the “profound nature of consequences” that would befall Russia if it uses a so called “dirty bomb” or any other nuclear weapon.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that NATO allies rejected Russia’s claims that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory and added “Russia must not use it as a pretext for escalation.”

Stoltenberg said he had a call with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and his U.K. counterpart Ben Wallace on the matter Monday.

Western countries also accused Russia Monday of plotting to use a threat of a bomb laced with nuclear material as a pretext for escalation in Ukraine.

Moscow reiterated its claims, Monday, that it is Ukraine who is planning to detonate “a dirty bomb” — something Kyiv has strongly denied.

Russia plans to raise its claims against Ukraine at the United Nations Security Council Tuesday. It has told council counterparts it will bring up the issue during a closed-door meeting of the 15-member body, diplomats said.

Meanwhile, the head of Russia’s nuclear, biological, and chemical protection troops, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, in a media briefing said Russian forces are “preparing to work under radioactive contamination.”

Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi confirmed that “no undeclared nuclear activities or material were found” in Ukrainian nuclear locations.

“The IAEA inspected one of these locations one month ago and all our findings were consistent with Ukraine’s safeguards declarations,” said Director General Grossi.

Grossi confirmed that both locations are under IAEA safeguards and have been visited regularly by IAEA inspectors. He added that the IAEA received a written request from Ukraine today to send teams of inspectors to carry out verification activities at the two locations.

As Ukraine advances into Kherson, pressure is mounting for Russia, which told 60,000 people there “to save your lives” and flee a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

In calls with his French, British and Turkish counterparts Sunday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu discussed the “rapidly deteriorating situation,” and leveled accusations that Ukraine is planning on using a “dirty bomb.”

In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of France, Britain and the United States said they had all rejected the allegations and reaffirmed their support for Ukraine against Russia.”

Our countries made clear that we all reject Russia’s transparently false allegations that Ukraine [is] preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory,” they said. “The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation.”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, held a phone conversation with Russian General Valery Gerasimov, chief of the Russian General Staff, the defense ministry said in a statement. It also said both sides agreed on the importance of maintaining open channels of communication.

Ukraine has rejected Russian allegations that Ukrainian forces might detonate a radioactive device and accused Russia of planning to carry out such an act and blame it on Ukraine.

“Russian lies about Ukraine allegedly planning to use a ‘dirty bomb’ are as absurd as they are dangerous,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his nightly address Sunday that Russia was the only one in the region capable of using nuclear weapons.

“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this,” Zelenskyy said. “I believe that now the world should react in the toughest possible way.”

Iran drones

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Monday, that Iran was making the world less safe by supplying Russia with drones to be used against targets in Ukraine.

“I think Iran is making a big mistake,” Pelosi said after meeting Croatia’s Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic. “First of all, we have to be able to counter the drones … it is a dangerous technology, and it must be stopped,” she said.

Pelosi arrived in Zagreb Monday to attend “The Crimea Platform Summit,” on Ukraine’s independence and the return of the Crimean Peninsula to Kyiv since its annexation by Russia in 2014.

“We’ve been trying for a while now to have a nuclear agreement with Iran so that we can make the world a safer place and now they’re going off aiding the Russians and making the world a less safe place,” Pelosi said.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its eighth month Monday.

Pelosi has been a strong supporter of providing aid and military assistance to the country since Russia invaded February 24.

Iran has denied supplying drones to Russia for use in Ukraine and condemned a call by Britain, France and Germany for the United Nations to investigate whether Russia used Iranian-made attack drones.

Iran will not remain indifferent if it is proven that its drones are being used by Russia in Ukraine, foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was reported as saying by Iranian state media Monday.

“If it is proven to us that Iranian drones are being used in the Ukraine war against people, we should not remain indifferent.” He also said that the defense cooperation between Tehran and Moscow will continue.

Griner verdict

U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner “does not expect miracles” at her appeal hearing Tuesday against a nine-year Russian jail term for having cannabis oil in her luggage, her lawyers said in a statement.

The twice Olympic gold medalist was arrested Feb. 17 at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia. She was sentenced Aug. 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs.

Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, said she would take part in Tuesday’s hearing by video link from the detention center where she has been held, and that they expected a verdict the same day.

“She is very nervous waiting for the appeal hearing. Brittney does not expect any miracles to happen but hopes that the appeal court will hear the arguments of the defense and reduce the term,” they said.

Griner pleaded guilty at her trial but said she had made an “honest mistake” and had not meant to break the law.

Washington says Griner was wrongfully detained and has offered to exchange her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States.

Moscow has also suggested it is open to a prisoner swap.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner “does not expect miracles” at her appeal hearing on Tuesday against a nine-year Russian jail term for having cannabis oil in her luggage, her lawyers said in a statement. 

The two-time Olympic gold medalist was arrested on February 17 at a Moscow airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil, which is banned in Russia. She was sentenced on August 4 to nine years in a penal colony on charges of possessing and smuggling drugs. 

Griner’s lawyers, Maria Blagovolina and Alexander Boykov, said she would take part in Tuesday’s hearing by video link from the detention center where she has been held, and that they expected a verdict the same day. 

“She is very nervous waiting for the appeal hearing. Brittney does not expect any miracles to happen but hopes that the appeal court will hear the arguments of the defense and reduce the term,” they said. 

Griner pleaded guilty at her trial but said she had made an “honest mistake” and not meant to break the law. 

Washington says Griner was wrongfully detained and has offered to exchange her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States. 

Moscow has also suggested it is open to a prisoner swap. 

Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who traveled to Moscow in September, has said he believes Griner and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan could both be released by the end of the year. A U.S. consular officer spoke briefly on the phone with both detainees last Tuesday. 

U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Washington was working to free Griner and Whelan and there had been “active discussions, including in recent days.” 

“We have not weighed in on the various judicial proceedings and judicial steps because as we’ve made clear, we believe that these proceedings have been largely shambolic,” Price told reporters at a press briefing. 

 
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Progressive Democratic lawmakers urged U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday to shift the U.S. approach to the war in Ukraine by directly negotiating with Russia.

A letter signed by 30 House Democrats in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, led by Representative Pramila Jayapal, said they appreciated Biden’s commitment “to Ukraine’s legitimate struggle against Russia’s war of aggression” and acknowledged U.S. economic, military and humanitarian aid has been critical to Ukraine’s success in fighting off Russia.

