World

Ukraine on Wednesday accused Russia of carrying out rocket strikes that killed 13 civilians in areas near a nuclear power plant, as the G7 warned that Russian control of the facility “endangers the region”.

The overnight strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine also injured 11 people, with five reported to be in a serious condition.

“It was a terrible night,” regional governor Valentin Reznichenko wrote on Telegram, urging residents to shelter when they hear air raid sirens.

“I am asking and begging you… Don’t let the Russians kill you,” he wrote, adding that Russia had fired a total of 80 rockets at the area.

Most of the casualties were in the town of Marganets, just across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s biggest.

Regional council head Mykola Lukashuk said the strikes had hit a local power line, leaving thousands of people without electricity.

– G7 call over nuclear plant –

Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of recent shelling around the plant, which has six reactors.

Ukraine says Russia has stationed hundreds of troops and stored ammunition at the facility since taking it over on March 4, shortly after starting its invasion.

The tensions have brought back memories of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster in then Soviet Ukraine, which killed hundreds of people and spread radioactive contamination over much of Europe.

The Group of Seven industrialised nations condemned Russia’s occupation and called on Moscow to immediately hand back full control of the plant.

Ukrainian staff operating the plant “must be able to carry out their duties without threats or pressure. It is Russia’s continued control of the plant that endangers the region,” the G7 foreign ministers said in a statement.

The strikes came a day after major blasts at the Saki airfield, a key military base on the Russian-annexed Crimea peninsula.

Moscow insisted that the explosions were caused by detonating ammunition rather than Ukrainian fire and Ukraine has not claimed responsibility.

– ‘There is a lot of shooting’ –

Fighting also ground on in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops are gradually advancing.

The city of Soledar was under constant shelling, AFP reporters saw, as Russian troops attempted to drive out Ukrainian forces and seize a foothold towards the larger city of Bakhmut.

The echoes of cluster bombs and artillery bounced off apartment buildings with their windows shattered, while roads were cratered and shops boarded up or destroyed.

The city was shrouded with black and white smoke arising from artillery and air strikes.

Some of those who remain now live their lives underground in cellars ill-suited as bomb shelters.

“Most have left. It’s very scary. There is a lot of shooting,” said 62-year-old Svitlana Klymenko.

“I just want to leave to grow old in a normal way, die a normal death, not be killed by a missile.”

– Vienna dims street lights –

The war has severely hampered grain supply from Ukraine, leading to an international food crisis as it is one of the world’s biggest producers.

Some ships have been able to leave Ukrainian ports in recent days after a deal with Russia brokered by the United Nations and Turkey.

The first grain shipment to leave on the Sierra Leone-flagged vessel Razoni departed the Ukrainian port of Odessa on August 1 and had been expected to dock in the Lebanese port of Tripoli at the weekend.

But the Ukrainian embassy said a new buyer for the shipment was being sought after the original Lebanese buyer cancelled the order.

A five-month delay after Russia’s invasion “prompted the buyer and the shipping agent to reach agreement on the cancellation of the order,” the Ukraine embassy said in a statement late Tuesday.

It is currently anchored off the Turkish port of Mersin.

Western countries have meanwhile imposed increasingly stringent sanctions on Russia, raising fears that Russia may cut off gas supplies.

EU countries have started putting into place different measures to save energy, with air conditioning curbs coming into force in Spain on Wednesday and Vienna dimming street lighting.

An ailing beluga whale that strayed into France’s Seine river was put down by vets Wednesday after a last-ditch rescue attempt failed because of its rapidly deteriorating health, local officials said.

The fate of the whale captured the hearts of people across the world since it was first spotted in the highly unusual habitat of the river that flows through Paris, far from its usual Arctic waters.

Rescuers had worked overnight to lift the male out of the Seine by crane for transfer to a saltwater pen, in a precarious effort to save the life of the mammal, which was no longer eating.

It was then driven at a painstakingly slow speed north to the Normandy port of Ouistreham, where vets hoped to release the animal into a harbourside pen and then possibly into the wild.

But the six vets unanimously decided after examining the beluga on arrival in Ouistreham that there was no other option than to put it down, the local authority of the Calvados region said.

“Despite the technical and logistical efforts, the condition of the cetacean unfortunately deteriorated during the trip,” it said. 

“Examinations showed that the beluga was in a state of great weakness and its respiratory activity failing. The decision was therefore taken collectively, with the veterinarians, to euthanize it,” it added.

– ‘Tragic outcome’ –

After nearly six hours of work by dozens of divers and rescuers, the 800-kilogramme (1,800-pound) cetacean had been lifted from the river by a net and crane at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT) and placed on a barge under the immediate care of a dozen veterinarians.

