Middle section of Randklev Bridge on Oslo-to-Trondheim line slid into Lågen River on Monday morning
A critical railway bridge in Norway has collapsed into a river after a storm caused widespread damage to infrastructure.
The middle part of the Randklev Bridge in Ringebu, which is crossed by the Dovre line connecting Oslo and Trondheim, slid into the Lågen River on Monday morning.
Continue reading...Seven people, including a young baby, killed by Russian shelling in Kherson; Russian warship’s ‘warning shots’ at Black Sea cargo ship
Seven people including a 23-day-old girl were killed by Russian shelling in the Kherson region on Sunday, Ukraine’s internal affairs ministry said. An attack on the village of Shiroka Balka killed four members of the same family – including their young baby – and another resident. Two men were killed in the neighbouring village of Stanislav.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy promised justice for the attacks on Kherson. “There is no day when Russian evil does not receive our entirely just response,” said Ukraine’s president in his Sunday night video address, adding: “We will not leave any of Russia’s crimes unanswered.”
A Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the south-western Black Sea, the first time Russia has fired on a merchant ship since exiting a UN-brokered grain deal last month. Russia said in a statement that its Vasily Bykov patrol ship fired automatic weapons on the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel after the ship’s captain failed to respond to a request to halt for inspection.
Three civilians were injured in the Kursk region from shells coming over the Ukrainian border, the regional governor said. Roman Starovoit said Ukraine was behind the shelling, Ukraine did not claim responsibility and it was unclear where the shelling originated.
Ukrainian forces were trying to pierce Russian lines in the western parts of Donetsk region, a Russian-installed official said. Vladimir Rogov said there had been intense fighting south of Velyka Novosilka as Ukrainian troops tried to push down to the coast on the Sea of Azov. “The enemy managed to enter and gain a foothold in the northern part of Urozhaine after two weeks of the heaviest and bloodiest battles for this settlement,” Rogov said.
The governor of the Russian region of Belgorod blamed a Ukrainian drone for damage to an apartment building on Sunday, after Russia’s defence ministry said air defences shot down at least four Ukrainian drones close to the border. Russia’s defence ministry said air defences shot down another drone later on Sunday and there were no casualties.
Germany will deliver a Luna New Generation drone system to Ukraine, Bild am Sonntag has reported. The equipment will include a ground control station with several drones, a launch catapult and military trucks.
Authorities briefly halted traffic on the Russian-built Kerch Bridge connecting occupied Crimea with Russia – but did not provide a reason why. It came one day after Russian air defence reportedly thwarted three Ukrainian missile attacks.
Ukraine has become the most heavily mined country on Earth after a year and a half of Russian troops laying them down. Soldiers have been unearthing five mines for every square metre in some places, Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defence minister, told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Southern region has been the scene of intense fighting in recent weeks as Ukrainian forces counterattack
Seven people including a 23-day-old baby girl were killed in Russian shelling in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on Sunday, the country’s internal affairs ministry said.
Artillery shelling in the village of Shiroka Balka, on the banks of the Dnipro River, killed a family – a husband, wife, 12-year-old boy and the 23-day-old girl – and another resident.
Continue reading...Action marks first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting grain deal
A Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship in the south-western Black Sea on Sunday as it made its way northwards, the first time Russia has fired on merchant shipping beyond Ukraine since exiting a landmark UN-brokered grain deal last month.
In July, Russia halted participation in the Black Sea grain deal that allowed Ukraine to export agricultural produce via the Black Sea. Moscow said that it deemed all ships heading to Ukrainian waters to be potentially carrying weapons.
Continue reading...Bayern Munich fans delighted but commentators question price tag and Germany’s failure to nurture homegrown talent
There may have been tens of thousands of Harry Kane fans tracking his Cessna flight’s path to Munich on Saturday, followed by standing ovations when he finally appeared before Bayern Munich supporters – many already wearing “Harry Kane – 9” shirts – to the stirring strains of Rock You Like a Hurricane by German rock band the Scorpions, but scepticism about the wisdom of the Tottenham Hotspur striker’s £100m transfer was rife among German commentators.
The affection for the 30-year-old striker was not in doubt. “Citizen Kane is now officially a Bavarian!” ran one typical headline, and the greetings servus (hello) and willkommen (welcome) towards “Herry” (as some Germans pronounce it) came thick and fast at his first press conference, at which he was flanked by bottles of water and Bavarian wheat beer.
Continue reading...Mateusz Morawiecki to ask voters if they want to accept ‘thousands of illegal immigrants’ under the bloc’s proposed new rules
Poland’s rightwing prime minister has said he will go ahead with a referendum on EU migration reforms, in which voters will be asked if they are willing to accept “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa”.
