World
Chinese factories close as drought hurts hydropower
Factories in China’s southwest have shut down after reservoirs used to generate hydropower ran low in a worsening drought, adding to economic strains at a time when President Xi Jinping is trying to extend his position in power.
Companies in Sichuan province including makers of solar panels, cement and urea closed or reduced production after they were ordered to ration power for up to five days, according to news reports Wednesday. That came after reservoir levels fell and power demand for air conditioning surged in scorching temperatures.
“Leave power for the people,” said an order from the provincial government dated Tuesday.
The shutdowns add to challenges for the ruling Communist Party as Xi, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, prepares to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader at a meeting in October or November.
Growth in factory output and retail sales weakened in July, setting back China’s economic recovery after Shanghai and other industrial centers were shut down starting in late March to fight virus outbreaks.
The economy grew by just 2.5% over a year earlier in the first half of 2022, less than half the official annual goal of 5.5%.
Areas across central and northern China ordered emergency measures to ensure drinking water supplies after summer rain was as little as half normal levels. The official Xinhua News Agency said firetrucks carried water to two dry villages near Chongqing in the southwest.
Hundreds of thousands of hectares (acres) of crops across central and northern China have wilted due to lack of water and high temperatures, according to the government. Some areas have reported the summer growing season a failure.
Read: China Focus: China promotes green development along Belt and Road
The weather agency has warned temperatures in some areas could spike to 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
In Sichuan, which has 94 million people, water levels at hydropower reservoirs are down by as much as half this month, according to the Sichuan Provincial Department of Economics and Information Technology.
A subsidiary of Guoguang Co., Ltd. that makes pesticide and fertilizer closed from Monday through at least Saturday, according to a company announcement through the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Makers of solar power equipment in Sichuan including Tongwei Solar Co. Ltd. and GCL-Poly Energy Holdings Ltd. said they received notices to ration power.
Tongwei said the “power cut and production shutdown have not had much impact,” the business news outlet East Money reported.
China faced similar strains last year when Guangdong province in the southeast, one of the world’s most important manufacturing centers, ordered factories to shut down after hydropower reservoirs ran low due to sparse rain.
The government has allocated 280 million yuan ($41 million) for drought relief in Hebei and Shanxi provinces and the Inner Mongolia region in the north and Liaoning province in the northeast, according to Xinhua.
“Some small and medium-size rivers are so dry that they have stopped flowing,” the report said.
Meanwhile, authorities on Tuesday warned some parts of the country face possible flooding from heavy rains forecast in areas from the northwest across Inner Mongolia to the northeast.
South Korean leader: Seoul won’t seek own nuclear deterrent
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said Wednesday his government has no plans to pursue its own nuclear deterrent in the face of growing North Korean nuclear weapons capabilities, even as the North fired two suspected cruise missiles toward the sea in the latest display of an expanding arsenal.
Yoon’s call for Pyongyang to return to diplomacy aimed at exchanging denuclearization steps for economic benefits came hours after the South’s military detected that the North fired the missiles from the western coastal town of Onchon toward the sea. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff didn’t immediately release further details, including how far the weapons traveled.
Yoon’s office said his national security director, Kim Sung-han, discussed the launch with other officials before Yoon addressed reporters in a news conference and reviewed the South’s military readiness. Tensions could further rise as the United States and South Korea kick off their biggest combined training in years next week to counter the North Korean threat. The North describes such drills as invasion rehearsals and has often responded to them with missile tests or other provocations.
Yoon told reporters South Korea doesn’t desire political change in North Korea that’s brought by force and he called for diplomacy aimed at building sustainable peace between the rivals amid tensions over the North’s accelerating weapons program.
Yoon’s comments came days after he proposed an “audacious” economic assistance package to North Korea if it abandons its nuclear weapons program, while avoiding harsh criticism of the North after it threatened “deadly” retaliation over a COVID-19 outbreak it blames on the South.
Yoon’s proposal for large-scale aid in food and healthcare and modernizing power and port infrastructure resembled previous South Korean offers that were rejected by North Korea, which is speeding its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, seen by leader Kim Jong Un as his strongest guarantee of survival.
