TAIPEI – As the war in Ukraine rages on, China and Russia are hosting joint military exercises in the Sea of Japan that analysts say are the latest sign of deepening cooperation between the two military powerhouses. The drills are also part of an effort to counter growing partnership of the U.S. and its allies in the region, they add.

“Russia and China are trying to convey to Japan and the U.S. that they are very unhappy with their cooperation in NATO and the [Indo-Pacific] region, and they want to prove that they can achieve the same level of cooperation in the region as [Washington and its allies,]” Stephen Nagy, a regional security expert at the International Christian University, told VOA.

For Russia, Nagy added, the drills are a way of showing “that they still have the capacity to manage conflicts on the eastern front but also provide capabilities to the Indo-Pacific region to work with China and pressure the U.S.”

“They want to prove that they can still work with China to cause major disruption, especially in Japan’s backyard,” he said.

According to a report posted on China’s Defense Ministry website Thursday, five Chinese warships and two Russian guided missile frigates linked up in the Sea of Japan Wednesday completing preparations for the drill, which is dubbed “Northern/Interaction – 2023.” The report, however, did not say when the exercises would begin or finish.

In total, both countries have deployed more than 10 naval vessels and more than 30 military aircraft to take part in the exercise, the report added.  According to China’s state-run Global Times, the exercise marks the first time that both Russia’s navy and air force will participate in a joint exercise led by China. Northern/Interaction-2023 is the first joint military exercise conducted near Japan this year, but according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Russia and China conducted at least five military exercises in the Sea of Japan and the East China Sea last year.

Forceful response?

The announcement of the exercise comes as ties are strengthening between the U.S., Japan and South Korea, and follows a trilateral missile defense drill involving the three in the Sea of Japan this week aimed at countering North Korea’s nuclear and missile threats.

Some Chinese military commentators say China and Russia’s joint exercise is a forceful response to the trilateral conducted by the U.S. and its allies.

“The Chinese and Russian drills will focus on air defense exercise, anti-missile exercise, anti-submarine exercise, and anti-ship exercise,” Chinese military commentator Song Zhongping said in a video he released Saturday. Adding that he thinks Russia and China will conduct joint sea and air patrols following the exercise.

Since the waterways around the Sea of Japan are all crucial passages for Chinese and Russian navies to get to the Western Pacific, a broad swath of countries that stretches from Russia in the north to New Zealand in the south, Song added that China and Russia should challenge the trilateral military alliance because their presence threatens the security of that strategic waterway.

Beijing’s remarks about the drills have not been as explicit. A statement released on China’s defense ministry’s official social media account on WeChat on Sunday, when Chinese vessels set out for the exercise, said the drill is aimed at “safeguarding the security of strategic waterways” in the Sea of Japan.

Multiple strategic goals

The military exercise is not just about countering the U.S. and its allies. Some experts think China and Russia also hope to fulfill some strategic goals through the drills.

Lin Ying-yu, a China military expert at Tamkang University in Taiwan, told VOA that Beijing wants to learn from Moscow’s experience of countering attacks on their navy from the land in the Ukraine war.

“During the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces have used missile or fighter jets to attack Russian ships at sea, so Russian forces have experience coping with this kind of attack,” he said.

Lin adds that the People’s Liberation Army could face similar situations if it attacked Taiwan and the island’s military could use anti-ship missiles or drones to target Chinese naval vessels in a cross-Strait conflict.

“Scenarios from the Ukraine war may be simulated in the China-Russia joint military exercise,” he said.

Nagy said the drill is also about demonstrating cohesiveness with the Russians, especially in the wake of the Wagner rebellion.

“These kinds of military activities demonstrate that the Chinese are firmly wedded to their relationship with Russia,” he said. “While they are not supportive of the conflict with Ukraine, they want to ensure that Putin remains in power.”

More drills for the Indo-Pacific

As Beijing and Moscow look to double down on their “no limits” partnership, Lin said he thinks this drill is just the beginning and it is likely that the two countries will increase the number of joint military exercises.

He argued that maintaining close interaction with China has become critical for Russia as it becomes more and more isolated diplomatically. Just before the drill in the Sea of Japan, the two Russian frigates that will participate docked in Shanghai, hosting visitors for a week according to the Global Times.

At the same time, Shen Ming-shih, Director of the Institute for National Defense and Security Research in Taiwan, said he expects the U.S. and its allies to hold more joint military exercises to counter the growing Russian and Chinese presence in the region. “The U.S., Japan, and South Korea will strengthen their military capabilities in maritime warfare, as well as increase the number of relevant exercises,” he told VOA.

However, one thing that remains to be seen, Lin said, is whether Japan will amend or adjust its security treaties, as it faces security threats from multiple fronts, including Russia to the north, China to the Southwest, and North Korea’s constant missile-firing. He thinks it’s worth observing whether the U.S., Japan, and Taiwan pursue more security and military cooperation against this backdrop.
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Hundreds of protesters stormed the Swedish Embassy compound in Baghdad early Thursday morning and set a building on fire, a source familiar with the matter and a Reuters witness said, in a protest against the expected burning of a Quran in Sweden. 

The source said no embassy staff had been harmed and declined to say more. Swedish Embassy officials in Baghdad did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  

A Swedish foreign ministry spokesperson declined to comment.  