The 24 divers involved in the operation and the rescuers handling the ropes had to try several times to lure the animal into the nets to be lifted out of the water.

The beluga was then given a health check and driven to Ouistreham.

“During the journey the vets noted a worsening of his health and in particular the breathing,” said Florence Ollivet-Courtois, a vet for the local emergency services, in a video posted on social media.

“The animal was not getting enough air and suffering visibly. We therefore decided that it made no sense to set it free and proceeded to euthanasia.”

It remains unclear why the beluga had strayed this far south and Ollivet-Courtois said an autopsy may give further clues about is condition.  

The Sea Shepherd NGO, which has been assisting in the rescue, said on Twitter that the rescue operation was “risky” but “essential” to give the animal a chance.

“Following the deterioration of his condition, the vets took the decision to euthanize him. We are devastated by this tragic outcome that we knew was very likely,” it said.

The four-metre (13-foot) whale was discovered more than a week ago heading towards Paris and was stranded about 130 kilometres (80 miles) inland from the English Channel at Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne in Normandy.

Since Friday, the animal’s movement inland had been blocked by a lock some 70 kilometres northwest of Paris, and its health deteriorated after it refused to eat.

– Killer whale also died –

This is the second drama involving a big marine mammal in an unexpected area to grip France in the last months.

A sick killer whale — a member of the dolphin family also known as an orca — was spotted in the Seine in May but died after attempts failed to guide the animal back to the sea.

Interest in the beluga’s fate has spread far beyond France, generating a large influx of financial donations and other aid from conservation groups as well as individuals, officials said.

While belugas migrate south in the autumn to feed as ice forms in their native Arctic waters, they rarely venture so far.

According to France’s Pelagis Observatory, which specialises in sea mammals, the nearest beluga population is off the Svalbard archipelago, north of Norway, 3,000 kilometres from the Seine.

The trapped whale is only the second beluga ever sighted in France. The first was pulled out of the Loire estuary in a fisherman’s net in 1948.

A wildfire that officials thought was under control in southwest France has reignited amid a record drought and extreme heat, possibly the result of arson, officials said Wednesday.

More than 6,000 hectares (15,000 acres) of tinder-dry forest have burned in just 24 hours in the so-called Landiras blaze, the largest of several that scorched the region last month.

It had been brought under control — but not fully extinguished — after burning nearly 14,000 hectares, before flaring up on Tuesday, forcing the evacuation of some 6,000 people.

No one has been injured but 16 homes were destroyed or damaged near the village of Belin-Beliet, and officials said six fire-fighting trucks had burned.

“The risks are very high” that parched conditions will allow the fire to spread further, said Martin Guespereau, prefect of the Gironde department.

“The weather is very unfavourable because of the heat, the dry air, the record drought and the fact that there is a lot of peat in the ground… the fire didn’t go out in July, it went underground,” he told journalists.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said more than 1,000 firefighters were now battling the blaze, adding that investigators suspected arson may be involved.

“There were eight fires that erupted between 8:00 and 9:00 am (0600 and 0700 GMT) that erupted at intervals of a few hundred metres, which is extremely unusual,” he said in Mostuejouls, north of the Mediterranean city of Montpellier, where another fire was raging in the Grands Causses natural park.

He also told reporters that Sweden and Italy would send fire-fighting aircraft to France within 24 hours to help.

– ‘The sky was roaring’ –

“It’s a major fire… much more intense and fast-moving” than at the height of the Landiras blaze last month, Marc Vermeulen of the regional fire-fighting authority told journalists.

“I opened the door last night and there was (a) red wall in front of us, the sky was roaring like the ocean,” said Eliane, a 43-year-old at a temporary shelter for evacuees in Belin-Beliet.

For Christian Fostitchenko, 61, and his partner Monique, waiting at a martial arts dojo in nearby Salles, it was their second evacuation of the summer from their home in Saint-Magne.

“This time we were really scared — the flames were less than 100 metres (328 feet) from the house,” he said.

The fire was spreading toward the A63 motorway, a major artery linking Bordeaux to Spain, with thick smoke forcing the road’s closure between Bordeaux and Bayonne.

France has been buffeted this summer by a record drought that has forced water-use restrictions nationwide, as well as a series of heatwaves that many experts warn are being driven by climate change.

Wildfires have also ignited in the dry hills of the southeast and even in the normally lush areas of Brittany along the Channel.

