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While it might be too early to assess the effects the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin and other leaders on the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa, some analysts say there will be short-term disruptions.

Given Prigozhin’s reach on the continent the past few years, it will take time to replace Wagner’s top man, said Steven Gruzd, head of the Africa Russia Project at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg.

“There’s going to be a period of uncertainty; of people jockeying for position, of seeing who wants to take over,” Gruzd said. “There’s also the talk of Russia incorporating it into the army, taking it out of private hands.”

But the International Crisis Group’s Charles Bouessel told VOA the private mercenary group’s activities in Africa will be disrupted because of the relationships the Wagner boss and some of his associates, including Valery Chekalov and Dmitry Utkin, who all died with him in a plane crash — were able to cultivate the past few years.

“Prigozhin and Utkin especially had deep knowledge,” Bouessel said, “and they had all the connections with the African regimes where Wagner is working. It will take time for Russia to take it over and to rebuild relations with these countries.”

Wagner’s influence stretches across the continent, Gruzd said.

“The Wagner presence in Africa is large,” he said. “Reportedly over 5,000 soldiers [are] spread across the various countries, embedded in countries like Central African Republic and Mali, less so in Libya and Sudan. Even as late as last week, it looked like Niger and Burkina Faso, the countries that have undergone coups in West Africa across the Sahel, are targets for Wagner.”

The U.S. Treasury Department accused the Wagner Group of mass executions, rape and physical abuse in Mali and the Central African Republic, or CAR, and designated it a “criminal organization.”

In the CAR, in particular, it’s too early to assess the impact Prigozhin’s death will have, but it’s important to remember the role the group had under its leader, said Bouessel.

“The Central African Republic signed a deal with Russia in late 2017,” he said. “This deal included the arrival of Wagner and assistance of Wagner toward the president. Since then, Wagner was able to oust the former colonizer France out of the country and out of the decision-making part of the country. They also managed to secure [Faustin] Touadera’s power and make him re-elected. They managed to deter rebel groups from attacking the capital again. And they managed to weaken the armed groups.”

In the CAR, Bouessel said, the group controlled businesses in the mining of gold and diamonds. They are also present in the timber industry and beverage sector.

Dr. Edgar Githua, a lecturer at the United States International University in Nairobi and Strathmore University who specializes in international relations, peace and conflict, said that Prigozhin’s death will affect the group’s finances, and that its global influence might take a hit.

“Prigozhin is the one who had the financial streams of the Wagner Group,” Githua said. “He’s the one with the international connections. He’s the one who was getting all the international contracts.

“It was a one man show. Prigozhin had a lot of power and a lot of say within that group. With his demise, that group is going to find itself rudderless for some time,” he said.

Prigozhin died a couple of months after he staged an unsuccessful rebellion against top Russian military commanders. After that failed mutiny, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov indicated that operations in the CAR and Mali would not be affected.
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Dutch prosecutors demanded a 12-year prison sentence Tuesday for a former Pakistani cricketer accused of incitement to murder firebrand anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders.

The suspect, identified by Wilders as Khalid Latif, is accused of offering a bounty of some 21,000 euros ($23,000) to anybody who killed Wilders.

Latif did not appear in the high-security courtroom near Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport for the trial. He is believed to be in Pakistan.

Prosecutors did not name Latif, but said in a statement that a video posted online in 2018 showed a famous Pakistan cricketer offering the money for killing Wilders. The lawmaker has lived under round-the-clock protection for years because of repeated threats to his life sparked by his fierce criticism of Islam.

The threat came after Wilders said he would organize a competition of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Many Muslims consider any depictions of Muhammad to be blasphemous. Ultimately, the contest did not go ahead, but the plan sparked outrage in the Muslim world.

“The video message was extra toxic because it was issued during a period in which there was a lot of hatred and anger towards Geert Wilders,” the Public Prosecution Service in The Hague said in its written statement.

The prosecution office said that killing Wilders would not just have “caused unbearable pain to his loved ones. It would also have been an attack on the rule of law itself.”

Wilders said in court that a conviction would send a “powerful signal to all other others who issue threats: we won’t accept it.”

And in comments he addressed directly to Latif, he added: “As long as I’m living and breathing, you won’t stop me. Your call to kill me and pay money for it is abject and will not silence me.”

An international warrant has been issued for Latif’s arrest. Dutch prosecutors said they had been trying to contact him since 2018, first as a witness and then to answer the charges. However, they said they hadn’t received any reply from the Pakistani authorities.

