NATO secretary general: Quickest way to end Ukraine war is to lose it; but won’t bring peace

Posted on by SeeUS

WASHINGTON — As NATO prepares to convene on Tuesday a three-day summit in Washington to celebrate its 75th birthday, the alliance is reinforcing its support for Ukraine in the ongoing war with Russia.

During a news conference with a handful of reporters Sunday previewing the summit, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said all NATO members want peace, and that can be achieved if Russian President Vladimir Putin understands he cannot win on the battlefield.

“The quickest way to end this war is to lose the war,” he said. “But that that will not bring peace. That will bring occupation.”

Stoltenberg outlined key measures NATO would take, including the establishment of a dedicated command in Germany, enhanced financial and military aid, and bilateral security agreements.

Stoltenberg emphasized these initiatives while addressing the complexities of Ukraine’s potential NATO membership and the alliance’s united front against Russian aggression.

The precise language of the final agreement of the summit regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership is still under negotiation, he said.

In April, Stoltenberg said the alliance did not expect to offer Ukraine NATO membership during the summit, but rather a “bridge” to membership.

At the summit, that “bridge” will encompass five essential components:

Security assistance command: NATO is setting up a new command in Germany, with logistical hubs in Eastern Europe, to coordinate international security assistance for Ukraine. This will involve 700 personnel led by a three-star NATO general, according to Stoltenberg.

Stoltenberg said there have been differences among allies about “the approach or types of weapons Ukraine should be delivered.” Those differences create bureaucratic delays, and the goal is to make delivery faster and easier.

“This new command will have a very robust mandate, so there will be no need for consensus on each and every delivery,” he said.

Financial pledge: Since February 2022, NATO allies have provided around $43 billion annually in military support to Ukraine. The upcoming summit is expected to extend this commitment for another year, laying a foundation for future support.

Immediate weapon deliveries: Announcements on delivering more weapons and ammunition, particularly air defense systems, are anticipated at the summit to bolster Ukraine’s defense.

While the secretary general did not offer specifics, a senior U.S. official indicated that announcements can be expected from NATO allies this week regarding the provision of F-16 aircraft to Ukraine.

Bilateral security agreements: Twenty NATO allies will have signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine by the start of the summit, offering additional security guarantees and reinforcing collaborative defense efforts.

Interoperability: Efforts are underway to align Ukrainian armed forces with NATO standards, including a joint training center in Poland and programs on military acquisitions and procurement.

Hungary won’t participate or obstruct

Stoltenberg addressed concerns about Hungary’s stance on Russia’s war in Ukraine and its potential to block NATO decisions.

He recounted a recent visit to Budapest, where he secured an agreement with Prime Minister Viktor Orban ensuring that Hungary will not obstruct the proposed support measures for Ukraine.

Budapest will not participate in the new NATO security assistance command for Ukraine but will fulfill its other NATO obligations and contribute to the common budget, Stoltenberg said.

The secretary general highlighted NATO’s diverse engagements with Moscow even after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

He noted a recent conversation between U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, underscoring the routine nature of such contacts.

Stoltenberg said NATO must function cohesively in developing new defense strategies, emphasizing unity despite differing perspectives, such as those represented by leaders like Orban.

Future relationship with the US

Stoltenberg is confident that the United States would continue to be a staunch NATO ally regardless of future election outcomes, attributing past criticisms by former president Donald Trump primarily to defense spending issues rather than NATO itself.

He emphasized that any secretary general must be able to work with all leaders within the alliance, comparing NATO to a big family that every now and then has arguments and disagreements.

Stoltenberg recounted his experience working with presidents Barak Obama, Trump, and Joe Biden, noting that despite differing political leadership, the U.S. has remained a steadfast and committed NATO ally.
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Japan, Philippines sign defense pact in the face of shared alarm over China

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MANILA, Philippines — Japan and the Philippines signed a key defense pact Monday allowing the deployment of Japanese forces for joint military exercises, including live-fire drills, to the Southeast Asian nation that came under brutal Japanese occupation in World War II but is now building an alliance with Tokyo as they face an increasingly assertive China.

The Reciprocal Access Agreement, which similarly allows Filipino forces to enter Japan for joint combat training, was signed by Philippine Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro and Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa in a Manila ceremony witnessed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. It would take effect after ratification by the countries’ legislatures, Philippine and Japanese officials said.

Kamikawa called the signing of the defense agreement “a groundbreaking achievement” that should further boost defense cooperation between Japan and the Philippines.

“A free and open international order based on the rule of law is the foundation of regional peace and prosperity,” she said. “We would like to work closely with your country to maintain and strengthen this.”

Kamikawa and Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara later held talks with their Philippine counterparts on ways to further deepen relations.

The defense pact with the Philippines is the first to be forged by Japan in Asia. Japan signed similar accords with Australia in 2022 and with Britain in 2023.

Under Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the Japanese government has taken steps to boost its security and defensive firepower, including a counterstrike capability that breaks from Japan’s postwar principle of focusing only on self-defense, amid threats from North Korea and China’s growing assertiveness. It’s doubling defense spending in a five-year period to 2027 in a move to bolster its military power and make Japan the world’s third-biggest military spender after the United States and China.

Many of Japan’s Asian neighbors, including the Philippines, came under Japanese aggression until its defeat in World War II and Japan’s efforts to bolster its military role and spending could be a sensitive issue. Japan and the Philippines, however, have steadily deepened defense and security ties.

Kishida’s moves dovetail with Marcos’ effort to forge security alliances to bolster the Philippine military’s limited ability to defend Manila’s territorial interests in the South China Sea. The busy sea passage is a key global trade route which has been claimed virtually in its entirety by China but also contested in part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.

The United States has also been strengthening an arc of military alliances in the Indo-Pacific to better counter China, including in any future confrontation over Taiwan, and reassure its Asian allies. Japan and the Philippines are treaty allies of the U.S. and their leaders held three-way talks in April at the White House, where President Biden renewed Washington’s “ironclad” commitment to defend Japan and the Philippines.

Japan has had a longstanding territorial dispute with China over islands in the East China Sea. Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships, meanwhile, have been involved in a series of tense confrontations in the South China Sea since last year.

In the worst confrontation so far, Chinese coast guard personnel armed with knives, spears and an axe aboard motorboats repeatedly rammed and destroyed two Philippine navy supply vessels on June 17 in a chaotic faceoff in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal that injured several Filipino sailors. Chinese coast guard personnel seized seven navy rifles.

The Philippines strongly protested the Chinese coast guard’s actions and demanded $1 million for the damage and the return of the rifles. China accused the Philippines of instigating the violence, saying the Filipino sailors strayed into what it called Chinese territorial waters despite warnings.

Japan and the United States were among the first to express alarm over the Chinese actions and call on Beijing to abide by international laws. Washington is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.
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Samsung workers’ union in South Korea kicks off three-day strike

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SEOUL, South Korea — A workers’ union at Samsung Electronics in South Korea is set to stage a three-day strike from Monday and has warned it could take further action against the country’s most powerful conglomerate at a later date.

The National Samsung Electronics Union (NSEU), whose roughly 28,000 members make up over a fifth of the firm’s workforce in South Korea, is demanding the company improve its performance-based bonus system and give workers an extra day of annual leave.

It is not immediately clear how many workers will join the strike, but the union’s poll found about 8,100 members saying they would do so as of Monday morning.

Lee Hyun-kuk, a senior union leader, said in a YouTube broadcast last week that another round of strikes could occur once the three-day stoppage is over if the workers’ demands are not heard.

