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Afghans living in Sweden say that iftar — or breaking fast during the month of Ramadan — is an opportunity to get together and learn about their cultural heritage. Abdul Wali Arian has the story, narrated by Bezhan Hamdard.
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Polish and Ukrainian officials say convoys of Ukrainian grain transiting Poland for export abroad will be sealed, guarded and monitored to ensure the produce stops flooding the Polish market and playing havoc with prices.

Tuesday’s announcement came after two days of intensive talks following protests by Polish farmers, who said much of the Ukrainian grain was staying in Poland and creating a glut that caused them huge losses.

The deal will also end a temporary prohibition issued by Poland on Saturday to address the protests on the entry of grain from Ukraine. Hungary and Slovakia, which are also affected by the transit of Ukrainian farm produce, later took similar measures. These moves drew the anger of the European Union’s executive branch, the European Commission, which manages trade for the 27 member countries.

Polish Agriculture Minister Robert Telus told a press conference on Tuesday that Warsaw and Kyiv “have worked out mechanisms that mean that not a single ton of (Ukraine) grain will remain in Poland, that it will all be passing in transit.”

He said that for an unspecified length of time, all Ukrainian produce in transit will be sealed, with traceable devices attached, and ferried in special, guarded convoys to Polish ports and border crossings, on its way to other countries.

The transit is to ease the accumulation of grain and other produce intended for export to needy countries that’s blocked in Ukraine by Russia’s invasion.

Telus said the weekend’s temporary ban was partly intended to draw the EU’s attention to the acute problem. He alleged that the EU, while supporting the idea of the transit, has done nothing to facilitate it and prevent the glut.

The issue led to the talks between Poland and Ukraine’s agriculture ministers, with the participation of Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko. The transit measures will be introduced Friday, when the temporary ban on grain — mainly wheat — will be lifted.

“We pay attention to the problems of our Polish colleagues with the same attention as Poland treats our problems. Therefore, we have to respond promptly and constructively to this crisis situation,” Svyrydenko said in Warsaw.

It was not clear when a ban on the entry of other Ukraine goods such as sugar, eggs, meat, milk and other dairy products and fruits and vegetables would be lifted.

Farmers in Poland and neighboring countries say that Ukrainian grain and farm produce, apart from flooding their markets, has filled their own storage areas, leaving no room for their own crops from this year.

After Russia blocked traditional export sea passages amid the war in Ukraine, the European Union lifted duties on Ukrainian grain to facilitate its transport to Africa and the Middle East and offered to pay some compensation, which the farmers said was insufficient.

Much of the grain ends up staying in transit countries, and some Polish unions and opposition politicians accuse government-linked companies of causing the problem by buying up cheap, low-quality Ukrainian grain, and then selling it to bread and pasta plants as high-quality Polish produce.

Poland’s main ruling party, Law and Justice, is seeking to ease the discontent of farmers — the party’s voter base — ahead of fall parliamentary elections.

In Romania, another country affected by Ukraine produce overflow, the ruling Social Democrat Party said Tuesday that it will ask its governing coalition partners to urgently look to issue a temporary suspension of imports of food products from Ukraine.

“Such a measure is necessary to protect Romanian farmers, in the context in which compensation received from the European Commission cannot cover the total value of the damage,” the party said in a statement.
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The Chinese defense chief vowed Tuesday to take military cooperation with Moscow to a new level, a statement that reflects increasingly close Russia-China ties amid the fighting in Ukraine. 

Chinese Defense Minister General Li Shangfu held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu after attending a meeting Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. 

“The armed forces of China and Russia will implement the agreements reached by the heads of state and expand military cooperation, military-technical ties and arms trade,” Li said in opening remarks at Tuesday’s meeting with Shoigu. “We will certainly take them to a new level.”

Li’s trip follows last month’s three-day state visit to the Russian capital by Chinese leader Xi Jinping, reflecting China’s strengthening engagement with Russia. Moscow and Beijing have closely aligned their policies in an attempt to reshape the world order to diminish the influence of the United States and its Western allies.

