RIYADMEDIA

Knackered after covering a stunning march on Moscow by a small army of mercenaries? Take a day off after a “tense” weekend, Russian authorities told journalists Sunday.

An armed rebellion by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who had vowed Friday to topple the Russian military leadership and began a march on Moscow, sparked the country’s largest political crisis in decades and prompted many newsrooms to work around the clock.

Moscow authorities introduced “anti-terror” measures and said residents will have a day off Monday, even though Wagner chief Prigozhin suddenly aborted his revolt Saturday evening.

On Sunday, the Russian ministry of digital development also pitched in with recommendations, saying journalists and IT workers should take a day to rest.

“Saturday was a very emotional and tense day,” the ministry of digital development, communications and mass media said in a statement on social media.

“We recommend giving employees of IT and telecom companies and media a day off.”

The ministry singled out employees of companies working round-the-clock and media workers, who operated in regions “at the epicenter of the events,” saying they needed an opportunity to rest.

“Many employees of the digital development ministry spent the weekend at their workplace,” the statement said, “so we also made this decision for our employees.”

Wagner’s aborted revolt has left many in Russia and abroad stunned, with even seasoned political analysts confused about Prigozhin’s purposes.  

Prigozhin’s announcement of the sudden climbdown sparked ridicule in Russia, and the latest audio message on his Telegram channel announcing he was turning around his forces has racked up nearly 400,000 “clown face” emojis.
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The United States is focusing on supporting Ukraine after the Wagner mercenary group openly challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on what some analysts think could be the result of Wagner’s short-lived rebellion.
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the thwarting of what he said Sunday was an Iranian attack against Israeli targets in Cyprus.

A statement from Netanyahu’s office did not give any more details, but Israeli news website Ynet, without disclosing its sources, said an attack had been planned against Israelis staying in the city of Limassol.

Cyprus declined to comment on whether an attack had been foiled.

“Israel welcomes the foiling of the Iranian terrorist attack in the territory of Cyprus against Israeli targets,” Netanyahu’s office said.

“Israel operates everywhere in a wide variety of methods in order to protect Jews and Israelis and will continue to act to sever Iranian terrorism wherever it raises its head, including on Iranian soil,” the statement said.

Asked about the Israeli statement, Cyprus government spokesperson Konstantinos Letymbiotis said: “We cannot comment on issues regarding national security.”

In 2021, Israel accused Iran of orchestrating an attempted attack against Israelis in Cyprus after police on the Mediterranean island said an armed individual had been arrested. Iran denied the accusation.
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One person was killed, and several others injured when a roller coaster derailed in Stockholm Sunday, Swedish TV reported.

Park officials told public broadcaster SVT that that one of the carriages on the Jetline rollercoaster derailed and people fell to the ground at the Grona Lund amusement park.

“It is incredibly tragic and shocking,” park spokeswoman Annika Troselius told SVT. “Unfortunately, we have been informed that one person is killed, and many are injured.”

Police said seven people, both children and adults, were hospitalized.

The amusement park was evacuated to facilitate the work of rescue crews.

SVT reporter Jenny Lagerstedt, who was standing in line for another ride, said the carriage was at a high altitude.

“Suddenly I heard a metallic thud and then the rides started to shake,” she said. Rescuers had to remove other passengers who were stuck in other carriages on the roller coaster after the accident.

Ambulances, fire trucks and a helicopter were seen arriving at the park, and police said they were investigating.

Grona Lund said in a statement that the 140-year-old park was closed until further notice. A spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

The steel tracked Jetline roller coaster can reach speeds of up to 90 kilometers per hour (56 mph) and stands at a height of 30 meters (98 feet), transporting more than 1 million visitors each year, according to the amusement park website.
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Surveying the hills covered with near bone-dry pines stretching to the Pyrenees in the distance, Asier Larrañaga has reason to be on guard.

This part of northeast Spain is, like large swaths of the Mediterranean country, braced for wildfires due to the lethal combination of a prolonged drought, record-high temperatures and increasingly dense woods unable to adapt to a fast-changing climate.

Larrañaga is one of the top fire analysts for the firefighters of Catalonia charged with safeguarding the region’s homes and landscapes. While grateful that some desperately needed rain has finally fallen in recent weeks, he is ready for the worst — unless July and August buck Spain’s historic trend of being the hottest and driest months of the year.

“If we have a normal summer … and conditions of low humidity combined with high temperatures, then we will see fires that quickly expand beyond our extinction capacity. And for areas where it has not rained in May and this month, we could see these types of fires as early as next week,” Larrañaga told The Associated Press in the rural town of Solsona, some two hours north of Barcelona.

Spain suffered the biggest losses from wildfires of any European Union country last year amid a record-hot 2022. Four people, including one firefighter, died in blazes that consumed 306,000 hectares. And with Spain sweltering under a record-hot spring, it is again leading the continent in 2023 with 66,000 hectares turned to ashes. Now firefighters like Larrañaga across Spain are preparing for a potential scorcher of a summer.

The fires coincide with Catalonia and a large part of Spain’s south bearing the brunt of a drought that started last year and has only recently been somewhat alleviated by rain. The central reservoirs for Catalonia, which provide water for some six million people including Barcelona, are still only at 29% of capacity and water restrictions remain in place.

Climate change is playing a direct role in propagating these fires, experts agree. The increasing temperatures have made the plants that are used to more mild weather vulnerable to both plagues and fire. Spain, like the rest of the Mediterranean, is forecast to heat up faster than the global average. Spain saw fires that showed the virulence of a summer outbreak break out as early as March. Northern Europe is also battling blazes spurred by drought.

The 52-year-old Larrañaga is a member of Catalonia’s GRAF, its elite wildfire fighting unit. Members of the Catalan firefighters are currently helping in Canada as part of a Spanish contingent sent to combat the massive fires that have sent smoke over the United States and as far as Europe.

Larrañaga was in Solsona to oversee a training session by the local fire brigade. Practice included simulating a last-resort protection maneuver used in cases when firefighters are trapped by the flames. They clear an area of vegetation and take refuge in their truck, which is equipped with sprinklers. The firefighters said that they hope it is a maneuver they will never have to use.

The Solsonès county, home to Solsona and its 9,000 residents, does not normally have large fires thanks to storms generated by the Pyrenees. But the downside is that its forests build up vegetation, or “fuel” for potential fires, that become vulnerable to a lightning strike, a spark from farm machinery, or arson. In 1998 a fire consumed 27,000 hectares in the country. Now Larrañaga is concerned that the landscape is primed to ignite again.

“The fires in these conditions can be very intense like the enormous ones we are seeing in Canada,” he said. Larrañaga added that his worst-case scenario is “a situation where you have people, in a panic, trying to flee, who put themselves in danger because the access roads cross wooded areas,” stirring up memories of a tragedy in neighboring Portugal when over 60 people perished in a fire disaster in 2017.

Catalonia’s firefighters were tested last year by fires that erupted just when the official fire season started in mid-July.

That close call, fire chief David Borrell said, motivated their decision to increase the fire campaign to four months from three and start it a month earlier. That means more manpower and more aircraft for a longer period of time.

Borrell said that this new generation of more powerful fires has led to two changes in how they are fought. First, it is no longer possible to just “attack” a fire, firefighters have to wait for it, and, if need be, sacrifice unfavorable terrain – whether due to its position related to the wind, access or vegetation – if it means keeping the firefighters from wearing themselves out or even risking their lives.

