World

LUXEMBOURG — The European Union on Tuesday kicked off accession negotiations with Ukraine, setting the war-torn country on a long path towards membership that Russia has tried to block.

The landmark move signals a vote of confidence in Kyiv's future at a time when Moscow has momentum on the battlefield almost two- and-a-half years into the Kremlin's invasion.

The EU was set a few hours later to begin negotiations on joining the bloc with Ukraine's neighbour Moldova, another ex-Soviet state under pressure from Russia.

"Dear friends, today marks the beginning of a new chapter in the relationship between Ukraine and the European Union," Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said via videolink at the start of the talks.

President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a "historic day" as officials from Kyiv and the EU's 27 member states gathered in Luxembourg.

"We will never be derailed from our path to a united Europe and to our common home of all European nations," the Ukrainian leader wrote on social media.

Ukraine and later Moldova lodged their bids to join the EU in the aftermath of Russia's assault in February 2022.

The opening of the talks marks just the beginning of a protracted process of reforms in Ukraine that is strewn with political obstacles and will likely take many years — and may never lead to membership.

Standing in the way along that journey will be not just Russia's efforts at de-stabilisation but reticence from doubters inside the EU, most notably Hungary.

But European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen called the opening of talks "very good news for the people of Ukraine, Moldova, and the entire European Union".

"The path ahead will be challenging but full of opportunities," she wrote on X on Tuesday.

So far, Ukraine has won plaudits for kickstarting a raft of reforms on curbing graft and political interference, even as war rages.

Ukraine's lead negotiator, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna, vowed that Kyiv "will be able to complete everything before 2030" to join the bloc.

"Rest assured that Ukraine is very capable to deliver in a fast way," she said.

Complex process 

Russia's war in Ukraine has reinvigorated a push in the EU to take on new members, after years in which countries particularly in the Western Balkans made little progress on their hopes to join.

The EU in December 2023 also granted candidate status to Georgia, another of Russia's former Soviet neighbours.

It likewise approved accession negotiations with Bosnia and has talks ongoing with Serbia, Montenegro, Albania and North Macedonia.

The meetings with Ukraine and Moldova on Tuesday will set off a process of screening of how far laws in the countries already comply with EU standards and how much more work lies ahead.

Once that is done the EU then has to begin laying out conditions for negotiations on 35 subjects, ranging from taxation to environmental policy.

Stefanishyna said the next step should come in early 2025.

EU countries pushed to start the talks now before Hungary — the friendliest country to Russia in the bloc — takes over the EU’s rotating presidency next month.

Budapest has been opposed to pressing ahead with Kyiv’s membership bid, arguing that Ukraine was unfairly moving ahead for political reasons.

“From what I see here as we speak, they are very far from meeting the accession criteria,” Hungary’s Europe minister Janos Boka said Tuesday.

The start of the talks resonates powerfully in Ukraine, as it was a desire for closer ties with the EU that sparked protests back in 2014 that eventually spiralled into the full-blown crisis with Russia.

The talks also come at a tense time in Moldova after the United States, Britain and Canada warned of a Russian “plot” to influence the country’s presidential elections in October.

Wedged between war-torn Ukraine and EU member Romania, Moldova’s pro-Western authorities frequently accuse the Kremlin of interfering in its internal affairs.

President Maia Sandu has accused Moscow, which has troops stationed in a breakaway region of the country, of aiming to destabilise Moldova ahead of the vote.

“Our future is within the European family,” Sandu wrote on X. “We are stronger together.”

PARIS — The world is unprepared for the increasing ferocity of wildfires turbocharged by climate change, scientists say, as blazes from North America to Europe greet the northern hemisphere summer in the hottest year on record.

Wildfires have already burned swathes through Turkey, Canada, Greece and the United States early this season as extreme heatwaves push temperatures to scorching highs.

While extra resources have been poured into improving firefighting in recent years, experts said the same was not true for planning and preparing for such disasters.

"We are still actually catching up with the situation," said Stefan Doerr, director of the Centre for Wildfire Research at the UK's Swansea University.

Predicting how bad any one blaze will be — or where and when it will strike — can be challenging, with many factors including local weather conditions playing into calculations.

But overall, wildfires are getting larger and burning more severely, said Doerr, who co-authored a recent paper examining the frequency and intensity of such extreme events.

A separate study published in June found the frequency and magnitude of extreme wildfires appeared to have doubled over the past 20 years.