In 2017, Latif, 37, was banned for five years from all forms of cricket for his role in a match-fixing scandal in the Pakistan Super League.

Tuesday’s case comes at a time when parts of the Muslim world have been angered by a series of Quran burnings in Sweden. Swedish police have allowed the demonstrations, citing freedom of speech, but have filed preliminary hate speech charges against a refugee from Iraq who has carried out a series of such desecrations.
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Ever since American Glenna Manchego joined the International Legion of Defense of Ukraine in April 2022, she has been risking her life to help Ukrainians. Manchego is a trained paramedic who traveled to Ukraine soon after Russia’s invasion. Anna Kosstutschenko met with her just a few kilometers from the front line. Camera – Pavel Suhodolskiy.
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President Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin said, following reports that the mercenary chief who challenged the Russian leader’s authority would be buried Tuesday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say where or when the chief of the Wagner Group military company would be buried, adding that he couldn’t comment on a private family ceremony.

St. Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and some other media said the 62-year-old Prigozhin could be laid to rest as early as Tuesday at the city’s Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has been used for high-profile military burials. Heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, where Putin’s parents are also buried, but no service was immediately held and increased police patrols also were seen at some other city cemeteries.

Later in the day, a funeral was held at St. Petersburg’s Northern Cemetery for Wagner’s logistics chief Valery Chekalov, who died in the Aug. 23 crash alongside Prigozin. Several hearses were seen driving from a central hall used for memorial ceremonies to Beloostrovskoye cemetery on the city’s outskirts, but they later drove away.

The tight secrecy and confusion surrounding the funeral of Prigozhin and his top lieutenants reflected a dilemma faced by the Kremlin amid swirling speculation that the crash was likely a vendetta for his mutiny.

While it tried to avoid any pomp-filled ceremony for the man branded by Putin as a traitor for his rebellion, the Kremlin couldn’t afford to denigrate Prigozhin, who was given Russia’s highest award for leading Wagner forces in Ukraine and was idolized by many of the country’s hawks.

Putin’s comments on Prigozhin’s death reflected that careful stand. He noted last week that Wagner leaders “made a significant contribution” to the fighting in Ukraine and described Prigozhin as a “talented businessman” and “a man of difficult fate” who had “made serious mistakes in life” but “achieved the results he needed — both for himself and, when I asked him about it, for the common cause, as in these last months.”

Although both were from St. Petersburg, Prigozhin and the Russian leader were not known to be particularly close.

Prigozhin, an ex-convict who earned millions and his nickname “Putin’s chef” from lucrative government catering contracts, served Kremlin political interests and helped expand Russia’s clout by sending his mercenaries to Syria, Libya, the Central African Republic and other countries. Wagner, one of the most capable elements of Moscow’s forces, played a key role in Ukraine where it captured the Ukrainian eastern stronghold of Bakhmut in late May.

Sergei Markov, a pro-Kremlin political analyst, noted that Prigozhin has become a legendary figure for his supporters who are increasingly critical of the authorities.

“Prigozhin’s funeral raises an issue of communication between the bureaucratic Russian government system that doesn’t have much political potential and politically active patriotic segment of the Russian public,” Markov said.

The country’s top criminal investigation agency, the Investigative Committee, officially confirmed Prigozhin’s death on Sunday.

The committee didn’t say what might have caused Prigozhin’s business jet to plummet from the sky minutes after taking off from Moscow for St. Petersburg. Just before the crash, Prigozhin had returned from a trip to Africa, where he sought to expand Wagner Group’s activities.

Prigozhin’s second-in-command, Dmitry Utkin, a retired military intelligence officer who gave the mercenary group its name based on his own nom de guerre, was also among the 10 people who died in the crash.

A preliminary U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that an intentional explosion caused the plane to crash, and Western officials have pointed to a long list of Putin’s foes who have been assassinated. The Kremlin rejected Western allegations the president was behind the crash as an “absolute lie.”

The crash came exactly two months after Prigozhin launched a rebellion against the Russian military leadership. The brutal and profane leader ordered his mercenaries to take over the military headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and then began a march on Moscow. They downed several military aircraft, killing more than a dozen pilots.

Putin denounced the revolt as “treason” and vowed to punish its perpetrators but hours later struck a deal that saw Prigozhin ending the mutiny in exchange for amnesty and permission for him and his troops to move to Belarus.

