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Pope Francis, who has often said he may step down in the future if bad health impedes him from leading the Catholic Church, on Sunday praised the humility of one of the few popes in history to resign willingly instead of ruling for life.

L’Aquila, a central Italian city which Francis visited briefly, is the burial place of Celestine V, who resigned as pope in 1294 after only five months to return to his life as a hermit, establishing a papal prerogative.

Pope Benedict XVI, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in about 600 years to resign willingly, visited L’Aquila four years before stepping down. In the past, Francis has also praised Benedict’s courage.

When the Vatican announced in June Francis’ trip to L’Aquila – to inaugurate an annual “feast of forgiveness” – it fueled speculation that a conjunction of events – including the induction of new cardinals on Saturday and meetings starting on Monday on the Vatican’s new constitution – could foreshadow a resignation announcement.

However, in an interview with Reuters last month Francis, 85, laughed the idea off, saying “it never entered my mind,” while leaving open the possibility that he could step down for health reasons in the distant future.

In the homily of a Mass for thousands of people in a central square, Francis noted that in “The Divine Comedy,” Dante Alighieri condemned Celestine for having carried out what the medieval poet called “The Great Refusal.”

But Francis, who prayed silently before Celestine’s tomb, said that by relinquishing power, Celestine showed the strength that comes from humility.

“In the eyes of men, the humble are seen as weak and losers, but in reality, they are the real winners because they are the only ones who trust completely in the Lord and know His will,” Francis said.

The pope, who has been using a wheelchair and a cane for the past few months because of a knee ailment, sat through most of the Mass but read his homily in a strong voice and often went off script.

He told the crowd how the pilot of the helicopter that brought him from Rome had to circle for some time because of thick fog in the mountainous area before finding an opening in the mist. He compared this to seizing an opening from God in one’s life.

Although Francis has quashed rumors that he plans to resign anytime soon, the visit underscored the Catholic Church’s need to regulate the status of pontiffs who step down.

L’Aquila was hit by a devastating earthquake in 2009 that killed 309 people, injured several thousand, and destroyed many buildings.

At the start of Sunday’s visit, Francis donned a grey fire fighter helmet and was taken around the ruins of the city’s cathedral, which is being reconstructed.
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The death toll from an accident when a truck drove off a dike and slammed into a community barbecue in a village south of Rotterdam rose to six Sunday and police said a further seven people are in hospital, including one in critical condition.

Police spokeswoman Mirjam Boers said the truck driver, a 46-year-old Spanish man, is suspected of causing the accident that happened early Saturday evening in the village of Nieuw-Beijerland.

The large truck the man was driving left a small rural road and careered down the bank of the dike and plowed into the village gathering. Boers said the driver was not under the influence of alcohol at the time of the crash.

“We are investigating what could have happened,” Boers said.

Forensic investigators worked into the night Saturday around the truck where it stopped at the bottom of the dike. Later, a crane and a tow truck hauled it back onto the road.

Photos of the scene showed bunting hanging between trees and chairs scattered around trestle tables with plates still on them.

Local Mayor Charlie Aptroot visited the scene Saturday night.

“My condolences go out to the victims, their families, eyewitnesses and first responders,” he said in a statement.

He added that he had spoken to many of the people at the scene and expressed “appreciation for the way in which people are there for each other.” 
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In Poland’s late summer heat, dozens of cars and trucks line up at the Lubelski Wegiel Bogdanka coal mine, as people fearful of winter shortages wait for days to stock up on heating fuel in queues reminiscent of communist times.

Artur, 57, a pensioner, drove up from Swidnik, some 30 kilometers from the mine in eastern Poland on Tuesday, hoping to buy several tons of coal for himself and his family.

“Toilets were put up today, but there’s no running water,” he said, after three nights of sleeping in his small red hatchback in a crawling queue of trucks, tractors towing trailers and private cars.

“This is beyond imagination; people are sleeping in their cars. I remember the communist times, but it didn’t cross my mind that we could return to something even worse.”

Artur’s household is one of the 3.8 million in Poland that rely on coal for heating and now face shortages and price hikes, after Poland and the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian coal following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Poland banned purchases with an immediate effect in April, while the bloc mandated fading them out by August.

While Poland produces over 50 million tons from its own mines every year, imported coal, much of it from Russia, is a household staple because of competitive prices and the fact that Russian coal is sold in lumps more suitable for home use.

Soaring demand has forced Bogdanka and other state-controlled mines to ration sales or offer the fuel to individual buyers via online platforms, in limited amounts. Artur, who did not want to give his full name, said he had collected paperwork from his extended family in the hope of picking up all their fuel allocations at once.

