(CNN) — “I chose to come to Sanya because the Covid restrictions are more relaxed than (in) Shanghai,” said Li Zefeng, an engineer who lives in China’s biggest city.
But he, like many others who flocked to the resort island off the coast of southern China, would soon eat his words.
Hainan province is often called China’s equivalent to Hawaii or the Maldives — think gorgeous stretches of beachfront, sleek hotels with world-class amenities and a sense you’ve escaped the pressures of everyday life.
However, the holiday vibes took a hit last week, when 1,200 people in the resort hub of Sanya tested positive for coronavirus.
For many of these travelers, that meant not only making frantic calls to family and changing their travel plans, but dealing with a case of deja vu — many of the people visiting Hainan were seeking a reprieve from strict lockdowns in Shanghai.
Once the Covid cases were detected in Hainan, action was swift.
The local government locked down the city of Sanya, which has about one million residents, in addition to the 80,000 tourists. Flights leaving the island were canceled, public transportation was shut down and many tourists were confined to their hotels.
While an excuse to spend some more time on the beach could have been a silver lining, tourists learned that they would still be expected to pay 50% of the room rate at their resorts, which not everyone could afford. And that didn’t include extra expenses like meals or the cost of missing work.
Under the lockdown, visitors were told they had to stay on the island for a full week and show proof of five negative Covid tests before being allowed to leave.
Despite the local government saying it would provide hotel and meal assistance to all those inconvenienced by the lockdown, some took to social media sites like Weibo to complain that the help wasn’t enough.
As China’s borders remain essentially closed, many Chinese have opted for domestic travel since the start of the pandemic, and Hainan — with its sun, sand and duty free shopping — has been one of the most popular destinations.
Authorities have not released the suspect’s name and nationality. The investigation was launched on Tuesday.
The woman, a 27-year-old American female tourist, was raped last weekend in a public restroom in the 4th arrondissement in central Paris, a source close to the case told CNN. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to professional norms.
French police declined to tell CNN when the arrest took place as the case is already in legal process.
The area of the attack is a tourist hotspot where many famous landmarks in the French capital can be found, including Notre Dame and Centre Pompidou.
Paris has been conducting special police operations near major attractions this summer. Between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning, Paris police conducted 16 questionings and inspected more than 60 people near the Eiffel Tower, according to a statement from the police.
The grinding war of attrition in Ukraine might be entering a new phase as the Ukrainian military prepares an offensive to recover occupied land in the southern region surrounding Kherson, and Russia escalates its rhetoric by charging that the United States “is directly involved in the conflict.”
Ukraine appears to have begun its new southern campaign with a bold attack Tuesday on a Russian air base in Crimea, along the Black Sea coast. Commercial satellites show that as many as nine Russian jets were destroyed by explosions at the base, which also damaged nearby apartment buildings. A Ukrainian official said his country’s special forces carried out the attack.
With its long-anticipated southern offensive, Ukraine evidently hopes to regain momentum against Russian forces that have suffered heavy losses of soldiers and equipment since they invaded on Feb. 24. At a time when Russia is strained and vulnerable, Ukrainian leaders want to show that they can reclaim lost ground and ultimately prevail.
It’s a gutsy strategy, but also a risky one. Russia has a bigger army, and in combating a Ukraine assault, it will have the advantage of defense, unlike in earlier phases. “This is the time for a Ukrainian counteroffensive, but they’ve got to succeed,” argues William B. Taylor, a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv. “You don’t want to try it and fail.”
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The Biden administration says it is giving Ukraine the weapons, ammunition and training it needs to win this battle to regain occupied territory in the south. On Monday, the Pentagon announced a new $1 billion arms package that includes additional rockets for the 16 HIMARS launchers now in Ukraine, 75,000 rounds of artillery ammunition, and advanced antiaircraft missiles.
Russia, meanwhile, has accused the United States of providing Kyiv with intelligence information to attack Russian forces. The new tensions surfaced after an Aug. 1 report by London’s Daily Telegraph in which Ukrainian Maj. Gen. Vadim Skibitsky, the country’s deputy chief of military intelligence, said that “we use real-time information” from the United States in targeting attacks by HIMARS rockets on Russian fuel and ammunition supplies.
