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  • Charismatic leader is gone but Wagner will survive in Africa, analysts say

    Charismatic leader is gone but Wagner will survive in Africa, analysts say

    Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, just left Mali where he filmed a video pledging to make “Africa even more free” before he presumably perished in a plane crash in his home country.

    His apparent death – it has yet to be officially confirmed – has sparked concerns for some client governments in Africa who rely on his unique services.

    Patronage of Prigozhin’s private military force has been on the rise in recent years since some African governments started turning towards Russia as an alternative international partner in their fight against rising insecurity from various armed groups.

    President Faustin-Archange Touadéra of the Central Africa Republic (CAR) was the first to turn to the feared militia in 2018, but the shifting sands of democratic governments that have seen a rise in military takeovers in the Sahel region opened the door widely for Wagner.

    Across the Sahel and central Africa, armed groups have continued to expand rapidly, their rise coinciding with protests against former colonial power France, which still wields enormous influence across the region.

    Prigozhin was the face of the group’s operations as he crisscrossed between Ukraine and Africa, pushing his stock-in-trade. His death, analysts say, will put a clog in the Wagner machine in Africa.

    “Progozhin himself was this incredibly charismatic, larger-than-life figure who had the managerial and business abilities to somehow bring all of these disparate entities and people together,” said John Lechner, a security analyst and author of a forthcoming book on the Wagner Group.

    Will expansion continue?

    When Prigozhin staged an aborted mutiny in Russia in June, exactly two months before his death, clouds began to hover over the military-business empire Prigozhin built on the continent.

    Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, at the time said the group’s operations would continue. But the fatal crash that claimed his life and his trusted lieutenant Dmitry Utkins has raised questions about what happens next.

    “It does not very much change in places like Mali and CAR because there were already relationships and contracts. And the Russians said they would honour those contracts. The real question is what happens in the countries Wagner was trying to expand its presence, places like Burkina Faso and Niger. Will that expansion continue under the Russian government?” Cameron Hudson, a senior associate in the Centre for Strategic and International Studies’s Africa programme, said.

    The brief mutiny in Russia back in June was the climax of a growing schism between Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defence over the handling of the war in Ukraine. But African governments had also been caught in a delicate balancing act between the shadowy mercenary group and the Russian government.

    The Malian coup-makers continue to refer to the armed group as “Russian instructors”, though CAR authorities are more forthcoming.

    “CAR authorities have always been uncomfortable,” Charles Bouessel, senior analyst on CAR for International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera.

    “They did not know who to praise for Wagner’s assistance. Sometimes, they are thanking the Russian authorities and sometimes, they are thanking Prigozhin. But what they want is that the Russian assistance continues, and they would be cautious in expressing their opinion [on Prigozhin’s death] intimately.”

    ‘Degree of deniability’

    Officials have expressed that their commitment was to Russia and not to the mercenary group itself. Fidele Gouandjika, an adviser to CAR’s president, told the media that Prigozhin’s death would not change the relationship with Moscow.

    Experts have said even though Prigozhin’s charm offensive will be notably absent, the Kremlin will ensure to maintain its influence on the continent.

    “There are a lot of Russian institutions benefitting from Russia’s presence in Africa and they will want to see those relationships continue,” Lechner said.

    However, the tussle between Wagner and the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, might recalibrate the diplomatic relationship between African governments and Russia.

    “I think they are going to have a rethink of their approach … Countries that were considering a relationship with Wagner are all going to think if they want the same kind of relationship with Moscow. Because with the Wagner Group, there was some degree of deniability,” said Hudson.

    ‘Claustrophobic environment’

    Niger is the latest country to eye Wagner. Since the presidential guard seized power, it has publicly fallen out with the West. The regional bloc ECOWAS has threatened to invade the country in order to restore President Mohamed Bazoum, who was removed in a coup on July 26.

    With Prigozhin’s death, Wagner’s appeal to new countries seeking Wagner’s military assistance might dwindle, but analysts have said the militia can still make inroads into new territories.

    “I think we should not be surprised if Wagner still shows up in Niger, even after Prigozhin’s death,” Lechner told Al Jazeera. “We are still in a claustrophobic environment where African governments looking to partner with outside countries on security have relatively few choices.”

    Since 2020, there have been nine coups in Africa, according to a count by SBM, a geopolitical advisory firm in Nigeria. In this period, five of the 15 ECOWAS member nations are now under military rule.

    This spate of coups, experts said, is a recipe for mercenary groups as military governments are pushing to consolidate their grip on power amid pressure from the West, and the decline of democratic governments will continue to invite such private military interventions.

    “Illegitimate governments in Africa need security assistance for their hold on power and regime. That is the point of all of these: it is not the supply of armed mercenaries, it is the demand of armed mercenaries,” Hudson said.

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  • Latest news: Russia’s war in Ukraine

    Latest news: Russia’s war in Ukraine

    The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has detained four more employees of military enlistment offices as part of an ongoing crackdown on corruption, the agency said in a statement Saturday. 

    Those detained are employees in military enlistment offices and heads of military medical commissions “who ‘helped’ evaders to avoid conscription and escape abroad,” the SBU said. 

    “In exchange for money, the officials offered conscripts to evade mobilization on the basis of fictitious documents on their medical unfitness for military service,” SBU said. 

    The cost of such “services” was up to $10,000 per person, the SBU said, adding “the amount depended on the timeframe for ‘resolving the issues’ and the financial capabilities of the ‘clients.’”

    In Kyiv: The head of the district military enlistment office and the head of one of the capital’s military medical commissions were detained “for selling fake medical certificates about the presence of severe diagnoses,” the SBU said. 

    “The evaders used the purchased fake documents to avoid conscription and further travel outside Ukraine,” it added. 

    In the Kharkiv region: The head of a district military enlistment office in the northeastern Kharkiv region was detained after illegally gaining around $300,000 from potential conscripts. He also involved three officials of a local hospital in illegal activities, according to the SBU.

    “In exchange for bribes, they ‘found’ ‘health problems’ in conscripts, which became a formal basis for deregistration,” it said.

    In Odesa: SBU cyber specialists also shut down a corruption scheme in Odesa involving the secretary of the local military medical commission.

    “Together with a Kyiv lawyer and two accomplices, they set up a large-scale sale of falsified documents on unfitness for military service,” the SBU said.

    The suspects searched for their clients all over Ukraine and then registered them with the Odesa military enlistment office “to ‘write them off’ from military service,” according to the agency. 

    “Currently, the secretary of this military medical commission and her accomplices have been detained red-handed. They have already been notified of suspicion and the issue of choosing a preventive measure is being decided,” it said. 

    Probes ongoing: Investigations involving all the cases are still active, the SBU said. The operation was conducted jointly with the National Police under the supervision of the Prosecutor’s Office.

    The offenders face up to 10 years in prison as well as confiscation of property, according to the agency. 

    Remember: Earlier in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he has dismissed all officials in charge of regional military recruitment centers amid a widespread corruption scandal. On August 11, he said there were 112 criminal proceedings against officials at military registration and enlistment offices.  

    At the beginning of the year, Zelensky also fired a number of senior officials over involvement in a scandal linked to the procurement of wartime supplies. 

    The investigations are part of a major government shakeup aimed at eradicating corruption. Tackling corruption has been a key condition for Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. 

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  • FIFA suspends Spanish football president Rubiales for 90 days after kiss

    FIFA suspends Spanish football president Rubiales for 90 days after kiss

    FIFA’s disciplinary committee investigating his conduct at the Women’s World Cup final, where he kissed a player without her consent.

    FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee has provisionally suspended Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) head Luis Rubiales for 90 days after he grabbed player Jenni Hermoso’s head and kissed her on the lips after Spain’s victory at the Women’s World Cup.

    Rubiales had been expected to announce his resignation on Friday but instead said he would not step down and the RFEF threatened legal action to defend him after Hermoso said she did not consent to the kiss he gave her.

    “The chairman of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee … has decided today to provisionally suspend Mr Luis Rubiales from all football-related activities at national and international level,” FIFA said in a statement on Saturday.

    FIFA’s move is the latest development in a deepening confrontation between Rubiales and the RFEF and Hermoso and her Spain teammates, which the players say has tarnished the glory of their World Cup win in Australia last Sunday.