But the lawmakers said, in the letter first reported by the Washington Post, that diplomatic efforts should also be a part of the U.S. approach to ending the war that has had a catastrophic toll on the Ukrainian people as well as threatening global food and poverty crises through rising fuel and grain costs.

“As legislators responsible for the expenditure of tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance in the conflict, we believe such involvement in this war also creates a responsibility for the United States to seriously explore all possible avenues, including direct engagement with Russia, to reduce harm and support Ukraine in achieving a peaceful settlement,” the lawmakers wrote.

In a June 2022 press conference, Biden acknowledged that possibility when asked if Ukraine would have to cede territory to Russia to put an end to the conflict.

“It appears to me that, at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here. And what that entails, I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows at the time,” Biden told reporters.

The lawmakers specified it was not the place of the U.S. to pressure Ukraine into accepting a settlement, writing that any “framework would presumably include incentives to end hostilities, including some form of sanctions relief, and bring together the international community to establish security guarantees for a free and independent Ukraine that are acceptable for all parties, particularly Ukrainians.”

The U.S. has sent nearly $60 billion in humanitarian, economic and military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s unprovoked invasion in February. In the Monday letter, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said they are still in favor of continued aid.

But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy — who is poised to become Speaker of the House if Republicans win control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the November midterm elections — said continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine is not assured, given domestic economic concerns.

“I think people are going to be sitting in a recession, and they’re not going to write a blank check to Ukraine,” McCarthy told U.S. political news outlet Punchbowl News last week.

Not all Republican leaders agree. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called for more U.S. aid to Ukraine in a statement last Friday, saying “The Biden Administration and our allies need to do more to supply the tools Ukraine needs to thwart Russian aggression. It is obvious this must include additional air defenses, long-range fires, and humanitarian and economic support to help this war-torn country endure the coming winter.”

Progressive Democrats did praise Biden’s approach, saying the administration’s policy was critical in preventing an all-out nuclear conflict.

“We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia given its outrageous and illegal invasion of Ukraine and its decision to make additional illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory. However, if there is a way to end the war while preserving a free and independent Ukraine, it is America’s responsibility to pursue every diplomatic avenue,” the letter said.
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Former chancellor Rishi Sunak won the backing of Conservative Party lawmakers Monday to become Britain’s new prime minister, following the resignation last week of Liz Truss, who spent under two months in office.

He is expected to visit King Charles III on Tuesday to accept the invitation to form a government.

Economic challenges

Sunak will become Britain’s third prime minister in just seven weeks, after a period of political chaos that has dented the country’s global image. With inflation above 10% and the economy predicted to slip into recession, Sunak’s political honeymoon will likely be short.

Sunak gave a brief televised address Monday from Conservative Party headquarters in London.

“The United Kingdom is a great country, but there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge. We now need stability and unity,” he said.

“I will make it my utmost priority to bring our party and our country together because that is the only way we will overcome the challenges we face and build a better, more prosperous future,” he added.

Sunak has one overriding priority, said professor Tony Travers of the London School of Economics.

“The new prime minister faces the question of balancing the books, convincing the international financial markets that Britain is sensibly governed again,” he told The Associated Press.

Sunak was chancellor under Prime Minister Boris Johnson and was the main architect of the government’s estimated $420 billion COVID-19 support package for workers and businesses, which was widely praised in Britain.

Political chaos

Johnson stepped down as prime minister in July after losing the support of his MPs following a series of scandals.

Over the past weekend, Johnson flew back from a Caribbean vacation to launch an audacious bid to return to the top job, before pulling out of the race Sunday evening, saying, “It was simply not the right time.”

Truss won the contest to replace Johnson, entering office September 6. She quit last week after her tax-cutting plans sent government borrowing costs soaring, leading rating agencies to downgrade Britain’s economy.

Sunak, who lost to Truss in the summer leadership campaign, won the backing of most Conservative lawmakers on Monday and will take over the role unchallenged.

Global image

The political chaos has hit Britain’s reputation for stability, according to Quentin Peel, an associate fellow at research group Chatham House.

“It’s a shambles, really, and it looks on the international stage like a mockery of what Britain used to stand for,” Peel told VOA.

Many Britons say they want stability after years of political upheaval.

“We just need to get this sorted. We’re an embarrassment, really. If you look at all the other foreign press about us, we’re the laughingstock,” Keith Dargue, manager of a London dental practice, told AP.

“I would like a calm government to just run the country after Brexit, after a COVID epidemic, and with the threat of a UK breakup,” said commuter Duncan Wood.

Election demands

The opposition Labor Party is currently around 30% ahead in the polls. Party leader Keir Starmer is demanding a general election.

“Give people a choice. Do you want to continue with this chaos, which is damaging the economy? Or wouldn’t you prefer a Labor government, the stability that that will bring for our country?” Starmer said last week.

Critics say Sunak has no popular mandate to govern; but there is precedent in British politics, analyst Tony Travers said.

“When Gordon Brown became prime minister in 2007, taking over from Tony Blair … It was done in this way in the Second World War — Winston Churchill took over [from] Neville Chamberlain at the beginning of the Second World War,” Travers said.

Brexit

Since the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, Britain has had five prime ministers, Peel noted.

“The elephant in the room, if you like, throughout the last few months of political turmoil, has always been this Brexit decision. And it’s been papered over, because COVID really, and the war in Ukraine, became the big headline grabbers.”

“Leaving the European Union has really damaged the British economy. It’s damaged investment in the British economy,” Peel said. “Foreign investors are turning away, and it’s poisoned the relations between London and the member states of the European Union in Brussels.”

Ukraine

Britain is second only to the United States in its level of military support for Ukraine. Continuing that is key to restoring Britain’s standing on the global stage, Peel said.

“Giving them all the assistance that we can in order to ensure that they don’t lose this war with Russia. Secondly, I would say that the relations have got to be improved with the rest of the European Union,” he added.
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In marking World Polio Day, advocates for a polio-free world are urging nations to commit to a new five-year strategy to eradicate this crippling disease and consign it to the trash bin of history.

An estimated 350,000 children were paralyzed by polio when the World Health Organization launched its Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988. In the world today, polio is endemic only in Pakistan, and Afghanistan. So far this year, 29 cases have been recorded, putting the possibility of a polio-free world within reach.