The mine planned to sell fuel for some 250 households Friday and would continue sales over the weekend to cut waiting times, Dorota Choma, a representative for the Bogdanka mine told Reuters.

The limits are in place to prevent hoarding and profiteering, or even selling spots in the queue, Choma said.

Like all Polish coal mines, Bogdanka typically sells most of the coal it produces to power plants. Last year, it sold less than 1% of its output to individual clients so it lacks the logistics to sell fuel directly to retail buyers.

Lukasz Horbacz, head of the Polish Coal Merchant Chamber of Commerce, said the decline in Russian imports began in January when Moscow started using rail tracks for military transport.

“But the main reason for the shortages is the embargo that went into immediate effect. It turned the market upside down,” he told Reuters.

A spokesperson for the Weglokoks, a state-owned coal trader tasked by the government to boost imports from other countries declined to comment, while the climate ministry was not available for comment. Government officials have repeatedly said Poland would have enough fuel to meet demand.

In recent years, Poland has been the most vocal critic of EU climate policy and a staunch defender of coal that generates as much as 80% of its electricity. But coal output has steadily declined as the cost of mining at deeper levels increases.

Coal consumption has held mostly steady, prompting a gradual rise in imports. In 2021, Poland imported 12 million tons of coal, of which 8 million tons came from Russia and were used by households and small heating plants.

In July, Poland ordered two state-controlled companies to import several million tons of the fuel from other sources including Indonesia, Colombia and Africa, and introduced subsidies for homeowners facing a doubling or tripling of coal prices from last winter.

“As much as 60% of those that use coal for heating may be affected by energy poverty,” Horbacz said.

Back at Bogdanka, Piotr Maciejewski, 61, a local farmer who joined the queue Tuesday, said he was prepared for a long wait.

“My tractor stays in line, I’m going home to get some sleep,” he said.
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An elaborate fireworks display took place Saturday under calm skies in Hungary’s capital after a postponement of the show last weekend caused controversy when it led to the firing of the country’s top meteorologists over their weather predictions.

Saturday’s event, a rescheduling of the display planned for Hungary’s national holiday a week earlier, drew tens of thousands to the Danube River in Budapest in what was billed as Europe’s largest fireworks show.

On Monday, the two top officials at Hungary’s National Meteorological Service were fired after the government committee managing holiday events postponed the show based on the weather service’s prediction of a high probability of heavy rain that evening.

While storms did strike other areas of Hungary that night, they did not hit the capital. Weather service chief Kornelia Radics, who had served since 2013, and her deputy Gyula Horvath, who has served since 2016, lost their jobs.

Gabor Valter Tolczli, a spectator at Saturday’s fireworks show, said, “I was surprised that the fireworks were postponed a week ago because there was no storm then. But today I don’t mind the postponement, because there are fewer crowds.”

He added, however, that he was “outraged that the meteorologists were fired, because you can never predict the weather 100%.”

The firings led to accusations from critics of Hungary’s nationalist government, led by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of punitive political pressure reminiscent of Hungary’s communist past.

Academics and scientists in Hungary have long complained of pressure being exerted on independent scientific bodies and Orban’s government has been accused of corruption, nepotism and anti-democratic tendencies.

This has led to clashes with the European Union, which has withheld billions in pandemic recovery funds from Hungary over what the bloc sees as deficiencies in the Hungarian government’s adherence to basic values and the rule of law.

Hungary’s government says the firings were related to the Aug. 20 forecast but that the minister overseeing the weather service had previously been dissatisfied with its performance. In a news conference Tuesday, Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, said the service’s assessment of a high probability of extreme weather — which never came — was “the last straw.”

On Wednesday, Hungary’s government appointed Laszlo Hanyecz, the weather service’s vice president for economic affairs, as its interim head. Of 19 leading officials at the agency, Hanyecz, who is not a meteorologist, was one of only two not to sign a letter demanding the reinstatement of the fired weather chiefs.

Climate Without Borders, an international network of weather presenters, released a letter signed by 76 members from 48 countries expressing solidarity with the fired forecasters.

“As forecasters, our first mission is to protect life and property. When Hungarian meteorologists saw danger in the forecast, they did what any of us would do — warned of the risk to life,” the letter read, condemning the firings.
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Greece’s main opposition leader has called on the country’s prime minister to resign after he admitted that the nation’s spy chief bugged the phone of a senior political leader. The scandal is being dubbed Greece’s Watergate.  

Speaking before Greece’s Parliament, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis took the stage, defending what he called “a mistake.”

