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President Joe Biden has made a final decision to not designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, the White House said Tuesday, saying that such a move could backfire and have unintended consequences for U.S. support of Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion.  

Biden’s one-word response — “no,” he said, when reporters asked him on Monday, “should Russia be designated a state sponsor of terrorism?” — ends months of serious, fervent discussions on Capitol Hill and in foreign capitals over whether to add Russia to the short, grim list that currently includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. 

Nations earn this label when the U.S. secretary of state deems that a foreign government is “repeatedly providing support for acts of international terrorism.” The designation effectively renders the target a pariah, by imposing restrictions on U.S. assistance; a ban on defense exports and sales; controls over items that can be used for both military and non-military purposes, and a raft of other restrictions.    

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre elaborated on the president’s thought process.  

“This designation could have unintended consequences to Ukraine, and the world,” she said. “For example, according to humanitarian experts and NGOs we have spoken to, it could seriously affect the ability to deliver assistance in areas of Ukraine. 

“Another one is it could drive critical humanitarian and commercial actors away from facilitating food exports to help mitigate the global food crisis and jeopardize the Black Sea ports deal that has already led to over a million tons of Ukrainian food exports reaching the world, including those in Horn of Africa. 

“It will also undercut unprecedented multilateral conditions that have been so effective in holding [Russian President Vladimir] Putin accountable and could also undermine our ability to support Ukraine at the negotiating table,” she said. “So, again, we do not think this is the most effective way to go, or the strongest path forward.”    

Team Yes  

Key among the proponents is Ukraine’s president, who renewed his appeal this week as inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency expressed alarm over fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. 

In a report released Tuesday, agency chief Rafael Grossi warned that “any further escalation affecting the six-reactor plant could lead to a severe nuclear accident with potentially grave radiological consequences for human health and the environment in Ukraine and elsewhere.”  

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used his nightly video address on Monday to hammer that point home.    

“Shelling the territory of the ZNPP means that the terrorist state does not care what the IAEA says, it does not care what the international community decides,” he said. “Russia is interested only in keeping the situation the worst for the longest time possible. This can be corrected only by strengthening sanctions, only by officially recognizing Russia as a terrorist state — at all levels.”  

And last month, the Baltic state of Latvia — formerly a member of the Soviet Union – levied the designation on Russia, with lawmakers voting overwhelmingly in favor of the move and urging other nations to follow suit.    

Closer to home, the strongest charge has come from Capitol Hill, where a bipartisan group of senators has been urging the administration to make the call, after passing a resolution in July.  

In the resolution, the senators argue that Russia promotes acts of international terrorism against political opponents and nation states, citing Russia’s aggression in Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine, Syria and remote corners of the world, under the aegis of the shadowy, Kremlin-backed mercenaries known as the Wagner Group.  

“To the Biden administration: You have the complete unanimous support of the United States Senate to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said. “Do it.”  

Such agreement, Graham added, is rare in this increasingly divided political landscape, saying, “I didn’t think there was an issue under the sun that could get 100 Senate votes, but we found it: Russia is a state sponsor of terrorism.”  

The resolution’s co-sponsor, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, defended the argument on moral grounds.  

“The designation of state sponsorship of terrorism puts Russia in a very small club — it consists of nations like Syria, Iran and Cuba that are outside the bounds of civilized countries,” he said. “They are pariahs. And that is exactly the designation that Russia deserves for what it has done in Ukraine as well as in other countries.”  

And, over the weekend, White House officials confirmed that Moscow is buying rockets and artillery shells from North Korea — a longtime member of the list — for use in Ukraine.  

“We expect Russia could try to purchase additional North Korean military equipment going forward,” an administration official told reporters.    

Team No  

The Kremlin opposes the designation, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling Russian television on Tuesday that “the very formulation of the issue is monstrous.”    

“And, of course, it is good that the U.S. president responded in this way,” he said. 

While Peskov said the Kremlin welcomed Biden’s firm “no,” he added that Moscow did not see that as a move to warm relations.  

“It can hardly be a reason for such assessments,” he said.  

U.S. officials point out that Russia is already sweating under the weight of massive U.S. sanctions.  

“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.    

And some analysts argue that Russia is low in the rankings when it comes to earning this dubious distinction.  

“By the current standard, numerous countries could be placed on the state-sponsor-of- terror list, such as Myanmar/ Burma, China, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Pakistan, Rwanda, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, just to name a few,” wrote Doug Bandow, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute.  