The WHO notes the final stretch is the most difficult and cautions nations against letting down their guard too soon. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the 29 recorded cases include a small number in southeast Africa linked to a strain originating in Pakistan.

“While it does not affect the WHO African region’s wild polio free certification, it shows us that as long as polio continues to circulate anywhere, it is a threat to children everywhere. Despite this news, we have a unique window of opportunity right now to end polio for good.”

The WHO warns polio also can spread within communities through circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses. These variants, it notes, can emerge in places where not enough people have been immunized against this crippling disease. It reports these variants continue to spread across parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe and new outbreaks have been detected in Britain, Israel and the United States in recent months.

UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell says the new polio eradication strategy is designed to take the world to the finish line. She says the strategy includes tactics to protect children from variant outbreaks and stop their spread to other countries.

“We are also working with governments to speed up our response to these outbreaks, acting immediately to ensure that they do not harm more children,” Russel said. “And we continue working to integrate polio activities with other immunization and health programs so we can reach high-risk children who have never received vaccines before. The new strategy will help us end all forms of polio. It will also help prepare countries to respond to future health threats.”   

If this goal is reached, polio will become only the second disease after smallpox to have been wiped off the face of the Earth. U.N. health agencies say it will cost $4.8 billion to achieve this historic milestone.    

The economic returns, they say, will be significant. They estimate eradicating polio would result in savings of more than $33 billion.    
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The European Union is aiming to clinch deals on three new laws to fight climate change in time for the annual United Nations climate negotiations next month, in a bid to boost its political clout at the talks.

Nearly 200 countries agreed at last year’s U.N. COP26 negotiations to upgrade their climate pledges by this year’s summit, to bridge the gap between their current plans and the far faster reduction in greenhouse gas emissions needed to avert disastrous climate change.

But two weeks away from the COP27 summit in Egypt, only around two dozen countries have done so. The 27-country EU will decide on Monday whether to commit to raise its own target, although countries disagree on whether to agree to do this by a certain date, or at all.

Meanwhile, the EU has agreed to speed up negotiations on three emissions-cutting laws, so it can arrive at the U.N. summit with newly ambitious climate policies, EU officials told Reuters.

“The EU has to be the bridge builder and you can only build bridges if you are seen as ambitious yourself,” EU climate policy chief Frans Timmermans said on Monday.

The policies being fast-tracked are a law to ban sales of new fossil fuel cars in the EU by 2035, expand Europe’s natural CO2-absorbing “sinks” like forests, and set binding national emissions-cutting goals.

They are part of a bigger package of policies being negotiated by EU countries and the European Parliament, designed to deliver the bloc’s overall goal to cut net emissions by 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels.

The CO2 sinks law, in particular, is seen as a roundabout way of hiking the EU’s climate target, because if achieved, it could cut countries’ overall net emissions by 57%, according to EU lawmakers.

Ville Niinisto, Parliament’s negotiator on the law, said having a deal before COP27 would show the EU “will do more than we promised”.

Jessica Polfjard, Parliament’s negotiator on the national emissions-cutting targets, said she wanted a good deal rather than a quick deal. “At this stage I remain confident that I can deliver both.”
…

Ukraine rejected Russian allegations that Ukrainian forces might detonate a radioactive device, and accused Russia of planning to carry out such an act and blame it on Ukraine.

“Russian lies about Ukraine allegedly planning to us a ‘dirty bomb’ are as absurd as they are dangerous,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during his nightly address Sunday that Russia was the only one in the region capable of using nuclear weapons.

“If Russia calls and says that Ukraine is allegedly preparing something, it means one thing: Russia has already prepared all this,” Zelenskyy said. “I believe that now the world should react in the toughest possible way.”

Russia’s defense ministry said Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu voiced concern Sunday to his counterparts from the United States, Britain, France and Turkey about “possible Ukrainian provocations involving a ‘dirty bomb.’”

Dangers of a “dirty bomb”

A “dirty bomb” is a device that uses conventional explosives to scatter radioactive material. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says most dirty bombs “would not release enough radiation to kill people or cause severe illness,” but could create panic and contaminate property. Nuclear bombs, by comparison, have explosions that are millions of times more powerful, according to the NRC.

The foreign ministers of the United States, Britain and France reiterated their support for Ukraine in a statement late Sunday, and said their defense ministers made clear to Shoigu their rejection of “Russia’s transparently false allegations.”

“The world would see through any attempt to use this allegation as a pretext for escalation. We further reject any pretext for escalation by Russia,” the U.S., British and French ministers said.

For U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, his phone call Sunday with Shoigu was the second between the two ministers in the span of three days. The Pentagon said Austin rejected any pretext for Russian escalation and reaffirmed the value of continued communication amid “Russia’s unlawful and unjustified war against Ukraine.”

Suburb attacked

Also Sunday, a Russian missile attack smashed into a suburb of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine.

While two apartment blocks were destroyed, no one was killed because most residents had already moved away after a similar attack in the vicinity six months ago, Reuters reported.

The explosions in the Karabelnyi district of Mykolaiv, a ship-building center at the confluence of the Southern Buh and Dnipro rivers, continued a weeks-long Russian aerial offensive that has targeted civilian infrastructure.

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made veiled comparisons Sunday between the Soviet troops that attacked Hungary during the 1956 revolution and the institutions of the European Union today.

Marking the 66th anniversary of that crushed uprising, Orban suggested that the EU, which has sought to rein in democratic backsliding in Hungary, would end up like the Soviet Union, which dissolved more than three decades ago.

“Let’s not bother with those who shoot at Hungary from the shadows or from the heights of Brussels. They will end up where their predecessors did,” Orban said in a speech to a select group of guests in the rural city of Zalaegerszeg in western Hungary, breaking with a tradition of giving a speech in Budapest on the anniversary.

His absence from the capital on one of Hungary’s most important national holidays came as tens of thousands of people protested in Budapest, demanding higher wages and better working conditions for educators.

The demonstration Sunday was the latest in a sustained wave of protests by Hungarian teachers and students.

“Money is spent on unnecessary things, on new stadiums, on never-finished projects, on irrelevant investments, and in the meantime the whole education system is being bled out,” said one protester, Adam Botos.

