RIYADMEDIA

A convenient location with the necessary infrastructure for military exercises, both on land and in sea, made Iceland a perfect venue for two-week NATO military exercises that ended earlier this month. Valentina Vasileva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Camera: Elena Matusovsky.
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China has invested tens of billions of dollars in Europe under its ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ – which is marking its tenth birthday. While the Chinese money has seen new infrastructure built, there is concern over debt payments in some countries and a trend to block Beijing’s acquisition of key strategic assets. Henry Ridgwell has more from London. (Camera: Henry Ridgwell; Produced by: Bakhtiyar Zamanov)
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President Joe Biden said Tuesday that “we have Israel’s back,” as Washington attempts to defuse tensions in the Middle East after a stunning terrorist attack by Hamas militants. More than 1,000 people, including at least 14 Americans, have been killed by Hamas militants who stormed over the border Saturday, killing and kidnapping civilians and security forces. 

VOA Ukrainian Service’s Iuliia Iarmolenko spoke Tuesday to John Kirby, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, shortly before Biden addressed the nation in a televised address. 

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

VOA: Can you lay out a roadmap of how the United States is planning to address the situation in Israel? Are you preparing for a long haul or possible regional work?

John Kirby: Well, how long this conflict goes on is really something for the Israelis to speak to, not the United States. What I think you’ll hear from the president today is that we stand solidly and strongly behind Israel, their right to defend themselves, to live in peace and security, to go after these Hamas terrorists that perpetrated this barbaric violence on Israeli citizens, just innocent people going about their lives, and that we’re going to, we’re going to continue to support their needs. There’s already one tranche of military aid on its way to Israel, it should be there soon. I suspect there’ll be others. The president will talk about that in his remarks. We also are mindful that there’s a hostage situation going on. And this is not like any typical hostage situation; it’s also a war zone. So, that’s going to complicate recovery efforts, and the president will talk about how we are offering our support, our advice and counsel. We have terrific hostage recovery experts here in the United States, and we’re willing to chip in that expertise should the Israelis find that required.

VOA: The administration has been pretty cautious in describing Iran’s role in the Hamas attack on Israel. Why? And any signs of possible Russia’s involvement? 

Kirby: Make no mistake, Iran has a degree of complicity here. They’ve been supporting Hamas for many years: training, tools, weapons, capabilities. So, nobody’s walking away from the fact that Hamas wouldn’t be able to function if it wasn’t for the support that they get from Iran. What we have said and our Israeli counterparts have said as well is we just haven’t seen any direct evidence that they were involved specifically in these attacks. But we’re going to keep looking at this. We’ll keep monitoring the intelligence picture and the evidence, and we’ll see where it takes us. 

VOA: How about Russia’s involvement? 

Kirby: We see no indication that Russia was at all directly involved in these attacks either.

VOA: There are reports that President Biden did not urge Prime Minister Netanyahu to exercise restraint in Gaza in the immediate aftermath of the Hamas attack. Will the administration communicate any concerns or guidance before Israel’s anticipated ground operation in Gaza? 

Kirby: Well, again, without talking to Israeli military operations — that’s for them to speak to — I think we all recognize given the threats that they faced and the violence that they’ve been dealing with in the last few hours, that they have to respond aggressively against Hamas, and you’re seeing that play out. They are doing that. Nobody wants to see innocent civilians killed or hurt. Sadly, there’s been too much of that already. Almost 1,000 Israelis now butchered and slaughtered, raped and tortured in front of their family members, and nobody wants to see innocent life taken. And there, as I said, there’s been too much of it. 

One of the great things about our relationship with Israel is that we’re two vibrant democracies and we mutually believe in things like the respect for innocent life and the rule of law. And we’re always stronger together, our two countries, when we show that to the world, that we do respect innocent life and that we do respect not only the rule of law, but the law of war. So, you know, we’ll obviously, we’ll again provide the kind of support that we need to provide to Israel, and we will always stand up for the opposite example of what Hamas is doing, which is not only no respect for life, but the wanton, indiscriminate, murder, butchery of human life. 

VOA: But is it going to be communicated to Prime Minister Netanyahu? 

Kirby: We, again, this is something that we obviously share with Israel, and you know, these are, these are two countries, two partners that certainly have very open lines of communication, and this is one of the great things about our relationship.

VOA: On Ukraine, you said yesterday the administration wants to make sure that there is no gap in assistance to Ukraine, not even a day. Are you confident that that’s going to be the case? Given all the situation that transpired in Israel? Is the administration considering pairing Ukraine and Israel aid requests for faster approval in Congress? 

Kirby: It is important that Ukraine continue to get the aid that it needs. They are involved in still a counteroffensive in facing Russian aggression on their own soil. And you’re right, we don’t want to see a single lapse. That’s why we’re going to continue to work with Congress to see if we can get supplemental funding. We’ve got enough right now to get us through some time. But as I said the other day, it’s not indefinite, and that’s the reason we made a supplemental request. How those conversations with Congress play out, what that looks like, I can’t say at this point. Both Ukraine and Israel are important. Both need American military assistance, and it’s important to our national security interest, let alone theirs, but ours too, that they get that assistance. So, we’re going to continue to work with Congress.

VOA: But is there communication to put these two funding requests together for their faster approval?

Kirby: Yeah, I’m not going to talk about the process here of the conversations that we’re having with Congress. Both countries need U.S. military assistance in terms of weapons and capabilities. Both are under assault. Both have every right to defend themselves and their citizens. And in that defense, our national security interests are actually benefited. We’re going to continue to have these conversations with Congress. How that’s going to play out I just can’t say, and I wouldn’t talk about the specifics of the conversations that we’re having.

VOA: One more question on that. Does the administration consider requesting bigger funding for Ukraine, so-called “one and done” aid package till the next election in the United States?

Kirby: Again, I don’t want to get into the conversations that we’re having with members of Congress. We already submitted a supplemental for the first quarter of the fiscal year here this fall. We believe that that supplemental request was adequate to the task. We urge Congress to pass that supplemental funding, but as for what other conversations might be happening, I’d really rather not get into that.

VOA: OK. And you said yesterday also that Ukraine has some weeks of good weather to be productive and efficient with their counteroffensive. Isn’t this a good time to provide ATACMS [missiles] for Ukraine?

Kirby: Again, ATACMS are not off the table. We are having continued reviews of the additional capabilities that Ukraine needs. I’m not in a position to announce anything with respect to ATACMS. I would just tell you that as the war has evolved and changed, the capabilities that we have provided Ukraine has evolved and changed, and I would expect that that change will continue. 

VOA: Including ATACMS?

Kirby: I’m just going to leave it there. 

VOA: OK. And just let me ask this: You said yesterday that all energy right now is on helping Israel to defend itself. Do you think that there is a possibility that actors like Russia and China might use this opportunity when all eyes are on Israel to their advantage, and how to prevent that?