The fate of Wagner, which until recently played a prominent role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine and was involved in a number of African and Middle Eastern countries, is uncertain.

Putin said Wagner fighters could sign a contract with the Russian military, move to Belarus or retire from service. Several thousand have deployed to Belarus, where they are in a camp southeast of the capital, Minsk.
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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will visit Russia soon to discuss the collapsed United Nations deal that had allowed Black Sea exports of Ukrainian grain, a spokesperson for Turkey’s ruling AK Party said Monday.

The U.N. and Turkey-brokered deal lasted a year but ended last month after Moscow quit. Ankara is seeking to persuade Russia to return to the agreement, under which Odesa’s seaports shipped tens of millions of tons of grain.

Since the grain-export deal collapsed, Russian forces have targeted Ukrainian ports with volleys of missiles and kamikaze drones.

Omer Celik, the AK Party spokesperson, said Erdogan would visit Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi “soon” but did not specify whether he would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“After this visit there may be developments and new stages may be reached regarding” the grain deal, he told reporters.

The Kremlin said Friday there was an understanding the two leaders will meet in person soon.

Bloomberg cited two anonymous sources in reporting that Erdogan is expected to meet Putin in Russia next week, possibly on Sept. 8, before he travels to a G20 meeting in India.
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The nightmare repeats itself every year: A towering wall of flames devours forests, farmland and homes, forcing animals and people to flee for their lives.

With their hot, dry summers, Greece and its southern European neighbors experience hundreds of devastating wildfires each year. Last week alone, wildfires killed 21 people in Greece. The country’s deadliest, in 2018, cost more than 100 lives. And experts warn climate change is likely to exacerbate extreme weather, fueling more wildfires.

This summer, a group of residents in a suburb of the Greek capital united in determination to prevent the nightmare from reaching their homes. 

In less than a week in early August, an initial group of three people with a shared concern grew to an online community of about 320 offering donations to hire a company using long-range drones equipped with thermal imaging cameras as a sophisticated early warning system to catch wildfires before they can spread.

It’s a tried and tested system. Designed and set up with the help of Grigoris Konstantellos, a commercial airline pilot and mayor of the southern Athens seaside suburbs of Vari, Voula and Vouliagmeni, the drones began operating there last year.

“We didn’t discover it, we created it,” Kontantellos said of the program. “We said, ‘Why shouldn’t this capability exist?'”

The system seemed the perfect solution for the concerned residents in the northern suburbs.

“We’re all worried, we’re all anxious,” said Melina Throuvala, a psychologist and one of the initial group of three. “We don’t want to mourn victims, or to see our environment and our forests burning or our homes threatened. That was the main incentive.”

And with wildfires, prevention is the key.

Operated by drone pilots with advanced training to fly beyond the visual line of sight and with permission from civil aviation authorities, the drones provide live images and detect changes in temperature, alerting their handlers in the critical early stages before a fire spreads. The drones run 24/7, with pilots working in six-hour shifts.

“The first few minutes are the most crucial for a fire,” said Giorgos Dertilis, who heads the local volunteer firefighting unit. “At the start it’s easier to put out the fire. The more the minutes go by, the harder our job becomes.”

Volunteer units are integrated into Greece’s Civil Protection system, working closely with professional fire departments. With no fire station in the wider Kifissia area, volunteers often can get to local blazes faster.

The drone company operates from the volunteer firefighters’ headquarters, so they can react immediately to any signs of a fire.

The drone program’s value was quickly apparent. In the first couple of days, it picked up the start of a fire near a shuttered hotel, “so when we were on our way … we knew, we were prepared to see a fire,” Dertilis said. They quickly extinguished the blaze. “It’s very important to know what to expect.”

The system’s innovation, said Emmanouil Angelakis, managing director of the company operating the drones, is that it includes specialized personnel, software, servers and satellite antenna so “drones, day and night, can scan all the forest areas with thermal cameras and sensors and give live images and coordinates of where a fire starts.”

The idea for the system came in June 2022, after a wind-whipped wildfire descended on Konstantellos’ municipality from a mountain ridge. As they coordinated the response, authorities realized they had a problem.

“We were chasing the fire,” the mayor said. With the flames moving rapidly, keeping track of where water trucks were needed was a challenge. “We couldn’t see basic things on the ground. We’d see them with a delay, because we weren’t right in front of them.”

An extensive review of the emergency response followed.

