French left splits again after Mélenchon calls for Macron’s impeachment

Fresh spat in the left-wing New Popular Front alliance is good news for the Macron camp, which hopes to benefit from a fragmented opposition.


Contrary to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s claim, the impeachment procedure has very little chance of succeeding. 

| Victoria Valdivia/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images

August 19, 2024
By Giorgio Leali and Anthony Lattier

POLITICO EU

The French left is divided, again.

Part of the French left is embarrassed by radical firebrand Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s call to impeach President Emmanuel Macron, showing that France’s left-wing alliance is not as solid as it pretends to be.

This new spat within the New Popular Front alliance, which came first in snap elections last month, is good news for the Macron camp, which hopes to benefit from a fragmented opposition.

Over the weekend, Mélenchon — founder of the France Unbowed movement — and his garde rapprochée once again urged Macron to appoint Lucie Castets as prime minister. Castets is the preferred candidate of the pan-left alliance that gathers Mélenchon’s party along with Socialists, Greens and Communists.

But this time they added a threat.

If Macron doesn’t give in to their demands, the parliament should launch an impeachment procedure as “the refusal to recognize a legislative election and the decision to ignore it constitute a reprehensible breach of the elementary requirements of the presidential mandate,” Mélenchon wrote in a piece published in La Tribune, which was co-signed by party heavyweights such as Manuel Bompard and Mathilde Panot.

Contrary to Mélenchon’s claim, the impeachment procedure has very little chance of succeeding, experts say, not least because it would need to be endorsed by two-thirds of MPs in both houses of the French parliament.

But the proposal has had at least one practical effect — of weakening the left wing and putting its divisions under the spotlight.

All the other parties were quick to dismiss Mélenchon’s call. Even the entourage of prime minister candidate Castets distanced themselves from the impeachment threat, telling POLITICO that it was “an initiative of the France Unbowed, not of Lucie.”

On Monday, which happened to be Mélenchon’s birthday, Greens leader Marine Tondelier dismissed the impeachment call and warned against the risk that the left-wing “polyphony should not become a cacophony.”

While Socialist leader Olivier Faure also distanced himself from Mélenchon’s impeachment call, some within his party are increasingly warning against the extreme positions of the France Unbowed movement.

The squabble over the impeachment proposal has re-ignited internal bickering after the three parties managed to find some unity as they rallied behind Castets as common candidate for prime minister. The three parties were set to go together as a joint political force to consultations that Macron will hold at the Elysée Palace on Friday to form a new government.

But that unity is now in danger. “If the Unbowed don’t abandon this idea, we can’t go to the Elysée together to see a president whose impeachment they are calling for,” said Hélène Geoffroy, which heads a minority group within the Socialists.

In the meantime, Macron’s allies are rubbing their hands, hoping to capitalize on divisions among their left-wing opponents.

“It doesn’t strengthen them” going into Friday’s Elysée meeting, said a person close to the French president who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “When you disagree on something as essential as the Constitution, how can you imagine governing together?”

In the past, Macron has implicitly dismissed the possibility that Castets could become prime minister and instead called for a broader alliance including his own camp.

French politics was put on hold during the Paris Olympics: the country still doesn’t have a government more than one month after outgoing Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and his ministers resigned. They remain as a caretaker administration. An outgoing minister predicted that the new government could be appointed after the Paralympic Games, which are taking place in Paris until Sept. 8.

Brit tech tycoon Mike Lynch 'missing' after superyacht Bayesian sank in ‘tornado’ off Sicily

19 August 2024

Tech mogul Mike Lynch is among those missing after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. Picture: Getty

By Asher McShane

@ashermcs

British tech tycoon Mike Lynch is among those missing after a luxury yacht sank off the coast of Sicily.

Four British tourists are feared dead after the £14million superyacht was hit by a tornado.

Mike Lynch was acquitted in the US earlier this year in a multi-billion pound fraud case.

The yacht was owned by Mr Lynch, according to reports.

