Armenia’s prime minister has called his country’s security relationships “ineffective,” in a swipe at Russia after Azerbaijan claimed the breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabakh following a swift military campaign.

Armenia is part of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), a Russian-dominated group of six post-Soviet states, that, similar to NATO, requires members to come to each other’s aid when under attack.

But this week, Azerbaijan forced the surrender of ethnic Armenian fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh, seemingly bringing to an end a conflict that has simmered for decades and raising the question whether Armenia could rely on long-term ally Russia.

“Armenia has never refused from its allied obligations and has never betrayed its allies,” Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said according to Armenia’s public radio, going on to say that recent events had exposed the country’s “vulnerabilities.”

Pashinyan has previously criticized Russia for failing to inform him of Azerbaijan’s plans, while some Russian commentators have mocked the prime minister for being unable to protect ethnic Armenians beyond its borders.

Although internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is home to 120,000 ethnic Armenians, who make up the majority of the population, and have created their own de facto government, rejecting Azerbaijani rule.

Presently, the Armenian government is working with partners to develop international mechanisms that will protect the rights of people in Nagorno-Karabakh. But if these efforts fail, Armenia will accept their “brothers and sisters… with all care,” Pashinyan said.

“But this will not only fail to address the existing issues, but will further aggravate those,” he warned.

Pashinyan’s comments come as the first group of civilians arrived in Armenia from Nagorno-Karabakh.

A group of around 30-40 people, mainly women, children and elderly individual, are being registered at a humanitarian office, according to Armenia’s Public Radio.

One local official in the disputed region, said that the bulk of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenian population would leave for Armenia.

“Our people do not want to live as part of Azerbaijan. Ninety-nine point nine percent prefer to leave our historic lands,” David Babayan, an adviser to Samvel Shahramanyan, the president of the self-styled Republic of Artsakh, told Reuters Sunday. The region is known as Artsakh to Armenians.

Azerbaijan says it will guarantee the rights of those living in the region. But Pashinyan and international experts have repeatedly warned of the risk of ethnic cleansing of Armenians in the enclave.

“The fate of our poor people will go down in history as a disgrace and a shame for the Armenian people and for the whole civilized world,” Babayan said, adding that those responsible will have to answer before God for their sins.

“If the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh are not provided with real conditions to live in their homes and if no practical mechanisms of protection from ethnic cleansing are created, the probability that the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh will see the departure from their homeland as the only salvation will increase,” Pashinyan said.

Both his and Babayan’s comments come as the first aid since the ceasefire began, arrived in the landlocked region Saturday.

A convoy was transported along the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The road has been blockaded since December 2022 by Azerbaijan, making it inaccessible to civilian and commercial traffic.

Azerbaijan’s brief offensive ended in a Russia-brokered ceasefire in which separatist Armenian fighters agreed to surrender and lay down their arms.

At least 200 people were killed and over 400 others wounded in Azerbaijan’s military operation, officials said.

Tens of thousands of Spaniards protested in Madrid on Sunday against possible plans by acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to grant an amnesty to Catalan separatists to keep himself in office after an election he failed to win.

Waving Spanish flags, supporters of the opposition conservative People’s Party (PP) traveled from across Spain to attend the rally in Madrid. Authorities estimated the size of the crowd at 40,000.

Sanchez, who came second in an election in July, could stay in office if he wins the support of exiled former Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont, whose Junts per Catalunya party controls seven seats in parliament.

Puigdemont, wanted in Spain for attempting the region’s secession, has demanded that legal action be dropped against fellow separatists as a condition for his support.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, leader of the PP which won the most votes on July 23, said he would never concede to demands for an amnesty for organizers of a 2017 independence referendum in Catalonia, which was held despite courts ruling it was illegal.

Withdrawing criminal cases against the separatists would amount to granting an amnesty to “coup plotters,” he told supporters at the Madrid rally.

Gregorio Casteneda, 72, a pensioner, had traveled from Santander on Spain’s north coast to show his opposition to any amnesty.

“I am not in favor of the government that we have. To me this is a disaster because it is going to divide Spain totally,” he told Reuters.

Sanchez held his own political rally in Gava, near Catalonia’s regional capital Barcelona, on Sunday. He did not mention an amnesty but said the Socialists wanted to heal social divisions over the Catalan crisis.