“We saw that what was missing is for us to not chase the fire, but to be able to have a live image of the fire, of where our assets are and where the threat is,” Konstantellos said. They thought of drones.

The fire department already uses drones during an active blaze, covering a small area. What was needed was to see a fire when it starts and stop it in its tracks.

Getting in touch with the drone company, the fire prevention program was born. In the year and a half it’s been operational, it’s given early warnings for fires 12 times, Konstantellos said.

“We’ve caught fires at 3:30 in the morning,” the mayor said. “When we sent the Civil Protection, they couldn’t even find the fire. We could see it on the drone.”

Then on Saturday, 270 lighting strikes sparked six blazes, starting at 5:30 a.m. The drones saw them immediately, Konstantellos said Monday. With live drone images relayed to his cellphone, “we had amazing coordination, and in less than 40 minutes we had put out six fires in hard-to-reach places.”

The drones have a range of 15 kilometers (nearly 10 miles) and are equipped with loudspeakers and searchlights to warn off people doing banned outdoor work on high fire-risk days — or to frighten off potential arsonists. The municipality is even running a pilot program to prevent drownings, whereby drones can drop lifejackets to swimmers in distress.

The municipality pays 13,000-14,000 euros ($14,000-$15,000) per month for 24/7 coverage. “For a municipality, it’s a viable number to have peace of mind from the fires,” Konstantellos said.

The drone company’s Angelakis said the Kifissia residents’ privately funded initiative “was the first time this happened on a volunteer basis and not by a state body.”

Kifissia’s nearby municipality of Dionysos followed, with its privately funded operation working out of the town hall.

Residents of less affluent areas would be less able to afford private funding. But other municipal and regional authorities are interested, said Konstantellos, who noted the system can be used to coordinate responses to other events such as floods, earthquakes or traffic accidents.

“As we say in aviation, ‘A well-trained pilot is the best safety device,'” he said. “We convert this to the civil protection, and we say: ‘A well-prepared city is the best defense of a city against crisis.'”
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Leading officials within the Spanish Football Federation asked suspended president Luis Rubiales to resign Monday because of his behavior at the Women’s World Cup, including kissing a player on the lips after Spain won the championship match.

The heads of the regional bodies that make up the federation (RFEF) made the request in a collective statement.

“After the latest developments and the unacceptable behavior that has caused great damage to the image of Spanish soccer, the presidents’ request that Luis Rubiales resign immediately as president of the RFEF,” the statement said.

Earlier Monday, the federation asked UEFA to suspend it from international competitions because of government interference related to Rubiales. However, in their statement, the heads of the regional bodies urged interim federation president Pedro Rocha to withdraw that request immediately.

The federation’s request for a suspension was widely seen as an attempt to silence some of Rubiales’ critics, including government ministers who have asked for his removal. Such a suspension would ban Spanish teams from competitions like the Champions League and could sway public opinion in favor of letting him keep his job.

Soccer’s governing bodies have longstanding rules barring national governments from interfering with the running of domestic soccer federations. However, UEFA will not comply with the Spanish federation’s request for a sanction, a person familiar with the issue told The Associated Press on Monday. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the decision-making process was confidential.

Rubiales has faced a torrent of criticism from around the globe over his behavior at the Women’s World Cup final, including kissing Spain player Jenni Hermoso on the lips without her consent during the on-field trophy ceremony. He was suspended from office Saturday by soccer’s governing body FIFA, which is investigating his conduct.

Rubiales’ mother started a hunger strike Monday in a church in southern Spain in defense of her son, demanding an end to “the bloody and inhumane hounding” of him.

Rubiales is also a UEFA vice president.

Spain’s top clubs are due to take part in Thursday’s Champions League group-stage draw being made by UEFA, and the men’s national team has games on Sept. 8 and 12 in qualifying for the 2024 European Championship.

FIFA opened a disciplinary case against Rubiales on Thursday after taking control of the process because it organized the Women’s World Cup. Rubiales’ behavior during and after Spain’s 1-0 win over England in the final on Aug. 20 in Sydney, Australia, has focused intense scrutiny on him and his five-year management of the federation.

FIFA, however, did not invoke its version of the rules against government interference to protect Rubiales.

The Spanish federation then urged UEFA to act, reportedly in a letter sent Friday, the same day its embattled president defiantly refused to resign at an emergency meeting.

The FIFA suspension prevents Rubiales taking part in official business and having contact with other officials, including in Spain’s bid to co-host the 2030 World Cup with Portugal, Morocco and possibly Ukraine.