“The second change is how to deal with simultaneous fires without getting overwhelmed,” Borrell told the AP at the Catalan firefighters’ high-tech headquarters near Barcelona. “If you go all out against a fire, then you won’t be able to handle a second one, and with a third fire you collapse. So to avoid that, we consider everything in one process. That is a potent strategy change we began last year. And for me it is a game changer.”

The challenge, however, is still daunting with summer now here.

In addition to turning the terrain into a tinderbox, drought is complicating the firefighters’ ability to work: some of Catalonia’s reservoirs have been ruled unusable for water-dumping aircraft due to their lack of their low levels of water.

“If we hadn’t had the rain we saw in May, we would now already be in a campaign of large fires,” Jordi Pagès, a wildfire expert for the Pau Costa Foundation, a Barcelona-based nonprofit organization for fire awareness.

“But we still had a spring with below average rainfall, so we can expect an intense summer.”
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Voters in Greece are going to the polls Sunday.

It is the second time in less than two months voters are casting their ballots for a new Parliament.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ conservative New Democracy party is expected to remain in power. Sunday’s vote is being held under a new electoral law that will make it easier for the winning party to form a parliamentary majority. New Democracy won in May but did not garner enough seats to form a government. New Democracy’s main rival is the left-wing Syriza party led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

Sunday’s election is also being held in the aftermath of the June 14 migrant shipwreck off of Greece’s southern coast in which hundreds of migrants are believed to have died. The incident has highlighted the political parties’ divisions over migration.
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The United States and its allies held close consultations but publicly stayed on the sidelines Saturday as officials waited to see how the armed revolt by longtime Kremlin insider Yevgeny Prigozhin and his private Wagner army would play out.

As the rebel force threatened to march on Moscow — then announced a stunning pull-back — U.S. officials carefully avoided direct comment on what some stressed was an internal situation in Russia, while Moscow warned them to stay out of the fray.

U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with the leaders of France, Germany and Britain amid concerns that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s control over the nuclear-armed country could be slipping.

A White House readout of their call said they discussed “the situation in Russia,” which erupted Friday after Prigozhin announced a challenge to the Russian Defense Ministry, seized control of the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and sent an armed column toward Moscow — before announcing his surprise about-face Saturday.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also spoke with his Canadian, French, German, British and Polish counterparts, according to his spokesperson.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley, canceled a planned trip to Israel and Jordan, a sign of the serious concern in the U.S. capital.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a call with counterparts from Western Europe and Japan, with the partners pledging to “stay in close coordination,” said State Department spokesperson Matt Miller after the call.

European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell avoided direct comment on what he called an internal Russian issue.

But he said he had activated the EU crisis response center and was coordinating officials in the bloc ahead of a Monday meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council.

“Our support to Ukraine continues unabated,” he added.

A ‘gift’ for Ukraine

But beyond that, officials were mum, though clearly watching to see what would happen in Russia’s most serious security crisis in decades.

Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris met with top U.S. security officials early Saturday on the Moscow crisis, including Austin, Milley, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines and CIA Director William Burns.

A U.S. military source said American officials need to be careful about what they say, noting that they do not want to give Putin or others any reason to cast blame for the situation on Washington.

Moscow issued a stiff warning to the U.S. and allies to stay back.

“The rebellion plays into the hands of Russia’s external enemies,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“We warn the Western countries against any hint of possible use of the domestic Russian situation to achieve their Russophobic goals,” it said.

Moscow’s ally Belarus, meanwhile, called the uprising a gift to the West.

It was a sentiment echoed by Kyiv, where Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar called the rebellion “a window of opportunity” for Ukraine’s armed forces.

Analysts agreed, with James Nixey, a Russia expert at the London-based Chatham House think tank, telling AFP that Ukraine would likely try to capitalize on the situation.

Nuclear weapons

Western allies were also looking to see if the turmoil inside Russia would offer any advantages for Ukraine as it pushes on in its counteroffensive against invading Russian forces in the east and south of the country.

A key concern, according to experts, is if Prigozhin’s rebel forces seek to gain control of any of Russia’s nuclear armory, particularly tactical nuclear weapons.

“This is an emerging danger and is exactly what policymakers most fear, a loose-nuke scenario,” wrote Alexander Vindman, a former White House National Security Council expert on Russia and Eastern Europe.

“This fear has plagued U.S. policymakers since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he said.

The White House did not respond when asked if there had been any communications with Moscow over the security of its nuclear weaponry.

Nixey said while things remain in flux, the West should not look to Prigozhin as a hero or count on the Russian elite turning away from Putin, and toward him.

Privately many Russians might consider Putin’s war on Ukraine as a “dreadful mistake,” he said.

But “that doesn’t translate into supporting Prigozhin, because of his maverick nature,” Nixey told AFP.

As for Kyiv, he said Prigozhin’s revolt does not mean an end to their fight.

“Whilst this is a useful distraction for the Ukrainians right now — and they will be pleased that this has happened and they will be looking to exploit it on the front line — he is not their knight in shining armor.”
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The confessionals where generations of Belgians admitted their sins stood stacked in a corner of what was once Sacred Heart Church, proof the stalls — as well as the Roman Catholic house of worship — had outlived their purpose.

The building is to close for two years while a cafe and concert stage are added as part of the plans to turn it into “a new cultural hot spot in the heart of Mechelen,” almost within earshot of where Belgium’s archbishop lives. Around the corner, a former Franciscan church is now a luxury hotel where music star Stromae spent his wedding night amid the stained-glass windows.

Across Europe, the continent that nurtured Christianity for most of two millennia, churches, convents and chapels stand empty and increasingly derelict as faith and church attendance shriveled over the past half century.

“That is painful. I will not hide it. On the other hand, there is no return to the past possible,” Mgr. Johan Bonny, bishop of Antwerp, told the Associated Press. Something needs to be done and now, ever more of the once-sacred structures are repurposed for anything from clothes shops and climbing walls to nightclubs.

It is a phenomenon seen over much of Europe’s Christian heartland from Germany to Italy and many nations in between. It really stands out in Flanders, in northern Belgium, which has some of the greatest cathedrals on the continent and the finest art to fill them. If only it had enough faithful. A 2018 study from the PEW research group showed, in Belgium, that of the 83% that say they were raised Christian, only 55% still consider themselves so. Only 10% of Belgians still attended church regularly.

Nowadays, visiting international choirs may find that their singers outnumber the congregation.

On average, every one of the 300 towns in Flanders has about six churches and often not enough faithful to fill a single one. Some become eyesores in city centers, their maintenance a constant drain on finances.

Mechelen, a town of 85,000 just north of Brussels is the Roman Catholic center of Belgium. It has two dozen churches, several huddled close to St. Rumbold’s cathedral with its UNESCO World Heritage belfry tower. Mayor Bart Somers has been working for years to give many of the buildings a different purpose.

“In my city we have a brewery in a church, we have a hotel in a church, we have a cultural center in a church, we have a library in a church. So we have a lot of new destinations for the churches,” said Somers, who as Flemish regional minister is also involved in repurposing some 350 churches spread across the densely populated region of 6.7 million.

A landmark repurposing project in Belgium was Martin’s Patershof hotel in Mechelen, where the interior of the church was gutted to create rooms where the beds have headboards resembling organ pipes and a breakfast room next to the altar where wafers of gold leaf hover overhead.

“We often hear that people come here to relax and enjoy the silence of its former identity,” said hotel manager Emilie De Preter.

With its understated luxury, it offers contemplation, and more.

