Ukraine’s Black Sea deal also helps Russian farmers, economy

By AYA BATRAWY

1 of 11

A security officer stands next to the ship Navi-Star which sits full of grain since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began five months ago as it waits to sail from the Odesa Sea Port, in Odesa, Ukraine, July 29, 2022. Ukraine is steadily exporting grains from its Black Sea ports under a wartime deal brokered last month, but the agreement has also proven helpful to Russian farmers and the country's cornerstone agriculture industry. (AP Photo/David Goldman)


With much fanfare, ship after ship loaded with grain has sailed from Ukraine after being stuck in the country’s Black Sea ports for nearly six months. More quietly, a parallel wartime deal met Moscow’s demands to clear the way for its wheat to get to the world, too, boosting an industry vital to Russia’s economy that had been ensnared in wider sanctions.

While the U.S. and its European allies work to crush Russia’s finances with a web of penalties for invading Ukraine, they have avoided sanctioning its grains and other goods that feed people worldwide.

Russian and Ukrainian wheat, barley, corn and sunflower oil are important to countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, where millions rely on subsidized bread for survival. As the war spiked food and energy prices, millions of people have been pushed into poverty or closer to the brink of starvation.

Two deals that the U.N. and Turkey brokered last month to unblock food supplies depend on each other: one protects ships exporting Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea and the other assures Russia that its food and fertilizer won’t face sanctions, safeguarding one of the pillars of its economy and helping ease concerns from insurers and banks.

The agreement allowed a Western shipper to move two vessels of grain out of Russia in a matter of weeks. It used to take months because Western banks refused to transfer payments to Russia. Although U.S. and European Union sanctions don’t directly target Russian agriculture, Western banks have been wary of running afoul, hindering buyers’ and shippers’ access to Russian grain.

“You have to invest time with the banks to make them understand this whole thing because the authority says, ‘Go ahead there’s no sanction,’ but the banks self-sanction,” said Gaurav Srivastava, whose company Harvest Commodities buys, ships and sells grains from the Black Sea region.

He called the process with banks a “labor intensive exercise.”

What’s changed in recent weeks, Srivastava said, is “the appearance ... of this being sort of a truce between all parties.”

The deal mattered to Russia because it’s the world’s biggest exporter of wheat, accounting for almost a fifth of global shipments, and the country is expected to have one of its best-ever crop seasons this year. Agriculture accounts for around 4% of Russia’s gross domestic product, according to the World Ba

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“What is more important is employment,” said Russian economist Sergey Aleksashenko, referring to jobs created by agriculture. “It’s like 7 to 8% of employment.”

Farming provides 5-6 million Russian jobs, with some regions almost entirely dependent on it for their livelihood, he said.

Srivastava, whose company operates from Los Angeles and Geneva, hopes to be able to ship out 10-15 million tons of Russian grain over the coming year.

He also has been able to move out two chartered ships that were stuck at Ukrainian ports since the start of the war on Feb. 24. He said the company is aiming to pick up 1 million tons of grain from Ukraine under the four-month-long U.N. deal.

“We are a commercial business, but we are trying to help the plight of farmers in both Russia and Ukraine,” Srivastava said. “I’m very optimistic, especially in the last couple of weeks.”

Russia’s demands for the deal included public statements from the U.S. and EU that sanctions don’t target Russian food and fertilizer. It also raised issues around financial transactions to the Russian Agricultural Bank, access for Russian-flagged vessels at ports and ammonia exports needed for fertilizer production.

A week before Russia signed the agreement, the U.S. Treasury Department issued statements with such assurances. It made clear that Washington hadn’t imposed sanctions on the sale or transport of agricultural commodities or medicine from Russia.

Treasury also issued a broad license to authorize certain transactions related to agricultural commodities, saying the U.S. “strongly supports efforts by the United Nations to bring both Ukrainian and Russian grain to world markets and to reduce the impact of Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine on global food supplies and prices.”