The union plans to hold a rally on Monday morning near Samsung’s headquarters in Hwaseong, south of Seoul.

Analysts, however, say the strike is unlikely to have a major impact on chip output as most production at the world’s biggest memory chipmaker is automated.

Last month, the union staged a walkout by using annual leave, its first such industrial action, but the company at the time said there was no impact on production or business activity.

Though it will have little impact on output, the labor movement shows decreased staff loyalty at one of the world’s top chipmakers and smartphone manufacturers, analysts say, adding another problem for Samsung as it navigates cutthroat competition in chips used for artificial intelligence applications.

Samsung estimated on Friday a more than 15-fold rise in its second-quarter operating profit, as rebounding semiconductor prices driven by the AI boom lifted earnings from a low base a year ago, but its share price performance has been lagging behind South Korean chip rival SK Hynix.
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US troops leave Niger base at Niamey

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Niamey, Niger — U.S. troops have completed a withdrawal from their base in Niger’s capital of Niamey and will fully depart from Agadez in the north before a Sept. 15 deadline set by the country’s military rulers, both countries said Sunday.

Niger’s military leaders scrapped a military cooperation deal with Washington in March, after seizing power in a July 2023 coup.

The United States had around 650 soldiers in Niger as part of anti-jihadist missions in several Sahel nations of West Africa, including a major drone base near Agadez.

“The defense ministry of Niger and the U.S. Defense Department announce that the withdrawal of American forces and equipment from the Niamey base 101 is now completed,” the two countries said in a statement.

A final flight carrying U.S. troops was due to leave Niamey late Sunday.

The U.S. presence had stood at around 950 troops, and 766 soldiers have left Niger since the military ordered their departure, AFP learned at a ceremony at the base attended by Niger’s army chief of staff Maman Sani Kiaou and US General Kenneth Ekman.

“American forces are now going to focus on quitting airbase 201 in Agadez,” the statement said, insisting that the withdrawal would be completed by September 15 as planned.

Niger had already ordered the withdrawal of troops from France, the former colonial power and traditional security ally, and has strengthened ties with Russia which has provided instructors and equipment.

On Saturday, Germany’s defense ministry also said it would end operations at its airbase in Niger by August 31 following the breakdown of talks with military leaders.

A similar shift has taken place in neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, which are also ruled by military leaders and faced with violence from jihadist groups.
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Hungary PM Orban in Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi

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BUDAPEST, Hungary — Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrived in Beijing Monday for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Orban’s press chief told state news agency MTI.

“Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s peace mission continues,” Bertalan Havasi was quoted as saying.

This is Orban’s third surprise overseas trip since Hungary took over the European Union’s rotating presidency at the beginning of July, after he traveled to Ukraine and Russia last week on what he called a “peace mission.”

His trip to Moscow drew strong rebukes from his allies.

Hungary, under right-leaning Orban, has become an important trade and investment partner for China, in contrast with some other European Union nations seeking to become less dependent on the world’s second-largest economy.

Orban’s visit also came days before a NATO summit that will address further military aid for Ukraine against what the Western defense alliance has called Russia’s “unprovoked war of aggression.”

Hungary’s foreign minister, Peter Szijjarto, was accompanying Orban on the China trip, according to photographs on Szijjarto’s Facebook page.

The foreign ministry canceled late last week a meeting for Monday in Budapest with Germany’s foreign minister and Szijjarto, a German foreign ministry official said Friday.

Orban, a critic of Western military aid to Ukraine who has the warmest relations of any EU leader with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said last week he recognized he had no EU mandate for the trip to Moscow, but that peace could not be made “from a comfortable armchair in Brussels.”
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Hundreds gather for memorial concert after deadly Kenya protests

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Nairobi, Kenya — Hundreds of Kenyans gathered Sunday in the capital Nairobi for a memorial concert following deadly protests over tax hikes that saw the country’s leader scrap a controversial finance bill.

The initially peaceful rallies mostly led by Gen-Z spiraled into violence that left 39 people dead, rights groups have said, and saw President William Ruto reject the bill containing the hikes and promise spending cuts.

On Sunday people streamed into Nairobi’s central Uhuru Park from around midday to listen to performers and commemorate those who had died.

Victor Waithaka, 29, told AFP he was attending to pay tribute to the “heroes who died during the protests on the rejected finance bill.”

“This is our country, and we have the right to fight for our rights,” he said.

Large crowds shouted, “Ruto must go,” echoing demands made by protesters in previous weeks, and waved Kenyan flags as they danced to a medley of singers and performers.

“The fight has just begun, the political awakening [is] just the beginning,” prominent demonstrator Hanifa Adan told AFP on the concert’s sidelines.

Early Sunday morning some roads in the city were blocked by police officers.

The concert fell on so-called “Saba Saba” (Seven Seven) — the seventh day of the seventh month, marking the moment in 1990 that the opposition rose up to demand the return of multi-party democracy — and a day when demonstrations have previously taken place.

It follows Ruto’s decision Friday to announce budget cuts and increased borrowing, to cover the projected shortfall from scrapping the finance bill.

Following his speech, the president also took part in a sometimes-fiery exchange of views on social media platform X, in a wide-ranging conversation with younger Kenyans on social media.
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New Orleans Essence Festival wraps up 4-day celebration of Black culture

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New Orleans, Louisiana — For 30 years, the Essence Festival of Culture has brought together people from all walks of life and from around the world to connect through conversation, shared experiences and, of course, music.

The nation’s largest annual celebration of Black culture was set to end Sunday with musical performances by Janet Jackson and a special tribute to Frankie Beverly & Maze, the soul band that closed the event for the festival’s first 15 years. Beverly, now 77, has said he is stepping away from performing live, and the group has been on a farewell tour.

Others scheduled to perform included Victoria Monet, Teedra Moses, Tank and the Bangas, Dawn Richard, SWV, Jagged Edge, Bilal and Anthony Hamilton.

Barkue Tubman-Zawolo, chief of staff, talent and diasporic engagement for Essence Ventures, told The Associated Press the festival helps connect the global Black community.

“Historically, as Black people, sometimes we’re not sure where our heritage comes from,” Tubman-Zawolo said. “America is just one place. But within America there’s a melting pot of different Black cultures: Africa, Latin, Europe, the Caribbean. Understanding that allows our power to be even greater.”

Tubman-Zawolo said those connections could be seen throughout this year’s Film Festival, held at the city’s convention center, where fans heard from storytellers from Nigeria, Ghana and the Caribbean “who are targeting our stories about us, for us, globally.”

She noted similar connections through the Food and Wine stage, where discussions highlighted Caribbean and African cuisine; the Soko Market Place, where vendors from all over the world shared their craft; and on the Caesars Superdome stage, which spotlighted Caribbean and African artists including Machel Montano of Trinidad and Ayra Starr of Nigeria.

“All of that occurred over four days,” Tubman-Zawolo said. “But the beauty of it is, it doesn’t stay here. (Fans) take it with them.”

New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said this year’s “We Love Us” theme was appropriate.

“This whole ‘We Love Us’ theme brought us together to build communities,” she said.

The festival’s impact on the city and state has surpassed $300 million, with more than 500,000 people visiting since 1994.

Essence started the festival as a way to celebrate 25 years of the magazine’s history.

“The locals are being incorporated in a manner that we can see and touch and feel and smell. That has been a part of the evolution of Essence,” Cantrell said.

The event’s current contract ends in 2026, but Essence Ventures CEO Caroline Wanga has said the festival’s “forever home” is New Orleans.