China has refused to criticize Russia’s actions in Ukraine and blamed the U.S. and NATO for provoking Moscow. Xi’s visit to Moscow gave a strong political boost to Putin, sending a message to Western leaders that their efforts to isolate Russia have fallen short.

After the talks, Putin and Xi issued joint declarations pledging to further bolster their “strategic cooperation,” develop cooperation in energy, high-tech industries and other spheres and expand the use of their currencies in mutual trade to reduce dependence on the West.

After more than a year of fighting in Ukraine and bruising Western sanctions, Russia’s dependence on China has increased significantly. Facing Western restrictions on its oil, gas and other exports, Russia has shifted its energy flows to China and sharply expanded other exports, resulting in a 30% hike in bilateral trade.

Last month, Putin and Xi also vowed to further develop military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing and conduct more joint sea and air patrols. There was no mention of any prospective Chinese weapons supplies to Russia, however, that the U.S. and other Western allies feared, and the Chinese foreign minister reaffirmed Friday that Beijing wouldn’t sell weapons to either side in the conflict in Ukraine. 
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The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday indicted three Russian security agents and four Americans on charges of conducting “a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States” on behalf of the Russian government.

A federal grand jury in the southern city of Tampa, Florida, alleged that Russian Federal Security Service agents recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered Moscow agents to “sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda.” The indictment, replacing an earlier one, alleged that the Russian intelligence agents covertly funded and oversaw the political campaigns for a local office in the U.S.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights — freedoms Russia denies its own citizens — to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said in a statement.

The indictment alleges that a group called the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia was founded by Moscow resident Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, one of the three Russians charged, and funded by the Russian government. The U.S. alleges that the Russian group carried out the malign influence campaign under the supervision of two others charged in the case, Federal Security Service agents Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov.

The U.S. accused the three Russians of directing the campaign of an unnamed candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019 and referred to the political aspirant as the “candidate whom we supervise,” but intended its work to extend to the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

Ionov allegedly recruited members of political groups within the United States, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement in Florida.

The four indicted Americans — Omali Yeshitela, Penny Joanne Hess, Jesse Nevel and Augustus C. Romain Jr. — have residences in St. Petersburg, and according to the Justice Department, all had ties to the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement.

The Justice Department said one focus of Ionov’s alleged influence operation “was to create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine.”
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With Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan languishing in many polls ahead of May elections, his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, is promising to mend strained ties with Turkey’s Western allies. Analysts say that could be bad news for Moscow. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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Nearly 300 Tyrannosaurus rex bones that were dug up from three sites in the United States and assembled into a single skeleton sold at Tuesday at a Switzerland auction for 4.8 million francs ($5.3 million), below the expected price.

Crafted into an open-mouth pose, the T. rex skeleton measuring 11.6 meters long (38 feet long) and 3.9 meters high (12.8 feet) high came in under the anticipated range of 5 million to 8 million francs when it went under the hammer at the Koller auction house in Zurich.

Koller had said Tuesday’s sale would be the first time such a T. rex skeleton would go up for auction in Europe. The composite skeleton was a showpiece of an auction that featured some 70 lots, and the skull was set up next to the auctioneer’s podium throughout.

“It could be that it was a composite — that could be why the purists didn’t go for it,” Karl Green, the auction house’s marketing director, said by phone. “It’s a fair price for the dino. I hope it’s going to be shown somewhere in public.”

Green did not immediately identify the buyer. Including the “buyer’s premium” and fees, the sale came to 5.5 million Swiss francs (about $6.1 million), Koller said.

Promoters said the composite T. rex, dubbed “Trinity,” was built from specimens retrieved from three sites in the Hell Creek and Lance Creek formations of Montana and Wyoming between 2008 and 2013.

Koller said “original bone material” comprised more than half of the restored skeleton. The auction house said the skull was particularly rare and also remarkably well-preserved.