The EU also reiterated that Russian agriculture hadn’t been sanctioned and blamed the global spike in food prices on the war and the Kremlin’s agricultural export caps meant to protect its domestic market. The 27-nation bloc said its sanctions provide exceptions, such as allowing EU countries to authorize access to ports for Russian-flagged vessels for trade in agricultural or food products.

Russia says it’s still facing challenges.

The country’s agriculture ministry says difficulty with the supply of imported farming equipment, which isn’t directly sanctioned, also threatens the grain harvest. It said domestic needs would be met, but that exports might be affected.

Even after the deal was signed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov chided Western assurances that agriculture was exempt from sanctions. During a diplomatic tour of Africa focused on food exports, he said a “half-truth is worse than a lie” while pointing to the chilling effect of sanctions.

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres “committed himself to press the Western countries to lift those restrictions,” Lavrov said. “We’ll see whether he can succeed.”

Meanwhile, Russian and Ukrainian grains are ever more critical to averting hunger in developing countries. S&P Global Commodity Insights said in a June report that 41 million tons of Russian wheat could be available for export this year.

But overall, the world is expected to produce 12.2 million tons less wheat and 19 million tons less corn for the 2022-2023 harvest compared with the previous year, International Grains Council Executive Director Arnaud Petit said. This is in part due to the war in Ukraine and drought in Europe, he said.

While a strong U.S. dollar and inflation may force some countries to ration food imports, Petit noted that some countries are imposing export controls that could impact the availability of grains in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East.

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Raf Casert contributed to this report from Brussels.

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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Far-right Italian leader Meloni rides popular wave in polls

By FRANCES D'EMILIO

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Giorgia Meloni holds an Italian flag as she addresses a rally in Rome, Saturday, Oct. 19, 2019. With God, homeland and "natural" family prominent in her political manifesto, Giorgia Meloni, whose Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) party with neo-fascist roots has been fast rising in popularity in view of the upcoming Sept. 25 elections for Parliament, is positioning herself to become Italy's first far-right premier and the first woman to hold that office. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

ROME (AP) — With a message that blends Christianity, motherhood and patriotism, Giorgia Meloni is riding a wave of popularity that next month could see her become Italy’s first female prime minister and its first far-right leader since World War II.

Even though her Brothers of Italy party has neo-fascist roots, Meloni has sought to dispel concerns about its legacy, saying voters have grown tired of such discussions.

Still, there are nagging signs that such a legacy can’t be shaken off so easily: Her party’s symbol includes an image of a tricolored flame, borrowed from a neo-fascist party formed shortly after the end of the war.

If Brothers of Italy prevails at the polls on Sept. 25 and the 45-year-old Meloni becomes premier, it will come almost 100 years to the month after Benito Mussolini, Italy’s fascist dictator, came to power in October 1922.

In 2019, Meloni proudly introduced Caio Giulio Cesare Mussolini, a great-grandson of the dictator, as one of her candidates for the European Parliament, although he eventually lost.

For most Italian voters, questions about anti-fascism and neo-fascism aren’t “a key driver of whom to vote for,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, head of the YouTrend polling company. ”They don’t see that as part of the present. They see that as part of the past.”

Still, Meloni is sensitive to international scrutiny about her possible premiership and prefers the term conservative instead of far right to describe her party.

She recently recorded video messages in English, French and Spanish that said the Italian right “has handed fascism over to history for decades now, unambiguously condemning the suppression of democracy and the ignominious anti-Jewish laws.”

That was a reference to the 1938 laws banning Italy’s small Jewish community from participating in business, education and other facets of everyday life. The laws paved the way for the deportation of many Italian Jews to Nazi death camps during the German occupation of Rome in the waning years of World War II.

Yet by keeping the tri-colored flame in her party’s logo, “she is symbolically playing on that heritage,” said David Art, a Tufts University political science professor who studies Europe’s far right. “But then she wants to say, ‘We’re not racist.’”

