It’s reported that Ukraine has fired British-supplied Storm Shadow long-range missiles into Russia for the first time. It follows U.S. President Joe Biden’s reported decision earlier this week to approve the use of American longer-range missiles on targets deep inside Russia. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Some U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine may take place after President Joe Biden’s term ends in January, Pentagon officials tell VOA, noting it will take time for certain capabilities to arrive in Ukraine.

“As you know, some equipment and some systems can get to Ukraine very quickly, and you’ve seen that happen within days or weeks. Sometimes, it does take longer … and that could be longer than weeks; that could be months,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said November 14 in response to a question from VOA.

Singh noted that under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, weapon deliveries could take years.

“The long and short of it is, is that some equipment does get to Ukraine exceptionally quickly. But then there are some that take longer,” she said.

The United States has remaining funds for two main programs supporting Ukraine’s defense — PDA, or Presidential Drawdown Authority, and USAI. The first program allows weapons to be provided from existing U.S. stockpiles, ensuring faster delivery. The second program involves purchasing weapons from industry, a process that can take longer.

As of November, the U.S. has around $9 billion left for military assistance for Ukraine, the Pentagon has reported. Of this, approximately $7 billion is available under the PDA program, including around $4 billion approved by Congress in April and an additional $2.8 billion made available after accounting adjustments by the Department of Defense. Some $2.2 billion is available through the USAI program.

On November 20, the U.S. announced an additional security assistance package for Ukraine valued at $275 million. It included munitions for rocket systems, artillery rounds and anti-tank weapons.

Pentagon officials have confirmed to VOA that the Department of Defense is committed to allocating all remaining PDA funds authorized by Congress before January 20 and additional funds made available due to recalculations. The exact total will depend on ongoing assessments of Ukraine’s defense needs and the logistics of assistance delivery.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has said that some weapons deliveries to Ukraine could take time.

“Everything won’t be delivered immediately,” he told reporters during a visit to Italy in October. “Things that we’re purchasing now, for example, may wind up showing up a couple of months later.”

The secretary added that some materiel from U.S. stocks is refurbished before being delivered to Ukraine. “And again, it’s not instantaneous, it may take weeks or in some cases, a couple of months,” he said.

Austin underscored that the Pentagon has provided a plan to the Ukrainians and is confident that weapon deliveries will proceed according to the expected schedule.

If the incoming Trump administration decided to stop some remaining deliveries, they could do so. In this case, however, they would have to de-obligate aid that was previously obligated by the Biden administration, Austin said last month in Italy.

On November 12, Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said that between the passage of the supplemental funding by Congress in April and the middle of October, the U.S. has delivered 83% of committed munitions from its stockpiles, 67% of other critical air defense commitments and 60% of artillery and close air support capabilities.

“Since the passage of the supplemental, we’ve delivered hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of armored vehicles, thousands of munitions for HIMARS and antitank weapons, dozens of artillery systems, significant air defense capabilities, including a Patriot battery, hundreds of interceptors and dozens of other systems,” Ryder said.

“And together with our allies and partners, the deliveries of the strategic air defense system we committed to providing at the NATO summit are nearly completed,” he said.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named Matt Whitaker, a former acting attorney general from his first presidency, as the U.S. ambassador to NATO, the cornerstone Western military alliance whose member countries Trump has criticized for not spending enough money on defense.

In a statement, Trump described Whitaker, 55, as “a strong warrior and loyal patriot” who “will ensure the United States’ interests are advanced and defended” and “strengthen relationships with our NATO allies and stand firm in the face of threats to peace and stability.”

As with several of Trump’s choices for positions in his new administration, the nomination of Whitaker to the 32-country North Atlantic Treaty Organization based in Brussels is unusual in that his professional background does not match the job to which he is being named. Whitaker has a long career as a lawyer but is not steeped in foreign or military policy.

Whitaker, like numerous other Trump appointees, has been an ardent Trump loyalist. Whitaker has been a vocal critic of the two federal criminal cases brought against Trump that are now likely to be erased as he assumes power again on January 20.

During his first administration, Trump goaded other NATO countries that did not meet the alliance’s military spending goal: 2% of their national economic output. As he left office in 2021, six of the NATO countries were spending that much on defense. But 23 of the 32 do now as the threat of Russian aggression against nearby NATO countries mounted after Moscow’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which is not a NATO country but wants to join.

During his presidency, Trump assailed the countries who were not spending enough on defense, saying they were in arrears in their “dues” to NATO.

“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a political rally earlier this year. “I said, ‘Everybody’s going to pay.’”

Trump said that “one of the presidents of a big country” at one point asked him whether the U.S. would still defend the country if they were invaded by Russia even if they “don’t pay.”

“I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”

“No, I would not protect you,” Trump recalled saying to that president. “In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.”