“That’s what we believe as well,” Cantrell said. “We have a foundation that’s been laid over 30 years. The city is always ready and prepared to host this event and more. I think staying in New Orleans is the best fit and best marriage, the best partnership.”
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North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong calls South Korean drills provocation, KCNA says

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Seoul, South Korea — Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said South Korea’s recent military drills near the border between the two nations are an inexcusable and explicit provocation, according to a report from state media KCNA on Monday.

Kim Yo Jong also accused South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of creating tensions on the Korean peninsula to divert public attention away from his poor performance in domestic politics. She cited an online petition calling for Yoon to be impeached, with more than 1 million signatures.

Kim said that in case North Korea judges its own sovereignty as violated, its armed forces will immediately carry out a mission and duty according to its constitution.

The South Korean military has resumed live-fire artillery drills near the western maritime border in late June, the first time since 2018.

Last month, South Korea said it would suspend a military agreement signed with North Korea in 2018 aimed at easing tensions, in protest of North Korea’s trash balloon launches toward the South.
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Chinese Premier Li congratulates new British PM Starmer

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Beijing — Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Sunday congratulated new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on his election, state media reported, the first senior leader in Beijing to do so publicly.

China is “willing to work with the new U.K. government to consolidate mutual political trust and expand mutually beneficial cooperation,” Li told Starmer, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Their call came after days of silence from top officials in Beijing, with the Chinese foreign ministry saying only that it noted the results of the U.K. election. 

By comparison, Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Iran’s incoming President Masoud Pezeshkian just hours after his election Saturday.

China was Britain’s fifth-largest trading partner as of 2023, according to the U.K. Department for Business and Trade.

But diplomatic relations between the two countries have been icy in recent years, with Beijing and London sparring over tightening communist control in former British colony Hong Kong.

The two sides have also traded accusations of espionage, with Beijing saying last month that MI6 had recruited Chinese state employees to spy for the U.K.

Xinhua reported Sunday that Li told Starmer that the “strengthening of bilateral coordination and cooperation was in the interests of both sides.”
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US envoy expresses regret over alleged military sex crimes in Okinawa

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Tokyo — U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel expressed regret Saturday for the handling of two cases of sexual assaults allegedly committed by American military personnel on Okinawa, which have again stoked resentment of the heavy U.S. troop presence on the strategic island in Japan’s far southwest.

The issue broke out late last month, triggering an uproar over reports that two American service members had been charged with sexual assaults months earlier.

Both cases were first reported in local media in late June. In one arrest made in March, a member of the U.S. Air Force was charged with the kidnapping and sexual assault of a teenager, and while in May a U.S. Marine was arrested on charges of attempted rape resulting in injury. Further details about the alleged victims were not released.

Okinawa police said they did not announce the cases out of privacy considerations related to the victims. The Foreign Ministry, per police decision, also did not notify Okinawa prefectural officials.

The cases are a reminder to many Okinawans of the 1995 rape of a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. service members, which sparked massive protests of the U.S. presence. It led to a 1996 agreement between Tokyo and Washington to close a key U.S. air base, although the plan has been repeatedly delayed due to protests at the site designated for its replacement on another part of the island.

Emanuel said he deeply regretted what happened to the individuals, their families and their community, but fell short of apologizing. “Obviously, you got to let the criminal justice process play out. But that doesn’t mean you don’t express on a human level your sense of regret.”

“We have to do better,” he said, adding that the U.S. military’s high standards and protocols for education and training of its troops was “just not working.”

Emanuel said the U.S. may be able to propose measures to improve training and transparency with the public at U.S.-Japan foreign and defense ministers’ security talks expected later this month in Tokyo.

On Friday, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Japanese authorities would do their utmost to provide more prompt disclosures of alleged crime related to U.S. military personnel on Okinawa while protecting victims’ privacy.

The cases could be a setback for the defense relationship at a time when Okinawa is seen increasingly important in the face of rising tensions with China.

Some 50,000 U.S. troops are deployed in Japan under a bilateral security pact, about half of them on Okinawa, where residents have long complained about heavy U.S. troop presence and related accidents, crime and noise.

Emanuel commented on the issue while visiting Fukushima, on Japan’s northeast coast.

Earlier Saturday, the ambassador visited the nearby town of Minamisoma to join junior surfers and sample locally-caught flounder for lunch, aiming to highlight the safety of the area’s seawater and seafood amid ongoing discharges of treated and diluted radioactive water from the tsunami-ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

China has banned Japanese seafood over the discharges, a move Emanuel criticized as unjustified.
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‘Despicable Me 4’ debuts, raking in $122.6 million since opening Wednesday

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New York — After a historically bad first half of the year, the box office is suddenly booming.

“Despicable Me 4,” the Illumination Animation sequel, led the way over the holiday weekend with $75 million in ticket sales Friday through Sunday and $122.6 million since opening Wednesday, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Independence Day holiday weekend haul for the Universal Pictures’ release further extends the considerable box-office reign of the Minions, arguably the most bankable force in movies today. And it also kept a summer streak going for Hollywood.

Though overall ticket sales were down more than 40% from levels prior to the COVID 19 pandemic, heading into the summer moviegoing season, theaters have lately seen a succession of hits. After Sony’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” outperformed expectations, Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” rapidly cleared $1 billion in ticket sales worldwide, making it the first release since “Barbie” to reach that mark. Last weekend, the Paramount prequel “A Quiet Place: Day One” also came in above expectations.

With “Deadpool & Wolverine” tracking for a $160 million launch later this month, Hollywood’s summer is looking up.

“If you look at the mood of the industry about eight weeks ago, very different than today,” says Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for Comscore. “The song says what a difference a day makes. What a difference a month has made.”

It helps to have the Minions at your disposal. Since first debuting in the 2010 original “Despicable Me,” each entry of the franchise — including two sequels and two “Minions” spinoffs — has seemingly guaranteed to gross around $1 billion. The four previous movies all made between $939 million (2022’s “Minions: Rise of Gru”) and $1.26 billion (2015’s “Minions”) globally.

That run has helped give Illumination founder and chief executive Chris Meledandri one of the most enviable track records in Hollywood. “Despicable Me 4,” directed by Chris Renaud and Patrick Delage, returns the voice cast led by Steve Carell and Kristen Wiig and doubles down on more Minion mayhem. Reviews (54% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) weren’t particularly good for the latest installment, which includes a witness protection plot and a group of Minions transformed into a superhero squadron. But in their 12-year run, little has slowed down the Minions.

“This is one of the most beloved franchises, quite frankly, in the history of film, and certainly animation,” said Jim Orr, distribution chief for Universal. “Chris Meledandri and Illumination have their finger on the pulse of what families and audiences around the world want to see.”

Family movies are powering the box office. “Despicable Me 4” performed strongly despite the still considerable drawing power of “Inside Out 2.” In its fourth weekend of release, the Pixar sequel added another $30 million domestically and $78.3 million overseas.

“Inside Out 2,” with $1.22 billion in ticket sales thus far, is easily the year’s biggest hit and fast climbing up the all-time ranks for animated releases. It currently ranks as the No. 5 animated release worldwide.

Instead of cannibalizing the opening weekend for “Despicable Me 4,” “Inside Out 2” may have helped get families back in the habit of heading to theaters.

“What happened, I think, is the release calendar finally settled into a nice rhythm,” said Dergarabedian, referencing the jumbled movie schedule from last year’s strikes. “It’s all about momentum.”

The continued strong sales for “Inside Out 2” were enough to put the film in second place for the domestic weekend. Last week’s top new film, “A Quiet Place: Day One,” slid to third with $21 million in its second weekend, with another $21.1 million from overseas theaters. That was a steep decrease of 60%, though the Paramount prequel has amassed $178.2 million worldwide in two weeks.