His wife Angela Bacares was confirmed as having been rescued, it was reported.

In June he was cleared of all charges by a US jury related to the sale of his software company Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.

Dr Michael Lynch, founder and chief executive officer of software firm Autonomy Corporation. Picture: Getty

So far, 15 people have been rescued by coast guards on patrol boats and firefighters, including a one-year-old baby.

The child's mother, Charlotte, said her daughter is now being treated in the Di Cristina hospital in Palermo.Recounting how she protected her baby as the vessel sunk, Charlotte said: “I held her afloat with all my strength, my arms stretched upwards to keep her from drowning.

“It was all dark. In the water I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I screamed for help but all I could hear around me was the screams of others.”

Read more: 'I held her with all my strength': Brit mother reveals how she saved her baby as superyacht sank in tornado off Sicily

Read more: Ukrainian officials order evacuation of families with children from Pokrovsk

Speaking to local news website la Repubblica, she added that her husband, James, had suffered minor injuries and was taken to Civico hospital in Palermo. 

Charlotte said she had reassured her husband that their child was ok and the pair promised to hug each other again soon.

Fifteen people were rescued from the 49-metre sailboat. Picture: Facebook/BAIA Santa Nicolicchia

Filippo Tripoli, the mayor of Bagheria in Sicily, said: "This morning, off the coast of Santa Flavia, a foreign boat sunk due to bad weather, 15 people recovered and seven missing.

"Already all the police forces and emergency services are operational and our Red Cross volunteers are present.

"CCTV from Monday morning showed the fierce storm, including water spouts, that battered the area.Umbrellas, plant pots, tables and chairs were sent flying in the strong winds.

The owners of local restaurant Baia Santa Nicolicchia said: "We have no memory of anything like this in our area."

The British-flagged, 56-metre Bayesian had a crew of 10 people and 12 passengers, representing British, American and Canadian nationalities, the Italian coast guard said.

A carabinieri vehicle parked near the harbor where search continues for missing passengers after a yacht capsized. Picture: Getty

Commentary


The Risk of Bringing AI Discussions Into High-Level Nuclear Dialogues

Overly generalized discussions on the emerging technology may be unproductive or even undermine consensus to reduce nuclear risks at a time when such consensus is desperately needed.


by Lindsay Rand
Published on August 19, 2024
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Nuclear Policy
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Last month, nuclear policymakers and experts convened in Geneva to prepare for a major conference to review the implementation of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). At the meeting, calls for greater focus on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for nuclear policy pervaded diverse discussions. This echoes many recent pushes from within the nuclear policy community to consider emerging technologies in nuclear security–focused dialogues. However, diplomats should hesitate before trying to tackle the AI-nuclear convergence. Doing so in official, multilateral nuclear security dialogues risks being unproductive or even undermining consensus to reduce nuclear risks at a time when such consensus is desperately needed.

The less-than-catchy official title of the Geneva meeting was the Preparatory Committee for the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. There are three preparatory committee meetings in the leadup to the NPT Review Conference, which occurs every five years. The intended goal of preparatory committee meetings is to discuss disagreements that are likely to occur at the NPT Review Conference in hopes of facilitating consensus on a final document. However, recent preparatory committee meetings have grown more contentious, stifling productive dialogue between state policymakers and nuclear security experts.

This precedent for animosity at preparatory committee meetings makes the seemingly unanimous call for increased dialogue on AI striking. Generally, proponents of increased dialogue framed AI as a potential catalyst for re-energizing diplomatic dialogue. They suggested that shared interests in mitigating AI-related risks could foster cooperation among nations with conflicting positions on other nuclear policy issues.