Still, Yoon expressed hope for “meaningful dialogue” with North Korea over his plan and stressed that Seoul is willing to provide corresponding economic rewards at each step of a phased denuclearization process if the North commits to a genuine “roadmap” toward fully abandoning its weapons program.
“We are not telling them to ‘denuclearize entirely first and then we will provide,’” Yoon said. “What we are saying is that we will provide the things we can in correspondence to their steps if they only show a firm determination (toward denuclearization).”
Inter-Korean ties have worsened amid a stalemate in larger nuclear negotiations between North Korea and the U.S. that derailed in early 2019 because of disagreements over a relaxation of crippling U.S.-led sanctions on the North in exchange for disarmament steps.
North Korea has ramped up its missile testing to a record pace in 2022, launching more than 30 ballistic weapons so far, including its first intercontinental ballistic missiles in nearly five years.
The heighted testing activity underscores North Korea’s dual intent to advance its arsenal and force the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear power so it can negotiate economic and security concessions from a position of strength, experts say. Kim could up the ante soon as there are indications that the North is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since September 2017, when it claimed to have developed a thermonuclear weapon to fit on its ICBMs.
Read: S Korea sees brighter ties with Bangladesh with multifarious success stories: Envoy
While Kim’s ICBMs get much of the international attention, North Korea is also expanding its range of nuclear-capable, short-range missiles that can target South Korea. Kim has punctuated his weapons development with threats to proactively use his nuclear weapons in conflicts against the South or the U.S., which experts say communicate an escalating nuclear doctrine that could increase concerns for its neighbors.
Yoon has vowed to strengthen the South’s defenses through its alliance with the United States by resuming large-scale military training that was canceled or downsized during the Trump years and boosting the South’s missile defenses. The Biden administration has also reaffirmed U.S. commitments to defending South Korea and Japan, including “extended deterrence,” referring to an assurance to defend its allies with its full military capabilities, including nuclear.
But some experts say it’s becoming clear South Korea has no clear way to counter the leverage North Korea has with its nukes, expressing concerns that Washington might hesitate to defend its ally in the event of war when Kim’s ICBMs would pose a potential threat to mainland American cities.
Some South Koreans have called for the reintroduction of tactical U.S. nuclear weapons that were removed from the South in the 1990s, or for Seoul to pursue its own deterrent.
Yoon dismissed the possibility of the latter during the news conference, saying that Seoul will stay committed to an international treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
“I believe the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) regime is a very important and necessary premise for permanent world peace,” Yoon said, expressing hope that the U.S. deterrence strategy for its allies could evolve to counter the North’s growing threat.
Yoon’s comments came after North Korea last week claimed a widely disputed victory over COVID-19 but also blamed South Korea for the outbreak. North Korea insists leaflets and other objects flown across the border by activists spread the virus, an unscientific claim Seoul describes as “ridiculous.”
North Korea has a history of dialing up pressure on South Korea when it doesn’t get what it wants from the United States, and there are concerns that North Korea’s threat portends a provocation, which could include a nuclear or missile test or even border skirmishes. Some experts say North Korea may stir up tensions around joint military exercises between the allies that start next week.
Trump foe Liz Cheney defeated in Wyoming GOP primary
Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Donald Trump’s fiercest Republican adversary in Congress, was defeated in a GOP primary Tuesday, falling to a rival backed by the former president in a rout that reinforced his grip on the party’s base.
The third-term congresswoman and her allies entered the day downbeat about her prospects, aware that Trump’s backing gave Harriet Hageman considerable lift in the state where he won by the largest margin during the 2020 campaign. Cheney was already looking ahead to a political future beyond Capitol Hill that could include a 2024 presidential run, potentially putting her on another collision course with Trump.
Cheney described her loss as the beginning of a new chapter in her political career as she addressed a small collection of supporters, including her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, on the edge of a vast field flanked by mountains and bales of hay.
“Our work is far from over,” she said Tuesday evening, evoking Abraham Lincoln, who also lost congressional elections before ascending to the presidency and preserving the union.
The results — and the roughly 30-point margin — were a powerful reminder of the GOP’s rapid shift to the right. A party once dominated by national security-oriented, business-friendly conservatives like her father now belongs to Trump, animated by his populist appeal and, above all, his denial of defeat in the 2020 election.