FIFA disciplinary judge Jorge Palacio also ordered Rubiales and the federation not to contact Hermoso. She has said the federation pressured her to publicly back Rubiales.

Newly crowned as world champions, though drawn into a national scandal they did not seek and has distracted from their triumph, the Spain players have said they will not play any more games for as long as Rubiales is in charge.
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The thunder of mortar fire echoes in the distance as 5-year-old David approaches his mother with an innocent request: Can he play with the baseball bat a relative gave him as a gift?

Valeria Pototska rolls her eyes and tells her son no for the umpteenth time. It’s a toy for big kids, she scolds. The boy, who doesn’t so much as flinch when the weapons not far from their town in northeast Ukraine shoot off more rounds, pouts and pedals away on his bicycle.

Other neighborhood children frolic in a playground in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, seemingly immune to the war unfolding 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away. Ukrainian authorities this month ordered a mandatory evacuation of the village and three dozen other populated areas as war returned to Kharkiv province. So far, most residents have refused to go as the battle inches closer to their backyards.

“It’s normal,” Pototska said of the soundtrack of weapons that punctuates the monotony of their daily lives. Olena Kanivets, a friend sitting beside her, nods and takes a drag on a cigarette. “It’s the strong who took the decision to leave,” Kanivets said.

The August 10 evacuation directive applies to 37 settlements that Russian soldiers occupied early in the 18-month-old war. A Ukrainian counteroffensive liberated them in September, lifting the invaded country’s spirits. Citing a Russian attempt to push back into the area, the Kupiansk district military administration told roughly 12,000 residents to seek safety elsewhere.

Only a few hundred heeded the warning. Many others signed documents stating they were staying at their own risk.

Their reasons range from the existential to the routine: fear of encountering poverty and loneliness in expensive faraway cities. Reluctance to give up homes in which they invested their life savings for a crowded shelter. Needing more time to tidy the garden or to tend to livestock.

The city of Kupiansk, which also was occupied by the Russians for more than six months last year, is under a partial evacuation order now. Katarina Chesta, a school administrator there, said she plans to stay put even if the order is extended citywide because she is tired of running away from war.

When Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014, Chesta fled the port city of Mariupol under fire and ended up in Kupiansk, where her parents lived. The 39-year-old refuses to pack up and move again.

Russian airstrikes frequently target Kupiansk and hit the city’s main school building in October and December, so Chesta is preparing an online curriculum for the new academic year.

“Maybe it’s just the way I am,” she said, sitting in her office wearing an immaculate white dress and her hair styled in an elegant updo. “Some people must stay here to be patriots for the city, to develop it, to survive.”

Kharkiv province, which borders Russia, reemerged as a combat hot spot in mid-July. That’s when the Russian military began assembling assault troops, tank units and other resources in the direction of Kupiansk, hoping to pressure Ukrainian troops fighting further south and to recapture the territory Ukraine won back, according to Ukrainian military officials.

Ukrainian military officials say their forces have kept the Russians from advancing but there is intense fighting on the outskirts of Synkivka, a village which is 14 kilometers (8.7 miles) from Kupiansk.

Illustrating the dangers for the local population, they said Russian units have shelled civilian infrastructure and homes while hunting for Ukrainian soldiers, who fight concealed in the wooded and agricultural landscape. The near-constant shelling kills several residents a week, according to the Kupiansk military administration.

Evacuees are taken to a shelter in Kharkiv, the provincial capital and Ukraine’s second-largest city. Red Cross volunteers say the number requesting to relocate spiked in places that received more intense bombing, but many locals still linger.

“Until the moment shelling hits close, people refuse to leave,” volunteer Volodymyr Fedulenko said.

For Oleksandr Ivanovich, 70, that moment came when a shell hit his house in the village of Hryshivka and left the roof in tatters. He was plucking weeds from the front porch at the time. “What to say, it is very painful to leave my home,” Ivanovich said.

Tatiyana Shapavalova, 59, who lives two doors away, boarded an evacuation van along with her neighbor. She thought their part of Ukraine would stay comparatively peaceful after the Russians withdrew from most of Kharkiv province last year, but the August 13 artillery attack proved her wrong.

“We had hoped the Ukrainian army would push the Russians further away, but every day we hear them coming closer and closer,” Shapavalova said.