“We are trying to turn the page,” he told supporters.

In 2021, Sanchez granted pardons to nine separatists jailed over their roles in the independence push.

Feijoo will take the first stab at a vote to become prime minister on Sept. 27, but his chances of winning are seen as slim since the PP opposes any concessions to separatists. If Feijoo fails, Sanchez will get a chance to see if he can muster support.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has defended his country’s enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade levels, claiming it was a response to European states not living up to their end of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

Iran announced that it was enriching uranium to 60% in 2021, following an attack on its above-ground nuclear facility in Natanz, which Tehran blamed on Israel.

The move alarmed the West, as it shortened Iran’s so-called “breakout time” to build a nuclear weapon, which requires uranium that is enriched above 90%. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said earlier this month that Iran was the only country without a nuclear weapon that was enriching uranium to 60% purity, and in March the agency announced that uranium particles enriched to 84% were found at Iran’s Fordow plant.

This month, Reuters cited a confidential IAEA report stating that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity continued to grow, albeit at a slower pace than in the previous quarter.

Nuclear power, which Iran says is the purpose of its nuclear program, requires uranium to be enriched to 3% to 5%.

There is also concern that if Iran’s nuclear program is not kept in check, it could lead to further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said Wednesday that if Iran acquires a nuclear bomb, “we have to get one.”

He also reiterated Tehran’s long-standing claim that it does not plan to acquire a nuclear bomb.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as the 2015 deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear program was known, was signed between Iran and world powers including the United States and the European Union. The agreement capped Iranian uranium enrichment at 3.67% in exchange for sanctions relief.

The US withdrew from the deal in 2018 under President Donald Trump, then launched a wave of sanctions designed to crippled Iran’s economy. JCPOA signatories have since 2021 attempted to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiation table. The parties have held on-and-off talks but have so far failed to return to an agreement.

While it was only the US that pulled out of the deal, that withdrawal affected European trade with Iran, said Ali Vaez, Iran Project Director at International Crisis Group think tank.

Tit for tat

Iran has long argued that after the US’ withdrawal, other JCPOA signatories have also failed to stick to their parts of the deal, continuing instead to impose sanctions against Tehran.

Tehran has recently expressed frustration with mounting Western sanctions against it, as well as the refusal by the UK, France and Germany (the E3) to lift a number of sanctions on individuals and entities involved in Iran’s missile, nuclear, and other weapons programs, which under the 2015 nuclear pact were due to be lifted next month.

This month, the E3 said they will not be lifting sanctions on Iran’s missile programs as scheduled, but will instead be transferring them into domestic laws “in response to continued Iranian non-compliance with their JCPOA commitments and ongoing nuclear escalation.”

Iran’s foreign ministry called the decision “illegal,” and that it “amounts to a tension-building measure, which is taken in bad faith,” Iranian media reported.

Iran this month barred several UN inspectors from conducting verification activities on its nuclear program, the IAEA said, adding that Tehran has “effectively removed about one third of the core group of the Agency’s most experienced inspectors designated for Iran.”

In a joint statement, the three European countries and the US on Monday demanded that Iran immediately reverse its decision and “fully cooperate with the Agency.”

The European signatories to the JCPOA have lost a lot of credibility in the eyes of the Iranians, Vaez of Crisis Group said, adding that the Iranians see them as having “overpromised and underdelivered.” This view, he added, is taken up by hardline politicians like Raisi, as well as more moderate ones.

“Now, you see that the Iranians and the Americans have reached an understanding that has toned down Iran’s nuclear program, in which Europe played no role,” Vaez said.

In a sign of a diplomatic breakthrough, Iran this week released five American prisoners in a Qatar-mediated deal that also included the unfreezing of some $6 billion in Iranian funds and the release of five Iranian prisoners in the US.

The deal was a sign of what analysts described as a method of unwritten arrangements between Washington and Tehran, with smaller exchanged concessions in lieu of a wider, formal agreement.

Kosovo police said they killed three armed attackers and arrested another Sunday during a shootout in the village of Banjska in northern Kosovo.

The standoff between police and 30 armed men began just hours after an ambush incident left one police officer dead and another injured. Some of the shooting is taking place near a monastery in the village, police said.

