In marking World Polio Day, advocates for a polio-free world are urging nations to commit to a new five-year strategy to eradicate this crippling disease and consign it to the trash bin of history.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The economic returns, they say, will be significant. They estimate eradicating polio would result in savings of more than $33 billion.    
…

Tensions between Turkey and Greece are escalating over a number of territorial disputes. Analysts say the countries have a long history of managing such tensions. They say that expertise will be tested with the approaching Greek and Turkish elections, where both leaders are expected to play to nationalist sentiments. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
…

The European Union is aiming to clinch deals on three new laws to fight climate change in time for the annual United Nations climate negotiations next month, in a bid to boost its political clout at the talks.

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

Rishi Sunak ran for Britain’s top job and lost. Now he has another shot — and the chance to say “I told you so.”

The former U.K. Treasury chief was runner-up to Liz Truss in the contest to replace the scandal-plagued Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and prime minister. But Truss quit after a turbulent 45-day term, and Johnson has abandoned a comeback attempt, leaving Sunak a strong favorite to finally assume the office he missed out on less than two months ago.

Victory in the Conservative leadership contest would be vindication for Sunak, who warned in the last campaign that Truss’ tax-cutting economic plans were reckless and would cause havoc. And so they did.

Truss resigned last week after her package of tax cuts spooked financial markets, hammered the value of the pound and obliterated her authority.

If he wins, he will be Britain’s first nonwhite leader and the first Hindu to take the top job. At 42, he’ll also be the youngest prime minister in more than 200 years, a political prodigy whose youthful looks, sharp suits, and smooth, confident manner saw him dubbed “Dishy Rishi” by the British media.

To win, Sunak still must overcome allegations by opponents that he was a turncoat for quitting Johnson’s government as it foundered amid ethics scandals. The near-simultaneous resignations of Sunak and Health Secretary Sajid Javid on July 5 set off a chain reaction. Within 48 hours, some 50 members of the government had quit, and Johnson was forced to step down.

Sunak painted it as a matter of principle, saying he wanted to repair the “breakdown of trust” in politics. He also accused Truss of offering “fairy tales” by promising immediate tax cuts when he felt curbing soaring inflation was a bigger priority.

“I would rather lose having fought for the things that I passionately believe are right for our country, and being true to my values, than win on a false promise,” Sunak said in a BBC interview.

Sunak was born in 1980 in Southampton on England’s south coast to parents of Indian descent who were both born in East Africa. He grew up in a middle-class family, his father a family doctor and his mother a pharmacist, and says he inherited their hard-working ethos.

“I grew up working in the shop, delivering medicines,” he said during the campaign. “I worked as a waiter at the Indian restaurant down the street.”

He has described how his parents saved to send him to Winchester College, one of Britain’s toniest and most expensive boarding schools.

There he mingled with the elite. Rivals recently dug up a clip from a 2001 television documentary about the class system in which the 21-year-old Sunak said he had “friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are, you know, working class — well, not working class.”

After high school, Sunak studied politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford University — the degree of choice for future prime ministers — then got an MBA at Stanford University.

He worked for the investment bank Goldman Sachs as a hedge fund manager and lived in the U.S., where he met his wife, Akshata Murty. The couple has two daughters.

Returning to Britain, Sunak was elected to Parliament for the safe Tory seat of Richmond in Yorkshire in 2015. In Britain’s 2016 Brexit referendum, he supported leaving the European Union — a risky career move, since it went against the Conservative government’s policy.

When “leave” unexpectedly won, Sunak’s career took off. He served in several junior ministerial posts before being appointed chancellor of the exchequer — head of the Treasury — by Johnson in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit.

An instinctively low-tax, small state politician who idolizes former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, he nonetheless forked out billions in government money to keep people and businesses afloat during the pandemic. His furlough program, which paid the salaries of millions of workers when they were temporarily laid off, made him the most popular member of the government — a status he burnished with slick social media messages that rivals and critics said stressed his own brand more than the government’s.

But Sunak has had his wobbles over the years. Critics said a campaign to get people to eat in restaurants after lockdown restrictions were eased in the summer of 2020 contributed to another wave of COVID-19.