The run of hits has caused some studios to boost their forecasts for the summer movie season. Heading into the most lucrative season at theaters, analysts were predicting a $3 billion summer, down from the more typical $4 billion mark. Now, closer to $3.4 billion appears likely.

The weekend’s other top new release was Ti West’s “MaXXXine,” the third in a string of slasher films from A24 starring Mia Goth. In 2,450 locations, “MaXXXine” collected $6.7 million in ticket sales, a franchise best. The film, which follows “X” and “Pearl” (both released in 2022), stars Goth as a 1980s Hollywood starlet being hunted by a killer known as the Night Stalker.

Angel Studios, which last year released the unexpected summer hit “Sound of Freedom,” struggled to find the same success with its latest Christian film, “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot.” It debuted with $3.2 million.

Kevin Costner’s big-budget gamble, “Horizon: An American Saga,” didn’t do much to turn around its fortunes in its second weekend. The first chapter in what Costner hopes will be a four-part franchise – including a chapter two Warner Bros. will release in August – earned $5.5 million in its second weekend. The film, which cost more than $100 million to make, has grossed $22.2 million in two weeks.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

  1. “Despicable Me 4,” $75 million.

  2. “Inside Out 2,” $30 million.

  3. “A Quiet Place Day One,” $21 million.

  4. “MaXXXine,” $6.7 million.

  5. “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” $6.5 million.

  6. “Horizon: An American Saga, Chapter 1,” $5.5 million.

  7. “Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot,” $3.2 million.

  8. “Kaiki 2898,” $1.8 million.

  9. “The Bikeriders,” $1.3 million.

  10. “Kinds of Kindness,” $860,000.
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Italian expat brings pork cuisine to Burkina’s Ouagadougou

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In Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, an Italian expatriate runs a rather unique business for a foreigner, selling grilled pork, a highly appreciated dish. Gildas Da has the story narrated by Arzouma Kampaore.
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In Senegal, French expat gains internet fame with Wolof language learning videos

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A young Frenchman who settled in Senegal a little over a year ago decided to master the local Wolof language. Now he’s teaching it to other people on social media. Allison Fernandes has the story, narrated by Michelle Joseph.
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Junta states’ exit hangs over West African summit 

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ABUJA — A West African leaders’ summit opened amid political turmoil Sunday after the military rulers of Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso cemented a breakaway union at a rival meeting. 

The three countries announced they were forming a new confederation, and their defiant first gathering on the eve of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) summit marked another test for the regional bloc they split from earlier this year. 

ECOWAS is already wrestling with sweeping jihadi violence, financial trouble and the challenges of mustering a regional force. 

It was not clear how the fractured bloc would respond after Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso adopted a treaty establishing a “Confederation of Sahel States” in Niamey on Saturday. 

But ECOWAS Commission chief Omar Alieu Touray said the three countries risked “political isolation” and losing millions of dollars in investments. 

The break would also worsen insecurity and hamper the work of the long-proposed regional force, he said before the bloc began a closed-door session in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. 

“Our region is facing the risk of disintegration,” he warned. 

Backs turned 

The juntas in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso came to power in a series of coups over recent years and announced their joint departure from ECOWAS in January. 

They have shifted away from former colonial ruler France and expelled French troops, with Niger’s General Abdourahamane Tiani calling for the establishment of a “community far removed from the stranglehold of foreign powers.” 

“Our people have irrevocably turned their backs on ECOWAS,” Tiani said Saturday, rebuffing the bloc’s pleas to come back into the fold. 

The Sahel countries’ ECOWAS exit was fueled in part by their accusation that Paris was manipulating the bloc and not providing enough support for anti-jihadi efforts.  

Several West African leaders have called for the resumption of dialogue and Sunday’s summit was the first for Senegal’s new President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who said in May that reconciliation was possible.  

Niger’s ties with ECOWAS deteriorated following the July 2023 coup that brought Tiani to power, when the bloc imposed sanctions and threatened to intervene militarily to restore ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.  

The sanctions were lifted in February, but relations remain bitter. 

Military force 

Ahead of the ECOWAS summit, defense and finance ministers have been looking into funding a “regional force to combat terrorism and restore constitutional order,” according to the ECOWAS Commission. 

It has called for the establishment of an initial 1,500-strong unit, and one proposal was to then muster a brigade of 5,000 soldiers at a cost of around $2.6 billion a year. 

ECOWAS has launched military interventions in the past, but its threat of doing so after the coup in Niger fizzled out.  

As the bloc grapples with regional challenges, Touray warned it was facing a “dire financial situation.” 

There were also reports of a rift over the possible reappointment of Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu as ECOWAS chair. 

Media adviser to the Nigerian president Bayo Onanuga told AFP that “while some countries want him to remain because the region has faced some crisis, the Francophone countries want the seat.” 

Several French-speaking countries sent their foreign ministers to Sunday’s summit instead of their leaders. 

Benin’s foreign minister told AFP that President Patrice Talon would not be attending “for scheduling reasons” and denied a dispute, saying that Talon support Tinubu’s reappointment. 
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Beryl bears down on Texas, where it’s expected to hit Monday and regain hurricane strength 

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MATAGORDA BAY, TEXAS — The outer bands of Beryl brought rain and intensifying winds to Texas on Sunday as coastal residents boarded up windows, left beach towns under evacuation orders and braced for the tropical storm that forecasters expected to strengthen back into a hurricane before landfall.

Much of Texas’ shoreline was under a hurricane warning and landfall was expected early Monday. Officials in several coastal counties urged tourists along the beach for the Fourth of July holiday to leave.

The earliest storm to develop into a Category 5 hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows and roofs with devastating winds and storm surge fueled by the Atlantic’s record warmth.

“We’re seeing the outer bands of Beryl approach the Texas coast now and the weather should be going downhill especially this afternoon and evening,” Eric Blake, a senior hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Center, said Sunday morning. “People should definitely be in their safe space by nightfall and we’re expecting the hurricane to make landfall somewhere in the middle Texas coast overnight.”

Beryl would be the 10th hurricane to hit Texas in July since 1851 and the fourth in the last 25 years, according to Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach.

Three times in its one week of life, Beryl has gained 56 kilometers per hour in wind speed in 24 hours or less, the official weather service definition of rapid intensification.

Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm shows the literal hot water of the Atlantic and Caribbean, and what the Atlantic hurricane belt can expect for the rest of the storm season, experts said.

Texas officials warned people along the entire coastline to prepare for possible flooding, heavy rain and wind. The hurricane warning extended from Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, to Sargent, south of Houston.

Beryl lurked as another potential heavy rain event for Houston, where storms in recent months have knocked out power across the nation’s fourth-largest city and flooded neighborhoods. A flash flood watch was in effect for a wide swath of the Texas coast, where forecasters expected Beryl to dump as much as 25 centimeters of rain in some areas.

Potential storm surges between 1.2 and 1.8 meters above ground level were forecast around Matagorda. The warnings extended to the same coastal areas where Hurricane Harvey came ashore in 2017 as a Category 4 hurricane, which was far more powerful than Beryl’s expected intensity by the time the storm reaches landfall.

In Port Lavaca, Jimmy May was boarding up his business Jimmy Hayes Electric on Sunday to protect the glass, “in case we get a little bit too much wind, too much trash blowing,” he said. He said he wasn’t concerned about the forecasted high winds or possible storm surge in town but people in lower-lying areas “need to get out of there.”