Under the NATO treaty, member nations are obligated to protect each other militarily if they are attacked. The obligation has been invoked only once in the 75-year history of the alliance that was formed in the aftermath of World War II. That was when other NATO countries joined the United States in fighting al-Qaida in Afghanistan after the terrorist group attacked the U.S. in 2001, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Whitaker, a former federal prosecutor in the Midwestern state of Iowa, served as acting attorney general between November 2018 and February 2019, as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election was ending.

Before then, Whitaker was chief of staff to Trump’s first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, before being picked to replace his boss after Sessions was fired amid Trump’s lingering outrage over his decision to withdraw from the Russia investigation. Whitaker held the acting attorney general position for several months without Senate confirmation, until William Barr was confirmed as attorney general in February 2019.

Other appointments

Trump has been making new top appointments to his nascent administration on an almost daily basis.

Late Tuesday, he named Linda McMahon as his nominee to lead the Education Department, even though Trump and some Republican lawmakers want to abolish the agency and hand over most education policy decisions and much of the current federal funding to state and local control.

McMahon served as the head of the Small Business Administration during Trump’s previous term in office and is well known for her decadeslong role, along with her husband, in helping lead World Wrestling Entertainment.

“Linda will use her decades of leadership experience, and deep understanding of both education and business, to empower the next generation of American students and workers and make America number one in education in the world,” Trump said in a statement. “We will send education back to the states, and Linda will spearhead that effort.”

Also on Tuesday, Trump announced he’d nominate Wall Street financier Howard Lutnick as commerce secretary in his new administration.

Additionally, the president-elect picked Dr. Mehmet Oz, a longtime television show host, as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that oversees the government’s two key health insurance programs for older Americans and impoverished people. Trump backed Oz’s failed attempt to win a Senate seat in Pennsylvania in 2022.
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MOSCOW/IRTYSH VILLAGE, RUSSIA — Russian farmers say they will sow less wheat after heavy losses this year, switching to more profitable crops such as peas, lentils, or sunflowers.

Such decisions will have direct implications for global wheat prices and inflation in major buyers like Egypt, as Russia is the world’s top exporter of the grain.

The trend represents a challenge for President Vladimir Putin’s plan to expand exports and cement Russia’s position as an agriculture superpower, while trying to gain more international clout amid confrontation with the West over its actions in Ukraine.

The country’s wheat harvest will decline to 83 million tons this year due to frosts and drought, down from 92.8 million tons in 2023 and a record 104.2 million tons in 2022. New forecasts point to a clouded outlook for next year as well.

Although Russia has been exporting wheat at a near record pace in the recent months, exports are expected to slow due to a bad harvest and export curbs aimed at containing domestic price growth, including an expected cut in export quota by two-thirds from January 2025.

At a farm in Siberia’s Omsk region, which was hit by heavy rain during the peak of the harvesting season, farmer Maxim Levshunov takes advantage of a rare sunny day to collect what remains in the fields.

He chuckles as he picks up ears of wheat that sprouted early due to the moisture. Now, most of his crops are only suitable for animal feed, meaning the farm will receive a fraction of the price, and income, it had hoped for.

“We’ll probably start moving away from wheat, cutting back as much as possible. So, we’ll be thinking about what more profitable crops we can replace it with right now,” Levshunov told Reuters.

As this year’s harvesting campaign comes to an end, Russian farmers are assessing their losses from the exceptionally bad weather and considering their next steps amid falling profit margins for wheat, Russia’s main agricultural export.

Winter wheat became the first victim as areas sown with it are set to shrink by 10% this year, the lowest since 2019, according to data from Rusagrotrans, Russia’s flagship grain rail carrier.

“There are losses on each ton. The selling price does not cover the cost,” said Arkady Zlochevsky, head of the Russian Grain Union industry lobby, predicting that Russia’s 26% share of the global wheat trade will shrink.

Agriculture Minister Oksana Lut joked that farmers might pray to Saint Ilya, the patron saint of weather in Russia, to improve conditions for winter crops. The joke did not go down well with farmers, who are considering more pragmatic options.

Some say they have already decided to plant less wheat next year. Others are waiting to see how global wheat prices perform in the next few weeks before making a final decision.

“The profitability of grain crops is approaching zero. The company has reduced the volume of winter wheat sowing by 30%. There are two drivers now — soybeans and sunflower,” said Dmitry Garnov, CEO of Rostagro Group, which owns land in the Penza and Saratov regions around the Volga River.

Rising costs of equipment and fuel, high export duties, a rising benchmark interest rate that hit 21% in October as the country’s central bank fights inflation, and the removal of some agricultural subsidies have also eaten into profit margins.

“It is evident that in 2022-2024, the price has been practically the same, while the cost of grain production has increased by at least 28%,” said Sergei Lisovsky, a member of the lower house of Russia’s parliament from the Kurgan region.

Lisovsky argued that the high export duty for grains, introduced in 2021, as well as rising transportation costs for regions with no direct access to seaports, were also factors behind low margins.

“Therefore, as of today, farmers are not planting grain, not because of the autumn drought, but because they are waiting to see what the price will be, and have not yet made a decision,” Lisovsky added, referring to spring wheat sowing.

