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Adrian Oliver,
Sunday 23 June – Sunday 30 June:
On Sunday, Russia accused the United States of setting the coordinates for a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with five U.S.-supplied Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles which killed four people, including two children, and injured 151 more. Footage on Russian state television showed people running from a beach and some people being carried off on sun loungers. Russian authorities in Crimea said missile fragments had fallen just after noon near a beach on the north side of the city of Sevastopol where locals were on holiday. The incident generated a furious reaction among Russian public figures. “Such actions by Washington … will not be left without response,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Monday as it summoned the ambassador. “There will definitely be response measures.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the attack “absolutely barbaric” and said in a news conference that Moscow would react to the U.S. involvement. Peskov also referred to comments by Russian President Vladimir Putin about arming countries to potentially launch strikes on Western targets. “We perfectly understand who is behind this,” Peskov said, adding that it was clear who supplied weapons to Ukraine, aimed them and provided data for them. “Of course, the involvement of the United States in the fighting, as a result of which peaceful Russians are dying, cannot but have consequences,” Peskov said. “Which ones exactly, time will tell”.
On Monday, Kenyan President William Ruto held a ceremony wishing luck to 400 officers set to arrive in Haiti later this week in a United Nations-backed initiative. They are the first contingent out of 1,000 police that Kenya is expected to send to the island nation overrun by criminal gangs. “This mission is one of the most urgent, important and historic in the history of global solidarity,” Ruto told the officers in quotes shared by his office. “It is a mission to affirm the universal values of the community of nations, a mission to take a stand for humanity.” Ruto and the U.S. have welcomed the effort after months of debate over how to address spiralling violence in Haiti, where gangs have gained territorial control over large swathes of the capital Port-au-Prince. “We hope to see further measurable improvements in security, particularly with respect to access to humanitarian aid and core economic activity,” U.S. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters. The Biden Administration has pledged $300 million to support Kenyan efforts.
On Tuesday, the Norwegian government signed deals with private companies to start stockpiling food grains for emergencies, saying the pandemic, war in Europe and climate change have made it necessary. The deal to store 30,000 tons of grain was signed by Agriculture and Food Minister Geir Pollestad, Finance Minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum and the four private companies. The wheat, which will belong to the Norwegian government, will be stored by the companies in facilities across the country. In a statement, Norway’s Ministry for Agriculture and Food said the building up of a contingency stock of food grains is about being prepared for the unthinkable. Norway will sign further stockpiling contracts in the coming years and the aim is to have 82,500 tons of grain in storage by 2029 “so that we then have enough grain for three months’ consumption by Norway’s population is a crisis situation that may arise,” Pollestad said. Norway has about 5.6 million inhabitants and has a yearly wheat consumption of just under 800,000 tons according to IndexMundi. Perhaps the three-month figure given by the government is calculated using a lower level of consumption in a period of emergency. Norway had stored grain in the 1950s but closed down its storage sites in 2003 after deciding they were no longer needed. However, following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Norway set up a commission to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of its emergency preparedness systems which recommended stockpiling grain products. The oil-rich country also houses the Global Seed Vault in its Svalbard archipelago, some 1,300 kilometres from the North Pole. Three of the companies will store at least 15,000 tons this year. Companies “are free to invest in new facilities and decide for themselves where they want to store the emergency grain, but they must make the grain available to the state if needed,” the government said.
On Thursday, bizarre new naturalization legislation came into effect in Germany. People applying for naturalization in Germany will now be required to affirm Israel’s right to exist. The measure is aimed at grappling with rising antisemitism in Germany – no doubt from the large-scale immigration of Middle Eastern Muslims largely ill-disposed to Israel as well as a surge in popularity for the far right. It would be ironic if the new measure stoked historic anxieties over the influence of Jewish interests in Germany.
