Two people have been injured and nearly 10,000 homes left without power as Typhoon Haikui made landfall in Taiwan, the island’s official Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Sunday.

The two injured people were traveling in a van when a tree fell on the vehicle, “leaving them trapped inside,” CNA said.

They suffered injuries but were conscious and taken to hospital, it added.

The storm made landfall along the southeastern coastal township of Donghe at about 3:40 p.m. local time, the weather bureau said.

As of 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, more than 9,300 households in the Taitung and Hualien counties had lost electricity, state electricity provider Taipower said. Repair works are underway.

The capital Taipei is currently experiencing heavy rains.

The weather bureau said Typhoon Haikui was moving westwards at a pace of 7 kilometers (4 miles) per hour with winds of up to 155 kilometers per hour (96 miles per hour).

Haikui is the first typhoon in four years to directly hit Taiwan and is expected to bring heavy rainfall to eastern regions, according to the weather bureau.

It warned that heavy rainfall could trigger flash flooding and landslides in parts of the country. The mountainous Hualien county could see total precipitation of more than 500 millimeters, it added.

The typhoon was previously expected to make landfall near the southeastern city of Taitung around 5 p.m. local time on Sunday.

As of 7 a.m. local time Sunday, more than 2,800 residents within seven counties and municipalities had been evacuated, the island’s Ministry of the Interior said.

Seven counties and cities in southern and eastern Taiwan have suspended school and work for Sunday, according to the respective local governments. In addition, Yunlin county and the outlying Penghu county will suspend school and work from Sunday noon.

The typhoon has led to the cancellation of 222 domestic flights and 37 international flights departing from Taiwan, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

In neighboring Hong Kong, at least 86 injuries were reported from another typhoon, Saola, which made landfall in the city after passing through the northeastern Philippines.

In an update on Saturday, Hong Kong authorities said they had received more than 1,500 reports of fallen trees, 21 cases of flooding and two reports of landslides.

That typhoon has since weakened to a tropical storm but left in its wake hundreds of canceled and disrupted flights.

Water levels at Lake Titicaca – the highest navigable lake in the world and South America’s largest – are dropping precipitously after an unprecedented winter heat wave. The shocking decline is affecting tourism, fishing and agriculture, which locals rely on to make a living.

“We don’t know what we will do from now until December because the water will keep getting lower,” said 63-year-old Nazario Charca, who lives on the lake and makes a living ferrying tourists around its waters.

Visitors have long been attracted to the blue waters and open skies of South America’s largest lake, which straddles more than 3,200 square miles across the border of Peru and Bolivia.

Sometimes described as an “inland sea,” it is home to Aymara, Quechua and Uros indigenous communities and sits at an altitude of around 3,800 meters (12,500 feet) in the central Andes mountain range, making it the highest navigable lake in the world. The extreme altitude also exposes the lake to high levels of solar radiation, which enhances evaporation and constitutes most of its water losses.

More than three million people live around the lake, relying on its waters to fish, farm and attract tourists who boost the economy of an otherwise marginalized region.

Now the lake is at risk of losing some of that magic.

This is part of a “gradual decline” in water levels at the lake in recent years, said Flores, and a recent study which examined satellite images from 1992-2020 showed that Lake Titicaca is losing around 120 million metric tons of water per year, which the authors say is primarily due to changes in precipitation and run off.

Communities that rely on fishing are struggling as low water levels adds to mounting problems: declining fish stocks due to pollution and overfishing.

Agriculture has also been impacted by drought, with regional authorities reporting that crops have suffered badly in the last harvest season. The vast majority of quinoa and potato crops, both local staples, have been affected, as have oats used to feed livestock.

The tourist economy also took a hit after boats used to ferry visitors around the lake were stranded as waters receded.

“We are extremely worried most of all because the water level is falling a lot at the moment,” said Jullian Huattamarca, 36, who sells locally made textiles to visitors to the island of Taquile.

“We want the tourists to come back, particularly foreign tourists,” he said.

The Puno region, which envelops the entirety of the Peruvian side of Lake Titicaca, has long been known as an underdeveloped and marginalized region of the country.

More recently, the economy has been battered by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and a wave of social unrest. Puno became the epicenter of demonstrations calling for the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, which built on outrage that has developed due to decades of inequality, allegations of corruption, and stagnating living standards.

Huattamarca said that many people have left the area in recent years, particularly during the pandemic.

“They had to, they didn’t have enough money for basic necessities like food,” he said.

And recent history suggests that the ongoing drought could push more people to leave their homes, as a previous drought in 1991 caused waves of migration as the subsistence economy collapsed due to a lack of food.

For others, such as Charca, the drought is disrupting a way of life. Charca is part of the Uros indigenous group, who live on islands made of dried totora reeds that float on the lake. For centuries, the Uros have woven the reeds into islands, as well as using them to make buildings and boats, but Charca is concerned that lower water levels mean there are fewer reeds available.