The Skibitsky interview drew sharp Russian comments on Aug. 2. “What other confirmation of US involvement in hostilities in Ukraine is required,” said the foreign ministry in a tweet. “All this undeniably proves that Washington, contrary to White House and Pentagon claims, is directly involved in the conflict in Ukraine,” said defense ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov.
Asked about the Skibitsky comment, a Pentagon spokesman said: “We provide the Ukrainians with detailed, time-sensitive information to help them understand the threats they face and defend their country against Russian aggression.” An administration official didn’t respond to a query on Thursday as to whether Russia had sent private messages about the targeting issue as well.
Ironically, one U.S. aim in the intelligence sharing was apparently to check any HIMARS attacks the United States viewed as too risky. The Telegraph said Skibitsky “suggested” that the exchange of information “would allow Washington to stop any potential attacks if they were unhappy with the intended target.”
Ukraine is able to turn its attention to the southern front because it has largely blunted Russia’s attacks in the eastern Donbas region. Russia has made slow progress there, at great cost, expanding the foothold it gained when its forces invaded in 2014. But Ukraine’s real lifeline is the Black Sea coastline. If Ukrainian forces can push the Russians back from Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, to the east, it would relieve pressure along the coast and could eventually protect Ukraine’s maritime access to global markets.
Ukraine’s timetable for the southern campaign is driven partly by its desire to beat a planned Russian referendum in Kherson and neighboring areas that might be a first step in declaring them “Russian” territory. U.S. officials expect that this referendum could take place this month or in September, and they fear it would intensify the war and make any eventual peace negotiations much harder.
Ukraine’s battle against the invaders is also evolving toward greater use of special forces in covert attacks against Russia and its Ukrainian allies. Vitaliy Gura, a Ukrainian who was helping Russia administer in the Kherson region, was assassinated Aug. 6, according to a Tass report quoted by Agence France-Presse. “Several assassination attempts have been reported against officials in Ukrainian regions seized by Russia since the start of its military operation,” the AFP reported.
Senior U.S. officials warned Moscow before the war began that they would face such guerrilla tactics if they invaded. Ukraine would prove to be an indigestible “porcupine,” U.S. officials predicted, drawing on the United States’ own bitter experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. Since the invasion, U.S. and British special forces have helped train their Ukrainian counterparts in insurgency tactics that could help make the “porcupine strategy” a reality.
Ukrainian morale remains astonishingly high. According to a new poll released Thursday by the International Republican Institute, 93 percent of Ukrainians see the future as “rather promising,” and about 98 percent think Ukraine will win the war.
Russian generals are said to be frustrated by the stalemate in Ukraine, and their consternation will grow if Ukraine can stage a successful counteroffensive in the south. But Russian President Vladimir Putin appears unfazed by Ukraine’s new southern strategy. For him, this war remains the geopolitical equivalent of a cage fight, in which he demands submission from his opponent.
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reshuffled his Cabinet on Wednesday in an apparent bid to distance his administration from the conservative Unification Church over its ties to the assassinated leader Shinzo Abe and senior ruling party members.
The reshuffle, second in just 10 months since Kishida took office, followed his July election victory that had been expected to ensure long-term stability until 2025. But Abe’s shocking assassination on July 8 and its impact on politics increased uncertainty as public support for Kishida’s Cabinet plunged.
Kishida said it was important to gain people’s trust and that the new Cabinet included only those who agreed to strictly review their ties to the church and help the victims of the allegedly fraudulent religious businesses.
“We have to be careful about our relationship with an organization that has known social problems so that they won’t raise suspicions among the public,” Kishida said.
A survey released Monday by the NHK public television showed support for Kishida’s Cabinet fell to 46% from 59%.
Most of the respondents said they think politicians have not sufficiently explained their ties to the Unification Church. Kishida’s plan to hold a state funeral for Abe has also split public opinion because of Abe’s archconservative stance on national security and wartime history.
“The Cabinet reshuffle was damage control” to divert the public’s attention from the Unification Church scandal, political analyst Atsuo Ito told a TBS talk show.
Abe was fatally shot while giving a campaign speech two days before the parliamentary election. Police and media reports say the suspect targeted Abe over suspected ties to the Unification Church, which the man hated because his mother’s massive financial donations to the church ruined his family.