“Several U.S. allies deserve to be on such a list, too: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey, and Egypt. So does Saudi Arabia, headed by Crown Prince Mohammed “Slice ‘n Dice” bin Salman, notable for murdering and dismembering his critics. The kingdom is more repressive domestically and has killed more people internationally than even Russia.”  

To summarize, he said: “The Putin regime is evil, but it is not a sponsor of terrorism.”    

Team It’s Complicated  

Just as the arguments on each side are fervent, so are the reasons that analysts — and the White House — say this issue is not black-and-white.  

For one, said Delaney Simon, a researcher at the International Crisis Group, the U.S. and Russia engage across a number of platforms, including the United Nations Security Council, where both nations hold permanent seats.  

“None of the other states that are designated state sponsors of terror have the same sort of role in the international system,” she told VOA. “That would make any kind of multilateral diplomacy really, really complicated. And you’ve seen from some Russian statements that President Putin is going to think of this, definitely, as an escalation and cause for a rupture in relations.”    

She added that such a designation would end Russia’s sovereign immunity from lawsuits from Americans claiming to be affected by Russian actions. Those cases could drag on for years and — as in the case of Sudan, a former member of the list — significantly delay a nation’s removal from the list.  

She also pointed out another element: to reverse the designation, something bigger and more important has to change.    

“There’s sort of a checklist of things that have to happen legally before the designation can be rescinded,” she said. “One of the things that needs to happen is that the state has to undergo a fundamental change in leadership and policy. It’s hard to see, well, a leadership change. Which, by the way, is something that the Biden administration has resisted calling for.” 

Finally, she said, if the goal is to end the six-month invasion of Ukraine, this may not help.  

“I think once you look deeply at the policy implications of this issue, it’s pretty clear that the designation wouldn’t help Ukraine,” she said. ussr

And so, for now, it’s a no. 
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Liz Truss officially became Britain’s prime minister Tuesday, replacing Boris Johnson, who resigned in July.

In a private meeting Tuesday in Balmoral, Scotland, with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, Truss was asked to form a new government. The meeting, a formality, took place in Scotland as the 96-year-old monarch is not able to travel to London due to health problems.

Truss is the 15th prime minister to be appointed by Elizabeth, and the fourth Conservative party leader in just seven years – an indication of the monarch’s longevity and recent chaos in Britain’s politics. Truss’s meeting took place hours after Johnson traveled to Scotland to meet with the monarch.

Truss later flew back to London. In the evening, she outlined the government’s priorities in a televised address outside the prime minister’s residence at No. 10 Downing Street.

Energy crisis

Truss served as foreign secretary under Johnson. She is seen as a foreign policy hawk and has pledged a tough line against countries like Russia and China.

“We now face severe global headwinds caused by Russia’s appalling war in Ukraine and the aftermath of COVID. … United with our allies, we will stand up for freedom and democracy around the world,” Truss said.

Truss, however, also faces challenges at home.

She pledges to help Britons survive an energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine, as gas and electricity prices are predicted to rise as much as eight-fold in coming months.

“I will deal hands on with the energy crisis caused by Putin’s war,” Truss said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The BBC reported Tuesday that Truss plans to spend up to $150 billion on freezing energy bills for the next 18 months, by offering loans to energy companies. Further details are expected later this week.

Any political honeymoon will likely be short-lived, says analyst John Kampfner of London-based research group Chatham House.

“Ninety percent of her time is going to have to be dealing with the here and now on the domestic agenda – with an economy in crisis, strikes, health service (in crisis), huge energy bills, potential social unrest,” Kampfner told VOA.

Despite the cost of dealing with the energy crisis, Truss has promised to cut taxes.

Ukraine

Truss has also pledged to boost defense spending to 3% of GDP, which the analyst group the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) estimated will cost an additional $180 billion. Meanwhile, she has pledged to continue giving military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Britain has so far pledged around $3.8 billion.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who made no secret of his desire for Boris Johnson to stay in power, welcomed the appointment of Truss as Britain’s prime minister.

“In Ukraine, we know her well. She was always on the enlightened side of European politics. I believe that together, we will be able to do much more for the protection of our nations and to ensure the failure of Russia’s destructive efforts,” Zelenskyy said in a video posted online Tuesday.

Ukraine’s military has strong public support in Britain, according to analyst Kampfner.