“When dinosaurs died in the Jurassic or Cretaceous periods, they often lost their heads during deposition ]of the remains into rocks]. In fact, most dinosaurs are found without their skulls,” Nils Knoetschke, a scientific adviser who was quoted in the auction catalog. “But here we have truly original Tyrannosaurus skull bones that all originate from the same specimen.”

T. rex roamed the Earth between 65 million and 67 million years ago. A study published two years ago in the journal Science estimated that about 2.5 billion of the dinosaurs had lived.

Hollywood movies such as the blockbuster “Jurassic Park” franchise have added to the public fascination with the carnivorous creature.

The two areas the bones for Trinity came from were also the source of other T. rex skeletons that were auctioned off, according to Koller: Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History bought “Sue” for $8.4 million over a quarter-century ago, and “Stan” sold for nearly $32 million three years ago.

Two years ago, a triceratops skeleton that the Guinness World Records declared as the world’s biggest, known as “Big John,” was sold for 6.6 million euros ($7.2 million) to a private collector at a Paris auction.
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Sweden is still waiting for Turkey to approve its application to join NATO. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Sweden hopes the upcoming Turkish elections scheduled for May 14 could be a turning point.

Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich is “in good health and good spirits, considering the circumstances” after his arrest in Russia late last month.

Speaking to reporters in Japan, Blinken said the United States continues to “call for his immediate release from this unjust detention.”

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy said Monday she visited Gershkovich, whom Russia has accused of spying.

“This is the first time we’ve had consular access to Evan since his wrongful detention over two weeks ago,” Tracy said in a short statement in Russian on Telegram. “He feels well and is holding up. We reiterate our call for Evan’s immediate release.”

Gershkovich was arrested in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, 1,800 kilometers east of Moscow, while on a reporting assignment. Russia claims, without producing evidence, that he was caught “red-handed” while spying, collecting what it claimed were state secrets about a military industrial complex.

His newspaper and the U.S. government have rejected the charge of espionage, which, if he were to be convicted, carries a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Two weeks ago, his parents, Ella Milman and Mikhail Gershkovich, who fled the Soviet Union in 1979 and live in the eastern U.S. city of Philadelphia, received a two-page, hand-written note from him in Russian, the language the family speaks at home.

“I want to say that I am not losing hope,” Gershkovich said. “I read. I exercise. And I am trying to write.”

He also teased his mother about her cooking. “Mom, you unfortunately, for better or worse, prepared me well for jail food,” he said. “For breakfast they give us hot creamed wheat, oatmeal cereal or wheat gruel. I am remembering my childhood.”

The parents said in a video interview with the Journal that they remain optimistic for their son’s release.

“It’s one of the American qualities that we absorbed, you know, be optimistic, believe in a happy ending,” Milman said. “But I am not stupid. I understand what’s involved.”

Milman said her son “felt like it was his duty to report” in Russia, even after most Western journalists left the country when President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine last year. “He loves Russian people,” she said of her son.

U.S. President Joe Biden has called the journalist’s detention “totally illegal” and told the family he was working for Gershkovich’s release. The United States has officially declared that Gershkovich has been “wrongfully detained” and that he is being held as a hostage.

The U.S. has repeatedly told its citizens to leave Russia due to risk of arbitrary arrest.

Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse.
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The European Union ambassador to Sudan was attacked in his home in Khartoum on Monday, the bloc’s top diplomat Josep Borrell said, as fighting between rival generals gripped the nation.

“A few hours ago, the EU Ambassador in Sudan was assaulted in his own residency,” Borrell wrote on Twitter, without detailing any injuries to the envoy.

“Security of diplomatic premises and staff is a primary responsibility of Sudanese authorities and an obligation under international law,” he added.

The European Union’s ambassador to Sudan is 58-year-old Irish diplomat Aidan O’Hara. E.U. spokeswoman Nabila Massrali told AFP that he was “OK” following the assault.