“Three gunmen have been killed, two gunmen and four suspects have been arrested, the latter were found in illegal possession of radio communications, and who are suspected of being related to a terrorist group,” said Kosovo police in a Facebook post.

According to the police, the “security situation continues to be tense” although “the intensity of attacks on police officers has decreased.”

Authorities previously said they found “logistical equipment, suspected military vehicles, military uniforms as well as weapons and ammunition of different calibers” at a residential location being used by the attackers.

“Kosovo Police continues to call on criminal groups to surrender to the justice authorities and at the same time invites citizens to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies, in the interest of calming the situation and general security,” the statement read.

The incident is a serious escalation in a region already prone to unrest. Kosovo is majority Albanian, but like other villages in the north, Banjska is predominantly Serbian.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 but Serbia sees Kosovo as a breakaway state. Kosovo’s Serbs view themselves as part of Serbia, and see Belgrade as their capital, rather than Pristina.

Overnight Saturday into Sunday, a border police unit noticed two heavy trucks without license plates blocking the entrance to a bridge in Banjska, according to N1. Police units were deployed to the area.

When police officers arrived at the scene, they encountered resistance, shots were fired, and during the exchange of fire one police officer was killed and another was injured, according to N1. Kosovo police said they were shot at with “an arsenal of firearms,” including hand grenades and stun guns.

In a post on Facebook Sunday morning, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti described the shooting in the village of Banjska as a “terror attack” conducted by what he said were “Serbian criminal gangs.”

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić denied his country’s involvement in the clash. He said the men killed were Serbs from Kosovo.

The Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC), which oversees the Banjska monastery, issued a statement saying calm has returned to the monastery and that police are now in control of the situation.

“The Raška-Prizren Diocese (SOC) informs the public that the situation at the Banjska monastery is presently stable,” the statement reads. “The armed individuals who breached the gate earlier today have left the premises, and there is now a presence of Kosovo police and EULEX at the entrance and within the monastery’s courtyard.”

In a statement Sunday, EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell condemned the attack and called for a de-escalation of the situation.

“I condemn in the strongest possible terms the hideous attack by an armed gang against Kosovo Police officers in Banjska/Banjskë in the north of Kosovo, which left one police officer dead,” he said in a statement. “The responsible perpetrators must face justice.”

“More innocent lives are at risk in ongoing hostilities in the surroundings of Banjska Monastery. These attacks must stop immediately,” he added.

The EU mission in Kosovo, EULEX, “is on the ground and in close contact with the authorities and KFOR,” the NATO-led international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, Borrell said.

“The EU and its Member States repeatedly urge all actors to work to de-escalate the situation in north of Kosovo,” he said.

Tensions between Kosovo and Serbia have escalated in recent months with violent protests erupting in May over controversial local elections. Dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured in the clashes at the time.

Kosovo’s Serbs have increasingly demanded greater autonomy from the ethnic Albanian majority.

An asteroid sample collected by NASA has touched down on Earth, giving scientists the opportunity to learn more about the origins of the solar system and capturing a piece of a massive space rock that has a chance of colliding with our planet in the future. It’s the first time the agency has accomplished such a feat.

Seven years after launching to space, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft flew by Earth Sunday to deliver the pristine sample from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu.

OSIRIS-REx, which stands for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer, lifted off in 2016 and began orbiting Bennu in 2018. The spacecraft collected the sample in 2020 and set off on its lengthy return trip to Earth in May 2021. The mission traveled 3.86 billion miles total to Bennu and back.

The spacecraft dropped the sample capsule — containing an estimated 8.8 ounces of asteroid rocks and soil — from a distance of 63,000 miles (102,000 kilometers) above Earth’s surface early Sunday, and entered the planet’s atmosphere at 10:42 a.m. ET while traveling at a speed of about 27,650 miles per hour (44,498 kilometers per hour).

Parachutes deployed to slow the capsule to a gentle touchdown at 11 miles per hour (17.7 kilometers per hour). The sample landed in the Defense Department’s Utah Test and Training Range about 10 minutes after entering the atmosphere, a few minutes ahead of schedule.