Such lies, which have been roundly rejected by federal and state election officials along with Trump’s own attorney general and judges he appointed, transformed Cheney from an occasional critic of the former president to the clearest voice inside the GOP warning that he represents a threat to democratic norms. She’s the top Republican on the House panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters, an attack she referenced in nodding to her political future.
“I have said since Jan. 6 that I will do whatever it takes to ensure Donald Trump is never again anywhere near the Oval Office — and I mean it,” she said.
Four hundred miles to the east of Cheney’s concession speech, festive Hageman supporters gathered at a sprawling outdoor rodeo and Western culture festival in Cheyenne, many wearing cowboy boots, hats and blue jeans.
Also read: Trump’s bond with GOP deepens after primary wins, FBI search
“Obviously we’re all very grateful to President Trump, who recognizes that Wyoming has only one congressional representative and we have to make it count,” said Hageman, a ranching industry attorney who had finished third in a previous bid for governor.
Echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories, she falsely claimed the 2020 election was “rigged” as she courted his loyalists in the runup to the election.
Trump and his team celebrated Cheney’s loss, which may represent his biggest political victory in a primary season full of them. The former president called the results “a complete rebuke” of the Jan. 6 committee.
“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” he wrote on his social media platform. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now. Thank you WYOMING!”
The news offered a welcome break from Trump’s focus on his growing legal entanglements. Just eight days earlier, federal agents executing a search warrant recovered 11 sets of classified records from the former president’s Florida estate.
Cheney’s defeat would have been unthinkable just two years ago. The daughter of a former vice president, she hails from one of the most prominent political families in Wyoming. And in Washington, she was the No. 3 House Republican, an influential voice in GOP politics and policy with a sterling conservative voting record.
Cheney will now be forced from Congress at the end of her third and final term in January. She is not expected to leave Capitol Hill quietly.
She will continue in her leadership role on the congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack until it dissolves at the end of the year. And she is actively considering a 2024 White House bid -- as a Republican or independent -- having vowed to do everything in her power to fight Trump’s influence in her party.
With Cheney’s loss, Republicans who voted to impeach Trump are going extinct.
In all, seven Republican senators and 10 Republican House members backed Trump’s impeachment in the days after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress tried to certify President Joe Biden’s victory. Just two of those 10 House members have won their primaries this year. After two Senate retirements, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is the only such Senate Republican on this year’s ballot.
Cheney was forced to seek assistance from the state’s tiny Democratic minority in her bid to pull off a victory. But Democrats across America, major donors among them, took notice. She raised at least $15 million for her election, a stunning figure for a Wyoming political contest.
Voters responded to the interest in the race. With a little more than half of the vote counted, turnout ran about 50% higher than in the 2018 Republican primary for governor.
If Cheney does ultimately run for president — either as a Republican or an independent — don’t expect her to win Wyoming’s three electoral votes.
“We like Trump. She tried to impeach Trump,” Cheyenne voter Chester Barkell said of Cheney on Tuesday. “I don’t trust Liz Cheney.”
And in Jackson, Republican voter Dan Winder said he felt betrayed by his congresswoman.
“Over 70% of the state of Wyoming voted Republican in the last presidential election and she turned right around and voted against us,” said Winder, a hotel manager. “She was our representative, not her own.”
Global Covid cases top 596 million
The overall number of Covid cases has now surged past 596 million amid a rise in new infections in parts of the world.
According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 596,934,012 and the death toll reached 6,459,290 on Wednesday morning.
The US has recorded 94,869,936 cases so far and 1,063,087 people have died from the virus in the country, the data shows.
India's daily Covid-19 caseload rose to 8,813 on Tuesday, officials said.
According to federal health ministry data released on Tuesday, 8,813 new cases of Covid were reported in 24 hours, taking the total tally to 44,277,194 in the country.
The cases reported on Tuesday marked a sharp decline in comparison to the daily caseload of 14,917 reported on Monday.
India's active caseload currently stands at 111,252, according to the ministry.
Read: Global Covid cases top 594 million
The country also logged 29 related deaths in 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 527,098 since the beginning of the pandemic, the ministry said.
Meanwhile, the Chinese mainland on Tuesday reported 566 locally transmitted confirmed Covid cases, of which 482 were in Hainan Province, the National Health Commission said Wednesday.
