China called on Britain on Friday to seek “severe punishment” for those involved in the deaths of 39 people, believed to be Chinese nationals, found in a truck container near London, while British police quizzed the driver on suspicion of murder.Post-mortem examinations of 11 of the deceased began as police and forensic experts sought to identify the dead, how they had died and who was involved in the suspected human trafficking ring.Detectives were continuing to quiz the 25-year-old truck driver from Northern Ireland who was arrested after the grim discovery of the bodies in the back of his refrigerated truck on an industrial estate near London in the early hours of Wednesday morning.He has not been formally identified but a source familiar with the investigation named him as Mo Robinson from the Portadown area of the British province. Detectives will decide later whether to charge him with an offense, release him or ask a court for more time to quiz him.Late on Thursday, British authorities moved 11 of the victims – 31 men and eight women – to a hospital mortuary from a secure location at docks near to the industrial estate in Grays about 20 miles (30 km) east of London where the bodies were found.Police have said the process of identifying those who died would take some time while autopsies were carried out to determine how exactly they died.”This is the largest investigation of its kind Essex Police has ever had to conduct and it is likely to take some considerable time to come to a conclusion,” Essex Chief Constable Ben-Julian Harrington said.His force has said their priority was ensuring respect and compassion for the victims.The Chinese Embassy in London said it had sent a team to Essex, and Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said police had not yet been able to verify the nationalities of the deceased.”We hope that the British side can as soon as possible confirm and verify the identities of the victims, ascertain what happened and severely punish criminals involved in the case,” she told a daily news briefing.For years, illegal immigrants have attempted to reach Britain stowed away in trucks, often from the European mainland.In 2000, 58 Chinese were found dead in a tomato truck at the port of Dover.China’s Global Times, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said in a Friday editorial that Britain should bear some responsibility for the deaths.”It is clear that Britain and relevant European countries have not fulfilled their responsibility to protect these people from such a death,” the widely read tabloid said.It added that Britain appeared not to have learned its lesson from the Dover incident two decades ago.”Could the British and European people ask themselves why they have not been able to avoid a similar tragedy … Did they take all the serious remedial action that they could have?” it said.Truck’s movementsThe focus of the police investigation is on the movement of the trailer prior to its arrival at Purfleet docks near Grays little more than an hour before the bodies were found and who was behind the suspected human trafficking.Irish company Global Trailer Rentals said it owned the trailer and had rented it out on Oct. 15. The firm said it was unaware of what it was to be used for.The refrigeration unit had traveled to Britain from Zeebrugge in Belgium and the town’s chairman, Dirk de Fauw, said he believed the victims died in the trailer before it arrived there.The Times newspaper reported that GPS data showed the container had arrived at the Belgian port at 2.49 p.m. local time on Tuesday before later making the 10-hour trip to Britain.Police said the cab unit of the truck was driven over from Dublin on Sunday, entering Britain in North Wales. It picked up the trailer in Purfleet shortly after midnight on Wednesday.
                   
The National Crime Agency, which targets serious and organized crime, said it was helping the investigation and working urgently to identify any gangs involved.The head of the Road Haulage Association said traffickers were “upping their game” and closer cooperation with European nations was needed, although that may be complicated by Britain’s potential exit from the European Union.
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Under a broad plane tree near Albania’s border with Greece, Jorgji Ilia filled a battered flask from one of the Vjosa River’s many springs. 
 
There is nothing else better than the river,'' the retired schoolteacher said.The Vjosa gives beauty to our village.” 
 
The Vjosa is temperamental and fickle, changing from translucent cobalt blue to sludge brown to emerald green, from a steady flow to a raging torrent. Nothing holds it back for more than 270 kilometers (170 miles) in its course through the forest-covered slopes of Greece’s Pindus mountains to Albania’s Adriatic coast. 
 
This is one of Europe’s last wild rivers. But for how long? 
 