Thursday’s demonstration by supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr was called to protest the second planned Quran burning in Sweden in weeks, according to posts in a popular Telegram group linked to the influential cleric and other pro-Sadr media.  

Swedish news agency TT reported on Wednesday that Swedish police had granted an application for a public meeting outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm on Thursday. The application says the applicant seeks to burn the Quran and the Iraqi flag, TT reported.

Two-person protest 

Two people were set to participate in the demonstration, according to TT, adding that one of the people was the same person who set a Quran on fire outside a Stockholm mosque in June. 

A series of videos posted to the Telegram group One Baghdad showed people gathering around the embassy around 1 a.m. local time Thursday (2200 GMT Wednesday) chanting pro-Sadr slogans and storming the embassy complex around an hour later.  

“Yes, yes to the Quran,” protesters chanted.  

Videos later showed smoke rising from a building in the embassy complex. Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos.  

It was not immediately clear if anyone was inside the embassy at the time of the storming.  

Late last month, Sadr called for protests against Sweden and the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador after the Quran burning in Stockholm by an Iraqi man.  

Swedish police charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group. In a newspaper interview, he described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. 

Two major protests took place outside the Swedish Embassy in Baghdad in the aftermath of that Quran burning, with protesters breaching the embassy grounds on one occasion. 

The governments of several Muslim countries, including Iraq, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Morocco, issued protests about the incident, with Iraq seeking the man’s extradition to face trial in the country.  

The United States also condemned it but added that Sweden’s issuing of the permit supported freedom of expression and was not an endorsement of the action. 
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WASHINGTON – Russia is considering attacking civilian ships on the Black Sea and then putting the blame on Ukrainian forces, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

“The Russian military may expand their targeting of Ukrainian grain facilities to include attacks against civilian shipping,” National Security Council spokesperson Adam Hodge said.

He said the allegation was based on newly declassified intelligence.

It came in the wake of missile and drone attacks by Russia against the port city of Odesa, as well as the Kremlin’s decision to pull out of an international deal allowing safe passage of massive Ukrainian grain exports across the Black Sea to world markets.

Moscow said its missiles targeted military objectives in Odesa, but Hodge backed Ukrainian accusations that the attack destroyed “agricultural infrastructure and 60,000 tons of grain” ready for export.

According to the White House official, those kinds of attacks could now expand to civilian ships. And Russia is mounting an operation to make such attacks look like they were carried out by Ukraine, he said.

Hodge cited Russia’s release of a video showing its forces detecting and destroying an “alleged Ukrainian sea mine” Wednesday.

At the same time, “our information indicates that Russia laid additional sea mines in the approaches to Ukrainian ports. We believe that this is a coordinated effort to justify any attacks against civilian ships in the Black Sea and lay blame on Ukraine for these attacks.”

The Russian defense ministry said all vessels sailing to Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea from Thursday on will be regarded as potential carriers of military cargo and its flag states “will be considered to be involved in the Ukrainian conflict on the side of the Kyiv regime.” 
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A video released Wednesday appears to show Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin for the first time since he led a short-lived rebellion last month. He is seen telling his troops they will spend some time in Belarus training its military before deploying to Africa. 

Messaging app channels linked to Prigozhin’s Wagner private military company said he spoke at a field camp in Belarus and ran a blurry video apparently showing him there, his silhouette seen against the sky at dusk. His gravelly voice was clearly distinguishable. 

“Welcome, guys! I am happy to greet you all. Welcome to the Belarusian land!” the video showed him saying. “We fought with dignity! We have done a lot for Russia.” 

Prigozhin’s mutiny, which posed the most serious threat to President Vladimir Putin’s 23-year rule, was billed by the mercenary chief as being aimed at ousting Russia’s top military leaders, whom he accused of incompetence. 

Prigozhin’s criticism of the conduct of the fighting in Ukraine was repeated in the new video, the authenticity of which could not be immediately verified. 

Effort is ‘a shame’

“What is going on the front line today is a shame in which we shouldn’t take part,” he said, adding that Wagner forces could return to Ukraine in the future. 

“We may return to the special military operation when we feel sure that we will not be forced to put shame on ourselves,” Prigozhin said, using the same term that the Kremlin calls the fighting in Ukraine. 

“We need to wait for the moment when we can show ourselves in full,” he said. “That is why a decision has been made that we would spend some time here in Belarus. During that time, we will make the Belarusian army the second-strongest army in the world. We will train, raise our level and set off for a new journey to Africa.” 

In addition to their involvement in Ukraine, Wagner mercenaries have been sent to Syria and several African countries since the private army was created in 2014. 

Under the deal that was brokered by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Prigozhin agreed to end his rebellion in exchange for an amnesty for him and his fighters and permission to relocate to Belarus. 

Before moving to Belarus, Wagner handed over its weapons to the Russian military, part of efforts by Russian authorities to defuse the threat posed by the mercenaries. 

Audio messages

Until the video was posted Wednesday, Prigozhin had released only a couple of audio messages since the mutiny — contrasting with an almost-daily barrage of blustery statements before the June 23-24 events. Some saw that as a sign the deal obliged him to cut his rhetoric and stay away from politics. 

Starting last week, several Wagner convoys flying Russian flags and Wagner insignias have been seen rolling into Belarus, heading toward a field camp that Belarusian authorities had offered to the company. 