Others have said Sunak’s family’s vast wealth and Silicon Valley past put him out of touch with the struggles of ordinary people.

He also faced questions about his finances and those of his wife. Murty is the daughter of the billionaire founder of Indian tech giant Infosys, and the couple is worth $877 million, according to the Sunday Times Rich List.

In April 2022, it emerged that Murty did not pay U.K. tax on her overseas income. The practice was legal, but it looked bad at a time when Sunak was raising taxes for millions of Britons. Sunak also was criticized for holding on to his American green card, which signifies an intent to settle in the U.S., for two years after he became Britain’s finance minister.

Sunak was cleared of wrongdoing, but the revelations still hurt. He was fined by police, along with Johnson and dozens of others, for attending a party in the prime minister’s office in 2020 that broke coronavirus lockdown rules. Outrage over those parties at a time when Britons were forced to stay home contributed to Johnson’s downfall. Sunak has said he attended inadvertently and briefly.

In his first leadership campaign, he depicted himself as the candidate of grown-up decisions and fiscal probity, criticizing Truss’ plans to lower taxes and increase borrowing, and vowing to get inflation under control.

That’s now a harder job than ever.
…

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

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

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

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

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

Dangers of a “dirty bomb”

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

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

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

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

Suburb attacked

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

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

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

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

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban made veiled comparisons Sunday between the Soviet troops that attacked Hungary during the 1956 revolution and the institutions of the European Union today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Protesters in Hungary’s capital Sunday carried a banner depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin hugging Orban.
…

A right-wing politician and a centrist independent candidate will face each other in a runoff presidential election in Slovenia after no candidate achieved an outright victory in the first round of voting Sunday, partial results showed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ziga Jelenec, a resident of Ljubljana, the capital, said the election likely will show “how much our society is divided.”
…

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson pulled out of the contest to become Britain’s next leader on Sunday, saying he had the support of enough lawmakers to progress to the next stage but far fewer than front-runner former Finance Minister Rishi Sunak.

“There is a very good chance that I would be successful in the election with Conservative Party members – and that I could indeed be back in Downing Street on Friday,” Johnson said in a statement.

“But in the course of the last days I have sadly come to the conclusion that this would simply not be the right thing to do. You can’t govern effectively unless you have a united party in parliament.”

Johnson, who never formally announced his bid to return to Downing Street, has spent the weekend trying to persuade Conservative lawmakers to back him and said on Sunday that he had the support of 102 of them.

He needed the backing of 100 by Monday to proceed to the next stage, which would have seen him going head-to-head against Sunak in a vote by the Conservative Party’s 170,000 members.

Sunak, whose resignation as finance minister in July helped precipitate Johnson’s fall, had cleared the threshold of 100 lawmakers needed to progress to the next stage, securing 142 declared supporters on Sunday, according to Sky News.

He will be named leader of the Conservative Party and become prime minister on Monday unless candidate Penny Mordaunt reaches the threshold of 100 backers to force a run-off vote by party members. She had 24 declared supporters on Sunday.
…

Climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting in a German museum to protest fossil fuel extraction Sunday but caused no damage to the artwork.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just Stop Oil activists also glued themselves to the frame of an early copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” at London’s Royal Academy of Arts, and to John Constable’s “The Hay Wain” in the National Gallery.
…

Former British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak was frontrunner Sunday in the Conservative Party’s race to replace Liz Truss as prime minister, as he garnered the public support of over 100 Tory lawmakers to forge ahead of his two main rivals — ousted former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mordaunt and Johnson — if he confirms he is running — have until Monday afternoon to garner 100 nominations. If all three meet that threshold, lawmakers will vote to knock out one and then hold an indicative vote on the final two. The party’s 172,000 members will then get to decide between the two finalists in an online vote. The new leader is due to be selected by Friday.
…

A Russian fighter plane crashed into a residential building in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Sunday and the two pilots were killed, officials said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two Russian Indigenous Siberians were so scared of having to fight the war in Ukraine, they chanced everything to take a small boat across the treacherous Bering Sea to reach American soil, Alaska’s senior U.S. senator said after talking with the two.

The two, identified as males by a resident, landed earlier this month near Gambell, on Alaska’s St. Lawrence Island in the Bering Strait, where they asked for asylum.