    The Spanish national team that won the World Cup, as well as several other players, have said they would not play international matches while Rubiales remains head of the federation.

    FIFA’s disciplinary committee also ordered Rubiales and RFEF officials and employees alike to refrain from contacting or attempting to contact Hermoso or those around her.

    “The decision adopted by the chairman of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee has been communicated today to Mr Luis Rubiales, the RFEF and [European football body] UEFA for due compliance.”

    Rubiales said he would defend himself.

    A statement released by the Spanish football federation on Saturday said, “Luis Rubiales has stated he will legally defend himself in the competent bodies, he fully trusts FIFA and reiterates that, in this way, he is given the opportunity to begin his defence so that the truth prevails and his complete innocence is proven.

    ‘Global laughing stock’

    FIFA had already said earlier this week it launched an ethics probe against Rubiales. Further information on the proceedings will not be provided “until a final decision has been taken”, FIFA said.

    Rubiales is also a vice president of UEFA, holding the number-three-ranking elected position at the top of the European football body, which pays him 250,000 euros ($270,000) annually plus expenses.

    He was elected to the executive committee by UEFA member federations in 2019 and was within weeks promoted to the vice presidency by UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin. Neither UEFA nor Ceferin have commented on the Rubiales scandal this week.

    In a complex situation, Spain’s government, via its Higher Council for Sports, filed a lawsuit on Friday alleging Rubiales violated the country’s sports laws through sexist acts. Spain’s secretary of state for sports, Víctor Francos, said the government would move to temporarily suspend Rubiales – pending the court ruling – if the court agreed to hear the case.

    If found guilty by the Spanish court, Rubiales could be ruled unfit to hold office. Francos said he would ask the court to move its regular Thursday meeting up to Monday.

    Messages of support for Hermoso poured in from the world of women’s football, and beyond.

    Real Madrid, Barcelona and other clubs issued statements criticising Rubiales and backing the government’s move to remove him.

    “I want to give my unconditional support to Jennifer Hermoso and the players. I condemn the behaviour of the president of the Spanish Football Federation. And I regret that people aren’t talking about the historic achievement of winning the World Cup,” said Xavi Hernandez, Barcelona’s manager.

    Political parties from both the left and right in Spain said Rubiales was unfit to continue in his post. Iberia airlines and other sponsors for the federations said they were with the government as well.

    On Saturday, Spanish sports daily Marca summed up the previous day’s events with a front-page headline “Global Laughing Stock” over a photo of a smiling Rubiales walking between rows of the general assembly.

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  • Rome: As hot as always

    Rome: As hot as always

    A look at how ancient Romans coped with hot weather and how global warming has affected modern-day culture.

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  • Putin sends condolences to Wagner chief Prigozhin’s family after crash | CNN

    Putin sends condolences to Wagner chief Prigozhin’s family after crash | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first public comments Thursday on the plane crash believed to have killed Yevgeny Prigozhin, saying the Wagner leader had made “serious mistakes in life.”

    Putin said he was sending condolences to “Wagner Group employees” on board the plane that crashed on Wednesday.

    The crash took place northwest of Moscow and killed all on board, said Russia’s aviation agency, including Prigozhin, chief of the mercenary group that gained prominence for its brutal methods worldwide and its battleground victories in the Ukraine war.

    “First of all, I want to express my sincere condolences to the families of all the victims, this is always a tragedy. Indeed, if they were there, it seems … preliminary information suggests that Wagner Group employees were also on board,” Putin said during a meeting with the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Denis Pushilin in the Kremlin. 

    Speaking about Prigozhin in the past tense, Putin said he’d known the Wagner chief “for a very long time,” and that he was “a talented man, a talented businessman.”

    “He was a man of difficult fate, and he made serious mistakes in life, and he achieved the results needed both for himself and when I asked him about it – for a common cause, as in these last months,” the Russian president said.

    The crash of Prigozhin’s plane happened two months after Prigozhin and Wagner staged their insurrection, the biggest challenge to Putin’s rule in over two decades.

    Just days after the mutiny, a furious Putin made it clear that he viewed the actions of Wagner as a form of treason. While he did not mention Prigozhin by name, he accused “the organizers of the rebellion” of betraying Russia itself.

    A witness to the crash told Reuters he saw a wing fly off the plane before it headed toward the ground on Wednesday. “It glided down on one wing. It didn’t nose-dive, it was gliding,” he said.

    Prigozhin’s apparent death follows a series of incidents in which Kremlin critics have died or had attempts made on their life.

    No evidence has been presented that points to the involvement of the Kremlin or Russian security services in the crash. The cause of the crash is unknown and Russian authorities have launched a criminal investigation.

    Putin pledged this investigation would be thorough. “But what is absolutely certain, the head of the Investigative Committee reported to me this morning. They have already launched a preliminary investigation into this incident. And it will be carried out in full and brought to completion,” Putin said. 

    US President Joe Biden, prominent Russia critic Bill Browder and Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak have all suggested they believe Putin was behind the crash.

    CNN spoke to several individuals in Russia about the crash on Thursday. All agreed to be identified only by their first name so they could speak freely without fear of retribution.

    No one CNN spoke to believed Ukraine was responsible for the crash. Many openly speculated about its cause, including whether Russian President Vladimir Putin brought down the jet as retribution for Prigozhin’s failed mutiny in June.

    “He was killed by Putin, who does not forgive betrayal,” said Alexey from Moscow. “Putin was behind it or it could have been his Politburo but Putin knew and approved.”

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  • Ukraine picks up momentum, retakes second town in a week

    Ukraine picks up momentum, retakes second town in a week

    Ukrainian forces appear to have captured a Russian stronghold on the southern front in the 78th week of the war – a possible indication that after months of painstaking assaults, they have broken through the hard shell of some of Russia’s front-line defences.

    Geolocated footage appeared to show Ukrainian forces in the centre of Robotyne, a town in the western part of Zaporizhia, on August 20 and 21.

    The following day, the 47th Mechanised Brigade published footage of its soldiers evacuating civilians from Robotyne accompanied by journalists.

    Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar said the civilians were at risk from Russian shelling, as fighting continued.

    Ukraine also said its forces had broken through some Russian defences in nearby Mala Tokmachka.

    The advances came on the heels of the recapture of Urozhaine, a village in Donetsk near the eastern edge of Zaporizhia, on August 12, and its neighbour Staromaiorske on July 27.

    The Washington-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said these advances in Robotyne and Mala Tokmachka were “tactically significant”, because they “may allow Ukrainian forces to begin operating in less heavily mined areas of the Russian line of defence that are likely more conducive to more rapid Ukrainian gains”.

    CBS News reported on August 18 that Ukrainian forces had cleared a Russian minefield north of Mala Tokmachka.

     

    Not all assessments of the war were optimistic for Ukraine.

    The US intelligence community did not believe Ukraine could achieve its counteroffensive’s main objective of recapturing the southern city of Melitopol, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed officials.

    Melitopol’s capture would cut the Russian front in two. The Donbas would be unable to supply Crimea, and vice versa.

    But the officials also predicted that Ukrainian forces would come within “several miles” of Melitopol before the counteroffensive was over.

    That would be a significant victory for Ukraine, said St Andrews University strategy professor Phillips O’Brien, given that Ukraine is still fighting for Robotyne, 75km (46.6 miles) away from Melitopol.

    “A Ukrainian advance to within a few miles of Melitopol would bring the critical road and rail connections on which Russia relies to supply its forces within range of Ukrainian artillery systems, severely compromising Russia’s ability to continue to use them for that purpose,” wrote the Institute for the Study of War, saying there were ways other than the recapture of Melitopol to sever the Russian land bridge.

    The eastern front

    There appeared to be some Ukrainian success in the eastern town of Bakhmut as well.

    Maliar said troops had advanced three square kilometres in the southern Bakhmut area in a week, bringing the total reclaimed area there to 43 square kilometres since the counteroffensive began on June 4.

    “If you look at the map, it looks more like a horseshoe now,” Maliar said, as Ukrainian troops slowly flanked the captured city.

    Russian forces did mount an assault of their own on August 20 and appeared to regain some of their lost territory on the south flank.