Looking toward the future, it’s hard to see respite.

El Nino, a natural phenomenon marked by warmer-than-normal temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean that can vastly alter the weather over South America, is currently underway.

“These conditions will contribute to the fact that there will be lower levels of rain in the Andean region,” she said.

For Connor Baker, analyst at International Crisis Group, the situation requires long-term action to protect those that depend on the lake.

“Local communities reliant on the lake for livelihoods are particularly vulnerable, underscoring the urgency of addressing the challenges posed by more intense fluctuations in the water level.”

It has been two decades since an American man last won the US Open and soaked in the cheers of the home crowd while lifting aloft the trophy.

That was Andy Roddick in 2003, but there is renewed hope for such a feat to repeat itself as four American male players will compete in the fourth round, the most to reach this stage of the tournament for more than a decade.

Frances Tiafoe, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul and Ben Shelton will all be in action on Sunday – Paul and Shelton playing each other while Tiafoe will face Australia’s Rinky Hijikata and Fritz will take on Switzerland’s Dominic Stricker.

“We’ve all been hearing about who’s going to be the next American (after) Andy Roddick 20 years ago our entire careers. We all want it so bad,” Fritz said, according to Reuters.

Fritz, as the No. 9 seed, is the highest ranked American in the draw but is already predicting that one of his compatriots will reach the semifinal.

“I was like, wow, one of these guys on their side, is for sure making it to the semi-finals,” he said, according to Eurosport. “Not to put pressure on them, but…

“That’s just what I thought personally. I was like, I wonder who it’s going to be, but one of them is going to be in the semis.”

Tiafoe reached the semifinals at Flushing Meadows last year, becoming the first Black American man since Arthur Ashe in 1972 to do so.

His performance at this US Open marks his best grand slam result this year, and he paid tribute to his compatriots after his four-set victory over France’s Adrian Mannarino in the third round.

“This is a group that had a lot of ability. Always had a lot of talent,” Tiafoe said, according to Reuters.

“You look at…Tommy Paul, took him a while to get going. He believes more than anybody right now. Taylor obviously has been playing well for a while. Myself. Ben, he’s had an up-and-down year, but now he’s playing great tennis. It’s good to see a lot of players playing well. Hopefully we just keep doing it.”

The excitement in the US about this current crop of players has been building for a while, as it has become more familiar again to see American men in the latter stages of grand slam tournaments.

Paul and Shelton played each other earlier this year in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open, and Paul became the first American man to reach a semifinal at that tournament since Roddick in 2009.

“Obviously around the grounds, everyone is really stoked and excited about the Americans,” Paul told the Washington Post. “Every time I pass one of the TVs here, it’s like, ‘Is an American going to win a Slam for the first time [in] 20 years?’”

In 2017, four American women reached the semifinals of the US Open with Sloane Stephens going on to with the tournament.

Coco Gauff is so far the only American woman to reach the fourth round of this year’s tournament, though Madison Keys and Jessica Pegula are still in contention at time of publication.

Marcelo Ragundiaz, fire brigade chief for Barangay Tandang Sora district, said the homeowner’s child, whose age was not specified, was among those who died in the blaze in Quezon City. At least three people escaped, including the homeowner, he said.

Ragundiaz said the property was being used as a T-shirt printing warehouse. He said the blaze likely started in the middle of the building, which prevented most of those inside from escaping.

Rare demonstrations continued for the 11th day in Syria’s southwestern city of as-Suwayda on Wednesday, an area populated predominantly by the Druze minority, with residents decrying poor living conditions and demanding regime change.

The protests, which are taking place in areas governed by President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, have so far shown no signs of abating. Unusually, security forces have refrained from cracking down as hundreds of people took to the streets, according to videos on social media, observers and local reports.

The unrest shows that disgruntlement against Assad remains high as he tries to end his international isolation, even in parts of the country that haven’t directly opposed him throughout its long civil war. The Druze are Syria’s third largest religious minority making up 3% to 4% of the country’s population, according to Minority Rights Group International.

While some Druze chose to align themselves with either side of the civil conflict, most have avoided doing so, and many have refused to enlist in Assad’s army.

The protests “come at a particularly dynamic time and serve to underline just how vulnerable and unsustainable Assad’s rule has become,” said Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. He added that while the president has for years relied on the support or neutrality of Syria’s minorities, the fact that the Druze of Suwayda are leading the protest movement now indicates “an acute threat” for the regime.

Isolated for more than a decade since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings morphed into a bloody civil war between his regime and rebels who sought to depose him, Assad eventually regained control of most of the country with the help of allies Russia and Iran, with a northern strip still controlled by rebel forces.