“Congratulations to the OSIRIS-REx team. You did it,” said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. “It brought something extraordinary, the largest asteroid sample ever received on Earth. This mission proves that NASA does big things, things that inspire us, things that unite us. It wasn’t mission impossible. It was the impossible that became possible.”

OSIRIS-REx is continuing its tour of the solar system — the spacecraft has already set off to capture a detailed look at a different asteroid named Apophis.

The mission now has a new name: OSIRIS-APEX, for Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-APophis EXplorer.

What happened after landing

Four helicopters transported recovery and research teams to the landing site and conducted assessments to make sure the capsule wasn’t damaged in any way, said Rich Burns, OSIRIS-REx project manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The team confirmed that the capsule was not breached during landing.

Recovery teams, which have been training for the event for months, retrieved the capsule once it was safe, said Sandra Freund, OSIRIS-REx program manager at Lockheed Martin Space, which partnered with NASA to build the spacecraft, provide flight operations and help recover the 100-pound capsule.

The initial recovery team, outfitted with protective gloves and masks, ensured that the capsule was cool enough to touch, given that it reached temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit (2,760 degrees Celsius) during reentry, Burns said. The team also ensured the capsule’s battery didn’t rupture and leak any toxic fumes.

A science team collected samples from the landing site, including air, dust and dirt particles.

“One of the key scientific objectives of OSIRIS-REx is to return a pristine sample and pristine means that no foreign materials hamper our investigation during sample analysis,” said Dante Lauretta, OSIRIS-REx principal investigator at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “As unlikely as it is, we do want to make sure any materials that are out there in the Utah range that may interact with the sample are well documented.”

Lauretta has worked on the mission for nearly twenty years and remembers when it was part of an idea presented to NASA. Lauretta has been present for each step of the way, including when the capsule was assembled and installed on the spacecraft before launch. And on Sunday, he was one of the first people to approach the capsule after it landed to welcome it home.

“It was like seeing an old friend that you hadn’t seen for a long time,” he said. “I did want to give it a hug. One of the key moments for me was seeing it. I knew we had done it, that we had pulled it off. As incredible as it seemed all those years ago, it came to be.”

A helicopter carried the sample in a cargo net and delivered it to a temporary clean room near the landing site. Within this space, the curation team will conduct a nitrogen flow, called a purge, to prevent any of Earth’s atmosphere from entering the sample canister and contaminating it. The larger pieces of the capsule will be stripped away, said Nicole Lunning, OSIRIS-REx curation lead at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

A team will prepare the sample canister for transport on a C-17 aircraft to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on Monday. Scientists expect to remove the lid to see the sample for the first time on Tuesday.

The recovery team will also assess all of the footage captured of the descent to determine if the drogue parachute, used to initially stabilize the capsule, deployed on time. At the time it was expected to release, the team was unable to see visual evidence. The main parachute, responsible for slowing down the capsule to a safe landing speed, also deployed early.

“But at the end of the day, when that main chute deployed, it basically corrected any of the sins that may have happened ahead of it,” said Tim Priser, chief engineer for deep space exploration at Lockheed Martin. “It touched down like a feather.”

What the sample may reveal

Details about the sample will be revealed through a NASA broadcast from Johnson Space Center on October 11. While the science team will not have had time to fully assess the sample, the researchers plan to collect some fine-grained material at the top of canister Tuesday for a quick analysis that can be shared in October, Lauretta said. The initial analysis will look for the presence of minerals and chemical elements, he said.

Scientists will analyze the rocks and soil for the next two years at a dedicated clean room inside Johnson Space Center. The sample will also be divided up and sent to laboratories around the globe, including OSIRIS-REx mission partners at the Canadian Space Agency and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. About 70% of the sample will remain pristine in storage so future generations with better technology can learn even more than what’s now possible.

If a government shutdown occurs, “it will not endanger the curation and safe handling of the asteroid sample,” said Lori Glaze, director for NASA’s Planetary Sciences Division.

“Certain steps leading to this highly anticipated analysis will possibly be delayed, but the sample will remain protected and safe despite any disruptions to the schedule,” she said during a news conference Friday. “The sample has waited for more than 4 billion years for humans to study it and if it takes us a little longer, I think we’ll be OK.”