Satellite photos from Planet Labs PBC and analyzed by The Associated Press showed a convoy of vehicles at the base near Tsel in the Asipovichy region of Belarus, about 90 kilometers southeast of Minsk. The photos taken Monday showed a long line of vehicles coming off a highway. 

Belaruski Hajun, an activist group that monitors troop movements in Belarus, said several convoys with Wagner fighters have entered the country since last week, including at least 170 vehicles on Tuesday. It estimated that about 2,500 Wagner mercenaries are now in Belarus. 

On the move

On Monday, a messaging app channel linked to the contractor ran a video showing Russian and Wagner flags lowered at the mercenaries’ main home base in Molkino in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia. The channel said that the base would close on July 30, and one of the mercenaries in the video declared that Wagner was moving to unspecified new locations. Wagner also has used camps in the Russia-occupied Luhansk region of Ukraine. 

Prigozhin presented the flag to cheering mercenaries in the video posted Wednesday. 

Lukashenko has said that his country’s military could benefit from the mercenaries’ combat experience and rejected claims that their presence could destabilize the ex-Soviet nation. Last week, Belarusian state TV broadcast video of Wagner instructors training Belarus’ territorial defense forces. 

In his revolt that began on June 23 and lasted less than 24 hours, Prigozhin’s mercenaries swept through the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don and captured the military headquarters there before moving as close as 200 kilometers to Moscow. 

The mutiny faced little resistance and the mercenaries downed at least six military helicopters and a command post aircraft, killing at least 10 airmen.
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CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned rights researcher Patrick Zaki a day after he was handed a three-year prison term on charges of spreading false news in a case that drew new attention to Egypt’s crackdown on dissent. 

Zaki had been studying in Italy before his detention during a trip home in 2020 over a news article in which he documented life as a Coptic Christian in Egypt.  

He will return to Italy on Thursday, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a statement in which she thanked Sisi for a “very important act.”  

Sisi’s pardon, which was reported by a state news agency and confirmed by lawyers, also included Mohamed El-Baqer, a rights lawyer who represented Egypt’s well-known activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah and was arrested in 2019 while attending his client’s interrogation. 

Zaki’s case gained widespread attention in Italy, which had already been jolted by the killing and torture in Egypt of Italian student Giulio Regeni in 2016. Four Egyptian security officials have been charged in Italy over Regeni’s disappearance and murder, while Egyptian officials have repeatedly denied involvement.  

After Zaki’s sentencing on Tuesday, Meloni had said Italy still had confidence over his case, while a U.S. state department spokesman urged Egypt to release Zaki immediately.  

The head of Egypt’s national dialogue, a state-controlled initiative to debate the country’s future, had appealed to Sisi to use his constitutional powers to have Zaki freed as several members of the dialogue’s board signaled they were quitting over the verdict.  

Zaki, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), had served 22 months in pretrial detention before being released in December 2021 pending the completion of his trial. EIPR said he was subjected to torture following his arrest. 

His arrest came amid a far-reaching crackdown on dissent under Sisi, who led the overthrow of democratically elected Islamist leader Mohamed Mursi a decade ago before becoming president the following year. 

Many of those swept up in the crackdown remain in prison, including senior Muslim Brotherhood figures and Abd el-Fattah. 

Authorities have justified the arrests on security grounds. 

Since late 2021 Egypt has taken a number of steps that it says are aimed at addressing human rights, including amnesties for some prominent prisoners, but critics have dismissed the moves as cosmetic and say arrests have continued. 

“Baqer and Patrick should not have spent one day in jail for their human rights work,” EIPR head Hossam Bahgat said in a tweet. “We welcome the news of their pardon and call for the immediate release of thousands still detained in Egypt on political grounds.”
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MOSCOW — The upper house of Russia’s parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill outlawing gender-affirming procedures, sending the measure to President Vladimir Putin to be signed into law. 

The move extends the Kremlin’s drive to protect what it views as the country’s traditional values. 

The bill, which already was approved in the lower house, bans any “medical interventions aimed at changing the sex of a person,” as well as changing one’s gender in official documents and public records. 

The only exception will be medical intervention to treat congenital anomalies. 

It also annuls marriages in which one person has “changed gender” and bars transgender people from becoming foster or adoptive parents. 

Lawmakers portray the measure as protecting Russia from “the Western anti-family ideology,” with some describing gender transitioning as “pure satanism.” 

Russia’s crackdown on LGBTQ+ people started a decade ago when Putin first proclaimed a focus on “traditional family values,” supported by the Russian Orthodox Church. 

In 2013, the Kremlin adopted legislation that banned any public endorsement of “nontraditional sexual relations” among minors. In 2020, Putin pushed through a constitutional reform that outlawed same-sex marriage. 
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Ukraine is calling for its grain exports to continue passing through the Black Sea after Russia’s withdrawal this week from an agreement allowing safe passage. Analysts say any new arrangement needs the cooperation of Turkey, as Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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More than 700 people have been sentenced to prison over riots in France late last month, the country’s justice minister said Wednesday, lauding the “firm” response of magistrates.   

In total, 1,278 verdicts have been handed down, with over 95 percent of defendants convicted on a range of charges from vandalism to attacking police officers.   

Six hundred people have already been jailed.   

“It was extremely important to have a response that was firm and systematic,” Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told RTL radio. “It was essential that we reestablish national order.”    