Abe, in his video message to the church affiliate the Universal Peace Foundation, in September 2021, praised its work toward peace on the Korean Peninsula and its focus on family values. Some experts say Abe’s video appearance may have motived the suspect.
The ties between the church and Japan’s governing party go back to Abe’s grandfather, Nobusuke Kishi, who served as prime minister and shared U.S. concerns over the spread of communism in Japan in the 1960s.
The church since the 1980s has faced accusations of devious recruitment and brainwashing of its adherents into making huge donations. Critics say the church has contributed votes to lift borderline candidates to election victories, while allegedly pushing their opposition to equal rights for women and sexual minorities to be reflected on government policies.
On Wednesday, Tomihiro Tanaka, president of the church, which now calls itself the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, told a news conference that one of its church-related groups, which he called “peace federation,” is more politically active and involved in election campaigns.
But he denied any “political interference” with specific parties and said that Kishida’s call for his party members to distance themselves from the church was “regrettable.”
Tanaka said the church and its affiliate groups have naturally developed closer ties with the Liberal Democratic Party conservatives than others because of their shared anti-communist stance.
“We’ve worked together with politicians who have clear views against communism in order to build a better country,” Tanaka said. “We are pursuing the activity not only in Japan but as part of our global network against communism.”
Kishida denied the church’s “inappropriate influence” on government policies.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno, who retained his post, announced the new Cabinet, including five ministers who kept their posts, another five who were brought back and nine first-timers.
Seven ministers who acknowledged their ties to the church were removed. They include Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi, Abe’s younger brother, who said that church followers were volunteers in his past election campaigns, and Public Safety Commission Chairman Satoshi Ninoyu, who attended an event organized by a church-related organization.
Several newly appointed ministers said they had given donations and had others links to the church in the past, triggering criticism from opposition leaders.
Japanese Communist Party senior lawmaker Akira Koike said the reshuffle failed to cover up the Unification Church ties. “It only showed the LDP’s deep ties to the church because they cannot form a Cabinet if they exclude lawmakers linked to the church.”
Kishida said the main purpose of the reshuffle was to “break through one of biggest postwar crises” such as the coronavirus pandemic, inflation, growing tensions between China and self-ruled Taiwan and Russia’s war on Ukraine. He said that bolstering Japan’s military capability and spending was a top priority.
Kishi was replaced by former Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada, and Taro Kono, who previously served as a vaccination tsar during the pandemic as well as foreign and defense minister, returned to the Cabinet as digital minister.
Along with Matsuno, Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi, Economy Minister Daishiro Yamagiwa, Transportation Minister Tetsuo Saito, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki also kept their jobs.
Economy and Trade Minister Koici Hagiuda, who also had church ties, was shifted to head the party policy research committee and replaced by former Economy Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura. Katsunobu Kato was appointed health minister for the third time, tasked with coronavirus measures.
The new Cabinet suggested Kishida tasked veterans with key portfolios such as diplomacy, defense, economic security and pandemic measures while carefully keeping a power balance among party wings to solidify unity amid growing speculation of a power struggle within Abe’s faction.
Despite criticism that Japanese politics is dominated by older men, the majority of the Cabinet members are still men older than 60, with only two women.
They include Sanae Takaichi, an ultra-conservative close to Abe who was appointed economic security minister, and Keiko Nagaoka, a first-timer who became education minister and replaced Shinsuke Suematsu, who also acknowledged his Unification Church links.
Gender Minister Seiko Noda, who admitted to sending a message to a church-related group’s event in 2001 that was attended by her aide, was replaced by Masanobu Ogura in his first Cabinet post.
Dozens of people were injured on a ride at an amusement park in Germany on Thursday, police said.
The incident occurred at a Legoland park in Günzburg in Bavaria shortly before 2 p.m. local time, when two trains on a roller coaster collided, local police said in a statement.
The accident occurred when one train on the roller coaster stopped, and a train behind it did not brake fully, crashing into it, police said.
The incident occurred on the Fire Dragon ride, Legoland Deutschland said.
A roller coaster can be seen next to the logo at the entrance to the ‘Legoland’ amusement park in Guenzburg, southern Germany, Aug. 11, 2022.