Unlike Germany, which worked to come to terms with its devastating Nazi legacy, the fascist period is little scrutinized in Italian schools and universities, says Gastone Malaguti. Now 96, he fought as a teenager against Mussolini’s forces. In his decades of visiting classrooms to talk about Italy’s anti-fascist Resistance, he found many students “ignorant” of that history.

Only five years ago, Brothers of Italy — its name is inspired by the opening words of the national anthem — was viewed as a fringe force, winning 4.4% of the vote. Now, opinion polls indicate it could come in first place in September and capture as much as 24% support, just ahead of the center-left Democrat Party led by former Premier Enrico Letta.

Under Italy’s complex, partially proportional electoral system, campaign coalitions are what propels party leaders into the premiership, not just votes. Right-wing politicians have done a far better job this year than the Democrats of forging wide-ranging electoral partnership.

Meloni has allied with the right-wing League party led by Matteo Salvini, who, like her, favors crackdowns on illegal migration. Her other electoral ally is the center-right Forza Italia party of former Premier Silvio Berlusconi.

Last year, her party was the only major one to refuse to join Italy’s national pandemic unity coalition led by Premier Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief. Draghi’s government collapsed last month, abruptly abandoned by Salvini, Berlusconi and 5-Star leader Giuseppe Conte, who are all preoccupied with their parties’ slipping fortunes in opinion polls and local elections.

In opinion surveys, Meloni is “credited with a consistent and coherent approach to politics. She didn’t compromise,” Pregliasco said, adding that she also is perceived as “a leader who has clear ideas — not everyone agrees with those ideas, of course.”

She has apologized for the “tone” but not the content of a blistering speech she delivered in June in Spain to drum up support for far-right party Vox.

“They will say we are dangerous, extremists, racists, fascists, deniers and homophobes,″ Meloni thundered, in an apparent reference to Holocaust deniers. She ended with a crescendo of shouted slogans: “Yes to natural families! No to LGBT lobbies! Yes to sexual identity! No to gender ideology!”

Meloni slammed ”bureaucrats in Brussels″ and “climate fundamentalism.” Meloni, who has a young daughter, claimed that “the most censured” phrase is “woman and motherhood.”

Abortion hasn’t emerged as a campaign issue in Italy, where it’s legal. But Meloni has decried Italy’s shrinking birth rate, which would be even lower without immigrant women having babies.

At a rally of right-wing supporters in Rome in 2019, Meloni drew roars of approval when she yelled in a staccato pace: “I am Giorgia! I am a woman. I am a mother. I am Italian, and I am Christian. And you cannot take that away from me!”

Within days, her proclamation became fodder for a rap song’s lyrics. While some saw that as a parody, Meloni loved it and even sang a few bars on a state radio program.

According to her 2021 memoir “I am Giorgia,” much of her identity was forged by growing up in Rome’s working-class Garbatella neighborhood. At 15, she joined a youth branch of the Italian Social Movement, the neo-fascist party with the flame symbol, and plastered political posters in the capital.

When she was 31, Berlusconi made her the minister of youth in his third and last government. But she soon blazed her own path, co-founding Brothers of Italy in 2012.

Both Salvini and Meloni say they are safeguarding what they call Europe’s Christian identity. Salvini kisses dangling rosaries and wears a large cross on his often-bared chest, while Meloni’s tiny cross sometimes peeks out from her loose-fitting blouses.

Her party staunchly backed Draghi’s moves to send weapons to Ukraine, even as Salvini and Berlusconi, open admirers of Russian President Vladimir Putin, issued only tepid support. Meloni also defends the NATO alliance anchored by the United States, a fellow Group of Seven country. But she often views European Union rules as an infringement on Italy’s sovereignty.

If Meloni’s far-right forces dominate Italy’s next government, there’s concern about the support Italy will give to right-wing governments in Hungary and Poland “for their deeply conservative agendas″ amid fears about a ”democratic backsliding” in the EU, Art said.