By the end of the century, the number of extreme wildfires around the globe is tipped to rise 50 per cent, according to a 2022 report by the UN Environment Programme.

Doerr said humanity had not yet faced up to this reality.

"We're clearly not well enough prepared for the situation that we're facing now," he said.

Climate change is a major driver, though other factors such as land use and the location of housing developments play a big part.

 'We cannot fight the fires' 

Fires do not respect borders so responses have evolved between governments to jointly confront these disasters, said Jesus San-Miguel, an expert for the European Commission Joint Research Centre.

The EU has a strong model of resource sharing, and even countries outside the bloc along the Mediterranean have benefitted from firefighting equipment or financial help in times of need, San-Miguel said.

But as wildfires become increasingly extreme, firefighting simply won't be a fix.

“We get feedback from our colleagues in civil protection who say, ‘We cannot fight the fires. The water evaporates before it reaches the ground,’” San-Miguel said.

“Prevention is something we need to work on more,” he added.

Controlled burns, grazing livestock, or mechanised vegetation removal are all effective ways to limit the amount of burnable fuel covering the forest floor, said Rory Hadden from the University of Edinburgh.

Campfire bans and establishing roads as firebreaks can all be effective in reducing starts and minimising spread, said Hadden, an expert on fire safety and engineering.

But such efforts require funding and planning from governments that may have other priorities and cash-strapped budgets, and the return is not always immediately evident.

“Whatever method or technique you’re using to manage a landscape... the result of that investment is nothing happens, so it’s a very weird psychological thing. The success is: well, nothing happened,” said Hadden.

 ‘Short memories’ 

Local organisations and residents often take the lead in removing vegetation in the area immediately around their homes and communities.

But not everyone is prepared to accept their neighbourhood might be at risk.

“People don’t think that it will happen to them, but it eventually will,” San-Miguel said, pointing to historically cold or wet climates like the US Pacific Northwest that have witnessed major fires in recent years.

Canada has adapted to a new normal of high latitude wildfires, while some countries in Scandinavia are preparing for ever-greater fire risk.

But how best to address the threat remains an open question, said Guillermo Rein from Imperial College London, even in places where fire has long been part of the landscape.

Even in locations freshly scarred by fire, the clearest lessons are sometimes not carried forward.

“People have very short memories for wildfires,” said Rein, a fire science expert.

In July 2022, London witnessed its worst single day of wildfires since the bombings of World War II, yet by year’s end only academics were still talking about how to best prepare for the future.

“While the wildfires are happening, everybody’s asking questions... When they disappear, within a year, people forget about it,” he said.

PARIS — French far-right leader Jordan Bardella said Monday his National Rally Party was ready to take power, six days before the start of voting in France’s most divisive election in decades.

“The National Rally is today the only movement capable of implementing the aspirations clearly expressed by the French people in a reasonable manner,” Bardella, 28, told a press conference as he set out the party’s programme for government.

“In three words: we are ready,” he added.

President Emmanuel Macron called snap parliamentary elections following his trouncing by the RN in European elections.

The move stunned the country and put the far right in pole position to win power for the first time in France’s post-war history.

Weekend polls showed the RN garnering 35-36 per cent of voting intentions in the first round, ahead of a left-wing alliance on 27-29.5 per cent and Macron’s centrists in third on 19.5-22 per cent.

Bardella, the telegenic party president credited with helping the RN clean up its extremist image, has urged voters to give the eurosceptic party an outright majority to allow it implement its anti-immigration, law-and-order programme.

“Seven long years of Macronism has weakened the country,” Bardella said, vowing to boost purchasing power, restore order and change the law to make it easier to deport foreigners convicted of crimes.

The election is shaping up as a clash between the RN and the left, led by the hard left France Unbowed of veteran firebrand Jean-Luc Melenchon.

Bardella claimed his party, which mainstream parties have in the past united to try to block, was the “patriotic and republican” choice faced with what he alleged the anti-Semitism of the left.

The left denies the charges of anti-Semitism.

MOSCOW — Gunmen in Russia’s North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday launched attacks on religious buildings, killing at least seven police officers, a national guard officer and a priest, officials said.

The attacks took place in Dagestan’s largest city of Makhachkala and in the coastal city of Derbent, where gunfights were ongoing Sunday evening.

Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had opened criminal probes over “acts of terror” in Dagestan, a largely Muslim region of Russia neighbouring Chechnya.