The UN has said that more than 300,000 civilians have been killed since the conflict broke out, some 1.5% of Syria’s pre-war population. Millions of others have been displaced. Despite efforts to hold Assad accountable for the losses, in May he was welcomed back into the Arab fold in a move opposed by Western states and many of the refugees who fled persecution under his rule.

The strongman nonetheless hopes his re-admission into the Arab League will open doors to the international community, and even the lifting of crippling Western sanctions.

In videos shared on social media, protesters are seen waving the Druze flag and chanting, “Long live Syria and down with Bashar al-Assad.”

Rayan Marouf, editor of the local Suwayda 24 news website, said that demonstrations in recent days have spanned across several villages in Suwayda governorate and attracted hundreds of people.

He added that protesters in recent days have also shut the headquarters of the ruling Baath party, which came to power in Syria through a 1963 coup, and which Assad currently heads.

Social media videos also showed protests last week in the southern city of Jaramana, just 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from the capital Damascus.

“That was the first time we have seen protests in Jaramana, which has always been known to be a city supportive of the regime in 2011,” Marouf said, adding that there have also been protests in rebel-held areas such as Idlib and Aleppo.

Residents in coastal cities inhabited by Assad’s minority Alawite sect, who had supported the president and his father Hafez since the 1970s, have begun criticizing the regime on social media platforms, according to Marouf, and social media posts.

A bad economic situation

Despite Syria’s re-admission into the Arab League, its economy has continued to freefall.

The UN’s Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, last week told the UN Security Council that the latest indicator of suffering for the country is “the further collapsing economy.”

“A very bad economic situation has got even worse” with every community in the country being affected, Pedersen said, adding that in some three months, the Syrian pound has lost over 80% of its value.

The envoy added that the prices of essential goods, including food, medicine, fuel and other basic commodities, are spiraling out of control. And while the government has taken measures to double minimum state salaries, they are not enough to address the current dire circumstances.

Assad has repeatedly blamed Western sanctions for the economic collapse.

In an interview with Sky News Arabia this month, he insisted that the war was a foreign conspiracy against his country, adding that there wasn’t significant domestic opposition to his rule. He didn’t show remorse for the policies that led to the war and the ensuing destruction and loss in human life. “If we go back in time, we will build and adopt the same policy,” he said.

He did however acknowledge that living conditions for Syrians remain dire. “How can a refugee return without water, electricity, schools for his children, and no medical treatment? These are the basics of life,” he said.

Restrained security forces

While the city of Suwayda has witnessed less intense fighting during the civil war, it became a target of a series of coordinated attacks by ISIS militants against the Druze in 2018. The assault killed more than 200 people, and further fueled tensions between Suwayda’s residents and the regime for failing to protect them.

Today’s protests are nonetheless unusual, mainly due to the regime’s restraint from using violence.

Last year, when demonstrators in the same city stormed the governor’s office during protests over economic conditions, clashes broke out with security forces and an exchange of gunfire killed two people.

“Security forces seem to be trying to contain things without sparking clashes, this is very clear from how authorities are behaving, at least so far,” Marouf said. “The Syrian regime today is aware that any violent response to protesters will trigger a whirlpool of unprecedented violence in Suwayda.”

Lister of the Middle East institute said that while Assad has so far acted with restraint, the threat of violence still remains, especially if the protests spread.

This is “a reflection of the challenge posed more than any change in mentality,” Lister said. “If protests spread deeper into regime territories, those chances (of violent crackdown) will surge.”

All eyes are on Assad’s next moves. The president was invited by United Arab Emirates, the COP28 host, to attend the UN’s Climate Summit this year, which will take place from November 30 in Dubai. If Assad attends, it would be his first appearance on the world stage since the start of the civil war in 2011.

“For those of us who remained deeply skeptical of normalization, everything happening right now is further evidence of what should have been clear all along: Assad is not the solution to Syria’s chaos and suffering, he is the cause,” Lister said.

In Agia Paraskevi, one of the villages dotted around Mount Panitha, just 15 miles north of Greece’s capital, Athens, we found a familiar sight: a woman standing in front of a burned house, its black, skeletal roof beams reaching imploringly into the smoldering sky as if begging for mercy. Tears streamed down her face as she contemplated what she lost. She cried softly in almost resigned despair. Greece is once again in the grip of wildfires, and this year they are worse than ever.

Hours earlier we were standing in the same village, talking to Nikos as he stood outside his home, eyeing the advancing smoke. He was spraying a thin stream of water through a skinny hosepipe, dousing parked cars and soaking the ground around his home, in what surely seemed a futile attempt to ward off the impending danger.

Nikos told me he had been doing this for two days. He had packed a bag with a few clothes and, along with his wife and their dog, was prepared to leave – if the authorities forced him to do so. “Only if someone puts a gun to my head,” he told me. Like so many in these villages, he had poured his life into this little house.

In the event, no such persuasion was needed. The police arrived to evacuate the village, and Nikos in tears, reluctantly did as he was told, leaving his house with just a little damp earth and the faintest of hopes to protect it.