For her part, Meloni says she will “fiercely oppose any anti-democratic drift.”

History uncovered: Fossils older than dinosaurs, and a religious refuge



Erika Page
Mon, August 15, 2022 at 5:45 AM

Discoveries of an old human civilization and ancient animals and plants are enriching knowledge of life on Earth. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom is developing a new environmental curriculum to help safeguard the planet.

1. Brazil

Brazilian paleontologists rediscovered a mother lode of fossils that had been lost for decades. The incredible fossil site was initially discovered in 1951 in the southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul. But without a description of the exact location, the fossils may have remained hidden if landowner Celestino Goulart hadn’t been curious about the fossil of a fish on his grandfather’s mantel that he’d heard came from his backyard.

A research team has since dug 6 feet into the ground, uncovering hundreds of fossils so far that range from pteridophyte vegetation to mollusks and ancient fish from the Permian period, a time that led to a mass extinction and paved the way for the dinosaurs. Scientists draw parallels between that period and today.

“While what we’re going through now is a result of human behavior, the mechanisms of extinction are very similar to those that happened during the Permian period,” says paleontologist Felipe Pinheiro. “We are interfering in the same biogeochemical cycles – the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle – that during the Permian period, because of natural factors, caused the death of almost 90 percent of species. So when we study this extinction, we’re studying the present day.”
Source: National Geographic

2. United States

The number of young people at Hawaii’s juvenile detention facility has fallen dramatically. Minors who end up at the Hawaii Youth Correctional Facility are some of the most vulnerable and high-risk youth. In 2014, there were over 100 youths at the facility. Thanks to extensive reforms, there were only 15 young people in incarceration in June – and no girls.

Many young people land in prison for low-level offenses and have histories of abuse or poverty. Hawaii’s success does not mean the state has fully solved the problems facing youth, but reflects a key shift toward trauma-informed care.

“What I’m trying to do is end the punitive model ... and we replace it with a therapeutic model,” said Mark Patterson, administrator of the correctional facility. “Do we really have to put a child in prison because she ran away? What kind of other environment is more conducive for her to heal and be successful in the community?” Nationally, incarceration rates for young people dropped by two-thirds between 2000 and 2018, according to the justice reform initiative Square One Project.
Sources: Hawaii News Now, The Washington Post

3. United Kingdom

Aspiring to be a world leader on climate change, the U.K.’s Department of Education is creating a new national curriculum for secondary school students to inspire environmental responsibility. The natural history course will focus on three main sustainability issues: local wildlife, environmental field studies, and the impact of human development on the natural world. The course will be ready for students by 2025.

Nearly 60% of young people across the U.K. and nine other countries reported feeling very worried or extremely worried about climate change, according to a 2021 survey. “We can make studying the natural world as much a part of school life as maths and English, establishing it as a foundational subject,” wrote environmentalist Mary Colwell, who first proposed the idea of a curriculum in 2011. Some educators say climate change should be taught across subjects, not siloed into its own course; other advocates are pushing for a more robust environmental curriculum earlier on in the school system.
Sources: The Guardian, BBC Wildlife Magazine, Schools Week

4. Turkey

Researchers are uncovering details about civilization in ancient Turkey, as they explore a sprawling city below modern-day Midyat. An underground tunnel leading to the town of at least 74 acres was discovered during a restoration project of local homes in 2020. The site is thought to be a former refuge for Christians and Jews, who were persecuted by the Roman Empire in the first century. Researchers have turned up coins, lamps, and silos for food, oil, and drinks among the homes carved out of limestone, where an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 people lived between the first and sixth centuries. One rock wall bears an engraved Star of David that may have been part of a synagogue. Archaeologists know of several dozen other underground cities across the country, but none as large as this discovery, being called Matiate. Only around 5% of the town has been excavated so far.
Source: The Wall Street Journal

5. Mozambique

A national park in Mozambique now offers a haven for rhinos, formerly extinct in the region. Zinave National Park became a protected area in 1972, but a civil war from 1977 to 1992 decimated the land. Following years of other rewilding and restoration efforts, conservationists recently succeeded in transporting 19 white rhinos from neighboring South Africa to Zinave. The rhinos traveled over 1,000 miles in the longest rhino road transfer yet completed.