On Wednesday, officials in western France said a wildfire near Angers and Le Mans has burned 1,200 hectares since Monday as nearly 400 firefighters struggle to contain it.

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed into law a bill boosting benefits for veterans exposed to toxic fumes, a cause close to his own heart after his son died of brain cancer.

Burn pits, lit up with jet fuel, were commonly used to dispose of waste in military camps during the years of the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

They exposed large numbers of servicemen and women to potentially harmful toxins, although there is not always a proven link between the exposure and later illnesses.

The PACT Act, passed by the US Senate earlier this month after fierce lobbying by veterans and celebrity comedian Jon Stewart, will formalize new rules for ensuring access to medical treatment.

“Sometimes military service can result in increased health risks for our veterans and some injuries and illnesses, like asthma, cancer and others, can take years to manifest,” the White House said.

“These realities can make it difficult for veterans to establish a direct connection between their service and disabilities resulting from military environmental exposures such as burn pits — a necessary step to ensure they receive the health care they earned.”

It described the bill as the “most significant expansion of benefits and services for toxic exposed veterans in more than 30 years.”

Biden believes the pits are at the root of the brain cancer that claimed the life of his son Beau, who served in Iraq and died in 2015 at age 46.

Recounting his own many visits to US troops in Iraq as a senator and vice president, Biden described seeing “burn pits the size of football fields” filled with the “incinerated waste of war.”

Subjected to “toxic smoke,” many of the “fittest and best warriors that we sent to war” came home and “were not the same,” encountering symptoms as varied as headaches and numbness, as well as serious diseases, Biden said.

“My son Beau was one of them.”

US inflation eased slightly in July, according to official data Wednesday, potentially taking pressure off the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates sharply while bringing a much-needed boost to President Joe Biden just months before crucial midterm elections.

With energy costs dropping in recent weeks, the consumer price index dipped to an annual rate of 8.5 percent last month, the Labor Department reported, lower than markets were projecting.

Fueled by aggressive consumer spending of pandemic savings, global supply chain snarls, domestic worker shortages and Russia’s war on Ukraine, inflation soared 9.1 percent on-year in June, the highest in 40 years.

But the CPI was unchanged compared to June, a dramatic shift from the big increase in the prior month and defying expectations of a modest rise.

“Today we received news that our economy had zero percent inflation in the month of July. Zero percent,” Biden said at a White House event. 

“We are seeing signs that inflation may be beginning to moderate,” he said, although he acknowledged that the global challenges remain and the economy could face “additional headwinds.”

When volatile food and energy prices are excluded from the calculation, the so-called core CPI rate rose just 0.3 percent — the smallest in four months, according to the report.

Soaring prices have continued to climb in the United States, squeezing family budgets and, by extension, Biden’s popularity.

Biden’s opponents accuse the president of precipitating inflation with a gigantic $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, enacted in March last year shortly after assuming office.

And Republicans renewed their criticism of Biden’s economic policy, warning that Sunday’s passage in the Senate of his massive climate and health care bill titled the “Inflation Reduction Act,” would do the opposite of its stated purpose.

But the president said his economic policies are working.

In addition to cooling inflation “jobs are booming” and wages are rising “That’s what happens when you build an economy from the bottom up from the middle out,” he said

“Our work is far from over… (but) the economic plan is working.”

– Devil in the details –

Still, the devil is in the details. 

Economists caution against taking too much solace from a single good report, and they worry that the inflation slowdown linked to the drop in gasoline prices could be outweighed by rising rent and real estate prices.

The question now facing Washington is whether it will be possible to bring inflation down without plunging the world’s largest economy into recession, after two quarters of economic contraction in the first half of the year.

In a bid to tamp down inflation, the Fed has already hiked the interest rate four times to a range of 2.25 to 2.5 percent, including two consecutive 75-basis-point increases.

Fed officials have made it clear that a third jumbo rate increase remains on the table at next month’s policy meeting.

“One month’s data is too volatile to call a peak in inflation,” said Joseph Gagnon of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“If August data are the same, it takes 75 basis points off the table for September,” Gagnon, a former Fed economist, said on Twitter.

Wall Street soared in early trading, with the benchmark Dow gaining nearly 500 points.

But the robust jobs market, which pushed the July unemployment rate to the pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent, has a downside. There are still nearly two jobs open for every available worker, and labor costs have risen sharply, which pushes wages up and fuels more inflation.

Rubeela Farooqi of High-Frequency Economics cautioned that despite the slower pace of increases last month, “prices remain uncomfortably high.”

“Coupled with strength in job growth and wages, the data support the case for another aggressive rate hike in September,” she said in an analysis.