Over 100 Wagner fighters move toward border with Poland and Lithuania, Polish prime minister says
From CNN’s Martin Goillandeau, Sharon Braithwaite and Oleg Racz
More than 100 Wagner Group mercenaries have moved toward the Suwałki corridor, a small stretch of NATO territory separating the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad from Belarus, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Saturday.
Morawiecki called it “a step toward a further hybrid attack on Polish territory.”
Poland’s government has used the term “hybrid attack” to describe attempts by the neighboring Belarusian regime to manipulate the flow of migrants through the area, putting pressure on the EU over sanctions against Minsk. Polish officials have said that its ally Russia helps Belarus with this scheme.
“We have an information that more than 100 Wagner Group mercenaries have moved towards the Suwałki corridor, not far from (the Belarusian city of) Grodno. Why did they do it? This is certainly a step towards a further hybrid attack on Polish territory,” Morawiecki said in a speech at a mechanical plant in southern Poland.
‘We’re angry’: Israel tensions mount as army reservists threaten to refuse duty
Conflict over Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul judiciary is leading to new levels of civil disobedience – and potential security risks
Over his many years of service, Zur Allon, 46, a reservist lieutenant colonel in Israel’s artillery special forces, never imagined a day when he would refuse to report for duty.
“Half of my company was blown up in Lebanon. I have given many years of my life defending this country,” said Allon, one of the leaders of Brothers and Sisters in Arms, a pressure group of more than 60,000 Israel Defence Forces (IDF) reservists established earlier this year in protest against the government’s proposed overhaul of the judiciary.
“That’s why we are so angry,” he said. “The government is breaking a very simple contract we have – to protect a Jewish and democratic Israel.”
Germany: Far-right AfD picks top EU election candidate
Incumbent EU Parliament member Maximilian Krah was elected with 65.7% of the votes. The AfD's party congress was in the eastern German city of Magdeburg as it made significant gains in the polls.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)
on Saturday voted for incumbent EU Parliament member Maximilian Krah to lead its 2024 European Union election campaign.
Krah won the vote with 65.7% in favor.
"We are now the most exciting right-wing party in all of Europe," he was quoted as saying in his candidacy speech.
Several days have been set aside for the choice of candidates, with the party congress scheduled to be continued next weekend.
What do we know so far?
The party, which is gaining in polls of German voters, is holding a first conference in the eastern Germany city of Magdeburg until Sunday. Protests against the AfD have been taking place in the city, as DW's Thomas Sparrow has reported on Twitter.
Hong Kong public broadcaster cancels LGBTQ radio show
A radio show promoting LGBTQ equality will end its 17-year run at Hong Kong's public broadcaster on Sunday, with station management citing "changes in programme" as the reason for cancellation.
The axing of "We Are Family" comes after Beijing crushed Hong Kong's democracy movement and imposed a sweeping national security law in 2020, which critics say has fractured civil society and silenced dissent.
Programme co-host Brian Leung said he was "mentally prepared" for the show to be dropped at the government-funded Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK), but was not given a satisfactory explanation when meeting with station management earlier this month.
"For a traditional platform like RTHK, this programme was more or less walking a tightrope," Leung told AFP in an interview hours before the final show.
Ukraine invasion rewrites paradigm on nuclear security
By ROY K. AKAGAWA/ AJW Staff Writer
July 29, 2023 at 19:14 JST
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, coupled with the much-derided Group of Seven summit in May, cast a long shadow over an international symposium on the abolition of nuclear weapons held in Hiroshima on July 29.
The International Symposium for Peace, “The Road to Nuclear Weapons Abolition: For Hiroshima and Nagasaki to serve as ‘the check’ on nuclear war,” was jointly sponsored by The Asahi Shimbun, the Hiroshima city government and the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation.
Elayne Whyte, a professor of practice at John Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, delivered the keynote address. She previously served as Costa Rica’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva and chaired the 2017 negotiations that led to the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).
Niger coup: EU suspends security cooperation and budgetary aid
The EU has suspended all security cooperation with Niger after the country's army took power in a coup.
It comes shortly after the US declared its "unflagging support" for ousted president Mohamed Bazoum - seen as a key Western ally in the fight against Islamist militants.
On Friday the head of the presidential guards unit Gen Abdourahmane Tchiani declared himself Niger's new leader.
He said insecurity, economic woes and corruption led him to seize power.
But there are now concerns in the West about which countries the new leader will align with.
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