An estimated 8,000 rhinos have been killed by poachers in southern Africa in the past decade. Reintroduction efforts give species a better chance at survival by providing a habitat for future generations – a healthy female rhino calf was born in June. The team intends to release 40 rhinos in Zinave over the next two years, to join over 2,400 animals from 14 species already introduced, including leopards, wildebeests, and hyenas. Zinave is part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, linking national parks in Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe – an important initiative for conservation, tourism, and local job creation.

Demand is so high for the legendary Bayraktar drones used to defend against Russia's Ukraine invasion that their Turkish maker has a 3-year waitlist

Beatrice Nolan

Mon, August 15, 2022 

A B model of Bayraktar AKINCI TİHA in Corlu, Turkey.Baykar Press Office/dia images via Getty Images

• Baykar, the Turkish company behind Bayraktar drones, has a three-year backlog, its boss said.

• The drones gained legendary status in Ukraine after being used early in the invasion to destroy Russian tanks.

• The firm agreed to build a new manufacturing base in Ukraine last year, prior to the invasion.

A Turkish drone manufacturer which has supplied unmanned aerial vehicles used by Ukraine during its defense against the Russia invasion says demand has soared to the point where it has a three-year-long waitlist.

Haluk Bayraktar, the CEO of Turkish defense firm Baykar, said in an interview with Ukraine's Come Back Alive foundation that the company currently has the manufacturing capacity to build twenty of its Bayraktar TB2 drones a month, but wants to up that with a new facility in Ukraine, which it agreed to build last year.

"We see Ukraine as our strategic partner," Bayraktar said, adding that the company had already embarked on building the Ukrainian factory.

"We as Baykar embarked on building a factory in Ukraine, a research center and manufacturing excellence center where we wanted to build all the systems," he said.

Bayraktar told the Come Back Alive foundation that a surge in demand for the company's UAVs meant it was "booked for about 3 years now."

"As these systems prove themselves on the field, more countries are interested in them," he said.

Representatives for Baykar did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment on the plans.

Baykar's drones, especially its famed Bayraktar TB2 drones, have gained legendary status in Ukraine after they were used early in the campaign to destroy large numbers of Russian vehicles. Their popularity even inspired a viral folk song.

Bayraktar TB2s took on a prominent role in Ukraine's early efforts in defending against Russia and were credited with destroying invading Russian tanks and armored vehicles.

Baykar told the foundation that he wants the Ukraine plant to manufacture these drones along with its other models — the Bayraktar Akıncı and the Bayraktar Kizilelma.

In June, the company donated three Bayraktar TB2 drones to Ukraine after turning down $20 million in crowdfunded money. The company asked that the funds be redirected to the "struggling people of Ukraine" in a statement shared on Twitter.

Although a key part of Ukraine's early military response to Russia, experts told Insider that the Turkish drones were becoming less effective as Russian forces step up their air defenses and electronic warfare.

Russia, planning to go it alone, unveils model of new space station


International military and technical forum Army 2022

Mon, August 15, 2022 

(Reuters) - Russia's space agency on Monday unveiled for the first time a physical model of what a planned new Russian-built space station will look like, suggesting Moscow is serious about abandoning the International Space Station (ISS) and going it alone.

Russia, in the throes of what some Kremlin hardliners believe is an historic rupture with the West sparked by sanctions imposed over what Moscow calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine, is rushing to reduce its dependency on Western nations and forge ahead on its own or cooperate with countries like China and Iran.

