Ukraine warns Black Sea ships as Russia hits, pummels ports

MYKOLAIV, Ukraine—Kyiv has put ships in the Black Sea headed for Russian-controlled ports on notice, as Moscow hit the Ukrainian ports of Mykolaiv and Odesa with drones and missiles in another night of “hellish” strikes.

Ukraine said it would treat the ships as potential carriers of military cargo, mirroring a move made by Russia after it withdrew from a key grain export deal.

At least three people died and more than 20 were injured in the Russian strikes on the southern Ukrainian ports, officials said, posting images of buildings in flames and partially collapsed.

Russia pounded the cities with 19 missiles and 19 drones, the Ukrainian air force said, after the Kremlin promised retribution for an attack on the bridge linking annexed Crimea to mainland Russia.

“A hellish night for our people!” said

Sergiy Kruk, head of the Ukrainian State Emergency Service.

In Odesa, a man was found “under the rubble”, regional governor Oleg Kiper said, while in Mykolaiv an elderly couple were killed.

Rescue teams in Mykolaiv searched through the debris under pouring rain to find survivors after missiles struck the centre.

Oleksiy Luganchenko, 72, stood outside a collapsed building in the city, saying the dead couple were his sister and her husband.

“Who needs this war?” Luganchenko said.

UK Conservatives suffer vote routs but shun wipeout

LONDON—Britain’s ruling Conservatives on Friday held the former seat of ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson but saw hefty majorities in two other seats blown away as scandals and high inflation took their toll.

Rishi Sunak was expected to become the first prime minister to lose three parliamentary seats on one day, but was spared that humiliation due to a narrow victory in the west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

While that result may have offered the embattled Sunak some relief, the wiping out of his party’s 19,000 majority in the Somerton and Frome seat and its 20,000 majority in the Selby and Ainsty constituency will come as hammer blows ahead of an expected general election next year.

Labour took the northern England seat of Selby and Ainsty by 16,456 votes to 12,295, in the process overturning its biggest deficit at a by-election since World War Two.

Winning candidate Keir Mather, 25, said in his victory speech that “for too long Conservatives here and in Westminster have failed us,” accusing the government of “negligence and complacency.”

In the southwestern England seat of Somerton and Frome, the Liberal Democrats won by 21,187 to 10,179, with winning candidate Sarah Dyke hailing a “stunning and historic victory” and taking aim at the “woeful government.” AFP

“I’d told them they should leave and now they have died.”

‘Retaliatory strikes’

Iryna Personova, 65, said her apartment had been destroyed. “I’ve lived here for 40 years, there’s not a single military target nearby,” she told AFP. Russia said it had carried out the “retaliatory strikes” against military infrastructure around the two cities.

A production site for seaborne drones was hit around Odesa, while “fuel and ammunition depots of Ukraine’s armed forces” were struck near Mykolaiv.

But Ukraine has accused Russia of targeting grain supplies and infrastructure vital to the Black Sea deal which collapsed earlier this week.

A previous strike had destroyed 60,000 tonnes of grain meant for export from the major global producer, the Ukrainian agriculture ministry said.

United Nations Secretary-General

Antonio Guterres said the effect of the attacks went well beyond Ukraine.

“We are already seeing the negative effect on global wheat and corn prices which hurts everyone, but especially vulnerable people in the global south,” Guterres said in a statement from his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. AFP

Seoul: Nokor nuke attack means ‘end’ of regime

SEOUL—South Korea told North Korea Friday that using its nukes would mean the “end” of Kim Jong Un’s regime, after Pyongyang threatened nuclear retaliation over growing US military deployments on the peninsula.

Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever, with the North ramping up weapons testing as Seoul and Washington boost military cooperation.

Pyongyang’s defense minister warned Thursday that this week’s port visit of a US nuclear-capable submarine to Busan —the first since 1981—could meet the legal threshold for the North to use its nuclear weapons.

North Korea last year adopted a sweeping nuclear law, setting out an array of scenarios—some of which are vague—in which it could use its nukes, including pre-emptive nuclear strikes if threatened.

As Seoul and Washington have “made clear” before, “any nuclear attack on the alliance will face an immediate, overwhelming and decisive response”, Seoul’s defence ministry said in a statement Friday.

Were this to happen “the North Korean regime will face its end”, it added.

The US submarine’s port visit is only a “legitimate defensive response” to Pyongyang’s ongoing nuclear threats, it said.

That visit was agreed during South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s trip to Washington in April, when he and US President Joe Biden issued a similarly stern warning to Pyongyang about the terminal consequences of it using nuclear weapons. South Korea’s statement comes as an American soldier, Travis King, is believed to be in North Korean custody after crossing the border during a tourist trip to the Joint Security Area in the De- militarised Zone on Tuesday.

Pyongyang has a long history of detaining Americans and using them as bargaining chips in bilateral ties. It has not yet issued any comment on King.