“There’s every reason — notwithstanding the energy price rises and all the other challenges that Liz Truss faces — that she will absolutely continue the Johnson approach, and we can expect an early visit to get a photo op with Zelenskyy in the Ukrainian capital pretty soon,” Kampfner said.

China

As a government minister, Truss took a hawkish stance on China. She was closely involved in the decision to ban Chinese telecoms firm Huawei from involvement in Britain’s 5G network, over national security concerns.

“Liz Truss is a more hawkish person than Boris Johnson, the former prime minister,” Neil Melvin of the Royal United Services Institute told The Associated Press. “She has, for example, committed to increasing the threat perception of China. So, China will be recognized under her premiership, she’s indicated, as a threat to the U.K.”

Europe

Truss has also pledged to push through legislation overriding the Northern Ireland protocol, a key Brexit agreement that Johnson signed with the European Union that prevented the need for a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which many fear would have reignited sectarian violence. The European Union has started legal proceedings against the British government, notes Kampfner.

“The worst-case scenario is a full-blooded trade war between — can you imagine — between the 27 European nations and Britain. In every respect, that will be a disaster, it will add fuel to the fire of an already pretty terrible U.K. economy,” he said.

Special relationship

U.S. President Joe Biden congratulated Truss via Twitter Tuesday. “I look forward to deepening the special relationship between our countries and working in close cooperation on global challenges, including continued support for Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression,” Biden wrote.

The special relationship is clouded by lingering tensions over Brexit, according to Kampfner.

“The Americans and particularly the Biden administration are incredibly wary of having to choose between the Brits and the European Union. They regard it as a false choice.”

Early election?

The next British election is due by December 2024. Truss was elected by just over 81,000 Conservative party members, a tiny fraction of the overall electorate. Truss, however, is not likely to seek a fresh mandate from the public through an early election, said Alan Wager of the U.K. in a Changing Europe program at Kings College London.

“The Conservative party is at the lowest level of polling they’ve been for over a decade. So that makes a general election extremely unlikely — because the vast majority of the public want one. The new prime minister will do anything to avoid facing the electorate right now,” Wager told VOA.
…

Liz Truss officially became prime minister of Britain Tuesday, replacing Boris Johnson, who announced his resignation in July. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Truss is seen as a foreign policy hawk and has pledged a tough line against Russia and China — but she first faces daunting challenges at home.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday doubled down on his warning that Turkey could “come all of a sudden one night” in response to perceived Greek threats, suggesting a Turkish attack on its neighbor cannot be ruled out.

Questioned about his earlier use of the phrase and the possibility of Turkish military action against its NATO ally, Erdogan reiterated the expression.

“What I’m talking about is not a dream,” he said at a news conference in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo. “If what I said was that we could come one night all of a sudden [it means] that, when the time comes, we can come suddenly one night.”

Turkey and Greece have decades-old disputes over an array of issues, including territorial claims in the Aegean Sea and disagreements over the airspace there. The friction has brought them to the brink of war three times in the last half-century.

Ankara says Greece is violating international agreements by militarizing islands close to Turkey’s Aegean coastline. It has also accused Greek air defenses of locking on to Turkish fighter jets during NATO exercises over the eastern Mediterranean.

Athens has also accused Turkey of violating its airspace.

“There are some illegitimate threats against us and if these illegitimate threats continue there’s an end to one’s patience,” Erdogan added, sitting alongside Bosnia’s three presidential representatives.

“When the time is due, necessary action will be taken because it is not a good sign to lock on radars to our planes. Such things done by Greece are not a good sign.”

Erdogan has previously said Turkish forces can “come all of a sudden one night” when threatening military action against Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq. Turkey has conducted several military operations against the militants in recent years.

He first used the phrase in connection to Greece at an aerial technology festival on Saturday.
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The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that it is “still gravely concerned” about the safety and security of Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant, the Zaporizhzhia facility situated in the midst of intense fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in southern Ukraine.  

“The current situation is untenable, and the best action to ensure the safety and security of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities and its people would be for this armed conflict to end now,” the United Nations nuclear agency said in a new report after IAEA chief Rafael Grossi and a team of inspectors visited the site last week even as shelling raged near the plant. 

The IAEA said it found extensive damage at the plant but did not assign blame. Russia, whose forces have controlled the facility since early in its invasion, and Ukraine, whose engineers operate the plant, have each accused the other of shelling the facility. 

The IAEA inspectors said they found Russian troops and equipment inside, including military vehicles parked near turbines.