This 300 square mile national park, filled with verdant forests and ancient archeological sites, is known as “the lungs of Athens,” and with good reason. As well as offering city dwellers a haven from the ancient city’s cloying summers, its vast woodlands perform the twin tasks of cleaning the polluted air and absorbing the intense heat that often grips the metropolis.

Now it is the home to a raging battle, as the emergency services try to repel more than 200 wildfires in Greece since Monday alone. By day the air is filled with smoke and the noise of sirens, the cries of villagers and rescue workers, and the insistent shudder of helicopter rotors, as firefighters attempt to quell the flames from above.

That air support is crucial, we were told, but only possible during daylight. Once night falls the choppers leave, but the heat remains, and the fires burn on.

One invisible foe is the wind, which can help ignite a blaze from almost nothing, and urge it on to devour fresh ground. “Last night was hell”, Kostas, a firefighter, told us. “The wind is our greatest enemy; nothing can be taken for granted.” On Thursday, as we prepared a live shot, we found this out for ourselves, as a small nearby fire suddenly reared into a ferocious blaze, forcing us to run.

As day breaks and helicopters rejoin the fight, the fires’ progress is etched into the hillside. A line of vivid green virgin forest abruptly ends, replaced by wide expanses of black, charred earth and the spindly carcasses of trees. Nothing is spared.

Similar fires are raging across Greece, and with so many frontlines there are simply not enough firefighters in the country to stop them. This week the fire brigade announced that the burned remains of 18 people had been found in a shack close to the Dadia Forest in Alexandroupoli in Evros. The fires the largest on record in the EU, according to the bloc.

The impact reaches further than the burned trees and homes. The immediate effects are obvious, you can feel them in the parched air scratching at your throat and stinging your eyes and see them in the blackened water cascading beneath you as you wash. Breathing is hard and the air is thick with acrid smoke.

Then there are the impacts that will be felt into the future: Dr Michalis Diakakis from the Faculty of Geology and Geo-Environment at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, told us that the loss of forests would raise the risks of flooding and landslides. Their role in cleaning the air and moderating the temperatures of neighboring Athens would be lost, and the impacts of climate change accelerated locally by their absence. Extreme heat is becoming the norm now, he told us.

Wildfires, which are often ignited by lightning strikes or human activity, are becoming more frequent because of human-caused climate change. Scientists found, for instance, that climate change made the extreme weather conditions that fueled the 2019-2020 destructive fire seasons in Australia 30% more likely to occur.

On Saturday, four days since the fire started, Parnitha was still ablaze with more virgin forest decimated. Once a carbon sink, it is now spewing ash and carbon into the atmosphere. A taxi driver described how he’s been washing his car three times a day to remove ash. He is 50km from Parnitha.

Alongside the wind, firefighters are also facing a more malign ally to the flames: incredibly, some of the fires seem to have been set deliberately. Police have made 79 arson related arrests so far. Disbelief is beginning to turn to anger among many Greeks. Dr Diakakis questioned the motives of those behind these acts. “I cannot believe these people are all simply arsonists,” he said. “Why are they doing this?”

A few hours after we watched Nikos evacuated from his village, we returned there. The flames had gone, leaving crumbling, ashen walls and seared rooftops behind them. But as we retraced our steps, we saw something that lifted our hearts: there was Nikos’ house, still standing. Its ring of water had done its job and the little home had been spared. It was a welcome glimmer of hope, but it will take more than a little water to protect Greece from these wildfires and those that will surely come again.a

When Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States and European Union accelerated their pivot towards Serbia. Rather than juggling the contradictory demands of pluralistic and fractious Balkan states, Western capitals focused the bulk of their efforts on a singular target.

Their policies had two aims. First, to bring Serbia into the Western fold, away from Russia. Second, to allow their respective administrations to focus more fully on supporting Ukraine.

Traditionally one of Moscow’s closest allies in Europe, Belgrade has long tried to tread the line between its historical ties to Russia and a potential future of closer European integration. Western diplomats have sought to pull Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic from the orbit of his Russian counterpart, President Vladimir Putin, by pledging a swifter path to EU membership while simultaneously warning of isolation if they break rank.

But, 18 months on, some observers say the current approach has been all carrot and no stick, and as a result is failing to achieve both of its aims.

Serbia has refused to participate in all rounds of EU sanctions against Putin. And Serbia has continued to pursue its own interests in the region with diminishing accountability, stirring conflicts abroad to distract from discontent at home, safe in the knowledge they will not be rebuked in the West.

The effects of this have been felt most keenly in Kosovo, which achieved independence from Serbia in 2008, after the bloody Balkan wars of the 1990s. But Belgrade – and many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo’s north – still refuse to recognize its sovereignty, straining relations between the neighbors.