The minute he found out, he said, he looked the Greek people in the eye and told them he knew nothing of what was going on. 

It was wrong, he said, adding, however, that it was legal on national security grounds.

Greek law allows eavesdropping on criminal suspects, terrorists, and pedophiles,

but the Greek constitution bars phone-tapping of political leaders except on national security grounds.

Mitsotakis was hammered with complaints, charges, and demands during the heated debate Friday for failing to explain why the phone of Nikos Androulakis, the head of Greece’s Socialist party, had been tapped.

Instead, Mitsotakis added to conspiracy theories whirling since the scandal broke earlier this month that suggest Androulakis’ phone was hacked at the behest of foreign spy agencies.

Forces outside the country can only benefit from seeing this slip-up cause instability and a political crisis, he said.

Mitsotakis refused to elaborate, but Alexis Tsipras, Greece’s main opposition leader and a former prime minister, insisted the nation had to know why Androulakis’ phone tapping was allowed on grounds of national security.

“Is he a foreign agent, a spy? Your refusal, to tell the truth, is in itself an answer,” Tsipras said.

Local media loyal to the government have suggested Androulakis’s phone was hacked at the request of spy agencies from China, Armenia and Ukraine – allegations that the three countries have categorically denied.

Still, the scandal adds to fears of widespread surveillance across Europe at a moment when democracies feel threatened by Russian aggression. The European Union has begun to regularly check phones and other devices for listening applications and espionage.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has also been a target recently, along with President Emmanuel Macron of France, the former prime minister of Belgium and top EU officials.

During the heated parliamentary debate, Tsipras urged the government to resign, accusing it of defying democratic practices and acting in a way that was a disgrace to the Greek people.

Parliamentary probes are set to begin in the coming weeks.
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Serbia and Kosovo have settled an ethnic dispute over the movement of citizens across their border, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday.

“We have a deal,” Borrell said in a tweet. “Kosovo Serbs, as well as all other citizens, will be able to travel freely between Kosovo & Serbia using their ID cards. The EU just received guarantees from PM [Albin] Kurti to this end.” 

The dispute stemmed from predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in 2008, something Belgrade has refused to recognize.

Serbia and Kosovo still have to agree on the hotly contested use of Serbian car number plates issued in the north of Kosovo where Serbs defy the government in Pristina and see Belgrade as their capital.

Independent Kosovo is recognized by the United States, all but five EU members, but not by a number of other states including Serbia’s allies Russia and China.

The most recent flareup of tensions between Serbia and Kosovo has been triggered by a directive for Kosovo authorities for local Serbs to switch their car number plates from Serbian to Kosovo ones from September 1.

Serbs from northern Kosovo, responded by setting roadblocks and clashing sporadically with police before NATO peacekeepers oversaw their removal.

The talks between EU and U.S. envoys with the authorities in Serbia and Kosovo have so far failed to yield concrete results about the car number plates issue.

Earlier in the day, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic said he was hoping the EU would provide guarantees for the personal documents agreement. He also said Serbia would be issuing a “a general disclaimer” in which it would be written that the use of identity cards issued by Pristina was allowed for practical reasons with an aim of facilitating the freedom of movement but not tantamount to the recognition of Kosovo’s independence.

“Under the EU-facilitated Dialogue, Serbia agreed to abolish entry/exit documents for Kosovo ID holders and Kosovo agreed to not introduce them for Serbian ID holders,” Borrell tweeted.

Belgrade and Kosovo’s Serb minority also claim entitlement under a 2013 EU-brokered agreement to an association of semi-autonomous majority-Serb municipalities, which Pristina has refused to implement.
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic announced the decision to cancel the September 12-18 EuroPride celebration during a news conference where he also proposed extending the term of Serbia’s prime minister, who identifies as a lesbian.

Members of the European Pride Organizers Association chose Serbia’s capital three years ago to host the annual event. Vucic said a crisis with neighboring Kosovo and various economic problems were among the reasons why the Balkan nation’s authorities did not think they could handle EuroPride, which features a Pride parade.

“This is a violation of minority rights, but at this moment the state is pressured by numerous problems,” he said.

EuroPride organizers said Serbian authorities must provide security against “bullies” who threaten the march and seek to discredit it. European Pride Organizers President Kristine Garina urged Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic to honor a promise to support the event.

“President Vucic cannot cancel someone else’s event,” Garina said. “The right to hold Pride has been ruled by the European Court of Human Rights to be a fundamental human right.”