Along with a previously returned sample of the asteroid Ryugu from Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, the rocks and soil could reveal key information about the beginning of our solar system. Scientists believe that carbonaceous asteroids such as Bennu crashed into Earth early during the planet’s formation, delivering elements like water.

“Scientists believe that the asteroid Bennu is representative of the solar system’s own oldest materials forged in large dying stars and supernova explosions,” Glaze said. “And for this reason, NASA is investing in these missions devoted to small bodies to increase our understanding of how our solar system formed and how it evolved.”

But the sample can also provide insights into Bennu, which has a chance of colliding with Earth in the future.

It’s crucial to understand more about the population of near-Earth asteroids that may be on an eventual collision course with our planet. A better grasp of their composition and orbits is key to predicting which asteroids may have the closest approaches to Earth and when — and essential to developing methods of deflecting these asteroids based on their composition.

France will end its military presence in Niger by the end of 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday, marking the latest major development amid high tensions between the two countries since a military junta seized control of Niger in July.

“We are putting an end to our military cooperation with the de facto authorities of Niger because they don’t want to fight terrorism anymore,” Macron said regarding the military leaders who took over rule of the northwest African country.

France has not recognized Niger’s military authorities and insists that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in the coup, remains the country’s only legitimate authority.

The decision to end the “cooperation” is “because we are not there to deal with internal politics and be hostages of putschists,” Macron said, referring to the military group.

The withdrawal will be organized in the coming weeks, he said.

“They will come back in an orderly manner in the weeks and months to come, and for that, we will coordinate with the putschists because we want this to happen calmly,” Macron said.

Niger’s ruling military power said it welcomes France’s decision to pull its troops from the country, according to a statement posted to Niger’s state television, Tele Sahel.

“This Sunday, we celebrate another step towards Niger’s sovereignty. French troops and the French ambassador will be leaving Niger by the end of the year,” the statement said. “Imperialist and neo-colonialist forces are no longer welcome on our national territory.”

“Any person, institution or structure whose presence threatens the interests and outlook of our country will have to leave the land of our ancestors, whether they like it or not,” it added. “Our resistance will be unwavering, and will deal with any institution or structure attempting to challenge the higher interests of our nation.”

Some 1,500 troops remain.

Responding to a question on the withdrawal’s timeline, Macron said there will not be any French soldiers in Niger by the end of 2023.

French ambassador will also return

The French president also said he has decided to bring back the country’s ambassador to Niger, Sylvain Itte, to France.

“France has decided to bring back its ambassador,” Macron said. “In the coming hours, our ambassador along with several diplomats will return to France.”

That announcement comes just over a week after Macron said the ambassador was “literally being held hostage at the French embassy,” and that “food was prevented from being delivered” to the embassy in Niamey, the capital.

After their July coup, the military junta ordered Itte to leave the country, and it later revoked his visa and instructed police to expel him.

But the diplomat remained in place, according to the French presidency, and French authorities reiterated they did not recognize the junta’s authority.

Itte was still working, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said earlier this month, adding he “will stay as long as we want him to stay” and that the official’s return was Macron’s decision.

After a week at the UN General Assembly dominated by discussion of Russia’s war in Ukraine, Moscow struck back on Saturday, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov addressing delegates first in a speech to the General Assembly hall, then turning to the international press in a wide-ranging briefing full of recriminations against the West – which he described as an “empire of lies.”

“In the speeches of many speakers who spoke before me, the idea was already voiced that our common planet is undergoing irreversible changes, and a new world order is being born before our eyes,” Lavrov said in his address to fellow member states.

“The contours of the future are being created in the struggle between the world majority, who advocate a more equitable distribution of global wealth and civilizational diversity, and between those few who use neocolonial methods of subjugation to maintain their elusive dominance.”

Lavrov would not have been the first this week to argue that outdated global governance structures are hampering momentum toward climate and economic justice. But his focus was on Ukraine’s Western backers and NATO – a mutual defense organization formed in the aftermath of World War II to defend Western nations from the Soviet Union.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds on and Western allies continue to funnel military assistance to Kyiv, Lavrov warned on Saturday that he considered the US and UK and others to be “directly at war with us.”

“We can call this a hybrid war but that doesn’t change the reality,” Lavrov told journalists, adding, “They are effectively engaged in hostilities with us using the Ukrainians as fodder.”