The level of interest in AI at the preparatory committee meeting isn’t surprising, given how much attention is being paid to the implications of AI for nuclear security and international security more broadly. Concerns range from increased speed of engagement, which could reduce human decisionmaking time, to automated target detection that could increase apprehension over second-strike survivability, or even increase propensity for escalation. In the United States, the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board recently published a report that examines AI’s potential impacts on arms control, nonproliferation, and verification, highlighting the lack of consensus around definitions and regulations to govern Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS). Internationally, there have also been calls for the five nuclear weapon states (P5) to discuss AI in nuclear command and control at the P5 Process, a forum where the P5 discuss how to make progress toward meeting their obligations under the NPT. Observers have called for the P5 to issue a joint statement on the importance of preserving human responsibility in nuclear decisionmaking processes.

However, injecting AI into nuclear policy discussions at the diplomatic level presents potential pitfalls. The P5 process and NPT forums, such as preparatory committee meetings and the NPT Review Conference, are already fraught with challenges. Introducing the complexities of AI may divert attention from other critical nuclear policy issues, or even become linked to outstanding areas of disagreement in a way that further entrenches diplomatic roadblocks.

Before introducing discussions about AI into official nuclear security dialogues, policymakers should address the following questions:In which forums could discussions about AI be productive?
What specific topics could realistically foster more productive dialogue?
Who should facilitate and participate in these discussions?
Forum Selection

Although leveraging AI discussions to overcome other diplomatic roadblocks is appealing in theory, it raises a number of practical concerns. When discussed in existing diplomatic forums, AI risks becoming linked with other nuclear policy disagreements. Issue linkage has already forestalled dialogue on other arms control and risk reduction efforts. For example, the ongoing war in Ukraine has been linked to U.S.-Russian arms control efforts, with Russia repeatedly refusing participation in arms control negotiations on the basis that it cannot compartmentalize issues integral to strategic stability. In the context of AI, premature attempts to incorporate the evolving technology into official dialogue could result in states refusing to address command and control issues unless they receive security guarantees that may have lower political appetite, like reductions of certain types of delivery vehicles that undermine second strike without faster (potentially AI-enhanced) decisionmaking. This would have the net effect of making it even more difficult to reduce AI-related risks and overcome the preexisting nuclear policy disagreements.

Instead, new dedicated spaces for conversations on AI could yield more focused, technically grounded approaches. This could be modeled after the Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) on Emerging Technologies in the Area of LAWS, which was established based on a recommendation at a regular Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) Review Conference. Insights generated from these focused discussions could then be integrated into broader nuclear policy forums, and hopefully even those at the diplomatic level, such as the preparatory committee meetings and the P5 process. They may also foster an environment conducive to unilateral risk reduction efforts outside of formal agreements.
Topic Selection

Specificity in discussions will enhance the productivity of the new forum. A lot of hype, or unrealistic expectations, already exists around the magnitude and ubiquity of AI implications. Overly vague discussions about risks that make AI seem more revolutionary could be counterproductive by promoting hype that may increase apprehension and feed into arms racing dynamics. Moreover, unfocused dialogues could lead to cross pollination of rhetoric around a so-called AI arms race that has gained traction outside of the nuclear policy realm. Given that states are already devising national strategies to establish leadership on AI technologies, overly generalized discussions that are seen as restricting AI innovation would reduce incentives to cooperate.

Instead, discussions should focus on specific use cases of AI for national security purposes. If the goal of the discussion is to catalyze cooperation, then creativity in topic selection is important. Initial discussions may benefit from focusing on clearly defined, technically grounded topics—such as the use of AI in satellite imagery analysis for verification, or dispute mechanisms for issues that may arise from such applications—rather than more contentious and amorphous issues like AI in nuclear command and control systems.