Covid in Bangladesh
Bangladesh reported zero Covid deaths and 93 new cases in 24 hours till Tuesday morning.
The country last reported zero Covid-linked death on August 13.
With the latest numbers, Bangladesh's total fatalities remained static at 29,314 while the caseload rose to 2,009,222, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
The daily case test positivity rate rose to 4.41 percent from Monday's 4.09 percent as 2,110 samples were tested.
The mortality rate remained unchanged at 1.46 percent. The recovery rate rose to 97.15 percent from Monday's 97.14 percent.
In July, the country reported 142 Covid-linked deaths and 31,422 cases, the highest monthly death toll and caseload since March this year.
Bangladesh registered its highest daily caseload of 16,230 on July 28 last year and daily fatalities of 264 on August 10 in the same year.
Western states hit with more cuts to Colorado River water
For the second year in a row, Arizona and Nevada will face cuts in the amount of water they can draw from the Colorado River as the West endures more drought, federal officials announced Tuesday.
Though the cuts will not result in any immediate new restrictions — like banning lawn watering or car washing — they signal that unpopular decisions about how to reduce consumption are on the horizon, including whether to prioritize growing cities or agricultural areas. Mexico will also face cuts.
But those reductions represent just a fraction of the potential pain to come for the 40 million Americans in seven states that rely on the river. Because the states failed to meet a federal deadline to figure out how to cut their water use by at least 15%, they could see even deeper cuts that the government has said are needed to prevent reservoirs from falling so low they cannot be pumped.
“The states collectively have not identified and adopted specific actions of sufficient magnitude that would stabilize the system,” Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton said.
Together, the missed deadline and the latest cuts put officials responsible for providing water to cities and farms under renewed pressure to plan for a hotter, drier future and a growing population.
Touton has said a 15% to 30% reduction is necessary to ensure that water deliveries and hydroelectric power production are not disrupted. She was noncommittal on Tuesday about whether she planned to impose those cuts unilaterally if the states cannot reach agreement.
She repeatedly declined to say how much time the states have to reach the deal she requested in June.
The inaction has stirred concerns throughout the region about the bureau’s willingness to act as states stubbornly cling to their water rights while acknowledging that a crisis looms.
“They have called the bureau’s bluff time and again,” Kyle Roerink, the executive director of the Great Basin Water Network, said of the Colorado River basin states. “Nothing has changed with today’s news — except for the fact that the Colorado River system keeps crashing.”
Stephen Lewis, governor of the Gila River Indian Community in central Arizona, said the tribe was “shocked and disappointed” by the lack of progress. The tribe, which is entitled to nearly one-fourth of Arizona’s Colorado River deliveries, no longer plans to save its unused water in Lake Mead, as it has in recent years, and instead plans to store it underground.
For years, cities and farms have diverted more water from the river than flows through it, depleting its reservoirs and raising questions about how it will be divided as water becomes more scarce.
After more than two decades of drought, Arizona, Nevada and Mexico were hit with mandatory cuts for the first time last year. Some of the region’s farmers have been paid to leave their fields fallow. Residents of growing cities have been subjected to conservation measures such as limits on grass lawns.
But those efforts thus far haven’t been enough. The water level at Lake Mead, the nation’s largest man-made reservoir, has plummeted so low that it’s currently less than a quarter full and inching dangerously close to a point where not enough water would flow to produce hydroelectric power at the Hoover Dam on the Nevada-Arizona border.
Officials in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming have been reluctant to propose more draconian water-rationing measures or limits on development.
The trade-offs are emerging most prominently in Arizona, which is among the nation’s fastest-growing states and has lower-priority water rights than water users to the west, in California.
Under Tuesday’s reductions, Arizona will lose an additional 80,000 acre-feet of water — 21% less than its total share but only 3% less than what it’s receiving this year.
An acre-foot is equivalent to an acre of land covered by 12 inches of water. An average household uses one-half to one acre-foot of water a year.
After putting last year’s burden on the agricultural industry, state officials said this year’s cuts would extend to tribes and growing cities that rely on the Colorado, including Scottsdale.