Dagestan’s interior ministry said police had killed four of the gunmen in Makhachkala.

“This evening in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala armed attacks were carried out on two Orthodox churches, a synagogue and a police checkpoint,” the National Antiterrorism Committee said in a statement to RIA Novosti news agency.

“As a result of the terrorist attacks, according to preliminary information, a priest from the Russian Orthodox Church and police officers were killed.”

In all, six officers were killed and another 12 wounded in the attacks, the spokeswoman for Dagestan’s interior ministry, Gayana Gariyeva, told RIA Novosti.

The ministry later said a local police chief had died from his wounds.

Russia’s National Guard meanwhile said one of its officers had been killed in Derbent and several others wounded.

In what appeared to be a new attack, the Dagestan interior ministry later said that in a village 65 kilometres from Makhachkala, called Sergokal, attackers had shot at a police car, wounding one officer.

The ministry spokesman also said a 66-year-old Orthodox priest was killed in Derbent.

Synagogues on fire 

Dagestan’s RGVK broadcaster named the priest as Nikolai Kotelnikov, saying he had served more than 40 years in Derbent.

Sunday is a religious holiday, Pentecost Sunday, in the Russian Orthodox Church.

“The synagogue in Derbent is on fire,” the chairman of the public council of Russia’s Federation of Jewish Communities, Boruch Gorin, wrote on Telegram.

“It has not been possible to extinguish the fire. Two are killed: a policeman and a security guard.”

“The synagogue in Makhachkala has also been set on fire and burnt down,” he said, adding that in Derbent, firefighters had been told to leave the burning synagogue over the risk that “terrorists remained inside”.

“There is shooting in the streets around the synagogue,”he said.

The leader of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, wrote on Telegram: “This evening in Derbent and Makhachkala unknown [attackers] made attempts to destabilise the situation in society.

“They were confronted by Dagestani police officers.”

State news agency TASS cited a law enforcement source as saying the “gunmen who carried out attacks in Makhachkala and Derbent are supporters of an international terrorist organisation”, without naming it.

Russia’s FSB security service in April said it had arrested four people in Dagestan on suspicion of plotting the deadly attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue in March, which was claimed by the Islamic State group.

Militants from Dagestan are known to have travelled to join Daesh in Syria, and in 2015, the group declared it had established a “franchise” in the North Caucasus.

Dagestan lies east of Chechnya, where Russian authorities battled separatists in two brutal wars, first in 1994-1996 and then in 1999-2000.

Since the defeat of Chechen insurgents, Russian authorities have been locked in a simmering conflict with Islamist militants from across the North Caucasus that has killed scores of civilians and police.

BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Sunday he was “concerned” about the prospect of a victory for the far-right in France’s upcoming parliamentary elections. 

President Emmanuel Macron’s party is trailing badly with less than two weeks to go before the first round of the snap elections he called in response to the far right drubbing his party in European polls. 

“I am concerned about the elections in France,” Scholz told public broadcaster ARD in an annual summer interview. 

“And I hope that parties that are not [Marine]Le Pen, to put it that way, are successful in the election. But that is for the French people to decide,” he added.

Opinion polls forecast Macron’s ruling alliance would come third in the legislative elections on June 30 — followed by a second round on July 7 — behind Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN), and a new left-wing alliance.

This could make RN leader Jordan Bardella France’s next prime minister, although the 28-year-old has insisted he will only accept this if his party and allies win an absolute majority of seats.

Germany’s far-right AfD Party also made gains at this month’s European Parliament elections, while Scholz’s ruling coalition suffered.

LONDON — The UK interior minister has defended a parliamentary aide who called the government plan to deport illegal migrants to Rwanda “crap”, in a leaked audio revealed by the BBC on Sunday. 

A controversial law by the Conservative government allowing irregular migrants arriving in the UK to be deported to Rwanda was finally passed in April, after months of parliamentary wrangling. 

But in the recording James Sunderland, a parliamentary aide and Conservative party candidate, was heard saying: “The policy is crap, ok? It’s crap.” 

“But it’s not about the policy. It’s about the effect of the policy”, he went on to say, speaking at a Youth Conservatives conference in April.

“There is no doubt at all that when those first flights take off it will send such a shockwave across the Channel,” Sunderland clarified.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said he was “surprised”, when asked about the audio, before saying Sunderland was making a “counterintuitive statement to grab the attention”. 