    But Maliar said the Russian position was untenable.

    “The Defense Forces of Ukraine have occupied the dominant heights there and are harassing the enemy. Now the enemy is trapped there – it cannot get out of there, it cannot fully advance there,” Maliar was reported as having said.

    Russian claims of success against Kupiansk, in Ukraine’e east, turned out to be a canard. Kharkiv region’s occupation head Vitaly Ganchev circulated footage purporting to show Russian forces in Synkivka. Russian military reporters who had repeated the claim later dialled it back, denouncing the footage as fake.

    Low Russian morale

    The story may have been an attempt to boost flagging Russian morale. Vostok Battalion commander Alexander Khodakovsky became the latest Russian commander to express unhappiness with the prosecution of the war on August 17, suggesting a military victory was not possible, and floating the idea of a truce.

    Vostok was the battalion that lost control of Urozhaine.

    Major General Ivan Popov had also expressed unhappiness with Russian management in early July and was dismissed for it. He commanded the 58th Combined Arms Army, which was then losing ground near Robotyne.

    And the infamous Yevgeny Prigozhin, financier of the Wagner mercenary group, reported killed on August 23, had suggested freezing the war as early as April.

    There were other signs of low Russian morale.

    Ukrainian military intelligence said the crew of a Russian Mi-8 helicopter landed their craft at a Ukrainian airfield and surrendered on August 23.

    “Work is now under way with the crew,” said spokesman Andriy Yusov.

    Russia was in for some bad news off the battlefield as well.

    Russian central bank data revealed an 85 percent drop in the country’s current account surplus from January to July, compared with the same period last year, suggesting that a Western ban on oil and other exports was biting.

    Russia’s surplus for the first seven months of 2023 was $25bn. Last year, it was $165bn. Energy export revenues alone tumbled by 41 percent.

    Two weeks ago, Reuters news agency reported that Russia had doubled its defence spending to $100bn this year, representing a third of the budget.

    Taken together, the two reports suggested that Russian state finances were becoming strained.

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  • Moscow court extends WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention | CNN

    Moscow court extends WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich’s pre-trial detention | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A Moscow court has extended the pre-trial detention of Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich, who had been arrested on espionage charges, by three months.

    His pretrial detention has been extended until November 30, the press service of the Lefortovo Court said Thursday. It had been due to end on August 30.

    Gershkovich has been detained in Russia since March following his arrest on charges that he, the WSJ, and the US government vehemently deny.

    The US State Department has officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia. US President Joe Biden has also been blunt about Gershkovich’s arrest, urging Russia to “let him go.”

    This is a breaking news story. More details to follow.

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  • Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics

    Fact check: The first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 election | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Republican presidential candidates delivered a smattering of false and misleading claims at the first debate of the 2024 election – though none of the eight candidates on stage in Milwaukee delivered anything close to the bombardment of false statements that typically characterized the debate performances of former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner who skipped the Wednesday event.

    Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina inaccurately described the state of the economy in early 2021 and repeated a long-ago-debunked false claim about the Biden-era Justice Department. Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie misstated the sentence attached to a gun law relevant to the investigation into the president’s son Hunter Biden. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis misled about his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, omitting mention of his early pandemic restrictions.

    Below is a fact check of those claims and various others from the debate, some of which left out key context. In addition, below is a brief fact check of some of Trump’s claims from a pre-taped interview he did with Tucker Carlson, which was posted online shortly before the debate aired. Trump made a variety of statements that were not true.

    DeSantis and the pandemic

    DeSantis criticized the federal government for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, claiming it had locked down the economy, and then said: “In Florida, we led the country out of lockdown, and we kept our state free and open.”

    Facts First: DeSantis’s claim is misleading at best. Before he became a vocal opponent of pandemic restrictions, DeSantis imposed significant restrictions on individuals, businesses and other entities in Florida in March 2020 and April 2020; some of them extended months later into 2020. He did then open up the state, with a gradual phased approach, but he did not keep it open from the start.

    DeSantis received criticism in March 2020 for what some critics perceived as a lax approach to the pandemic, which intensified as Florida beaches were packed during Spring Break. But that month and the month following, DeSantis issued a series of major restrictions. For example, DeSantis:

    • Closed Florida’s schools, first with a short-term closure in March 2020 and then, in April 2020, with a shutdown through the end of the school year. (In June 2020, he announced a plan for schools to reopen for the next school year that began in August. By October 2020, he was publicly denouncing school closures, calling them a major mistake and saying all the information hadn’t been available that March.)
    • On March 14, 2020, announced a ban on most visits to nursing homes. (He lifted the ban in September 2020.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered bars and nightclubs to close for 30 days and restaurants to operate at half-capacity. (He later approved a phased reopening plan that took effect in May 2020, then issued an order in September 2020 allowing these establishments to operate at full capacity.)
    • On March 17, 2020, ordered gatherings on public beaches to be limited to a maximum of 10 people staying at least six feet apart, then, three days later, ordered a shutdown of public beaches in two populous counties, Broward and Palm Beach. (He permitted those counties’ beaches to reopen by the last half of May.)
    • On March 20, 2020, prohibited “any medically unnecessary, non-urgent or non-emergency” medical procedures. (The prohibition was lifted in early May 2020.)
    • On March 23, 2020, ordered that anyone flying to Florida from an area with “substantial community spread” of the virus, “to include the New York Tri-State Area (Connecticut, New Jersey and New York),” isolate or quarantine for 14 days or the duration of their stay in Florida, whichever was shorter, or face possible jail time or a fine. Later that week, he added Louisiana to the list. (He lifted the Louisiana restriction in June 2020 and the rest in August 2020.)
    • On April 3, 2020, imposed a statewide stay-home order that temporarily required people in Florida to “limit their movements and personal interactions outside of their home to only those necessary to obtain or provide essential services or conduct essential activities.” (Beginning in May 2020, the state switched to a phased reopening plan that, for months, included major restrictions on the operations of businesses and other entities; DeSantis described it at the time as a “very slow and methodical approach” to reopening.)

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

    Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and US ambassador to the United Nations, said: “Donald Trump added $8 trillion to our debt, and our kids are never going to forgive us for this.”

    Facts First: Haley’s figure is accurate. The total public debt stood at about $19.9 trillion on the day Trump took office in 2017 and then increased by about $7.8 trillion over Trump’s four years, to about $27.8 trillion on the day he left office in 2021.

    It’s worth noting, however, that the increase in the debt during any president’s tenure is not the fault of that president alone. A significant amount of spending under any president is the result of decisions made by their predecessors – such as the creation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid decades ago – and by circumstances out of a president’s control, notably including the global Covid-19 pandemic under Trump; the debt spiked in 2020 after Trump approved trillions in emergency pandemic relief spending that Congress had passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

    Still, Trump did choose to approve that spending. And his 2017 tax cuts, unanimously opposed by congressional Democrats, were another major contributor to the debt spike.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale and Katie Lobosco

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum claimed that Biden’s signature climate bill costs $1.2 trillion dollars and is “just subsidizing China.”

    Facts First: This claim needs context. The clean energy pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act – Democrats’ climate bill – passed with an initial price tag of nearly $370 billion. However, since that bill is made up of tax incentives, that price tag could go up depending on how many consumers take advantage of tax credits to buy electric vehicles and put solar panels on their homes, and how many businesses use the subsidies to install new utility scale wind and solar in the United States.

    Burgum’s figure comes from a Goldman Sachs report, which estimated the IRA could provide $1.2 trillion in clean energy tax incentives by 2032 – about a decade from now.

    On Burgum’s claim that Biden’s clean energy agenda will be a boon to China, the IRA was specifically written to move the manufacturing supply chain for clean energy technology like solar panels and EV batteries away from China and to the United States.

    In the year since it was passed, the IRA has spurred 83 new or expanded manufacturing facilities in the US, and close to 30,000 new clean energy manufacturing jobs, according to a tally from trade group American Clean Power.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    With the economy as one of the main topics on the forefront of voters’ minds, Scott aimed to make a case for Republican policies, misleadingly suggesting they left the US economy in record shape before Biden took office.