Rather than ration water, mandate conservation or limit development, the cities will likely shift reliance to other sources. Phoenix, for example, will rely more heavily on the in-state Salt and Verde rivers, while directing less of its supply to recharge its groundwater aquifers.
Arizona officials blasted neighboring states that haven’t proposed cuts even as Arizona implements its own.
Arizona and Nevada came up with a plan for cuts that would have been close to proportional to water use, but both California and the Bureau of Reclamation rejected that deal, state officials said.
“We need California to participate; we can’t do this alone with just Arizona and Nevada,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.
The effect of the cuts on farmers remains unclear, but many fear more cuts will further inflame tensions between cities and agriculture, which uses more than 70% of the basin’s water.
Paco Ollerton, a Phoenix-area cotton farmer, worries that deeper cuts could jeopardize his water next year. Arizona farmers already lost much of their Colorado River water during prior cuts, but they were compensated with water through deals with cities like Phoenix and Tucson.
This year, Ollerton grew only half of what he had grown previously. The cuts announced Tuesday could further squeeze those cities, raising questions about whether they will share with farmers next year.
“It kind of changes my thinking about how much longer I’m going to continue to farm,” Ollerton said.
Nevada also will lose water — about 8% of its supply — but most residents will not feel the effects because the state recycles the majority of its water used indoors and doesn’t use its full allocation. Last year, the state lost 7%.
Scorching temperatures and less melting snow in the spring have reduced the amount of water flowing from the Rocky Mountains, where the river originates before it snakes 1,450 miles (2,334 kilometers) southwest and into the Gulf of California.
Amid the changing climate, extraordinary steps are already being taken to keep water in Lake Powell, the other large Colorado River reservoir, which straddles the Arizona-Utah border.
After the lake fell low enough to threaten hydroelectric power production, federal officials said they would hold back some water to ensure the dam could still produce energy. That water would normally flow to Lake Mead.
Mexico will lose 7% of the water it receives each year from the river. Last year, it lost about 5%. The water is a lifeline for northern desert cities, including Tijuana, and for a large farming industry in the Mexicali Valley, just south of the border from California’s Imperial Valley.
Historically, Mexico has been sidelined in discussions over how to share the river, but in recent years, efforts by countries have been important to keeping more water in the system, experts say.
“People have come to realize this is a really important relationship to maintain,” said Jennifer Pitt, who directs the Colorado River program at the Audubon Society.
Iran submits a ‘written response’ in nuclear deal talks
Iran said Tuesday it submitted a “written response” to what has been described as a final roadmap to restore its tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency offered no details on the substance of its response, but suggested that Tehran still wouldn’t take the European Union-mediated proposal, despite warnings there would be no more negotiations.
“The differences are on three issues, in which the United States has expressed its verbal flexibility in two cases, but it should be included in the text,” the IRNA report said. “The third issue is related to guaranteeing the continuation of (the deal), which depends on the realism of the United States.”
Tehran under hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has repeatedly tried to blame Washington for the delay in reaching an accord. Monday was reported to have been a deadline for Iran’s response.
Nabila Massrali, a spokesperson for the EU on foreign affairs and security policy, told The Associated Press that the EU received Iran’s response on Monday night.
“We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the U.S. on the way ahead,” she said, using an acronym for the formal name for the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
The EU has been the go-between in the indirect talks as Iran refused to negotiate directly with America since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the accord in 2018.
In Washington, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters that the U.S. had also received Iran’s comments through the EU and was “in the process of studying them.”
“We are, at the same time, engaged in consultations with the EU and our European allies on the way ahead,” he said.
Price reiterated that the U.S. agrees with the EU’s “fundamental point” that “what could be negotiated over the course of these past 16, 17 months has been negotiated.”
In previous comments Monday, Price accused Iran of making “unacceptable demands” beyond the text of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Tehran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
“If Iran wants these sanctions lifted, they will need to alter their underlying conduct,” Price said. “They will need to change the dangerous activities that gave rise to these sanctions in the first place.”
As of the last public count, Iran has a stockpile of some 3,800 kilograms (8,370 pounds) of enriched uranium. Under the deal, Tehran could enrich uranium to 3.67% purity, while maintaining a stockpile of uranium of 300 kilograms (660 pounds) under constant scrutiny of surveillance cameras and international inspectors.