In Kupyansk-Vuzlovyi, the long war has created an atmosphere that blends the placid and the deadly. The roar of artillery fire sporadically disturbs the soft rustle of leaves in the late summer breeze. Municipal workers diligently mow the lawn next to bombed-out school buildings.

Residents who lived under occupation for half a year said the experience was terrifying. “Russians acted like kings,” Pototska said. Many said they would evacuate if the return of Moscow’s troops appeared imminent but until then hold on to hope of Ukrainian forces defeating them.

Four months ago, Nataliia Rosolova’s son Dmytro, 14, begged her to leave after a night of heavy shelling. “We need to stay for a while longer,” she told him.

Rosolova, 38, recalled the conversation as an air raid alarm rang out in their neighborhood. She explained that she works as a medic and “there are very few of us left here.” If a time comes when the family must flee, their bags are packed and ready to grab from Dmytro’s bedroom.

“Maybe I’m not strong enough to make such difficult decisions,” the mother said, tears welling. “But I’m not an enemy for my children. If there will be a need to leave, we will leave.” 
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Russia’s top domestic security agency said Monday that a detained former employee of the U.S. Consulate in Vladivostok is accused of collecting information about Russia’s action in Ukraine and related issues for U.S. diplomats. 

Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, said Robert Shonov is suspected of “gathering information about the special military operation, mobilization processes in Russian regions, problems and the assessment of their influence on protest activities of the population in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election.” 

The FSB, the top KGB successor, said it has served summonses to question two U.S. diplomats who allegedly instructed Shonov to collect the information. 

Shonov’s arrest was first reported in May, but Russian authorities provided no details at the time. The U.S. State Department has condemned his arrest. 

Shonov was charged under a new article of Russian law that criminalizes “cooperation on a confidential basis with a foreign state, international or foreign organization to assist their activities clearly aimed against Russia’s security.” Kremlin critics have said that the formulation is so broad that it could be used to punish any Russian who had foreign connections. It carries a prison sentence of up to eight years. 

The U.S. State Department has said Shonov worked at the U.S. consulate in Vladivostok for more than 25 years. The consulate closed in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and never reopened. 

The State Department has said that after a Russian government order in April 2021 required the dismissal of all local employees in U.S. diplomatic outposts in Russia, Shonov worked at a company the U.S. contracted with to support its embassy in Moscow. 

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in May that Shonov’s only role at the time of his arrest was “to compile media summaries of press items from publicly available Russian media sources” and argued that his arrest “highlights the Russian Federation’s blatant use of increasingly repressive laws against its own citizens.” 

Russian news reports have said that Shonov was being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo prison. 

Also held in Lefortovo is Evan Gershkovich, an American reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Gershkovich has been in custody since his March 29 arrest by Russia’s security service on espionage charges that he, his employer and the U.S. government have denied. 

Gershkovich’s arrest rattled journalists in Russia and drew outrage in the West. The United States has declared Gershkovich to be “wrongfully detained” and demanded his immediate release. 
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Climate activists have spray-painted a superyacht, blocked private jets from taking off and plugged holes in golf courses this summer as part of an intensifying campaign against the emissions-spewing lifestyles of the ultrawealthy.  

Climate activism has intensified in the past few years as the planet warms to dangerous levels, igniting more extreme heat, floods, storms and wildfires around the world. Tactics have been getting more radical, with some protesters gluing themselves to roads, disrupting high-profile sporting events like golf and tennis and even splashing famous pieces of artwork with paint or soup.  

They’re now turning their attention to the wealthy, after long targeting some of the world’s most profitable companies – oil and gas conglomerates, banks and insurance firms that continue to invest in fossil fuels.  

“We do not point the finger at the people but at their lifestyle, the injustice it represents,” said Karen Killeen, an Extinction Rebellion activist who was involved in protests in Ibiza, Spain, a favorite summer spot for the wealthy. She said the group is protesting unnecessary emissions such as superrich individuals going to pick up a pizza by boat. “In a climate emergency, it’s an atrocity,” she said.  

Killeen and others from climate activist group Futuro Vegetal — or Vegetable Future — spray-painted a $300 million superyacht belonging to Walmart heir Nancy Walton Laurie. Protesters held up a sign that read, “You consume, others suffer.”  

In Switzerland, some 100 activists disrupted Europe’s biggest private jet sales fair in Geneva when they chained themselves to aircraft gangways and the exhibition entrance. In Germany, climate group Letzte Generation — which translates to Last Generation — spray-painted a private jet in the resort island of Sylt, in the North Sea. In Spain, activists plugged holes in golf courses to protest the sport’s heavy water needs during hot dry spells. 