“In the hotel, people sleep in a church, maybe have sex in a church. So you could say: ethically, is it a good idea to have a hotel in a church? I don’t have so many hesitations,” said Somers. “I am more concerned about the actual architectural value.”

The design value is especially clear at St. Anthony of Padua church in Brussels, also known as Maniak Padoue climbing club these days, where the multicolored hand and footholds on the wall now compete with the stained glass as the prime multicolored attraction.

“The stained glass brings a real shimmering and warm light to the venue when the sun goes through it, so we can really feel the presence of the remains of the church,” said Kyril Wittouck, the co-founder of the club. “The altar is still in place, so we are surrounded by remains and it reminds us where we actually are.”

Also in Brussels, the Spirito night club has taken over a deconsecrated Anglican church and has a drawing of a priest kissing a nun as its logo.

It is not exactly what Bishop Bonny had in mind.

Even if Roman Catholic religion is on the wane, a sense of the sacral or a need for reflection is also still present in society, whether one is religious, agnostic or atheist. And the aura of tranquility emanating from a church is hard to match. So for Bonny, there is no reason to turn churches into supermarkets or discos.

“Those are places for contemplation. And is that not exactly that the care of the church should be about?” he said. Bonny thinks the most successful and gratifying repurposing has been the handing over to other Christian communities, be they Coptic or Eastern European.

At his office, though, he can get weary just looking at the procession of suitors for empty Roman Catholic buildings. His heart is heavy when a real estate agent shows up.

“They see possibilities. And you cannot believe, suddenly, how pious they can become when a financial opportunity presents itself. Suddenly they are more devout than a nun,” he said.

Knowing the winding history of Christianity over centuries, Bonny takes the long view, since the near future does not look bright.

“Every 300 years we nearly had to start again,” he said. “Something new, I’m sure, will happen. But it takes time.”

At the Martin’s Patershof, there is a condition that the church can reclaim the building if it is needed again, said De Preter. The hotel elements were built on steel beams and could be totally disassembled and taken out again.

“If the church, at a certain point, wants the building back — which holds a very small chance, probably — it is possible,” she said.
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A pod of killer whales bumped one of the boats in an endurance sailing race as it approached the Strait of Gibraltar, the latest encounter in what researchers say is a growing trend of sometimes-aggressive interactions with Iberian orcas.

The 15-minute run-in with at least three of the giant mammals forced the crew competing in The Ocean Race on Thursday to drop its sails and raise a clatter in an attempt to scare off the approaching orcas. No one was injured, but Team JAJO skipper Jelmer van Beek said in a video posted on The Ocean Race website that it was “a scary moment.”

“Twenty minutes ago, we got hit by some orcas,” he said in the video. “Three orcas came straight at us and started hitting the rudders. Impressive to see the orcas, beautiful animals, but also a dangerous moment for us as a team.”

Team JAJO was approaching the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea on a leg from the Netherlands to Italy when at least three orcas approached the VO65 class sloop. Video taken by the crew showed one of the killer whales to be nuzzling the rudder; another video showed one of them running its nose into the hull.

Scientists have noted increasing reports of orcas, which average from 5 to 6½ meters and weigh more than 3,600 kilograms, bumping or damaging boats off the western coast of the Iberian Peninsula in the past four years.

The behavior defies easy explanation. A team of marine life researchers who study killer whales off Spain and Portugal has identified 15 individual orcas involved in the encounters — 13 of them young, supporting the hypothesis that they are playing. The fact that two are adults could support the competing and more sensational theory that they are responding to some traumatic event with a boat.

The sailors were warned of the hazard.

“We knew that there was a possibility of an orca attack this leg,” Team JAJO on-board reporter Brend Schuil said. “So we had already spoken about what to do if the situation would occur.”

Schuil said there was a call for all hands on deck and the sails were dropped to slow the boat from a racing speed of 12 knots. The crew made noises to scare the orcas, but not before it had fallen from second to fourth on the leg from The Hague to Genoa, where it is expected to arrive this weekend.

“They seemed more aggressive/playful when we were sailing at speed. Once we slowed down they also started to be less aggressive in their attacks,” he said. “Everyone is OK on board and the animals are also OK.”

The Ocean Race involves two classes of sailboats at sea for weeks at a time, with the IMOCA 60 boats competing in a six-month, 59,000-km circumnavigation of the globe. Boats have already contended with a giant seaweed flotilla, catastrophic equipment failure, and a collision that knocked the leader out of the decisive seventh leg.

Although the race course navigates around exclusion zones to protect known marine habitats, there have been previous encounters with whales in The Ocean Race and other high-speed regattas.

However, they usually involve the boats crashing into the animals, and not the other way around.

One of the boats in the around-the-world portion of this year’s Ocean Race triggered its hazard alarm after hitting what they suspected was a whale off the coast of Newfoundland in May; two crew members were injured in the collision. At the beginning of the 2013 America’s Cup on San Francisco Bay, a whale was reported in the bay and organizers were prepared to delay a race if it wandered onto the course. In 2022, the start of SailGP’s $1 million, winner-take-all Season 2 championship race on the same area of San Francisco Bay was delayed when a whale was spotted on the course.

In 2005, the first South African yacht to challenge for the America’s Cup hit a whale with its 12-foot keel during training near Cape Town, stopping the 75-foot sloop dead in the water, injuring two crewmembers and snapping off both steering wheels.
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British police said Saturday they had charged an Egyptian man accused of masterminding the smuggling of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe, following an international investigation. 

Officers from the U.K.’s National Crime Agency arrested Ahmed Ramadan Mohamad Eibd, 40, near his west London home on Wednesday, after a probe which also involved Italy’s prosecutors, coast guard and financial crimes investigators. 

Eibd appeared in a west London magistrates’ court early Saturday, where he was charged with facilitating illegal immigration. 

The court ordered he remain in custody until his next appearance at Southwark Crown Court in south London on July 24. 

He is suspected of masterminding, from his home in the U.K., the smuggling of thousands of people across the Mediterranean from Libya into Italy. 

The NCA alleges he worked with people-smuggling networks in north Africa to organize boats to bring over hundreds of migrants at a time and was maintaining communication with criminal associates during the crossings.   

Several of the journeys led to search and rescue operations by Italian authorities, the U.K. police agency noted, calling the boats used “death traps.” 

“People smuggling is an international problem and tackling this at every step of the route is a priority for the NCA,” Darren Barr, senior investigating officer at the NCA, said. 

“The type of boats organized crime groups use for crossings are death traps and sadly many people have died after incidents in the Mediterranean, which demonstrates the level of danger,” he added. 

“We will continue to share intelligence and take action with partners to prevent crossings and arrest people smugglers here and overseas.” 
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The Scottish National Party (SNP) will fight the next general election in the United Kingdom with independence “front and center” of its campaign, First Minister Humza Yousaf said on Saturday. 

Addressing a conference of Scotland’s governing party in the city of Dundee, Yousaf vowed he would seek fresh negotiations with the U.K. government about independence if the SNP wins the most Scottish seats in the election expected next year.  

“Let me be clear, if the SNP does win this election, then the people will have spoken,” he said. “We will seek negotiations with the U.K. government on how we give democratic effect to Scotland becoming an independent nation.” 

Yousaf’s remarks come as public support wanes for the SNP after the arrest of its former leader and first minister Nicola Sturgeon, the key figurehead of the independence movement in recent years. 

The Dundee meeting is the first in-person conference since Yousaf, 38, replaced her in March, and the party started to see a drastic slide in its popularity. 