Iran now enriches uranium up to 60% purity — a level it never reached before and one that is a short, technical step away from 90%. Nonproliferation experts warn Iran now has enough 60%-enriched uranium to reprocess into fuel for at least one nuclear bomb. Meanwhile, the surveillance cameras have been turned off and other footage has been seized by Iran.
However, Iran still would need to design a bomb and a delivery system for it, likely a monthslong project. Tehran insists its program is peaceful, though the West and the International Atomic Energy Agency say Iran had an organized military nuclear program until 2003.
Explosions rock Crimea in suspected Ukrainian attack
Explosions and fires ripped through an ammunition depot in Russian-occupied Crimea on Tuesday in the second suspected Ukrainian attack on the peninsula in just over a week, forcing the evacuation of more than 3,000 people.
Russia blamed the blasts in the village of Mayskoye on an “act of sabotage,” without naming the perpetrators.
Separately, the Russian business newspaper Kommersant quoted residents as saying plumes of black smoke also rose over an air base in Crimea’s Gvardeyskoye.
Ukraine stopped short of publicly claiming responsibility for any of the blasts, including those that destroyed nine Russian planes at another Crimean air base last week. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has used it to launch attacks against Ukraine in the war that began nearly six months ago.
If Ukrainian forces were behind the explosions, that would represent a significant escalation in the war. Such attacks could also indicate that Ukrainian operatives are able to penetrate deeply into Russian-occupied territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alluded to Ukrainian attacks behind enemy lines when he included individuals “who oppose the occupiers in their rear” in a list of people he thanked for supporting the country’s war effort.
In a video address Tuesday night, he also warned people not go near Russian military installations and storage sites for ammunition and equipment.
Read: Iran submits a ‘written response’ in nuclear deal talks
In another reported act of sabotage, Russia’s Tass news service quoted the FSB security agency as saying Ukrainian operatives blew up six high-voltage transmission towers earlier this month in Russia’s Kursk region, close to Ukraine.
The Kremlin has demanded that Kyiv recognize Crimea as part of Russia as a condition for ending the fighting, while Ukraine has vowed to drive Moscow’s forces from the peninsula on the Black Sea.
Videos posted on social media showed thick columns of smoke rising over raging flames in Mayskoye, and a series of explosions could be heard. The Russian Defense Ministry said a power plant, electrical lines, railroad tracks and apartment buildings were damaged.
“We came out to take a look and saw clouds of smoke coming from the cowshed where the military warehouses are,” said resident Maksim Moldovskiy. “We stayed there until about 7-8 a.m. Everything was exploding — flashes, fragments, debris falling on us. Then the emergency guys came and said they were evacuating everybody.”
Crimea’s regional leader, Sergei Aksyonov, said two people were injured and more than 3,000 evacuated from two villages.
“The detonations are rather strong. Ammunition is strewn all over the ground,” he said, adding that several homes burned down.
In what may have been retaliation for the attacks in Crimea, Russian warplanes fired missiles at a military airfield in Zhytomyr, 87 miles (140 kilometers) west of Kyiv, damaging a runway and vehicles, Ukrainian officials reported.
Crimea is a popular summer destination for Russian tourists, and last week’s explosions at Crimea’s Saki air base sent sunbathers on beaches fleeing as flames and pillars of smoke rose over the horizon.
Ukrainian officials warned Tuesday that Crimea would not be spared the ravages of war.
Rather than a travel destination, “Crimea occupied by Russians is about warehouse explosions and a high risk of death for invaders and thieves,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
Read: Western states hit with more cuts to Colorado River water
Russia blamed last week’s explosions on an accidental detonation of munitions, but satellite photos and other evidence — including the dispersed blast sites — pointed to a Ukrainian attack, perhaps with anti-ship missiles, military analysts said.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update that vessels in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet are in an “extremely defensive posture” in the waters off Crimea, with ships barely venturing out of sight of the coastline. Russia’s flagship Moskva went down in the Black Sea in April, and last month Ukrainian forces retook strategic Snake Island.
The Russian fleet’s “limited effectiveness undermines Russia’s overall invasion strategy,” the British said. “This means Ukraine can divert resources to press Russian ground forces elsewhere.”