Announcing his new nuclear law last year, Kim Jong Un said the country’s status as a nuclear power was now “irreversible”, effectively eliminating the possibility of denuclearisation talks.

The new nuclear law is ambiguous, and claims Pyongyang could use its nukes if “an attack by nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction... is judged to draw near”.

Analysts have said this could be used to justify the North’s possible nuclear use even in the face of conventional attacks.

“North Korea is the only entity that has adopted the Nuclear Forces Policy Act, which includes illegal preemptive strikes,” Seoul’s defense ministry said Friday. AFP

Iraq expels Sweden envoy as Koran stomped in Stockholm after protest

BAGHDAD, Iraq—Tensions flared be- tween Iraq and Sweden Thursday over a Stockholm protest in which a man stomped on the Koran, weeks after he had burnt pages of Islam’s holy book, sparking widespread Muslim anger.

News that Swedish authorities would permit the protest to proceed on free speech grounds had led hundreds of Iraqis to storm and torch Sweden’s Baghdad embassy in a chaotic predawn attack.

Iraq’s government condemned the attack, but retaliated against the protest in Sweden by expelling its ambassador, vowing to sever ties and suspending the operating licence of Swedish telecom giant Ericsson.

Around the time of the protest outside the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, Iraqi

Thai reformist party to back rival after PM vote defeat

BANGKOK—The reformist party that won Thailand’s recent election said Friday it would back a rival candidate to become prime minister after its own leader was blocked by the military and pro-royalist establishment.

The Move Forward Party (MFP) said it would put its support behind the nominee of Pheu Thai after its own leader, Pita Limjaroenrat, was knocked back in a leadership vote last week by militaryappointed senators.

MFP, which rode to victory in May’s election on a wave of support from young and urban voters frustrated by a decade of army-backed rule, said its pri- ority was not to take the PM job but to restore civilian government.

“The most important thing is not that Pita will become PM, but the fact that Thailand would be able to become a democratic country,” MFP secretarygeneral Chaitawat Tulathon said.

Pheu Thai -- seen as a vehicle for the Shinawatra political clan, whose members include two former prime ministers ousted by military coups in 2006 and 2014 -- came second in the election and joined MFP’s eight-party coalition.

“MFP will allow the second party, Pheu Thai, to become the main party of the eight coalition parties,” Chaitawat said.

“In the next parliamentary meeting, MFP will vote for PT’s PM candidate, just like PT voted for MFP’s PM candidate.”

The kingdom’s establishment strongly opposes MFP’s reformist agenda, and on Wednesday Pita was suspended from parliament by the Constitutional Court.

The court decided to proceed with a case that could see him disqualified as an MP altogether for owning shares in a media company.

Lawmakers are forbidden from doing so under Thailand’s charter, though the television station in question has not broadcast since 2007. AFP

Conspiracy, obstruction, fraud: Potential charges facing Trump

WASHINGTON, DC—As special counsel Jack Smith winds down his highstakes investigation of Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, the former US president faces a slew of potential charges.

The 77-year-old Trump has said he had received a letter from Smith confirming he was a target of the probe and added that he expected to be arrested and indicted soon.

The special counsel, who was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November, declined to comment, but US media reports said the letter cited three federal criminal statutes: conspiracy to defraud the United States; obstruction of an official proceeding and deprivation of rights.

Trump has already been indicted and pleaded not guilty in two other criminal cases—for mishandling top secret government documents after leaving the White House and for allegedly paying 2016 election-eve hush money to a porn star. Here is a look at the charges Trump —the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination—may face in connection with efforts to overturn his election loss to Democrat Joe Biden and the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by his supporters. AFP

Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani “instructed the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad to leave Iraqi territory”. The decision was “prompted by the Swedish government’s repeated permission for the burning of the Holy Koran, insulting Islamic sanctities and the burning of the Iraqi flag”, his office said.

In the end, Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, 37, stepped on the Koran but did not burn pages as he did last month outside Stockholm’s main mosque.

Sweden and other European countries have previously seen protests where far-right and other activists, citing free speech protections, damage or destroy religious symbols or books, often sparking protests. AFP

Israel’s Netanyahu to visit Turkey days after Abbas

ISTANBUL, Turkey—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Turkey on July 28 to hold talks with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, both leaders’ offices said late Thursday.

Netanyahu will be received a few days after Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is expected on July 25, the Turkish presidency said.

“President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will welcome the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Turkey in the course of the same week,” the presidency said in a statement.

The leaders will discuss “TurkeyPalestine relations and the latest developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as well as other topical international issues”, it added.

Netanyahu’s office confirmed the visit, the first by an Israeli prime minister since Ehud Olmert in 2008.

Turkey’s diplomatic drive comes at a time when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is at a standstill, against a backdrop of the worst violence in years in the occupied West Bank.

In April, clashes erupted inside Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque, where Israeli police fought with Palestinians inside the holy site. AFP