Kirby: It is certainly possible that other nations, other actors that are hostile to Israel could try to take advantage of the situation. And that is one of the reasons that the president, as commander-in-chief, ordered a carrier strike group into the eastern Mediterranean to send a strong signal to anybody who might be thinking that this is a good opportunity to get involved and try to broaden this conflict beyond just Hamas, and that they are to rethink that plan. They ought to rethink those considerations. So I can’t speak to anything specific with respect to Russia or China’s involvement one way or the other, but we have made it clear, and we’ll continue to make it clear that we take our national security interests in the region very, very seriously. 
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Finnish President Sauli Niinisto said on Tuesday a leak leading to the shutdown of a natural gas pipeline from Estonia to Finland this weekend was probably caused by “external” activity.

Last year, a series of underwater blasts ruptured three pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Western Europe at a time of high geopolitical tensions as Moscow cut gas supplies to Europe.

While the government cautioned against leaping to any conclusions, saying it seemed unlikely that explosives were the cause, the Norwegian seismological institute NORSAR said Monday it detected a “probable explosion” in the area of the leak.

Niinisto said that he had been in touch with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, and that the military alliance was ready to assist in the investigation.

He said that the cause of the damage was not yet clear, and that Finland and Estonia were cooperating in an ongoing investigation.

Estonian officials confirmed Monday that underwater telecommunications lines linking to Finland were also damaged.

The two damaged elements “are in very different locations, although the timing [of the incidents] is quite close,” Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur said at a press briefing.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo told reporters later that a preliminary assessment suggested that “the discovered damage could not have been caused by normal use of the pipeline or pressure fluctuations.”

He said the leak was located in the Finnish exclusive economic zone.

When asked about the likelihood of Russian involvement, Orpo said it was important to “gather all the information that is available and not to jump to conclusions at this stage.”

Timo Kilpelainen, head of the investigation department at the National Bureau of Investigation, said at the same press conference that there were “no indications that explosives were used in the act.”

Stoltenberg posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the military alliance was “sharing information and stands ready to support Allies concerned.”

European Council President Charles Michel also offered his “full support and solidarity” to the affected countries and called for “a full investigation” in a message on X, formerly Twitter. 

Finland’s gas network operator, state-owned Gasgrid, said Sunday that the Balticconnector pipeline had been shut down over a suspected leak.

The operator said “an unusual drop in pressure” had been noticed in the pipeline running along the seabed of the Gulf of Finland.

Gasgrid said the Finnish gas system was stable, with supply secured through a floating liquefied natural gas terminal in Inkoo.

In late September 2022, a series of underwater blasts ruptured three of the four pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, a major conduit for Russian natural gas exports to Western Europe, spewing gas into the Baltic Sea.

The pipelines had been at the center of geopolitical tensions as Russia cut gas supplies to Europe in suspected retaliation to Western sanctions over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

Because the leaks occurred in their exclusive economic zones, Denmark and Sweden opened probes into the attack, as did Germany.

All three countries have kept a tight lid on their investigations, which analysts say is unsurprising given the potential diplomatic fallout of what they might uncover.

Telecom operator Elisa also confirmed Tuesday it was experiencing a disruption caused by a “cable break” during the weekend.

“The disruption has no impact on Elisa’s services, as it is a backup connection,” the operator said in a statement.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with his counterpart in Romania Tuesday for talks on regional security and to strengthen bilateral ties against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of his country.

He described the partnership between the two countries as key to “stability for Europe and beyond” on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, after meeting with President Klaus Iohannis in the capital, Bucharest.

The two discussed security in the Black Sea region, economic cooperation, shared infrastructure projects, and Ukraine’s requests for military support, Zelenskyy told reporters after the meetings. He also thanked Romania for providing both military and humanitarian support to his war-torn country.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Ukrainian president described the NATO and European Union member country on X as “a friend who came to our help on our darkest day and whose support gets stronger with time.”

In recent weeks, Russia has carried out sustained attacks on Ukraine’s Danube River ports — located just across the river from Romania — as Moscow aims to disrupt Ukraine’s ability to export grain to world markets. Romania has confirmed drone fragment findings on its territory, the type used by the Russian army near its border with Ukraine.

“In Romania, it is well known how dangerous Russian terrorism is, how dangerous the drones and missiles are that attack the villages near the Romanian border,” Zelenskyy said. “Ukrainian pilots will be trained in Romania, and I discussed this with the Romanian president. We discussed our military requests.”

In July, Romania’s Supreme Council of National Defense said the country aims to open a regional training hub for F-16 fighter jet pilots from fellow NATO countries and other partners, including Ukraine.

For his part, Iohannis said Romania is “focused on helping Ukraine win the war” against Russia and that supporting Ukraine is in his country’s strategic interest. “Strengthening Ukraine’s security means strengthening Romania’s security.”

Ukraine and Romania signed an agreement in August to try and boost Kyiv’s grain exports through Romania after Russia withdrew from a wartime agreement a month earlier that ensured safe passage through the Black Sea. Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta has become a key transport route for the war-torn nation’s grain amid the war.

Ukraine is a major global supplier of wheat, barley, corn and vegetable oil and has struggled since Russia’s invasion to get its food products to parts of the world in need. After Russia blocked the grain’s Black Sea passage, that left more expensive overland routes through Europe as the main path for Ukraine’s exports.

The Ukrainian president’s trip to Romania is his first official visit since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year. In the wake of the invasion, millions of Ukrainian refugees fled to Romania before moving on to other countries.

Around 85,000 Ukrainian refugees are currently registered in Romania, under the EU’s temporary protection scheme.
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On October 15, Polish voters will choose their next parliament which will form Poland’s new government. One of two main political forces — the Law and Justice Party or the Civic Coalition — will likely have to form a coalition to govern Poland, the largest post-communist EU and NATO member, and a critical supporter of Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion. Myroslava Gongadze in Warsaw explains why these elections are important. Camera and video editing by Daniil Batushchak.
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Pausing during an early morning walk in northeastern Paris, Patrick Street assessed the fallout of the Hamas attack on Israel, thousands of miles away, which ruined the tail end of Jewish Sukkot celebrations with his family.

“There’s no limit to the cruelty,” said Street, who has family in Israel, of the Hamas strikes that killed hundreds of Israelis— even as he recalled previous antisemitic attacks in France.

“It’s just gratuitous hatred,” he said. “Kill just to kill.”

As leaders across Europe condemn Hamas’ assault and express solidarity with Israel, Jews like Street worry about the potential reaction at home — in a region that is no stranger to Islamist attacks. So do some French Muslims, as the death toll mounts in both Israel and Gaza, and the Israeli government mounts a fearsome counterattack in the Palestinian territory.

In countries like Italy, Spain, Germany and Britain, governments are tightening security for Jewish institutions, banning pro-Palestinian demonstrations for fear of violence and calling for zero tolerance against antisemitism.

European cities have also held rallies for peace and the Israeli victims in Saturday’s early morning attack by Hamas. And fears are mounting that a spreading conflict in the Middle East could have effects on European soil.

“No violence, no riots and no hatred on German streets,” wrote the Central Council of Jews in Germany, whose Jewish population numbers about 100,000. The Council said it was in “intensive contact” with German authorities.

Concern about a potential uptick in violence is especially high in France, home to Western Europe’s largest populations of Jews and Muslims — and where a raft of antisemitic attacks over the past two decades helped drive thousands of Jews to resettle in Israel.

“The fear is real,” said Michel Serfaty, a French rabbi who heads a Jewish-Muslim friendship association, noting especially the country’s longstanding fight against radical Islam. “We are trying to stay serene.”