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu charged that in addition to supplying arms to Ukraine, Western allies have provided detailed intelligence and instructors to help Ukraine operate weapons that can hit deep in occupied territory.
“Western intelligence agencies not only have provided target coordinates for launching strikes, but Western specialists also have overseen the input of those data into weapons systems,” Shoigu said.
In other developments:
— A U.N.-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian grain set out for the hunger-stricken Horn of Africa in the first such relief delivery of the war. The shipment was made possible by an internationally brokered deal to free up grain trapped in Ukrainian ports by the fighting and establish safe corridors through the mined water of the Black Sea.
— U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres plans to travel to Ukraine for a meeting Thursday in the western city of Lviv with Zelenskyy and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. They are expected to discuss the grain shipments and a possible fact-finding mission to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of shelling. Guterres will also visit Odesa on Friday. During Guterres’ last trip to Ukraine, in April, Russia forces launched an airstrike on Kyiv while he was visiting the capital.
— Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the United States is giving more than $68 million in additional funding to the U.N. World Food Program “to purchase, move, and store up to 150,000 metric tons of Ukrainian wheat to help respond to the global food crisis.”
— Russian shelling killed at least two civilians in the industrial Donbas region in the east and in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast, Ukrainian authorities said.
Iran submits a ‘written response’ in nuclear deal talks
Iran said Tuesday it submitted a “written response” to what has been described as a final roadmap to restore its tattered nuclear deal with world powers.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency offered no details on the substance of its response, but suggested that Tehran still wouldn’t take the European Union-mediated proposal, despite warnings there would be no more negotiations.
“The differences are on three issues, in which the United States has expressed its verbal flexibility in two cases, but it should be included in the text,” the IRNA report said. “The third issue is related to guaranteeing the continuation of (the deal), which depends on the realism of the United States.”
Tehran under hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi has repeatedly tried to blame Washington for the delay in reaching an accord. Monday was reported to have been a deadline for Iran’s response.
Nabila Massrali, a spokesperson for the EU on foreign affairs and security policy, told The Associated Press that the EU received Iran’s response on Monday night.
“We are studying it and are consulting with the other JCPOA participants and the U.S. on the way ahead,” she said, using an acronym for the formal name for the nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Read: Iran denies involvement but justifies Salman Rushdie attack
The EU has been the go-between in the indirect talks as Iran refused to negotiate directly with America since then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the U.S. from the accord in 2018.
From Washington, the State Department said it had also received Iran’s comments through the EU and was “studying them.”
“We are sharing our views with the EU,” it added.
On Monday, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters that the U.S. agrees with the EU’s “fundamental point” that after 16 months of talks, “what could be negotiated has been negotiated.”
He added that Iran had been making “unacceptable demands” going beyond the text of the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran drastically limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
“If Iran wants these sanctions lifted, they will need to alter their underlying conduct,” Price said. “They will need to change the dangerous activities that gave rise to these sanctions in the first place.”
As of the last public count, Iran has a stockpile of some 3,800 kilograms (8,370 pounds) of enriched uranium. Under the deal, Tehran could enrich uranium to 3.67% purity, while maintaining a stockpile of uranium of 300 kilograms (660 pounds) under constant scrutiny of surveillance cameras and international inspectors.
Sudan floods continue to tear up homes; 66 people killed
Flash floods triggered by heavy rains continued to tear up homes across Sudan, an official said Tuesday, with the death toll rising to 66 since the start of the rainy season.
Earlier this week, authorities had said that at least 50 people were killed since the rains started in June. Brig. Gen. Abdul-Jalil Abdul-Rahim, spokesman for Sudan’s National Council for Civil Defense, said Tuesday that at least 28 people were reported injured during the same period.
Some 24,000 homes and two dozen government buildings have been badly damaged or completely destroyed, he said.
Sudan has been without a functioning government since an October military coup derailed its short-lived democratic transition following the 2019 removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
Overall, around 136,000 people have been impacted by heavy rainfall and floods in 12 of Sudan’s 18 provinces, according to the government-run Humanitarian Aid Commission.
Read: 357 killed, over 400 injured as monsoon rains continue to batter Pakistan
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the floods also inundated 238 health facilities. The western Darfur region and the provinces of Nile River, White Nile, West Kordofan and South Kordofan were among the hardest hit, it said.