In Russia’s most fertile Krasnodar region, the profitability of wheat is still holding around 10%, but some large local farms are also pondering a change of strategy as droughts become more severe each year.

“It is gradually getting warmer in the south, and we need to think about changing the structure of the sowing areas for the future,” said Yevgeny Gromyko, executive from Tkachev Agrocomplex, one of Russia’s largest landowners, and a former deputy agriculture minister.

The niche crops have the potential to become new export success stories with Russia’s allies among the BRICS countries, aiding the government in achieving Putin’s goal of increasing agricultural exports by half by 2030.

Russia overtook Canada this year as the top peas exporter to China. Regulators in India, the leading importer of lentils, used to make daal, a staple for millions of people, gave a green light to Russian imports.

Russia takes pride in being the world’s top wheat exporter, with the older generation recalling the food shortages of the Soviet era and the humiliating grain imports from Cold War foes like the United States and Canada.

However, for struggling farmers, it is declining profits, not global status, that matter most.

“Many farms that specialized exclusively in wheat crops have operated at a loss this year and will face very serious financial difficulties, potentially leading to bankruptcy,” Levshunov said.
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BERLIN — China has overtaken Germany in the use of robots in industry, an annual report published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) showed on Wednesday, underscoring the challenges facing Europe’s biggest economy from Beijing.

In terms of robot density, an important indicator for international comparisons of the automation of the manufacturing industry, South Korea is the world leader with 1,012 robots per 10,000 employees, up 5% since 2018, said the IFR, which is based in Germany.

Singapore comes next, followed by China with 470 robots per 10,000 workers – more than double the density it had in 2019.

That compares with 429 per 10,000 employees in Germany, which has had an annual growth rate of 5% since 2018, said IFR.

“China has invested heavily in automation technology and ranks third in robot density in 2023 after South Korea and Singapore, ahead of Germany and Japan,” said IFR president Takayuki Ito.

Germany has in the past relied heavily on its industrial base and exports for growth but is facing ever tougher competition from countries like China. It expects economic contraction for the second year running in 2024, making it the worst performer among the Group of Seven rich democracies.
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The United States will soon provide antipersonnel mines to Ukraine, a U.S. official confirmed late Tuesday, in a move that followed Ukraine’s first deployment of long-range U.S.-supplied ballistic missiles in an attack on Russia.

The official said the United States sought commitments from Ukraine on how it will use the mines, with the expectation they will be deployed only on Ukrainian territory in areas where Ukrainian civilians are not living.

The official also pointed to the function of the mines, which they said require a battery for operation and will not detonate once the battery runs out after a period of a few hours to a few weeks.

Ukrainian forces hit ammunition warehouses in Russia’s Bryansk region before dawn Tuesday using the long-range missiles that Ukrainian officials long sought to hit areas Russia has used to deploy daily waves of rocket and drone attacks against Ukrainian cities.

The two sides disputed the effectiveness of the attack, which came two days after it was reported that President Joe Biden had reversed U.S. policy and approved use of the longer-range missiles as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reached the 1,000-day mark.

Two U.S. officials confirmed to VOA on Tuesday that the policy prohibiting Ukrainians’ use of U.S.-provided, long-range weapons to hit military targets deep inside Russia “has changed.”

The Russian defense ministry said in a statement, “Ukraine’s armed forces last night struck a facility in the Bryansk region” with six U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile System rockets, or ATACMS, but that its forces shot down five of them and damaged the sixth. It said falling fragments from the exploding rockets caused a fire at the military facility, but there were no casualties.

Ukraine’s military general staff said in a post on Facebook that its forces had “caused fire damage” to “warehouses with ammunition for the army of the Russian occupiers” in Bryansk, about 100 kilometers from Ukraine’s border.

The attack caused “12 secondary explosions and detonations in the area of the target,” the statement said, while not specifying that ATACMS had been used. But a Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing operations, confirmed the use of the American weapons system.

The initial target using the long-range missile system was far short of the 300-kilometer range of the missile system. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had long sought U.S. approval of its use to launch attacks on military sites deep inside Russia. Until Sunday, though, Biden had resisted for fear of escalating tensions in the nearly three-year conflict between Moscow and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, four of whose member countries border Russia.

Biden reportedly reversed his position after North Korea sent about 10,000 troops to Russia to fight alongside Moscow’s forces in Russia’s Kursk region that Ukraine captured in August and still holds.

Biden leaves office in two months, and it is not clear what stance President-elect Donald Trump might adopt. Trump has been a skeptic of continued U.S. military support for Ukraine, claiming he would end the war before he even takes office; however, Trump has not offered any public plan on how he would do so.

With Ukraine now having the ability to fire the long-range missiles into Russia, President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a revised nuclear doctrine stating that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power is considered a joint attack and could trigger a nuclear response.

When Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked if the revised doctrine was issued in response to the U.S. missile authorization, he said it was put forth “in a timely manner” and that Putin wanted it updated to be “in line with the current situation.”