Mateusz Morawiecki announced in a video published online on Sunday that the referendum would coincide with a parliamentary election on 15 October. Migration and security will be central topics of the election, as Morawiecki’s ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), seeks to retain power.
Continue reading...Russian military targeted residential areas, factories and mobile communications towers, says regional governor
Here’s video of Ukrainian border guards placing a new sign on Snake Island.
“The next border sign will be installed in our Ukrainian Crimea after its liberation by the defence forces of Ukraine,” a uniformed man said, standing before a post painted blue and yellow like the country’s flag, in a video shared on Facebook by the head of the border service, Serhiy Deineko.
Continue reading...An official investigation of claims that many more people than previously thought died during Nazi control of the Channel Island has pleased some, but dismayed others
Their foreboding entrance smothered in ivy, the tunnels gouged out of sheer rock beside Water Lane on the island of Alderney have long terrified generations of the island’s children.
For decades, though, it seemed that was as far as the notoriety of the dank tunnels on the outskirts of St Anne, the capital of the tiny Channel Island, would extend.
Continue reading...Hunt is on for survivors after at least six people die, while activists call for more safe and legal routes
The government’s controversial asylum policy faced renewed criticism on Saturday when at least six people died after a small boat crossing the Channel capsized and sank.
Another two people are still believed to be missing after the sinking, prompting fresh calls for the government to urgently introduce safe routes for asylum seekers to prevent further tragedies.
Continue reading...Russian defence ministry says 14 Ukrainian drones destroyed by air defences and another six jammed electronically over the occupied peninsula
Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, has posted a video of Russian soldiers from the Moscow area asking for aid from Russia, detailing how they were sent to the frontlines without training or equipment.
Oleksandr Vilkul, head of the defence council of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine has confirmed that there were explosions in the city this morning. On Telegram, he said that so far there were no losses connected to the explosions.
Continue reading...Lack of safe passage described as ‘moral disgrace’ as helpers say legal routes would end dangerous crossings
Calls are mounting in the UK and France for the introduction of safe routes for refugees crossing the Channel after a French organisation said it had received multiple distress calls from people making the crossing in recent days.
At least six people lost their lives early on Saturday trying to cross the Channel in a small boat and the organisation issued warnings that more lives would be lost in future unless there were significant government policy changes.
Continue reading...Events marred by violence in Sweden, Canada and the US were billed as cultural, but activists say they are militaristic and full of hate speech
After opponents of the Eritrean government stormed a festival in Stockholm that was allegedly promoting the east African country’s regime earlier this month, setting light to cars and throwing stones, the Swedish government tried to distance itself from it all. The justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said it was “not reasonable for Sweden to be drawn into other countries’ domestic conflicts”.
But in the sunlit cafeteria of a community space in Kista, a few miles from the festival site in Järvafältet, a wooded area north of the Swedish capital, Abdulkader Habib disagreed. Opposition to Eritrea’s dictator, Isaias Afwerki, was not an Eritrean problem: “this is a big international problem,” he said.
Continue reading...Attacks keep up pressure on Vladimir Putin, although have become ‘not a big deal’ for many unmoved Russians
A new campaign of drone strikes has targeted the Russian capital in recent days as Kyiv has demonstrated its ability to hit Moscow and to keep the Kremlin’s war in the hearts and minds of the Russian elites and others seeking to ignore the invasion of Ukraine.
Video on Friday showed a drone slamming into the ground and exploding near a residential area in the north-west of the city, as rowers nearby participated in a national championship in the Krylatskoye district.
Continue reading...Zelenskiy fires regional military recruitment chiefs in anti-corruption drive; Russia gains ground around north-east town of Kupiansk
Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced the dismissal of all the heads of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment centres in the latest drive to root out corruption after officials were accused of taking bribes from those seeking to avoid the frontlines. Ukraine’s president described the taking of cash from people who wanted to avoid conscription while others suffered as a form of treachery.
Russia on Friday said it had improved its fighting positions around the north-east Ukraine town of Kupiansk, where its advance has prompted Ukrainian officials to urge residents to evacuate. Kupiansk and the surrounding areas of the north-east Kharkiv region were recaptured by Kyiv’s forces in September but Moscow has since pushed back.
Russian forces fired four Kinzhal hypersonic missiles on western Ukraine early Friday, targeting an airfield but killing an eight-year-old boy who lived nearby, Ukraine said. Of the missiles fired from southern and central Russia, one was shot down over the Kyiv region by air defences, but the rest struck close to an airfield in the western Ivano-Frankivsk region, the Ukrainian air force said.