Vince Buzas, another protest participant, said, “Let’s not forget that it is not only the teachers who are oppressed by the government. The LGBTQ community, ethnic minorities and endless other groups could be mentioned.”

Orban, who characterizes his form of government as an “illiberal democracy,” is facing the threat of cuts to EU funding over his democratic record and perceived corruption.

Seeking to salvage some funding, the Hungarian parliament recently passed new anti-graft legislation. But the country still risks losing billions of euros as punishment for perceived breaches of democratic practices, causing the national currency and economy to weaken recently.

“We were here when the first conquering empire attacked us, and we’ll be here when the last one collapses,” Orban declared Sunday. “We will bear it when we must, and we will push back when we can. We draw swords when there is a chance, and we resist when long years of oppression come.”

“We are victorious even when we are defeated,” Orban said.

The Oct. 23 national holiday commemorates the beginning of a 1956 popular uprising against Soviet repression that began in Budapest and spread across the country.

After Hungary’s Stalinist leader was successfully ousted and Soviet troops were forced out of the capital, a directive from Moscow sent the Red Army back into Budapest and brutally suppressed the revolution, killing as many as 3,000 civilians and destroying much of the city.

The holiday, which looms large in Hungary’s historical memory as a freedom fight against Russian repression, comes as war rages in neighboring Ukraine where Moscow has occupied large swaths of the country and illegally annexed four regions.

Orban, widely considered Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in the EU, has vigorously lobbied against the bloc imposing sanctions on Moscow, though the nationalist leader has ultimately voted for all sanctions packages.

Protesters in Hungary’s capital Sunday carried a banner depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin hugging Orban.
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A right-wing politician and a centrist independent candidate will face each other in a runoff presidential election in Slovenia after no candidate achieved an outright victory in the first round of voting Sunday, partial results showed.

Former Foreign Minister Anze Logar was leading the race with 34% of the vote, followed by lawyer Natasa Pirc Musar with nearly 27%, state election authorities said after counting 85% of the ballots.

Trailing third was Social Democrat Milan Brglez, the candidate of the ruling liberal government, who garnered some 15% of the vote, according to the official tally.

Since none of the seven contenders who competed in the election managed to gather more than 50% of the ballots needed for an outright victory, a runoff between Logar and Pirc Musar will be held on Nov. 13.

While Logar took a lead on Sunday, analysts in Slovenia have predicted the tables could turn in the runoff if Slovenia’s centrist and liberal voters rally behind Pirc Musar.

Logar, 46, served under former populist Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who moved Slovenia to the right while in power and faced accusations of non-democratic and divisive policies.

Logar has sought to shake off a populist image and present himself as a unifier. His victory would deal a blow to the liberal coalition that ousted Jansa from power six months ago.

If Pirc Musar wins, she would become the first female president of Slovenia since the country became independent from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

“I woke up cheerful and pleased,” she said when she voted on Sunday. ”I am certain they (voters) will recognize my values and my non-partisan orientation.”

Logar said a place in the second round would be a “success,” and the rest would depend “on presenting a convincing political argument, out there in the field.”

Turnout by 1400 GMT was nearly 35%, somewhat higher than for the previous presidential election five years ago, election officials said as polls closed.

Slovenia’s 1.7 million eligible voters eventually will choose a successor to incumbent Borut Pahor. He has served two full five-year terms and was banned from running for a third.

While in office, Pahor tried to bridge Slovenia’s left-right divide that remains a source of political tension in the traditionally moderate and stable nation of 2 million.

Prime Minister Robert Golob said the future president should have “moral authority” on the country’s political scene and “great trust among Slovenians.”

Ziga Jelenec, a resident of Ljubljana, the capital, said the election likely will show “how much our society is divided.”
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Climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum to protest fossil fuel extraction Sunday but caused no damage to the artwork.

Two activists from the group Last Generation, which has called on the German government to take drastic action to protect the climate and stop using fossil fuels, approached Monet’s “Les Meules” at Potsdam’s Barberini Museum and threw a thick substance over the painting and its gold frame.

The group later confirmed via a post on Twitter that the mixture was mashed potatoes. The two activists, both wearing orange high-visibility vests, also glued themselves to the wall below the painting.

“If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!” the group wrote on Twitter, along with a video of the incident.

In total, four people were involved in the incident, according to German news agency dpa.

The Barberini Museum said later Sunday that because the painting was enclosed in glass, the mashed potatoes didn’t cause any damage. The painting, part of Monet’s “Haystacks” series, is expected to be back on display Wednesday.

“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.

Police told dpa they had responded to the incident, but further information about arrests or charges was not immediately available.

The Monet painting is the latest artwork in a museum to be targeted by climate activists to draw attention to global warming.

The British group Just Stop Oil threw tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery earlier this month.

Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” in the National Gallery.
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Former British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was frontrunner Sunday in the Conservative Party’s race to replace Liz Truss as prime minister, as he garnered the public support of over 100 Tory lawmakers to forge ahead of his two main rivals — ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt.

But widespread uncertainty remained after British media reported that Sunak had held late-night talks with Johnson Saturday, and speculation mounted that the pair could strike a deal to unite the fractured governing party after it was left reeling from Truss’ rapid downfall.

The Conservative Party hastily ordered a contest that aims to finalize nominations Monday and install a new prime minister — its third this year — within a week.

Sunak, 42, confirmed Sunday he was running in the leadership race. He has the backing of at least 124 Conservative lawmakers, according to unofficial tallies by the BBC and Sky News. That’s well ahead of the 100 nominations required to qualify.

“There will be integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level of the government I lead and I will work day in and day out to get the job done,” Sunak said in a statement.

Mordaunt garnered about 24 lawmakers’ public support, while Johnson, who has not yet declared if he is running, has about 50 so far. Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg told the BBC Sunday he spoke to Johnson and that “clearly he’s going to stand” after Johnson flew back to London Saturday from his vacation in the Dominican Republic.

A possible return to power for Johnson, 58, who was forced out of office just weeks ago by a string of ethics scandals, has deeply divided the Conservatives and thrown unpredictability into the race. Supporters say he is a vote winner and has enough support from lawmakers, but many critics warn that another Johnson government would be catastrophic for the party and the country.

Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker, a former backer of Johnson and an influential politician within the Conservative Party, warned a Johnson comeback would be a “guaranteed disaster” because he still faces an investigation into whether he lied to Parliament while in office that could lead to his suspension as a lawmaker.