On Thursday evening, Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their first presidential debate of the 2024 election campaign, which was a painful watch without the entertainment of the 2016 or 2020 election cycles. It was a bad night for Biden who appeared old and frail. So bad that the New York Times editorial board published an opinion piece in which they said Biden needs to step down for the good of the country. Most news outlets ran stories about Democrats and diplomats from American allies around the world voicing concerns over Biden’s ability to helm the most powerful country on Earth. The debate took place at the CNN news network’s studios in Atlanta, Georgia, and it marked the first time since October 2020 that the two candidates met on the debate stage. Biden had spent the week leading up to the debate at the presidential retreat of Camp David in Maryland, where aides helped him prepare with mock set-ups – to no great effect it seems. Trump, meanwhile, largely continued his schedule of rallies. From the moment Biden stepped on stage he appeared a feeble old man. He stuttered, stumbled and lost his train of thought. Trump appeared more energetic, with his usual bluster and lies. Each man claimed to be the greatest president on various issues and the two went back and forth over which of them is physically and cognitively stronger. Trump boasted about his strength, claiming, “I’m in as good shape as I was 25, 30 years ago.” In response, a sniggering Biden implied his opponent was lying about both his height and weight. Trump said he had won two championships on his golf course while Biden “can’t hit the ball 50 yards”. This prompted Biden to challenge Trump to a golf match, only if Trump would carry his own bag. “Let’s not act like children,” said Trump. “You are a child,” responded Biden. In the lead-up to Thursday’s debate, polls showed Trump and Biden in a tight race, though the Republican appeared to be edging ahead. A survey from The New York Times and Siena College, released on the eve of the event, showed Trump with nearly 48 percent support, close to four points ahead of Biden, who was around 44 percent. In another departure from tradition, Biden and Trump bypassed the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates to organise the debates themselves, negotiating directly with CNN to host it.
On Friday, Iranians headed to the polls for snap presidential elections called in the wake of President Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash on May 19. A reformist candidate won the most votes in the first round of Iran’s presidential election and will face a conservative hardliner in a run-off next week. None of the four candidates secured more than 50% of the vote in Friday’s election, prompting a second round on July 5. The election saw the lowest voter turnout for a presidential election since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. Reformist lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian and ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who received the most votes, will face off in the runoff, according to Mohsen Eslami, the spokesperson for the election committee. The final candidates were pre-selected by Iran’s Guardian Council, which reports directly to Khamenei. On Thursday, two conservative candidates, Amirhossein Qazizadeh-Hashemi and Alireza Zakani, withdrew from the race to help consolidate the hardline vote. Qazizadeh-Hashemi urged other candidates from the “revolution camp” to do the same to secure a hardliner victory.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia should start producing short- and intermediate-range missiles, which were previously banned under a now-defunct Cold War treaty, warning against American drone reconnaissance flights over the Black Sea – in support of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian assets. He said the U.S. had recently sent intermediate-range missiles – able to strike 1,000 to 5,500 kilometres – to Denmark for training exercises. “We need to react to this and make decisions about what we should do next in this area. It seems that we need to start producing these strike systems,” Putin said. “And then, based on the reality of the actual situation, make decisions about where to deploy them for our security,” he said. Such missiles, capable of carrying nuclear warheads, were previously banned under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, but Washington terminated the deal in 2019, blaming Russia for not complying with its terms. At the time, Putin said Russia would stick to a production moratorium. Russia’s defence ministry said Friday that it had “observed an increased frequency of US strategic unmanned aerial vehicle flights over the waters of the Black Sea” that surrounds Crimea. It said the drones were “carrying out reconnaissance” to help Kyiv use Western-supplied weapons on Russian targets. Also on Friday, Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov ordered officials to prepare a response to American drone flights over the Black Sea. The Russian Defense Ministry noted a recent “increased intensity” of U.S. drones over the Black Sea, saying they “conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by Western countries for strikes on Russian facilities.” “It shows an increased involvement of the U.S. and other NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime,” the ministry said in a statement. It noted that “such flights significantly increase the probability of incidents involving Russian military aircraft, which increases the risk of direct confrontation between the alliance and the Russian Federation. “NATO members will bear responsibility for that,” it added. The ministry said that Belousov has directed the General Staff to “make proposals on measures of operative response to provocations.” Also Friday, the Belarusian military said it has beefed up its forces along Ukraine’s northern border in response to what it described as security threats. The Belarusian Defense Ministry said that it has deployed multiple rocket launchers in an unspecified section of the 1,084-kilometre border.
On Sunday, France began the first round of parliamentary elections called in the wake of rightwing gains in the European elections. The election will take place over two rounds on June 30 and July 7, with all 577 parliament seats up for grabs – including those in overseas territories. Most of the National Assembly’s 577 seats will not be decided until the second-round run-off vote next Sunday. The first results will be announced at 20:00 local time. Across France, early turnout figures are higher than in the 2022 legislative vote, at 25.9 percent by midday, compared with 18.43 percent two years ago, according to the Interior Ministry. That means one in four eligible voters had cast their vote by 10:00 GMT — the highest such rate since 1981 for a similar election and at the same time of day, reflecting intense interest in a vote that will determine the future of Mr. Macron’s second term. The National Rally has a comfortable lead in the latest polls, with the support of roughly 36 percent of voters. About 49.3 million people are registered as voters. This election could oust President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist alliance and leave him to see out the remaining three years of his term in an awkward partnership with the far right.
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