“Ukrainian staff operating the plant under Russian military occupation are under constant high stress and pressure, especially with the limited staff available,” the IAEA report said. “This is not sustainable and could lead to increased human error with implications for nuclear safety.”

The U.N. nuclear agency said, “Pending the end of the conflict and re-establishment of stable conditions, there is an urgent need for interim measures to prevent a nuclear accident arising from physical damage caused by military means.”

The agency called for “the immediate establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone” around the Zaporizhzhia site, an apparent call for something approximating a demilitarized zone in the vicinity of the power plant. It’s a buffer that world leaders have previously asked for, but the warring countries have not implemented.

The IAEA said it is ready to immediately start consultations “leading to the urgent establishment of such a nuclear safety and security protection zone.”

The agency said, “Despite the unprecedented circumstances” at Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine’s three other nuclear power plants — Khmelnytskyy, Rivne and South Ukraine — “have continued operating safely and securely since the beginning of the conflict” on February 24.

The IAEA said Grossi later Tuesday planned to brief the U.N. Security Council on its inspection of the Zaporizhzhia plant. The IAEA said two of its experts remain at the plant to “observe the situation there and provide independent assessments.” 

Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company said Monday the Zaporizhzhia plant was disconnected from the electricity grid because of Russian shelling. 

“Today, as a result of a fire caused by shelling, the [last working] transmission line was disconnected,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram. 

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook that Energoatom was not able to make repairs while fighting raged around the facility. 

The IAEA said Ukraine informed the agency the backup power line itself was not damaged and that Ukrainian experts plan to reconnect power in the coming days. 

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message Monday that the nuclear plant has again been put in a situation where it is “a step away from a radiation catastrophe.”  

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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Israel’s president addressed Germany’s parliament on Tuesday about atrocities committed during the Third Reich, while at the same time praising the close and friendly relations that have emerged between the two countries since the end of the Holocaust.

Six million European Jews were murdered by Germany’s Nazis and their henchmen during World War II.

“Never in human history was there a campaign like the one the Nazis and their accomplices conducted to annihilate the Jewish people,” Israeli President Isaac Herzog told lawmakers at the Bundestag.

“Never in history was a state responsible, as Nazi Germany was responsible, for the loss of all semblance of humanity, for the erasure of all mercy, for the pursuit of the worldwide obliteration, with such awful cruelty, of an entire people.”

Herzog also spoke about his father, former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, who was among the liberators of the concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany in April 1945, as an officer of the British forces.

“I shall never forget how he described to me the horrors he witnessed. The stench. The human skeletons in striped pajamas, the piles of corpses, the destruction, the hell on earth,” the Israeli president told German lawmakers.

After his speech, Herzog and Steinmeier, accompanied by their wives, went to Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews — a field of 2,700 gray concrete slabs near the city’s landmark Brandenburg Gate — where they laid two wreaths for the victims of the Holocaust.

On Tuesday afternoon, the two presidents are set to visit the site of the former concentration camp. After a tour of the memorial site, they are expected to meet with survivors and German high school students.

The Israeli president arrived for a state visit to Germany earlier this week that also included a trip to Munich on Monday where he participated in the 50-year anniversary ceremony for the 11 Israeli athletes murdered by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Olympic Games.

Looking forward, Herzog praised close relations between the two countries and their joint commitment to fight antisemitism.

“The partnership between Israel and Germany has achieved global renown, and we must continue deepening and cultivating it, for the benefit of a brilliant future not only for our countries but for the whole of humanity,” he said in parliament.
…

The Russian Ministry of Defense is in the process of purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for its ongoing fight in Ukraine, according to a newly downgraded U.S. intelligence finding.

A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the intelligence determination, said Monday that the fact Russia is turning to the isolated state of North Korea demonstrates that “the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages in Ukraine, due in part to export controls and sanctions.”

U.S. intelligence officials believe that the Russians could look to purchase additional North Korean military equipment in the future. The intelligence finding was first reported by The New York Times.

The U.S. official did not detail how much weaponry Russia intends to purchase from North Korea.

The finding comes after the Biden administration recently confirmed that the Russian military in August took delivery of Iranian-manufactured drones for use on the battlefield in Ukraine.

The White House said last week that Russia has faced technical problems with Iranian-made drones acquired from Tehran in August for use in its war with Ukraine.

Russia picked up Mohajer-6 and Shahed-series unmanned aerial vehicles over several days last month as part what the Biden administration says is likely part of a Russian plan to acquire hundreds of Iranian UAVs for use in Ukraine.