In response, a White House National Security Council spokesperson said the United States was not surprised by Russia’s announcement that it is updating its nuclear doctrine since it had been signaling its intent to do so for several weeks. The spokesperson said the U.S. sees no need to change its posture.

“This is more of the same irresponsible rhetoric from Russia, which we have seen for the past two years,” the spokesperson said.

The Russian doctrine states nuclear weapons could be used in the case of a massive air attack involving ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, drones and other flying vehicles.

It says an attack against Russia by a nonnuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation,” a definition that would fit the Ukraine-U.S. alliance.

It doesn’t specify whether such an attack would definitely be met with a nuclear response.

Peskov said the aim of the updated policy was to make potential enemies understand the inevitability of retaliation for an attack on Russia or its allies.

It also states that Russia could use nuclear weapons if another country attacks Belarus, a Moscow ally.

Tear gas detected near front line

Also on Tuesday, Ukraine urged action after the international chemical weapons watchdog said banned CS riot control gas, also known as tear gas, had been found in Ukrainian soil samples from the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russia has not reacted to the report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which did not assign blame for the chemical.

The Chemical Weapons Convention strictly bans the use of riot control agents including CS outside riot control situations when it is used as “a method of warfare,” Agence France-Presse reported.

CS gas causes irritation to the lungs, skin and eyes.

Both sides have accused each other of using chemical weapons in the conflict, and Ukraine’s Western allies have claimed Moscow has employed banned weapons.

“Russia’s use of banned chemicals on the battlefield once again demonstrates Russia’s chronic disregard for international law,” a statement from Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.

The OPCW stressed however, that the report did “not seek to identify the source or origin of the toxic chemical.”

Carla Babb, Jeff Seldin and Patsy Widakuswara contributed to this report.
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Several international human rights organizations have raised alarm about Azerbaijan’s crackdown on rights defenders, government critics and journalists before the start of the COP29 climate change conference currently being held in its capital, Baku. 

“We urge every delegation attending COP29 to press the Azerbaijani government to end its clampdown on civil society, guarantee the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly throughout and beyond the conference, and take meaningful action to reverse the deterioration of human rights in the country,” Amnesty International said in a statement before the start of the event on Nov. 11.

The United Nations’ annual conference on combating global warming, COP29, began last week as the Azerbaijani government escalated its crackdown on government critics.

Azerbaijani authorities have jailed at least 14 journalists since November 2023. Many of them are facing charges of currency smuggling. All of them deny the allegations, calling them bogus.

On November 12, a group of Azerbaijani civil society representatives issued an open appeal to COP29 participants, claiming that after Azerbaijan was announced as the conference host in December 2023, the country’s government began to silence dissidents and alternative voices.

“In a short period of time, opposition leaders, human rights defenders, socio-political activists, independent media organizations, including the leaders and employees of ‘Abzas Media,’ ‘Toplum TV,’ ‘Kanal 13,’ and the civil society organization Institute for Democratic Initiatives, were detained on politically motivated charges. The trial of those arrested was postponed until December, as they coincided with COP29,” they said.

The Azerbaijani government, which has rejected accusations that the arrests were politically motivated, insists that journalists and activists are being detained “on the basis of credible suspicions of violations of individual articles of the Criminal Code [of the Republic of Azerbaijan].” 

Climate change and human rights

On Tuesday, COP29 hosted a debate titled “No Climate Justice Without Civic Space and Meaningful Participation,” organized by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and several other human rights organizations.

After the event, Fuad Hasanov, head of the nongovernmental organization Democratic Monitor, told VOA that the main theme of the debate was that it is impossible to hold discussions on climate change in an environment where the space for civil society is limited.

Panel members also called on Azerbaijani authorities to release all political prisoners, including journalists, and to create conditions for the free operation of independent civil society institutions and the media.

In a letter to President Ilham Aliyev published on Monday, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty also urged the immediate release of all political prisoners.

“I share with you my concern about the recent arrests of a number of human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists,” O’Flaherty said in the letter.

O’Flaherty said that as a member of the Council of Europe, Azerbaijan should create a safe environment for human rights.

“I urge the Azerbaijani authorities to take the necessary steps to ensure that all laws and practices in connection with freedoms of association, assembly and expression and the situation of human rights defenders, journalists and civil society activists in the country comply with relevant Council of Europe human rights standards,” O’Flaherty said.

Rufat Safarov, executive director of the human rights organization Defense Line, told VOA that the 29th annual U.N. Climate Change Conference should not have been held in Baku. He said this legitimizes the country’s authorities, who deny fundamental rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan, on the international stage.

“In an environment where law is worthless, human rights are ignored, political rights are denied, violence has become the official state policy, and there are 319 political prisoners, holding COP29 in Baku serves the interests of the repressive regime at best,” Safarov said.