“This isn’t the time for Boris and his style,” Baker told Sky News on Sunday. “What we can’t do is have him as prime minister in circumstances where he’s bound to implode, taking down the whole government … and we just can’t do that again.”

But Johnson won the backing of several senior Conservatives, including Nadhim Zahawi, another former Treasury chief.

“He was contrite and honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No 10 and the country better,” Zahawi said.

Truss quit Thursday after a turbulent 45 days, conceding that she could not deliver on her botched tax-cutting economic package, which she was forced to abandon after it sparked fury within her party and weeks of turmoil in financial markets.

Sunak, who was Treasury chief from 2020 until this summer, steered Britain’s slumping economy through the coronavirus pandemic. He quit in July in protest against Johnson’s leadership. In the contest to replace Johnson, Sunak argued that climbing inflation must be controlled first, and called promises by Truss and other rivals to immediately slash taxes reckless “fairy tales.”

Tory voters backed Truss over Sunak, but he was proved right when Truss’ unfunded tax-cutting economic stimulus package triggered chaos in the markets in September.

Dozens among Britain’s 357 Conservative lawmakers have not yet publicly declared whom they are backing to replace Truss.

Mordaunt and Johnson — if he confirms he is running — have until Monday afternoon to garner 100 nominations. If all three meet that threshold, lawmakers will vote to knock out one and then hold an indicative vote on the final two. The party’s 172,000 members will then get to decide between the two finalists in an online vote. The new leader is due to be selected by Friday.
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A Russian fighter plane crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Sunday and the two pilots were killed, officials said.

In a post on Telegram, Irkutsk governor Igor Kobzev said the plane crashed into a two-story house in the city. The emergencies ministry said the pilots died, but there were no other casualties.

It was the second such incident in six days. Last Monday, a Sukhoi Su-34 fighter plane crashed into an apartment block in the southern city of Yeysk, near Ukraine, and at least 15 people were killed.

Russian news agencies said the plane in Sunday’s incident was an Su-30. In a statement, the emergencies ministry said the plane crashed during a test flight.

Footage shared on social media showed what appeared to be several buildings on fire and dense black smoke rising into the sky.
…

Russia’s military leadership has withdrawn its officers in the Russian-annexed city of Kherson across the Dnieper River in anticipation of an advance of Ukrainian troops, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said Sunday.

To delay the Ukrainian counteroffensive as the Russians complete their retreat, Moscow has left newly mobilized, inexperienced forces on the other side of the wide river, it added.

The troop movements come as the Ukrainian military said its forces have continued their counteroffensives in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

On Saturday, Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all Kherson residents to leave immediately ahead of the expected action by Ukrainian troops to take back the city.

Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the eight-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and preparing for a final push to reclaim the city.

The ISW think tank also said Sunday that Russia’s latest war strategy of targeting power plants in recent days appears to be aimed at diminishing Ukrainians’ will to fight and forcing Ukraine’s government to spend additional resources to protect civilians and energy infrastructure. It said the effort was unlikely to damage Ukrainian morale but would have significant economic impact.

The Ukrainian military said Sunday that Russian forces are now mostly on the defensive but are keeping up offensive attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and on several towns in the eastern Donbas area.

Nine regions across Ukraine, from Odesa in the southwest to Kharkiv in the northeast, saw attacks again targeting energy and other critical infrastructure over the past day, the Ukrainian general staff said. It reported a total of 25 Russian air strikes and more than 100 missile and artillery strikes around Ukraine.

Ukrainian counteroffensive forces in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, meanwhile, targeted Russian-held facilities, notably in the town of Nova Kakhovka, and carried out 17 air strikes in the overall campaign, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

In a Telegram post Sunday, the Ukrainian military claimed to have destroyed 14 Iranian-made Rian drones over the past day.

Russian S-300 missile strikes overnight hit a residential neighborhood in the city of Mykolaiv, injuring three people, according to the Ukrainian military’s southern command.

Two apartment buildings, a playground and a warehouse were damaged or destroyed, it said in a Facebook post. The reports could not be immediately verified.
…

Norwegian oil and gas workers normally don’t see anything more threatening than North Sea waves crashing against the steel legs of their offshore platforms. But lately they have noticed a more troubling sight: unidentified drones buzzing in the skies overhead.

With Norway replacing Russia as Europe’s main source of natural gas, military experts suspect the unmanned aircraft are Moscow’s doings. They list espionage, sabotage and intimidation as possible motives for the drone flights.

The Norwegian government has sent warships, coastguard vessels and fighter jets to patrol around the offshore facilities. Norway’s national guard stationed soldiers around onshore refineries that also were buzzed by drones.

Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre has invited the navies of NATO allies Britain, France and Germany to help address what could be more than a Norwegian problem.

Precious little of the offshore oil that provides vast income for Norway is used by the country’s 5.4 million inhabitants. Instead, it powers much of Europe. Natural gas is another commodity of continental significance.

“The value of Norwegian gas to Europe has never been higher,” Ståle Ulriksen, a researcher at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy, said. “As a strategic target for sabotage, Norwegian gas pipelines are probably the highest value target in Europe.”

Closures of airports, and evacuations of an oil refinery and a gas terminal last week due to drone sightings caused huge disruptions. But with winter approaching in Europe, there is worry the drones may portend a bigger threat to the 9,000 kilometers of gas pipelines that spider from Norway’s sea platforms to terminals in Britain and mainland Europe.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine in late February, European Union countries have scrambled to replace their Russian gas imports with shipments from Norway. The suspected sabotage of the Nordstream I and II pipelines in the Baltic Sea last month happened a day before Norway opened a new Baltic pipeline to Poland.

Amund Revheim, who heads the North Sea and environment group for Norway’s South West Police force, said his team interviewed more than 70 offshore workers who have spotted drones near their facilities.

“The working thesis is that they are controlled from vessels or submarines nearby,” Revheim said.

Winged drones have a longer range, but investigators considered credible a sighting of a helicopter-style bladed model near the Sleipner platform, located in a North Sea gas field 250 kilometers from the coast.

Norwegian police have worked closely with military investigators who are analyzing marine traffic. Some platform operators have reported seeing Russian-flagged research vessels in close vicinity. Revheim said no pattern has been established from legal marine traffic and he is concerned about causing unnecessary, disruptive worry for workers.