North Korea has sought to tighten relations with Russia as much of Europe and the West has pulled away, blaming the United States for the Ukraine crisis and decrying the West’s “hegemonic policy” as justifying military action by Russia in Ukraine to protect itself.

The North Koreans have hinted interest in sending construction workers to help rebuild Russian-occupied territories in the country’s east.

North Korea’s ambassador to Moscow recently met with envoys from two Russia-backed separatist territories in the Donbas region of Ukraine and expressed optimism about cooperation in the “field of labor migration,” citing his country’s easing pandemic border controls.

In July, North Korea became the only nation aside from Russia and Syria to recognize the independence of the territories, Donetsk and Luhansk, further aligning with Russia over the conflict in Ukraine.

The North’s arms export to Russia would be a violation of U.N. resolutions that ban the country from exporting to or importing weapons from other countries. Its possible dispatch of laborers to the Russian-held territories in Ukraine would also breach a U.N. resolution that required all member states to repatriate all North Korean workers from their soil by 2019.

There have been suspicions that China and Russia haven’t fully enforced U.N. sanctions on North Korea, complicating a U.S.-led attempt to deprive North Korea of its nuclear weapons.

The provocative move by North Korea comes as the Biden administration has become increasingly concerned about stepped-up activity by North Korea in pursuit of nuclear weapons.

North Korea has test-fired more than 30 ballistic missiles this year, including its first flights of intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, as leader Kim Jong Un pushes to advance his nuclear arsenal despite U.S.-led pressure and sanctions.

The U.S. has frequently downgraded and unveiled intelligence findings over the course of the grinding war in Ukraine to highlight plans for Russian misinformation operations or to throw attention on Moscow’s difficulties in prosecuting the war. Ukraine’s smaller military has put up a stiff resistance against the militarily superior Russian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim have recently exchanged letters in which they both called for “comprehensive” and “strategic and tactical” cooperation between the countries. Moscow, for its part, has issued statements condemning the revival of large-scale military exercises between the United States and South Korea this year, which North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.

Russia, along with China, has called for the easing of U.N. sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missile tests. Both countries are members of the U.N. Security Council, which has approved a total of 11 rounds of sanctions on the North since 2006. In May, Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-led bid to impose new economic sanctions on North Korea over its high-profile missile tests this year.

Some experts say that Kim could likely bolster his resolve to retain his nuclear weapons because he may think the Russian attack happened because Ukraine had signed away its nuclear arsenal.

Relations between Moscow and Pyongyang go back to the 1948 foundation of North Korea, as Soviet officials installed young, ambitious nationalist Kim Il Sung, the late grandfather of Kim Jong Un, as the country’s first ruler. Since then, Soviet aid shipment had been crucial in keeping North Korea’s economy afloat for decades before the disintegration of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

Moscow had since established formal diplomatic relations with Seoul as part of its hopes to draw South Korean investment and allowed its Soviet-era military alliance with North Korea to expire. But after his election in 2000, Putin actively sought to restore his country’s ties with North Korea in what was seen as an effort to regain its traditional domains of influence and secure more allies to better deal with the United States.
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The head of the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog is set to release a report Tuesday about the nuclear safety and security situation in Ukraine after his team’s visit to examine the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. 

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi will also brief the U.N. Security Council on his team’s findings, the IAEA said. 

The IAEA inspectors arrived at the Zaporizhzhia plant Sept. 1 and spent days evaluating damage at the site, how well safety and security systems are working, and conditions for the Ukrainian staff at the plant that has been under Russian control since the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Both Russia and Ukraine have accused the other side of being responsible for shelling in the area of the power plant. The attacks have raised international concern about the prospect of a nuclear disaster. 

The IAEA said two of its experts remain at the power plant to “observe the situation there and provide independent assessments.” 

Ukraine’s state-run nuclear company said Monday the Zaporizhzhia plant was disconnected from the electricity grid due to Russian shelling.    

“Today, as a result of a fire caused by shelling, the (last working) transmission line was disconnected,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram.   

Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook that Energoatom was not able to make repairs while fighting raged around the facility.      

The IAEA said Ukraine informed the agency that the backup power line itself was not damaged and that Ukrainian experts plan to reconnect power in the coming days.  

‘A step away from a radiation catastrophe’

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video message Monday that the nuclear plant has again been put in a situation where it is “a step away from a radiation catastrophe.” 