Those looking to catch a flight out of the area could find that option more difficult as Beryl closes in on the Texas coast. While the majority of flights from Houston’s two major commercial airports were leaving on time as of midday Sunday, more than 65 flights had been delayed and another four canceled, according to FlightAware data.

In Corpus Christi, officials asked visitors to cut their trips short and return home early if possible. Residents were advised to secure homes by boarding up windows if necessary and using sandbags to guard against possible flooding.

Traffic was nonstop for the past three days at an Ace Hardware store in the city as customers bought tarps, rope, duct tape, sandbags and generators, employee Elizabeth Landry said Saturday.

“They’re just worried about the wind, the rain,” she said. “They’re wanting to prepare just in case.”

Ben Koutsoumbaris, general manager of Island Market on Corpus Christi’s Padre Island, said there has been “definitely a lot of buzz about the incoming storm,” with customers stocking up on food and drinks, particularly meat and beer.

The White House said Sunday that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent emergency responders, search-and-rescue teams, bottled water, and other resources along the coast.

Some coastal cities called for voluntary evacuations in low-lying areas that are prone to flooding, banned beach camping and urged tourists traveling on the Fourth of July holiday weekend to move recreational vehicles from coastal parks. In Refugio County, north of Corpus Christi, officials issued a mandatory evacuation order for its 6,700 residents.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor while Gov. Greg Abbott is traveling in Taiwan, issued a preemptive disaster declaration for 121 counties.

Beryl this past week battered Mexico as a Category 2 hurricane, toppling trees but causing no injuries or deaths before weakening to a tropical storm as it moved across the Yucatan Peninsula.

Before hitting Mexico, Beryl wrought destruction in Jamaica, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Three people were reported dead in Grenada, three in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, three in Venezuela and two in Jamaica.
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An Alaska tourist spot will vote whether to ban cruise ships on Saturdays to give locals a break

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JUNEAU, Alaska — Each year, a crush of tourists arrives in Alaska’s capital city on cruise ships to see wonders like the fast-diminishing Mendenhall Glacier. Now, long-simmering tensions over Juneau’s tourism boom are coming to a head over a new voter initiative aimed at giving residents a respite from the influx.

A measure that would ban cruise ships with 250 or more passengers from docking in Juneau on Saturdays qualified for the Oct. 1 municipal ballot, setting the stage for a debate about how much tourism is too much in a city that is experiencing first-hand the impacts of climate change. The measure would also ban ships on July 4, a day when locals flock to a downtown parade.

The “ship-free Saturdays” initiative that qualified last week will go to voters unless the local Assembly enacts a similar measure by Aug. 15, which is seen as unlikely.

Juneau, accessible only by water or air, is home to the Mendenhall Glacier, a major draw for the cruise passengers who arrive on multi-story ships towering over parts of the modest downtown skyline. Many residents of this city of about 32,000 have concerns about increased traffic, congested trails and the frequent buzz of sight-seeing helicopters transporting visitors to the Mendenhall and other glaciers.

Deborah Craig, who has lived in Juneau for decades, supports ship-free Saturdays. Craig, who lives across the channel from where the ships dock, often hears their early-morning fog horns and broadcast announcements made to passengers that are audible across the water.

The current “overwhelming” number of visitors diminishes what residents love so much about Juneau, she said.

“It’s about preserving the lifestyle that keeps us in Juneau, which is about clean air, clean water, pristine environment and easy access to trails, easy access to water sports and nature,” she said of the initiative.

“There’s this perception that some people are not welcoming of tourists, and that’s not the case at all,” Craig said. “It’s about volume. It’s about too much — too many in a short period of time overwhelming a small community.”

The current cruise season runs from early April to late October.

Opponents of the initiative say limiting dockings will hurt local businesses that rely heavily on tourism and could invite lawsuits. A voter-approved limit on cruise passenger numbers in Bar Harbor, Maine, another community with a significant tourism economy, was challenged in federal court.

Laura McDonnell, a business leader who owns Caribou Crossings, a gift shop in Juneau’s downtown tourist core, said she makes 98% of her annual revenue during the summer season.

Tourism is about all the “local businesses that rely on cruise passengers and our place in the community,” said McDonnell, who is involved in Protect Juneau’s Future, which opposes the initiative.

Some schools recently closed due to factors including declining enrollment, while the regional economy faces challenges, she said.

“I think that as a community, we really need to look at what’s at stake for our economy,” she said. “We are not in a position to be shrinking our economy.”

The cruise industry accounted for $375 million in direct spending in Juneau in 2023, most of that attributable to spending by passengers, according to a report prepared for the city by McKinley Research Group LLC.

After a two-year pandemic lull, cruise passenger numbers rose sharply in Juneau, hitting a record of more than 1.6 million in 2023. Under this year’s schedule, Sept. 21 will be the first day since early May with no large ships in town.

The tourism debate is polarizing, and the city has been trying to find a middle ground, said Alexandra Pierce, Juneau’s visitor industry director. But she noted there also needs to be a regional solution.

If the Juneau initiative passes, it will impact other, smaller communities in southeast Alaska because the ships, generally on trips originating in Seattle or Vancouver, Canada, will have to go somewhere if they can’t dock in Juneau on Saturdays, she said.

Some residents in Sitka, south of Juneau, are in the early stages of trying to limit cruise visitation to that small, island community, which is near a volcano.

Juneau and major cruise lines, including Carnival Corp., Disney Cruise Line, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Group, agreed to a limit of five large ships a day, which took effect this year. They more recently signed a pact, set to take effect in 2026, seeking a daily limit of 16,000 cruise passengers Sundays through Fridays and 12,000 on Saturdays.

Pierce said the overall goal is to keep total cruise passenger visitation around 1.6 million, and to even out daily numbers of visitors that can spike to about 18,000 on the busiest days and feel “a bit suffocating.” Juneau traditionally has been the most popular cruise port in the state.

A number of projects around Juneau are expected to help make existing cruise numbers feel less impactful. Those include plans for a gondola at the city-owned ski area and increased visitor capacity at the Mendenhall Glacier recreation area, she said.

Renée Limoge Reeve, vice president of government and community relations for the trade group Cruise Lines International Association Alaska, said the agreements signed with the city were the first of their kind in Alaska.

The best strategy is “ongoing, direct dialogue with local communities” and working together in a way that also provides a predictable source of income for local businesses, she said.

Protect Juneau’s Future, led by local business leaders, said the success of the ballot measure would mean a loss of sales tax revenue and millions of dollars in direct spending by cruise passengers. The group was confident voters would reject the measure, its steering committee said in a statement.

Karla Hart, a sponsor of the initiative and frequent critic of the cruise industry, said the threat of litigation has kept communities from taking steps to limit cruise numbers in the past. She was heartened by legal wins this year in the ongoing fight over the measure passed in Bar Harbor, a popular destination near Maine’s Acadia National Park.

She believes the Juneau initiative will pass.
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Ukrainian drone triggers warehouse explosions in Russia as war of attrition grinds on 

Posted on by SeeEU

Kyiv — A village in western Russia’s border region was evacuated Sunday following a series of explosions after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set fire to a nearby warehouse, local officials said.

Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession.

Gov. Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the “detonation of explosive objects.” No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense did not address the strike in their morning briefing, but said that air defense systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region.

Authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar province on Saturday said a fire at an oil depot had also been caused by falling drone debris. Russia’s emergency services said the blaze was extinguished Sunday morning. 

The strikes come after a Ukrainian military spokesperson told The Associated Press Thursday that Kyiv’s troops had retreated from a neighborhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a monthlong Russian assault.