Lavrov dismissed a peace framework proposed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “not feasible.”

The plan does not contemplate ceding Ukrainian territory to Russia or abandoning Kyiv’s efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – two sticking points for Moscow.

The Russian Foreign Minister also shut down the possibility of Russia returning to the Black Sea grain deal, saying the Kremlin felt it had been deceived.

“The main reason why we left this deal and it ceased to exist is that everything that was promised to us turned out to be a deception,” Lavrov said.

Russia withdrew from the UN-brokered deal in July, after saying for some time that it had been prevented from adequately exporting its own foodstuffs. The now-collapsed deal had allowed Ukraine to export much-needed grain by sea, with ships bypassing a Russian blockade in order to reach global markets.

The UN, created in the 1940s, does reflect a previous era, with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council wielding a disproportionate amount of power in the organization. But as one of those so-called P5 countries, Russia has also significantly benefited from the existing structure, notably vetoing resolutions about its war in Ukraine.

Among the many proposed reforms to the UN from various corners, Ukraine has said Russia should be stripped of its Security Council veto power and expelled from the organization for breaching a fundamental tenet of the UN – violating the territorial sovereignty of a fellow member-state.

It’s only early spring in Australia and the country is already grappling with heat and fire, sparking fears of a potentially devastating summer.

Last weekend, more than 20 runners in the Sydney Marathon were hospitalized during a heat wave. Ski resorts, including Perisher, the country’s largest, have closed early amid a lack of snow after Australia’s warmest winter since records began in 1910.

Then, last week, dozens of bushfires broke out in the country, with more than 60 burning in the densely-populated state of New South Wales.

These are ominous signals for what large parts of the country can expect as spring rolls into summer. The confluence of natural climate phenomena, including El Niño, layered on top of human-caused global warming, is leading scientists to sound the alarm.

Last week, Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) announced the official arrival of El Niño, a natural weather pattern originating in the Pacific Ocean that tends to bring hot and dry conditions to Australia, especially eastern parts.

On top of El Niño, there’s another climate fluctuation in the mix that amps up the likelihood of heat and drought. The positive Indian Ocean Dipole is a climate pattern similar to El Niño, but originates in the Indian Ocean, and can have as large an influence on Australian weather.

This “double punch” is “very unfortunate,” Bowman said. And the underlying trend of global heating, as the world continues to burn planet-warming fossil fuels, is further increasing the chances of extreme weather.

“We are already seeing extreme weather conditions in some parts of the continent, particularly in the duration of heat,” as well as “catastrophic” fires, said Karl Braganza, head of climate monitoring at BOM, on a call with reporters Tuesday.

He called on Australians “to prepare for a summer of heat and fire hazards.”

Fears are particularly high as the memories of the 2019 to 2020 Black Summer fire season – the country’s worst in decades – remain etched in Australians’ minds. The fires burned 10 million hectares (24.7 million acres) to the ground, contributed to the deaths of hundreds of people and killed more than a billion animals.

However, conditions are different this year. While the lead-up to the Black Summer fires was characterized by a 3-year period of drought – “whole, vast landscapes were primed to burn for months,” Bowman said – the last few years have been rainy in Australia due to the influence of El Niño’s cooler counterpart, La Niña.

AFAC’s fire outlook issued last month warned of an increased risk of fire across large parts of the country, as plants that grew during the rainier years are drying out fast.

“Sustained heat waves can snap dry landscapes so all that lush vegetation can become tinder in days,” Bowman said. A combination of extreme heat and wind would likely fuel very intense fires “that will seem to come from nowhere,” he added.

As well as fire, Australians can expect heat. “This summer will be hotter than average and certainly hotter than the last three years,” Braganza said.

Temperatures are already breaking local records. On Wednesday, Sydney airport reached 35.9 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit), according to BOM, breaking heat records for September. Sydney’s average September temperature is around 20 degrees Celsius (68 Fahrenheit).

Whether summer heat will be unprecedented remains uncertain.

“Every El Niño is different,” said Andrea Taschetto, an associate professor in climate at the University of New South Wales, making it hard to predict exactly how hot things will get.

But signs point to “a good chance for this summer to be the hottest on record,” she said.