Albania’s government has set in motion plans to dam the Vjosa and its tributaries to generate much-needed electricity for one of Europe’s poorest countries, with the intent to build eight dams along the main river. Hydropower boom
 
It’s part of a world hydropower boom, mainly in Southeast Asia, South America, Africa and less developed parts of Europe. In the Balkans alone, about 2,800 projects to tame rivers are underway or planned, said Olsi Nika of EcoAlbania, a nonprofit that opposes the projects. 
 
Some tout hydropower as a reliable, cheap and renewable energy source that helps curb dependence on planet-warming fossil fuels. But some recent studies question hydropower’s value in the fight against global warming. Critics say the benefits of hydropower are overstated — and outweighed by the harm dams can do.  FILE – The sky is reflected in the Vjosa River after sunset near the village of Badelonje, Albania, June 30, 2019. Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle. They act like nature’s arteries.Rivers are a crucial part of the global water cycle. They act as nature’s arteries, carrying energy and nutrients across vast landscapes, providing water for drinking, food production and industry. They’re a means of transportation for people and goods, and a haven for boaters and anglers. Rivers are home to a diversity of fish — including tiny minnows, trout and salmon — and provide shelter and food for birds and mammals. 
 
But dams interrupt their flow, and the life in and around them. While installing fish ladders and widening tunnels to bypass dams helps some species, it hasn’t worked in places like the Amazon, said Julian Olden, a University of Washington ecologist. 
 
Dams block the natural flow of water and sediment. They also can change the chemistry of the water and cause toxic algae to grow. Some will lose property
 
Those who live along the riverbank or rely on the waterway for their livelihood fear dams could kill the Vjosa as they know it. Its fragile ecosystem will be irreversibly altered, and many residents will lose their land and homes. 
 
In the 1990s, an Italian company was awarded a contract to build a dam along the Vjosa in southern Albania. Construction began on the Kalivac dam but never was completed, plagued with delays and financial woes. 
 
Now, the government has awarded a new contract for the site to a Turkish company. Energy ministry officials rejected multiple interview requests to discuss their hydropower plans.  FILE – People raft on the Vjosa River near Permet, Albania, June 25, 2019. Some tout hydropower as a reliable, cheap and renewable energy source, but critics say the benefits of hydropower are overstated and are outweighed by the harm dams can do.Many locals oppose the plans. Dozens of residents from the village of Kute joined nonprofits to file what was Albania’s first environmental lawsuit against the construction of a dam in the Pocem gorge, a short distance downriver from Kalivac. They won in 2017, but the government has appealed. 
 
The victory, while significant, was just one battle. A week later, the government issued the Kalivac contract. EcoAlbania plans to fight that project, too. 
 
Ecologically, there is a lot at stake. 
 
A recent study found the Vjosa was incredibly diverse. More than 90 types of aquatic invertebrates were found in the places where dams are planned, plus hundreds of fish, amphibian and reptile species, some endangered and others endemic to the Balkans. Thwarting fish
 
Dams can unravel food chains, but the most well-known problem with building dams is that they block the paths of fish trying to migrate upstream to spawn. 
 
As pressure to build dams intensifies in less developed countries, the opposite is happening in the U.S. and Western Europe, where there’s a movement to tear down dams considered obsolete and environmentally destructive. 
 
More than 1,600 have been dismantled in the U.S., most within the past 30 years, according to the advocacy group American Rivers. In Europe, the largest-ever removal began this year in France, where two dams are being torn down on Normandy’s Selune River. 
 
With so few wild rivers left around the globe, the Vjosa also is a valuable resource for studying river behavior. 
 
Science is only at the beginning of understanding how biodiversity in river networks is structured and maintained,'' said researcher Gabriel Singer of the Leibniz-Institute in Germany.The Vjosa is a unique system.”  FILE – An abandoned bulldozer sits on the banks of the Vjosa River at the construction site of the Kalivac dam in Albania, June 23, 2019.For Shyqyri Seiti, it’s much more personal. 
 
The 65-year-old boatman has been transporting locals, goods and livestock across the river for about a quarter-century. The construction of the Kalivac dam would spell disaster for him. Many of the fields and some of the houses in his nearby village of Ane Vjose would be lost. 
 