For now, authorities are playing down those concerns.

“There is no blatant threat” to France’s Jewish community for the moment, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told a local radio station Monday. Still, he described roughly a dozen antisemitic acts that had been registered over the weekend. Police have been dispatched to guard Jewish schools and synagogues across the country.

Yonathan Arfi, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, or CRIF, similarly said he was not “excessively worried” about attacks against the roughly half-million Jews in the country.

Even so, “we are vigilant,” Arfi told France Info radio, of a potential uptick in violence by terrorists or other assailants. “In their eyes,” he added, “attacking French Jews is a way of doing their share in the fight against Israel.”

On Monday, thousands of people gathered in Paris in support of Israel, with others held elsewhere in France. The rally was attended by an array of French politicians who have largely deplored the Hamas strikes.

A rare holdout, the far-left France Unbowed Party, has been blasted for qualifying the Hamas attacks as taking place within “intensifying Israeli occupation policy.” French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne called the party’s response a “revolting ambiguity.”

Politically fraught

Tensions in the Middle East have long boomeranged in France, where many of the country’s roughly 500,000 Jews and up to 6 million Muslims hail from similar North African roots.

The country has seen a spate of antisemitic acts in recent decades, and a rise in radical Islam, especially during the spreading grip of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. In 2012, three students and a rabbi were gunned down by an Islamist militant in the southern city of Toulouse. In early 2015 another militant, Amedy Coulibaly, killed four shoppers at a kosher supermarket in Paris.

Over the past decade roughly 30,000 Jews have reportedly made their Aliyah, or immigration, to Israel, although the departures dropped off earlier this year. Muslims say they are also victims of slurs and attacks, although these are smaller in number and intensity.

Patrick Street, who was celebrating the Jewish holidays with family in Paris, said he kept a low profile in his home city of Lyon.

“I wouldn’t walk around with a kippah on my head,” he said. “I put on a baseball cap. I’m discreet.”

A few years ago, many mainstream French Muslims and Jews came together in demonstrations following a spate of Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris and elsewhere that killed hundreds of people of all faiths. France’s Muslim population is offering a more muted and mixed response the Hamas attacks against the Jewish state, given widespread support Palestinians still have across the Arab and Muslim worlds.

At an outdoor food market in Paris’ 19th arrondissement, fruit seller Hichem Gafef from Cairo said he was simply saddened by the brutality.

“We Egyptians made peace with Israel in 1979,” he said. “If there are problems, they need to be solved by politicians.”

Abdallah Zekri, vice president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, condemned the death of “innocent people on both sides,” referring to both Israeli victims but also Palestinians killed in retaliatory Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. But he specifically refused to condemn Hamas.

“What is happening is distressing,” Zekri said in an interview. “We need a durable peace with a Palestinian and Israeli state that live side by side.”

Tareq Oubrou, rector of the Bordeaux Mosque, similarly condemned “all terrorist and savage action to the peaceful, innocent and weak.” In a response by text message, he did not single out a perpetrator.

One Muslim woman who lives outside Paris, and who has long worked to build ties with her Jewish counterparts, said many like herself were fearful of speaking out. She declined to be identified, for fear of retaliation.

“We’re not free,” she said, describing worries of being targeted by fellow Muslims who were suspicious of French Jews and held strong, anti-Israel views. “I can’t open my mouth, because the penalties are really heavy. We’re afraid for our families.”

Serfaty, the rabbi from the Jewish-Muslim friendship association, said the only Muslim leader to reach out to him since the Hamas attack was the imam in the French suburb where he lives.

“He came to tell me of his solidarity and his attachment to the Jewish community,” Serfaty said. “I haven’t heard news from the others.”
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A Moscow court on Tuesday rejected U.S. reporter Evan Gershkovich’s appeal of his detention on spy charges and ordered him held until November 30.

Gershkovich was arrested during a reporting trip at the end of March in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, becoming the first Western reporter to be jailed on spy charges in Russia since the Soviet era.

The 31-year-old Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent, his employer and the U.S. government have rejected the spying allegations.  

Judge Yuri Pasyunin at Moscow City Court ruled to “keep (the detention) without changes” until November 30, an AFP reporter at the court said.

Gershkovich wore a checkered shirt and jeans, smiling to journalists that he knew from behind the glass cage where he was held in court. 

U.S. diplomats were present at the hearing. 

Gershkovich had appealed an August decision to prolong his detention by three months. 

Russia has not provided public evidence of the allegations it has made against Gershkovich.

The American, who previously worked for AFP, continued to report from Russia after the Kremlin launched its Ukraine offensive, despite many Western journalists leaving the country.

He has been held at Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison. 
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In a sign that President Vladimir Putin may resume nuclear testing, Russian lawmakers were given until October 18 to examine ways to rescind Moscow’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a global nuclear test ban.

The possible step was announced Friday by Russia’s envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

In a statement Monday, the head of the CTBTO, Robert Floyd, expressed concern about the developments. “Banning nuclear testing remains essential to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and to safeguarding current and future generations from the harmful effects of explosive nuclear testing,” he said

Washington has denounced Russia’s move as endangering “the global norm” against nuclear test blasts.

However, Putin said Russia’s possible action to revoke the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would bring it into line with the United States, which has signed but not ratified the pact.

The U.S. did not ratify the treaty, but it has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions since 1992.

The 1996 treaty prohibiting “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” anywhere in the world has been signed by 187 nations but not ratified by eight of them, including the United States.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) urged Moscow to think before acting.

“Russia must drop its reckless threat to leave,” ICAN said in a statement.

“International treaties … are critical to making sure nuclear testing, which has harmed people’s health and spread lasting radioactive contamination, is not resumed.”

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms Control Association, has said the move could “take Russia and the world backward to a dangerous era of tit-for-tat nuclear threats.”

Ukraine-Middle East

Addressing the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drew a parallel between the atrocities on civilian populations in Ukraine and those on the people of Israel.

“The only difference is that there is a terrorist organization that attacked Israel, and here is a terrorist state that attacked Ukraine,” he said, and called for unity amid the crisis.

In a separate video address, Zelenskyy warned Russia is interested in triggering a war in the Middle East, “so that a new source of pain and suffering could undermine world unity, increase discord and contradictions, and thus help Russia destroy freedom in Europe.”

“We see Russian propagandists gloating. We see Moscow’s Iranian friends openly supporting those who attacked Israel. And all of this is a much greater threat than the world currently perceives,” he added.

In an exclusive interview with the Ukrainian service of VOA, Ukraine Main Directorate of Intelligence spokesperson Andrii Yusov claimed that the Russian special services are using the terrorist attacks on Israel in an anti-Ukrainian propaganda campaign.

Yusov claimed that Ukrainian intelligence received information that Russia has funneled to Hamas “trophy” weapons captured by Russia in Ukraine. This move, Yusov alleged, is meant to implicate Ukraine as a supplier of western weaponry to Hamas terrorists and subsequently discredit it “in the eyes of the free world, its partners and allies.” Yusov added such a propaganda campaign aims “to disrupt or complicate the provision of further Western military assistance” to Ukraine.