The most intense urban violence in France since 2005 began on June 27 after a police officer shot dead a 17-year-old boy with North African roots during a traffic stop west of Paris, in an incident recorded by a passerby.   

The riots were contained after four nights of serious clashes thanks to the deployment of around 45,000 security forces, including elite police special forces and armored vehicles.   

Dupond-Moretti had led calls for courts to hand down harsh sentences as a deterrent, with some staying open over the weekend of the clashes to handle a backlog of cases.   

Many suspects faced immediate appearances and some defence lawyers have raised concerns about the fairness of the judicial process and the heavy use of custodial sentences.   

The average age of the over 3,700 people arrested was just 17, with the minors appearing in separate children’s courts.   

The number of people sentenced to prison exceeds the number in 2005 at the time of the last major riots when around 400 people were sent to jail.  
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Swathes of Europe baked Tuesday in a heatwave trailed by wildfires and health warnings, as parts of Asia also suffered under extreme weather. 

Firefighters battled blazes in parts of Greece and the Canary Islands, Spain issued heat alerts while some children in Italy’s Sardinia were warned away from sports for safety reasons. 

“You can’t be in the street, it’s horrible,” said Lidia Rodriguez, 27, in Madrid. 

In much of Europe, authorities have warned in recent days of the health dangers of the extreme heat, urging people to drink water and shelter from the sun.  

Several local temperature records were broken in southern France, the weather service said. 

Meteo France said a record 29.5 degrees Celsius (85 Fahrenheit) had been reached in the Alpine ski resort of Alpe d’Huez, which sits at an altitude of 1,860 meters (6,100 feet), while 40.6 C (105 F) had been recorded for the first time in Verdun in the foothills of the Pyrenees. 

In a stark reminder of the effects of global warming, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Agency (WMO) said the trend of heatwaves “shows no signs of decreasing.” 

“These events will continue to grow in intensity, and the world needs to prepare for more intense heatwaves,” John Nairn, a senior extreme heat adviser at the WMO told reporters in Geneva.  

 

Wildfires and scorching heat 

Northwest of the Greek capital of Athens, columns of smoke loomed over the forest of Dervenohoria, where one of several fires around the capital and beyond was still burning.  

Fire spokesperson Yannis Artopios called it “a difficult day.” Another heatwave was on the horizon for Thursday, with expected temperatures of 44 C (111 Fahrenheit).  

Still burning was a forest fire by the seaside resort of Loutraki, where the mayor said 1,200 children had been evacuated Monday from holiday camps. 

In the Canary Islands, some 400 firefighters battled a blaze that has ravaged 3,500 hectares of forest and forced 4,000 residents to evacuate, with authorities warning residents to wear face masks outside due to poor air quality. 

Temperatures were unforgiving in Italy and in Spain, where three regions were put under hot weather red alerts. 

The Italian islands of Sardinia and Sicily have been on watch to possibly surpass a continentwide record of 48.8 C (119.8 F), recorded in Sicily in August 2021. 

Many throughout Italy sought escape by the sea, including outside Rome, where the midday heat hit 40 C (104 F). 

“Certainly it’s better at the beach, you can at least get a little wind from the sea. It’s not even possible to remain in the city, too hot,” said Virginia Cesario, 30, at the Focene beach near the capital. 

Climate change impact  

The heatwaves across Europe and the globe are “not one single phenomenon but several acting at the same time,” said Robert Vautard, director of France’s Pierre-Simon Laplace climate institute. 

“But they are all strengthened by one factor: climate change.” 

Health authorities in Italy issued red alerts for 20 cities, from Naples in the south to Venice in the north.  

At Lanusei, near Sardinia’s eastern coast, a children’s summer camp was restricting beach visits to the early morning and forbidding sports, teacher Morgana Cucca told AFP. 

In the Sardinian capital of Cagliari, pharmacist Teresa Angioni said patients were complaining of heat-related symptoms. 

“They mainly buy magnesium and potassium supplements and ask us to measure their blood pressure, which is often low,” Angioni said. 

Heat record in China 

In parts of Asia, record temperatures have triggered torrential rain. 

Nearly 260,000 people were evacuated in southern China and Vietnam before a typhoon made landfall late Monday, bringing fierce winds and rain, but weakening to a tropical storm by Tuesday. 

China reported on Monday a new mid-July high of 52.2 C (126 F) in the northwestern Xinjiang region’s village of Sanbao, breaking the previous high of 50.6 C (123 F) set six years ago. 

The record-setting heat came as U.S. climate envoy John Kerry met with Chinese officials in Beijing, as the world’s two largest polluters revive stalled diplomacy on reducing planet-warming emissions. 

Speaking Tuesday at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi, Kerry called for “global leadership” on climate issues. 
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Latest developments:                      

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Pope Francis' peace envoy, for talks about Vatican efforts to provide humanitarian aid in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. 





Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his government is working to "preserve Ukraine's global role as a guarantor of food security, our maritime access to the global market, and jobs for Ukrainians in ports and in the agricultural industry" following Russia's withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

 

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that Russian forces carried out airstrikes on the Odesa region in southern Ukraine for a second consecutive night. 

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor, urged people to stay in shelters and said air defense systems were activated to repel the attacks. 

After the first night of aerial attacks, which hit Odesa and nearby Mykolaiv, Russia said it was acting in retaliation for an attack Monday that damaged a key bridge linking Russia to the Crimean Peninsula. 