Sturgeon, who came to power after the last — failed — 2014 referendum on Scotland breaking away from the U.K., unexpectedly announced her resignation in February, saying she lacked the “energy” to carry on. 

She was arrested and interviewed by police earlier this month over claims of mismanagement of SNP finances, weeks after her husband, the party’s former chief executive, had also been detained.  

Both have denied any impropriety and have been released without charge.

The SNP has been the dominant force in Scottish politics for nearly two decades. 

It currently has 64 members of the Scottish parliament (MSPs), out of a total of 129 — and governs in a coalition with the pro-independence Greens. 

Meanwhile, it currently represents 48 of Scotland’s 59 constituencies in the U.K. parliament in London.  

But in the wake of the funding scandal, polls show sharp drops in support for the party.   

A recent YouGov survey suggested it would hemorrhage seats if a general election were held now, losing nearly half its seats.  

Labour — which wants Scotland to remain part of the U.K. with along England, Wales and Northern Ireland — would gain 23 seats there to bring their tally north of the English border up to 24. 

The Scottish Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats, also pro-union parties, would each take four seats, according to the poll.  

Patrick English, an associate director at YouGov, said it confirmed that the recent bad news stories have hit SNP support.  

“Not since 2010 have either the Scottish Nationalists failed to win more than 30 seats at a general election contest, or Labour surpassed seven (in Scotland),” he noted.

But support for independence has not been dented in the same way, complicating the picture.  

“The level of support for independence is still running at 48 percent… and Scotland continues to be divided almost down the middle,” polling expert John Curtice told BBC radio on Saturday. 

The U.K. government has insisted the 2014 referendum settled the independence question for a generation. 

But Sturgeon reinvigorated the issue after the Brexit vote two years later, when most Scots opted to remain in the European Union, while a majority across the U.K. voted to leave.  

She pushed successive U.K. prime ministers to allow another independence vote, and after repeated refusals took the issue to the U.K. Supreme Court.

In November 2022, judges at the country’s top court blocked the Scottish government’s attempt to hold another plebiscite, ruling that the power to do so was a “reserved” matter for the U.K. government only.  

Sturgeon said the SNP-led government would look to use the next U.K. general election as a “de facto referendum” on separating after more than 300 years.  

Yousaf, who appears set to continue that tactic, avoided addressing the SNP’s funding scandal in his speech, referring only to facing “a few challenges in the first 12 weeks” of his tenure. 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to punish “traitors” from the Wagner mercenary group, after its leader swore he would topple Moscow’s military leadership.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, 62, released a series of messages from late Friday into Saturday, claiming that he and his mercenary troops had entered the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and taken control of its military sites.

Here is what we know so far:

What sparked the rebellion?

For months, Prigozhin has been locked in a power struggle with the military top brass, blaming them for his troops’ deaths in eastern Ukraine.

He has repeatedly accused them of failing to equip his private army adequately, of holding up progress with bureaucracy, while claiming victories won by Wagner as their own.

On Friday, Prigozhin’s anger appeared to boil over, as he accused Moscow’s military leadership of ordering strikes on Wagner’s camps and killing a large number of forces.

He said they had to be stopped and vowed to “go to the end.”

He later claimed his forces had downed a Russian military helicopter.

Hours later, the leader of the mercenary group said he had military sites in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don “under control.”

How is Moscow reacting?

The Kremlin had said overnight that “measures are being taken” against the mutiny.

Russia has tightened security in Moscow and several regions such as Rostov and Lipetsk.

Putin has called the Wagner mutiny a “deadly threat” to Russia and urged the country to unite.

Branding the action by Wagner mercenaries as “treason”, he vowed “inevitable punishment.”

Who are the Wagner troops?

The private army had been involved in conflicts in the Middle East and Africa but always denied involvement.

Prigozhin last year admitted he had founded the group, recruiting the soldiers from Russian prisons in exchange for amnesty.

In eastern Ukraine, the mercenary unit has been spearheading Russia’s costly battles.

It had been at the forefront of the months-long assault for Bakhmut, capturing the site for Russia, but at huge losses.

How this affects Russia’s war

The rebellion marks the most serious challenge yet to Putin’s long rule and Russia’s most serious security crisis since he came to power in late 1999.

It would divert attention and resources away from the battlefields in Ukraine, at a time when Kyiv is in the midst of a counteroffensive to seize back territory.

Ukraine’s army has said it was “watching” the infighting between Prigozhin and Putin.

Moscow meanwhile has warned that Kyiv’s army was seizing the moment to concentrate its troops “for offensive actions” near Bakhmut.

The significance of the mutiny was also not lost on world leaders, with leaders of the United States, France and Germany all saying that they are watching developments closely.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Wagner Group mercenaries Saturday that armed mutiny is treason and anyone who takes up arms against Russia would be punished.

Putin promised, in an emergency televised address, to take decisive action to stabilize Rostov-on-Don, a southern Russian city where Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said his forces had taken control of all military installations.

“It is a blow to Russia, to our people. And our actions to defend the Fatherland against such a threat will be harsh. All those who deliberately stepped on the path of betrayal, who prepared an armed insurrection, who took the path of blackmail and terrorist methods, will suffer inevitable punishment, will answer both to the law and to our people,” Putin said, calling the Wagner group’s action a “stab in the back.”

Earlier Saturday, Russia said an anti-terrorist operation regime is up and running in Moscow, after Prigozhin vowed to overthrow Russia’s military leadership.

Russia is appealing to the mercenaries of the Wagner Group to abandon the organization and its leader.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement, posted on Telegram that was directed to the mercenary fighters, that they had been deceived and drawn into a “criminal adventure” orchestrated by Prigozhin.

Prigozhin said early Saturday his forces had seized control of the Russian army’s headquarters in Rostov and that his forces were in control of the city’s military sites.

“We are inside the (army) headquarters, it is 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT). Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control,” Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram.

Prigozhin and his fighters had crossed from Ukraine into Russia and entered Rostov, facing no resistance by border guards. Prigozhin said his men were ready to go “all the way” against the Russian military and would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

Officials in Voronezh reported Saturday a military column moving on federal highway M4 Don, but it was not immediately clear which direction the column is moving. In addition, the mayor of Moscow has announced that “anti-terrorist measures are being implemented” in the capital, with checkpoints possibly being set up on the roads.

The White House said it is monitoring the standoff between top Russian military officials and the Wagner force and will be consulting with allies and partners on developments, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge told VOA Friday.

British officials said Saturday they are monitoring the situation in Russia. “Over the coming hours, the loyalty of Russia’s security forces, and especially the Russian National Guard, will be key to how the crisis plays out. This represents the most significant challenge to the Russian state in recent times,” Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a tweet.

Prigozhin said Friday that Wagner field camps were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from the chief of the military’s General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. He charged that Gerasimov issued the order after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claims.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, opened a criminal investigation on Friday against Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, an arm of the FSB.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told The Associated Press this may well be the last of Prigozhin.

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she posted on Twitter. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. … Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Prigozhin Friday said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. He has for months openly accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on Telegram by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: “The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. “The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

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

Once a low-profile businessman who benefited from having President Vladimir Putin as a powerful patron, Yevgeny Prigozhin moved into the global spotlight with Russia’s war in Ukraine.

As the leader of a mercenary force who depicts himself as fighting many of the Russian military’s toughest battles in Ukraine, the 62-year-old Prigozhin has now moved into his most dangerous role yet: preaching open rebellion against his country’s military leadership.