“These are fakes and provocations, of course,” Yusov said, “All aid to Ukraine and all armaments are under strict control by our partners, the United States and the countries of the European Union, NATO. The results of this control and the results of inspections have been reported on several times. Ukraine is being as transparent and open as possible,” he said.

A warning that the Kremlin “is already and will likely continue to exploit the Hamas attacks on Israel” — to hype its rhetoric against Western interference in Ukraine, demoralize Ukrainians, and reassure Russians the focus of the West on the Israeli crisis will deflect its attention from the war in Ukraine — was reiterated Sunday by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Following Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, the Kremlin primarily blamed the West for neglecting conflicts in the Middle East in favor of supporting Ukraine and claimed that the international community will turn its attention to the Middle East crisis and will cease to focus on Ukraine.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said that the United States and its allies should be “busy” with work on a “Palestinian-Israeli settlement” and not “interfere” in Russia’s affairs and provide military aid to Ukraine, the ISW reports.

Hroza burial

Residents of the Ukrainian village of Hroza, in northeastern Ukraine, wept beside coffins Monday as they buried relatives and neighbors killed in one of the deadliest attacks in nearly 20 months of war.

The small community has been devastated by Thursday’s attack, in which Ukrainian officials said a Russian missile slammed into a cafe in Hroza as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier.

United Nations investigators are in the Ukrainian village where the Russian missile strike killed 52 people. The lead investigator said in a statement, “My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village cafe and store, was also clearly civilian.”

Among the dead were the village leader, a couple who left behind four children, and the dead soldier’s wife and son.

VOA Ukrainian Service reporter Mariia Ulianovska contributed to this report. Some information came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy drew parallels Monday between Hamas attacks on Israelis and Russian strikes on Ukrainians, calling them “equally evil.”

“And the Israelis themselves, the Israeli journalists who were with us, in Ukraine, who were in Bucha, now say that they saw the same evil where Russia came. Equal evil. And there is only one difference: There is a terrorist organization that struck Israel, here there is a terrorist state that struck Ukraine,” Zelenskyy told participants at a NATO meeting via video link.

“The declared intentions are different, but the essence is the same. You see it. You see the same blood on the streets. The same shot civilian cars. These are the same bodies of tortured people,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Disinformation campaign

Ukraine’s main intelligence directorate Monday accused Russian intelligence of conducting a campaign to discredit Kyiv.

“The aggressor state Russia is using the Hamas terrorist attack on the State of Israel for a large-scale provocation against Ukraine. The Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine reports that the Russian GRU has already transferred captured weapons produced in the USA and EU countries to Hamas terrorists captured during the fighting in Ukraine,” said a statement on the department’s Facebook page.

Russia has not signaled that it is supporting any party in the conflict, and has called on all sides to cease violence and negotiate. But Hamas leaders reportedly have traveled to Moscow several times in recent years, and Moscow and Tehran are strategic allies.

In a follow-up interview with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, representative Andrii Yusov of Ukraine’s intelligence directorate said they have information that Russian agents have taken captured equipment in Ukraine and begun handing it over to representatives of Hamas, to create the impression that Ukrainian officials have been selling off the weapons.

“We have information that some of the trophy weapons captured in Ukraine have already been handed over [by Russia] to terrorists-representatives of Hamas, with further unfolding of this IPSO (informational and psychological special operation) and the conclusion that Ukraine was selling something to someone.”

Yusov warned there will be more false accusations that Hamas militants are allegedly fighting the Israeli army with weapons from Ukraine.

Russia hopes attacks divert attention

The American Institute for the Study of War wrote in a report on October 7 that the Kremlin is using, and will likely continue to use, Hamas attacks in Israel to promote information campaigns aimed at reducing U.S. and Western support for and attention to Ukraine.

“The Kremlin has stepped up several information operations since the Hamas attacks in Israel on October 7, most notably accusing the West of neglecting conflicts in the Middle East in favor of supporting Ukraine and declaring that the international community will stop paying attention to Ukraine while reaffirming attention to the Middle East,” ISW analysts say.

The report quotes one Russian propagandist as saying that Russia would benefit from the escalation as the world would “temporarily look away from Ukraine and return to putting out the eternal flames in the Middle East.”
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The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has warned that aid fatigue is growing at a time when a record number of people are fleeing conflict, persecution, human rights violations, climate change, and grinding poverty.

“It is mainly conflict that has driven forced displacement to unprecedented numbers — 110 million refugees and displaced people, the highest in decades,” said Filippo Grandi, UNHCR chief, as he opened the organization’s annual conference.

The yearly event got off to a solemn start with a minute of silence to honor the victims of the recent earthquake in Afghanistan and the conflict in Israel — two incidents that struck both countries on Saturday with devastating repercussions for millions.

Grandi expressed his shock at “the appalling attacks carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians,” warning that this would cause more suffering for both Israeli and Palestinian civilians, “bringing grave instability to a region already plagued by tensions.” 

Grandi called the escalating violence another “very dangerous piece in a growing mosaic of crises which, if not addressed courageously, spells doom for world peace.” 

As conflicts grow, he said, so does disrespect for international humanitarian law with serious consequences for millions of people caught in the middle and forced to flee. 

During a visit to Egypt, South Sudan, and Chad earlier this year, Grandi said he met some refugees fleeing the devastating conflict in Sudan and who spoke of the destruction, death, torture, and rapes they left behind. 

“They recounted how they had to run from the brutal violence that erupted without warning on 15 April. Their lives upended as suddenly as were those of the Ukrainians the year before, and of many Ukrainians now, facing every day the death and destruction resulting from the Russian invasion,” he said, adding that all 110 million people around the world who are uprooted by conflict, violence, and persecution share the same experiences. 

While it was up to the UNHCR to help protect, assist, and find solutions for these people, he acknowledged that this was becoming harder to do every year. 

Grandi said the global situation was dire and worsening. In the past year, he said the UNHCR responded to 44 new emergencies in 31 countries, “capping off an awful record of number of crises in one year.”

The latest emergency, he said saw 100,000 refugees fleeing Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan, for safety to Armenia a few days ago.

But he notes violence continues in many other places, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where nearly 1.5 million people have been newly displaced this year alone, “78,000 of whom fled within the country in just one day last week.” 

“Or in central Sahel, where amidst growing political instability, violence perpetrated by armed groups is forcing more people to flee, including to coastal states. Or in Somalia, where the climate emergency coupled with conflict has forced nearly 900,000 from their homes. 

“Or in Myanmar, where hundreds of thousands have been and are being displaced by fighting,” he said.

Given this backdrop, the high commissioner said he was extremely worried that underfunding was hampering the UNHCR’s humanitarian operations. For example, he noted that the $1 billion Regional Refugee Response Plan, for refugees from Sudan, was just one quarter funded.

Grandi added that this was only one of many humanitarian operations that are short of cash and have been forced to make drastic cuts in food rations, protection needs and other services.

When humanitarian aid is in short supply, he said many people feel compelled to leave their country or countries of refuge and embark on dangerous journeys in search of a better life.

For example, among those reaching Tunisia and Italy today, he said, are Sudanese nationals who recently fled fighting back home and have moved on from countries neighboring Sudan because of insufficient assistance.

Then again, he notes a significant increase in the number of Syrians attempting the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing “at a time when humanitarian aid in Syria and in neighboring countries like Jordan and Lebanon is experiencing, again, drastic reductions.”