    “There is no doubt that during the Trump administration, when we were dealing with the COVID virus, we spent more money,” Scott said. “But here’s what happened at the end of our time in the majority: we had low unemployment, record low unemployment, 3.5% for the majority of the population, and a 70-year low for women. African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians had an all-time low.”

    Facts First: This is false. Scott’s claims don’t accurately reflect the state of the US economy at the end of the Republican majority in the Senate. And in some cases, his exaggerations echo what Trump himself frequently touted about the economy under his leadership.

    By the time Trump left office and the Republicans lost the Senate majority in January 2021, US unemployment was not at a record low. The US unemployment rate dropped to a seasonally adjusted rate of 3.5% in September 2019, the country’s lowest in 50 years. While it hovered around that level for five months, Scott’s assertion ignores the coronavirus pandemic-induced economic destruction that followed. In April 2020, the unemployment rate spiked to 14.7% — the highest level since monthly records began in 1948. As of December 2020, the unemployment rate was at 6.7%.

    Nor was the unemployment rate for women at a 70-year low by the end of Trump’s time in office. It reached a 66-year low during certain months of 2019, at 3.4% in April and 3.6% in August, but by December 2020, unemployment for women was at 6.7%.

    The unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians were also not at all-time lows at the end of 2020, but they did reach record lows during Trump’s tenure as president.

    -From CNN’s Tara Subramaniam

    Scott said that the Justice Department under President Joe Biden is targeting “parents that show up at school board meetings. They are called, under this DOJ, they’re called domestic terrorists.”

    Facts First: It is false that the Justice Department referred to parents as domestic terrorists. The claim has been debunked several times – during the uproar at school boards over Covid-19 restrictions and anti-racism curriculums; after Kevin McCarthy claimed Republicans would investigate Merrick Garland with a majority in the House; and even by a federal judge. The Justice Department never called parents terrorists for attending or wanting to attend school board meetings.

    The claim stems from a 2021 letter from The National School Boards Associations asking the Justice Department to “deal with” the uptick in threats against education officials and saying that “acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials” could be classified as “the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” In response, Garland released a memo encouraging federal and local authorities to work together against the harassment campaigns levied at schools, but never endorsed the “domestic terrorism” notion.

    A federal judge even threw out a lawsuit over the accusation, ruling that Garland’s memo did little more than announce a “series of measures” that directed federal authorities to address increasing threats targeting school board members, teachers and other school employees.

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, said the US is spending “less than three and a half percent of our defense budget” on Ukraine aid, and that in terms of financial aid relative to GDP, “11 of the European countries have given more than the US.”

    Facts First: This is partly true. Haley’s claim regarding the US aid to Ukraine compared to the total defense budget is slightly under the actual percentage, but it is accurate that 11 European countries have given more aid to Ukraine as a percentage of their total GDP than the US.

    As of August 14, the US has committed more than $43 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to the Defense Department. In comparison, the Fiscal Year 2023 defense budget was $858 billion – making aid to Ukraine just over 5% of the total US defense budget.

    As of May 2023, according to a Council of Foreign Relations tracker, 11 countries were providing a higher share in aid to Ukraine relative to their GDP than the US – led by Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Former Vice President Mike Pence said Wednesday that the Trump administration “spent funding to backfill on the military cuts of the Obama administration.”

    Facts First: This is misleading. While military spending decreased under the Obama administration, it was largely due to the 2011 Budget Control Act, which received Republican support and resulted in automatic spending cuts to the defense budget.

    Mike Pence, a senator at the time, voted in favor of the Budget Control Act.

    -From CNN’s Haley Britzky

    Christie said President Biden’s son Hunter Biden was “facing a 10-year mandatory minimum” for lying on a federal form when he purchased a gun in 2018.

    Facts First: Christie, a former federal prosecutor, clearly misstated the law. This crime can lead to a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, but it doesn’t have a 10-year mandatory minimum.

    These comments are related to the highly scrutinized Justice Department investigation into Hunter Biden, which is currently ongoing after a plea deal fell apart earlier this summer.

    As part of the now-defunct deal, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two tax misdemeanors and enter into a “diversion agreement” with prosecutors, who would drop the gun possession charge in two years if he consistently stayed out of legal trouble and passed drug tests.

    The law in question makes it a crime to purchase a firearm while using or addicted to illegal drugs. Hunter Biden has acknowledged struggling with crack cocaine addiction at the time, and admitted at a court hearing and in court papers that he violated this law by signing the form.

    The US Sentencing Commission says, “The statutory maximum penalty for the offense is ten years of imprisonment.” There isn’t a mandatory 10-year punishment, as Christie claimed.

    During his answer, Christie also criticized the Justice Department for agreeing to a deal in June where Hunter Biden could avoid prosecution on the felony gun offense. That deal was negotiated by special counsel David Weiss, who was first appointed to the Justice Department by former President Donald Trump.

    -From CNN’s Marshall Cohen

    Burgum and Scott got into a back and forth over IRS staffing with Burgum saying that the “Biden administration wanted to put 87,000 people in the IRS,” and Scott suggesting they “fire the 87,000 IRS agents.”

    Facts First: This figure needs context.

    The Inflation Reduction Act, which passed last year without any Republican votes, authorized $80 billion in new funding for the IRS to be delivered over the course of a decade.

    The 87,000 figure comes from a 2021 Treasury report that estimated the IRS could hire 86,852 full-time employees with a nearly $80 billion investment over 10 years.

    While the funding may well allow for the hiring of tens of thousands of IRS employees over time, far from all of these employees will be IRS agents conducting audits and investigations.

    Many other employees will be hired for the non-agent roles, from customer service to information technology, that make up most of the IRS workforce. And a significant number of the hires are expected to fill the vacant posts left by retirements and other attrition, not take newly created positions.

    The IRS has not said precisely how many new “agents” will be hired with the funding. But it is already clear that the total won’t approach 87,000. And it’s worth noting that the IRS may not receive all of the $80 billion after Republicans were able to claw back $20 billion of the new funding as part of a deal to address the debt ceiling made earlier this year.

    -From CNN’s Katie Lobosco

    Trump repeated a frequent claim during his interview with Carlson that streamed during the GOP debate that his retention of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after leaving the White House was “covered” under the Presidential Records Act and that he is “allowed to do exactly that.”

    Facts First: This is false. The Presidential Records Act says the exact opposite – that the moment presidents leave office, all presidential records are to be turned over to the federal government. Keeping documents at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency concluded was in clear contravention of that law.

    According to the Presidential Records Act, “upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.”

    The sentence makes clear that a president has no authority to keep documents after leaving the White House.

    The National Archives even released a statement refuting the notion that Trump’s retention of documents was covered by the Presidential Records Act, writing in a June news release that “the PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and Vice-Presidents) be turned over to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) at the end of their administrations.”

    -From CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz

    While discussing electric vehicles, Trump claimed that California “is in a big brownout because their grid is a disaster,” adding that the state’s ambitious electric vehicle goals won’t work with the grid in such shape.

    Facts First: Trump’s claim that California’s grid is currently in a “big brownout” and is a “disaster” isn’t true. California’s grid suffered rolling blackouts in 2020, but it has performed quite well in the face of extreme heat this summer, owing in large part to a massive influx of renewable energy including battery storage. These big batteries keep energy from wind and solar running when the wind isn’t blowing and sun isn’t shining. (Batteries are also being deployed at a rapid rate in Texas, a red state.)

    Another reason California’s grid has stayed stable this year even during extreme temperature spikes is the fact that a deluge of snow and rain this winter and spring has refilled reservoirs that generate electricity using hydropower.

    As Trump insinuated, there are real questions about how well the state’s grid will hold up as California’s drivers shift to electric vehicles by the millions by 2035 – the same year it will phase out selling new gas-powered cars. California state officials say they are preparing by adding new capacity to the grid and urging more people to charge their vehicles overnight and during times of the day when fewer people are using energy. But independent experts say the state needs to exponentially increase its clean energy while also building out huge amounts of new EV chargers to achieve its goals.

    -From CNN’s Ella Nilsen

    Trump and the border wall

    Trump claimed to Carlson, “I had the strongest border in the history of our country, and I built almost 500 miles of wall. You know, they’d like to say, ‘Oh, was it less?’ No, I built 500 miles. In fact, if you check with the authorities on the border, we built almost 500 miles of wall.”