Azerbaijan response

The unsigned response letter from Azerbaijani authorities to the Council of Europe commissioner emphasizes that Azerbaijan remains committed to upholding its international obligations, including those under international human rights law, and ensuring the safety and freedom of all persons. The letter was made available on the Council of Europe commissioner’s website Monday.  

The letter stated: “It should be emphasized that no journalist or media representative is being targeted for carrying out their professional work in Azerbaijan. Every individual, irrespective of their standing, is equal before the law and is expected to adhere to the legislation in force, as this forms the foundation of the rule of law principle.

“Therefore, it is of utmost importance to exercise due diligence and refrain from any actions, especially calling for immediate release of the persons under criminal investigation, that may be construed as interfering with the judicial process.”

Lawmaker Bahruz Maharramov, a member of the parliament’s Human Rights Committee, told VOA on Thursday that the attacks on Azerbaijan from the West under the guise of human rights and democracy on the eve of and during COP29 are “an instrument for cheap imperialist intentions.”

“In this sense, the claims and statements of those circles are irrelevant for us, and we rightly consider these claims to be part of a smear campaign against Azerbaijan,” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service.
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In Ukraine, wounded veterans who need long rehabilitation are mostly cared for by relatives. They face the difficult job with little help from the state. Lesia Bakalets has more from Kyiv. Camera: Vladyslav Smilianets
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China has asked Germany to support efforts to resolve a dispute between the European Union and Beijing over electric vehicle tariffs. Last month, the EU decided to raise tariffs on electric vehicles imported from China to as much as 45.3%.

Beijing has been negotiating with the EU to repeal the tariffs and sees Germany – the bloc’s biggest economy and Beijing’s largest trading partner in Europe – potentially playing a key role.

In a meeting Tuesday on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, China’s President Xi Jinping told Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz that, in return Beijing would “continue to provide broad market opportunities for German companies,” according to readout of the meeting from state news agency Xinhua.

“China regards Germany as an important partner in advancing Chinese modernization,” Xi said. “It is hoped that Europe and China will resolve the issue of electric vehicles through dialogue and negotiation as soon as possible, and the German side is willing to make active efforts in this regard.”

Xi also urged Beijing and Berlin to strengthen their “long-term” strategic partnership.

“China and Germany are both major countries with significant influence,” Xi told Scholz, according to Xinhua. He also said: “The two countries need to view and develop bilateral relations from a long-term and strategic perspective.”

A German government spokesman said the meeting between Scholz and Xi lasted 30 minutes and that the chancellor also discussed the war in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“In particular, he warned of (the dangers of) escalation due to the deployment of North Korean troops, the statement said, a reference to the deployment of what the U.S. estimates is at least 11,000 North Korean troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine.

The meeting between Germany’s chancellor and China’s president was their first since April in Beijing, where Scholz urged Xi to leverage his influence over Russia to help end the war in Ukraine.

Some material in this report came from Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
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TEHRAN, IRAN — Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday slammed as unjustified the new sanctions by the European Union and United Kingdom against Tehran over its support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“While the president of Ukraine has admitted that no Iranian ballistic missiles have been exported to Russia, the measures of the European Union and United Kingdom in applying sanctions against Iran cannot be justified,” ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said in a statement.

Later Tuesday, the Foreign Ministry summoned the ambassador of Hungary, which holds the rotating EU presidency, to protest the new sanctions.

The European Union on Monday widened sanctions against Iran over its alleged support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, including targeting the national seafaring company, vessels and ports used to transfer drones and missiles.

Acting in parallel, the U.K. also announced fresh sanctions against Iran on Monday, freezing the assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line.

The sanctions also included the national airline, Iran Air, for transporting ballistic missiles and military supplies to Russia for use in Ukraine.

Iran has repeatedly rejected Western accusations that it has transferred missiles or drones to Moscow for use against Kiev.

Ahead of the sanctions announcement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday the EU was using the “nonexistent missile pretext” to target its shipping lines.

“There is no legal, logical or moral basis for such behavior. If anything, it will only compel what it ostensibly seeks to prevent,” Araghchi wrote on X.

“Freedom of navigation is a basic principle of the law of the sea. When selectively applied by some, such shortsightedness usually tends to boomerang,” Araghchi wrote.

Iran’s economy is reeling from biting U.S. sanctions following the unilateral withdrawal of Washington in 2018 from a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

Baghaei said the new sanctions against Iran, which “affect the interests and fundamental rights of Iranians, are clear examples of systematic violations of human rights.”

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will use all of the capacities of cooperation with its partners to ensure its interests and national security,” he said.
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As the war in Ukraine entered its 1,000th day Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a revised nuclear doctrine stating that a conventional attack on Russia by any nation supported by a nuclear power is considered a joint attack and could trigger a nuclear response.

The proclamation came a day after U.S. President Joe Biden authorized Ukraine to use long-range weapons from the U.S. to attack military targets in Russia.

When Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked if the revised doctrine was issued in response to the U.S. authorization, he said it was put forth “in a timely manner” and that Putin wanted it updated to be “in line with the current situation,” the Associated Press reported.