Prigozhin, owner of the Kremlin-allied Wagner Group, has escalated what have been months of scathing criticism of Russia’s conduct of the war by calling Friday for an armed uprising to oust the defense minister. Russian security services reacted immediately, opening a criminal investigation and urging Prigozhin’s arrest.

In a sign of how seriously the Kremlin took Prigozhin’s threat, riot police and the National Guard scrambled to tighten security at key facilities in Moscow, including government agencies and transport infrastructure, Tass reported. Prigozhin, a onetime felon, hot-dog vendor and longtime associate of Putin, urged Russians to join his “march to justice.”

‘Putin’s chef’

Prigozhin and Putin go way back, with both born in Leningrad, what is now known as St. Petersburg.

During the final years of the Soviet Union, Prigozhin served time in prison — 10 years by his own admission — although he does not say what it was for.

Afterward, he owned a hot dog stand and then fancy restaurants that drew interest from Putin. In his first term, the Russian leader took then-French President Jacques Chirac to dine at one of them.

“Vladimir Putin saw how I built a business out of a kiosk, he saw that I don’t mind serving to the esteemed guests because they were my guests,” Prigozhin recalled in an interview published in 2011.

His businesses expanded significantly to catering and providing school lunches. In 2010, Putin helped open Prigozhin’s factory that was built on generous loans by a state bank. In Moscow alone, his company Concord won millions of dollars in contracts to provide meals at public schools. He also organized catering for Kremlin events for several years — earning him the nickname “Putin’s chef” — and has provided catering and utility services to the Russian military.

In 2017, opposition figure and corruption fighter Alexei Navalny accused Prigozhin’s companies of breaking antitrust laws by bidding for some $387 million in Defense Ministry contracts.

Military connection

Prigozhin also owns the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-allied mercenary force that has come to play a central role in Putin’s projection of Russian influence in trouble spots around the world.

The United States, European Union, United Nations and others say the mercenary force has involved itself in conflicts in countries across Africa in particular. Wagner fighters allegedly provide security for national leaders or warlords in exchange for lucrative payments, often including a share of gold or other natural resources. U.S. officials say Russia may also be using Wagner’s work in Africa to support its war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Prigozhin’s mercenaries have become a major force in the war, fighting as counterparts to the Russian army in battles with Ukrainian forces.

That includes Wagner fighters taking Bakhmut, the city where the bloodiest and longest battles have taken place. By last month, Wagner Group and Russian forces appeared to have largely won Bakhmut, a victory with strategically slight importance for Russia despite the cost in lives. The U.S. estimates that nearly half of the 20,000 Russian troops killed in Ukraine since December were Wagner fighters in Bakhmut. His soldiers-for-hire included inmates recruited from Russia’s prisons.

Raging against Russia’s generals

As his forces fought and died en masse in Ukraine, Prigozhin raged against Russia’s military brass. In a video released by his team last month, Prigozhin stood next to rows bodies he said were those of Wagner fighters. He accused Russia’s regular military of incompetence and of starving his troops of the weapons and ammunition they needed to fight.

“These are someone’s fathers and someone’s sons,” Prigozhin said then. “The scum that doesn’t give us ammunition will eat their guts in hell.”

A ‘bad actor’ in the US

Prigozhin earlier gained more limited attention in the U.S., when he and a dozen other Russian nationals and three Russian companies were charged in the U.S. with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord ahead of Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory.

They were indicted as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference. The U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned Prigozhin and associates repeatedly in connection with both his alleged election interference and his leadership of the Wagner Group.

After the 2018 indictment, the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Prigozhin as saying, in a clearly sarcastic remark: “Americans are very impressionable people; they see what they want to see. I treat them with great respect. I’m not at all upset that I’m on this list. If they want to see the devil, let them see him.”

The Biden White House in that episode called him “a known bad actor,” and State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Prigozhin’s “bold confession, if anything, appears to be just a manifestation of the impunity that crooks and cronies enjoy under President Putin and the Kremlin.”

Avoiding challenges to Putin

As Prigozhin grew more outspoken against the way Russia’s conventional military conducted fighting in Ukraine, he continued to play a seemingly indispensable role for the Russian offensive, and appeared to suffer no retaliation from Putin for his criticism of Putin’s generals.

Media reports at times suggested Prigozhin’s influence on Putin was growing and he was after a prominent political post. But analysts warned against overestimating his influence with Putin.

“He’s not one of Putin’s close figures or a confidant,” said Mark Galeotti of University College, London, who specializes in Russian security affairs, speaking on his podcast “In Moscow’s Shadows.”

“Prigozhin does what the Kremlin wants and does very well for himself in the process. But that’s the thing — he is part of the staff rather than part of the family,” Galeotti said.
…

The owner of the Wagner private military group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said early Saturday his forces had seized control of the Russian army’s headquarters in southern Russia’s Rostov-on-Don and that his forces were in control of the city’s military sites.

“We are inside the (army) headquarters, it is 7:30 a.m. (0430 GMT). Military sites in Rostov, including an aerodrome, are under control,” Prigozhin said in a video on Telegram.

Earlier Saturday, Prigozhin and his fighters had crossed from Ukraine into Russia and entered the city of Rostov facing no resistance by border guards. Prigozhin said his men were ready to go “all the way” against the Russian military and would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Rostov officials have asked residents to stay home and not travel to the city center.

In an audio recording posted on the Telegram messaging app, Prigozhin said young conscripts at checkpoints stood back and did not fight, adding that his forces “aren’t fighting against children.”

Meanwhile, officials in Voronezh are reporting a military column moving on federal highway M4 Don, but it was not immediately clear which direction the column is moving.  In addition, the mayor of Moscow has announced that “anti-terrorist measures are being implemented” in the capital, with checkpoints possibly being set up on the roads.

Prigozhin said Friday that Wagner field camps were struck by rockets, helicopter gunships and artillery fire on orders from the chief of the military’s General Staff, General Valery Gerasimov. He charged that Gerasimov issued the order after a meeting with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, at which they decided to destroy Wagner.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claims.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB, opened a criminal investigation on Friday against Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee, an arm of the FSB.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

Political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya told The Associated Press that this may well be the last of Prighozin.

“Now that the state has actively engaged, there’s no turning back,” she posted on Twitter. “The termination of Prigozhin and Wagner is imminent. The only possibility now is absolute obliteration, with the degree of resistance from the Wagner group being the only variable. … Confrontation seems totally futile.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting round-the-clock updates from all relevant state security agencies on actions taken to thwart the attempted armed mutiny, the Tass news agency reported Saturday.

Military vehicles have been seen on Moscow streets, Reuters reported.

The White House is monitoring the standoff between top Russian military officials and the Wagner force and will be consulting with allies and partners on developments, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said Friday. 

The National Anti-Terrorism Committee insisted there is no basis to the allegations made by Prigozhin that the Russian Defense Ministry conducted airstrikes against Wagner bases, killing 2,000 of his fighters.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

General Sergei Surovikin, the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, appealed to Wagner’s leaders, commanders and fighters.

“Together with you we have passed a difficult, hard way, we have fought together, taken the risks, suffered losses, we have won together. We are the same blood, we are warriors,” he said. “I call you to stop. The enemy is only waiting for our domestic political situation to deteriorate. We must not play into the hands of the enemy at this difficult time for the country.”

According to Tass, the FSB is calling on Wagner fighters “not to follow Prigozhin’s criminal orders” and to detain him.