    Facts First: This needs context. Trump and his critics are talking about different things when they use different figures for how much border wall was built during his presidency. Trump is referring to all of the wall built on the southern border during his administration, even in areas that already had some sort of barrier before. His critics are only counting the Trump-era wall that was built in parts of the border that did not have any previous barrier.

    A total of 458 miles of southern border wall was built under Trump, according to a federal report written two days after Trump left office and obtained by CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez. That is 52 miles of “primary” wall built where no barriers previously existed, plus 33 miles of “secondary” wall that was built in spots where no barriers previously existed, plus another 373 miles of primary and secondary wall that was built to replace previous barriers the federal government says had become “dilapidated and/or outdated.”

    Some of Trump’s rival candidates, such DeSantis and Christie, have used figures around 50 miles while criticizing Trump for failing to finish the wall – counting only the primary wall built where no barriers previously existed.

    While some Trump critics have scoffed at the replacement wall, the Trump-era construction was generally much more formidable than the older barriers it replaced, which were often designed to deter vehicles rather than people on foot. Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff tweeted in 2020: “As someone who has spent a lot of time lately in the shadow of the border wall, I need to puncture this notion that ‘replacement’ sections are ‘not new.’ There is really no comparison between vehicle barriers made from old rail ties and 30-foot bollards.”

    Ideally, both Trump and his opponents would be clearer about what they are talking about: Trump that he is including replacement barriers, his opponents that they are excluding those barriers.

    -From CNN’s Daniel Dale

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  • Latest News: Russian Wagner Group chief Prigozhin listed on board plane that crashed near Moscow

    Latest News: Russian Wagner Group chief Prigozhin listed on board plane that crashed near Moscow

    Yevgeny Prigozhin leaves the headquarters of the Southern Military District amid Wagner’s pullout from the city of Rostov-on-Don, Russia, June 24. Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

    Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin is listed among passengers on board a plane that crashed north of Moscow, according to Russian state media.

    Prigozhin, the founder and bombastic leader of Russia’s private military group Wagner, was once a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that changed after the mercenary incited an armed rebellion against the Kremlin.

    Here’s what you need to know:

    From humble beginnings to “Putin’s chef”: Prigozhin grew up in the tougher neighborhoods of St. Petersburg, also the president’s hometown. The men have known each other since the 1990s. Prigozhin became a wealthy oligarch by winning lucrative catering contracts with the Kremlin, earning him the moniker “Putin’s chef.”

    His role in Ukraine: Prigozhin founded Wagner as shadowy mercenary outfit that fought both in Ukraine and, increasingly, for Russian-backed causes around the world. Typically a figure who has preferred to operate in the shadows, Prigozhin and his fighters were thrust into the spotlight following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year. Wagner forces were heavily involved in taking the Ukrainian towns of Soledar and Bakhmut.

    Dilemma for Putin: In recent months, Prigozhin became an outspoken critic of Russia’s military leaders. After complaining for more than a month of receiving insufficient support from the Kremlin in the grueling fight for the eastern city of Bakhmut, he announced in May that his troops would withdraw.

    Prigozhin, left, serves food to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, during dinner at Prigozhin's restaurant outside Moscow, Russia in November 2011.
    Prigozhin, left, serves food to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, center, during dinner at Prigozhin’s restaurant outside Moscow, Russia in November 2011. Misha Japaridze/AP

    The rebellion: Prigozhin launched an all-out rebellion against the Kremlin in June. The Wagner mutiny began when Prigozhin unleashed a new tirade against the Russian military and then marched his troops into the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don. Putin called Wagner’s actions “treason.”

    “It is a stab in the back of our country and our people,” the president said in an address to the nation shortly after the rebellion.

    Prigozhin responded on Telegram saying that Putin was “deeply mistaken.”

    “We are patriots of our Motherland, we fought and are fighting,” the Wagner chief said in audio messages.

    CNN’s Jerome Taylor and Josh Pennington contributed to this report.

    Read more about Prigozhin’s career and the rebellion.

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  • World reaction to possible death of Wagner chief Prigozhin

    World reaction to possible death of Wagner chief Prigozhin

    Russia’s ministry for emergency situation announces crash of a private plane travelling between Moscow and St Petersburg saying Wagner chief Prigozhin was on the passenger list.

    Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was listed as a passenger on a private jet that crashed north of Moscow, killing all 10 people, the Russian authorities said.

    It remains to be confirmed if the Wagner chief had actually boarded the flight.

    Since the rebellion by Wagner forces in June, Prigozhin was seen as the biggest challenge to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s authority since he came to power.

    Here is how the world reacted to the crash and the reported death of Prigozhin:

    United States

    President Joe Biden says he was “not surprised” at news that Prigozhin may have died in a plane crash in Russia.

    “I don’t know for a fact what happened, but I’m not surprised,” Biden said, adding, “There’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin’s not behind. But I don’t know enough to know the answer.”

    Ukraine

    Presidential aide Mykhaylo Podolyak wrote on social media the crash of the plane was a signal from the Kremlin to anyone who showed disloyalty.

    “The demonstrative elimination of Prigozhin and the Wagner command two months after the coup attempt is a signal from Putin to Russia’s elites ahead of the 2024 elections. ‘Beware! Disloyalty equals death’”, Podolyak wrote.

    Estonia

    Estonia Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, in an interview with CNN, said Putin will “eliminate opponents and that scares anyone who is thinking of expressing opinion different than his”.

    Poland

    Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, on state news channel TVP Info, said that those who threatened Putin’s power do not “die naturally”.

    “We would have great trouble naming anyone who would intuitively think this was a coincidence. It so happens that political opponents whom Vladimir Putin considers a threat to his power do not die naturally.”

    United Kingdom

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  • Top Russian general who vanished after Wagner rebellion fired as head of aerospace forces | CNN

    Top Russian general who vanished after Wagner rebellion fired as head of aerospace forces | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    A top Russian general who went missing after the mercenary group Wagner’s insurrection in June has been fired from his role as head of the country’s aerospace forces, Russian state media reported Wednesday citing unnamed sources.

    Gen. Sergey Surovikin has spent four decades as part of the Russian military, including a brief stint running Russia’s war effort in Ukraine.

    He was put in charge of the conflict in October 2022, shortly after a major explosion severely damaged the Kerch bridge connecting the annexed Crimean Peninsula to mainland Russia. Surovikin was removed from that post just months later.

    He has not been seen in public since June, when he released a video pleading for Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin to stop his insurrection. A Russian lawmaker said in July that Surovikin is “resting.”

    Documents shared with CNN in June suggested that Surovikin was a secret VIP member of Wagner. The New York Times reported in June that Surovikin may have had advanced knowledge of the rebellion, prompting widespread speculation about his role the mutiny.

    Surovikin’s ouster comes about a month after another senior general, Ivan Popov, was removed from his post after accusing Moscow’s Defense Ministry leadership of betraying his troops by not providing sufficient support.

    Surovikin’s military career began with service in Afghanistan in the 1980s before commanding a unit in the Second Chechen War ​in 2004. He was named the commander-in-chief of the Aerospace Forces of Russia in 2017, the position he was reportedly removed from on Wednesday.

    As the head of the aerospace forces, Surovikin oversaw the Kremlin’s campaign in Syria, during which Russian combat aircraft were accused of causing widespread devastation in rebel-held areas. While Surovikin was rewarded in Moscow for his service in Syria, Human Rights Watch alleged that Surovikin may have been responsible for attacks that violated the laws of war and killed at least 1,600 civilians.

    The brutality of those alleged attacks earned Surovikint the nickname “General Armageddon.” One of his former subordinates, Gleb Irisov, told CNN last year that Surovikin was disliked because of the way he tried to implement his infantry experience into the air force

    “He made a lot of people very angry – they hated him,” Irisov said.

    The news of Surovikin’s removal was initially reported by prominent Russian journalist and former chief of the now-closed Echo of Moscow radio station, Alexey Venediktov.

    The Venediktov posted on his Telegram channel on Tuesday that Surovikin had been dismissed from his post but would continue serving the Ministry of Defense in another capacity.

    According to sources cited by Russia’s business news outlet RBC, Surovikin’s removal from his post is due to his transfer to a different role, and he is currently on a short vacation.