An organizer in Serbia, Goran Miletic, said police must formally ban the march to prevent it from happening. If they issue a ban, organizers would file a complaint at Serbia’s Constitutional Court. He insisted that indoor events planned as part of the week-long celebration can’t be banned.

“The only thing that can happen is for the police to ban the [pride] march,” Miletic said. “However, such a hypothetical decision would be contrary to the constitution.”

Serbia pledged to protect LGBTQ rights as it seeks EU membership, but increasingly vocal right-wing supporters harass and sometimes attack people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Serbia’s right-wing and pro-Russian groups have gained strength in the past several years and some secured parliament seats during the country’s April general election. Several thousand people recently joined a march in Belgrade against LGBTQ Pride.

“It’s not the question of whether they [extremists] are stronger, but you just can’t do it all at the same moment, and that’s it,” Vucic said. “I am not happy about it, but we can’t manage.”

Vucic won another five-year term in the first round of April’s vote, and his Serbian Progressive Party won the general election in a landslide. The president said Saturday that Brnabic, who has led the previous two governments in Serbia, should lead the new Cabinet that is expected to be formed in the coming weeks.

Brnabic first became Serbia’s prime minister in 2017, in what was seen as major change for the country that is predominantly conservative and male-dominated. Brnabic lives with her female partner, but LGBTQ groups have criticized the prime minister, saying she has done little to improve the position of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals in Serbian society.

After Belgrade’s 2010 pride march produced clashes, subsequent marches took place with strong police protection.

EuroPride was first celebrated in London in 1992, and Belgrade was set to be the first city in southeast Europe to host the event, according to organizers. Next month’s event was expected to attract thousands of people from throughout Europe.

Vucic said the celebration could be postponed for “happier times.” He insisted that state authorities must plan instead for energy problems anticipated for the winter, partly as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Serbian government has condemned the Russian invasion but has refused to join Western sanctions against Russia.

Vucic said tensions with Kosovo, a former Serbian province whose independence the government in Belgrade has refused to recognize, were another source of pressure on authorities.

The tensions soared last month from a dispute over travel documents and license plates, and have raised concerns about instability in the Balkans, where multiple wars were fought amid the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia relies on support from Russia and China to continue claiming that Kosovo is part of its territory.

Washington and most EU countries have recognized Kosovo independence. U.S. and EU envoys visited Kosovo and Serbia earlier this week in an effort to ease the tensions.

 
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Citing unparalleled attacks on health care facilities, the World Health Organization said this week it is working to reconstruct Ukraine’s health system. The system has suffered extensive damage since Russia invaded the country six months ago.

Over the past six months, the U.N. health agency says it has verified 173 attacks on medical facilities, which have resulted in nearly 100 deaths and 134 injuries.

WHO Ukraine representative Jarno Habicht told reporters this week that deaths and injuries continue to rise and will continue to do so until Russia ends the war.

“While these attacks are not only the violation of international law, they also are a barrier for many who need care as we are going through the war,” he said. “So, it is not only the supplies and others that we need to support, we need to ensure also that the services are available. But also, the health care workers are under immediate risk as we go through these times.”

The United Nations says the war has killed more than 5,500 civilians and injured nearly 8,000, including almost 1,000 children. UNICEF says about five children on average are killed or injured every day. The children’s agency says this is due to the indiscriminate use of weapons, often in heavily populated areas.

Speaking via videolink from an air raid shelter in Dnipro, in central Ukraine, Habicht said many people are on the move and many are suffering and need care.

He said the WHO is accelerating efforts to reach out and provide humanitarian assistance to millions of people across the country.  At the same time, he said the WHO is working on rebuilding Ukraine’s shattered health system in coordination with national and local authorities.

“Reconstruction of the health system has to be part of the recovery of the whole country across all the sectors,” he said. “And that is why we are currently concentrating both on the humanitarian response, as well looking to the recovery as we have seen in the health sector and other sectors.” 

To date, the WHO has delivered more than 1,300 metric tons of medical supplies in Ukraine, including medicines for diabetes, cardiovascular disorders and other noncommunicable diseases.

Habicht said support also is being provided for mental health, trauma, and emergencies. He also said COVID-19 vaccines have been delivered to Ukraine in recent weeks in light of the increasing mortality rate from the virus across the country.
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Authorities transferred some 400 asylum-seekers away from a makeshift camp outside an overcrowded migrant reception center in the northeastern Netherlands after a damning report called the site where hundreds of people were sleeping rough a health hazard.

Leon Veldt, a spokesperson for the government’s asylum-seeker accommodation organization, said Saturday that the migrants were moved overnight to alternative accommodations in other locations.