Stefan Puchner/DPA via AP
At least 31 people were injured in the accident, including one severely, a local police spokesperson confirmed to ABC News. Among them, 16 people were transported to the hospital, while 15 were assessed on-site and cleared to go home, police said. Those injured included 10 children, one teenager and 20 adults, police said.
In total, 38 people were on the trains, Legoland Deutschland said.
Three rescue helicopters responded to the scene as a precaution but were not used, police said.
All passengers were removed from the ride, which will remain closed for the time being, police said.
The public prosecutor’s office in Memmingen is investigating the cause of the accident, police said.
A fire truck drives past the entrance to Legoland, August 11, 2022 in Bavaria, Germany.
Stefan Puchner/dpa Photo via Newscom
Investigators will be on the scene Friday, police said.
In a statement, Legoland Deutschland Divisional Director Manuela Stone thanked emergency personnel for their response and wished everyone involved a “quick recovery.”
Last week, a person died in a roller coaster accident at another German amusement park, Klotti Park, after falling off the ride, officials said. Authorities are investigating the cause of the accident.
By SETH BORENSTEIN, MATTHEW DALY and MICHAEL PHILLIS
August 11, 2022 GMT
WASHINGTON (AP) — After decades of inaction in the face of escalating natural disasters and sustained global warming, Congress hopes to make clean energy so cheap in all aspects of life that it’s nearly irresistible. The House is poised to pass a transformative bill Friday that would provide the most spending to fight climate change by any one nation ever in a single push.
Friday’s anticipated action comes 34 years after a top scientist grabbed headlines warning Congress about the dangers of global warming. In the decades since, there have been 308 weather disasters that have each cost the nation at least $1 billion, the record for the hottest year has been broken 10 times and wildfires have burned an area larger than Texas.
The crux of the long-delayed bill, singularly pushed by Democrats in a closely divided Congress, is to use incentives to spur investors to accelerate the expansion of clean energy such as wind and solar power, speeding the transition away from the oil, coal and gas that largely cause climate change.
The United States has put the most heat-trapping gases into the air, burning more inexpensive dirty fuels than any other country. But the nearly $375 billion in climate incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act are designed to make the already plummeting costs of renewable energy substantially lower at home, on the highways and in the factory. Together these could help shrink U.S. carbon emissions by about two-fifths by 2030 and should chop emissions from electricity by as much as 80%.
Experts say it isn’t enough, but it’s a big start.
“This legislation is a true game-changer. It will create jobs, lower costs, increase U.S. competitiveness, reduce air pollution,” said former Vice President Al Gore, who held his first global warming hearing 40 years ago. “The momentum that will come out of this legislation, cannot be underestimated.”
The U.S. action could spur other nations to do more — especially China and India, the two largest carbon emitters along with the U.S. That in turn could lower prices for renewable energy globally, experts said.
Because of the specific legislative process in which this compromise was formed, which limits it to budget-related actions, the bill does not regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but deals mainly in spending, most of it through tax credits as well as rebates to industry, consumers and utilities.
Investments work better at fostering clean energy than regulations, said Leah Stokes, an environmental policy professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The climate bill is likely to spur billions in private investment, she said: “That’s what’s going to be so transformative.”
The bill promotes vital technologies such as battery storage. Clean energy manufacturing gets a big boost. It will be cheaper for consumers to make climate-friendly purchasing decisions. There are tax credits to make electric cars more affordable, help for low-income people making energy-efficiency upgrades and incentives for rooftop solar and heat pumps.
There are also incentives for nuclear power and projects that aim to capture and remove carbon from the atmosphere.
(AP video/Haven Daley, Rick Bowmer, Godfredo A. Vasquez)
The bill moves to ensure that poor and minority communities that have borne the brunt of pollution benefit from climate spending. Farmers will receive help switching to climate-friendly practices and there’s money for energy research and to encourage electric heavy-duty trucks in place of diesel.
The Superfund program, used to pay for cleanup of the nation’s most heavily-polluted industrial sites, will receive more revenue from a bigger tax on oil.
The Rhodium Group research firm estimates the bill would dramatically change the arc of future U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, cutting them by 31% to 44% in 2030, compared to what had been shaping up to be 24% to 35% by 2005 without the bill, said Rhodium partner John Larsen. Clean power on the grid, an upcoming Rhodium report says, would jump from under 40% now to between 60% and 81% by 2030, he said.