    Surovikin’s official bio on the Russian Defense Ministry’s website still lists him as the head of the aerospace forces.

    CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment.

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  • Microsoft revamps Activision deal to get UK approval

    Microsoft revamps Activision deal to get UK approval

    Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard will sell its streaming rights to Ubisoft Entertainment in a new attempt to win approval from the United Kingdom’s anti-trust regulator for its $69bn sale to Microsoft, the last major hurdle to closing one of the biggest deals in tech history.

    Shares of Activision were trading 1.1 percent higher, while Microsoft was up by 0.7 percent before noon in New York. Ubisoft shares listed in Paris closed 8.8 percent higher, the biggest gainer on the pan-European STOXX 600 index.

    UK competition regulators have responded by opening a new investigation into Microsoft’s revamped bid.

    The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Tuesday it has until October 18 to decide whether to approve the deal or escalate its preliminary investigation into an in-depth review. The companies agreed earlier to extend the transaction’s deadline to that same date.

    Xbox maker Microsoft has been on a quest to acquire Activision, maker of the popular Call of Duty game franchise, since the $69bn deal was announced in January 2022.

    The companies have secured approvals from antitrust authorities covering 40 countries, including European Union.

    The blockbuster deal faced pushback in the United States but the Federal Trade Commission lost a court fight to stop it, effectively clearing the way for it to proceed.

    The purchase is now only held up in the UK, where authorities moved to block it earlier this year over worries about competition being stifled in the emerging cloud gaming market, where players can avoid buying pricey consoles and stream games to their tablets or phones.

    After months of back and forth, the CMA said on Tuesday it had stuck by its original decision to veto the deal, forcing Microsoft to come forward with new terms.

    Under the restructured deal, Microsoft will not be able to release Activision games like Overwatch and Diablo exclusively on its own cloud streaming service – Xbox Cloud Gaming – or to exclusively control the licensing terms for rival services.

    Instead, French gaming rival Ubisoft will acquire the cloud streaming rights for Activision’s existing computer and console games as well as any new games released by Activision in the next 15 years.

    That will apply globally but not in Europe, where Brussels had already accepted the original deal. In Europe, Ubisoft will get a non-exclusive licence for Activision’s rights to enable it to offer those games in that region too.

    Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a blog post that “nothing substantially changes” by selling off the streaming rights.

    ‘Substantially different’ new proposal

    In an unprecedented move, the UK watchdog had delayed its final order to block the deal. That allowed it to consider an EU decision to accept Microsoft’s pledge to automatically license Activision games to cloud gaming platforms as well as a licensing deal between Microsoft and rival Sony, maker of the PlayStation console.

    The CMA said on Tuesday that it found those developments would not have changed its original decision and imposed an order to block the deal. At the same time, it is considering the new Microsoft proposal, which “is substantially different from what was put on the table previously”, said Sarah Cardell, CEO of the UK watchdog.

    “This is not a green light,” Cardell said. “We will carefully and objectively assess the details of the restructured deal and its impact on competition, including in light of third-party comments.”

    The regulator’s decision to launch a new investigation instead of approving the deal was an unexpected move and raises the prospect of another lengthy review, said Alex Haffner, competition partner at the UK law firm Fladgate.

    “In reality, however, it is hard to believe Microsoft would have taken this new course without a high degree of confidence it will now in due course (finally) get a regulatory green light from the CMA,” he said by email.

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  • Latest news on Russia’s war in Ukraine

    Latest news on Russia’s war in Ukraine

    A person walks past the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg, South Africa on August 19. James Oatway/Reuters

    Members of the BRICS economic group of major emerging economies are meeting this week in South Africa for a summit that could determine the future of the bloc — and how hard it pushes back against a world order it sees as unfairly dominated by the West.

    The group of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa has never been more prominent on the world stage. But the BRICS themselves are complicated.

    Russia’s leader can’t attend the summit because host country South Africa would be obliged to arrest him for alleged war crimes. Two other members, India and China, have a simmering border conflict. And while Beijing is locked in a rivalry with the United States, New Delhi has close ties with Washington.

    It’s not the happiest of families. But nonetheless that family is now entertaining formal bids from nearly two dozen countries to join their bloc of major emerging economies.

    Discussions around adding new members are expected to figure high on the agenda of the three-day summit beginning Tuesday, where BRICS leaders — with the exception of Russia’s Vladimir Putin — will gather in-person for the first time since the pandemic.

    Putin, who has an International Criminal Court warrant out for his arrest linked to his brutal invasion of Ukraine, will attend virtually.

    South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday threw his support behind BRICS expansion, saying a larger body would “represent a diverse group of nations” that share a “common desire to have a more balanced global order” in a “increasingly complex and fractured” world.

    At stake in decisions around expanding is the direction and identity of the group, whose members aim for more say in an international system they see as favoring the West and Group of Seven (G7) nations, despite a shift in who dominates the global economy over recent decades.

    Read the full analysis here.

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  • Russia says fighter jet destroys Ukraine ‘reconnaissance boat’ in Black Sea

    Russia says fighter jet destroys Ukraine ‘reconnaissance boat’ in Black Sea

    Defence ministry in Moscow says Ukrainian vessel was attacked by Russian fighter jet near gas production facilities in the Black Sea.

    Russia’s defence ministry said a Russian warplane has destroyed a Ukrainian reconnaissance boat in the Black Sea.

    The ship had sailed near Russian gas production facilities when it was attacked by a Sukhoi Su-30 fighter plane, the ministry said on Tuesday.

    “Tonight, the crew of the Su-30cm naval aviation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyed a reconnaissance boat of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the area of Russian gas production facilities in the Black Sea,” the ministry said on Telegram.

    The statement did not give details on what kind of boat had been destroyed, or where exactly the incident had taken place.

    Russian officials have, in recent weeks, said they thwarted a string of Ukrainian marine drone attacks on its warships in the Black Sea.

    Attacks from both sides have escalated in the Black Sea since Russia pulled out of a deal that allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain through the shipping hub.

    Earlier this month, Ukrainian sea drones attacked the key Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, damaging a naval ship and marking the first time a commercial Russian port has been a target in the 18-month war.

    The Russian Navy’s Olenegorsky Gornyak, a landing ship, suffered a serious breach in the attack, which was carried out by Ukraine’s navy and security service, Ukrainian officials said.

     

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  • ‘You gave me strength’: Spain’s Carmona learns of father’s death after firing team to World Cup victory | CNN

    ‘You gave me strength’: Spain’s Carmona learns of father’s death after firing team to World Cup victory | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Within the span of hours this weekend, Spain’s Women’s World Cup hero Olga Carmona experienced a career high and a deep loss, the latter of which was kept from her so she could focus on Sunday’s final.

    Carmona, who scored Spain’s winning goal against England, learned of her father’s death after the game, the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) said in a statement.

    “The RFEF deeply regrets to report the death of Olga Carmona’s father. The soccer player learned the sad news after the World Cup final. We send our most sincere hugs to Olga and her family in a moment of deep pain. We love you, Olga,” RFEF added.

    In an emotionally charged post on X, formally known as Twitter, Carmona likened her father to a star looking down on her while she played the final.

    “And without being aware of it, I had my Star before kick off,” she wrote. “I know you gave me the strength to accomplish something truly unique. I know you were watching me tonight and that you are proud of me. Rest in peace, dad.”

    Carmona posted another emotional tribute on X on Monday, the day after the World Cup final.

    “I don’t have the words to thank all of your love,” the post read. “Yesterday was the best and worst day of my life.

    “I know you’d want me to enjoy this historic moment – because of that I’ll be with my teammates, so that wherever you are, you’ll know that this star is also yours, Dad.”

    Carmona’s club, Real Madrid, also issued a statement expressing its condolences.

    “Real Madrid C.F., the president and the Board of Directors are deeply saddened by the passing of the father of our player Olga Carmona. Real Madrid would like to extend our condolences and heartfelt sympathy to Olga, her family and all her loved ones. May he rest in peace,” the statement read.

    Carmona’s 29th-minute strike proved to be the winner, making La Roja only the second country, after Germany, to win both the men’s and women’s World Cups.