‘A Russian Trojan horse’

Western governments have long treated Serbia as the indispensable Balkan voice, sometimes at the expense of more peripheral players, some observers say.

While consecutive US administrations have tried to bring Vucic and his Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) “in from the cold,” these efforts “have become especially brazen” since the war began in Ukraine, Mujanovic said, and have not achieved the US’ objectives.

Vucic has long maintained a cozy relationship with his Russian counterpart, Putin. Speaking after a National Security Council meeting in February, Vucic justified his decision not to sanction Russia because it was “the only country not to have imposed sanctions against us in the 1990s.”

“They supported our territorial integrity in the United Nations,” he added, referring to Russia’s refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Serbia lost control of Kosovo after a NATO bombing campaign in 1999, which ended the massacre of ethnic Albanians – who make up more than 90% of Kosovo’s population – by Serb forces.

Despite EU-supported efforts toward energy transition, Serbia remains heavily dependent on Russia, having sold a majority stake of its oil company to Russia state-owned giant Gazprom.

The result is that, despite Serbia’s professed hopes to join the EU, Vucic has continued to walk a tightrope between Moscow and Western powers. Though he has joined UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Serbia’s leader has shown little willingness to join western sanctions.

In April, the Serbian government denied reports that it sold weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, after a leaked Pentagon document emerged claiming otherwise. Serbia said at the time that it maintained its policy of neutrality, though some Western officials took the reports as proof that their policy was working.

“When we had his [Vucic’s 2020] re-election, we were all told, just wait until after the election, you’ll suddenly see that he becomes very Western- and European- oriented,” said Kearns. “It didn’t happen.”

“We were told he would join sanctions and show that he is genuinely on our side. It didn’t happen. We were told he wouldn’t get closer to Russia. He signed a security agreement with Putin in September. Time after time, he laughs in the face of the West. And when I ask Western officials, ‘why are you so determined to let Vucic play you?’ they say he is the best option,” said Kearns.

Serbia’s foreign minister said at the time that the agreement with Russia laid out plans for consultations on a number of activities but not did not include security policy, Reuters reported.

Given such behavior, some question whether the whole project of Serbian integration is viable, under its current government.

“Yes, you may affect enlargement, but you’re certainly not going to neutralize Russian influence in the region – you’re just going to import it into the EU.”

“Serbia is deeply committed to becoming a member of the European Union, and has voted for the United Nations resolution condemning Russian actions in Ukraine and has upheld it’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, and repeatedly sent various types of aid.”

Kosovo and the rule of law

The effects of the West’s forgiving approach to Belgrade are felt most keenly in Kosovo, which has depended on Western support since declaring independence. While more than 100 countries recognize its sovereignty, Serbia does not, viewing it instead as a breakaway state. Attempts to normalize relations between the two countries – overseen by the US and EU – have been fraught and occasionally violent.

The fiercest flashpoint came after mayoral elections Kosovo’s four northern municipalities in May. These elections often pass without fanfare: Around 90% of the population in this region are ethnic Serbs, and so, under ordinary circumstances, they elect ethnic Serbs as their mayors.

But these were not ordinary circumstances. In November, mayors from the Belgrade-backed Serb List party, which dominates the four municipalities, simultaneously resigned. They were followed by ethnic Serb police officers, administrative staff and judges in the region.

Their resignations triggered new elections, due to be held in December. Serb List said it would not participate in the elections, after Serbs in the region boycotted them, with Vucic’s full support. But, given the tensions, Kosovo agreed to postpone the elections until April – a decision that was praised by the Quint, an informal group comprising the US, UK, France, Germany and Italy.

With Kosovo Serbs not participating, ethnic Albanian candidates ran unchallenged. Election officials said only around 1,500 people voted across the four municipalities – a turnout of just 3.5%. Some mayors were elected with scarcely more than 100 votes.

But while the elections were by no means representative, for Kosovo’s Prime Minister Albin Kurti, the issue had come to represent nothing less than the rule of law itself.

However, the prime minister’s stance has been criticized as hardline and uncompromising. His allies accused him of forcing entry to the mayor’s offices on May 26, when many were surrounded by protesters, against explicit instructions.

“The US did tell Kurti – and this is where he’s at fault – they told him not to install them in the municipal buildings. And this is where Kurti ignored the specific direction,” said Edward Joseph, a foreign policy lecturer at Johns Hopkins University who served for a dozen years in the Balkans, including with NATO.

But while Kurti may have taken an uncoordinated action, the response to this was not inevitable. The worst of the violence came not on the day the mayors entered their offices, but three days later, in the town of Zvecan – when the mayor was not even in the building.

The violence was extreme. Dozens of NATO peacekeepers were injured after they were attacked by ethnic Serbs. Some injuries were severe: Three Hungarian soldiers were shot; one had his leg amputated.