In other developments Monday, Russia blamed Western sanctions on Moscow for its stoppages of natural gas to Europe.        

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Western sanctions were “causing chaos” for maintenance of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which Russian energy giant Gazprom shut down last week after saying it detected an oil leak.    

Western officials and engineers have disputed Russia’s claim of mechanical problems with the pipeline. Europe accuses Russia of using its leverage over gas supplies to retaliate against European sanctions.     

The energy battles between Europe and Russia led European markets to drop sharply Monday while natural gas prices surged.   

Nuclear power on standby

Germany announced Monday that it would keep two of its three remaining nuclear power stations on standby beyond the end of the year as the country suffers a gas crunch.  

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement on Monday that the two nuclear plants would “remain available until mid-April 2023 in case needed.”   

He said the move does not mean that Germany is going back on its long-standing promise to exit nuclear energy and said it remains “extremely unlikely” the country would face an energy crisis in which the power stations would be needed.      

Ukraine advocated Monday for “maximum support” for its efforts to defeat Russia in order to blunt economic effects on European allies.       

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russia’s “military aggression against Ukrainians, energy blackmail against EU citizens” were to blame for “rising prices and utility bills in EU countries.”     

“Solution: maximum support to Ukraine so that we defeat Putin sooner and he does not harm Europe anymore,” Kuleba tweeted, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.    

The Group of Seven nations has proposed capping the price on Russian oil exports to limit Russian profits that help fund Moscows war efforts in Ukraine.    

Russia, in turn, said it would not sell oil to any countries that implement such a cap.    

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Liz Truss is set to become Britain’s new prime minister Tuesday, replacing Boris Johnson at a time of economic upheaval and escalating energy bills. 

Johnson is expected to formally tender his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II at her Balmoral estate in Scotland, after which the queen is expected to appoint Truss as prime minister. 

The 47-year-old Truss will become the third woman to lead the country and Britain’s fourth prime minister in six years. 

She prevailed in an intraparty vote, defeating former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak. 

After her victory was announced, Truss told a party gathering, “I campaigned as a Conservative, and I will govern as a Conservative.”     

“I will deliver a bold plan to cut taxes and grow our economy,” she said. “Dealing with people’s energy bills but also dealing with the long-term issues we have on energy supply.”  

Truss, once an opponent of pulling Britain from the European Union but now a staunch supporter of Brexit, holds hawkish foreign policy views and is expected, like Johnson, to remain a steadfast link in the Western alliance sending aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s six-month-old invasion.       

Truss will immediately face severe economic problems, including a recession, labor turmoil, surging energy bills for British households and possible fuel shortages this coming winter.     

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse. 
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Frances Tiafoe ended Rafael Nadal’s 22-match winning streak at Grand Slam tournaments by beating the 22-time major champion 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 in the U.S. Open’s fourth round Monday.

Tiafoe is a 24-year-old from Maryland who is seeded 22nd at Flushing Meadows and reached the second major quarterfinal of his career.

He is the youngest American man to get that far at the U.S. Open since Andy Roddick in 2006, but this was not a case of a one-sided crowd backing one of its own. Nadal is about as popular as can be in tennis and heard plenty of support in Arthur Ashe Stadium as the volume rose after the retractable roof was shut during the fourth set.

“I don’t even know what to say right now. I’m beyond happy. I can’t believe it,” said Tiafoe, who faces No. 9 seed Andrey Rublev next. “He’s one of the greatest of all time. I played unbelievable tennis today, but I don’t even know what happened.”

Here’s what happened: Tiafoe served better than No. 2 seed Nadal. More surprisingly, he returned better, too. And he kept his cool, remained in the moment and never let the stakes or the opponent get to him. The 36-year-old from Spain had won both of their previous matches, and every set they played, too.

“Well, the difference is easy: I played a bad match, and he played a good match,” Nadal said. “At the end that’s it.”

This surprise came a day after one of Tiafoe’s pals, Nick Kyrgios, eliminated the No. 1 seed and defending champion Daniil Medvedev. That makes this the first U.S. Open without either of the top two seeded men reaching the quarterfinals since 2000, when No. 1 Andre Agassi exited in the second round and No. 2 Gustavo Kuerten in the first.

That was before Nadal, Novak Djokovic, who has 21 Grand Slam titles, and Roger Federer, who has 20, began dominating men’s tennis. Djokovic, who is 35, did not enter this U.S. Open because is not vaccinated against COVID-19 and was not allowed to enter the United States; Federer, 41, has undergone a series of operations on his right knee and has not played since Wimbledon last year.

