Month: August 2021

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy opened the Crimean Platform summit in Kyiv Monday to build pressure on Russia over its annexation of the Crimea territory, which is viewed as illegal by most of the world.Officials from 46 countries and blocs are taking part in the two-day summit, including representatives from each of the 30 NATO members. The U.S. delegation is headed up by Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.Russia annexed the peninsula in 2014, following the revolution in Ukraine that saw former president and Russian ally Viktor Yanukovych ousted and the government overthrown. The annexation prompted the United States and the …

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U.S. officials are not alone in facing blame for miscalculating the speed of the Taliban offensive.  European leaders and their security advisers are also coming under mounting criticism for misjudging how rapidly events would play out in Afghanistan once President Joe Biden had decided on withdrawing American forces from the central Asian country. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his top ministers are being accused by lawmakers from their own party as well as by opposition politicians of failing to have evacuation plans ready ahead of a possible Taliban surge as U.S. and NATO troops were being withdrawn.With recriminations flying …

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Scores of firefighters backed by water-dropping aircraft battled a forest fire that broke out early Monday on the southern part of Greece’s Evia island, less than two weeks after an inferno decimated its northern part.   The fire was burning near the village of Fygia where two neighborhoods have been evacuated and was moving toward the coastal tourist village of Marmari, where authorities were preparing boats to evacuate people if needed, according to Athens News Agency.   Forty-six firefighters were battling flames fanned by high winds — assisted by 20 fire engines, three water-dropping airplanes and two helicopters, the Greek fire brigade said.    Authorities have boats on standby off Marmari. Evia …

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Josephine Baker, the famed French American dancer, singer and actress who fought in the French resistance during WWII and later battled racism, will later this year become the first Black woman to enter France’s Pantheon mausoleum.Baker will be the sixth woman to join about 80 great national figures of French history in the Pantheon after Simone Veil, a former French minister who survived the Holocaust and fought for abortion rights, entered in 2018.Baker will be honored on November 30 with a memorial plaque, one of her children, Claude Bouillon-Baker, told AFP.”Pantheonisation is built over a long period of time,” an …

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 The chaotic aftermath of Washington’s troop withdrawal from Afghanistan is being followed with a mix of trepidation and glee thousands of kilometers away — in Africa’s Sahel, where another foreign power, France, also vows to wind down its long-running counterinsurgency operation, at least in its present form.  As the United States continued to evacuate thousands of citizens and allies at Kabul’s airport this week, dozens of civilians and soldiers were killed in several Islamist attacks across a vast and dangerous three-border region that straddles Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali. It was just another marker in a protracted fight that has …

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Seven people were killed near Kabul’s airport Saturday as thousands gathered in a desperate effort to leave the country as the Taliban take control, the British Ministry of Defense said on Sunday.The Taliban, after a 10-day offensive, entered the Afghanistan capital just a week ago, on August 15. Since then, the airport has been a chaotic site as thousands of people have tried to flee the country, fearing a return to the harsh interpretation of Islamic law practiced when the Taliban controlled the country 20 years ago.  “Conditions on the ground remain extremely challenging but we are doing everything we can to …

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For generations, residents in the north of the Greek island of Evia have made their living from the dense pine forests surrounding their villages. Tapping the ubiquitous Aleppo pines for their resin, the viscous, sticky substance the trees use to protect themselves from insects and disease, provided a key source of income for hundreds of families. But now, hardly any forest is left. A devastating wildfire, one of Greece’s most destructive single blazes in decades, rampaged across northern Evia for days earlier this month, swallowing woodland, homes and businesses and sending thousands fleeing.  The damage won’t just affect this year’s crop, resin collectors …

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Russian police on Saturday detained several journalists who protested authorities’ decision to label a top independent TV channel as a “foreign agent.” The journalists held individual pickets outside the main headquarters of the country’s top domestic security agency, the FSB, on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square. They held placards such as “Journalism is not a crime” and “You are afraid of the truth” to protest the Justice Ministry’s move Friday to add the Dozhd (Rain) TV channel and the online investigative outlet Vazhnye Istorii (Important Stories) to the list of “foreign agents.” Those detained were handed summons to attend court hearings on charges of violating rules of holding pickets, an …

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