The latest data from the International Organization for Migration show nearly 2,000 migrants died between January 1 and June 26 while crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe. 
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Russian shelling has destroyed or damaged 27 out of 34 schools in the Chernihiv region, according to NOVA Ukraine, a nonprofit group that provides aid to the people of Ukraine.
But even as the war continues, some schools are starting to reopen with lots of help. Anna Kosstutschenko reports from Ukraine’s Chernihiv region. Camera and video editing by Pavel Suhodolskiy.
…

In an animal shelter near Athens, veterinarian Kleopatra Gkika gently smears soothing cream on the leg of a tortoise, one of hundreds singed in Greece’s devastating summer wildfires.

The healing process is going well, the vet noted.

The burnt skin has fallen off and the tortoise can soon be released back into its natural habitat.

Even though, there may not be much of that habitat left, Gkika mused.

In July and August, Greece was affected by a series of successive wildfires around the country that left at least 26 people dead.

The area around the shelter in Kalyvia Thorikou, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) southeast of Athens, was among the first to be hit.

A few weeks later, the pristine forest of Dadia in northeastern Greece, which contains a natural park, went up in flames.

The fires eventually engulfed nearly 94,000 hectares of the forest in the largest blaze ever recorded on European soil.

Deflecting criticism, the conservative government of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis — which won re-election in June by a landslide — has blamed the disaster on climate change.

Some 400 tortoises overall were rescued from blaze sites surrounding Athens and on the nearby island of Evia.

‘Nothing left’

They were brought to Anima, a non-profit first aid center for wildlife, and to a zoo near the capital.

“Some tortoises had burns on their legs or on their shell. Others had breathing difficulties because of smoke inhalation,” said Vassilis Sfakianopoulos, the founder of “Save your hood”, a volunteer group that normally cleans up litter.

This summer, the group rescued the tortoises as well as snakes, cats and other animals trapped in the inferno.

“The intensity of the fires was such that there was nothing left. Shrubs turned to charcoal,” added Celine Sissler-Bienvenu of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) charity, which carried out a mission to Greece.

With thousands of people in Greece forced to flee for their safety from the fires, the wildlife was largely forgotten, she said.

But tortoises are resilient animals.

“Tortoises will reduce their metabolism. They can go without eating for several weeks,” Sissler-Bienvenu noted.

“And at the first rain, they will come out to eat.”

At the Kalyvia shelter, the first thing an injured tortoise requires is immersion in a water basin for rehydration.

When an injury is not immediately apparent, vets attempt to detect possible internal injury through smell, Gkika said.

Racing against time

Tortoises ready to be released into the wild have a blue chalk cross mark on their shell.

Around a hundred were already relocated in September.

The team know they are racing against the clock to release them from captivity as soon as possible, said Sissler-Bienvnu.

For animals such as these, which are wild and not social at all, placing them together in an enclosure constitutes additional stress,” she told AFP.

In particular, males will continuously seek to mate and need to be kept apart from the females lest they injure — or even kill them.

Tortoises are also extremely attached to their home area, where they are familiar with hiding places and water sources, and may stop eating if moved elsewhere, Sissler-Bienvenu said.

A 38-year-old engineer, Sfakianopoulos said he is enraged at the sight of the suffering reptiles.

“I find it extremely unfair that no-one in Greece has been taking care of wildlife since the financial crisis,” he said, referring to the decade-long crunch that brought the country to its knees.

But in confronting disaster, “you find hope”, he said.

“It makes you grow and change and you have a real impact on the environment.”
…

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party says that if it wins power, it will appoint a “COVID corruption commissioner” to try and recoup some of the billions lost to fraud and waste during the pandemic. 

Labour economy spokeswoman Rachel Reeves is due to outline the plan in a speech Monday at the party’s annual conference. She says the commissioner will bring together tax officials, fraud investigators and law enforcement officers will track down an estimated $8.8 billion in lost public money spent on grants and contracts related to COVID-19. 

Like many countries, the U.K. was forced to sidestep usual rules as it rushed to procure essential supplies and prop up people’s livelihoods during the coronavirus pandemic. 

Reeves told the BBC the Conservative government was “embarrassed” by the scale of the losses and “doing nothing to get that money back.” 

A multi-year public inquiry is examining Britain’s handling of the pandemic, which left more than 200,000 people in the country dead. 

Reeves’ announcement comes during a four-day conference in Liverpool, where Labour is trying to cement its front-runner status in opinion polls before an election due in 2024. 

The party is running 15 or more points ahead of the governing Conservatives in multiple opinion polls, as Britain endures a sluggish economy and a cost-of-living crisis driven by the pandemic, the war in Ukraine and economic disruption following the U.K.’s exit from the European Union. 

Labour is trying to show it can provide an alternative to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives, who have been in power since 2010. But the opposition party is wary of promising big public spending increases that would require tax hikes. 

Instead, the party says it will get the economy growing faster to fund public services. It’s pledging to build 1.5 million homes to ease Britain’s chronic housing crisis, reform an “antiquated” planning system it says is holding back infrastructure improvements, and repair the creaking, overburdened state-funded National Health Service. 

Leader Keir Starmer has steered the social democratic party back toward the political middle-ground after the divisive tenure of predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, a staunch socialist who advocated nationalization of key industries and infrastructure. Corbyn resigned after Labour suffered its worst election defeat in almost a century in 2019. 

In a sign of Labour’s improving fortunes, the party says more than 200 executives are taking part in a business forum at the conference on Monday. For years, businesses were wary of the party, which has its roots in the trade union movement, and tended to favor the Conservatives. But recent economic and political upheavals have made many think again. 

 
…

Luxembourg’s three-party coalition led by liberal Prime Minister Xavier Bettel lost its decade-long hold on power in tight parliamentary elections, mostly because of a poor showing by the Green party, according to election results early Monday.

Bettel’s DP liberal party surged from 12 to 14 seats in the 60-seat house in Sunday’s elections and the socialist LSAP also added a seat to reach 11. But the fall of the Greens from nine to four seats meant that the coalition falls just short of the numbers needed for a continued five-year stint in government.

The Christian Democrat CSV remains the biggest single party in parliament with 21 seats and will be the power broker to form the next government.

Ten years ago, Bettel succeeded Jean-Claude Juncker, the Christian Democrat who had been Europe’s longest serving democratically elected leader at the time. The CSV Christian Democrats have been left uncharacteristically on the sidelines for the past 10 years, despite being the single biggest party.

In the last elections, Bettel’s coalition controlled 31 of the 60 seats in the Luxembourg parliament.

Coalition talks might take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. Luxembourg is the European Union’s second-smallest country, with a population of 650,000 people, and is its richest per capita.

 
…

Recent satellite photos show a sharp increase in rail traffic along the North Korea-Russia border, indicating the North is supplying munitions to Russia, according to a U.S. think tank.

Speculation about a possible North Korean plan to refill Russia’s munition stores drained in its protracted war with Ukraine flared last month, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un traveled to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin and visit key military sites. Foreign officials suspect Kim is seeking sophisticated Russian weapons technologies in return for the munitions to boost his nuclear program.

