New Delhi — The United Nations’ cultural agency rejected recommendations Wednesday to place Stonehenge on the list of world heritage sites in danger over concerns that Britain’s plans to build a nearby highway tunnel threaten the landscape around the prehistoric monument.

Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in southern England in stages, starting 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected in the late Neolithic period about 2,500 B.C.

It was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986 — an honor bestowed upon sites that have special cultural or physical significance.

UNESCO experts had recommended listing Stonehenge as “in danger” over the plans for highway development.

But at the 46th session of the World Heritage Committee, which maintains the list and oversees the conservation of the sites, members led by Kenya and Qatar said Britain’s plans to mitigate the effect on the site were sufficient and that it should not be added to the “in danger” list.

The highway project, which has been touted for decades and mired in legal challenges, is aimed at trying to ease traffic along a stretch of road prone to gridlock by moving the main highway underground and slightly farther away from the famous stone circle.

It has faced fierce opposition from local residents and archaeologists, as well as concern from UNESCO, over potential damage to the environment, wildlife and possible new archaeological finds.

Kenya, in amending the recommendation to list the site as in danger, focused on the fact that the main stone circle would be farther away from the road with the new construction, and not the experts’ assessment that the road project would significantly impact the greater site. It also noted that Britain had considered more than 50 proposals for the highway plan.

“What needs to be protected is not just the henge but the overall landscape of which the henge is a central focus,” the UNESCO experts had argued in their draft proposal, which was rejected.

“The main henge is a highly visible and well-known monument and the proposed tunnel would improve its immediate setting, but this monument has to be considered in its context, surrounded by and inextricably linked to a large number of prehistoric features, which together form an ancient landscape.”

After rejecting the proposal to list Stonehenge as in danger, the committee agreed to ask Britain for an updated report on the state of conservation of the property by December 2025.

UNESCO says a site’s inclusion on its List of World Heritage Sites in Danger is not punitive, but rather meant to draw international attention to the urgent need for conservation measures and “encourage corrective action.”

If issues are not rectified, sites face the possibility of being de-listed by UNESCO, though that is rare.
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Paris — French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday he will keep a centrist caretaker government on through the Olympics to avoid “disorder,” brushing aside an 11th-hour prime minister nomination by the country’s leftist coalition.

Macron made his widely expected announcement in a TV interview late Tuesday. Just prior to that appearance, the leftist coalition that won the most votes in this month’s parliamentary elections selected little-known civil servant Lucie Castets as their choice for prime minister.

But Macron told the France 2 network that the current government, who resigned last week to take on a purely caretaker role, would “handle current affairs during the Olympics,” which are being staged in Paris and elsewhere in France through Aug. 11.

“Until mid-August, we’re not in a position to be able to change things because it would prompt disorder,” Macron said. “I have chosen the stability” to safeguard the Games, which will soon gather about 10,500 athletes and millions of fans.

Party leaders in the leftist coalition immediately slammed Macron’s unwillingness to immediately consider their prime minister candidate.

There is no firm timeline for when Macron must name a new prime minister, following legislative elections that left the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France’s modern Republic.

Asked about the leftist coalition’s choice, Macron said “the issue is not a name provided by a political group,” adding that there must be a parliamentary majority behind the candidate to “pass reforms, pass a budget and move the country forward.”

France has been on the brink of government paralysis since the National Assembly elections resulted in a split among three major political blocs: the leftist New Popular Front, Macron’s centrist allies and the far-right National Rally of Marine Le Pen.

Macron, who has a presidential mandate until 2027, has the ultimate say in who is appointed prime minister. However, that person would need enough support from lawmakers to avoid a no-confidence vote.

Macron urged politicians from both the moderate left, the center and the moderate right to “work together” during the summer, arguing that with no outright majority, none of the main blocs can implement their political platforms.

He said “compromises” are needed.

Macron said he’d like to form a government as soon as possible, but that “Obviously, until mid-August, we need to be focused on the Games.”