“They feared for their lives because of Russia, who is targeting minority populations, for conscription into service in Ukraine,” Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Saturday during a candidate forum at the Alaska Federation of Natives conference in Anchorage.

“It is very clear to me that these individuals were in fear, so much in fear of their own government that they risked their lives and took a 15-foot (5-meter) skiff across those open waters,” Murkowski said when answering a question about Arctic policy.

“It is clear that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin is focused on a military conquest at the expense of his own people,” Murkowski said. “He’s got one hand on Ukraine and he’s got the other on the Arctic, so we have to be eyes wide open on the Arctic.”

Murkowski said she met with the two Siberians recently but didn’t provide more details about exactly when or where the meeting took place or where their asylum process stood. She was not available after the forum for follow-up questions.

Murkowski’s office on Oct. 6 announced their request for asylum, saying the men reportedly fled one of the coastal communities on Russia’s east coast.

A village elder in Gambell, 87-year-old Bruce Boolowon, is believed to be the last living Alaska National Guard member who helped rescue 11 U.S. Navy men who were in a plane that was shot down by Russian MIGs over the Bering Sea in 1955. The plane crash-landed on St. Lawrence Island.

Gambell, an Alaska Native community of about 600 people, is about 58 kilometers from Russia’s Chukotka Peninsula in Siberia.

Even though one of the Russians spoke English pretty well, two Russian-born women from Gambell were brought in to translate. Both women married local men and became naturalized U.S. citizens, said Boolowon, who is Siberian Yupik.

Russians landing in Gambell during the Cold War was commonplace, but the visits were not nefarious, Boolowon said. Since St. Lawrence Island is so close to Russia, people routinely traveled back and forth to visit relatives.

But these two men seeking asylum were unknown to the people of Gambell.

“They were foreigners and didn’t have any passports, so they put them in jail,” he told The Associated Press last week.

The two men spent the night in the jailhouse, but townspeople in Gambell brought them food, both Alaska Native dishes and items bought at a grocery store.

“They were pretty full; they ate a lot,” Boolowon said.

“The next day, a Coast Guard C-130 with some officials came and picked them up,” he said, adding that was the last he heard about the Russians.

Since then, officials have been tight-lipped.

“The individuals were transported to Anchorage for inspection, which includes a screening and vetting process, and then subsequently processed in accordance with applicable U.S. immigration laws under the Immigration and Nationality Act,” was all a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said in an email this past week when asked for an update on the asylum process and if and where the men were being held.

Margaret Stock, an immigration attorney in Anchorage, said it’s very unlikely information about the Russians will ever be released.

“The U.S. government is supposed to keep all of this confidential, so I don’t know why they would be telling anybody anything,” she told the AP.

Instead, it would be up to the two Russians to publicize their situation, which could put their families in Russia at risk. “I don’t know why they would want to do that,” Stock said.

Thousands of Russian men fled the country after Putin in September announced a mobilization to call up about 300,000 men with past military experience to bolster forces in Ukraine.

Messages sent last week and again Saturday to the Russian consular office in San Francisco were not returned.
…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The united group of forces is now in safe hands,” the Kremlin-backed Kadyrov said, voicing confidence that he will “improve the situation.”
…

Boris Johnson returned to Britain on Saturday as he considers an audacious attempt to win a second term as prime minister only weeks after he was forced to step down, with some colleagues warning his comeback could create more political chaos.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Divisive twist

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

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

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

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

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

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

The contest has been accelerated to take only a week. Under the rules, only three candidates will be able to reach the first ballot of lawmakers on Monday afternoon, with the final two put to a vote on Friday that is limited to about 170,000 signed up members of the Conservative Party.
…

Thousands of Iranians were among an estimated 80,000 people who joined in a rally Saturday in Berlin, the largest of several protests in cities around the world showing solidarity with women-led protests in Iran. 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

‘Women, Life, Freedom’

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Protests around Iran

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

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

Some information for this report was provided by Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. 
…

The Vatican said Saturday it and China had renewed a secret and contested agreement on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in the communist country.

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

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

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

Zen pleaded not guilty.

