Month: August 2024

Berlin — Germany has asked Poland to arrest a Ukrainian diving instructor who was allegedly part of a team that blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines two years ago, according to reports in German media published on Wednesday.  However, one media outlet said the man appeared to be no longer living in Poland.   The multi-billion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  German investigators believe the Ukrainian diver was part of a team that …

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Vancouver, British Columbia — Tens of thousands of people have signed online petitions for the release of environmentalist Paul Watson, the controversial activist arrested in Greenland on an extradition request by the Japanese government. Watson’s latest legal journey started July 21 in Nuuk, Greenland, when he was arrested aboard his foundation’s ship, the John Paul DeJoria. His arrest and extradition appear to be tied to alleged actions in 2010 against the Japanese whaling vessel Shonan Maru 2. For the past several decades, Watson has been known to take severe measures, including the ramming and disabling of whaling ships, to stop the …

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LONDON — The Chinese government has resubmitted its plans to build a “super embassy” in London, a decision testing the new British government’s strategy for dealing with China after the victory of the Labour Party in the general election last month. According to the new plan, the super embassy will be built on the former Royal Mint Court site near the Tower of London, with a total area of about 576,000 square meters (620,000 square feet) — 10 times the size of China’s existing embassy in London. The project includes not only the embassy building but also 225 residences and a …

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LONDON — British authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people following days of rioting involving violence, arson and looting as well as racist attacks targeting Muslims and migrants, a national policing body said Tuesday.  The riots, which followed the killings of three young girls in the northern English town of Southport, began after the July 29 attack was wrongly blamed on an Islamist migrant based on online misinformation.  Violence broke out in cities across England and also in Northern Ireland, but there have been fewer instances of unrest since last week after efforts to identify those involved were ramped up.   Many …

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Warsaw, POLAND — Poland on Tuesday signed a $10 billion deal to buy 96 Apache attack helicopters from U.S. manufacturer Boeing in an upgrade to the country’s military capabilities. Poland has sharply accelerated the modernization of its armed forces since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022. “This is the landmark purchase by Poland for its armed forces of … 96 state-of-the-art AH-64E Apache attack helicopters,” Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told reporters. “Today we are taking a milestone in the transformation and equipping of the army,” he added, speaking at the Inowroclaw air base, where the Apaches are to be …

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KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday defended his country’s shock incursion into Russia’s northeastern Kursk region. “Russia brought war to others. Now it is coming home,” President Zelenskyy said in a video posted on the social media platform Telegram. In his nightly televised address, Zelenskyy described the incursion as a national security issue, saying Russian forces had launched numerous strikes from Kursk on Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, which borders Kursk.  Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said Monday in a video posted on Zelenskyy’s Telegram channel that Kyiv controls about 1,000 square kilometers of the Kursk region.  The Ukrainian operation …

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