Discussions would be more productive still if they are based on mutually agreed-upon definitions and metrics for evaluation—but this is easier said than done. Given that groups such as the GGE established for LAWS have still failed to reach agreement on definitions for high-level applications such as autonomous weapons systems, focusing on more narrow terms would be more productive, at least in the short term. Developing a shared technical vocabulary and establishing consensus on standards and procedures to evaluate AI capabilities for specific use cases would not only provide greater clarity on research and development status, but could also help create a more common understanding of risks related to AI, thereby reducing hype.
Participants

Although some nuclear policy experts and diplomats may have in-depth knowledge of AI, it is not a prerequisite for participation in nuclear security forums. Greater care should be given to ensure that policymakers receive foundational information before discussing AI in formal forums that are closed to external participants who have deeper topical expertise. Including AI technical experts, along with strategists and policymakers focused on AI-nuclear convergences, may enhance the dialogue’s quality and depth. A more interdisciplinary approach would better address the complexity of the technology and could slowly improve the quality of the dialogue.

Given the myriad risks at the convergence of AI and nuclear weapons, the intersection of these two issues certainly merits thoughtful discussion in some international forum. However, introducing AI into nuclear policy dialogues at the diplomatic level that are already suffering from major political roadblocks is unlikely to be easy or productive unless treated very carefully. Before rushing to do so, policymakers should give extensive thought to the practicality of such discussions to ensure that they are thoughtful, focused, and technically informed—and thus ultimately productive—and do not further deepen the divides, complicating an already complex geopolitical landscape.

Lindsay Rand
Postdoctoral fellow, Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation

Modi to visit Ukraine this week, first Indian premier to do so in 30 years

India's Narendra Modi visited Russia in July for a two-day official visit

Ahmad Adil |19.08.2024 - 


NEW DELHI

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Ukraine later this week, marking the first visit by an Indian premier to the country in 30 years. The visit comes amid the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which began with Russia's "special military operation" in February 2022.

Modi's official visit to Ukraine is scheduled for Friday, following an invitation from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to senior Foreign Ministry official Tanmaya Lal.

Officials have described the visit as "landmark," highlighting that it will build upon the recent high-level interactions between the two leaders. The ongoing conflict in Ukraine is expected to be a significant focus of the discussions.

"India has consistently advocated for diplomacy and dialogue to reach a negotiated settlement," Lal stated.

Before his visit to Ukraine, Modi will stop in Poland for a two-day visit starting Wednesday, as confirmed by officials.

Modi visited Russia in July for a two-day official visit.

 

Ukrainian incursion into Kursk paralyses Russia’s railways

Russia has a fully digitised railway system, so once you access the system of any train station, no matter how small, you have access to the entire network. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin August 19, 2024

Once the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) took its first Russian railway station inside Russia it was in the position to cause chaos and glean valuable troop movement intel.

“Russia has a fully digitised railway system, so once you access the system of any train station, no matter how small, you have access to the entire network,” Paul Con, a Ukraine observer, said in a social media post.

The AFU breakthrough has led to a severe disruption in railway operations, paralysing key routes across the country. The central office of Russian Railways (RZD) has urgently requested the Belarusian railway authorities to halt the dispatching of freight trains to Russia, as the system has become overloaded, according to a report by the Union of Belarusian Railroad Workers.

The main problem is that a reported 133,000 civilians are fleeing the region at the same time after the AFU crossed the border on August 6. And the situation may be getting worse after Ukrainian forces were seen in the Belgorod region to the north, which has now also declared a state of emergency.

The load has incapacitated RZD’s ability to receive trains from Belarus on the Moscow and Bryansk railway routes, which also abuts the Ukrainian border.

Official documents indicate that the request to stop incoming freight trains was issued on August 12, reflecting the critical situation on the ground. The ban is indefinite, as Russian authorities are uncertain when control over the affected railways will be restored, UA Wire reports.

Transport logistics between Russia and Belarus have reportedly collapsed, with numerous freight trains now stranded in dispatch areas. Russia’s Smolensk region in particular has become a bottleneck, with "abandoned" trains accumulating due to the halted traffic. A lack of locomotives has made the situation worse, UA Wire reports.

What remains unclear is if the AFU has been able to hack the RZD’s IT system to further disrupt the railways, however, once into the system they have been able to glean valuable information about Russia’s troop movements. RZD is reportedly now trying to lock the AFU out of the system.