The doctrine states nuclear weapons could be used in case of a massive air attack involving ballistic and cruise missiles, aircraft, drones and other flying vehicles.

It says an attack against Russia by a nonnuclear power with the “participation or support of a nuclear power” will be seen as their “joint attack on the Russian Federation.”

It doesn’t specify whether such an attack would definitely be met with a nuclear response.

Peskov the aim of the updated policy was to make potential enemies understand the inevitability of retaliation for an attack on Russia or its allies.

It also states that Russia could use nuclear weapons if another country attacks ally Belarus.

1,000 days of fighting

Both Russia and Ukraine issued statements about the 1,000th day of the war, both vowing that they would continue fighting against each other.

The Kremlin said Western support for Kyiv would have no impact on the military campaign.

“The military operation against Kyiv continues,” Peskov said, adding that Western aid “cannot affect the outcome of our operation. It continues, and will be completed.”

Ukraine, meanwhile, said it would continue to resist the Russian invasion.

“Ukraine will never submit to the occupiers, and the Russian military will be punished for violating international law,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Attack on Russian weapons depot

There was no word if long-range U.S. weapons were used in Ukraine’s strike against a large weapons depot near the Russian town of Karachev in the Bryansk region more than 110 miles from the border with Ukraine.

Reuters reported that Ukraine often uses domestically produced drones to hit targets deep inside Russia, and in an announcement on Tuesday, the military did not specify which weapons had been used for the strike.

“The destruction of ammunition depots will continue for the army of the Russian occupiers in order to stop the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine,” the Ukrainian military said on the Telegram messaging app.

An overnight Russian drone attack in the northeastern Sumy region killed eight people, including one child, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday.

The attack on a residential building in the border town of Hlukhiv also wounded 12 people, including two children, Ukraine’s national police force said on Telegram.

Two high-rise buildings and a hospital were damaged, and more people could be in the rubble.

Ukraine’s air force said on Tuesday it shot down 51 out of 87 drones launched by Russia overnight.

Tear gas detected near front line

Also on Tuesday, Ukraine urged action after the international chemical weapons watchdog said banned CS riot control gas, also known as tear gas, had been found in Ukrainian soil samples from the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Russia has not reacted to the report by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which did not assign blame for the chemical.

The Chemical Weapons Convention strictly bans the use of riot control agents including CS outside riot control situations when it is used as “a method of warfare,” Agence France-Presse reported.

CS gas causes irritation to the lungs, skin and eyes.

Both sides have accused each other of using chemical weapons in the conflict, and Ukraine’s Western allies have claimed Moscow has employed banned weapons.

“Russia’s use of banned chemicals on the battlefield once again demonstrates Russia’s chronic disregard for international law,” a statement from Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.

OPCW stressed however that the report did “not seek to identify the source or origin of the toxic chemical.”

Some material in this report came from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. 
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VILNIUS, Lithuania — Lithuania’s Navy said on Tuesday it had increased monitoring of its waters after an undersea communications cable connecting the country with Sweden had been damaged.

An assessment is now being carried out along with allies, a spokesperson for the Lithuanian armed forces told Reuters.

The cable was one of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea which were severed in recent days, raising suspicions of sabotage by bad actors, countries and companies involved said on Monday.

A spokesperson for Arelion, the owner and operator of the communications cable, told Reuters on Tuesday that the link between Lithuania and Sweden was “fully out” but that the reason remained unclear.
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NEW YORK — Arthur Frommer, whose “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” guidebooks revolutionized leisure travel by convincing average Americans to take budget vacations abroad, has died. He was 95.

Frommer died from complications of pneumonia, his daughter Pauline Frommer said Monday.

“My father opened up the world to so many people,” she said. “He believed deeply that travel could be an enlightening activity and one that did not require a big budget.”

Frommer began writing about travel while serving in the U.S. Army in Europe in the 1950s. When a guidebook he wrote for American soldiers overseas sold out, he launched what became one of the travel industry’s best-known brands, self-publishing “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day” in 1957.

“It struck a chord and became an immediate best-seller,” he recalled in an interview with The Associated Press in 2007, on the 50th anniversary of the book’s debut.

The Frommer’s brand, led today by his daughter Pauline, remains one of the best-known names in the travel industry, with guidebooks to destinations around the world, an influential social media presence, podcasts and a radio show.

Frommer’s philosophy — stay in inns and budget hotels instead of five-star hotels, sightsee on your own using public transportation, eat with locals in small cafes instead of fancy restaurants — changed the way Americans traveled in the mid- to late 20th century. He said budget travel was preferable to luxury travel “because it leads to a more authentic experience.” That message encouraged average people, not just the wealthy, to vacation abroad.

It didn’t hurt that his books hit the market as the rise of jet travel made getting to Europe easier than crossing the Atlantic by ship. The books became so popular that there was a time when you couldn’t visit a place like the Eiffel Tower without spotting Frommer’s guidebooks in the hands of every other American tourist.