Russia has used the bridge as a major supply route supporting its forces in their invasion of Ukraine. 

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement Tuesday it targeted facilities involved in what it called “terrorist acts” carried out by seaborne drones, including a shipyard near Odesa and Ukrainian fuel depots.   

The Odesa region is the site of multiple ports that were part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain to the world market. Russia withdrew from the deal earlier this week. 

Ukrainian counteroffensive 

It’s too early to judge the outcome of the seemingly slow-moving counteroffensive of Ukrainian forces against Russian strongholds in eastern and southern Ukraine, the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday.  

So far, war analysts say Ukraine has retaken about 250 square kilometers of territory since early June, but Russia has maintained control of large expanses of land.  

Still, General Mark Milley, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon, “It is far from a failure, in my view. I think it is way too early to make that kind of call.”  

“First of all, the Russians have had several months to put in a very complex defense,” Milley said. “It’s not quite connected, transform[ing] like World War I, but it’s not dissimilar from that either.”  

Milley said Moscow’s forces had built “lots of complex minefields, Dragon’s Teeth [anti-tank obstacles], barbed-wire trenches.”   

Milley said Russian “morale is low, and now recently because of the [Yevgeny] Prighozin mutiny [of Wagner Group troops], command and control is confusing at best. Significant casualties of their officer corps, so the Russian situation is not very good.”  

He said “what the Ukrainians have, though, is a significant amount of combat power not yet committed. And I will not say what’s going to happen in the future, because that’s going to be a Ukrainian decision… Right now, they are preserving their combat power, and they are slowly and deliberately and steadily working their way through all these minefields.”  

‘Going to do what it takes’

The U.S. military leader said the West’s coalition supporting Ukraine’s forces has trained 17 brigade combat teams and more than 63,000 troops, 15,000 of them by the U.S.  

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said, “I’ve asked our [Western allies] to continue to dig deep into the military stocks because we’re going to do what it takes to support Ukraine’s sovereign right to live free today and for the future…. They continue to make progress on a cohesive training plan and to help some very eager Ukrainian pilots learn to fly fourth generation aircraft.”  

Milley added, “The problem is control of the air space. The most effective and efficient and cost-effective way to do that right now in Ukraine is ground-to-air [missiles]. And that’s what they’ve been provided.”  

“The casualties that Ukrainians are suffering in this offensive are not so much from Russian airpower but from minefields,” Milley said. “So, the problem to solve is minefields.”  

Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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The Russian private military force known as the Wagner Group captured the world’s attention with its open mutiny and march on Moscow, averted at the last minute through a deal brokered by Belarus. As Wagner’s future role remains uncertain, we take a look at their origins, the role they play in conflicts around the world, and their rise to influence as an unofficial arm of the Kremlin. Story by Alex Gendler; narration by Salem Solomon.
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Belarusian authorities have detained a prominent journalist who used to work for outlets including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty or RFE/RL.

Police on Monday raided the apartment of Ihar Karnei, in the capital Minsk, seized computers and phones and detained the journalist.

Karnei is being held in the Akrestina pretrial detention center and has not had access to lawyers or his family, according to his daughter, Polina.

“Dad was detained for 10 days; he is in Akrestina. The house was searched,” the daughter told RFE/RL.

The Akrestina facility is known for harsh conditions and mistreating detainees, according to Belarusian human rights group Viasna.   

The Belarusian Embassy in Washington declined to comment directly on the case of the jailed journalist and referred VOA to the foreign ministry.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, or CPJ, told VOA it is looking into Karnei’s case and that of several other journalists detained recently.

“As is usually the case, the authorities provide very little to no information on these detentions and the charges. Secrecy also surrounds the trials. This is an intentional approach of the authorities who want to keep their repressions against independent voices under a tight lid,” Gulnoza Said, who is CPJ’s Europe and Central Asia program coordinator, told VOA via email.

Karnei is a well-known journalist who has previously worked for outlets including RFE/RL.

The media outlet, like VOA, is an independent news network under the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

In 2021, Belarusian authorities labeled RFE/RL as an “extremist organization,” along with other independent media and civil rights groups.

Minsk has been clamping down on opposition and critical voices after the August 2020 contested elections and mass protests that followed after President Alexander Lukashenko declared victory.

Dozens of journalists were detained in the lead up and weeks that followed that election, including Karnei.

More than 30 journalists are currently detained, including two contributors for RFE/RL.

Ihar Losik was arrested in 2020 and is serving a 15-year sentence at a hard labor camp. Web editor Andrey Kuznechyk was detained in November 2021 and is serving a six-year sentence.

“This is their sacrifice for freedom of speech,” Volha Khvoin  of the Belarusian Association of Journalists told VOA earlier this year, while discussing the crackdown on critical voices.

Said of CPJ noted that authorities in Belarus have “never eased up on their relentless crackdown on free media.”

“Belarus has never been free under Lukashenko’s rule but it has become one of the most closed off societies in the world since 2020 and one of the world’s biggest jailers of journalists,” she said.
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Italy and France are each sending two firefighting planes to Greece to help it cope with wildfires burning on multiple fronts around Athens, with more extreme heat on the way.

The planes and their teams of firefighters are part of an EU civil protection mechanism, and they will join some 30 Romanian firefighters already stationed in Greece as part of a seasonal EU fire program, European officials said Tuesday.