“It seems that the Ukrainians managed to infiltrate the Russian railway system and were able to track the routes of arms shipments. Completely overhauling the system is currently causing significant headaches for IT specialists in Moscow,” added con.

Russia has been struggling to counter the AFU’s incursion. Other reports say that the expeditionary force has brought upgraded drones with them that use new frequencies that are impervious to Russian electronic warfare jamming, while the AFU has also upgraded their own jamming software which is now highly effective against Russian drones. Western reporters that made it to the Russian-Ukrainian border were surprised with the freedom of movement AFU forces have and the total absence of Russian drones. As bne IntelliNews reported, in the drone war, Russia has had the upper hand until recently.

The Kremlin has been bringing reinforcements up from Donbas to counter the AFU’s incursion, and also troops from as far away as Kaliningrad, but to move men and materiel over such long distances in Russia there are few alternatives to the railway.

 

Germany cancels future funds for Ukraine’s war effort

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has cancelled all future fund distribursements for Ukraine due to the lack of money. Germany will still supply money this year and next year thanks to existing commitments, but by 2026 it will fall to €500mn going foward. / bne IntelliNews

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By Ben Aris in Berlin August 18, 2024

First it was the Americans that ran out of money for Ukraine leading to a disastrous six month hiatus in supplies that allowed Russia to destroy 90% of Ukraine’s non-nuclear electricity generation capacity. Now it is the Germans turn: Berlin has frozen all additional military aid to Ukraine due to budget constraints, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported on August 18.

The decision, backed by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, was ordered by Finance Minister Christian Lindner and limits new funding for Ukraine's military needs to aid packages that have already been announced. No additional funds will be allocated for the coming years, despite ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine.

Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) quickly posted a message on social media saying that financial aid to Ukraine by Germany would not be suspended.

Some commentators have pointed out that the final decision lies with Bundesrat, the parliament, which has not yet made a decision. It already approved additional funds last year, contrary to the government's draft budget, so a work around may still be found.

However, recent revelations that a Ukrainian diving instructor was behind the destruction of the Nord Stream 1&2 gas pipelines that belonged to Germany and was the major source of energy to the country, may complicate matters. German prosecutors have issued a warrant for his arrest, but, with Polish complicity, he fled to Ukraine.

Ukraine has been worried that the mounting Ukraine fatigue will reduce the support it gets from its Western allies. Eventually the US passed a new $61bn aid package on April 20, but that package is widely seen as the last big financial package the US will contribute to the war effort.

The EU also approved a four-year €50bn support package in February and is taking over as Ukraine’s main source of funds. In addition, a $50bn loan agreed by the G7 countries in July that will be serviced by interest payments from the $300bn of frozen Central Bank of Russia (CBR) reserves was approved, but as bne IntelliNews reported Ukraine is running out of men, money and materiel and the loan money is not expected until the autumn at the earliest.

This year the Ukrainian budget calls for a record $43bn deficit, but there is already a $12bn hole that needs to be filled, and the government is mulling making spending cuts, raising taxes and, as a last resource, turning the printing presses back on to cover the shortfall. Moreover, the outlook is for the situation to get worse; Ministry of Finance (MinFin) forecasts it will receive some $37bn this year from international donors, increasingly in the form of loans, but that will fall to $19bn by 2026.

Ukraine has already technically defaulted on its outstanding Eurobonds, after it was unable to start repayments at the start of August and was forced to restructure the debt, giving investors a 60% haircut, but offering them potentially lucrative GDP warrants as compensation. Under the deal some of the world’s biggest investors, including BlackRock, Amundi and Amia Capital, will write off a large part of $23.4bn by exchanging their bonds for new ones that will have maturities of as much as 12 years.

 

Germany’s decision comes at the worst time for Ukraine, which is slowly losing ground to the advancing Armed Forces of Russia (ARR) on the frontline inside Ukraine, but has also launched a bold attack on Russian soil in the Battle for Kursk and needs more money and arms than ever.