“It’s not as big as I want, but it’s also bigger than anything we’ve ever done,″ said Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat who leads the Senate climate caucus. “A 40% emissions reduction is nothing the U.S. has ever come close to before.″
As decisive a change as it is for U.S. policy and emissions, it still does not reach the official U.S. goal of cutting carbon pollution roughly in half by 2030 to achieve net-zero carbon emissions across the economy by 2050.
Not everyone is impressed.
“This law is big for the U.S. but in global terms long overdue,” said Niklas Hohne, co-founder of the New Climate Institute in Germany. “The U.S. has a long way to go on climate change and is starting from a very, very high emission level.”
When U.S. historic carbon emissions are factored in, U.S. spending still lags behind Italy, France, South Korea, Japan and Canada, according to Brian O’Callaghan, lead researcher at the Oxford Economic Recovery Project at the University of Oxford. He noted the bill has nothing to fulfill America’s broken promise of billions of dollars in climate aid for poor nations.
President Joe Biden has frequently said America is back in the fight against climate change, but other leaders have been skeptical with no legislation to back his claim.
And there may be disappointment. Americans hoping to buy an electric car may find many models ineligible for rebates until more components are made in the U.S. Local fights over siting new renewable energy projects could also hamper the pace of the buildout, some experts said. Environmental justice communities are concerned they’ll be asked to accept new carbon capture projects.
Republicans, who unanimously opposed the bill in the Senate, say it would add to consumers’ energy costs, with House GOP Whip Steve Scalise claiming it “wastes billions of dollars in Green New Deal slush funds.”
Rhodium’s Larsen, who crunched the numbers in the bill, said it would lead to consumers paying up to $112 less a year in energy costs.
“As long as I’ve been in this game, progress on climate has always been higher costs for consumers. That’s not how this bill works,” Larsen said in an interview.
The Democrats didn’t have a vote to spare in the evenly divided Senate and Sen. Joe Manchin, a conservative Democrat from coal-producing West Virginia, had long dashed hopes of an ambitious deal. But two weeks ago, faced with public shaming by environmental groups and sharp criticism even from his own colleagues, he stunned Washington by announcing his support for a bill that reduces drug costs, targets inflation and boosts renewables. Since the deal was announced July 27, Manchin has been an avid cheerleader for its passage. Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Arizona, provided the vital 50th vote, allowing Vice President Kamala Harris to break the Senate tie.
(AP Video/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
The result is a 755-page bill that spends money without directly taking on fossil fuels, a disappointment to many on the left. Gore said the fossil fuel industry ran a decades-long “deeply unethical campaign to deceive people around the world,” casting doubt on climate change science.
The industry will face higher royalties and new fees for certain excess methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas — a rare stick amid carrots. But the fossil fuel industry will remain a powerful force and have guaranteed opportunities to expand on federal lands and off the coast before renewables can be built in those places.
Nevertheless, “the undeniable outcome of this will be a real expansion of wind and solar,” said Harrison Fell, a professor focused on energy policy at North Carolina State University.
In 1988 on a steamy summer day, top NASA climate scientist Jim Hansen brought to public attention for the first time the decades-old concept of global warming when he told Congress carbon dioxide was heating up the Earth. That year became the hottest on record. Now, there have been so many hot years it ranks 28th hottest and Hansen has said he wishes his warnings didn’t come true about climate change.
“It’s a mark of shame that it took this long for our political system to react,” said Bill McKibben, a long-time climate activist, adding that it leaves the fossil fuel industry with too much power. “But this will help catalyze action elsewhere in the world; it’s a declaration that hydrocarbons are finally in decline and clean energy ascendant, and that the climate movement is finally at least something of a match for Big Oil.”
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Michael Phillis reported from St. Louis.
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Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment
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On Twitter, follow Seth Borenstein at @borenbears, Matthew Daly at @MatthewDalyWDC and Michael Phillis at @mjphillis.
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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
NEW DELHI — The Chinese navy ship is reportedly unarmed. It’s probably cruising somewhere in the Indian Ocean. And no one is even sure where it will go.