Wildfires continued to burn out of control Tuesday to the north and west of Athens, including a blaze near the resort town of Loutraki, where more homes were damaged and evacuations were expanded.

Several smaller fires also broke out nearer the capital, where winds remained moderate but scrub and forest land has been dried out by extreme temperatures last week.

Police spokeswoman Constantina Dimoglidou said several roads near the fires were closed to allow faster access by emergency services.

Greece also activated a rapid mapping evaluation system, which uses EU satellite data to assess fire damage, for the three large wildfires that burned outside Athens for a second day.

A second heatwave is expected Thursday, with temperatures as high as 44 C (111 F) expected in central and southern parts of the country by the end of the week.
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Tunisia has overtaken Libya as the top embarkation point for African migrants heading to Europe starting in Italy. Tunisia’s leaders have recently signed a deal with the EU to work together to reduce migrant flows, but challenges persist.

Matt Herbert is a senior analyst with the Geneva-based Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. He tells VOA there are several factors explaining why Tunisia is overtaking Libya as the main embarkation point to Italy. One is the rapid increase and magnitude in departures from Tunisia that greatly surpasses those from Libya, especially this year. 

Italian interior ministry figures show more than 15,500 people arrived on Italian shores from Tunisia from January until the end of March in over 180 landings per day. Italian officials said it’s a 920-percent increase compared to the 1,525 arrivals in the same period last year. 

As of last week, the Italian interior ministry recorded more than 75,000 migrants that had arrived by boat on Italian shores since the beginning of the year compared to about 31,900 in the same period last year. 

Herbert says Tunisia’s deeply troubled economy in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring uprising, terror attacks affecting the Mediterranean country’s prime income earner, tourism, and then COVID-19 are the main factors. He says worsening economic and political situations are hitting Tunisia’s people and adding to that, African migrants are coming to the country for work. 

“The continuing economic challenges have had a real impact on their bottom line. The money they have been able to earn has been drastically reduced,” said Herbert. “They are facing economic difficulties staying in country and so some are leveraging the money they already have to leave. The dynamic of departures is being very closely linked to rising xenophobia.” 

Herbert adds that a multi-year rise in irregular migration from Tunisia has seen a growth in human smuggling networks along the Tunisian coastline, providing more escape routes. At its nearest point, Tunisia lies approximately 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. 

On Sunday, the European Union committed financial assistance to Tunisia in exchange for its added efforts to combat human trafficking and strengthen its border controls. The EU has already offered Tunisia more than one billion dollars in long-term aid.  

Tunisian analyst Tasnim Abderrahim, a migrant policy analyst with the Washington-based Middle East Institute, debunked the “perception that North African countries are willing to do anything in exchange for money,” saying there are mitigating factors.  

“Now there are concerns that Italy may be seeking to deport sub-Saharan nationals to Tunisia,” she said. “The repatriation of Tunisian nationals is already happening, and Tunisia has very advanced cooperation with Italy in that sense. But the readmission of third country nationals is something that definitely Tunisians–both the government and the population—reject. There are very little incentives on the Tunisian side to engage in such form of cooperation.”

Racial tensions and anti-migrant sentiment are growing in Tunisia following the death of a Tunisian man on July 3 in a fight between locals and migrants.  

Observers say Tunisia does not have a legal framework to welcome migrants. 
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Spain’s general election on Sunday could make the country the latest European Union member swing to the populist right, a shift that would represent a major upheaval after five years under a left-wing government.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the early election after his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and its small far-left coalition partner, Unidas Podemos (“United We Can”), took a beating in local and regional elections.

The center-right Popular Party emerged from the May 28 elections with the most votes. Polls for the general election have consistently put the PP in first place — but likely needing support from the far-right Vox party to form a government.

Such a coalition would return a far-right force to the Spanish government for the first time since the country transitioned to democracy following the 1975 death of Gen. Francisco Franco, the dictator who ruled Spain for nearly 40 years.

The Popular Party and Vox have agreed to govern together in some 140 cities and towns since May, as well as to add two more regions to the one where they already co-governed. Sen. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP’s leader, has not ruled out a partnership at the national level.

Led by former PP member Santiago Abascal, 47, Vox opposes abortion rights, denies climate change and rejects the need for government to combat gender violence. Election polling indicates the party could finish third this weekend, a showing that would put Abascal in a kingmaker’s role.

Nagore Calvo Mendizabal, a senior lecturer in Spanish and European Politics and Society at King’s College London, said the likelihood of Vox entering government frames Sunday’s parliamentary election “in terms of the future of democracy in Spain as being what is at stake.”

Vox’s manifesto is virtually a “copy-and-paste of the tenets of the Franco regime,” Calvo said. It promises, for example, a return to a highly centralized government by scrapping the 17 regions that came into being after Franco’s death.

Beyond Spain, a PP-Vox government would mean another EU member has moved firmly to the right, a trend seen recently in Sweden, Finland and Italy. Countries such as Germany and France are concerned by what such a shift would portend for EU immigration and climate policies, Calvo said.

Spain took over the EU’s rotating presidency on July 1. Sánchez had hoped to use the six-month term to showcase the advances his government had made before a national election originally scheduled for December.

Voter concerns over immigration and costs of living, as well as frustration with the EU’s perceived interference in national affairs, often have been cited to explain increases in right-wing support in other countries.