Frommer’s advice also became so standard that it’s hard to remember how radical it seemed in the days before discount flights and backpacks. “It was really pioneering stuff,” Tony Wheeler, founder of the Lonely Planet guidebook company, said in an interview in 2013. Before Frommer, Wheeler said, you could find guidebooks “that would tell you everything about the church or the temple ruin. But the idea that you wanted to eat somewhere and find a hotel or get from A to B — well, I’ve got a huge amount of respect for Arthur.”

“Arthur did for travel what Consumer Reports did for everything else,” said Pat Carrier, former owner of The Globe Corner, a travel bookstore in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The final editions of Frommer’s groundbreaking series were titled “Europe from $95 a Day.” The concept no longer made sense when hotels could not be had for less than $100 a night, so the series was discontinued in 2007. But the Frommer publishing empire did not disappear, despite a series of sales that started when Frommer sold the guidebook company to Simon & Schuster. It was later acquired by Wiley Publishing, which in turn sold it to Google in 2012. Google quietly shut the guidebooks down, but Arthur Frommer — in a David vs. Goliath triumph — got his brand back from Google. In November 2013 with his daughter Pauline, he relaunched the print series with dozens of new guidebook titles.

“I never dreamed at my age I’d be working this hard,” he told the AP at the time, age 84.

Frommer also remained a well-known figure in 21st century travel, opinionated to the end of his career, speaking out on his blog and radio show. He hated mega-cruise ships and railed against travel websites where consumers put up their own reviews, saying they were too easily manipulated with phony postings. And he coined the phrase “Trump Slump” in a widely quoted column that predicted a slump in tourism to the U.S. after Donald Trump was elected president.

Frommer was born in Lynchburg, Virginia, and grew up during the Great Depression in Jefferson City, Missouri, the child of a Polish father and Austrian mother. “My father had one job after another, one company after another that went bankrupt,” he recalled. The family moved to New York when he was a teenager. He worked as an office boy at Newsweek, went to New York University and was drafted upon graduating from Yale Law School in 1953. Because he spoke French and Russian, he was sent to work in Army intelligence at a U.S. base in Germany, where the Cold War was heating up.

His first glimpse of Europe was from the window of a military transport plane. Whenever he had a weekend leave or a three-day pass, he’d hop a train to Paris or hitch a ride to England on an Air Force flight. Eventually he wrote “The GI’s Guide to Traveling in Europe,” and a few weeks before his Army stint was up, he had 5,000 copies printed by a typesetter in a German village. They were priced at 50 cents apiece, distributed by the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes.

Shortly after he returned to New York to practice law at the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, he received a cable from Europe. “The book was sold out, would I arrange a reprint?” he said.

Soon after he spent his month’s vacation from the law firm doing a civilian version of the guide. “In 30 days I went to 15 different cities, getting up at 4 a.m., running up and down the streets, trying to find good cheap hotels and restaurants,” he recalled.

The resulting book, the very first “Europe on 5 Dollars a Day,” was much more than a list. It was written with a wide-eyed wonder that verged on poetry: “Venice is a fantastic dream,” Frommer wrote. “Try to arrive at night when the wonders of the city can steal upon you piecemeal and slow. … Out of the dark, there appear little clusters of candy-striped mooring poles; a gondola approaches with a lighted lantern hung from its prow.”

Eventually Frommer gave up law to write the guides full-time. Daughter Pauline joined him with his first wife, Hope Arthur, on their trips starting in 1965, when she was 4 months old. “They used to joke that the book should be called ‘Europe on Five Diapers a Day,'” Pauline Frommer said.

In the 1960s, when inflation forced Frommer to change the title of the book to “Europe on 5 and 10 Dollars a Day,” he said “it was as if someone had plunged a knife into my head.”

Asked to summarize the impact of his books in a 2017 Associated Press interview, he said that in the 1950s, “most Americans had been taught that foreign travel was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially travel to Europe. They were taught that they were going to a war-torn country where it was risky to stay in any hotel other than a five-star hotel. It was risky to go into anything but a top-notch restaurant. … And I knew that all these warnings were a lot of nonsense.”

He added: “We were pioneers in also suggesting that a different type of American should travel, that you didn’t have to be well-heeled.”

To the end of his life, he said he avoided traveling first class. “I fly economy class and I try to experience the same form of travel, the same experience that the average American and the average citizen of the world encounters,” he said.

As Frommer aged, his daughter Pauline gradually became the force behind the company, promoting the brand, managing the business and even writing some of the content based on her own travels. Her relationship with her father was both tender and respectful, and she summed it up this way in a 2012 email to AP: “It’s wonderful to have a working partner whose mind is a steel trap, and who doesn’t just have smarts, but wisdom. His opinions, whether or not you agree with them, come from his social values. He’s a man who puts ethics at the center of his life, and weaves them into everything he does.”