But for the past week, a 730-foot-long Chinese satellite-tracking vessel has been the source of rising tensions and a symbol of the mounting geopolitical tug-of-war between India and the United States and China over Sri Lanka at a time when the economically devastated island nation is caught between major financial supporters.
Since July, the Yuan Wang 5 has been sailing from China to Hambantota port on the southern tip of Sri Lanka after Sri Lankan officials approved a stop there for “replenishment.” But Indian and U.S. officials have strongly pressured the Sri Lanka government to revoke access to the port, infuriating their Chinese counterparts.
Caught in the middle, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Monday that it formally requested China to postpone the visit while adding it “wished to reaffirm the enduring friendship and excellent relations between Sri Lanka and China.” Sri Lankan media reported Thursday that the ship had reduced speed and turned around, only to make another U-turn at sea and continue toward the island.
As of Thursday — when the Yuan Wang 5 was originally scheduled to arrive — Sri Lankan officials were still locked in negotiations with the Chinese about whether and when to let the ship dock, said a senior official at the Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry with direct knowledge of the discussions. Indian, Chinese and American officials have all been intensely lobbying behind the scenes, said the Sri Lankan official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks between governments.
While a Chinese navy ship arriving at Hambantota is not strategically significant, Indian and U.S. officials argue that it would be viewed as Sri Lanka giving special treatment to China, a major creditor, at a time when the embattled government in Colombo needs to renegotiate its debt with a host of international lenders and obtain a bailout from the International Monetary Fund. As Sri Lanka’s economy entered free fall this year, India, which sees South Asia as its traditional sphere of influence and is seeking to reverse China’s growing role there, extended the island $4 billion in loans to buy emergency fuel.
After ousting leader, Sri Lanka still staggered by one-two economic punch
Then there is the history of the port itself. China, which financed and built it for Sri Lanka in 2012, took control of the facility on a 99-year lease in 2017 after Sri Lanka struggled to repay its debts, spurring accusations from the Trump administration that Beijing engaged in predatory lending with its globe-spanning Belt and Road infrastructure program.
This week, China indirectly accused India of “gross interference” in its affairs and dismissed its complaints that sensors onboard the Yuan Wang 5 could be used to peer inside India.
“It is unreasonable for a third party to put pressure on Sri Lanka on the grounds of so-called security concerns,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin told reporters in Beijing.
The dispute reflects the jockeying between the United States and its partners and China that is taking place across the world. Since taking office, President Biden has ramped up previous U.S. administrations’ efforts to curtail Chinese expansion into the Indian and Pacific Oceans and has rallied countries such as India and Australia to help in that effort. For its part, India has sought American help to counter China, a regional rival with which it has ongoing border disputes.
American analysts say if China were to base military vessels out of Hambantota — which it has not done so far — the People’s Liberation Army would gain a foothold in a highly strategic location close to important shipping lanes and the Persian Gulf. But analysts also say it is awkward for the United States to openly call for denying China access to its port, given that Washington has historically espoused the principle of unrestricted navigation and often irritates China with its naval maneuvers.
The U.S. Embassy in Colombo declined to comment.
“U.S. ships make port calls throughout Southeast Asia and East Asia that China finds uncomfortable, and vice versa,” said Joshua T. White, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former adviser on South Asia in President Barack Obama’s National Security Council.
In recent years, White said, Washington and New Delhi have strengthened their military cooperation in the Indian Ocean with a view to countering China. On Sunday, a U.S. Navy cargo ship underwent repairs in a shipyard near Chennai, a southern Indian city near Sri Lanka. This marked the first time India allowed U.S. Navy vessels to dock for repairs, something the Pentagon has sought for years.
As the Yuan Wang 5 made its way across the Indian Ocean this week and speculation surrounding the port visit spiked, media in both India and China were awash in chest-thumping commentary.
In India, newspapers blared warnings about the vessel’s surveillance capabilities after the Indian Foreign Ministry issued a stern statement about monitoring any activity that would threaten Indian national security. Cable channels flashed the hashtag “#Chinesespyship” during news programs.