In a letter obtained by FAZ, Lindner outlined that future aid to Ukraine should be financed through the $50bn package recently agreed upon by the G7. However, the $50bn loan remains bogged down in wrangling over how the money will be distributed by the contributing countries and German has objected to participating saying that it has already contributed €37bn to Ukraine’s war budget and points out it is already the biggest contributor to the four-year €50bn package agreed at the start of this year.

One immediate impact of the decision is the inability to finance an IRIS-T fire unit that had been offered for immediate delivery by Germany’s Diehl Defence. The unit became available after another customer opted to defer their delivery to aid Ukraine following a devastating Russian missile attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv in July. Despite the urgency, the funds were not approved, against the wishes of Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, but Norway has stepped in to provide the system.

The freeze on new military aid has reportedly led to significant tensions within the German government. Ministries led by Defence Minister Pistorius, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, and Vice Chancellor and Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck were strongly opposed to the lockdown. Sources told FAZ there was a major dispute within the government following the announcement.

FAZ reported that the funds for military aid in 2024 have already been fully allocated, with the planned €4bn for 2025 already overbooked.

The Federal Government itself has denied the FAZ report. The only reason aid to Ukraine was capped at €4bn in the budget is because there will be additional aid from another budget, the Chancellery said.

There was also no comment on how many weapons were currently being delivered, as this is usually only announced once the weapons, tanks and air defence systems have arrived in Ukraine .

The financial planning for subsequent years looks grim, with only €3bn earmarked for 2026 and a mere €500mn for both 2027 and 2028. Unless new money is found, the financial outlook for Ukraine is grim and that no new military aid pledges to Ukraine will be possible in the near future.

As a result, the $50bn G7 loan becomes a crucial source of funding for Kyiv.

Behind Germany’s budget problem is the November 15, ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, which declared the second supplementary budget unconstitutional. The federal government had earmarked structural EU funds that it intended to use for the green transition, but the court ruled that the €60bn in question could not be reassigned under Germany’s so-called debt-brake rules, leaving a significant hole in the budget plans.

The federal government and the 16 federal states are obliged to balance their books, making taking out new loans very difficult. No other G7 country has such strict limits on new borrowing and the rules are enshrined in the German constitution. The debt brake became legally binding for the federal government in 2016 and for the states in 2020. Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) was then  able to present the first "black zero" balanced budget in 45 years in 2014. The only wiggle room the federal government has – regions have none --  is it is  allowed to borrow up to a maximum of 0.35% of GDP, or around €13bn in additional debt.

The debt brake can be suspended, "for natural disasters or unusual emergency situations beyond governmental control and substantially harmful to the state's financial capacity," categries the war in Ukraine do not fall into.

Russian state nuclear firm closely monitors two power stations in the warzone

Both the Zaporizhzhya and Kursk nuclear power plants are now in active fighting zones

This photo taken March 23, 2016 shows the monument to the victims of the 1986 Chernobyl tragedy in front of a new shelter installed over the exploded reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, in Chernobyl, Ukraine. A new and highly virulent outbreak of malicious data-scrambling software caused disruption across the world Tuesday, June 27, 2017. The virus hit the radiation-monitoring at Ukraine's shuttered Chernobyl power plant, site of the world's worst nuclear accident, forcing it into manual operation. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Last updated: August 19, 2024 

ByDénes Albert

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The situation around the Zaporizhzhya and Kursk nuclear power plants is steadily deteriorating, Alexei Likhachev, CEO of the Russian state nuclear company Rosatom, told Rafael Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a telephone conversation on Saturday.

Rosatom’s press service reported how Likhachev had invited Grossi to the Kursk nuclear power plant and the town of Kurchatov to see the conditions there for himself.

Earlier in the day, Russia accused Ukrainian troops who had invaded the Kursk region of planning an attack on the Kursk nuclear power plant and holding Moscow responsible. Ukrainian foreign spokesman Heorhiy Tihiy denied the allegation on X, calling it “crazy” propaganda.