But Ulriksen, of the naval academy, said the distinction between Russian civilian and military ships is narrow and the reported research vessels could fairly be described as “spy ships.”

The arrest of at least seven Russian nationals caught either carrying or illegally flying drones over Norwegian territory has raised tensions. On Wednesday, the same day a drone sighting grounded planes in Bergen, Norway’s second-biggest city, the Norwegian Police Security Service took over the case from local officers.

“We have taken over the investigation because it is our job to investigate espionage and enforce sanction rules against Russia,” Martin Bernsen, an official with the service known by the Norwegian acronym PST. He said the “sabotage or possible mapping” of energy infrastructure was an ongoing concern.

Støre, the prime minister, warned that Norway would take action against foreign intelligence agencies. “It is not acceptable for foreign intelligence to fly drones over Norwegian airports. Russians are not allowed to fly drones in Norway,” he said.

Russia’s Embassy in Oslo hit back Thursday, claiming that Norway was experiencing a form of “psychosis” causing “paranoia.”

Naval academy researcher Ulriksen thinks that is probably part of the plan.

“Several of the drones have been flown with their lights on,” he said. “They are supposed to be observed. I think it is an attempt to intimidate Norway and the West.”

The wider concern is that they are part of a hybrid strategy to both intimidate and gather information on vital infrastructure, which could later be targeted for sabotage in a potential strike against the West.

“I do not believe we are heading for a conventional war with Russia,” Ulriksen said. “But a hybrid war … I think we are already in it.”
…

The general carrying out President Vladimir Putin’s new military strategy in Ukraine has a reputation for brutality — for bombing civilians in Russia’s campaign in Syria. He also played a role in the deaths of three protesters in Moscow during the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that hastened the demise of the Soviet Union.

Bald and fierce-looking, Gen. Sergei Surovikin was put in charge of Russian forces in Ukraine Oct. 8 after what has so far been a faltering invasion that has seen a number of chaotic retreats and other setbacks over the nearly eight months of war.

Putin put the 56-year-old career military man in command following an apparent truck bombing of the strategic bridge to the Crimean Peninsula that embarrassed the Kremlin and created logistical problems for the Russian forces.

Russia responded with a barrage of strikes across Ukraine, which Putin said were aimed at knocking down energy infrastructure and Ukrainian military command centers. Such attacks have continued daily, pummeling power plants and other facilities with cruise missiles and waves of Iranian-made drones.

Surovikin also retains his job of air force chief, a position that could help coordinate the airstrikes with other operations.

During the most recent bombardments, some Russian war bloggers carried a statement attributed to Surovikin that signaled his intention to pursue the attacks with unrelenting vigor to pound the Kyiv government into submission.

“I don’t want to sacrifice Russian soldiers’ lives in a guerrilla war against hordes of fanatics armed by NATO,” the bloggers quoted his statement as saying. “We have enough technical means to force Ukraine to surrender.”

While the veracity of the statement couldn’t be confirmed, it appears to reflect the same heavy-handed approach that Surovikin took in Syria where he oversaw the destruction of entire cities to flush out rebel resistance without paying much attention to the civilian population. That indiscriminate bombing drew condemnation from international human rights groups, and some media reports have dubbed him “General Armageddon.”

Putin awarded Surovikin the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest award, in 2017 and promoted him to full general.

Kremlin hawks lauded Surovikin’s appointment in Ukraine. Yevgeny Prigozhin, a millionaire businessman dubbed “Putin’s chef” who owns a prominent military contractor that plays a key role in the fighting in Ukraine, praised him as “the best commander in the Russian army.”

But even as hardliners expected Surovikin to ramp up strikes on Ukraine, his first public statements after his appointment sounded more like a recognition of the Russian military’s vulnerabilities than blustery threats.

In remarks on Russian state television, Surovikin acknowledged that Russian forces in southern Ukraine were in a “quite difficult position” in the face of the Ukrainian counteroffensive.

In carefully scripted comments that Surovikin appeared to read from a teleprompter, he said that further action in the region will depend on the evolving combat situation. Observers interpreted his statement as an attempt to prepare the public for a possible Russian pullback from the strategic southern city of Kherson in southern Ukraine.

Surovikin began his military career with the Soviet army in 1980s and, as a young lieutenant, was named an infantry platoon commander. When he later rose to air force chief, it drew a mixed reaction in the ranks because it marked the first time when the job was given to an infantry officer.

He found himself in the center of a political storm in 1991.

When members of the Communist Party’s old guard staged a hardline coup in August of that year, briefly ousting Gorbachev and sending troops into Moscow to impose a state of emergency, Surovikin commanded one of the mechanized infantry battalions that rolled into the capital.

Popular resistance mounted quickly, and in the final hours of the three-day coup, protesters blocked an armored convoy led by Surovikin and tried to set some of the vehicles ablaze. In a chaotic melee, two protesters were shot and a third was crushed to death by an armored vehicle.

The coup collapsed later that day, and Surovikin was quickly arrested. He spent seven months behind bars pending an inquiry but was eventually acquitted and even promoted to major as investigators concluded that he was only fulfilling his duties.

Another rocky moment in his career came in 1995, when Surovikin was convicted of illegal possession and trafficking of firearms while studying at a military academy. He was sentenced to a year in prison, but the conviction was reversed quickly.

He rose steadily through the ranks, commanding units deployed to the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, leading troops sent to Chechnya and serving at other posts across Russia.

He was appointed commander of Russian forces in Syria in 2017 and served a second stint there in 2019 as Moscow sought to prop up President Bashar Assad’s regime and help it regain ground amid a devastating civil war.

In a 2020 report, Human Rights Watch named Surovikin, along with Putin, Assad and other figures as bearing command responsibility for violations during the 2019-20 Syrian offensive in Idlib province.

He apparently has a temper that has not endeared him to subordinates, according to Russian media. One officer under Surovikin complained to prosecutors that the general had beaten him after becoming angry over how he voted in parliamentary elections; another subordinate reportedly shot himself. Investigators found no wrongdoing in either case.