“Take Sri Lanka for example: Their debt trap has already pushed the country over the edge, but Beijing is not done yet. They’re intent on creating more trouble for the island,” Palki Sharma, anchor of the pro-government WION network, said in a prime-time monologue. “… Whether it’s humanitarian aid, whether it’s IMF bailout talks, only India has stepped up to help Sri Lanka. China has largely played spoilsport.”
The Chinese were similarly shrill, especially after Sri Lanka asked to postpone the port visit.
“India is bullying a bankrupt country,” griped the host of a popular channel on Tencent News. “Just because India gave $4 billion, they think they now call the shots. How does that amount compare to what China has given Sri Lanka over the years?”
Retired Adm. Arun Prakash, a former chief of the Indian Navy, said temperatures needed to be lowered. A dispute between India and China benefited neither country — nor Sri Lanka, he said.
“We need to respect Sri Lanka’s autonomy, particularly at this point in time when they’re on their knees,” he said. “It’s a sovereign country that can allow any ship it wants to come in. We don’t have a Monroe Doctrine in the region.”
One person suffered severe but not life-threatening injuries and 15 people were taken to hospital with light injuries after the incident in the Bavarian town of Günzburg, a police spokesperson told CNN.
The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but investigators are working at the crash scene, the spokesperson added.
The incident was the second recent roller coaster accident in the country.
On Saturday, a 57-year-old woman died when she fell out of a roller coaster car in the Rhineland-Palatinate village of Klotten, local police told CNN. Investigators have yet to present their findings on the cause of the fatal accident.
Rising global food prices and shortages of grain and fertilizer stemming from the war in Ukraine could create further economic turmoil, risk analysts said. In some countries, this could trigger unrest and test the resiliency of Western companies with overseas operations in the coming months, they added.
“Food insecurity is one of our [company’s] main topics and one of the things you really have to look out for—there’s no getting away from it,” said
Srdjan Todorovic,
the head of terrorism and hostile environment solutions at
Allianz
Global Corporate & Specialty, part of Germany-based financial-services company Allianz SE. “This is absolutely a global problem.”
People can accept many kinds of scarcity, but problems obtaining food—in addition to causing hardship—have a capacity to drive rule breaking and upheaval, said
Nick Robson,
a London-based global leader of the credit specialties practice at Marsh, a subsidiary of insurance broker
Marsh & McLennan
Cos. Typically, it takes a host of factors in addition to food shortages to trigger civil unrest. Still, risk analysts say they are keeping a close eye on global food prices.
Food costs are higher now than in 2007 and 2008, when then-record prices led to protests and riots in 48 countries, according to a United Nations report.
Though food prices have dipped slightly from highs reached in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they were still about 44% higher in July than in 2020, according to a food-price index compiled by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
“We’re seeing across the world a much higher potential exposure to civil unrest as people see their purchasing power falling quickly,” said
Jimena Blanco,
the head of the Americas research team for risk-intelligence company Verisk Maplecroft.
Fertilizer prices have reached record highs, with far-reaching consequences for farmers, agricultural yields and food prices. WSJ’s Patrick Thomas explains the reasons behind the surge and what it could mean for your wallet. Photo: Ryan Trefes
High fertilizer prices in particular have led to far-flung impacts. In Peru and Greece earlier this year, farmers took their trucks and tractors to urban centers to voice their aggravation. Sri Lankan protesters stormed the presidential palace and forced a change in administration, a move analysts have attributed in part to a ban on chemical fertilizers that shrank crop yields. The uprising in Sri Lanka was a conspicuous illustration of the volatile forces a disappointing harvest can unleash in short order.
At least 50 countries depend on Russia and Ukraine for 30% or more of their grain supplies, including many developing countries in North Africa and Asia, according to a report from Marsh. Turkey, for example, imported 78% of its wheat from Russia and Ukraine in 2020, while Brazil is the main market for Russian fertilizers, Marsh said.
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Not all countries face the same risks from rising prices. Rich democracies with the resources to absorb price increases, for example, are likely to fare better. Countries at risk tend to have some commonalities: They are autocracies, they rely on imported food and they have had subsidies they can no longer afford, said Marsh’s Mr. Robson.
The widespread quantitative belt-tightening, along with the impact of Covid-19 on public treasuries, could hurt some countries’ ability to dole out the food subsidies that had staved off unrest in the past, he said.