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

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

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

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

Steps toward healing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last month, the Vatican tried to arrange a meeting between Xi, 69, and the pope, 85, while both leaders were in Kazakhstan, but China declined.
…

Russian-installed authorities in Ukraine told all residents of the city of Kherson to leave “immediately” Saturday ahead of an expected advance by Ukrainian troops waging a counteroffensive to recapture one of the first urban areas Russia took after invading the country.

In a post on the Telegram messaging service, the pro-Kremlin regional administration called on civilians to use boat crossings over a major river to move deeper into Russian-held territory, citing a tense situation on the front and the threat of shelling and alleged “terror attacks” by Kyiv.

Kherson has been in Russian hands since the early days of the nearly 8-month-long war in Ukraine. The city is the capital of a region of the same name, one of four that Russian President Vladimir Putin illegally annexed last month and put under Russian martial law on Thursday.

On Friday, Ukrainian forces bombarded Russian positions across the province, targeting pro-Kremlin forces’ resupply routes across the Dnieper River and inching closer to making a full assault on Kherson city. Ukraine has retaken some villages in the region’s north since launching its counteroffensive in late August.

Russian-installed officials were reported as trying desperately to turn Kherson city — a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and ports — into a fortress while attempting to relocate tens of thousands of residents.

The Kremlin poured as many as 2,000 draftees into the surrounding region to replenish losses and strengthen front-line units, according to the Ukrainian army’s general staff.

The Dnieper River figures prominently in the regional battle because it serves multiple critical functions. It provides crossings for supplies, troops and civilians; drinking water for southern Ukraine and the annexed Crimean Peninsula; and power generation from a hydroelectric station.

Much of the area, including the power station and a canal feeding water to Crimea, is under Russian control.

Kherson’s Kremlin-backed authorities previously announced plans to evacuate all Russia-appointed officials and as many as 60,000 civilians across the river, in what local leader Volodymyr Saldo said would be an “organized, gradual displacement.”

Another Russia-installed official estimated Saturday that about 25,000 people from across the region had made their way over the Dnieper. In a Telegram post, Kirill Stremousov claimed that civilians were relocating willingly.

“People are actively moving because today the priority is life. We do not drag anyone anywhere,” he said.

Ukrainian and Western officials have expressed concern about potential forced transfers of residents to Russia or Russian-occupied territory.

Ukrainian officials have urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.

Elsewhere in the invaded country, hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine awoke Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire. In its latest war tactic, Russia has intensified strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country.

Ukraine’s air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” adding that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from the air and sea.

In a Telegram post published later Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy referenced 36 missiles, “most of which were shot down.” The reason for the discrepancy in numbers was not immediately clear.

Air raid sirens blared across Ukraine twice by early afternoon, sending residents scurrying into shelters as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down explosive drones and incoming missiles.

“Several rockets” targeting Ukraine’s capital were shot down Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.

The president’s office said in its morning update that five suicide drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv.

The governors of six western and central provinces, as well as of the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea, gave similar reports.

Ukraine’s top diplomat said the day’s attacks proved Ukraine needed new Western-reinforced air defense systems “without a minute of delay.”

“Air defense saves lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.

Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said on Telegram that almost 1.4 million households lost power as a result of the strikes. He said some 672,000 homes in the western Khmelnytskyi region were affected and another 242,000 suffered outages in the Cherkasy region.

Most of the western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug River and had a pre-war population of 275,000, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.

In a social media post on Saturday, the city council urged local residents to store water “in case it’s also gone within an hour.”

The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in far western Ukraine, made a similar appeal on Saturday. Power in Lutsk was partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities, Mayor Ihor Polishchuk said.

He later added that a civilian suffered burns when a shockwave from the strike hit his house, and that one power station had been damaged beyond repair.

The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews with about 100,000 residents before the war, also was plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power station, regional authorities said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s state energy company, Ukrenergo, responded to the strikes by announcing that rolling blackouts would be imposed in Kyiv and 10 Ukrainian regions to stabilize the situation.

In a Facebook post on Saturday, the company accused Russia of attacking “energy facilities within the principal networks of the western regions of Ukraine.” It claimed the scale of destruction was comparable to the fallout earlier this month from Moscow’s first coordinated attack on the Ukrainian energy grid.