The move came after a team from the Inspectorate for Health Care and Youth visited the squalid, temporary camp in the village of Ter Apel and said there was “a serious risk of outbreaks of infectious diseases as a result of the total lack of hygiene.”

A day earlier, 150 people were transferred to two sports halls in a central city in a bid to alleviate the crisis that has seen some 700 people sleeping outside the packed center this week. Refugee advocates likened the situation to overcrowded camps in Greece and Italy, which are common first destinations of Europe-bound asylum-seekers.

A 3-month-old baby died this week in a sports hall at the Ter Apel center, and authorities are investigating the cause of death. Two men were taken to the hospital, one for a heart attack and another for diabetes that had gone untreated for weeks.

The conditions were so bad that the Dutch branch of Doctors Without Borders sent a team there on Thursday, the relief agency’s first deployment in the Netherlands.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Friday he was ashamed of the scenes in Ter Apel. On Friday night, Rutte’s government announced a raft of measures aimed at easing the country’s asylum-seeker accommodation crisis.

They include temporarily reining in refugee family reunions and the number of arriving migrants earmarked for the Netherlands under a 2016 deal between the European Union and Turkey.

The government said it also was working with local municipalities to create more homes for people who receive refugee status so they can more quickly move out of asylum-seeker centers, freeing up space for new arrivals.

The Dutch military was tasked with setting up a new camp to house people who are waiting to register asylum claims at the Ter Apel center.

Milo Schoenmaker, the board chairman of the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers, welcomed the moves, saying: “With the measures that have been announced, the application center in Ter Apel can hopefully be relieved quickly. At the same time, there are still insufficient available places to accommodate everyone.”

While many Dutch towns and cities have offered places to stay to Ukrainians who fled the war in their country, the welcome has worn thin for asylum-seekers from other countries. Most people arriving in Ter Apel are Syrians fleeing their nation’s grinding civil war.
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As Friday’s end to a four-week conference to review the landmark U.N. treaty aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons neared, delegates scrambled to reach agreement on a final document with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and takeover of Europe’s largest nuclear power a key obstacle.

Argentine Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen, president of the conference reviewing the 50-year-old Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, circulated a revised 36-page draft final document that aimed to address some of China’s concerns. But it still made the same four references to Russia’s occupation of Europe’s biggest nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine — though without naming Russia.

Any document must be approved by all 191 countries that are parties to the treaty, and the closing plenary meeting to consider the revised draft was delayed while delegates met behind closed doors to try to get all countries on board.

Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the Security Council that the Biden administration is seeking a consensus final document that strengthens the nuclear treaty and acknowledges “the manner in which Russia’s war and irresponsible actions in Ukraine seriously undermine the NPT’s main purpose.”

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia accused the United States and its allies at that council meeting of “politicizing the work on the final document, putting their geopolitical interests in punishing Russia above their collective needs in strengthening global security.”

“Against the backdrop of the actual sabotage by the collective West of the global security architecture, Russia continues to do everything possible to keep at least its key, vital elements afloat,” Nebenzia said.

The four references to Zaporizhzhia, where Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of shelling, would have the parties to the NPT express “grave concern for the military activities” at or near the facility and other nuclear plants, recognize Ukraine’s loss of control and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s inability to ensure its nuclear material is safeguarded.

The parties would also support IAEA efforts to visit Zaporizhzhia to ensure there is no diversion of its nuclear materials, which the agency’s director is hoping to organize in the coming day. And it would express “grave concern” at the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities, in particular Zaporizhzia, and stress “the paramount importance of ensuring control by Ukraine’s competent authorities.”

The NPT review conference is supposed to be held every five years but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The last one in 2015 ended without an agreement because of serious differences over establishing a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Those differences haven’t gone away but are being discussed, and both draft documents obtained by The Associated Press would reaffirm the importance of establishing a nuclear-free Mideast zone. So, this is not viewed as a major stumbling block this year.

The issue that has changed the dynamics of the conference is Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning that Russia is a “potent” nuclear power and any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen,” and his decision soon after to put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.

Putin has since rolled back, saying that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” a message reiterated by a senior Russian official on the opening day of the NPT conference on Aug. 2. But the Russian leader’s initial threat and the occupation of Zaporizhzhia by Russian forces soon after the invasion as well as their takeover of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986, renewed global fears of another nuclear emergency.