    Following the goal, Carmona lifted her shirt in celebration. After the match, she explained the reason she did that was to honor the mother of her best friend who recently passed away.

    Carmona’s goal delivered Spain the win against the odds. That La Roja triumphed against the reigning European champion and pre-match favorite despite the disputes and divisions that have clouded the national team throughout the tournament makes this achievement extraordinary.

    Last year, 15 Spanish players declared themselves unavailable for selection, saying they were unhappy with the training methods of head coach Jorge Vilda, who had described the situation at the time as a “world embarrassment.”

    Only three of those 15 players who had written letters to RFEF last year, saying the “situation” within the national team was affecting their “emotional state” and health, were selected for the World Cup squad.

    The country is now the best in the world, but the international futures of those exiled players remain unclear. With victory, the questions surrounding the national set-up, of whether or how the dispute can be resolved, do not disappear.

    If the off-pitch issues can be resolved, Spain’s future shines bright, because now, incredibly, the Iberian nation is a Women’s World Cup winner at Under-17, Under-20 and senior level.

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  • Latest news on Russia’s war in Ukraine

    Latest news on Russia’s war in Ukraine

    Ukraine is exploring ways to help merchant vessels acquire insurance for operating in the Black Sea, in the wake of the collapse of the UN-brokered Grain Initiative.

    Oleksandr Hryban, an adviser to the Economy Minister, said the government was considering launching its own international insurance pool, which would be coordinated with an international institution or with other governments.

    “The goal is the same – to mobilise the reinsurance market, which is then multiplied, turning a nominal billion dollars into 5 billion in insurance coverage. This is currently being tested as a pilot on the grain deal,” Hryban said.

    The withdrawal of Russia from the Grain Deal negotiated by Turkey and the United Nations has had a chilling effect on merchant shipping using the three Ukrainian Black Sea ports from which most grain is exported. Russia has warned that ships leaving these ports may come under attack.

    Ukraine has since created its own maritime corridor for shipping, but is unable to guarantee its safety because if Russian naval superiority in the Black Sea. It was first used last week by a container ship that reached Turkish waters without incident.

    “There is a direct threat from the Russian navy, fueled by constant threats from the Kremlin,” Hryban said. 

    “We are now actively working with the international insurance community to create a mechanism where these funds will be used not directly by ship owners, but by insurance companies that will multiply this resource,” Hryban was quoted as telling state news agency Ukrinform.

    “The Ministry of Reconstruction, the Ministry of Economy, and underwriters such as Lloyds and Marsh & McLennan and other leading insurance and reinsurance brokers are involved in its approval.”

    In an interview with the Financial Times, Hryban said the scheme could be in place as early as next month, and could see between five and 30 ships covered to travel through what he described as the “danger spot” of Ukrainian waters.

    The FT also quoted Marcus Baker, head of marine, cargo and logistics at Marsh, as saying that “a public-private partnership, with insurers working in tandem with the Ukrainian government, will give greater confidence to shipowners to return to delivering Ukrainian grain around the world to those countries that need it most.”

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  • Ukraine ‘sky shield getting stronger’ as allies supply coveted F-16s

    Ukraine ‘sky shield getting stronger’ as allies supply coveted F-16s

    President Zelenskyy’s announcement that European allies will provide high-end fighter jets comes during a visit to their capitals.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has welcomed a “historic” decision by the Netherlands and Denmark to provide US-made F-16 fighter jets for his country to counter Russia’s invasion.

    Zelenskyy sought the advanced warplanes for months to strengthen Ukraine’s Soviet-era air force as it pursues a grinding counteroffensive against Russian forces in the east.

    Washington announced its approval of the F-16 transfers on Friday, and training of Ukraine pilots is set to begin this month, which may allow Ukraine to begin deploying the jets in early 2024.

    The decision is “absolutely historic, powerful and inspiring for us”, Zelenskyy said alongside Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte during a visit to the Eindhoven airbase in the Netherlands on Sunday.

    The Dutch air force has 42 F-16s and Rutte said the number provided to Kyiv would be finalised after talks with allies.

    Later on Sunday, Zelenskyy travelled to Denmark’s Skrydstrup airbase and was greeted by Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.

    “We also know that you need more and that is why today we announced that we will donate 19 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine,” the Danish leader said.

    Six of the jets will be delivered by the end of this year, eight next year, and five in 2025, Frederiksen said.

    “This is a very powerful support for us – training missions are already starting,” Zelenskyy told journalists.

    “We are doing our best to get even more results for Ukraine. In particular, today we discussed the expansion of training missions. Ukraine’s sky shield is getting stronger.”

    Alexandre Vautravers, an analyst and the editor-in-chief of the Swiss Military Review, said the F-16 development “is not a game changer but allows Ukraine to stay in the game”.

    “Until now, we can say that Ukraine received quite a number of combat aircraft, mostly MiG-29s, so it has been able to maintain the number of aircraft it started the war with,” Vautravers told Al Jazeera.

    “But the Western countries have no more ex-Soviet airplanes to commit to this fight and, therefore, it will need to be Western airplanes from now on.”

    Zelenskyy’s visit comes after a trip to Sweden on Saturday, when he discussed joint production of CV90 combat vehicles and training of Ukraine pilots for Gripen fighter jets with Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

    ‘Nuclear’ threat

    The long-sought approval to supply the jets drew a warning from Moscow.

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would consider the F-16s a “nuclear” threat because of their capacity to carry atomic weapons.

    The Netherlands and Denmark have led a months-long push to train Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s and to ultimately deliver the jets to help counter the air superiority of Russia, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

    Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov on Saturday said training had begun for Ukrainian pilots, but it would take at least six months and possibly longer to also train engineers and mechanics.

    Frederiksen said more than 70 Ukrainian military officials arrived in Denmark for training. Ukraine says it expects several dozen pilots to be trained.

    Both the Netherlands and Denmark have F-16s available to donate as their armed forces are transitioning to newer F-35 fighters made by a group of countries led by Washington.

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  • Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 543

    Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 543

    Here is the situation on Saturday, August 19, 2023.

    Fighting

    • A Russian missile attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv killed seven people and wounded 144, according to officials. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the dead included a six-year-old girl and that there were 15 children among the wounded. “Our soldiers will respond to Russia for this terrorist attack – a tangible answer,” he pledged.
    • A United Nations official denounced the raid, which came during the Orthodox holiday of the Transfiguration of the Lord, as “heinous”.
    • The strike hit a theatre in Chernihiv’s main square during a gathering of drone manufacturers and aerial reconnaissance training schools, organiser Mariia Berlinska confirmed. Berlinska said the event was officially agreed on in advance with the local authorities and venue.
    • Ukrainian officials also reported downing more than a dozen Russian drones in an overnight attack. Russian forces “attacked from the north with ‘Shahed-136/131’ attack UAVs. A total of 17 attack drones were launched from the Kursk region,” the Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram.
    • On the battlefield, the Russian army said it “eliminated” 150 Ukrainian troops who tried to cross the Dnipro River into Russian-occupied territory in southern Ukraine.
    • In Russia, the defence ministry reported a flurry of Ukrainian drone attacks targeting the regions of Moscow, Novgorod and Belgorod. It said the drone targeting the Novgorod region damaged a warplane and caused a fire at a military airfield.
    • The attempted assault on Moscow led to a temporary closure of Moscow’s Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports, the state-run TASS news agency said.
    • The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, where he listened to reports from Valery Gerasimov, the commander in charge of Moscow’s operations in Ukraine. He also met with other top military brass at the headquarters of Russia’s Southern Military District.
    • Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, meanwhile, said in an interview published on Saturday that Moscow’s nuclear weapons protect it from security threats and that the Kremlin has to continually remind the West of the risks of a nuclear conflict.

    Military Aid

    • Ukraine’s Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said training has begun for Ukrainian troops to operate United States F16 fighter jets and added that the process could take at least six months and possibly longer.

    Diplomacy

    • Zelenskyy met with Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson in Harpsund, west of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, and asked for Gripen air jets to boost Ukraine’s air defences. The Ukrainian president and first lady, Olena Zelenska, later met Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia at a palace in the area.
    • Ukraine and Sweden also signed an agreement that will see Kyiv begin production of Sweden’s CV90 combat vehicle.