Despite this, much of the diplomatic response has focused on Kurti’s actions, for which Kosovo has paid a heavy price. Since the fallout from the elections, Kosovo has been disinvited from joint military exercises with the US, excluded from European infrastructure projects and slapped with sanctions that the Kosovar Business Alliance says could cost its economy €500 million ($550 million) by the end of this year.

Kearns criticized the “unbalanced” response from the West, saying it ignored the true cause of the troubles. “The start of the crisis was the Serbian government committing foreign interference in domestic Kosovar affairs, where they told Kosovar Serbs not to vote in the local elections. That is foreign interference,” she said.

Kurti has tried to proclaim Kosovo’s sovereignty against the twin forces of foreign interference and organized violence, to which, according to Mujanovic, the US and EU have responded: “No. That is not appropriate in these circumstances.”

‘The Zelensky of the Balkans’

Given Kosovo’s reliance on Western backing, some fear Kurti’s intransigence is frustrating his allies and weakening his country. Some are calling for a complete change of tack.

Serbia’s Presevo Valley represents the flipside of the north of Kosovo. Whereas Kosovo’s north is populated mostly by ethnic Serbs in an Albanian-majority country, the Presevo Valley is populated mostly by ethnic Albanians in a Serb-majority country.

The best way to improve the situation, Arifi said, is for Kurti to do as Western allies demand: Work to create as “Association of Serb Municipalities” (ASM) in the north of Kosovo.

Kurti has been accused of preventing the implementation of self-governing municipalities for Serbs, as outlined in the 2013 Brussels Agreement aimed at normalizing relations between the Balkan neighbors. Under the agreement, Serbia could create the ASM in northern Kosovo, which would operate under Kosovo’s legal system, with Kosovar police remaining the only law enforcement authority.

A decade on, these municipalities have not been created, leaving disputes to fester over the degree of autonomy for Kosovo Serbs.

But there are doubts as to whether this solution – now being forcefully pushed by the US and EU – will ease tensions.

There are also concerns that the ASM could beckon more geopolitical tensions.

“We don’t know what these municipalities will be,” said Kearns. “Will it just be that the local municipalities are responsible for their own water and electricity and taxes? Or is it that it is going to be a new Republika Srpska? The reality is, I don’t think anyone wants another Republika Srpska.”

Republika Srpska, one of the two entities comprising Bosnia and Herzegovina, proclaimed independence in 1992 and was formally recognized under the Dayton Agreement of 1995. In recent months, its pro-Russian President Milorad Dodik has tried to pave the way for its secession from Bosnia.

In June, Republika Srpska lawmakers voted to suspend rulings by Bosnia’s constitutional court, in a move described by experts as “legal secession” and a grave contravention of the Dayton Agreement. The US condemned the move, saying it threatened Bosnia’s sovereignty.

“The folks in Pristina and Kurti have made it very, very clear that they see in the autonomous municipalities a new Republika Srpska. And they don’t see in that model a solution for Kosovo. They see a new version, a new generation of crisis for Kosovo, and ultimately the region as a whole,” said Mujanovic.

The wrong horse?

Throughout the recent months of tensions, the US and EU have continually reiterated their commitment to the cause of bringing Vucic on side. But Serbia has acted with increasing abandon, representing what Kearns called “a failure of deterrence diplomacy.”

One damaging episode came in Ohrid, North Macedonia, in March when, after months of negotiations brokered by the US and EU, Serbia and Kosovo finally accepted a bilateral agreement aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries. But, while this was heralded as a breakthrough, Vucic left the negotiations without having signed the document, claiming in a TV address that he was unable to do so: “I have excruciating pain in my right hand… that pain is expected to continue for four years.”

Another came when Serbian authorities detained three Kosovo police officers, which it claimed were “deep inside the territory of central Serbia” and preparing to commit “an act of terrorism.” But Kosovo insisted that the officers had been “kidnapped” within Kosovo’s borders and that Serbia had committed and “act of aggression.”

The US and EU were slow to respond to this incident. KFOR, NATO’s Kosovo Force, issued a statement 48 hours after the officers were reported missing. The US issued a statement three days later, claiming that the arrests were made on “spurious charges.”

And yet Serbia was not punished for the detentions. The officers’ release was secured two weeks later – not by Western allies, but by Hungarian PM Orban.

“The question here is: Who in the Biden administration still believes that Vucic is this partner?” he said, pointing to the recent sanctioning of Aleksandar Vulin, director of Serbia’s intelligence service, as evidence that the Biden administration “is no longer captive to fear and illusion about Vucic.”

But whether this translates into a change of policy is unclear.

In the meantime, Vucic has raised the stakes. In response to the sanctioning of Vulin, Vucic banned arms exports from Serbia for 30 days, claiming “everything must be prepared in case of aggression against the Republic of Serbia.”

“He’s basically saying ‘we’re going to go into conflict, we have to stop all of the weapon exports right now, because we need it for our national security.’ He’s literally threatening war. I’ve never seen him so explicit before,” said Ruge of the ECFR.