Under the NPT’s provisions, the five original nuclear powers — the United States, China, Russia (then the Soviet Union), Britain and France — agreed to negotiate toward eliminating their arsenals someday and nations without nuclear weapons promised not to acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee to be able to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

India and Pakistan, which didn’t join the NPT, went on to get the bomb. So did North Korea, which ratified the pact but later announced it was withdrawing. Non-signatory Israel, which is believed to have a nuclear arsenal but neither confirms nor denies it, has been an obstacle in discussions of a Mideast zone free of weapons of mass destruction.

Nonetheless, the treaty has been credited with limiting the number of nuclear newcomers (U.S. President John F. Kennedy once foresaw as many as 20 nuclear-armed nations) as a framework for international cooperation on disarmament.

The draft final document would express deep concern “that the threat of nuclear weapons use today is higher than at any time since the heights of the Cold War and at the deteriorated international security environment.” It would also commit the 191 parties to the treaty “to making every effort to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again.”

The parties would call on India, Israel and Pakistan to join the NPT “as non-nuclear-weapon states” and on South Sudan to become a party as soon as possible. It would call on North Korea to return to the treaty at an early date and immediately cease its nuclear activities.

Diplomats and nuclear experts monitoring the closed-door negotiations cited differences between China and the West that could have blocked agreement on a final document but appear to have been resolved in the final draft.

China wanted the document to mention the U.S.-UK-Australia deal to provide Australia with a nuclear-powered submarine, and the final draft notes that parties to the NPT are interested in “the topic of naval nuclear propulsion” and the importance of a transparent and open dialogue on it.

Of the five nuclear powers, China is the only one still producing fissile material — either uranium or plutonium — needed to produce nuclear weapons, and several Western nations wanted to pressure Beijing to halt production.

The original draft included a call to the five nuclear weapon states “to declare or maintain existing moratoria on the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons and other explosive devices.” This was eliminated in the final draft which calls for the immediate start of negotiations on a treaty banning production of fissile material.

The final draft document barely mentions the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying only that it was adopted in July 2017, entered into force in January 2021, and held its first meeting of states parties in June 2022. Some Western countries maintain that calls for immediate nuclear disarmament are totally unrealistic in the current highly polarized and chaotic world.
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The Ocean Viking, a humanitarian ship of SOS Mediterranee, has rescued 268 people since Thursday during five rescues of migrants mostly found in overcrowded wooden boats between Libya and Malta, the NGO announced Friday.

“Many have high levels of exhaustion and dehydration” and “severe sunburn,” said the NGO, whose headquarters are in Marseille.

Several minors, including unaccompanied minors, pregnant women and even a 3-week-old baby are now cared for by SOS Mediterranee and the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent on the Viking Ocean.

On Tuesday, the ship said it had spotted four empty boats in this area, including one without a motor. But “without communication from the maritime authorities, the fate of the people on board remains unknown,” the ship communicated.

Since the beginning of the year, 1,161 migrants have disappeared in the Mediterranean, including 918 in the central Mediterranean, the most dangerous migratory route in the world, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The U.N. agency estimated the number of dead and missing in 2021 at 2,048 in the Mediterranean, including 1,553 for the central Mediterranean alone.

Every year, thousands of people fleeing conflict or poverty attempt to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean from Libya, whose coasts are 300 kilometers from Italy.
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Officials from Turkey, Finland and Sweden agreed on Friday to keep meeting in the coming months to discuss security concerns that Turkey raised as a precondition for allowing the two Nordic countries to join the NATO military alliance. 

Officials from the three countries held their first such meeting on Friday in the southern Finnish city of Vantaa. 

Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said the meeting aimed to establish contacts and set goals for cooperation that the countries agreed to by signing a memorandum of understanding at NATO’s Madrid summit in June. 

“The participants discussed the concrete steps to implement the Trilateral Memorandum and agreed that the mechanism will continue to meet at the expert level during the autumn,” the Finnish foreign ministry said in a statement after the meeting. 

The two Nordic countries applied for NATO membership in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but faced opposition from Turkey which accused them of imposing arms embargoes on Ankara and supporting groups it deems terrorists. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office said the sides had agreed to intensify their cooperation and fight terrorism. 

“Finland and Sweden will show full solidarity and cooperation with Turkey in the fight against all forms and manifestations of terrorism… [and] they reiterated their commitment not to provide support to these organizations,” it said. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has demanded Sweden and Finland extradite suspects Turkey seeks over terrorism-related charges, while the Nordic countries say they have not agreed to specific extraditions. 

Finland’s foreign ministry had been tight-lipped about Friday’s meeting, refusing to give its location or timing, but later said it had taken place in the city of Vantaa near the capital Helsinki. 
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The Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant resumed electricity supplies to Ukraine on Friday after one of its six reactors was reconnected to the Ukrainian grid, state nuclear company Energoatom said.

Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which is located in southern Ukraine, was disconnected from the Ukrainian grid for the first time in its history on Thursday after a fire caused by shelling damaged a power line, Kyiv said earlier.

“The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station is connected to the grid and is producing electricity for the needs of Ukraine,” Energoatom said in a statement on Friday.

Authorities began providing iodine tablets Friday to residents who live around the nuclear power plant in the event of a radiation leak, as fears grow that the fighting around the plant could spark a catastrophe.

Iodine tablets help block the absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland, and they were handed out to people in the city of Zaporizhzhia, which is about 45 kilometers from the plant.  

The move came a day after the plant was temporarily knocked offline because of what officials said was fire damage to a transmission line. The incident heightened dread of a nuclear disaster in a country still haunted by the 1986 explosion at Chernobyl.

Continued shelling was reported in the area overnight, and satellite images from Planet Labs showed fires burning around the complex over the last several days.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February and took control of the nuclear plant in March, though it is still operated by Ukrainian technicians working for Energoatom.

The nuclear plant remains near the frontline and repeatedly has come under fire in recent weeks. Both Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the facility.

On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a nuclear radiation disaster was narrowly avoided after Russian shelling in the area caused the electricity to be cut for hours.

“Russia has put Ukraine and all Europeans in a situation one step away from a radiation disaster,” he said.

Russian bombardment triggered fires in the ash pits of a nearby coal power station that disconnected the Russian-controlled plant from the power grid, Zelenskyy said, but backup diesel generators provided the electricity supply vital for cooling and safety systems at the plant.

An engineer working under Russian occupation since March 4 at the nuclear power plant has told VOA that Russian forces have placed artillery and missile installations within and around the property of the plant.

The engineer, whose identity is being withheld for fear of retaliation by the occupying authorities, supports Ukrainian government claims that Russia itself is responsible for the explosions.

Western leaders have demanded that Russia hand the plant back to Ukraine, while U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for it to be “demilitarized.”

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron warned against the use of civilian nuclear facilities as an instrument of war.

“War in any case must not undermine the nuclear safety of the country, the region, and all of us. Civil nuclear power must be fully protected,” Macron said during a visit to Algeria.

A team from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to send a mission soon to inspect the power station.

In Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday that “Russia should agree to the demilitarized zone around the plant and agree to allow an International Atomic Energy Agency visit as soon as possible to check on the safety and security of the system.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said Friday its forces had destroyed a U.S.-made M777 howitzer, which it claimed Ukraine had used to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Reuters reported.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the howitzer had been destroyed west of the town of Marganets, in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

On the battlefield, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said its troops had repulsed Russian assaults on the towns of Bakhmut and Soledar in the eastern Donetsk region, and they also struck ammunition depots and enemy personnel in the southern Kherson region.

In Geneva on Thursday, Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing United Nations human rights chief, described Russia’s continuing attacks on Ukraine as “unimaginably horrifying.” She called on Russian President Vladimir Putin “to halt armed attacks against Ukraine.”

In other news, Ukraine summoned the papal ambassador on Thursday to complain about latest comments about the war by Pope Francis.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters in Kyiv that “the Ukrainian heart is torn apart by the pope’s words.”

Kuleba was responding to the pope’s comments about last weekend’s car bomb slaying in Moscow of Darya Dugina, a nationalist Russian TV commentator and daughter of a right-wing political theorist who ardently supports the war.

Francis referred to her as the “poor girl” among the “innocents” who have been victimized by the “insanity of war.”

Some information for this story came from The Associated Press and Reuters.  
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A U.S. charity based in Jersey City, New Jersey, is collecting donations and raising funds not only to support Ukraine’s armed forces but also to help build a special bomb shelter at a boarding school for deaf and hearing-impaired children in Lviv, Ukraine. Nina Vishneva has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. VOA footage by Aleksandr Barash.
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While the world has taken notice that the war in Ukraine has passed its six months mark, it’s been more than 90 days since the Mariupol and Azovstal defenders have entered into Russian and pro-Russian forces’ captivity, their loved ones point out.

On May 20, Denys Prokopenko, commander of Azov Regiment since 2017, posted his last video message before walking out of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, where his unit had stood off massive Russian forces for nearly three months.

From the start of surrender negotiations with the Russians, the Azovstal defenders had insisted on three conditions, Prokopenko said: safe passage of civilians, assistance for the seriously wounded soldiers and an honorable treatment of the bodies of those who had died.