Russian forces have for months tried to grind out gains in Ukraine’s industrial east, in an apparent attempt to lock its defenders into a war of attrition. In a joint investigation published Friday, independent Russian news outlets Meduza and Mediazona reported that Moscow’s forces were losing between 200 and 250 soldiers in Ukraine each day.

Military analysts say Chasiv Yar’s fall could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and put nearby cities in jeopardy, bringing Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region. 

Russia sent overnight into Sunday two ballistic missiles and 13 Shahed drones, Ukrainian air force officials said. All were shot down but the officials did not elaborate on the impact of the missiles.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, 14 people died after a bus collided with a cargo vehicle, leaving a single survivor, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Saturday evening. The victims included a 6-year-old child.
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Torrid heat bakes millions of people in large swaths of US, setting records and fanning wildfires

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Las Vegas — Roughly 130 million people were under threat over the weekend and into next week from a long-running heat wave that broke or tied records with dangerously high temperatures and is expected to shatter more from East Coast to West Coast, forecasters said.

Ukiah, north of San Francisco, hit 117 degrees Fahrenheit (47 degrees Celsius) on Saturday, breaking the city’s record for the date and tying its all-time high. Livermore, east of San Francisco, hit 111 F (43.8 C), breaking the daily maximum temperature record of 109 F (42.7 C) set more than a century ago in 1905.

Las Vegas tied the record of 115 F (46 C), last reached in 2007, and Phoenix topped out at 114 F (45.5 C), just shy of the record of 116 F (46.7 C) dating to 1942.

The National Weather Service said it was extending the excessive heat warning for much of the Southwest through Friday.

“A dangerous and historic heatwave is just getting started across the area, with temperatures expected to peak during the Sunday-Wednesday timeframe,” the National Weather Service in Las Vegas said in an updated forecast.

In Las Vegas, where the mercury hit 100 F (37.7 C) by 10:30 a.m., Marko Boscovich said the best way to beat the heat is in a seat at a slot machine with a cold beer inside an air-conditioned casino.

“But you know, after it hits triple digits it’s about all the same to me,” said Boscovich, who was visiting from Sparks, Nevada to see a Dead & Company concert Saturday night at the Sphere. “Maybe they’ll play one of my favorites — ‘Cold Rain and Snow.’”

In more humid parts of the country, temperatures could spike above 100 F (about 38 C) in parts of the Pacific Northwest, the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, said Jacob Asherman, a weather service meteorologist.

Heat records shattered across the Southwest

Meteorologists predicted that temperatures would be near daily records in the region through most, if not all, of the coming week, with lower desert highs reaching 115 to 120 degrees F (46.1 to 48.8 C).

Rare heat advisories were extended even into higher elevations including around Lake Tahoe, on the border of California and Nevada, with the National Weather Service in Reno, Nevada, warning of “major heat risk impacts, even in the mountains.”

“How hot are we talking? Well, high temperatures across (western Nevada and northeastern California) won’t get below 100 degrees (37.8 C) until next weekend,” the service posted online. “And unfortunately, there won’t be much relief overnight either.”

Indeed, Reno hit a high of 104 F (40 C) on Saturday, smashing the old record of 101 F (38.3 C).

More extreme highs are in the near forecast, including 129 F (53.8 C) for Sunday at Furnace Creek, California, in Death Valley National Park, and then around 130 F (54.4 C) through Wednesday.

The hottest temperature ever officially recorded on Earth was 134 F (56.67 C) in July 1913 in Death Valley, eastern California, though some experts dispute that measurement and say the real record was 130 F (54.4 C), recorded there in July 2021.

The worst is yet to come across the West and mid-Atlantic

Triple-digit temperatures are likely in the West, between 15 and 30 F (8 and 16 C) higher than average into next week, the National Weather Service said.

The Eastern U.S. also was bracing for more hot temperatures. Baltimore and others parts of Maryland were under an excessive heat warning as heat index values could climb to 110 F (43 C), forecasters said.

“Drink plenty of fluids, stay in an air-conditioned room, stay out of the sun, and check up on relatives and neighbors,” read a National Weather Service advisory for the Baltimore area. “Young children and pets should never be left unattended in vehicles under any circumstances.”

Deaths are starting to mount

In Arizona’s Maricopa County, which encompasses Phoenix, there have been at least 13 confirmed heat-related deaths this year, along with more than 160 other deaths suspected of being related to heat that are still under investigation, according to a recent report.

That does not include the death of a 10-year-old boy last week in Phoenix who suffered a “heat-related medical event” while hiking with family at South Mountain Park and Preserve, according to police.

California wildfires fanned by low humidity, high temperatures

Firefighters dispatched aircraft and helicopters to drop water or retardant on a series of wildfires in California.

In Santa Barbara County, northwest of Los Angeles, the Lake Fire has scorched more than 19 square miles (49 square kilometers) of grass, brush and timber. Firefighters said the blaze was displaying “extreme fire behavior” and had the “potential for large growth” with high temperatures and low humidity.

Festival revelers meet the heat with cold water and shade

At the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland, Oregon, music fans coped by drinking cold water, seeking shade or freshening up under water misters. Organizers of the weekend revelries also advertised free access to air conditioning in a nearby hotel.

Angelica Quiroz, 31, kept her scarf and hat wet and applied sunscreen.

“Definitely a difference between the shade and the sun,” Quiroz said Friday. “But when you’re in the sun, it feels like you’re cooking.”

 
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Pope deplores state of democracy, warns against ‘populists’

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Vatican City — Pope Francis decried the state of democracy and warned against “populists” during a short visit to Trieste in Italy’s northeast on Sunday ahead of a 12-day trip to Asia — the longest of his papacy.

“Democracy is not in good health in the world today,” Francis said during a speech at the city’s convention center to close a national Catholic event.

Without naming any countries, the pope warned against “ideological temptations and populists” on the day that France holds the second round of a snap parliamentary vote that looks set to see the far-right National Rally party take the largest share of the vote.

“Ideologies are seductive. Some people compare them to the Pied Piper of Hamelin: they seduce but lead you to deny yourself,” he said in reference to the German fairytale.

Ahead of last month’s European parliament elections, bishops in several countries also warned about the rise of populism and nationalism, with far-right parties already holding the reins to power in Italy, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Francis also urged people to “move away from polarizations that impoverish” and hit out at “self-referential power.”

After Venice in April and Verona in May, the half-day trip to Trieste, a city of 200,000 inhabitants on the Adriatic Sea that borders Slovenia, marked the third one within Italy this year for the 87-year-old pontiff, who has suffered increasing health problems in recent years.

Since travelling to the French city of Marseille in September 2023, the Argentine Jesuit has limited himself to domestic travel.

But he plans to spend nearly two weeks in Asia in September visiting Indonesia, Singapore and the islands of Papua New Guinea and East Timor.

He arrived in Trieste shortly before 9 a.m. and was due to meet with various groups from the religious and academic spheres, along with migrants and the disabled.

The papal visit is due to conclude with a Mass in the city’s main public square before he departs for the Vatican in the early afternoon. 
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Tokyo voters cast ballots to decide whether to reelect conservative as city’s governor

Posted on by SeeEA

TOKYO — Voters in Tokyo cast ballots Sunday to decide whether to reelect conservative Yuriko Koike as governor of Japan’s influential capital for a third four-year term.

The vote was also seen as a test for Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s governing party, which supports the incumbent, the first woman to lead the Tokyo city government.

Tokyo, a city of 13.5 million people with outsized political and cultural power and a budget equaling some nations, is one of Japan’s most influential political posts.

A record 55 candidates challenged Koike, and one of the top contenders was also a woman — a liberal-leaning former parliament member who uses only her first name, Renho, and was backed by opposition parties.