“Given that Kim and Putin discussed some military exchanges and cooperation at their recent summit, the dramatic increase in rail traffic likely indicates North Korea’s supply of arms and munitions to Russia,” Beyond Parallel, a website run by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said in a report Friday.

“However, the extensive use of tarps to cover the shipping crates/containers and equipment makes it impossible to conclusively identify what is seen at the Tumangang Rail Facility” on the border, it said.

The report said satellite images as of Oct. 5 captured “a dramatic and unprecedented level of freight railcar traffic” at the Tumangang Rail Facility. It said images show approximately 73 railcars while a review of previous satellite images over the past five years shows about 20 railcars at this facility at most.

U.S. and South Korean officials have warned that North Korea and Russia would face consequences if they went ahead with the reported weapons transfer deal in violation with U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban all weapons trade involving North Korea.

Since last year, the U.S. has accused North Korea of providing ammunition, artillery shells and rockets to Russia, likely much of them copies of Soviet-era munitions. South Korean officials said North Korean weapons provided to Russia had already been used in Ukraine.
…

Finland and Estonia said Sunday that the undersea Balticconnector gas pipeline running between the two countries across the Baltic Sea was temporarily taken out of service due to a suspected leak.

Gasgrid Finland and Elering, the Finnish and Estonian gas system operators, said they noted an unusual drop in pressure in the pipeline shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday, after which they shut down the gas flow.

“Based on observations, it was suspected that the offshore pipeline between Finland and Estonia was leaking,” Gasgrid Finland said in a statement. “The valves in the offshore pipeline are now closed and the leak is thus stopped.”

The Finnish operator gave no reason for the suspected leak and said it was investigating together with Elering.

In September 2022, the Nord Stream gas pipelines running between Germany and Russia in the Baltic Sea were hit by explosions in an incident deemed to be sabotage. A total of four gas leaks were discovered on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. The case remains unsolved.

Gasgrid Finland said the Finnish gas system is stable and the supply of gas has been secured through the Inkoo floating LNG terminal, referring to the offshore support vessel Exemplar — a floating liquefied natural gas terminal at the southern Finnish port of Inkoo.

Elering said the accident did not affect the gas supply to Estonian consumers. After the shutdown of Balticconnector, gas for Estonian consumers was coming from Latvia, it said.

The pipeline is bi-directional, transferring natural gas between Finland and Estonia depending on demand and supply. Most of the gas that was flowing in the pipeline early Sunday before closure was going from Finland to Estonia from where it was forwarded to Latvia, Elering said.

The length of the offshore part of the Balticconnector running from Inkoo to the Estonian port of Paldiski is 77 kilometers (48 miles) long. The pipeline started commercial operations at the beginning of 2020.

Kai Mykkänen, Finland’s minister of climate and the environment, said the state of the Nordic country’s gas system remains stable despite the disruption of the pipeline that enables gas deliveries from Finland to the three Baltic states — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — and vice versa.

“The failure of the Balticconnector does not cause immediate problems for the security of energy supply. The causes of the pipe damage are being investigated and further actions will depend on them,” he said in a statement.

Finland and Estonia are both European Union and NATO members that border Russia and stopped importing Russian oil and gas since 2022, as part of sanctions against Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine.
…

The British government’s contentious policy to stem the flow of migrants faces one of its toughest challenges this week as the U.K. Supreme Court weighs whether it’s lawful to send asylum-seekers to Rwanda. 

The Conservative government is challenging a Court of Appeal ruling in June that said the policy intended to deter immigrants from risking their lives crossing the English Channel in small boats is unlawful because the East African country is not a safe place to send them. 

Three days of arguments are scheduled to begin Monday with the government arguing its policy is safe and lawyers for migrants from Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Sudan contending it’s unlawful and inhumane. 

The hearing comes as much of Europe and the U.S. struggle with how best to cope with migrants seeking refuge from war, violence, oppression and a warming planet that has brought devastating drought and floods. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has vowed to “stop the boats” as a top priority to curb unauthorized immigration. More than 25,000 people are estimated to have arrived in the U.K. by boat as of Oct. 2, which is down nearly 25% from the 33,000 that had made the crossing at the same time last year. 

The policy is intended to put a stop to the criminal gangs that ferry migrants across one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes by making Britain an unattractive destination because of the likelihood of being given a one-way ticket to Rwanda. 

The consequences of the crossing have been deadly. In August, six migrants died and about 50 had to be rescued when their boat capsized after leaving the northern coast of France. In November 2021, 27 people died after their boat sank. 

The government claims the policy is a fair way to deal with an influx of people who arrive on U.K. shores without authorization and that Rwanda is a safe “third country” — meaning it’s not where they are seeking asylum from. 

The U.K. and Rwandan governments reached a deal more than a year ago that would send asylum-seekers to the East African country and allow them to stay there if granted asylum. 

So far, not a single person has been sent there as the policy has been fought over in the courts. 

Human rights groups have argued it’s inhumane to deport people more than 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) to a place they don’t want to live. They have also cited Rwanda’s poor human rights record, including allegations of torture and killings of government opponents. 

A High Court judge initially upheld the policy, saying it didn’t breach Britain’s obligations under the U.N. Refugee Convention or other international agreements. But that ruling was reversed by a 2-1 decision in the Court of Appeal that found that while it was not unlawful to send asylum-seekers to a safe third country, Rwanda could not be deemed safe. 

The government argues the Court of Appeal had no right to interfere with the lower court decision and got it wrong by concluding deportees would be endangered in Rwanda and could face the prospect of being sent back to their home country where they could face persecution. The U.K. also says that the court should have respected the government’s analysis that determined Rwanda is safe and that its government would abide by the terms of the agreement to protect migrants’ rights. 

Attorneys for the migrants argue that there is a real risk their clients could be tortured, punished, or face inhumane and degrading treatment in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, and they cite Rwanda’s history of abusing refugees for dissent. The second flank of their argument is that the home secretary did not thoroughly investigate how Rwanda determines the status of refugees. 

One of the claimants asserts that the U.K. must still abide by European Union asylum procedures despite its Brexit split from the EU that became final in 2020. EU policies only allow asylum-seekers to be sent to a safe third country if they have a connection to it. 

Even if the courts allow the policy to proceed, it’s unclear how many people will be flown to Rwanda at a cost estimated to be 169,000 pounds ($206,000) per person. 

And there’s a chance it wouldn’t be in place for long. The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Keir Starmer, said Sunday that he would scrap the policy if elected prime minister. 

Polls show the Labor Party has an advantage in an election that must be called by the end of next year. 

“I think it’s the wrong policy, it’s hugely expensive,” Starmer told the BBC. 

The court is not expected to rule immediately after the hearing. 
…

Waving Spanish and Catalan flags, tens of thousands of people marched through Barcelona on Sunday to protest against a potential amnesty deal which Spain’s Socialists must strike over Catalonia’s 2017 separatist bid if they want to form a government.  

The protest, organized by the anti-separatist organization Societat Civil Catalana, took place five days after Spain’s acting Socialist prime minister was nominated to seek backing of other political parties for a new mandate.   

Pedro Sanchez needs the support of Catalan separatist parties Junts and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, which want the unpopular amnesty in exchange for votes in parliament.  