Now come the inevitable questions about whether their era of excellence is wrapping up.

“It signifies that the years go on,” Nadal said. “It’s the natural cycle of life.”

Either Tiafoe or Rublev will advance to a first major semifinal. Rublev, who is 0-5 in Slam quarterfinals, beat No. 7 Cam Norrie 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 earlier Monday.

The No. 1 woman, Iga Swiatek, covered her head with a white towel during one changeover after falling behind by a set and a break in her fourth-round match. She kept making mistakes, then rolling her eyes or glaring in the direction of her guest box.

Eventually, Swiatek got her strokes straightened out and moved into her first quarterfinal at Flushing Meadows by coming back to beat Jule Niemeier 2-6, 6-4, 6-0.

“I’m just proud,” Swiatek said, “that I didn’t lose hope.”

The 21-year-old from Poland will face another first-time U.S. Open quarterfinalist next. That’s No. 8 seed Jessica Pegula, the highest-ranked American woman, who advanced with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over two-time Wimbledon winner Petra Kvitova.

Nadal won the Australian Open in January and the French Open in June. Then he made it to the semifinals at Wimbledon in July before withdrawing from that tournament because of a torn abdominal muscle; that does not go into the books as a loss, because he pulled out before the match.

Nadal competed only once in the 1½ months between leaving the All England Club and arriving in New York while recovering from that injury. His play has not been up to his usual standards at the U.S. Open, which he has won four times.

The match ended when one last backhand by Nadal found the net. Tiafoe put his hands on his headm then he sat in his sideline chair with his face buried in a towel.

“When I first came on the scene, a lot of people had limitations on what I would do. … I wasn’t ‘ready for it mentally.’ I wasn’t ‘mature,’” Tiafoe said. But these days, he added, “I’m able to just do me and do it my way and enjoy the game I love.”

This represents the latest significant step forward for Tiafoe, whose only previous trip to a Grand Slam quarterfinal came at the 2019 Australian Open — and ended with a loss to Nadal.

Tiafoe thanked a long list of folks who were in the stands, including his parents — they emigrated from Sierra Leone in West Africa and his dad worked as a maintenance man at a tennis facility near the U.S. capital — his girlfriend and Washington Wizards All-Star guard Bradley Beal.

“To have them see what I did today means more than anything,” Tiafoe said. “Today’s an unbelievable day and I’m going to soak this one in, for sure.”
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Eight suspects went on trial Monday over the harrowing July 2016 attack in the Mediterranean city of Nice, where an Islamist extremist killed 86 people by driving a truck into thousands of locals and tourists celebrating France’s national day.

The attacker, a 31-year-old Tunisian named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, was shot and killed by police after a four-minute rampage down the seaside embankment of the Promenade des Anglais.

The seven men and one woman standing trial in Paris are accused of crimes ranging from being aware of his intentions to providing logistical support and supplying weapons.

Only one suspect, Ramzi Kevin Arefa, faces the maximum penalty of life imprisonment if convicted as a repeat offender. The others risk between five and 20 years in prison.

The trial, which is set to last until December 16, is the latest legal process over the wave of Islamist attacks that have struck France since 2015.

On June 29, a Paris court convicted all 20 suspects in the trial over the November 2015 attacks in the French capital that left 130 dead.

The Nice trial is taking place at the historic Palais de Justice in Paris, in the same purpose-built courtroom that hosted the November 2015 attacks hearings. A special venue has also been set up in Nice to allow victims to follow proceedings via a live broadcast.

“We’re waited six years for this,” Seloua Mensi, whose sister, aged 42, was killed in the attack, told AFP in Nice. “The trial is going to be very difficult for us, but it’s important to be able to speak about what we went through.

“Confronting the accused, seeing them and understanding what happened, will allow us to rebuild our lives,” she said.

The extremist Islamic State (IS) group rapidly claimed responsibility for the Nice attack, though French investigators ultimately did not find any links between the attacker and the jihadist organization that at the time controlled swathes of Iraq and Syria.

Of the accused, three suspects are charged with association in a terrorist conspiracy and the five others with association in a criminal conspiracy and violating arms laws.

The attack, which saw 15 children and adolescents among the dead and more than 450 wounded, was the second most deadly postwar atrocity on French soil after the November 2015 Paris attacks.

Six years after the attack, “the fact that the sole perpetrator is not there will create frustration. There will be many questions that no one will be able to answer,” said Eric Morain, a lawyer for a victims’ association that is taking part in the trial.