Both Ukrenergo and officials in Kyiv have urged Ukrainians to conserve energy. Earlier this week, Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and to avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.

Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed since Russia launched the first wave of targeted infrastructure strikes on October 10.

In a separate development, Russian officials said a shelling attack on a frontier town just kilometers north of the Ukrainian border killed two people and wounded 12.

Andrey Ikonnikov, the health minister for the southern Belgorod region of Russia, said a 14-year-old boy and an older man died on the spot after shells hit civilian infrastructure in Shebekino, which is home to about 44,500 people.

Earlier social media posts by the regional governor, Vladislav Gladkov, blamed the attack on Ukraine. Russia has previously accused Ukrainian forces of numerous strikes on civilians in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk. Kyiv has not formally responded to these accusations.
…

Giorgia Meloni, whose political party with neo-fascist roots emerged victorious in recent elections, was sworn in on Saturday as Italy’s first far-right premier since the end of World War II. She is also the first woman to be premier.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Germany’s announcement that it will take in 1,000 at-risk Afghans with their families from Afghanistan will be challenging, an Afghan lawyer says, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for Afghans to leave Afghanistan.

In a joint statement, the German Foreign and Interior ministries announced the new humanitarian admission program on Monday.

“The plan is to approve around 1,000 Afghans at particular risk, along with their family members from Afghanistan for admittance every month,” said the statement.

“It is going to be very challenging,” said Abdul Subhan Misbah, former deputy head of Afghanistan’s Lawyers Union who has been involved in the efforts to evacuate judges and prosecutors from Afghanistan, adding that “it is not clear who would be included, and it won’t be easy to take people out of Afghanistan that is ruled by the Taliban.”

The German government said that the new program would evacuate at-risk women’s and human rights activists, former government officials, and civil society members. The program also includes those persecuted in Afghanistan because of their gender, sexual orientation, and/or religion.

Misbah said that many employees of the former government and members of civil society want to leave their country.

“Most of the people want to leave,” he said. “What are the criteria based on which people will be admitted? How are they going to help those at risk to get out of Afghanistan? These questions have to be answered.”

Besides the problems they face to get passports and visas, he said, Afghans must travel to a third country because there are no direct flights from Afghanistan to Germany.

“It should be something that the German government has to negotiate with neighboring countries to facilitate the process,” Misbah said.

Germany’s Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Christopher Burger, told VOA that his government is working with the neighboring countries to help with the process.

“We will continue to work through all channels available to us in order to assure safe passage to the people that we want to bring to safety,” he said.

Germany has admitted 26,000 Afghans since Kabul fell and the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Burger said to implement the new program, German authorities would work with organizations already on the ground and involved in helping at-risk individuals leave the country, but the German government would make the final decision on who is the “most vulnerable and most in need of admission to Germany.”

Local contractors

Burger said the program will continue until October 2025 and does not include 12,000 former German contractors who are “officially granted admission” to Germany but are still in Afghanistan.

“Simply, we are not able to bring people outside the country. They do not have a passport,” Burger said. “We are working with the neighboring countries on achieving that.”

He added that a “larger group” of Afghans had “some sort of association” with German organizations in Afghanistan and “are still in the proceedings to be recognized as former German contracts.”

Axel Steier, the founder of the German-based civil society organization Mission Lifeline, told VOA that his organization runs several safe houses for those who worked with the German government.

He added that these local contractors fear for their lives.

Steier said that “the Taliban want to kill them, and [we are] keeping them into safe houses and waiting for a decision from the German government to take them in.”

Difficult to leave

The German government said that Afghans who have left Afghanistan would not be considered under the new humanitarian admission program.

“So, this is a big issue,” said Steier, adding that many at-risk Afghans left Afghanistan after the Taliban seized power. Most of the individuals are staying in Pakistan, Iran or Tajikistan and are unable to return to Afghanistan.

He added that it is difficult for people to get passports and visas to leave the country.

“And for both, you need a lot of money. Because you can get a passport only if you pay $1,200 to $1,500,” he said. “Also, it is very difficult to get [a] visa for Iran. At the moment, it costs $500.”

“For people who are poor … [and have no] money for stuff like a passport or visa, it is almost impossible to come [to Germany],” Steier said. 
…