“With authoritarian regimes, you’re going to see a high likelihood of a pattern of increased civil disobedience, which would become dramatic in some countries,” Mr. Robson said. “I do think the circumstances in the short term will be extremely difficult.”
Mr. Robson added that in the longer term—12 to 18 months—steps could be taken to increase global food production and improve the situation.
Should unrest unfold, companies operating in affected areas can take some steps to mitigate the damage. Businesses are increasingly using technology to examine their supply chains to determine how unrest might impact their operations, Verisk Maplecroft’s Ms. Blanco said.
Allianz’s Mr. Todorovic said companies should also assess where exactly they have situated their facilities in hot-spot countries, figuring out, for example, whether those operations are near targets of protest such as public squares or town halls.
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“A lot of companies are not specific targets of social unrest,” he said. “They just happen to be in the vicinity.”
Some observers have held out hope that a brokered deal to allow for a temporary resumption in Ukraine grain shipments might alleviate some of the food-shortage problem.
The agreement allows grain to flow for only 120 days and requires logistics companies and freight forwarders to step up and take the risk of moving the product, said
Laura Burns,
the political risk product leader for the Americas at insurance broker
WTW.
“Talking with my clients in the commodity space, a lot of them are unfortunately pessimistic,” she said.
Write to Richard Vanderford at richard.vanderford@wsj.com
Firefighting aircraft from Greece and Sweden will arrive in France on Thursday while other EU governments including Germany, Poland, Austria and Romania are also mobilizing resources to help France fight its raging wildfires, the French government announced.
“Today, we benefit fully from European solidarity,” Borne told reporters during a visit to the town of Hostens at the heart of the fires of the Gironde region in southwest France. More than half of this year’s fires occurred in Gironde.
A total of four planes from Greece and Sweden are expected to arrive in France today, as well as a team of 64 people and 24 vehicles from Germany, according to the Élysée Palace.
The Gironde fires have burned more than 6,800 hectares of forest, and nearly 1,100 firefighters are involved with more on the way. As of Thursday morning, 10,000 people have been evacuated from the area, according to the regional authority.
“The conditions are particularly difficult: the vegetation and the soil are particularly dry after more than a month without rain. The scorching temperatures (40°C today) (104°F) are expected to continue until Saturday and combine with very dry air to create conditions of very severe risk of fire outbreak,” according to the statement.
Wildfires in France have been especially violent this summer, raging across the south and southwestern part of the country while also popping up in the regions of Normandy and Brittany — further north than is typical.
Fires have burnt through 41,400 hectares in France since June 10, a huge increase compared to the 2,040 hectares lost in the same period last year, the press office of the French Interior Ministry’s civil security department told CNN.
Italy, Spain and the UK also suffering
In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday.
Drought has meant that the soil hasn’t been able to absorb any rainfall in recent storms, leading to flooding and landslides, according to Coldretti.
Hail was “the most serious climatic event due to the irreversible damage it caused to the crops,” the association said, adding that “in a few minutes, it is able to destroy a whole year’s work.”
The farming association estimates the damage to exceed 6 billion euros ($6.2 billion), equal to 10% of Italy’s annual agricultural production.
Elsewhere in the Mediterranean, Spain’s national weather agency AEMET has warned of high temperatures across Spain as the heatwave on the peninsula continues.
Heat warnings are in place in various parts of the country for Thursday, with the largest concentration of affected communities in Spain’s northeastern regions near the border with France.
Temperatures are expected to rise to up to 40C, according to AEMET.
Most parts of the country are covered by heat warnings for Friday and maximum temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius are expected in the northeast and south of Spain.
The UK is also suffering another week of high temperatures, with the Met Office issuing an “amber extreme heat warning” on Tuesday.
“The Extreme heat warning, which covers much of the southern half of England as well as parts of eastern Wales, will be in force from Thursday through until the end of Sunday with impacts possible to health, transport and infrastructure,” the Met Office said in a statement.
Temperatures are expected to peak on Friday and Saturday and are “likely” to hit the low-to-mid 30 degrees Celsius (86 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the statement.
CNN’s Pierre Bairin, Amandine Hess, Xiaofei Xu, Jorge Engels, Benjamin Brown and Nicola Ruotolo contriubuted to this report.