“As for the dead heroes, the process is ongoing, but I hope that in the near future, relatives and all of Ukraine will be able to bury their soldiers with honor,” he said. Then the video ended while shuffling sounds were heard in the background.

Three days later, Prokopenko’s wife, Kateryna, was able to reach him and tell him she was OK. Before he could respond, the line was cut off. She hasn’t heard from him since.

“They delivered on their promise to us, now we must deliver our promise to them,” Kateryna said at a July press conference along with the wife and sister of two other Azovstal defenders.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy cited media reports that Russia was preparing to put on trial Ukrainian fighters taken during the siege of Mariupol.

The U.S. State Department and the U.N. Human Rights Office condemned what they described as “show trials.” Russia, which said it would hold “tribunals” for Ukraine fighters, called the U.S. accusations “groundless.”

The women, along with others, formed an organization, the Association of the Azovstal Defenders’ Families, to advocate for the return home of their loved ones shortly after the surviving defenders, led by the Azov Regiment, were taken into Russian captivity between May 16 and May 20.

The Russian supreme court designated the Azov Regiment a “terrorist” organization in early August, raising concern among family members about the implications for their treatment while in captivity and the prospect of their being included in any prisoner exchange.

Marianna Homerike, a former commander with the Azov Regiment in charge of press services who now works with the defenders’ families, offered some hope in a written interview with VOA from Kyiv.

She said the Ukrainian defenders’ families hope that the designation will be applied only for domestic propaganda inside Russia and won’t preclude Azov Regiment soldiers from being included in future prisoner exchanges. She pointed out that neither Ukraine nor the international community had accepted Moscow’s designation.

To date, the largest prisoner exchange took place on June 29, when 144 Ukrainian fighters returned home. Of those, 95 had defended Azovstal and 43 were from the Azov Regiment.

Tetyana Kharko was there to greet them as a representative of the newly formed Association of Azovstal Defenders’ Families when the soldiers got off the buses and ambulances. Kharko is a sister of Serhiy Volynski, acting commander of the 36th Marine Brigade, whose members joined the Azov Regiment in the steel plant.

“All the boys were exhausted and emaciated. But you can see they were happy because they’re home,” Kharko said at a July press conference following the prisoner exchange. A vast majority of the soldiers that came back to Ukraine had suffered “heavy wounds,” she said.

“Some of them won’t be able to embrace a loved one because they have no arms; others won’t be able to run with their kids because they have no legs; others won’t be able to see the peaceful sky after our victory because, while defending us, they gave their eyes,” she said.

Even so, they may be counted among the lucky ones. Of the estimated 2,400 Azovstal defenders who are still held by Russia, little is known. Most are believed to be held at a prison camp in Olenivka, in Russian-occupied territory, where a July 29 explosion killed at least 50 and injured scores more. Russian authorities listed names and birth dates for 48 of them, ranging in age from 21 to 62.

“I believe and I hope that our authorities and all of us” will never forget what the Azovstal defenders did for the country, “and thus make sure that we save them all,” Kharko said.

A particularly moving tribute to the memory of the participants in Mariupol’s last stand exists in a stunning series of photos taken inside the steel plant by one of the soldiers, Dmytro Kozatsky, and posted to the internet shortly before the surrender. The Ukrainian Embassy in Washington arranged an exhibition of the photos in July to coincide with the celebration of Ukraine’s Constitution Day.

Reflecting on the significance of Mariupol and Ukraine’s defense, David M. Glantz, a retired U.S. Army colonel and an award-winning military historian, looked to Greece in the 5th century B.C. for a comparison to the achievement of the Mariupol defenders, who, he said, stood their ground in spite of being outnumbered “10 to 1, if not more.”

“They were kind of like the old defense by the Spartans in Thermopylae; they took over the city and they wouldn’t let it fall,” he said.

“And as long as it didn’t fall, the Russians couldn’t use the supply line along the northern coast of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, so it basically screwed up the entire Russian plan for conquering the northern coast of the Black Sea and cutting off Ukraine from its water lines of communication.”

The families’ call for help was answered – once again – by one of Ukraine’s most famous bands, the Kalush Orchestra. Back on May 14, when the group won this year’s Eurovision song content, they cried out when taking the stage in Turin, Italy: “We ask all of you: please, help save Ukraine! Help save Mariupol! Help save Azovstal, RIGHT NOW!!”

This week, marking Ukraine’s Independence Day, the group posted a video urging their fellow countrymen to remember those who fought for their freedom and help sustain the soldiers, whether in captivity or on the battlefield, and their loved ones.
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