The West, which has accused Russia of prosecuting an unprovoked imperial-style war of aggression against Ukraine, has hit the Russian economy with sanctions designed to starve Moscow of technology, know-how and funds.

Russia's national space agency Roskosmos presented a model of the planned space station, dubbed "ROSS" by Russian state media, on Monday at "Army-2022", a military-industrial exhibition outside Moscow.

Yuri Borisov, whom President Vladimir Putin appointed last month to head Roskosmos, has said Russia will quit the ISS after 2024 and is working to develop its own orbital station.

Launched in 1998, the ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2000 under a U.S.-Russian-led partnership that also includes Canada, Japan and 11 European countries.

NASA, which is keen to keep the ISS operating until 2030, says it has not yet received official confirmation of Russia's planned withdrawal and had previously understood that Moscow would continue to participate until 2028.

Roskosmos said in a statement that the new space station would be launched in two phases, without giving dates.

The first phase would see a four-module space station start operating. That would later be followed by a further two modules and a service platform, it said. That would be enough, when completed, to accommodate up to four cosmonauts as well as scientific equipment.

Roskosmos has said the new station would afford Russian cosmonauts a much wider view of the Earth for monitoring purposes than they enjoy in their current segment.

Although designs for some of the new station already exist, design work is still underway on other segments.

Russian state media have suggested that the launch of the first stage is planned for 2025-26 and no later than 2030. Launch of the second and final stage is planned for 2030-35, they have reported.

The space station, as currently conceived, would not have a permanent human presence but would be staffed twice a year for extended periods.

Dmitry Rogozin, the previous head of Roskosmos and a hardliner known for his tough statements against the West, has suggested that the new space station could fulfil a military purpose if necessary.

(Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Susan Fenton)

ICYMI

Full-Scale Nuclear War Could Kill 5 Billion People, Study Shows

BAN WMD


Alex Millson
Mon, August 15, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- Five billion people would die in a modern nuclear war with the impact of a global famine -- triggered by sunlight-blocking soot in the atmosphere -- likely to far exceed the casualties caused by lethal blasts.

Scientists at Rutgers University mapped out the effects of six possible nuclear conflict scenarios. A full-scale war between the US and Russia, the worst possible case, would wipe out more than half of humanity, they said in the study published in the journal Nature Food.

The estimates were based on calculations of how much soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms ignited by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Researchers used a climate forecasting tool supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, which allowed them to estimate productivity of major crops on a country-by-country basis.

Even a relatively small-scale conflict would have devastating consequences for global food production. A localized battle between India and Pakistan would see crop yields decline by an estimated 7% within five years, the study suggested, while a US-Russia war would see production fall by 90% within three to four years.

Researchers also considered whether utilizing crops currently used as animal feed or reducing food waste could offset losses in the immediate aftermath of the conflict, but concluded that savings would be minimal in larger-scale battles.

The study comes after the specter of conflict between the US and Russia was raised following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned in April that there was a “serious” risk of nuclear war breaking out.

“The data tell us one thing,” said Alan Robock, the study’s co-auther and a professor of climate science in the Department of Environmental Sciences at Rutgers University. “We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.”

YEAR ONE OF THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY

China's Yangtze river shrinks as heatwave, drought threaten crops


China's Yangtze river shrinks as heatwave, droughts threaten crops

Mon, August 15, 2022

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Regions that rely on the Yangtze, China's longest river, are having to deploy pumps and cloud-seeding rockets as a long drought depletes water levels and threatens crops, and a heatwave is set to last another two weeks.

The Yangtze's middle and lower reaches have faced temperatures in excess of 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) over the past month, with experts blaming climate change-induced variations in the western Pacific subtropical high, a major determinant of summer weather throughout east Asia.

With the autumn harvest under threat, the agriculture ministry has deployed 25 teams to key regions to take action to protect crops, the Shanghai government's Guangming Daily newspaper reported.