In Spain, however, the dominant issue is the “honorability” of the Socialist politician who has served as prime minister since June 2018, according to María José Canel Crespo, a political communication professor at Madrid’s Complutense University.

For most of the past year, the PP has pursued a hard-hitting media and parliamentary campaign on the need to defeat what it calls “Sanchismo,” portraying the prime minister as a liar for his U-turns on major issues.

Sánchez said he would never form a government with Podemos, deeming it too radical, but then he did in 2019. Sánchez also said he would not pardon nine separatists who were convicted of sedition after pushing for the Catalonia region’s secession — but then he did.

The PP claims his minority government betrays Spain by aligning itself with extremists in Basque and Catalan regional parties that ultimately want independence.

But the Socialist-Podemos coalition’s biggest blunder came in what was supposed to have been one of its signature pieces of progressive legislation. A sexual consent law passed in October inadvertently allowed more than 1,000 convicted sex offenders to have their sentences reduced, and over 100 gained early release.

Sánchez apologized and the law was amended to close the legal loophole, but the episode provided invaluable material for the right-wing parties and right-leaning media outlets.

Sánchez “has made it easier for him to be perceived as a liar,” Canel said, adding that he did not help his cause when he explained in a television interview that “Sanchismo” stood for evil, lies and manipulation.

The 51-year-old prime minister also performed disastrously in the only televised pre-election debate with the PP’s Feijóo, 61. Polling analyses show anti-Sánchez sentiment and the fear of Vox entering government has led some 700,000 Socialist voters switching to the PP, according to Canel.

“The vote is not going to be about corruption or the economy. It will be motivated by a rejection of Sánchez,” she said.

Sánchez first took office in June 2018 after winning a no-confidence vote that ended an eight-year run in government for the PP on the back of a major corruption scandal. He led a caretaker government until, after two elections in November 2019, he struck a deal with Podemos.

Within months, Spain was one of the countries hit hardest by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of both deaths and economic impact, severely testing the strength of the left-wing coalition government. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its knock-on financial effects tested it again.

But heading into the May elections, Sánchez could boast of a growing economy, falling unemployment and inflation, pension and minimum wage increases, and the establishment of a minimum vital income. The government also negotiated a deal with the EU that allowed it to slash consumer energy costs driven up Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The various measures helped millions of people but apparently have not translated into voter loyalty. King’s College London’s Calvo thinks the right-wing’s nationalist tactics have put Sánchez on the defensive, while his leftist coalition’s laudably progressive policies have made the government seem out of touch.

A factor that could upset poll predictions is Sumar, a new movement of 15 small left-wing parties, including Podemos, led by Spain’s immensely popular labor minister, Yolanda Díaz. If it beats Vox for third place Sunday, Sumar could provide the Socialists with backing to form another coalition government.

With the election taking place at the height of summer, millions of citizens are likely to be vacationing away from their regular polling places. But postal voting requests have soared, and officials have estimated a 70% election turnout.
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Britain’s Illegal Migration Bill, aimed at stopping thousands of migrants arriving in the country, is at odds with London’s obligations under international law, the United Nations said Tuesday.

The bill, which has been passed by parliament and now awaits the formality of being signed into law by King Charles III, means migrants arriving by boat will be refused the right to apply for asylum in the UK.

The bill “is at variance with the country’s obligations under international human rights and refugee law and will have profound consequences for people in need of international protection”, the U.N. refugee and human rights chiefs said.

In a joint statement, they said the bill blocks access to asylum in Britain for anyone who arrives irregularly, having passed through a country — however briefly — where they did not face persecution.

The U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk and the U.N. refugees head Filippo Grandi said the bill bars people from presenting refugee protection claims, whatever their circumstances, and creates sweeping new detention powers with limited judicial oversight.

“This new legislation significantly erodes the legal framework that has protected so many, exposing refugees to grave risks in breach of international law,” Grandi said.

The 1951 Refugee Convention explicitly recognizes that refugees may be compelled to enter a country of asylum irregularly, the pair noted.

“I urge the UK government to renew this commitment to human rights by reversing this law and ensuring that the rights of all migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers are respected, protected and fulfilled, without discrimination,” Turk said.
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Russia on Monday ended the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which guaranteed the free flow of Ukrainian grain to the rest of the world. Poor nations already struggling with food insecurity are expected to be affected the worst. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan traveled to Saudi Arabia on Monday in a three-stop tour of Persian Gulf states to seek trade and investment opportunities for Turkey’s floundering economy.

Erdogan arrived in Jeddah accompanied by an entourage of some 200 businesspeople, according to the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey. He met Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and is expected to meet King Salman. Business forums have been arranged in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during Erdogan’s three-day trip.

“We are hoping to improve our relations and cooperation in many fields. We will focus on joint investment and commercial initiatives to be realized in the upcoming period,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul before leaving.

The visit comes as Turks are hit with sales and fuel tax hikes that Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek has said are necessary to restore fiscal discipline and bring inflation down.

The official annual inflation rate stood at 38% last month, down from a high of 85% in October. Independent economists, however, maintain that the actual rate was around 108% in June.

Turkey’s current account deficit reached record levels this year – $37.7 billion in the first five months — and Erdogan is hoping the oil- and gas-rich Gulf states will help plug the gap.

Last month the Turkish central bank delivered a large interest rate hike, signaling a shift toward more conventional economic policies following criticism that Erdogan’s low-rate approach had made a cost-of-living crisis worse.