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  • Thousands evacuated as fires rage in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands

    Thousands evacuated as fires rage in Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands

    The fire was at a scale that has never been seen before in the Canary Islands, officials say.

    Thousands of residents from Tenerife in Spain’s Canary Islands have been evacuated as a wildfire authorities deemed “out of control” rages on for a fourth day.

    The Canary Islands emergency services said more than 26,000 people had been evacuated by Saturday afternoon, according to provisional estimates, a sharp rise from 4,500 on Friday. Some 11 towns have now been affected.

    The Atlantic island is home to about one million people and is also a popular tourist destination.

    The seven-island archipelago is located off the northwest coast of Africa and southwest of mainland Spain. At their nearest point, the islands are 100km (60 miles) from Morocco.

    Fierce flames lit up the night sky overnight and on Saturday helicopters were seen dropping water on areas close to homes where smoke billowed into the air.

    Some 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) have been burned so far with a perimeter of 50km (30 miles).

    The fire was at a scale never been seen before in the Canary Islands, Tenerife Council President Rosa Davila told reporters. She said the priority was to “protect people’s lives”.

    The blaze has not destroyed any homes so far, she added, citing the fire brigade.

    The island’s popular tourist areas have so far been unaffected and its two airports have been operating normally.

    The blaze broke out on Wednesday in a mountainous national park around the Mount Teide volcano – Spain’s highest peak – amid hot and dry weather.

    The fire is located in a steep and craggy mountain area with pine trees, with several municipalities on its flanks. Access for firefighters is extremely difficult.

    The Canary Islands have been in drought for most of the past few years, just like most of mainland Spain. The islands have recorded below-average rainfall in recent years because of changing weather patterns impacted by climate change.

    Scorching heat and dry weather this year have contributed to unusually severe wildfires in Europe, including in Spain’s La Palma Island in July, and Canada. Blazes on Hawaii’s Maui Island earlier this month killed more than 110 people and wrecked the historic resort city of Lahaina.

    Scientists have said climate change has led to more frequent and more powerful extreme weather events.

    European Union officials also blamed global warming for increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires in Europe, noting 2022 was the second-worst year for wildfire damage on record after 2017.

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  • Sarina Wiegman: How the Dutchwoman turned England into a winning ‘machine’ | CNN

    Sarina Wiegman: How the Dutchwoman turned England into a winning ‘machine’ | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    The Lionesses had seemingly lost their ability to hunt.

    England had been on a poor run of form, at one stage losing seven out of 11 matches, and head coach Phil Neville was winding down the days until his exit.

    It was announced that Neville’s successor was to be the highly successful Netherlands head coach Sarina Wiegman, who had led her home nation to back-to-back major tournament finals, including a European Championship win in 2017.

    While success was always a possibility for this talented group of footballers, nobody could have imagined what was to come under Wiegman’s leadership.

    In the last major tournament before Wiegman took over, England crashed out in heartbreaking circumstances.

    In a tight World Cup semifinal game against the US – the eventual champion – England captain Steph Houghton missed a crucial late penalty as the Lionesses fell to a 2-1 defeat.

    It was the third major tournament in a row that England had fallen at this stage. With expectations and pressure growing, and with the European Championship on home soil on the horizon, England appointed a coach who had the crucial knowhow in getting a team over the line in tournament football.

    “She’s a proven winner and we’re confident she can take England to the next level, giving us the best possible opportunity of achieving our ambition to win a major tournament,” said Mark Bullingham, the English Football Association’s CEO, when Wiegman was appointed two years ago.

    While the England players’ abilities speak for themselves, Wiegman has helped to instill a formidable team mindset in the group through some “non-negotiable” philosophies.

    “I think in a team you always have to do your best,” she told CNN before the start of the Women’s World Cup. “That doesn’t mean you always have to run the fastest. That’s something different.

    “It’s doing what’s best for the team and what’s demanded of you, on and off the pitch.

    “When you start doing things on your own in a team sport, that’s really hard. You’re not going to reach the highest potential.”

    Heading into the Covid-19 delayed European Championship a year later, England was on a brilliant run of form of free-flowing soccer and goals aplenty.

    That form continued throughout the tournament, with the Lionesses scoring goals for fun on the way to a historic final at Wembley against Germany.

    In a tense game against an experienced Germany side, the Lionesses sealed a 2-1 win to end England’s 56-year-wait for a senior international soccer trophy.

    Wiegman helped end England's long wait for a major trophy.

    After the success of the Euros, England was among the favorites heading into the World Cup, although with injuries piling up pre-tournament Wiegman has had to find ways to rebuild her squad without crucial players.

    England captain Leah Williamson suffered an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in April, joining another star player from the winning Euros squad – Beth Mead – in suffering the same injury.

    “I’m a pretty positive person but, of course, I also have feelings,” Wiegman told The Independent ahead of Sunday’s final. “I feel very privileged to work with this team. It has been so great.

    “You have some setbacks with some players that got injured, which was very sad for them, but then you have to switch and say: ‘OK, this is the group of players we think are the best and this is the team now. We are going to go to the World Cup with them.’”

    With these key players out of the squad, Wiegman has reinvented the side throughout the World Cup and has implemented a system where the team can fluidly switch between different styles and formations.

    Humbly, Wiegman also attributes a successful change to a 3-5-2 formation to one of her assistant coaches, Arjan Veurink.

    “During the first two matches of the tournament we were struggling a little bit and also had moments where we were a little bit vulnerable,” Wiegman explained to reporters.

    “So after the second match Arjan [Veurink, her assistant] came to me and said: ‘Sarina, isn’t this the time to go to 3-5-2?’ I said: ‘You’re completely right. This is the moment, with the players available, we can get more from their strengths in this shape.’ So then we changed it.”

    The Dutch manager has instilled a real sense of togetherness in the England camp.

    In the 3-5-2 formation, Wiegman has removed one of the forward players for a defender, which has allowed the Lionesses to have greater control in games and be less susceptible to counter-attacks. It has also given more freedom to some of England’s attackers, especially the dangerous Lauren Hemp who has been freed of some of her defensive responsibilities and consequently thrived in attack against Australia in the semifinal.

    But not only did Wiegman have to deal with injuries ahead of the tournament, key midfielder Keira Walsh picked up a knee injury during the group stages and breakthrough star Lauren James was shown a red card in England’s round-of-16 win against Nigeria, meaning England not only had to play the rest of that match with 10 players but without James available for the quarterfinal and semifinal.

    “We dig deep as a group and we believe in our ability and, first and foremost, we believe in what we’re getting told to do,” England winger Chloe Kelly told the BBC after the tense penalty shootout win against Nigeria.

    Can England go back-to-back?

    A belief in the manager has led to unwavering support in Wiegman’s decision making and ideologies.

    One manager who knows a thing or two about women’s football is Chelsea Women’s manager Emma Hayes and when speaking to CNN’s Amanda Davies ahead of Sunday’s final she was full of praise for the Dutchwoman.

    “A top, world-class manager – she’s demonstrated that. To go back-to-back Euros, plus World Cup, shows her qualities,” said Hayes.

    “I think [she’s] fulfilled the potential of a group that were hitting their peak and she’s come in and steered that ship to winning.”

    Throughout her international managerial career, Wiegman has shown her ability to turn nearly-teams into winners. Hayes spoke of the winning machine that the 53-year-old has cultivated.

    Before the World Cup, England had won 26 of the 32 games under Wiegman and had only lost once – a friendly against Australia in April. The Lionesses have since added six wins to that tally in Australia and New Zealand.

    “They’ve become a bit of a machine. You know to think we’ve gone from a Euros to a World Cup final in the space of 12 months is just unbelievable,” Hayes said.

    “We’re going to feel a little bit spoiled, but at the same time we’re going to be in the World Cup final on Sunday and it’s amazing for everyone.”

    England’s success has led to Wiegman being recently linked to the vacant head coach role with the US Women’s team.

    “I’m really enjoying my job and I have the impression that people still like me doing that job,” Wiegman clarified to reporters this week. “I have no plans to leave.”

    No matter what happens in the World Cup final on Sunday, Wiegman has helped grow the women’s game in England immeasurably. But, for the team, winning on Sunday is all that matters.

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