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the opposition conservative People’s Party, and Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, attended the march which police said attracted 50,000 protesters.  

“An amnesty would undermine the judiciary. An amnesty would put the government above democracy and the rule of law,” said Javier Tapia, 55, a chemicals worker.  

Holding a sign which said “Spain for Sale”, Isabel Martinez said: “We cannot allow an amnesty because not all Catalans believe that these [separatists] should be pardoned. They want to live in conflict forever but we want to live in peace.”   

Amnesty would benefit hundreds   

Sanchez has defended his conciliatory policy with Catalonia, including a 2021 pardon to nine jailed leaders, and said the 2017 crisis “brought nothing good.”  

“This is not an amnesty that seeks reconciliation. The only thing it seeks is to make [Sanchez] the president of the government,” Feijoo told the rally on Sunday.  

The amnesty could potentially cover more than 1,400 people involved in the independence bid that came to a head in 2017, pro-separatist Catalan group Omnium estimates. These are a mix of people in jail and facing charges.   

That would be the largest in Spain since the 1977 blanket amnesty for crimes committed during the Francisco Franco dictatorship, and the first amnesty law approved in the European Union since 1991, according to Spain’s CSIC research council.  

Around 70% of respondents — 59% of them Socialist supporters — said they were against the idea of an amnesty in a poll in mid-September.  

If no candidate for prime minister secures a majority by Nov. 27, a repeat election has to be called. 
…

Israel’s Ambassador to Turkey, Irit Lillian, said Sunday it was too early to talk about mediation offers between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, adding the attacks showed that Hamas should not have any presence in Turkey or elsewhere. 

On Saturday, Hamas launched an attack against Israel, for which Israel vowed “mighty vengeance” in response. Hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis have been killed, in what Israel has said is a war. 

In an online briefing with journalists after Turkey said it was in contact with all parties and stood ready to de-escalate, Lillian said Israel’s priority was its response to the attack. 

“Mediation comes at a different point of time. Right now, we are unfortunately counting the dead, we are trying to heal the wounded, we don’t even know what is the number of the citizens abducted,” she said. 

“We want to see all the abducted people coming home and we want quiet and calmness coming back to Israel and the region,” she added. “After that, we can talk about mediation and who are going to be the players in this mediation.” 

The conflict comes as Turkey, which has backed Palestinians in the past, hosted members of Hamas, and supported a two-state solution to the conflict, works to repair ties with Israel after years of animosity. 

Ankara does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. 

Hamas presence in Turkey 

Asked about the presence of Hamas members in Turkey, Lillian said a senior member of the Islamist group, Saleh al-Arouri, was sometimes seen at events in Turkey, and added he should be tried for crimes against humanity. 

“I think it just strengthens our point that Hamas should not have an office or any kind of activity, neither in Turkey nor anywhere else in the world,” she said. “There is no place for terrorists to direct or command acts from any country in the world.” 

The Turkish foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the presence of Hamas officials in Turkey. 

On Sunday, Turkish Parliament Speaker Numan Kurtulmus, while repeating Ankara’s earlier call for restraint, said Palestinians had long suffered from injustices, namely on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque which he labelled a “red line.” 

Lillian said Israel had expected more empathy from Turkey, a country that has suffered from militant attacks for decades but added “good constructive” dialogue between the countries in “the day after” would shed light on the fate of the rapprochement. 

“I think it’s a little bit hard to say,” Lillian said, when asked if ties would be affected, adding that some comments from Ankara were “surprising.” 

“I think the relations of Israel and Turkey which started a process of warm-up should not be affected by yesterday’s attack and by the ongoing war against terrorism,” she added. 

She also said the Israeli embassy was in touch with Turkish authorities regarding threats and calls for demonstrations and violence.  
…

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said in an interview published on Sunday that she was confident the ECB would meet its target of getting inflation back down to 2%, and relatively confident over Europe’s gas reserves situation. 

Last month, the ECB raised its key interest rate to a record high of 4%.

“The key ECB interest rates have reached levels that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to the timely return of inflation to the target,” Lagarde said in an interview published on Sunday in French paper La Tribune Dimanche. The ECB’s website clarified that the interview was conducted on Oct. 2. 

Lagarde added the fact that inflation was “currently falling significantly” was one of several reason as to why she was not pessimistic regarding the short-term economic outlook.

She added that other reasons for this were economic reforms underway in Europe, and because Europe’s gas reserves situation was better than before.

“Structural reforms are being put in place. And, just one year ago, who would have thought that we would succeed in replenishing more than 90% of our gas reserves by September 2023?,” said Lagarde.

“This allows us to look towards the coming winter, if not calmly, then at least with a lot more confidence,” she added.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his daily address Saturday that Ukrainians are “particularly sensitive to what happened” in Israel – “Thousands of missiles in the sky … people killed right in the streets … Riddled cars with civilians.”

“Our position,” he said, “is absolutely clear: anywhere in the world, anyone who brings terror and death must be held accountable.”

Meanwhile, a 27-year-old woman and her baby were among a dozen people wounded in a Russian attack in Ukraine’s Kherson region, the regional governor said Saturday.

United Nations investigators are in the Ukrainian village of Hroza, where a Russian missile strike this week killed 52 people during a wake for a slain soldier being held at a café.

The team leader of the investigators said in a statement, “My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village cafe and store, was also clearly civilian.”

Among the dead were the village leader, a couple who left behind four children and the dead soldier’s wife and son.

Russia’s new silo-based intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile system is nearly combat-ready, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Saturday, after he inspected the manufacture of Sarmat missiles, one of Russia’s most advanced weapons.

“Re-equipping the Strategic Missile Forces with this system, which will become the basis of Russia’s ground-based strategic nuclear forces, is a priority in ensuring the country’s defense capability,” Shoigu was quoted as saying.

His comments reflect Russia’s escalating nuclear rhetoric in its standoff with the West over the war in Ukraine.

Known to NATO military allies by the codename “Satan,” the Sarmat missiles reportedly have a short initial launch phase, which gives little time for surveillance systems to track their takeoff.

On Friday, the Russian parliament speaker, Vyacheslav Volodin, said lawmakers will reevaluate whether to revoke the ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, or CTBT, a global nuclear test ban.

Volodin’s statement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Moscow could consider rescinding the ratification of the international pact since the United States never ratified it. 

The 1996 treaty prohibiting “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion” anywhere in the world has been signed by 187 nations but not ratified by eight of them, including the United States.

The U.S. did not ratify the treaty, but it has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapon test explosions since 1992 that it says it will continue to abide by.

“It would be concerning and deeply unfortunate if any state signatory were to reconsider its ratification of the CTBT,” Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization Executive Secretary Robert Floyd said in a statement.

There are widespread concerns that Russia could move to resume nuclear tests to try to discourage the West from continuing to offer military support to Ukraine.

Ukraine-Russia strikes

Ukraine and Russia launched several strikes against each other Saturday. 

Russia’s defense ministry said the country’s air defense systems had “detected and destroyed” a Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missile deployed in an attempted attack on the Crimean Peninsula.

Reuters, which reported the development, could not verify the statement by the Russian defense ministry, which did not say where the missile was shot down.