Cleverly told Sky News on Sunday that his aide Sunderland “is completely supportive of the deterrent effect”. 

Sunderland told the BBC he was “disappointed” to have been recorded at a private event, and said although the policy is “not the be all and end all”, it is “part of a wider response”. 

No flights deporting asylum seekers have actually taken off yet for the African country, due to lengthy legal challenges and with parliament dissolved ahead of a looming general election on July 4. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said the policy would only come into effect after the election, if he was reelected. 

The opposition Labour party — which looks poised to replace the Conservatives — has promised to scrap the Rwanda plan. 

The government cleared a law allowing some asylum seekers to be deported in April, circumventing a Supreme Court ruling that said sending migrants to Rwanda in this way would be illegal because it “would expose them to a real risk of ill-treatment”.

Supporters of the Rwanda policy say it will deter tens of thousands of annual cross-Channel arrivals by small boats, and insist the policy is already having an impact.

More than 12,000 irregular migrants have crossed the Channel to Britain on small boats this year, according to government data.

DEARBORN, United States — Abdullah Hammoud’s election as the first Muslim mayor of Dearborn was a watershed moment for this city, an automaking hub home to the highest concentration of Arab-Americans in the United States.

But while his early focus was on upgrading sewer infrastructure and investing in parks, he has now been thrust into the national spotlight for his outspoken criticism of fellow Democrat Joe Biden, over the president’s support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

“I’ll be the first to say that we don’t want to see [Donald]Trump reelected to the White House,” Hammoud told AFP in an interview. “But people want to be inspired to come out.”

Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit famous as the birthplace of Henry Ford and home of the Ford Motor Company’s headquarters, has a population of around 110,000 residents, of whom 55 per cent claim Middle Eastern or North African heritage.

In 2020, Dearborn voters overwhelmingly supported Biden and their ballots could tip the scales in Michigan — a crucial swing state that may ultimately decide the White House winner in November’s election.

Hammoud’s profile surged in January after he declined an invitation to meet with Biden campaign officials seeking to shore up the Muslim vote.

Since then, he helped galvanize a movement that saw over 100,000 voters mark “uncommitted” in Michigan’s Democratic primary in protest against Biden’s policy on Israel, and was asked by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein if he would be her running mate.

Humble roots

Hammoud, who won’t meet the Constitutional requirement of being 35 until next March, was too young to accept the role, though he said the offer was “very humbling”.

Besides, he remains unsure about how he’ll cast his ballot.

“I would say that no presidential candidate has earned my vote,” said the father-of-two, urging both parties to pay attention to increasing public disapproval of Israel’s actions.

“If you look at all the polling data that’s emerging across the country, from coast to coast, the issues that we have been advocating for, fighting for... are issues that have popular support.”

These demands include a permanent ceasefire as the pathway to provide safe harbour for all hostages and prisoners, unfettered access to humanitarian aid, and ending the supply of weapons to Israel.

The son of Lebanese immigrants, Hammoud grew up in a “working poor” blue collar family. His father drove a truck while his mother’s father worked on an auto factory assembly line.

He was drawn towards the Democratic Party for its support of the labor movement, and equally repelled by Republicans, whom he says have a history of “demonising Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and other people of colour”.

Hammoud’s first dream was to become a physician, but he wasn’t able to get the grades. He instead trained as an epidemiologist and began climbing the corporate ladder as a healthcare executive.

But the sudden death of his beloved elder brother — Hammoud was the second of five children — made him re-evaluate his priorities, and in 2016 he won election to the state legislature.

‘What will Biden do?’

Then in 2022, he became the second in a trio of new Muslim mayors in the southeast Michigan cities of Dearborn, Dearborn Heights and Hamtramck.

Hammoud immediately set to work righting historical wrongs.

For decades, the city had been marred by a reputation for racism, exemplified by the openly segregationist policies of former mayor Orville Hubbard.

Hammoud appointed the city’s first Arab-American police chief, which led to a drastic drop in tickets issued to Black drivers within a year, according to his spokesman.

Until the war in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’ sudden attacks and hostage taking on October 7, 2023, Hammoud considered Biden a “transformative” president, but now believes “the genocide outweighs the impact of that domestic policy”.

Hammoud sidesteps the question of whether he could ultimately endorse Biden under the right circumstances, emphasising that whatever he might say, it’s too late for some of his constituents who have lost dozens of relatives to Israeli bombs.