A win by Koike would be a relief for Kishida’s conservative governing party, which she has long been affiliated with. Kishida’s Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner, Komeito, unofficially backed her campaign.

Renho, running as an independent but supported by the main opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan and the Japanese Communist Party, slammed Koike’s connection with Kishida’s party, which has been hit by a widespread slush fund scandal. A victory for Renho would be a major setback for Kishida’s chances in the governing party’s leadership vote in September.

While the two high-profile women garnered national attention, Shinji Ishimaru, a former mayor of Akitakata town in Hiroshima, was seen to have gained popularity among young voters.

The main issues in the campaign included measures for the economy, disaster resilience for Tokyo and low birth numbers. When Japan’s national fertility rate fell to a record low 1.2 babies per woman last year, Tokyo’s 0.99 rate was the lowest for the country.

Koike’s policies focused on providing subsidies for married parents expecting babies and those raising children. Renho called for increased support for young people to address their concerns about jobs and financial stability, arguing that would help improve prospects for marrying and having families.

Another focus of attention was a controversial redevelopment of Tokyo’s beloved park area, Jingu Gaien, which Koike approved but later faced criticism over its lack of transparency and suspected environmental impact.

Koike, a stylish and media savvy former TV newscaster, was first elected to parliament in 1992 at age 40. She served in a number of key Cabinet posts, including environment and defense ministers, as part of the long-reigning Liberal Democratic Party.

Renho, known for voicing sharp questions in parliament, was born to a Japanese mother and Taiwanese father and doesn’t use her family name. A former model and newscaster, she was elected to parliament in 2004 and served as administrative reform minister in the government led by the now-defunct Democratic Party of Japan.
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Kenya’s dramatic flooding sweeps away a central part of the economy: its farms

Posted on by SeeAF

MACHAKOS, Kenya — With dismay, Martha Waema and her husband surveyed their farm that was submerged by weeks of relentless rainfall across Kenya. Water levels would rise to shoulder height after only a night of heavy downpour.

The couple had expected a return of $1,500 from their three acres after investing $613 in corn, peas, cabbages, tomatoes and kale. But their hopes have been uprooted and destroyed.

“I have been farming for 38 years, but I have never encountered losses of this magnitude,” said the 62-year-old mother of 10.

Their financial security and optimism have been shaken by what Kenya’s government has called “a clear manifestation of the erratic weather patterns caused by climate change.”

The rains that started in mid-March have posed immediate dangers and left others to come. They have killed nearly 300 people, left dams at historically high levels and led the government to order residents to evacuate flood-prone areas — and bulldoze the homes of those who don’t.

Now a food security crisis lies ahead, along with even higher prices in a country whose president had sought to make agriculture an even greater engine of the economy.

Kenya’s government says the flooding has destroyed crops on more than 67,987 hectares of land, or less than 1% of Kenya’s agricultural land.

As farmers count their losses — a total yet unknown — the deluge has exposed what opposition politicians call Kenya’s ill preparedness for climate change and related disasters and the need for sustainable land management and better weather forecasting.

Waema now digs trenches in an effort to protect what’s left of the farm on a plain in the farthest outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, in Machakos County.

Not everyone is grieving, including farmers who prepared for climate shocks.

About 200 kilometers west of Waema’s farm, 65-year-old farmer James Tobiko Tipis and his 6½-hectare farm have escaped the flooding in Olokirikirai. He said he had been proactive in the area that’s prone to landslides by terracing crops.

“We used to lose topsoil and whatever we were planting,” he said.

Experts said more Kenyan farmers must protect their farms against soil erosion that likely will be worsened by further climate shocks.

Jane Kirui, an agricultural officer in Narok County, emphasized the importance of terracing and other measures such as cover crops that will allow water to be absorbed.

In Kenya’s rural areas, experts say efforts to conserve water resources remain inadequate despite the current plentiful rainfall.

At Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, professor John Gathenya recommended practices such as diversifying crops and emphasizing the soil’s natural water retention capacity.

“The soil remains the biggest reservoir for water,” he said, asserting that using it wisely requires much less of an investment than large infrastructure projects such as dams. But soil needs to be protected with practices that include limiting the deforestation that has exposed parts of Kenyan land to severe runoff.

“We are opening land in new fragile environments where we need to be even more careful the way we farm,” Gathenya said. “In our pursuit for more and more food, we are pressing into the more fragile areas but not with the same intensity of soil conservation that we had 50 years back.”
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Bardella, 28, could become youngest French prime minister

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NICE, France — At just 28 years old, Jordan Bardella has helped make the far-right National Rally the strongest political force in France. And now he could become the country’s youngest prime minister.

After voters propelled Marine Le Pen’s National Rally to a strong lead in the first round of snap legislative elections on June 30, Bardella turned to rallying supporters to hand their party an absolute majority in the decisive round on Sunday. That would allow the anti-immigration, nationalist party to run the government, with Bardella at the helm.

Who is the National Rally president?

When Bardella replaced his mentor, Marine Le Pen, in 2022 at the helm of France’s leading far-right party, he became the first person without the Le Pen name to lead it since its founding a half-century ago.

His selection marked a symbolic changing of the guard. It was part of Le Pen’s decadelong effort to rebrand her party, with its history of racism, and remove the stigma of antisemitism that clung to it in order to broaden its base. She has notably distanced herself from her now-ostracized father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who co-founded the party, then called the National Front, and who has been repeatedly convicted of hate speech.

Bardella is part of a generation of young people who joined the party under Marine Le Pen in the 2010s but likely wouldn’t have done so under her father.

Since joining at age 17, he has risen quickly through the ranks, serving as party spokesperson and president of its youth wing, before being appointed vice president and becoming the second-youngest member of the European Parliament in history, in 2019.

“Jordan Bardella is the creation of Marine Le Pen,” said Cécile Alduy, a Stanford University professor of French politics and literature, and an expert on the far right. “He has been made by her and is extremely loyal.”

On the campaign trail, Le Pen and Bardella have presented themselves as American-style running mates, with Le Pen vying for the presidency while pushing him to be prime minister, Alduy said. “They are completely in line politically.”

How did he become the movement’s poster child?

It wasn’t only having a different last name that made Bardella an attractive prospect for a party seeking to widen its appeal beyond its traditionally older, rural voter base.

Bardella was born in the north Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis in 1995 to parents of Italian origin, with Algerian roots on his father’s side — and far from seeking to deny these roots, he has used them to soften the tone (if not the content) of his party’s anti-immigration stance and its hostility to France’s Muslim community.

Although Bardella attended a semi-private Catholic school and his father was fairly well-off, party-sanctioned accounts have stressed his upbringing in a rundown housing project beset by poverty and drugs. Never having finished university, Bardella’s relatively modest background set him apart from the establishment.

What’s more, he could tell people directly — and crucially young voters — about it. With over 1.7 million followers on TikTok and 750,000 on Instagram, Bardella has found an audience for his slick social media content, which ranges from more traditional campaign material to videos mocking Macron and seemingly candid glimpses into the life of the National Rally’s would-be prime minister.

With a neat, clean-shaven look and social media savvy, he has posed for selfies with screaming fans. While his rhetoric is strong on hot-button issues like immigration — “France is disappearing” is his tagline — he has been relatively blurry on specifics.

What is he proposing for France?

It was Bardella who in a post on X called on Macron to dissolve the parliament and call early elections after the president’s centrist group suffered a crushing defeat by the National Rally at European elections in June.