His track record in Syria could have been a factor behind his appointment in Ukraine, as Putin has moved to raise the stakes and reverse a series of humiliating defeats.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who has repeatedly called for ramping up strikes in Ukraine, praised Surovikin as “a real general and a warrior, well-experienced, farsighted and forceful who places patriotism, honor and dignity above all.”

“The united group of forces is now in safe hands,” the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov said, voicing confidence that he will “improve the situation.”
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Boris Johnson returned to Britain on Saturday as he considers an audacious attempt to win a second term as prime minister only weeks after he was forced to step down, with some colleagues warning his comeback could create more political chaos.

Potential candidates to replace Prime Minister Liz Truss, who quit on Thursday after six weeks in office, were embarking on a frantic weekend of lobbying to secure enough nominations to enter the leadership contest before Monday’s deadline.

Johnson, who was on holiday in the Caribbean when Truss resigned, has not commented publicly about a bid for his old job. He has received the support of dozens of Conservative lawmakers, but he needs to secure 100 nominations to be considered.

Trade department minister James Duddridge said Friday that Johnson told him he was “up for it.” He said Saturday that Johnson had secured 100 nominations, although a Reuters tally put him with about 40. The tally showed former finance minister Rishi Sunak, for now the bookmakers’ favorite, had exceeded 100.

The Sunday Times reported Sunak and Johnson could meet late Saturday, without giving details on the planned discussions.

Only former defense minister Penny Mordaunt has formally declared she will run, although a Reuters tally showed she only had 22 nominations so far before Monday’s 1300 GMT deadline.

The next prime minister, a post that will have changed hands three times in four years, faces a huge inbox after Truss’s economic plans hammered bond markets, raised government borrowing costs and added more strains on households and businesses already struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.  

Johnson was booed by some passengers on the plane to Britain, according to a Sky News reporter on the flight, which arrived in London on Saturday morning.

Wearing a dark jacket and backpack, Johnson waved to photographers at London’s Gatwick Airport before driving away.

It would be a stunning comeback for the former journalist and ex-Mayor of London, who left Downing Street shrouded in scandal, saying fellow party lawmakers “changed the rules halfway through” to prevent him serving a full term.

In a boost to Sunak, another potential contender, trade minister Kemi Badenoch who ran in a leadership race earlier this year, backed the former finance minister. The move means she ruled herself out from another bid for the top job.

Divisive twist

The prospect of another Johnson premiership is a polarizing issue for many in the Conservative Party, which is deeply divided after seeing off four prime ministers in six years.

For some Conservative lawmakers, Johnson is a vote-winner, able to appeal across the country with his celebrity image and brand of energetic optimism. For others he is a toxic figure who would struggle to unite the party and so might undermine efforts to build a stable leadership to calm rattled financial markets.

Former interior minister Priti Patel said her old boss had “the mandate to deliver our elected manifesto and a proven track record getting the big decisions right.”

Andrew Bridgen, another Conservative lawmaker, said he might resign from the parliamentary group if Johnson returned and told Conservatives not to create a Johnson “personality cult.”

Former Conservative party leader William Hague said Johnson’s return would lead to a “death spiral” for the party. If Johnson can secure enough nominations, he could go head-to-head with Sunak, who quit as his finance minister in July, saying his former boss was unable to take tough decisions.

Johnson is currently under investigation by Parliament’s Privileges Committee to establish whether he lied to the House of Commons over lockdown-breaking parties. Ministers found to have knowingly misled parliament are expected to resign.

The contest has been accelerated to take only a week. Under the rules, only three candidates will be able to reach the first ballot of lawmakers on Monday afternoon, with the final two put to a vote on Friday that is limited to about 170,000 signed up members of the Conservative Party.
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Thousands of Iranians were among an estimated 80,000 people who joined in a rally Saturday in Berlin, the largest of several protests in cities around the world showing solidarity with women-led protests in Iran. 

Iranians traveled to Berlin for the protests and were in other demonstrations in Sweden, Italy, France, Switzerland and other European cities, photos show. Protests were also reported in London and Finland. 

An Iranian who lives in the Netherlands and traveled to Berlin to participate in the rally sent a photo to Voice of America. 

Music played, including the song “For Freedom,” which has become a symbol of the nationwide protests of Iranians. And various groups chanted together “Death to the Islamic Republic.”  

“Today, thousands of people are showing their solidarity with courageous women and demonstrators in Iran,” tweeted Germany’s Green Party minister for family affairs, Lisa Paus. “We are by your side,” she noted. 

‘Women, Life, Freedom’

At a rally in New Zealand, Iranians held Iran’s lion and sun flag and chanted the slogan “women of freedom.” 

In Brisbane, Australia, Iranians held a demonstration despite the rain. 

At the Berlin rally, called by a women’s collective, some marchers brandished slogans such as “Women, Life, Freedom” and some waved Kurdish flags. 

“From Zahedan to Tehran, I sacrifice my life for Iran,” human rights activist Fariba Balouch said after giving a speech at the Berlin gathering, referring to Iranian cities swept up in the protests. The crowd responded with “Death to Khamenei,” referring to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Anti-government activists said the Berlin march was the largest ever demonstration against the Islamic Republic by Iranians abroad.  

“I feel very good, because we are here to [say] ‘We are with you, with all Iranian people.’ I am Mahsa Amini’s voice,” said a protester who gave her name as Maru. 

Participants peacefully made their way toward the city center in radiant autumnal sunshine, as police followed their progress from helicopters. 

Protests around Iran

Iran has seen six weeks of growing women-led protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini. She was arrested in mid-September by Iran’s morality police and died in their custody three days later. Amini, 22, was arrested for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress code for women. 

In Iran Saturday, protests were reported in Tehran, where protesters chanted “Death to the dictator” around Tehran’s bazaar, among several cities, and shopkeepers and factory workers went on strike as citizens continue to react angrily to Amini’s death.  

Protests also were reported in Karaj, a suburb of Tehran, and Mashhad. 

In Mashhad, Iran’s second-most populous city, protesters reportedly chanted, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we are all together” as drivers honked their horns in support. 

The protests are the biggest seen in the Islamic republic for years, harking back to 2019 rallies sparked by rocketing fuel prices. 

The published images from the cities of Sanandaj, Saqqez and Marivan in Kurdistan province, as well as Bukan in the West Azerbaijan province, depict the general strike of workers. 

Young women have led the charge, removing their headscarves, chanting anti-government slogans and confronting the security forces. 