Others are more cautious. Jason Evans, also a climate professor at the University of New South Wales, said that while the abnormally hot winter “does raise concerns about extreme heat this summer,” he thinks the recent rainy years make record-breaking temperatures less likely. But everything depends on how dry the next few months are, he added.

“Climate change is now taking center stage,” Bowman said. “The past is an increasingly unreliable guide for the future. Expect the unexpected.”

Russia’s playgrounds are becoming parade grounds. At schools from the Pacific to the Black Sea, children in nursery grade don uniforms and take part in marching practice. Older kids are being taught how to dig trenches, throw grenades and shoot with real ammunition.

In schools across the country, service in the armed forces is being glorified, “voluntary companies” of teenagers are being formed and the national curriculum is being changed to emphasize defense of the motherland.

In short, Russia’s children are being prepared for war.

The militarization of Russia’s public schools has intensified since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, driven not by a spontaneous surge of patriotic feeling, but by the government in Moscow.

The investment is huge. Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov said recently that there are now about 10,000 so-called “military-patriotic” clubs in Russian schools and colleges, and a quarter-of-a-million people take part in their work.

These clubs are part of a multi-pronged effort that includes a radical overhaul of the school curriculum. There are mandatory classes on military-patriotic values; updated history books accentuate Russian military triumphs.

Changing textbooks

In August, President Vladimir Putin signed a law introducing a new mandatory course in schools: “Fundamentals of Security and Defense of the Motherland.”

The Education Ministry subsequently promoted courses as part of this initiative to include excursions to military units, “military-sports games, meetings with military personnel and veterans,” and classes on drones.

High-school students would also be taught to use live ammunition “under the guidance of experienced military unit officers or instructors exclusively at the firing line,” according to the ministry.

The program, which is being tested this year and will be introduced in 2024, is designed to instil in the students “an understanding and acceptance of the aesthetics of military uniforms, military rituals and combat traditions,” according to an Education Ministry document uncovered by the Russian independent media outlet Important Stories.

Modern history is being rewritten too. The standard textbook, ‘History of Russia,’ now has the Crimea Bridge on its cover and a new chapter devoted to the recent history of Ukraine. There are sections entitled “Falsification of history,” “Revival of Nazism,” “Ukrainian neo-Nazism,” and “Russia is a country of heroes.”

Putin has repeatedly falsely framed the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “special mission” to protect Russian speakers from genocide at the hands of “neo-Nazis.”

A new chapter falsely claims that Ukraine “openly declared its desire to acquire nuclear weapons,” and “unprecedented sanctions have been introduced against Russia, since the West is trying in every way to bring down the Russian economy.”

The book appears designed to stoke a sense of historical grievance among Russian children and lay out an existential battle for the nation’s survival, a common theme in the state media pumped daily into living rooms across the country.

President Putin has personally led the campaign to inject patriotism into Russia’s schools. At an event at the Kremlin this month, he told a group of children about a letter that his grandfather had sent to his father, who was fighting the Nazis during the World War II.

“Beat the scum!” he had told him, according to Putin’s account.

Putin went on: “I realised why we won the Great Patriotic War. People with such an attitude simply cannot be defeated. We were absolutely invincible, just as we are now.”

Children taught to assemble guns

In July, for example, children in Belgorod gave themselves call-signs – one adopted “Sledgehammer” – and took part in exercises that included the use of automatic weapons, assembling a machine gun and getting through an obstacle course.

Belgorod’s Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov suggested conducting exercises with schoolchildren and pre-schoolers regularly.

In Krasnodar in May, dozens of children who looked no more than seven or eight years old marched in army and navy uniforms, some clutching imitation automatic weapons, as they passed dignitaries on a podium.

In a parade held in the city of Vologda, a small child saluted and told an official: “Сomrade parade commander! The parade is ready. I am Commander Uliana Shumelova.”

Similar scenes have played out from Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East to Yeysk on the Sea of Azov. Some of the children look excited, some bewildered. In Yeysk, a pre-schooler led the march of the border guards, as his peers chanted: “One, two, three. Left, left, left!”

Most of the children in these parades are in one sort of military uniform or another, trying to march in step without much success. Frequently they carry pictures of Russian military heroes.

The symbolism of what the Kremlin calls the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine is also celebrated. In the city of Astrakhan, nursery children wore uniforms and had toy vehicles emblazoned with the letter Z, a propagandist symbol used to show support for the Ukraine war.