In addition to Pauline, Frommer’s survivors include his second wife, Roberta Brodfeld, and four grandchildren.
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Russia vetoed a United Nation resolution Monday calling for an immediate cease-fire between Sudan’s warring parties and the delivery of humanitarian aid to millions of Sudanese.

Russia was the only Security Council member that voted against the cease-fire resolution.

China, Russia’s ally, supported the resolution, drafted by the United Kingdom and Sierra Leone.

Russian Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy told the council that Moscow vetoed the resolution because Sudan’s government should be “solely” responsible for what happens in Sudan.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said, “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives, though perhaps it shouldn’t be.”

She added, “For months, Russia has obstructed and obfuscated, standing in the way of council action to address the catastrophic situation in Sudan and playing … both sides of the conflict, to advance its own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.”

British Foreign Minister David Lammy said, “One country stood in the way of the council speaking with one voice. One country is the blocker. One country is the enemy of peace. This Russian veto is a disgrace, and it shows to the world yet again, Russia’s true colors.”

Polyanskiy accused the Security Council of operating under a double standard, pointing to the council’s failure to rein in Israel with what he said are violations of humanitarian law in Gaza.

War broke out between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April 2023, in the capital, Khartoum, just before the country was set to transition to civilian rule. The violence has spread to other regions around the country.

Eleven million people in Sudan have been displaced and half of the country’s population, an estimated 25 million people, are struggling with crisis-level food insecurity, according to the United Nations. Famine was confirmed in August in the northern part of Sudan’s Darfur region.

Some information in this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Athens, Greece — Greece will make an early repayment of 5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) in bailout-era debt in 2025, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis told a banking conference in Athens on Monday, describing the move as a signal of the country’s fiscal recovery.

“This … underscores our confidence in public finances and reflects our commitment to fiscal discipline,” Mitsotakis said.

Finance Ministry officials say they plan to reduce debt through primary surpluses, loan repayments and combating tax evasion.

Greece has rebounded from a 10-year financial crisis that forced it to borrow tens of billions of euros from its European Union partners and the International Monetary Fund.

But Mitsotakis’ center-right government, elected for a second term in 2023, is struggling to address a cost of living crisis that has sapped Greeks’ spending power. Despite the lack of any substantial challenge from opposition parties, the high cost of living has nibbled away at the government’s approval ratings and triggered union anger.

The country’s two main private and public sector unions have called a general strike for Wednesday that will keep island ferries in port and disrupt other forms of transport and public services. 

A protest march will be held in central Athens on Wednesday morning.

The GSEE main private sector union Monday accused the government of “refusing to take any meaningful measures that would secure workers dignified living conditions.”

“The cost of living is sky-high and our salaries rock-bottom, (while) high housing costs have left young people in a tragic position,” GSEE chairman Yiannis Panagopoulos said.

According to EU forecasts, Greece’s economy is expected to grow 2.1% in 2024 and maintain a broadly similar course over the following two years.

Unemployment, now below 10%, is expected to keep declining, while inflation is projected at 3% this year. 
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tbilisi, georgia — Demonstrators in Georgia’s capital have set up tents on a central thoroughfare and vowed Monday to stay around the clock to demand new parliamentary elections in the country.

The October 26 election kept the governing Georgian Dream party in power, but opponents say the vote was rigged with Russia’s assistance. Many Georgians viewed the election as a referendum on the country’s effort to join the European Union. Several large protests have been held since then.

President Salome Zourabichvili, who has rejected the official results, declared on Monday that she would appeal the vote results to the Constitutional Court. Zourabichvili, who holds a mostly ceremonial position, has said Georgia has fallen victim to pressure from Moscow against joining the EU.

Critics have accused Georgian Dream, established by Bidzina Ivanishvili, a shadowy billionaire who made his fortune in Russia, of becoming increasingly authoritarian and tilted toward Moscow. The party recently pushed through laws similar to those used by the Kremlin to crack down on freedom of speech and LGBTQ+ rights.

On Sunday, demonstrators closed an avenue leading into the center of Tbilisi. Nika Melia, leader of Coalition for Change, one of the opposition groups, voiced hope that the protests around the clock will mark “the beginning of the intense, strong protest movement that will finish with the fall of Ivanishvili’s regime.”

The EU suspended Georgia’s membership application process indefinitely in June after the country’s parliament passed a law requiring organizations that receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as “pursuing the interest of a foreign power,” similar to a Russian law used to discredit organizations critical of the government.

The Central Election Commission said Georgian Dream won about 54% of the vote in October. Its leaders have rejected opposition claims of vote fraud. European election observers said the election took place in a “divisive” atmosphere marked by instances of bribery, double voting and physical violence.
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Russian opposition members in exile took to the streets of Berlin Sunday to demand a pullout of Russian troops from Ukraine and the resignation of President Vladimir Putin in a protest that would have been impossible in Russia due to police and judicial pressure on opposition movements. Elizabeth Cherneff narrates this report from Ricardo Marquina in Berlin.
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