Month: July 2023

Britain on Sunday officially joined an Asia-Pacific trade group that includes Japan and 10 other nations during a meeting in New Zealand. The trade bloc covers more than 500 million people and 15% of the world’s economy. For Britain, it represents the largest trade deal it has struck since leaving the European Union more than three years ago. Britain first announced in March it had reached an agreement to join the bloc, which was created in 2018, after more than two years of negotiations. It is the first new member to join the bloc, called the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement …

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Tourists are waiting more than two hours to visit the Acropolis in Athens. Taxi lines at Rome’s main train station are running just as long. And so many visitors are concentrating around St. Mark’s Square in Venice that crowds get backed up crossing bridges — even on weekdays. After three years of pandemic limitations, tourism is expected to exceed 2019 records in some of Europe’s most popular destinations this summer, from Barcelona and Rome, Athens and Venice to the scenic islands of Santorini in Greece, Capri in Italy and Mallorca in Spain. While European tourists edged the industry toward recovery …

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Ukrainians have quickly learned how to counter Russian information attacks since Russia’s invasion in the country, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on her official Telegram channel Saturday. Since last July, the U.K. has trained 18,000 Ukrainian volunteer infantrymen under the Operation Interflex training program, the Defense Ministry said Saturday. Ukrainian soldiers have been trained to “survive and be lethal in their fight against the illegal invasion of their homeland” it said. Russian President Vladimir Putin could be arrested if he attends the BRICS summit scheduled in South Africa because of an arrest warrant issued against him last March by …

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Thousands of participants of the Budapest Pride march wound through the streets of the Hungarian capital on Saturday with marchers voicing their anxiety over the increasing pressure on the LGBTQ+ community from the country’s right-wing government. The 28th annual event comes as the country’s laws, which ban the depiction of homosexuality or gender transition, to minors under 18 have begun to be applied with increasing regularity, resulting in fines and other penalties for those who disseminate LGBTQ+ content. Before the march, which began in Budapest’s city park, Pride organizer Jojo Majercsik said that while the laws, passed in 2021, didn’t …

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When Marketa Vondrousova punched away a volley and fell to the ground after completing one of the most unexpected runs to the Wimbledon title, a jumble of thoughts must have been running through her head. After all, Saturday was meant to be the day when Tunisian sixth seed Ons Jabeur would finally become the first Arab and first African woman to win a Grand Slam title. Instead, a distraught Jabeur was left with tears streaming down her face as her Wimbledon dream was wrecked in the final for the second year running with a 6-4 6-4 drubbing. In stark contrast, …

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Tens of millions were battling dangerously high temperatures in the United States on Saturday as record heat forecasts hung over Europe and Japan, in the latest example of the threat from climate change. A powerful heat wave stretching from California to Texas was expected to peak as the National Weather Service warned of an “extremely hot and dangerous weekend.” Daytime highs were forecast to range between 10- and 20-degrees Fahrenheit above normal in the U.S. Southwest. In Arizona, one of the hardest-hit states, residents face a daily endurance marathon against the sun. The state capital, Phoenix, recorded 16 straight days …

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Even on the streets of London, Finn Lau does not feel safe from the reach of the Chinese Communist Party. He is among the exiled pro-democracy activists facing arrest warrants issued by Hong Kong authorities last week, with a reward of 1 million Hong Kong dollars ($128,000) offered for information that helps lead to their detention. Since then, Lau said he has seen several menacing online messages from pro-Chinese groups. “I got some screenshots coming from some Telegram groups, saying that ‘perhaps we should lure them with some kind of tactics, such that we could catch them or kill them,” …

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The Ukrainian civilians woke long before dawn in the bitter cold, lined up for the single toilet and were loaded at gunpoint into the livestock trailer. They spent the next 12 hours or more digging trenches on the front lines for Russian soldiers. Many were forced to wear overlarge Russian military uniforms that could make them a target, and a former city administrator trudged around in boots five sizes too big. By the end of the day, their hands curled into icy claws. Nearby, in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, other Ukrainian civilians dug mass graves into the frozen ground …

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The United States took custody Friday of a Russian national extradited from Estonia and suspected of being an intelligence agent as the Biden administration pursues possible prisoner exchanges for U.S. detainees in Russia.  Vadim Konoshchenok was arrested in Estonia late last year as he sought to cross the border into Russia carrying semiconductors and U.S.-made ammunition for sniper rifles, according to charges filed against him.  He is alleged to be a central figure in a seven-person smuggling ring, which included five Russians and two Americans who operated “under the direction of Russian intelligence services” to obtain U.S. electronics and other …

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