Someone will benefit from the construction of the dam, but it will flood everyone in the area,'' he said.What if they were in our place? How would they feel to lose everything?” 
 
But the mayor, Metat Shehu, insisted that his community has no interest'' in the matter. 
 The Vjosa is polluted. The plants and creatures of Vjosa have vanished,” Shehu said. The biggest issue, he added, is that villagers are being offered too little to give up their land. He hopes the dam will bring investment to the area. ‘Irreparable’ damage
 
Jonus Jonuzi, a 70-year-old farmer who grew up along the river, is hopeful the Vjosa will stay wild. 
 
Albania needs electrical energy. But not by creating one thing and destroying another,'' he said.Why do such damage that will be irreparable for life, that future generations will blame us for what we’ve done?” 
 
This was produced in partnership with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. 
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Russia said on Thursday a division of its S-400 missile defense system would take part in a military drill in Serbia, underlining Moscow’s wish to keep a traditional ally on side even as Belgrade pursues links with NATO and the European Union.It will be the first time that the sophisticated S-400s, together with a Pantsir missile battery, will be participating in military exercises abroad, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.For its part, Serbia’s Defense Ministry said the exercises — dubbed Slavic Shield 2019, aimed to simulate the “use of a joint (combat) group … in defending … against enemy reconnaissance and offensive actions.””Apart from anti-aircraft missile systems in use in the Serbian army, missile systems that are in use by the Russian Air Force will also be used” in the live-fire exercise set to run until Oct. 29, it said in a statement.The exercises began on Wednesday but were not made public until Thursday.Serbia declared military neutrality in 2006 and joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in 2015, though does not seek full membership in the U.S.-led alliance. It is also an EU membership candidate and is negotiating entry to the bloc.But Russia is vying to keep fellow Orthodox Christian, Slavic Serbia within its sphere of geopolitical influence.Serbia, whose military is based on ex-Soviet weapons technology, has procured MiG-29 fighter jets as well as helicopters, tanks and armored personnel carriers from Russia in recent years.The two countries have also boosted intelligence cooperation. On Wednesday, Sergey Naryshkin, head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), told Serbian state-run RTS TV that the two countries were performing “complex mutual operations” to protect their external interests.Serbia has relied on Russia for support in its continued refusal to recognize the independence of its former southern province of Kosovo, which seceded in 2008 after a bloody guerrilla uprising. NATO peacekeepers remain in Kosovo.Serbia also depends on Russia for natural gas supplies and the largest local oil company, Naftna Industrija Srbije, is majority-owned by Russia’s Gazprom.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, stymied in his efforts to have Britain divorce itself from the European Union by next week, on Thursday called for a snap national election on Dec. 12 to give voters a chance to weigh in on protracted but indecisive wrangling over Brexit in parliament.But Johnson needs a two-thirds vote in the House of Commons to win approval for the quick election and it was not immediately clear if he could win enough support to hold it.With Conservatives holding less than half of the seats in parliament, Johnson would need substantial support from the opposition Labor Party. Labor said that, before supporting an election, it wants assurances that an exit from the EU by next Thursday, which Johnson has long pushed for, has definitely been ruled out.Johnson, in a letter to Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, said, “An election on 12 December will allow a new parliament and government to be in place by Christmas. If I win a majority in this election, we will then ratify the great new deal that I have negotiated, get Brexit done in January and the country will move on.”Johnson’s election gambit came after he was thwarted this week in winning the House of Commons’ expedited approval for his Brexit plan.Lawmakers voted for the deal that he worked out with the other 27 EU countries, the first time parliament has cast a favorable vote on any Brexit plan. But then the House of Commons rejected his call for final passage within three days, a timetable that would have allowed Britain to exit the EU next week.With the uncertainty surrounding the Brexit outcome, Johnson earlier this week asked the EU for a delay in implementing Britain’s departure until Jan. 31, but the EU has yet to respond. 
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