The heatwave is likely to last for another two weeks, making it the longest sustained period of extreme temperatures since records began in 1961, experts with China's National Climate Center told the official Science and Technology Daily on Monday.

Rainfall in the Yangtze river drainage area fell about 30% in July and is 60% lower than normal in August, with the river's tributaries "significantly lower" than historical levels, according to the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission.

The Poyang lake in central China's Jiangxi province, which plays a major role in regulating Yangtze water flows in the summer, has shrunk to levels normally seen during the winter dry season after a 50% decline in rain in July.

Villages relying on water from the lake have been forced to deploy pumps to irrigate rice fields, media reported.

In the sprawling southwestern municipality of Chongqing, facing its second hottest summer since records began in 1961, 900 missiles have been made available to try to "seed" clouds and induce rain, media reported.

Other regions have launched their own weather modification operations.

China normally releases water from the Three Gorges reservoir to relieve drought on the Yangtze but downstream outflows are half the level of a year earlier, official data showed.

AP PHOTOS: Nagas mark 75 years since declaring independence

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India Naga Independence Photo GalleryA Naga Army soldier stands in prayer during celebrations marking the Nagas' Declaration of Independence in Chedema, in the northeastern Indian state of Nagaland, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2022. In this small mountain village, blue flags fluttered in the clear blue sky. While Indians across the country prepared to celebrate 75 years of independence on Monday, the Naga community marked the occasion by hoisting their very own blue flag. 

(AP Photo/Yirmiyan Arthur)

YIRMIYAN ARTHUR
Sun, August 14, 2022 

CHEDEMA, India (AP) — In a small mountain village in India’s northeast, blue flags fluttered high in the clear sky. While Indians across the country prepared to celebrate 75 years of independence from British rule on Monday, the Naga community in Chedema marked the occasion by hoisting their very own blue flag.

The Nagas — an Indigenous people inhabiting several northeastern Indian states and areas across the border in Myanmar — marked the 75th anniversary of their declaration of independence Sunday. Seeking self-rule, Nagas had announced independence a day ahead of India in 1947 and commemorate this moment every year.

The Naga insurgency is the longest running in South Asia. But the largest Naga armed faction, the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah), has been in a cease-fire with the Indian government for 25 years as peace talks have come to a deadlock over the issue of using the Naga flag and constitution.

Thousands gathered Sunday at the event organized by the Naga National Council, the community’s parent political organization. Infants slept on the backs of their mothers while young boys and girls helped prepare the feast that followed the hoisting of the blue Naga flag. About a hundred veteran fighters, who laid down their arms after the first cease-fire in 1964, attended the event in their uniforms.

Riivosielie Chakriinuo, the oldest surviving general in the Naga Army, wore a medal for his service and smiled as he recalled the 1964 cease-fire, saying it brought peace to the land.

“I used to serve the gun. Now I serve God,” he said.

Vilazoü Suokhrie, 87, said she was overjoyed to see so many people gathered to mark the Naga community’s declaration of independence.

While the declaration has never been contested by India, Nagaland and other northeastern states remain part of the country despite years of insurgency efforts seeking self-rule. The Nagas preserve their identity and history through the annual event.

“When the British were leaving, we expressed our desire to be a free people,” said Adinno Phizo, 90, who is president of the NNC.

Over 90% of Nagaland state’s more than 1.9 million people are Christian — a striking contrast in a Hindu-majority country. For decades, Nagas have fought a battle for independence from India, and there are few families that have not suffered from the violence.

In recent years, the violence has ebbed but the demands for political rights have grown even as the federal government has pushed for talks with separatists.

Turkey is openly boasting that vehicle trade with Russia has surged as its exports to Russia hit an 8-year high

Huileng Tan

Tue, August 16, 2022 

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met twice in under a month recently.Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP/Getty Images

• From May to July, Turkey and Russia traded 8,213 vehicles between them via cargo ships each month.