Ukrainian shelling killed one person in the Russian border region of Belgorod, according to regional Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

A party official in the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in Ukraine’s Kherson province was killed by a car bomb Saturday, the provincial governor said.

Vladimir Malov, executive secretary of the town branch of Russia’s governing United Russia party, died in a hospital, Vladimir Saldo said in a post on his Telegram channel, calling it “a terrorist attack,” meaning one orchestrated by Ukraine.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Russia, meanwhile, launched a missile strike on Ukraine’s Odesa region overnight.  Local officials say four people were wounded in the attack that was launched from Russian-occupied Crimea.

Russian forces downed a Ukrainian drone near Moscow early Saturday, according to Tass, a Russian state news agency.

Some information for this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press. 
…

Tourists at the Acropolis this holiday season can witness the resolution of one of the world’s most heated debates on cultural heritage.

All they need is a smartphone.

Visitors can now pinch and zoom their way around the ancient Greek site, with a digital overlay showing how it once looked. That includes a collection of marble sculptures removed from the Parthenon more than 200 years ago that are now on display at the British Museum in London. Greece has demanded they be returned.

For now, an app supported by Greece’s Culture Ministry allows visitors to point their phones at the Parthenon temple, and the sculptures housed in London appear back on the monument as archaeologists believe they looked 2,500 years ago.

Other, less widely known features also appear: Many of the sculptures on the Acropolis were painted in striking colors. A statue of goddess Athena in the main chamber of the Parthenon also stood over a shallow pool of water.

“That’s really impressive … the only time I’ve seen that kind of technology before is at the dentist,” Shriya Parsotam Chitnavis, a tourist from London, said after checking out the app on a hot afternoon at the hilltop Acropolis, Greece’s most popular archaeological site.

“I didn’t know much about the (Acropolis), and I had to be convinced to come up here. Seeing this has made it more interesting — seeing it in color,” she said. “I’m more of a visual person, so this being interactive really helped me appreciate it.”

The virtual restoration works anywhere and could spare some visitors the crowded uphill walk and long wait to see the iconic monuments up close. It might also help the country’s campaign to make Greek cities year-round destinations.

Tourism, vital for the Greek economy, has roared back since the COVID-19 pandemic, even as wildfires chased visitors from the island of Rhodes and affected other areas this summer. The number of inbound visitors from January through July was up 21.9% to 16.2 million compared with a year ago, according to the Bank of Greece. Revenue was up just over 20%, to 10.3 billion euros ($10.8 billion).

The app, called Chronos after the mythological king of the Titans and Greek word for “time,” uses augmented reality to place the ancient impression of the site onto the screen, matching the real-world view as you walk around.

AR is reaching consumers after a long wait and is set to affect a huge range of professional and leisure activities.

Medical surgery, military training and specialized machine repair as well as retail and live event experiences are all in the sights of big tech companies betting on a lucrative future in immersive services. Tech giant like Meta and Apple are pushing into VR headsets that can cost thousands of dollars.

The high price tag will keep the cellphone as the main AR delivery platform to consumers for some time, said Maria Engberg, co-author of the book “Reality Media” on augmented and virtual reality.

She says services for travelers will soon offer a better integrated experience, allowing for more sharing options on tours and overlaying archive photos and videos.

“AR and VR have been lagging behind other kinds of things like games and movies that we’re consuming digitally,” said Engberg, an associate professor of computer science and media technology at Malmo University in Sweden.

“I think we will see really interesting customer experiences in the next few years as more content from museums and archives becomes digitized,” she said.

Greece’s Culture Ministry and national tourism authority are late but enthusiastic converts to technology. The popular video game Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, which allows players to roam ancient Athens, was used to attract young travelers from China to Greece with a state-organized photo contest.

Microsoft partnered with the Culture Ministry two years ago to launch an immersive digital tour at ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games in southern Greece.

Culture Minister Lina Mendoni said the innovations would boost accessibility to Greece’s ancient monuments, supplementing the recent installation of ramps and anti-slip pathways.

“Accessibility is extending to the digital space,” Mendoni said at a preview launch event for the Chronos app in May. “Real visitors and virtual visitors anywhere around the world can share historical knowledge.”

Developed by Greek telecoms provider Cosmote, the free app’s designers say they hope to build on existing features that include an artificial intelligence-powered virtual guide, Clio.

“As technologies and networks advance, with better bandwidth and lower latencies, mobile devices will be able to download even higher-quality content,” said Panayiotis Gabrielides, a senior official at the telecom company involved in the project.

Virtual reconstructions using Chronos also cover three other monuments at the Acropolis, an adjacent Roman theater and parts of the Acropolis Museum built at the foot of the rock.
…

Germany and France on Saturday moved to reinforce security around Jewish temples, schools and monuments after the surprise attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas against Israel.

Germany tightened police protection of Jewish and Israeli institutions, as some supporters of the Palestinians took to the streets of Berlin to celebrate the attack.

France focused on Jewish temples and schools in cities across the country, as one Jewish leader expressed concern at the possibility the conflict might be imported there.

“In Berlin, police protection has been immediately stepped up,” Germany’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told Bild newspaper. “The federal government and the regions are closely coordinating their actions.”

Germany’s authorities were also closely watching “potential supporters of Hamas in the Islamist sphere,” she added.

Berlin police posted photos on social media showing “people celebrating the attacks on Israel by passing out pastries” on Sonnenallee, the main avenue in city’s Neukolln district.

Police had in some cases carried out identity checks and filed complaints, they added.

The German account of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network posted photos of the distribution of pastries on the streets of Berlin and a message celebrating “the resistance of the Palestinian people.”

Martin Hikel, mayor of the Neukoelin district, denounced “a horrible glorification of a terrible war,” in comments to Welt television.

He called on the government to ban “the disgusting terrorist propaganda of Samidoun.”

Later Saturday, Berlin’s famous Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of reunified Germany, was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag.

“In solidarity with Israel,” wrote Chancellor Olaf Scholz on X, formerly Twitter. Israel’s ambassador replied on the same platform, thanking him for “this beautiful symbol.”

In France, security had already been stepped up at synagogues in Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg because of religious holidays observed since late September.

Interior Gerald Darmanin sent an urgent message to prefects running the country’s regions asking them to reinforce surveillance even further.

“At a time when terrorist attacks from Gaza are hitting Israel, I ask you to immediately step up vigilance, security and protection of Jewish community sites in France,” he wrote in a message seen by AFP.

He called for a “visible and systematic static presence,” and the use of soldiers from France’s Operation Sentinelle, a special force deployed across the country since the 2015 terror attacks.

The interior ministry will review the security situation at a special meeting Sunday.

In the east of France, increased surveillance of Jewish schools and synagogues in the city of Strasbourg was being organized, said Pierre Haas, of the Council of French Jewish Institutions (CRIF).

“We were very shocked and worried by this outburst of violence,” he told AFP.

Knowing the Israeli army would hit back, he said, “we’re not reassured by the possibility of the conflict being imported to France.”

In the southern port city of Marseille, the north of France and in the Paris region, police sources confirmed that security had been stepped up there, too.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin has declared that the country is at war after the large-scale, surprise attack launched by Hamas out of Gaza.

Hundreds have already been killed on both sides according to figures from Israeli medical services and the Gaza authorities, the conflict’s bloodiest escalation in years.
…