“We are trying to prepare them for the fact that the sentences may not be commensurate with their suffering,” said Antoine Casubolo-Ferro, another lawyer for the victims.

French Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti commented: “I understand this frustration, it is human. But there will be a legal response. We respond to this barbarism through the law.”

Of the accused, only seven will appear in court after one suspect, Brahim Tritrou, being tried in absentia, fled judicial supervision to Tunisia where he is now believed to be under arrest.

Just three of the accused are currently under arrest with one held in connection with another case. The defendants are a mix of Tunisians, French Tunisians and Albanians.

Some 30,000 people had gathered on the seafront to watch a fireworks display celebrating France’s annual Bastille Day holiday on July 14 when Lahouaiej-Bouhlel began his rampage.

Nice was struck again in October 2020 when a Tunisian Islamist radical stabbed three people to death at a church.

Nice’s mayor, Christian Estrosi, said, “This wound will never heal, whatever the outcome of the trial. This wound is too deep.”

According to French and Tunisian news reports, the body of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was repatriated to Tunisia in 2017 and buried in his hometown of M’saken, south of Tunis. This has never been confirmed by the Tunisian authorities.
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A former journalist was convicted of treason and handed a 22-year prison sentence on Monday after a trial that has been widely seen as politically motivated and marked a new step in a sweeping crackdown on the media and Kremlin critics.

The sentence handed to Ivan Safronov, who worked as a military affairs reporter for leading business daily Kommersant before becoming an adviser to the head of the Russian space corporation Roscosmos, has been harshly criticized by his colleagues as utterly unfounded.

A few friends and co-workers of Safronov who attended Monday’s hearing at the Moscow City Court chanted “Freedom!” and clapped after the verdict was read.

“I love you all!” Safronov told those who came to support him.

Safronov was accused of passing military secrets to Czech intelligence and a German national. He strongly insisted on his innocence, arguing that he collected all the information from open sources as part of his journalistic work and did nothing illegal.

In his final statement at the trial last week, Safronov rejected the charges as “absurd,” noting that he published all the information he gathered from his sources in government agencies and military industries.

He emphasized that he never had access to any classified documents and emphasized that investigators have failed to produce any witness testimony to back the espionage charges.

Safronov described the long sentence requested by prosecutors as “monstrous,” saying that it would stain the country’s image by showing that a journalist is sentenced simply for doing his job. His defense quickly appealed the sentence.

Many Russian journalists and human rights activists have pushed for Safronov’s release, maintaining that the authorities may have wanted to take revenge for his reporting that exposed Russian military incidents and shady arms deals.

Hours before the ruling was announced by the Moscow City Court, 15 independent Russian media outlets issued a joint statement demanding Safronov’s release.

“It is obvious to us that the reason for persecuting Ivan Safronov is not ‘treason,’ which hasn’t been substantiated … but his work as a journalist and stories he published without any regard for what the Defense Ministry or Russian authorities think,” the statement read.

Amnesty International denounced Safronov’s conviction and sentencing as a travesty of justice and demanded that Russian authorities quash them.

“The absurdly harsh sentence meted out to Ivan Safronov symbolizes the perilous reality faced by journalists in Russia today,” Natalia Prilutskaya, the group’s Russia researcher, said in a statement. “It also exposes the failings of the Russian justice system and the impunity enjoyed by state agencies, who routinely fabricate cases with little or no evidence to support them.”

She added that Safronov “was tried solely for his journalistic work,” adding that “his only ‘crime’ was collecting information from open sources and being acquainted with and befriending foreigners.”

The European Union on Monday also urged Russian authorities to drop all charges against Safronov and “release him without any conditions,” denouncing “systematic repressions of the regime against independent journalism.”

The Kremlin has remained unperturbed, with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, refusing to comment on the case in a conference call with reporters.

Safronov has been in custody since his July 2020 arrest in Moscow.

Rights activists, journalists, scientists and corporate officials who have faced treason accusations in Russia in recent years have found it difficult to defend themselves because of secrecy surrounding their cases and a lack of public access to information.

Safronov’s father also worked for Kommersant, covering military issues after retiring from the armed forces. In 2007, he died after falling from a window of his apartment building in Moscow.

Investigators concluded that he killed himself, but some Russian media outlets questioned the official version, pointing to his intent to publish a sensitive report about secret arms deliveries to Iran and Syria.
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