• That's up from the monthly average of 5,208 vehicles from January to April.

• Turkish exports to Russia hit an eight-year-high of $2.91 billion in the first half of 2022.

In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, many countries have hit Russia with sweeping sanctions and downplayed their relationship with the Kremlin. Turkey, on the other hand, is playing that relationship up — and has even boasted about a surge in trade with Russia.

On Friday, Turkish transport Minister Adil Karaismailoglu took to Twitter to tout the trade surge. He retweeted the country's Maritime General Directorate announcement about a 58% jump in the monthly average number of vehicles traded with Russia.

 

From May to July, Turkey and Russia traded 8,213 vehicles between them via cargo ships each month — up from the monthly average of 5,208 from January to April. The Turkish authority attributed the surge to new shipping lines between the two countries.

Overall, trade between the two countries has boomed, with Turkish exports to Russia hitting $2.91 billion in the first half of 2022, according to the official Turkish Statistical Institute, or TurkStat. That's an eight-year high, according to a Bloomberg analysis of TurkStat's data.

Ankara has condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine but has not sanctioned Russia or closed its airspace to the country. Ties between the two countries seem to be deepening, as five of Turkey's banks have started using Russia's Mir payments system, raising concerns that it could be used to skirt sanctions.

Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the resort city of Sochi, marking their second get-together just three weeks after they met in Iran.

As Turkey is a NATO member, its relationship with Russia is worrying Western officials, some of whom are thinking about punitive actions for the country, such as asking companies to reduce financing to Turkish firms, the Financial Times reported on August 7. There had been no official talks about such actions for Turkey so far, the media outlet added.

Turkey's fragile economy means Ankara has much at stake when it comes to its economic relations with Russia, which is one of its top trading partners. Turkey is also the top destination for Russian tourists, with 7 million of them visiting in 2019, per Nikkei.

UK sees biggest rise in foreign workers since COVID pandemic

By David Milliken

A worker collects orders at Amazon's fulfilment centre in Rugeley, 

central England December 11, 2012. 

REUTERS/Phil Noble

LONDON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Britain recorded its biggest rise in foreign workers since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in the year to June, driven overwhelmingly by workers from outside the European Union, official figures showed on Tuesday.

Since January 2021, most EU citizens not already working in Britain must be sponsored by an employer and be paid a salary that does not significantly undercut existing wages, after losing their previous almost-unrestricted right to work.

The post-Brexit change puts EU migrants on the same footing as those from the rest of the world, but has drawn complaints from employers who find the process bureaucratic, and a non-starter for most jobs that pay less than 25,600 pounds ($30,760) a year. read more

Tuesday's Office for National Statistics data showed the number of foreign-born workers in Britain rose by 223,000 in the year to the end of June, up from an increase of 184,000 in the year to March and the biggest rise since early 2020.

"Migration - a key source of worker shortages through the pandemic - is showing some signs of bouncing back," said James Smith, an economist at ING.

The data may be welcomed by the Bank of England which is worried that a shortage of candidates to fill jobs could push up wages too quickly and aggravate the recent jump in inflation.

Samuel Tombs, at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said migration was likely to rise further as the salary thresholds for sponsoring work visas had not been raised in line with average wages, which are 5.1% higher than a year ago.

The latest figures confirm a big shift in migration patterns compared with before Brexit.

Non-EU workers increased by 189,000 while the number of EU workers rose by 34,000 over the past year.

Previous government data showed India, Nigeria and the Philippines were the countries whose nationals received the most skilled work visas in the year to March.

By contrast, more than a million EU workers moved to Britain between the 2008-09 financial crisis and June 2016's Brexit referendum, since when the number of EU-born workers in employment has broadly stabilised at slightly under 2.4 million.

The number of non-EU workers employed in Britain has risen to 3.9 million from 3.1 million in the six years since June 2016.

($1 = 0.8323 pounds)

Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Nick Macfie