When Macron did just that, Bardella, often wearing a suit and tie, hit the campaign trail, toning down his popstar image to seem more statesman-like despite his lack of experience in government.

In recent months, the National Rally has softened some of its most controversial positions, including pedaling back some of its proposals for more public spending and protectionist economic policies, and taking France out of NATO’s strategic military command.

Laying out the party’s new program, Bardella said that as prime minister he would promote law and order, tighter regulation of migration and restricting certain social benefits, such as housing, to French citizens only. He said that dual citizens would be barred from some specific key jobs, such as state employees in the defense and security field. He promised to cut taxes on fuel, gas and electricity, and pledged a rollback of Macron’s pension changes. His law-and-order minded government would also extend to the nation’s public schools, extending the ban on cellphones to high schools.

Rivals say his policies could do lasting damage to the French economy and violate human rights.

On the international front, Bardella has aimed to counter allegations that Le Pen’s party has long been friendly toward Russia and President Vladimir Putin. He said he regards Russia as “a multidimensional threat both for France and Europe,” and said he would be “extremely vigilant” of any Russian attempts to interfere with French interests. Although he supports continued deliveries of French weaponry to Ukraine, he would not send French troops to help the country defend itself. He would also not allow sending long-rage missiles capable of striking targets within Russia.

For voters with low incomes or who feel left out of economic successes in Paris or the globalized economy, Bardella offers an appealing choice, Alduy said.

“The feeling of vulnerability people have to factors that are beyond their control, calls for a radical change in the minds of many voters,” she said. “He has a clean slate and comes with no baggage of the past.”
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NATO to discuss Russia-North Korea military cooperation

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Washington — The NATO summit scheduled for this week will include a discussion among the allies about strengthening security ties with South Korea and Japan against deepening military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, experts said.

The leaders of 32 NATO members will convene in Washington July 9 to 11 to discuss ways to provide continued military support to Ukraine to help it defend itself against Russia, which invaded more than two years ago.

Australia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea — sometimes referred to as the Indo-Pacific 4 or IP4 — are invited to the NATO summit. The United States, Japan and South Korea plan to meet on the sidelines of the summit.

Among the items that analysts expect NATO to discuss with Japan and South Korea is the growing military cooperation between Russia and North Korea.

“The Russian-North Korean agreement is a problem for both NATO countries and for the countries in the Northeast Asia,” said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation.

“I expect that it will be discussed at this meeting. It may become a critical aspect of the meeting, if, by that time, intelligence is saying that North Korea is sending many military personnel to support Russia in Ukraine,” Bennett said.

After Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense pact in Pyongyang last month, some speculated that North Korea could dispatch army engineers to Russian-occupied Donetsk to rebuild the war-torn region.

Pentagon press secretary Major General Patrick Ryder said at a press conference on June 25 that the U.S. is keeping an eye on a possible dispatch of troops but warned North Korea about sending military forces, saying they would be “cannon fodder in an illegal war against Ukraine.”

North Korea on June 27 renewed its support for Russia’s war against Ukraine, saying, “We will always be on the side of the Russian army” in “the war of justice.”

Both Washington and Seoul have estimated that Pyongyang sent about 10,000 containers of munitions to Russia. Moscow and Pyongyang denied arms exchanges between the two.

But in the defense pact that Putin and Kim signed last month, they agreed to set up ways to bolster their defense capabilities and openly announced possible military and technical cooperation.

“NATO members will discuss the implications of closer Russia-North Korea relations and how best to respond, including in terms of risks and opportunities,” said Matthew Brummer, a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies in Tokyo.

“Risks primarily include material outcomes, such as how North Korea involvement will come to bear on warfighting in Ukraine. But there are also opportunities to be exploited, including how to use increased North Korea involvement to drive a wedge between China and Russia,” he said.

“The reemerging axis between China, Russia and North Korea has most certainly precipitated the security link between Europe and Asia. As a result, I expect increased NATO involvement in East Asia, especially with Japan, which is the world’s greatest latent military power,” Brummer said.

Beijing said that it is keeping “a close eye” on the NATO summit and that it hopes the summit does not “target any third party.”

Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told VOA on Tuesday that “the Asia-Pacific lies beyond the geographical scope of the North Atlantic” and that “NATO’s attempt to make eastward inroads into the Asia-Pacific will inevitably undermine regional peace and stability.”

“The countries and people in this region are on high alert against this and firmly oppose any words or actions designed to bring military blocs into this region and stoke division and confrontation,” he said.

The U.S. State Department did not respond to an inquiry by VOA’s Korean Service seeking a response to Beijing’s comments.

Luis Simon, director of the Elcano Royal Institute in Brussels, Belgium, said he would not rule out NATO countries conducting joint military exercises with its East Asian partners “in the Korean Peninsula context rather than in a China context” because it offers “diplomatically an easier entry point.”

At the same time, he said, “It will be more with NATO allies rather than the NATO as a whole because NATO as a whole is very clear about being laser focused” on defending Ukraine.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force announced on June 25 that it will hold a series of joint drills in July with Germany, Spain and France — all NATO members.

David Maxwell, vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy, also said that bilateral arrangements between South Korea and individual NATO countries could be possible as “a number of NATO countries are member states of the United Nations Command.”

The U.N. Command is a multinational military body created during the Korean War of 1950-53 to defend against North Korean aggression.

Some analysts said there are limits to NATO’s involvement in the Indo-Pacific.

“Most of the countries in NATO are focused on the Atlantic area, and those who have projection capabilities” that can go beyond that “have rather small ones,” said Barry Posen, Ford international professor of political science at MIT.

William Ruger, a nonresident senior fellow at Defense Priorities, said U.S. “capabilities, material and policy bandwidth” are not sufficient to deal with the security of both Europe and Asia.
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Oldest inhabited termite mounds have been active for 34,000 years

Posted on by SeeAF

CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills.

Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be 34,000 years old, according to the researchers from Stellenbosch University.

“We knew they were old, but not that old,” said Michele Francis, senior lecturer in the university’s department of soil science who led the study. Her paper was published in May.

Francis said the mounds existed while saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths roamed other parts of the Earth and large swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They predate some of the earliest cave paintings in Europe.

Some fossilized termite mounds have been discovered dating back millions of years. The oldest inhabited mounds before this study were found in Brazil and are around 4,000 years old. They are visible from space.

Francis said the Namaqualand mounds are a termite version of an “apartment complex” and the evidence shows they have been consistently inhabited by termite colonies.

Termite mounds are a famous feature of the Namaqualand landscape, but no one suspected their age until samples of them were taken to experts in Hungary for radiocarbon dating.

“People don’t know that these are special, ancient landscapes that are preserved there,” Francis said.

Some of the biggest mounds — known locally as “heuweltjies,” which means little hills in the Afrikaans language — measure around 30 meters across. The termite nests are as deep as 3 meters underground.

Researchers needed to carefully excavate parts of the mounds to take samples, and the termites went into “emergency mode” and started filling in the holes, Francis said.

The team fully reconstructed the mounds to keep the termites safe from predators like aardvarks.

Francis said the project was more than just a fascinating look at ancient structures. It also offered a peek into a prehistoric climate that showed Namaqualand was a much wetter place when the mounds were formed.

The southern harvester termites are experts at capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and other dead wood and putting it back deep into the soil. That has benefits in offsetting climate change by reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.

It’s also good for the soil. Masses of wildflowers bloom on top of the termite mounds in a region that receives little rain.

Francis called for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change, sustaining ecosystems and maybe even for improving agricultural practices.

“We will do well to study what the termites have done in the mounds. They were thought to be very boring,” she said.
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