The Oslo-based, Iran Human Rights group says at least 122 people — including some children — have died in the unrest. 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 
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The Vatican said Saturday it and China had renewed a secret and contested agreement on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in the communist country.

It was the second time the accord, which is still provisional, was extended for another two years since it was first reached in 2018. The latest extension had been widely expected, with Pope Francis foreseeing it in an exclusive interview with Reuters on July 2.

The deal was a bid to ease a longstanding divide across mainland China between an underground flock loyal to the pope and a state-backed official church. For the first time since the 1950s, both sides recognized the pope as supreme leader of the Catholic Church.

Critics, including Cardinal Joseph Zen, 90, the former archbishop of Hong Kong, have denounced it as a sell-out to the communist authorities. Zen is currently on trial over the use of a charity fund for pro-democracy protesters and critics have accused the Vatican of not doing enough to defend him in public.

Zen pleaded not guilty.

The Vatican-China deal centers on cooperation over the appointment of bishops, giving the pope the final and decisive say.

Only six new bishops have been appointed since the deal was struck, which its opponents say proves it is not producing the desired effects. They also point to increasing restrictions on religious freedoms in China for Christians and other minorities.

In the July interview with Reuters, the pope acknowledged the deal “is going slowly” but that the Church needed to take the long view in China and that an imperfect dialogue was better than no contact at all.

Francis compared the deal’s opponents to those who criticized Popes John XXII and Paul VI in the 1960s and 1970s over the so-called small steps policy, in which the Vatican struck sometimes uncomfortable deals with Eastern European communist nations to keep the Church alive during the Cold War and limit its persecution there.

Steps toward healing

Official Vatican media ran interviews with two cardinals defending the deal.

Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the accord’s chief architect, said that while the achievements since 2018 “may seem small,” in the context of a conflicted history they were “important steps toward the progressive healing of the wounds inflicted” on the Chinese Church.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a Filipino whose mother is of Chinese descent, said the challenge was to convince authorities that “belonging to the Church does not represent an obstacle to being a good Chinese citizen.”

The Vatican has insisted that the deal is circumscribed to the Church structure in China and is not in itself a precursor to establishing full diplomatic relations with Beijing, which would necessitate the Holy See severing ties with Taiwan.

The Vatican is the last state in Europe to recognize Taiwan, which China views as its own territory, to be taken by force if necessary.

Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry said it set great store by the Vatican’s “solemn commitment” that the deal was about religious rather than diplomatic or political matters, adding that it hoped the accord would “help improve China’s growing religious freedom problem.”

The renewal of the Vatican-Beijing deal came as China’s Communist Party wrapped up its twice-a-decade congress on Saturday, approving amendments cementing President Xi Jinping’s iron grip on the party.

Last month, the Vatican tried to arrange a meeting between Xi, 69, and the pope, 85, while both leaders were in Kazakhstan, but China declined.
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Giorgia Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots emerged victorious in recent elections, was sworn in on Saturday as Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. She is also the first woman to be premier.

Meloni, 45, recited the oath of office before President Sergio Mattarella, who formally asked her to form a government a day earlier. 

Her Brothers of Italy party, which she co-founded in 2012, will rule in coalition with the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini and the conservative Forza Italia party headed by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. Those two parties’ popularity has sagged with voters in recent years. 

Meloni recited the ritual oath of office, pledging to be faithful to Italy’s post-war republic and to act “in the exclusive interests of the nation.” The pledge was signed by her and counter-signed by Mattarella, who, in his role as head of state, serves as guarantor of the Constitution, drafted in the years immediately after the end of war, which saw the demise of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.

Meloni’s 24 ministers followed, similarly swearing in. Five of the ministers are technocrats, not representing any party. Six of them are women. 

In her campaign for the Sept. 25 election, Meloni insisted that national interests prevail over European Union policies should there be conflict. She often railed against EU bureaucracy.

Salvini’s right-wing League party has at times leaned euroskeptic. An admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Salvini has also questioned the wisdom of EU sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, arguing that they hurt Italian business interests more than Russian ones. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sounded an upbeat note in her congratulations tweet to Meloni right after she was sworn in and noted that the Italian was the first woman to hold the premiership.

“I count on and look forward to constructive cooperation with the new government on the challenges we face together,” the EU chief said.

One immediate challenge for Meloni will be ensuring that her country stays solidly aligned with other major nations in the West in helping that country fight off the Russian invaders. 

In the days before she became premier, Meloni resorted to giving an ultimatum to her other main coalition partner, Berlusconi, over his professed sympathy for Putin. 

Berlusconi in remarks to his center-right Forza Italia party lawmakers, delivered what was tantamount to justification for the Russian invasion in February to install what he called a “decent” government in the Ukrainian capital.

After making clear she’d rather not govern than lead a coalition with any partner wavering over continued Italian support for Ukraine, aligned with Europe and NATO – “Italy with us in government will never be the weak link of the West” – Meloni tapped as her foreign minister a longtime Berlusconi stalwart with solid pro-Europe credentials. Antonio Tajani formerly was president of the European Parliament. 

With potential wavering in Parliament by her Russian-sympathizing allies, as well as from former Premier Giuseppe Conte, a populist opposition leader, over continued arms supplies to Ukraine, Meloni appointed one of her party co-founders, Guido Crosetto, as defense minister.

Meloni will lay out her priorities when she pitches for support in Parliament ahead of confidence votes required of new governments. Voting is expected within a few days.

While her government holds a comfortable majority in the legislature, the vote could indicate any cracks in her coalition if any of her partners’ lawmakers, perhaps disgruntled by not getting ministries they wanted for their parties, don’t rally behind her.

Meloni’s government replaces that led by Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank chief who was appointed by Mattarella in 2021 to lead a pandemic national unity coalition. Meloni was the only major party leader to refuse to join that coalition, insisting governments must be decided by the voters.

In any unusual touch for a country used to male-dominated politics and power, attending the swearing-in ceremony in a sumptuous room of the Quirinal Palace was Meloni’s companion, who is a journalist in Berlusconi’s media empire, and their 6-year-old daughter, Ginevra. 

While Meloni didn’t campaign openly to be Italy’s first woman premier, she has said there would be no doubt that her victory would be clearly breaking through the “glass ceiling” that discourages women’s progress.
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