The Russian defense ministry, quoted by the Interfax news agency, stressed that a tough response would be given if any attack on the nuclear facility took place.

Similarly, the Russian management of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant claimed on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive device during the day on a nearby road where the plant’s personnel were driving.

According to Russia, “the Ukrainian attack posed a direct threat to the safety of the staff and the plant”. There was no word on whether anyone was injured.

The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe, came under Russian control shortly after the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. Russia and Ukraine have since repeatedly accused each other of trying to sabotage the plant’s operation.

Slovak culture ministry issues list of risky books that includes Zizek, Forsyth and Hitler

Prime Minister Robert Fico (centre) and Culture Minister Martina Simkovicova (far right). / bne IntelliNews

By Albin Sybera August 19, 2024

The Slovak Ministry of Culture, led by far-right minister Martina Simkovicova, has issued an internal list of “risky” literature which includes Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, British novelist Frederick Forsyth, and also Adolf Hitler and Norwegian far-right murderer Anders Breivik. Other names listed in the document as risky authors are Stalin and American far-right conspiracy spreader Alex Jones.

The eclectic list is an internal document for the ministry’s employees to supposedly identify authors of works that can lead to the “radicalisation of persons in the context of modern technologies.”

The document was supposedly designed based on reports from Slovak intelligence service the Slovak Information Service (SIS), Czech liberal daily DenikN wrote.

Simkovicova –  who was nominated to the cabinet by the far-right party SNS and previously worked as a presenter at TV Slovak, which spread hoaxes about the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change and war in Ukraine  – is facing renewed calls for resignation after she sacked the heads of the country’s key cultural institutions, including Alexandra Kusa from the Slovak National Gallery and Matej Drlicka from the Slovak National Theatre earlier this month.

A total of 28,000 people protested the moves in the streets of the country's capital Bratislava over two days last week and the opposition, led by the centrist Progressive Slovakia (PS) party, vowed to push ahead with a vote of confidence against Simkovicova and Minister of Justice Boris Susko, who is slammed for releasing ex-prosecutor Dusan Kovacik, who was convicted of accepting bribes from the mafia and shielding its members from criminal investigations.

The left-right cabinet led by populist Prime Minister Robert Fico stepped up its efforts to complete the abolition of the rule of law while the European Commission is in the middle of a changeover following the elections to the European Parliament in June. Fico survived an assassination attempt in May and returned to politics this summer with baseless accusations that the would-be assassin was an “opposition activist”.

Fico’s cabinet already dismantled the special prosecution office overseeing high-profile corruption cases, which raised concerns in Brussels, and is set to dismantle a special anti-corruption police unit by the end of August.

Fico also used the cultural portfolio to attack the PS leader Michal Simecka after he and Simkovicova accused Simecka of benefiting from state subsidies through a foundation named after his grandfather, Czechoslovak writer, philosopher and communist-era dissident Milan Simecka. The Milan Simecka Foundation was set up some 30 years ago following the famed writer’s death in 1990.

Michal Simecka, who is 39, denied ever benefiting from the Foundation.

“If the Andrej Bagar Theatre in Nitra obtains state support, it does not mean that the family of Andrej Bagar benefits from it,” Simecka said, giving the example of the Slovak actor and director and the theatre in the town of Nitra named after Bagar.

Fico, Simkovicova and other members of the ruling Smer and SNS parties have relied on hoaxes about Brussels and liberal politicians to invoke conspiracies and build narratives that they are defending Slovak traditional values. Fico also said his coalition, which also includes the centre-left Hlas and holds a narrow majority in the parliament, will vote Simecka out of his post as the vice chair of the parliament, traditionally held by the leader of the strongest opposition party.  

Simecka vowed to go ahead with a confidence move against Simkovicova and also said he would make legal moves against Fico if Fico continued with the false attacks against him and his family.