“The security of the staff is our priority,” she said. “The EU delegation has not been evacuated. Security measures are being assessed.”

Ireland’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Micheal Martin, said O’Hara was “not seriously hurt” but that the assault was “a gross violation of obligations to protect diplomats under the Vienna Convention.”

“Aidan is an outstanding Irish and European diplomat who is serving the EU under the most difficult circumstances,” Martin said. “We thank him for his service and call for an urgent cessation of violence in Sudan, and resumption of dialogue.”

Fighting between the Sudanese army and a rival paramilitary faction has killed about 200 people and wounded 1,800 after three days of urban warfare.

The United Nations has called for an immediate ceasefire, and international bodies, including the European Union, have expressed grave concern.
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With Turkey nearing hotly contested presidential elections in May, international rights groups are condemning a crackdown on independent media that have challenged the incumbent president’s control of the mainstream media. Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul.
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The Dutch national intelligence agency painted a grim picture Monday of a growing number of internal and external threats to the rule of law in the Netherlands compounded by Russia’s war in Ukraine, international cyberattacks and espionage.

In its annual report, the General Intelligence and Security Service called China “the biggest threat to the Netherlands’ economic security.”

The agency’s director-general, Erik Akerboom, said that China is targeting the Netherlands as an innovative country that develops new technology.

“We see that every day they try to steal that from the Netherlands,” he told The Associated Press.

“The Chinese use cyber as a weapon, cyber as a way to commit espionage, but they also send people to us — students, but also scientific persons of all kinds to especially steal knowledge from very vulnerable places,” he said.

The Netherlands earlier this year announced plans to impose additional restrictions on the export of machines that make advanced processor chips. The Dutch joined a U.S. push that aims to limit China’s access to materials used to make such chips, amid fears they could be used in weapons, to commit rights abuses or to improve the speed and accuracy of military logistics.

China has criticized the moves as violations of market principles in international trade.

Akerboom highlighted overlapping threats ranging from terrorism, extremism, cyberattacks, espionage, covert influence and sabotage, to organized crime undermining the rule of law.

The war that erupted when Russia invaded Ukraine last year exacerbated the situation. Sanctions on Russian energy imports led to a gas shortage, feeding into soaring inflation. That in turn led to an uptick in conspiracy theories, among other threats.

“As a result, extremist boosters in the Netherlands were once again given the opportunity to spread conspiracy theories about an ‘evil elite’ after the corona crisis. Sometimes countries like Russia use the unrest in the West to secretly stir up contradictions in society,” the report said.

Russia also has long been actively trying to steal secrets from the Netherlands and other European and NATO allies, the agency said.

The report highlighted the agency’s involvement last year in the expulsion of 17 Russian diplomats from the Netherlands who were suspected of espionage, and the unmasking of a Russian agent who tried to infiltrate the Hague-based International Criminal Court.

The agency pointed to a massive cyberattack targeting NATO member Albania last year as an example of “the massive threat that now emanates from countries with cyberattack programs, such as China, Russia and Iran.”

Albania cut diplomatic ties with Iran last year over a July 15 cyberattack that temporarily shut down numerous Albanian government digital services and websites. Tirana called the disruption an act of “state aggression.”

The service also noted that “hatred, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories spread in the Netherlands” and said it “prevented concrete threats within the Netherlands from becoming reality.”

The threats came, it said, from “jihadists, right-wing terrorists and people who are extremely hostile to the government.”

The Taliban’s takeover of power in Afghanistan also has ramped up the existing threat of jihadi extremists, the report warned. It said that the Islamic State group now operating in Afghanistan was “steering” networks elsewhere.

Reacting to the recent leak in the United States of highly classified military documents, Akerboom said the disclosures underscored potential weaknesses in intelligence agencies.

“We cannot exclude that something like that might happen” in the Netherlands, he said. “You cannot guarantee that, but we do everything to prevent this because I think in the end this is a real risk that we should face. I think it might hurt indeed the plans, the strategies that you have. That makes us weaker.”
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