His Gulf tour was preceded by Turkish officials including Simsek, Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz and central bank Governor Hafize Gaye Erkan holding talks in all three countries.

Ankara has recently repaired ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE following a decade-long rift. The split arose following the 2011 Arab Spring and Turkey’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood, considered a threat by some Gulf monarchies.

Worsening relations were exacerbated by a boycott of Turkish ally Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain. The 2018 murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul led to a further souring of ties with Riyadh.

Since Erdogan launched a diplomatic reengagement with previously estranged regional powers two years ago, funding from the Gulf has helped relieve pressure on the economy.

Erdogan visited both Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed — the country’s de-facto ruler — and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan last year, while the latter came to Istanbul for soccer’s Champions League final a month ago.

Qatar and the UAE have provided Turkey with some $20 billion in currency swap agreements recently while Saudi Arabia deposited $5 billion into Turkey’s Central Bank in March.

Days after Erdogan won reelection last month, the UAE and Turkey signed a trade deal potentially worth $40 billion over the next five years.

Erdogan is due to meet Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in Doha on Tuesday before seeing the UAE leader in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
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Russia said Monday it is ending its participation in a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine safe passage to export grain from three Ukrainian ports past Russian warships on the Black Sea. 

Here is a look at how the grain deal worked and what Russia’s withdrawal from the agreement will mean for both Moscow and Kyiv as well as the global food supply. 

What is the grain deal?

The United Nations and Turkey brokered the deal to allow grain to be shipped from Ukraine, despite Russia’s ongoing war in that country. Much of the exported grain was shipped to impoverished countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. The deal also allowed for Russia to ship food and fertilizer throughout the world despite Western sanctions on Moscow.

When did the agreement begin? 

The nearly year-old deal was reached in July 2022 and was meant to be extended every four months. It was renewed three times, but the last two renewals were for only two months each as Russia complained of obstacles to exporting its food and fertilizer. 

Why did Russia withdrawal from the pact? 

Russia has repeatedly said it was not benefiting enough under the initiative. Ukraine and Russia are both major global suppliers of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other affordable food products. One of Russia’s main demands has been for its agriculture bank to be reinstated in the SWIFT system of financial transactions.    

What was the effect of the deal?

After Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine — considered the breadbasket of Europe — grain prices rose worldwide. The U.N. gain deal, brokered five months after the war began, helped to bring down global food prices. The U.N. said that since exports from the pact began in August 2022, 32.9 metric tons of food commodities have been exported to 45 countries.

Will food prices rise again? 

Experts say not renewing the Black Sea grain deal could cause food prices to again climb. However, they say the worldwide food situation is not as volatile as it was last year because other countries are now producing more grain to counterbalance losses from Ukraine, including Argentina, Brazil, and European nations. 

Can Ukraine still ship from the Black Sea?

It is not clear if Russia will block Ukrainian ports following its withdrawal from the grain deal. However, even if Russia does not block or attack Ukrainian ships carrying food supplies, ship owners will surely see increased insurance premiums to enter the Black Sea and are likely to be reluctant for their vessels to pass through a war zone without assurances of safety. 

Can Ukraine send more grain through Europe? 

Ukraine has been sending large amounts of grain through eastern European countries since the conflict began; however, these routes — both land and river — handle lower amounts compared to sea shipments. Ukraine’s shipments through Europe have also prompted anger from some European countries that say the shipments have undercut local supplies. As a result, five EU countries — Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia — have banned domestic sales of some Ukrainian grains.

What does the deal’s end mean for the World Food Program?

The U.N. World Food Program says grain from Ukraine has played an important role in its efforts to distribute food to those in need. The U.N. agency says the grain initiative has allowed it to ship more than 725,200 tons of grain to relieve hunger around the world, including to Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. 

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
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The family of a German-Iranian political dissident sentenced to death in Iran is expressing concern over his condition after a phone conversation with him Sunday.

Ghazaleh Sharmahd, the daughter of Jamshid Sharmahd, wrote on Twitter “After five months, today we had our first phone call with my father, Jamshid Sharmahd. It is concerning that he was deprived of contact with his daughter for two years, and now he has been allowed to speak with me.”

“This greatly worries me. Could this be his farewell call,” she said.

Jamshid Sharmahd, a German-Iranian dual citizen and opposition figure was accused of masterminding a deadly 2008 bombing of a mosque in Shiraz, charges his family strongly denies. He faces a death sentence.

 

Sharmahd, 68, had been living in the United States, where he served as the spokesperson for Tondar, a group that aims to restore the Western-backed monarchy that ruled Iran before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. His family says Iranian authorities kidnapped Sharmahd during a stopover in Dubai in 2020.

Describing her father’s condition during the Sunday phone call, Ghazaleh Sharmahd said “His voice was feeble, he was severely ill, and he has spent over 1,000 days in solitary confinement, enduring pain and terror.”

Amnesty International said that he has been deprived of adequate health care and called for his immediate release.

Germany has condemned the death sentence that was handed down against Jamshid Sharmahd.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock questioned the proceedings in the case against him and said earlier this year that Sharmahd never had “even the semblance of a fair trial.” She asked Iran to reverse the death sentence immediately.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani accused Germany of “interfering in Iran’s internal and judicial affairs,” and said “Iran will not ask permission from anyone in the way of confronting terrorism and executing justice.”
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