In the U.S., Abigail Disney, the grand-niece of Walt Disney, was arrested at East Hampton Town Airport, New York, in July along with 13 other protesters for blocking cars from entering or exiting the parking lot. It was the first of up to eight actions carried out in the exclusive Hamptons area. Activists also crashed a golf course, disrupted a museum gala and demonstrated outside some private luxury homes.  

“Luxury practices are disproportionately contributing to the climate crisis at this point,” said American University social scientist Dana Fisher. According to a 2021 report by nonprofit Oxfam, if all planet-warming emissions were attributed to the people producing them, the richest 1% will be responsible for around 16% of emissions by 2030. “It makes a lot of sense for these activists to be calling out this toxic behavior.”  

Richard Wilk, an economic anthropologist at Indiana University, said luxury travel is “the real culprit” in the emissions of the ultrawealthy.  

He published estimates of top billionaires’ annual emissions in 2021 and found that a superyacht — with permanent crew, helicopter pad, submarines and pools — emits about 7,020 tons of carbon dioxide a year, over 1,500 times higher than a typical family car. And private aircraft in Europe alone last year caused more than 3 million tons of carbon pollution, equivalent to the average annual CO2 emissions of over half a million EU residents, according to the nonprofit Greenpeace.  

But University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann warned that attention away from the fossil fuel companies — which are responsible for at least 70% of all emissions — and toward the rich could be “playing right into the hands of the fossil fuel industry and the ‘deflection campaign’ they’ve used to divert attention from regulation by emphasizing individual carbon footprints over the much larger footprint of polluters.”  

“The solution is to get everyone to use less carbon-based energy,” whether wealthy or lower-income people, he said.  

David Gitman, president of Monarch Air Group, a Florida private air charter provider, encouraged activists to think twice about whether they’re taking the right approach.  

“If their activism goes toward some sort of actual assistance to real programs to make real change like sustainable aviation fuel, like carbon offsets, I think that this kind of activism can help achieve those results,” said Gitman. “Now, if they go out and they spray-paint a private jet in an airport in Europe, is that going to get those results? In my opinion, no.”  

Fisher, of the University of Maryland, was also skeptical that the activism was effective in changing behavior by the wealthy.  

In some cases, governments have stepped in with regulations. France is cracking down on the use of private jets for short journeys, and earlier this year, the Netherlands’ Schiphol Airport also announced plans to ban private jets.  

But as protests escalate, Fisher and Wilk say they could still move the needle toward behavior change.  

“Public shaming is one of the most powerful ways of controlling people,” Wilk said. “It acts in a lot of different ways to embarrass people, to make them more conscious of the consequences of their actions.”
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The mother of the Spanish soccer federation president has started a hunger strike in a church in southern Spain in defense of her son, who is under fire for kissing a player during the recent Women’s World Cup awards ceremony. 

Ángeles Béjar, mother of suspended federation president Luis Rubiales, told the state news agency EFE she would remain on hunger strike “night and day” until a solution is found to “the bloody and inhumane hounding” of her son. 

Speaking outside the church in the southern town of Motril, Rubiales’ cousin, Vanessa Ruiz, joined his mother in calling on the player, Jenni Hermoso, to “tell the truth.” She said the family was suffering greatly and she described Rubiales as “a beautiful person.” 

Rubiales came in for a storm of criticism following the kiss which was interpreted by many as a form of sexual abuse. The incident happened during the medal ceremony after the final last Sunday in Sydney, Australia. 

Earlier during the celebrations, Rubiales also grabbed his crotch in a victory gesture while in the presidential box and close to the queen of Spain and her teenage princess daughter. 

FIFA, the world soccer body, provisionally suspended him on Saturday for 90 days after he gave a defiant speech and refused to resign. 

Spain is hoping the country’s sports tribunal will remove him definitively. 

On Saturday, Rubiales said that Hermoso had consented to the “mutual” kiss. Hermoso replied in two statements to say that was false and that she considered herself the victim of an abuse of power. She also accused the federation of trying to pressure her into supporting Rubiales. The federation hit back by saying she was lying and that it would take legal action against her. 

The scandal has caused a commotion both in Spain and abroad. 

Spain’s Prosecutor’s Office said Monday they will be in touch with the player to let her know she will have 15 days to contact the office so that they can inform her of rights should she wish to file a complaint as an alleged victim of sexual aggression. 