The leftist coalition has repeatedly demanded the right to form a government after it won the most seats in the National Assembly, yet deep internal divisions have prevented its members from agreeing on a prime minister candidate for more than two weeks. The coalition is composed of three main parties — the hard-left France Unbowed, the Socialists and the Greens.
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TOKYO — Russia has banned the head of Toyota and 12 other senior Japanese business figures from entering the country, prompting a protest by Tokyo on Wednesday.

The list published by Russia’s foreign ministry on Tuesday includes Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda, Rakuten chief Hiroshi Mikitani and Akihiko Tanaka, president of the government-backed Japan International Cooperation Agency.

The decision was a “response to Japan’s ongoing sanctions against our country in connection with the special military operation,” the foreign ministry statement said, using Moscow’s term for its invasion of Ukraine.

It did not explain how individuals were chosen for the list, which did not include the heads of major Japanese firms like Mitsubishi, Honda and Sony.

Japan has strongly backed the Western position on Ukraine, providing Kyiv with financial and material support and sanctioning Russian individuals and organizations.

Japan’s pacifist constitution restricts it from exporting weapons, but in December, Tokyo loosened arms export controls to enable it to sell domestically made Patriot missiles to the United States.

The move was aimed at replenishing U.S. inventories of the air defense missile systems that have run low because of supplies sent to Ukraine.

“Measures announced by Russia this time will restrict fair activity by Japanese companies, and are absolutely unacceptable,” Japanese government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi said Wednesday.

He said Tokyo had lodged a protest and that “all of our sanctions stem from Russia’s Ukraine invasion, which is a clear violation of international law.”
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Rights groups accuse French authorities of “social cleansing” ahead of the Paris Olympics by uprooting migrants, sex workers and others around the capital — undermining promises of making these Games the most inclusive ever. The government says it’s simply trying to address a longstanding problem. Lisa Bryant has more from the French capital.
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Budapest, Hungary — Hungary’s foreign minister voiced indifference on Tuesday over a decision by the European Union’s top diplomat to shift an EU ministers’ meeting from Budapest to Brussels in a sign of disapproval over Hungary’s initial use of the EU presidency.

“It was all the same to me in the beginning, and it’s all the same to me now,” Peter Szijjarto said in a statement.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell acted after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban began a self-styled Ukraine peace mission by holding talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Orban, a nationalist who has often been at odds with broader EU policy, embarked on his quest without coordinating it with other EU government leaders or Ukraine just days after Hungary took on the 27-bloc’s rotating presidency on July 1.

“We have to send a signal, even if it is a symbolic signal,” Borrell told reporters in Brussels on Monday after the last meeting of EU foreign ministers before the summer break.

Borrell said there had been no consensus among EU members over whether to attend the ministerial meeting in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, planned for Aug. 28-29  and a gathering of defense ministers afterwards.

He said he opted to switch both meetings to Brussels given that a majority of countries wanted to send a message to Hungary over Orban’s outreach to Russia, which is subject to EU sanctions over its nearly two-and-a-half-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
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WASHINGTON — The United States has invited the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for U.S.-mediated cease-fire talks starting on August 14 in Switzerland, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday. 

The talks will include the African Union, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the United Nations as observers, Blinken said in a statement. Saudi Arabia will be a co-host for the discussions, he added.  

“The scale of death, suffering, and destruction in Sudan is devastating. This senseless conflict must end,” Blinken said, calling on the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, to attend the talks and approach them constructively. 

The war in Sudan, which erupted in April 2023, has forced almost 10 million people from their homes, sparked warnings of famine and waves of ethnically driven violence blamed largely on the RSF. 

Talks in Jeddah between the army and RSF that were sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia broke down at the end of last year. 

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday that the goal of the talks in Switzerland was to build on work from Jeddah and try to move the talks to the next phase. 

“We just want to get the parties back to the table, and what we determined is that bringing the parties, the three host nations and the observers together is the best shot that we have right now at getting the nationwide cessation of violence,” Miller said.
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