The Ministry of Defense has scaled up its outreach to schools with a well-publicized Christmas Tree of Wishes’ program, similar to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, in which the minister himself, Sergei Shoigu, has been active.

Shoigu invited a 9-year old girl called Daria from Udmurt to the Victory Day parade in Moscow in May. Other children visited military helicopters and the Air Defense museum.

Next generation being prepared for army service

Russia’s children are also expected to contribute to the war effort in practical ways. The governing United Russia party launched a program in Vladivostok in which school kids sew pants and caps for soldiers (in the pattern of the party.)

In Vladimir, children have been sewing balaclavas for the military in labor lessons, as part of a campaign called “We sew for our men.”

Students at a technical school in Voronezh were tasked with making mobile stoves and trench candles for the Russian military. Disabled teenage girls in Ussuriysk were drafted into sewing “Friend or foe” headbands and bandages for the Northern Military District. And in Buryatia in the Russian Far East, orphans sewed ‘good luck’ amulets for soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

There are also letter-writing campaigns. “Five-year-old boys from kindergarten answer with confidence,” a local news outlet in Chita trumpeted. “Before sealing the triangular envelope, they carefully colored the image of the fighter.”

All these activities are publicized in regional media as part of a broader effort to rally patriotic spirit in support of the Ukraine campaign.

Teenagers are also encouraged to compete in what are called Youth Military Sports Games.

The district final in the Orenburg region has just finished. 180 athletes from 14 teams – including the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine – took part in a variety of competitions: grenade throwing, drill training, overcoming an obstacle course and assembling a Kalashnikov assault rifle, store equipment and a military history quiz.

The goal, according to the Defense Ministry, is to “cultivate a sense of mutual assistance and comradely support, high moral and psychological qualities, as well as prepare the younger generation for service in the Armed Forces Russian Federation.”

The military visit schools too. Children in Buryatia spoke of a visit from a wounded soldier who claimed he had fought Polish mercenaries in Ukraine and said the Ukrainians themselves “don’t want to fight and are being forced.”

At least some teachers who have been less than enthusiastic about the changes have been removed, though it’s difficult to know how many. The director of a school in Perm resigned after being criticized by pro-war activists. She’d been reluctant to have classes about the SMO.

It’s also difficult to gauge how parents feel about the introduction of a more militaristic curriculum. Some parents have voiced their opposition, but the majority appear to be supportive of this military-patriotic campaign, if public opinion surveys are to be believed.

State news agency RIA Novosti reported that according to a survey 79% of parents support the showing of videos about the war to their children.

Social media comments do suggest that many Russians feel their country is surrounded and ostracized by hostile powers. Its only option is to defend itself. That message – hammered home by the president and state media – is now being taken into Russia’s schools.

The Venezuelan government invited journalists to tour the Tocoron Penitentiary Center in Aragua state on Saturday – days after security forces reclaimed control of a prison that has spent many years under the control of gangs.

The Tocoron prison, one of the largest in the country, had previously been under the direct control of inmates, many of them members of the powerful transnational criminal gang ‘Tren de Aragua,’ (Train of Aragua), named after the state in which Tocoron is located, according to the Venezuelan Information Ministry.

On Wednesday, Venezuelan security forces including the Army and National Guard conducted a special operation with more than 11,000 personnel to regain control of the prison grounds.

Venezuela’s Interior Minister Remigio Ceballos said the operation was “a complete success.” During the media tour on Saturday, Ceballos announced 80 high-ranking members of the Tren de Aragua gang had been detained by security forces following the takeover of the prison.

Ceballos denied media reports that the government negotiated with gang leaders before the operation.

Thousands of inmates were transferred to other prisons after the operation, according to the Venezuelan Information Ministry. However, relatives of inmates dispute these claims, saying they haven’t spoken to their relatives since the morning of the operation.

While it is not uncommon for gangs to run prisons in Venezuela, the Tocoron Penitentiary was notorious inside the country, and in recent years had become a symbol of the Venezuelan government’s inability to regain control.

The Tren de Aragua is Venezuela’s most powerful criminal group. In recent years it has expanded its operations to Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Argentina, according to the US State Department.