The US has imposed new sanctions on four “prominent members of Russia’s financial elite”, the US treasury department said in a statement on Friday. All four have served on the supervisory board of the Alfa Group Consortium, one of Russia’s largest financial and investment conglomerates.
The European Union has delivered 223,800 shells to Ukraine under the first part of a plan to provide a million artillery rounds to aid Kyiv’s fight against Russia, a spokesperson said on Friday.
At least 499 children have been killed and 1,097 injured so far in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Ukraine prosecutor general’s office said on Friday. The office, tasked with tallying Russia’s war crimes, counted at least 81 new crimes registered this week, bringing the total to 102,849.
Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko said he had ordered “contact” with Poland and that he was ready to talk amid rising border tensions between the Nato member and the Moscow ally. “We need to talk to the Poles. I ordered the prime minister to contact them,” Lukashenko said on Friday, according to state news agency Belta.
Russian media has reported that the Kremlin is considering closing some or all Moscow airports as Kyiv continues its drone attacks on the Russian capital.
Repairs to the Chonhar Bridge that links Crimea to Kherson will take at least a month, the Russian-imposed acting governor of the occupied portion of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, was quoted as saying. The bridge was damaged in a Ukrainian strike on 6 August.
Russian authorities have taken Ukrainian teenagers from occupied territories of the country to a military education camp in Russia, where they received military training, Ukraine’s Centre of National Resistance said. The camp opened in the town of Penza on 1 August, it said.
Ukrainian border guards have stopped a number of Ukrainian men attempting to leave the country, apparently to avoid conscription in the war. The State Border Guard Service said that in Odesa, guards found two Ukrainian men of military age hiding in a vehicle after paying two Moldovans $4,500 each to get them to Moldova. In Zakarpattia province in Ukraine’s west, border guards stopped a vehicle in which four men had paid smugglers $4,000 each to cross into Romania.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign affairs minister, vowed that any Taurus cruise missile supplied to Kyiv would be used only within Ukrainian borders. This has been a point of contention between Kyiv and its western allies – Kyiv has been asking for Taurus missiles, which can travel more than 500km (300 miles), but nations such as Germany have balked at the request over concerns about the long range.
Continue reading...Meeting meant to brief leaders about ‘best options’ for deploying force to Niger delayed indefinitely for ‘technical reasons’
West African nations have suspended a key military meeting on the crisis in Niger, a day after saying they would muster a “standby” force in their bid to reinstate the country’s deposed leader.
Fears also mounted for elected president Mohamed Bazoum, who was ousted by members of his guard on 26 July.
Continue reading...One missile strike was destroyed but probability of airstrikes remains high, says general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces
Daniel Boffey is in Ukraine for the Guardian:
There have been four major explosions in the last few minutes in Kyiv. The blasts could be heard across the Ukrainian capital.
Continue reading...Gathering in Jeddah offers Beijing chance to placate global south and limit damage with west over Russia relations
When the Chinese envoy Li Hui arrived in Saudi Arabia, to join international talks on a peace deal for Ukraine this week, it was a pointed contrast with Beijing’s decision to skip a similar forum in Copenhagen in June.
At the summit, which excluded Russia, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy promoted his vision for ending the war to a large gathering of countries from the global south.
Continue reading...X owner in talks with government over historic site for event – though Colosseum and Rome ruled out
Elon Musk is in talks with Italy’s government about hosting his proposed cage fight with Mark Zuckerberg at a historic site in the country, but the Colosseum has been ruled out as a venue.
The owner of X Corp and the chief executive of Facebook-owner Meta first raised the idea of a one-on-one scrap in a series of social media posts back in June. The challenge came as Zuckerberg prepared to launch Threads, a rival microblogging site to Musk’s now rebranded Twitter platform.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president describes taking of cash from people who want to avoid conscription as form of treachery
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has announced the dismissal of all the heads of Ukraine’s regional military recruitment centres in the latest drive to root out corruption after officials were accused of taking bribes from those seeking to avoid the frontlines.
At a time when the country’s army is in need of new recruits, Ukraine’s president described the taking of cash from people who wanted to avoid conscription while others suffered as a form of treachery.
Continue reading...Anti-fascist novelist was a campaigner for LGBTQ+ rights and had recently made her illness public
Michela Murgia, the Italian writer and civil rights campaigner, has died at the age of 51.
Murgia, who was born in Cabras, Sardinia, and was known for her campaigns for LGBTQ+ rights and euthanasia, publicly revealed (in Italian) a few months ago that she had been diagnosed with stage four kidney cancer. The award-winning writer and intellectual decided to speak openly about her illness, continuing to write articles and speak at public debates.
Continue reading...