Footage circulated online over the past weeks showing flood waters sweeping through streets and people struggling to save their belongings.
Sudan’s rainy season usually starts in June and lasts until the end of September, with floods peaking in August and September. More than 80 people were killed last year in flood-related incidents during the rainy season.
In 2020, authorities declared Sudan a natural disaster area and imposed a three-month state of emergency across the country after flooding and heavy rains killed around 100 people and inundated over 100,000 houses.
Chinese navy ship docks in Sri Lanka, stokes worry in India
A Chinese navy vessel arrived at a Beijing-built port in southern Sri Lanka on Tuesday, after its port call was earlier delayed due to apparent security concerns raised by India.
The Yuan Wang 5 sailed into the Hambantota port and was welcomed by Sri Lankan and Chinese officials. The development could spark worry in India, which views China’s rising influence in the Indian Ocean with suspicion.
Sri Lanka has referred to the Yuan Wang 5 as a “scientific research ship," but there are fears in India that the vessel could be used to surveil the region, with multiple media reports calling it a “dual-use spy ship."
“The Yuan Wang 5 is a powerful tracking vessel whose significant aerial reach — reportedly around 750 km — means that several ports in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh could be on China’s radar,” the Indian Express newspaper wrote.
The closely watched developments surrounding the vessel underscore the competing interests of regional giants India and China in the small island nation. For more than a decade, Sri Lanka’s strategic location in the Indian Ocean and along one of the busiest shipping routes has seen both countries vie for influence.
Read: Sri Lanka holds its breath as new PM fights to save economy
Over the years, Beijing was widely seen as having an upper hand with its free-flowing loans and infrastructure investments. But Sri Lanka’s economic collapse proved an opportunity for India to gain greater sway, as New Delhi stepped in with massive financial and material assistance to its neighbor.
The ship has permission to dock in Hambantota until Aug. 22, Sri Lanka's Foreign Ministry said last weekend. It added that China had agreed the ship would keep its identification systems on and would not carry out any research activities while in Sri Lankan waters.
“Given the geopolitical dynamics in the region and Sri Lanka’s heavy vulnerability on the economic front, Sri Lanka is playing with two fires at a diplomatic level,” said international affairs analyst Ranga Kalansooriya.
The Yuan Wang family of naval vessels serve both the Chinese missile force and its space program, which is run by the People’s Liberation Army, the military wing of the ruling Communist Party.
Previous official Chinese media reports have described PLA officers serving in command positions aboard the vessels in the Yuan Wang class, which may also have civilians in their crews.
China Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin dismissed concerns about the ship in a briefing Tuesday.
“I would like to reiterate that the marine scientific research conducted by the research ship Yuan Wang 5 conforms to international law and international common practice, and will not affect the security and economic interests of any country,” he said.
On Monday, India gifted a maritime reconnaissance aircraft to Sri Lanka to strengthen its maritime security. The Indian Embassy said the aircraft would help Sri Lanka tackle multiple security challenges such as human and drug trafficking as well as other crimes in its coastal waters more effectively.
Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said last week that India was aware of the planned visit by the vessel and that it carefully monitors any development that affects its security and economic interests and would take all measures to safeguard them. He also dismissed claims last week that India put pressure on Sri Lanka to delay the ship.
As Sri Lanka endures its worst economic crisis, India in recent months has provided crucial assistance including food, fuel, medicines and cooking gas. At the same time, China’s agreement to restructure its infrastructure loans to Sri Lanka is vital for the country to reach a bailout program with the International Monetary Fund.
China has lent Sri Lanka billions of dollars for development projects, some of which have been criticized as having little practical use. They include the Hambantota port, built with Chinese money under former President Mahinda Rajapaksa in his home region, despite the plan having been rejected by an expert panel.
When the port failed to generate enough revenue to pay back the loan, Sri Lanka in 2017 was forced to hand the facility and thousands of acres of surrounding land to Beijing for 99 years — giving China a key foothold in the country directly opposite India’s coastline.
Kalansooriya said while Sri Lanka is unable to discount both regional powers, President Ranil Wickremesinghe is tasked not only with salvaging the country’s economy but also maintaining a diplomatic balance.