Early Saturday, according to audio posted on Telegram, Prigozhin said he and his men had crossed into Russia without resistance.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

Earlier Friday, Prigozhin said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. Prigozhin has for months openly accused Shoigu and Gerasimov of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on Telegram by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: ”The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. ”The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. ”The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

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

Latest developments:

EU officials are backing the idea that proceeds from more than $230 billion in frozen Russian assets should finance Ukraine’s war effort and reconstruction. But the European Central Bank cautioned the European Commission against the move because it could harm the euro and hurt financial stability, the Financial Times reports.
A joint statement issued by U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said both leaders “have expressed their deep concern over the conflict in Ukraine and mourned its terrible and tragic humanitarian consequences.” The statement also said they are calling for “respect for international law, principles of the UN charter, and territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
President Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, is heading to Denmark this weekend to “to discuss basic principles of peace," in Ukraine, a U.S. official said Friday. Some of the participating countries have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion.

Russia’s Federal Security Services (FSB) opened a criminal investigation Friday against mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, accusing him of armed mutiny, citing the National Anti-Terrorism Committee.

The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison, according to Russia’s chief prosecutor.

The NAC, which is part of the FSB, insisted there is no basis to the allegations made by Prigozhin earlier Friday that the Russian Ministry of Defense conducted an airstrike against Wagner bases, killing 2,000 of his fighters.

Prigozhin accused the Russian military, acting on the orders of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, of shelling his troops’ positions in Ukraine.

“The Minister of Defense arrived specially in Rostov to carry out an operation to destroy the Wagner PMC (private military company),” he wrote on his Telegram social media channel.

An unverified video posted on the “Razgruzka Wagner” (Wagner’s Combat Vest) Telegram channel showed a scene in a forest where small fires were burning and trees appeared to have been damaged by explosions.

Prigozhin said the Wagner Group commanders’ council has vowed to punish Shoigu.

“The evil that the military leadership of the country is responsible for must be stopped. They neglect the lives of soldiers, they forgot the word ‘justice,’ which we will bring back,” he said.

“Therefore, those who killed our guys today, those who killed tens, many tens of thousands of lives of Russian soldiers, will be punished,” he said, announcing that his forces would begin a march to secure justice for the lost fighters.

Early Saturday, according to audio posted on Telegram, Prigozhin said he and his men had crossed into Russia.

“Everyone who will try to put up resistance … we will consider it a threat and destroy it immediately, including any checkpoints that will be in our way and any aircraft that we see over our heads. I am asking everyone to remain calm and not succumb to provocations, stay in their homes. It is advisable not to go outside along the route of our movement,” he continued.

“After we finish what we started, we will return to the front to defend our Motherland,” Prigozhin said. “There are 25,000 of us, and we are going to figure out why this country is in such a mess. Twenty-five thousand are expected as a tactical reserve, and the strategic reserve is the whole army and the whole country. Everyone who wants to join. We must end this disgrace,” he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry rejected Prigozhin’s claim, and the NAC said it has opened a criminal inquiry into Prigozhin on charges of calling for a military coup. According to Russian state news agency TASS, the FSB is calling on Wagner fighters “not to follow Prigozhin’s criminal orders” and to detain him.

Military vehicles have been seen on Moscow streets, Reuters reported.

In Washington, the White House said it is monitoring the situation and consulting with allies, National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said Friday.

The Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying that President Vladimir Putin has been briefed on the developments and “necessary measures are being taken.”

Earlier Friday, Prigozhin said the Kremlin’s reasoning for invading Ukraine is based on lies fabricated by the army’s top brass. Prigozhin has for months openly accused Shoigu and Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, of gross incompetence.

“The Defense Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO,” Prigozhin said in a video clip released on the Telegram messaging app by his press service.

He went on to accuse Shoigu: “The war was needed … so that Shoigu could become a marshal … so that he could get a second ‘Hero’ [of Russia] medal,” he added. “The war wasn’t needed to demilitarize or denazify Ukraine.”

The Wagner chief also attacked the ruling elite, saying greed fueled its desire to absorb the assets from Ukraine’s Donbas region. “The task was to divide material assets,” he said. “There was massive theft in the Donbas, but they wanted more.”

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

Russia urged Azerbaijan to fully unblock the Lachin corridor on Friday, the only road that links Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave where more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians live and rely on it for vital supplies. 

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but its inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Armenians. The enclave broke away from Baku’s control in a war in the early 1990s. 

After heavy fighting and a Russian-brokered cease-fire, Azerbaijan in 2020 took over areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in and around the mountain enclave, and Baku is now pushing for ethnic Armenian government and military structures to be dissolved and for the population to accept Azerbaijani passports. 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in a statement on Friday that the entrance to the corridor had been blocked by Azerbaijan in a move she said increased tensions at a time when Baku and Armenia are trying to agree to a peace treaty.  

There have been reports that the road was totally closed after June 15, when shots were fired in an incident in which the South Caucasus countries said in separate statements that one Azerbaijani and one Armenian border guard had been wounded. 

“Such steps lead to increased tension and are not conducive to maintaining a normal atmosphere around the ongoing process of normalizing relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia with Russian assistance. We call on Baku to unblock the Lachin corridor in its entirety,” said Zakharova.  

Baku has denied imposing a blockade but has said it has taken what it called “relevant measures to investigate the reasons for this provocation, as well as to ensure the security of the border checkpoint.”  

Azerbaijan in April established a checkpoint at the entrance to the corridor following months of disruption caused by people who called themselves Azerbaijani environmental activists, a step it said was essential due to what it cast as Armenia’s use of the road to transport weapons. 

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in Karabakh’s separatist government until February, on Thursday accused Baku of trying to “ethnically cleanse” the enclave by imposing what he called a goods and energy blockade — allegations that Azerbaijan denies. 

Azerbaijan’s foreign minister told Reuters in an interview that Baku was rejecting a demand from Armenia to provide special security guarantees for the enclave’s ethnic Armenians ahead of a new round of peace talks, saying they were sufficiently protected.
…

Thirty-seven migrants are missing after their boat capsized between Tunisia and the Italian island of Lampedusa, the International Organization for Migration said on Friday, citing an account by four survivors of the shipwreck.

The United Nations agency said the survivors, all from sub-Saharan Africa, arrived on Lampedusa late on Thursday, having been rescued by another vessel.

The survivors told the IOM they left the Tunisian port of Sfax heading for Italy with 46 people aboard, but their boat capsized in strong winds.

They recounted that five of their fellow travelers were picked up by another boat, while 37 are missing and feared dead, including seven women and a child, an IOM spokesman in Italy told Reuters.

Earlier, the U.N.’s High Commission for Refugees gave a similar account of the same incident, but said 40 people were believed to be missing, rather than 37.

There has been a surge in migration across the Mediterranean from Tunisia this year after a crackdown by Tunis on migrants from sub-Saharan Africa living in the country illegally and reports of racist attacks amid an economic downturn.

At least 12 African migrants were missing and three died after three boats sank off Tunisia, a judicial official said on Thursday, while the country’s coast guard rescued 152 others.

It was not immediately clear if the four survivors who recounted their story to the IOM were on one of these three boats.
…

Poland hosts about half a million school-aged Ukrainian refugee children. Many high school graduates outside their homeland choose to take Ukraine’s final state exam, which is mandatory for applying to Ukrainian universities and sometimes accepted by European ones. After the war started, the test was held in Ukraine and locations abroad. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Warsaw, Poland. Video: Daniil Batushchak 
…

Saturday marks the anniversary of an attempt by approximately 2,000 sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees to cross over from Morocco to Spain. At least 37 people died in the attempt, and 76 are still unaccounted for.