And the president’s message has been taken up by some Serbian citizens. At Red Star Belgrade soccer match last month, nationalist Serb fans held up a banner reading “When the army returns to Kosovo.” Vucic attended the match, according to local media.

Some of our strongest memories can be rooted in scents and sounds.

Human brains are wired in a way to make connections between memory and the senses, such as hearing a favorite song and recalling a road trip in which you listened to it on repeat — or smelling freshly baked bread and remembering times in the kitchen with your grandmother.

Scientists also rely on the senses to create connections to the past, analyzing fossils, genetics and even dirt to reconstruct the appearance of ancient humans and extinct creatures.

However, opportunities to connect with bygone sounds or smells have been more rare — until now.

A long time ago

The aroma of mummification balms used by ancient Egyptians has been recreated in what researchers are calling “the scent of eternal life.”

Scientists studied balm residue that remained inside canopic jars once used to store the mummified organs of a noblewoman named Senetnay when she died more than 3,500 years ago.

The aromatic balms included a complex blend of beeswax, plant oils and rare tree resins from distant lands that were likely brought to Egypt via sophisticated trade routes.

The researchers teamed up with a perfumer to resurrect the scent, which will add olfactory enhancement to a new exhibit at Denmark’s Moesgaard Museum in October.

Barbara Huber, doctoral researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, said she hopes it will allow “visitors to truly ‘breathe in’ a fragment of antiquity.”

Climate changed

Polar bears have long been considered a threatened species, but scientists have now found evidence that links human activity with the survival rates of the arctic bears.

The animals depend on ice sheets to find their prey, but global warming is causing an increase in sea ice loss that starves the bears.

Sea ice loss is largely attributed to human-related greenhouse gas emissions. When the ice disappears, the bears are forced to go on land and attempt to survive without access to food.

The authors of the landmark study, published this week, hope their research could provide the bears with better protections going forward.

Meanwhile, Chinese people are living longer thanks to a targeted “war on pollution” to improve the country’s air quality. The effort also contributed to a global decrease in pollution levels, according to a new report.

Across the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the colorful clouds of the Ring Nebula and shared stunning new portraits of the celestial phenomenon.

The planetary nebula, an enormous cloud of cosmic gas and dust, is home to the remnants of a dying star.

Webb’s fresh perspective has revealed unprecedented details that could help scientists understand the stellar forces behind the nebula’s chaotic appearance.

Separately, astronomers used 12 ground- and space-based telescopes to unravel the mystery of a rapidly spinning dead star that puffs out “cosmic cannonballs” into space.

We are family

Twenty years ago, archaeologists made an extraordinary discovery on the Indonesian island of Flores that added a new wrinkle to the complicated story of human evolution.

Despite new research in the decades since, the fossils belonging to an enigmatic ancient human hobbit known as Homo floresiensis are still the subject of heated scientific debate.

Recovered from a cave, the bones were those of an adult female hominin with primitive features that stood just over 3 feet (1 meter) tall and weighed 66 pounds (30 kilograms). The hobbit lived on the island about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Scientists are still trying to understand how the hobbits reached the island, what contributed to their small stature, how they are related to humans — and what ultimately caused them to disappear after nearly 1 million years.

Wild kingdom

A surreal-looking Mediterranean monk seal, the “forest rodeo” of a macaque catching a ride on a deer’s back and a perfectly posed leopard are a few of the highlights of the 2023 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition.

While some of the images capture the lighter side of the natural world, others showcase the ways humans are affecting the planet (and some of the photos aren’t for the faint of heart).

Kathy Moran, chair of the judging panel, said the judges felt a “powerful tension between wonder and woe” during the selection process.

The Natural History Museum in London created the competition 59 years ago, and 100 images will be exhibited once the winners are announced in October.

Curiosities

Catch up on these intriguing reads:

— Construction workers unearthed the ruins of an ancient Roman temple in Italy, and their initial discovery is just the beginning of treasures waiting to be unearthed.

— Pilots evacuating a Florida air base ahead of Hurricane Idalia’s landfall witnessed bright flashes in the sky called St. Elmo’s fire (and no, we’re not talking about the 1985 film).

— India launched its first spacecraft to study the sun on Saturday morning, just weeks after the country successfully landed a mission on the moon.

Did you miss this week’s blue supermoon? See images from around the world showcasing this rare sight, which won’t happen again until 2037.

A Russian network of internet trolls has begun to spread messages online blaming “enemies from the West” for the plane crash that killed Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin last week, according to two experts who monitor the activity of the trolls.

Prigozhin had previously turbo-charged the use of trolls to push messages designed to disrupt and polarize western societies. His St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency created hundreds of fake accounts on social networks aiming to meddle in other countries’ politics, leading the United States in 2018 to sanction Prigozhin for election meddling.