He has no doubt that Trump, who imposed a Muslim travel ban during his tenure, would be an utter disaster.

But Hammoud recoils at suggestions that members of his community would be to blame for potentially paving the way for Trump’s return by withholding their support for Biden.

Asked how he would respond to this criticism, Hammoud said: “The question should be asked of President Joe Biden — what will he do to prevent Trump being reelected come this November? What will he do to help prevent the unraveling of American democracy and the fabric of our society?”

Burgenstock, Switzerland - President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped to find paths to a "just peace" as soon as possible, as a first international summit on pathways to end Russia's war in Ukraine opened Saturday.

More than 50 world leaders were joining Zelensky at the Burgenstock resort in Switzerland for a two-day peace summit -- though with Moscow rejecting the event, it only has the modest ambitions of laying the groundwork for ending the conflict, now in its third year.

"I believe that we will witness history being made here at the summit. May a just peace be established as soon as possible," Zelensky said as the event began.

"Everything that will be agreed upon at the summit today will be part of the peacemaking process.

"We have succeeded in bringing back to the world the idea that joint efforts can stop war and establish a just peace."

The summit is aimed at trying to agree a basic international platform for eventual peace talks between Kyiv and Moscow.

- Putin demands effective surrender -

Swiss President Viola Amherd said future summits were envisioned, eventually involving Russia.

"We will not be able to negotiate or even proclaim peace for Ukraine here on the Burgenstock, but we wish to inspire a process for a just and lasting peace, and we wish to take concrete steps in this direction," she said.

"We can prepare the ground for direct talks between the warring parties: that is what we are here for."

However, in a combative speech Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the conference and demanded that Kyiv effectively surrender before any actual peace negotiations.

Zelensky said Saturday the only person who wanted the war "was Putin. But in any case, the world is stronger".

NATO and the United States also immediately rejected Putin's hardline conditions.

92 countries taking part 

The conference, convening 100 countries and global institutions, comes at a perilous moment for exhausted Ukrainians and outgunned soldiers, more than two years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan are attending, as is the European Union chief and the leaders of Colombia, Chile, Finland, Ghana, Kenya and Poland.

US President Joe Biden sent his Vice President Kamala Harris, who announced more than $1.5 billion in new aid for Ukraine, mainly for its energy sector and in humanitarian assistance.

Argentinian President Javier Milei and the presidents of Fiji and Ecuador were among the early arrivals.

Russia's BRICS allies Brazil and South Africa are only sending an envoy, and India will be represented at the ministerial level.

China is absent, insisting it will not take part without Moscow's presence.

Samuel Charap, a Russia expert at the RAND think tank, said of the summit: "Russia is clearly going out of its way to demonstrate its pique with it... That tells you something.

"Avoiding the expansion of the pro-Ukraine coalition -- they're concerned about this," he told AFP.

Low hopes on front line 

After almost a year of stalemate, Ukraine was forced to abandon dozens of frontline settlements this spring, with Russian troops holding a significant advantage in manpower and resources.

Near Ukraine's embattled eastern front, hopes for any major breakthrough are nearly nil. 

"I'd like to hope that it will bring some changes in the future. But, as experience shows, nothing comes of it," Maksym, a tank commander in the Donetsk region, told AFP.

And in Kyiv, Victoria, a 36-year-old energy industry worker, said she was "exhausted" by the war and wanted to believe the summit would help end it.

But, she said, "I'm a realist in life, so I don't have high hopes."

Nuclear, food, humanitarian focus 

The summit aims to find paths towards a lasting peace for Ukraine based on international law and the United Nations Charter; a possible framework to achieve this goal; and a roadmap as to how both parties could come together in a future peace process.

A plenary session involving all delegations will be held on Saturday.

On Sunday, three topics will be discussed in detail in working groups: nuclear safety, freedom of navigation and food security, and humanitarian aspects.

Ukraine hopes Russia will attend a second summit and receive a joint plan presented by the other attendees.

The Burgenstock gathering comes straight after the G7 summit, at which the seven wealthy democracies agreed to offer a new $50-billion loan for Ukraine, using profits from the interest on frozen Russian assets.

A landmark 10-year security deal signed by Zelensky and Biden on Thursday will see the United States provide Ukraine with military aid and training.

And on Friday, the European Union's 27 member states agreed "in principle" on beginning accession negotiations with Ukraine.