Amnesty International Friday accused Morocco and Spain of conducting a cover-up of their racist practices at the border.

The group said Spain failed to open an independent investigation after Spanish prosecutors dropped their investigation because they said they had not found any criminal misconduct by Spanish security forces. Morocco never opened a probe, the group said.

“At the Moroccan side of the border, and as a result of the cooperation between the two countries, Moroccan authorities continue preventing Black sub-Saharan Africans from reaching Spanish territory to apply for asylum at the border post,” AI said in a statement.

“What happened in Melilla is a salutary reminder that racist migration policies aimed at fortifying borders and restricting safe and legal routes for people seeking safety in Europe have real and deadly consequences,” Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard said in the statement. “It is hard to escape the racialized element of what happened in Melilla and the dehumanizing way in which Black people are treated at Europe’s borders, when they are living, missing or dead.”

The organization said 22 bodies from the incident remain in a morgue in Morocco.
…

Latest developments:

Ukraine's military said early Friday that air raid alerts had been sounded throughout the country.
A joint statement issued by U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Marendra Modi said Thursday that both leaders "have expressed their deep concern over the conflict in Ukraine and mourned its terrible and tragic humanitarian consequences." The statement also said Biden and Modi, who is in Washington on a state visit, have, in connection with Ukraine, called for "respect for international law, principles of the UN charter, and territorial integrity and sovereignty."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said there was fierce fighting along the front lines but that his forces were advancing in southern Ukraine and holding defensive lines in the eastern part of the country.
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi said the safety and security situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is "extremely fragile" following the destruction of the nearby Kakhovka dam. He called on all sides in the conflict to act to adhere to principles to prevent a nuclear accident.   

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday he believes Russia may be preparing for an attack on Ukraine’s nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility.

“Full de-occupation of the Zaporizhzhia NPP is a must,” the president said in his daily address.   “Anyone who turns a blind eye to Russia’s occupation of such a facility, to Russia’s mining of the territory and facilities of the nuclear power plant, is actually contributing not only to this Russian evil, but also to terror in general.”

Zelenskyy warned about the dire consequences of such an attack. “Obviously, radiation does not ask who is neutral and can reach anyone in the world,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Russian officials said Thursday that overnight airstrikes by Ukrainian forces damaged a bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to the Kherson region of southern Ukraine.

The Chongar bridge is one of the few routes Russian forces use to move between Crimea and other parts of Ukraine under Russian control. Russia has occupied Crimea since annexing it in 2014 in a move rejected by most of the international community.

The Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported that investigators said four missiles were fired at the bridge and that the remains of one of them showed markings of being French-made. Vladimir Konstantinov, chairman of Crimea’s parliament, said damage to the bridge was not severe and likely could be repaired within several days.

As is often the case, Ukraine did not confirm responsibility for the attack, with a defense spokesman saying only, “If the stars are lit, it means it was done for a reason, right? We can only say that there will be a continuation.”

Russia and Ukraine control different parts of Kherson province, a focus of fighting during Kyiv’s counteroffensive aimed at recapturing Russia-held territory.

Overall, the counteroffensive appears to be slow-moving. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that Ukraine’s army had advanced seven kilometers and had retaken territory that included eight villages during the last two weeks.

“As the president of Ukraine [Volodymyr Zelenskyy] said yesterday, the counteroffensive is not a Hollywood movie. It’s not easy walk,” Shmyhal told reporters at a Ukraine Recovery Conference in London.

“The counteroffensive is a number of military operations,” he said. “Sometimes it’s offensive, sometimes it’s defensive. Sometimes it could be tactical pauses. Unfortunately, during our preparation for this counteroffensive, Russians were preparing too. So, there is so much minefields, which really make it slower.”

“We [do] not bring our people into the fire of this war as Russians (are) doing. … We will do very smart offensive operations and because of this it will take time,” the prime minister said. “We all should have patience and we will see results.”

EU sanctions

The European Union Wednesday imposed new sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine, targeting countries where businesses have used loopholes in previous sanctions to continue to trade with Russia, effectively supporting President Vladimir Putin’s 16-month invasion.

The 27-nation EU had previously imposed 10 rounds of sanctions against Russian companies, while freezing assets and imposing travel bans on more than 1,000 officials.

The new sanctions are aimed at keeping key war-related materials and goods from reaching Russia via nations that trade with the EU but have also maintained a business-as-usual relationship with Moscow.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, head of the EU’s executive arm, said the new sanctions will “deal a further blow to Putin’s war machine with tightened export restrictions, targeting entities supporting the Kremlin.”

“Our anti-circumvention tool will prevent Russia from getting its hands on sanctioned goods,” she said.

Aside from sanctions against Iranians alleged to be supplying drones to Russia, it is the first time that the EU has targeted trade via other countries.

The new package will also target 71 individuals and 33 entities in relation with the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.

Also included is a prohibition to accessing ports in the EU by vessels engaged in ship-to-ship transfers when there is a suspicion that a boat is not respecting the ban on importing seaborne Russian crude oil and petroleum products into the bloc. In addition, the package extends the suspension of the broadcasting licenses in the EU of five Russian media outlets under state control.

NATO expansion

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday encouraged Turkey to support ratifying Sweden’s accession to NATO.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Blinken expressed support for Sweden to be admitted at this time during talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on the sidelines of a Ukraine recovery conference in London.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Finland officially joined in April, but Sweden’s accession has been held up by Turkey’s objections to what it said was a lack of action by Sweden against groups that Turkey considers terrorists.

With three weeks until NATO leaders gather for a summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, Sweden expressed hope that it will be able to join the alliance.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told Reuters that Turkey’s parliament should begin the process of ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid.

Sweden has carried out a number of reforms, including a new anti-terror law, as part of an agreement struck with Turkey last year to address security concerns.

“Our judgment is that we have done what was expected of us. Now it is time for the Turkish parliament to start the ratification process,” Billstrom told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting in parliament.

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

Frustration with the rising threat of terrorism emanating from Afghanistan emerged at a meeting this week of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a defense and economic alliance platform consisting of China, Russia, India, Iran and five other Asian states.

Russia and Tajikistan say Afghanistan, which holds an uncertain observer status in the SCO following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, has become a breeding ground for regional terrorist groups.

“According to our information, terrorist groups such as al-Qaida, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkistan, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, TTP, Jamaat Ansarullah are currently present in Afghanistan and pose serious threats to neighboring countries,” said Amirbeg Begnazarov, a representative of Tajikistan, at an event Wednesday jointly hosted by the SCO and the United Nations.

He said his nation was “very concerned about the concentration of different terrorist groups next to our borders that we’ve never had before [and it] is increasing day by day.”

Russia’s defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, recently said that the Taliban’s return to power had bolstered terrorist organizations operating in Afghanistan, a charge echoed by other highly placed Russians.

Vladimir Voronkov, a former Russian diplomat who now heads the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, said this week that Afghanistan had become “an epicenter for the dissemination of terrorism” under the Taliban.

Unlike Russia, China has refrained from making such blistering allegations against the Taliban and has instead actively engaged the isolated Islamist regime.

“Afghanistan is at a critical phase of transitioning from chaos to order,” Zhang Jun, the Chinese permanent representative at the U.N., told a Security Council meeting on Afghanistan on Wednesday.

Zhang said the international community should engage with de facto Taliban authorities and help the country achieve stability and economic prosperity.

Domestic vs. regional concerns

Russia cautiously welcomed the Taliban’s return to power following the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.