It’s unclear whether the Internet Research Agency still exists, especially in the light of US sanctions and the short-lived mutiny led by Prigozhin at the end of June. But two groups of independent analysts – Bot Blocker and Chef’s Trap – have been analyzing several dozen Russian troll accounts on the social networks Vkontakte and X, formerly known as Twitter.

The accounts only comment on Russia-Ukraine related news posts and pro-Ukrainian channels, spreading exactly the same narratives.

They were united in spreading two themes: Putin had no motive to kill Prigozhin, as the two had already resolved the issues related to Prigozhin’s mutiny, and that his presumed death was the work of the West, which opposes Wagner influence in Africa.

According to Bot Blocker, the messages carrying these narratives started to appear on August 23 around 8 p.m. Moscow time, which coincides with the time pro-Wagner Telegram channels started sharing reports of Prigozhin’s death.

Officially, the list of passengers on board, which included Prigozhin’s surname, was published by the Russian authorities at 11 p.m. Moscow time on August 23.

Public posts available show these narratives are still being actively spread.

Trolls shift blame from Putin

Referring to Prigozhin’s death, one post said: “We need to think about who benefits from this. It’s that same West, for which PMC Wagner in Africa was a threat.”

“It didn’t even make sense for Putin to kill Prigozhin, especially when their affairs were normal,” said another account, also replying in a thread where the idea of Putin being behind the plane crash was debated.

“I suppose the West deliberately staged a terrorist attack in order to pit the elites against each other inside Russia… Purely American method, already proven many times,” said another, replying to a news post on Prigozhin’s apparent death.

After Prigozhin’s apparent death, all the trolls’ references to Prigozhin are complimentary and positive. If the rebellion is mentioned, then it’s only as a long-exhausted issue,” Bot Blocker added.

According to the initial analysis from Bot Blocker, there were no changes in rhetoric after the official confirmation of Prigozhin’s death.

The watchdog group chose its name in reference to Prigozhin’s well-known nickname of “Putin’s Chef.”

“Mainly these messages are generally aimed at filling the information field with all sorts of conjectures and ideas, justifying the Kremlin in every possible way,” said the Chef’s Trap creator, who also asked to remain anonymous for security reasons.

The Chef’s Trap creator also says they picked up similar trends when analyzing such posts on Vkontakte: Wagner’s activities in Africa were inconvenient to the West and therefore Western officials decided to remove him, and Putin had no reason to kill Prigozhin since they had already resolved their issues.

The project began its operations in 2019 and analyzes thousands of posts a day. It has developed an automated system that identifies allegedly fake accounts, along with messages determined to be from trolls.

“Why would Putin kill Prigozhin? (Prigozhin) was Putin’s friend who always helped him with every request. Therefore it was not beneficial for Russia to lose such a person,” said one post.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive is “moving forward” after Kyiv made some headway in its campaign to recapture territory seized by Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday.

“Ukrainian forces are moving forward. Despite everything and no matter what anyone says, we are advancing, and that is the most important thing. We are on the move,” Zelenksy said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

It is unclear if Zelensky is referring to a specific official or comment, but he appears to be trying to reverse the narrative that Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive has, to date, delivered poorer-than-expected results. Some media outlets carried reports citing Western officials saying Ukraine had spread its troops too thinly.

After much anticipation, the counteroffensive formally got underway in mid-June. Gains, though, have been hard won and there have been no captures of major settlements as Kyiv’s troops encountered well-defended Russian lines.

Despite continued sluggish progress, Kyiv said in mid-July it felt no pressure for quick results. By the end of the month, Ukraine had committed more troops to the southeast of the country, a sign that it had identified potential weaknesses in Russian defensive lines.

That decision appears to be yielding some results. In recent days, the Ukrainian military has notched victories in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, this week penetrating the “first line” of Russian defenses.

Ukraine’s military said on Saturday it was consolidating its positions there and conducting counter-battery fire near Robotyne, a strategically located village in Zaporizhzhia that Ukrainian troops secured last week.

That progress is a sign that Kyiv is edging closer to Moscow’s sprawling network of fortified trenches along the southern front.

John Kirby, the coordinator for strategic communications at the US National Security Council, said Friday that Ukrainian forces had made “notable progress” in the previous three days, achieving “some success against (the) second line of Russian defenses.”

Further gains there would help Ukraine break the “land bridge” connecting mainland Russia to the Crimean Peninsula, which Kremlin annexed from Kyiv in 2014 in violation of international law.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense, however, said Saturday it had repelled four Ukrainian attacks in the area around Robotyne and a the nearby settlement of Verbove.

Kuleba added that those criticizing the pace of the counteroffensive should pay greater consideration to the soldiers leading it.

“How does it feel when you come back from your mission and you take back your phone, you open it, and you start reading all the smart people saying how slow you are and that you’re not doing well enough?” Kuleba said.