Acting deputy PM Yolanda Díaz was meeting with football union representatives with a view to removing Rubiales and changing the way equality issues are run in Spanish soccer. 

The Spanish soccer federation was to meet with regional federations about what steps to take following FIFA’s temporary suspension of their leader. Meanwhile, an anti-Rubiales protest was to be held later Monday in Madrid. 
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Britain’s National Air Traffic Service (NATS) was forced to restrict the flow of aircraft on Monday as it works to address a technical issue, it said, with airlines and airports warning of delays and cancellations.

“We are currently experiencing a technical issue and have applied traffic flow restrictions to maintain safety. Engineers are working to find and fix the fault,” a spokesperson said, adding that UK airspace was not closed.

Earlier Scottish airline Loganair said on social media site X, previously known as Twitter, that there had been a network-wide failure of UK air traffic control computer systems, warning international flights may face delays.

Airports including London Luton and Birmingham said they were working to understand the impact and the timescale in which normal operations could resume, while British Airways also said it was working closely with NATS to understand the impact.

Dublin Airport said the air traffic control issues were resulting in delays and cancellations to some flights into and out of the Irish capital and advised passengers due to travel today to check the status of their flight with their airline in advance.

Several passengers took to social media to say they were stuck on planes on the tarmac waiting to take off on what is a busy travel day due to Monday’s public holiday in parts of Britain.

One Reuters witness being held on the tarmac at Budapest said their pilot told passengers that they faced an 8-12 hour delay.
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Five people, including four children, died and dozens were rescued Monday in two separate incidents involving migrant boats heading to Greek islands from nearby Turkish shores, Greek authorities said.

The coast guard said four people died and 18 were rescued after a boat carrying migrants apparently sank northeast of the Greek island of Lesbos, which is near the Turkish coast. Government spokesperson Pavlos Marinakis said all four were children: an 8-year-old boy and three girls aged 14, 8 and 11 months.

Coast guard spokesperson Nikos Alexiou said the incident occurred within Turkish territorial waters but the Turkish coast guard did not conduct a rescue operation, so a Greek patrol boat recovered the passengers. The survivors were taken to Lesbos’ main port of Mytilene, where two people were transferred to a local hospital.

Earlier Monday at about 1 a.m., a coast guard patrol boat spotted a dinghy carrying 37 people off the eastern Aegean Island of Samos, the coast guard said. It said the passengers fell into the water upon seeing the patrol boat, triggering a rescue operation.

A woman and a young boy were pulled from the water unconscious and coast guard officers performed CPR, authorities said. The woman died but the boy survived and was transferred to a hospital on Samos along with nine other survivors, the coast guard said.

“We express our deepest sadness” for the five deaths, Marinakis said at a regular briefing. He praised the coast guard for “superhuman efforts” to rescue lives at sea. “It is imperative that the dismal smuggling networks that exploit vulnerable people are struck at their roots,” he said.

Over the weekend, the coast guard said it picked up dozens of people from boats near eastern Aegean Sea islands, part of an increase in new arrivals over the past two months.

It said it recovered 20 people from a dinghy off the coast of Lesbos on Sunday, and 11 others from another dinghy that was sinking near the same island on Saturday.

Two other boats arrived on Samos on Saturday, the coast guard said, one carrying 35 people and one with 21 people.

For decades, Greece has been a preferred entry point into the European Union for people fleeing conflict or poverty in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and hoping for a better life in Europe.

More than 14,000 people have reached Greece by land and sea so far this year, according to United Nations figures. That’s about a tenth of the total successful Mediterranean crossings, most of which — about 104,000 — were to Italy. Arrivals in Greece for the whole of 2022 totaled 19,000.

In June, a battered fishing trawler heading from Libya to Italy with an estimated 500-750 people on board sank in international waters off southwestern Greece. Only 104 survivors were found, and Greek authorities were heavily criticized for failing to evacuate the vessel in time.

The government has attributed the rise in migrant crossings since then to better summer weather and smugglers taking advantage of an increase in Aegean small boat traffic during the tourist season.

After nearly a million people entered Greece at the height of Europe’s 2015 migration crisis, the vast majority hoping to move north to wealthier European countries, Greece increased patrols along the sea and land border with Turkey to halt arrivals.

Human rights groups and migrants denounced the government for carrying out summary deportations of people arriving in the country without allowing them to apply for asylum, an accusation the government strongly denied.
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