Shy of a formal recognition, Russia has handed over the Afghan Embassy in Moscow to the Taliban. It maintained its diplomatic mission in Kabul until September, when it was attacked.

Ten people, including two Russian Embassy staff, were killed and several others injured in the suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State extremist group.

The attack prompted Russia to shut its diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, warning about increased terrorism risks originating from the landlocked nation and threatening its Central Asian neighbors where Russian troops are stationed.

Within SCO members, “differing threat perceptions of particular extremist or separatist groups, political sensitivities and sovereignty concerns, as well as lack of genuine trust among member states, make concrete counterterrorism cooperation very difficult — besides some limited information sharing,” Jiayi Zhou, an expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, told VOA.

While Russia is more vocal about terrorism threats it perceives from the Islamic State group, some SCO members see threats from other militant groups allegedly based in Afghanistan, experts say.

“The trust deficits and divergences within the SCO have resulted in most member countries using bilateral channels to establish ties with the Taliban for geostrategic, geoeconomics and individual security guarantees,” said Ayjaz Ahmad Wani, a researcher at the Observer Research Foundation, an Indian policy institute.

Pakistan has followed the Chinese lead even while officials say Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, a militant group seeking to overthrow the government in Islamabad, has intensified terrorist attacks from its purported havens inside Afghanistan.

Last month, at the 5th China-Afghanistan-Pakistan Foreign Ministers’ Dialogue in Islamabad, the parties agreed to promote trilateral cooperation in security, development and political fronts.

“The SCO as a regional security platform has largely been ineffective,” said Zhou, adding that member states have pursued different security and political priorities since the inception of the organization more than two decades ago.

Toppled from power in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for their alleged support for international terrorism, the Taliban, even after recapturing power in 2021, face terrorism sanctions from many countries.

Taliban leaders maintain that they host no terrorist group and do not threaten the security of any nation.
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Greeted by cheering crowds and surrounded by journalists, including from his own station, one of Georgia’s most prominent journalists walked out of prison Thursday hours after being granted a presidential pardon.

President Salome Zurabishvili announced Thursday evening that she had pardoned journalist Nika Gvaramia, founder of pro-opposition broadcaster Mtavari Arkhi.

Gvaramia, who also is a former member of parliament, has been in prison since May 2022.

Zurabishvili announced the pardon in a televised press conference. Later on Twitter, she said:

In May 2022, a court convicted Gvaramia of abuse of power related to his work in 2019 as the director of a separate broadcaster, Rustavi 2. He was sentenced to 3½ years in jail. The sentence made him the only journalist detained in Georgia over his work.

The Georgian Supreme Court rejected Gvaramia’s appeal on Monday.

Gvaramia’s wife, Sofia Liluashvili, told VOA she was “very excited” about the pardon.

“Now, I just don’t know what to do. Only thing I know is I am very, very happy,” she told VOA late Thursday evening while waiting for her husband outside the prison in Rustavi, Georgia.

Liluashvili was at home with friends and her daughter when the president announced the pardon on television.

“To tell the truth, at that moment, I don’t even remember what happened,” Liluashvili said.

After calling her two sons to tell them the news, one of Liluashvili’s friends drove her to the prison, which is outside the capital, Tbilisi.

“I was not in a condition to drive because I was very much excited,” Liluashvili said.

Liluashvili said she was grateful for the local and international support for her husband’s release.

Some critics have said that Gvaramia’s imprisonment was part of an attempt by the pro-Russian faction of Georgia’s government to derail the country’s European Union candidacy.

Earlier this year, the country’s embassy denied that was the case in response to a question from VOA.

“Georgia has a free, independent and pluralistic media environment,” the Georgian Embassy told VOA.

A September 2022 poll from the National Democratic Institute found that 75% of Georgians support EU membership.

The EU has said Georgia needs to improve its press freedom record before its candidacy can be approved. Gvaramia’s release became viewed as a prerequisite for Georgia’s EU membership.

“Nika’s freedom means a lot for [the] Georgian people,” his wife said. “This is a very important step for Georgia’s democracy.”

Two days before the pardon, the U.S Embassy in Tbilisi published a statement saying it was “deeply concerned” about the case.

William Courtney, senior fellow at the RAND Corporation think tank, wrote on Twitter, “President Salome Zurabishvili’s pardon helps protect democracy in Georgia, but the Prime Minister and the government continue to weaken it.”

Press freedom groups have welcomed Gvaramia’s release.

“We are thrilled that Nika Gvaramia has been pardoned. He should never have been jailed, and his continued imprisonment stood at odds with the country’s purported commitment to press freedom,” Gulnoza Said, who covers Georgia at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement.

Gvaramia’s colleagues celebrated his pardon as well. Journalist Eka Kvesitadze, who worked with Gvaramia at Mtavari Arkhi, told VOA Thursday evening, “It is an extraordinary feeling.”

“Big joy and big relief,” she added. “Tomorrow will be a different day for all of us.”

VOA’s Georgian Service contributed to this report.
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The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo made no breakthrough Thursday in EU-hosted emergency talks aimed at defusing tensions around their border. The European Union’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said they agree on the need for early elections amid fears of a return to open conflict.

Serbia and its former province of Kosovo have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Belgrade has refused to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence.

“I think the two leaders understand the severity of the situation,” Borrell said after hours of talks each with Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. The two refused to meet face-to-face in Brussels but held separate talks with Borrell.

Borrell conceded that they have “different interpretations of the causes and also the facts, consequences and solutions.”

Tensions flared anew last month after Kosovo police seized local municipality buildings in northern Kosovo, where Serbs represent a majority, to install ethnic Albanian mayors who were elected in a local election that Serbs overwhelmingly boycotted.

Serbia has put its troops on the border on the highest state of alert amid a series of recent clashes between Kosovo Serbs on one side and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. In recent weeks, NATO has sent in reinforcements.

The tensions persisted last week with three stun grenades explosions near Kosovo police stations in the north of the country, while Kosovo Serbs staged protests in front of municipality buildings.

Borrell said the EU has repeatedly called on the two sides to help restore calm and return to the negotiating table.

“So far all we have been witnessing is just the opposite,” he said, reading a written statement to reporters.

On the positive side, Borrell said, “we agreed on the need for new elections and discussed in detail the modalities and the steps on how to get there.”

Reporters were not permitted to ask Borrell questions to understand what those plans might involve.

Vucic appeared downbeat. He was unable to say what steps, if any, might be taken in the days and weeks ahead to calm things down. He said that Serbs in Kosovo no longer want to live under “Kurti’s terror,” and that no face-to-face talks are likely anytime soon.

Vucic told reporters that he would not walk away from any talks but said that in his meeting with Borrell and his team, “I also warned that Serbs are in very tough position and do not want to endure the terror they have been forced to endure so far.”

“There is an open [man] hunt for the Serbs every day,” Vucic added. He said that EU officials “have done all in their power but how things will develop depends much less on Borrell than on those who are not interested in de-escalation.”

Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg vowed that the alliance’s peacekeepers “will continue to act impartially.”

“We have increased our presence and will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure a safe and secure environment and freedom of movement for all communities in Kosovo,” Stoltenberg said.

Just four months ago, Borrell indicated things seem promising. He exited talks with Vucic and Kurti to announce that Serbia and Kosovo had given their tacit approval to a EU-sponsored plan to end months of political crises and help improve their ties longer-term.

But the deal unraveled almost immediately as both leaders appeared to renege on commitments that Borrell suggested they had made.
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