western

The Russian Federation resumes its invasion of Ukraine with little concern for the country’s sanctions, loss of soft power, and numerous military losses. Despite spending much of 2025 attempting to decouple Russia from China, the Kremlin has not reciprocated with goodwill to the Trump Administration. Instead, Moscow continues to stall negotiations to buy time to complete its military objectives.

Instead, Moscow can be brought under pressure for a negotiated settlement or full military withdrawal from Ukraine by limiting Russian influence as much as possible through its defense alliance, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). A coalition that is thinly held together, CSTO has increasingly fractured in Moscow’s orbit, and the West has a chance to pressure the Russian government by isolating Russia from its own military alliance.

Ongoing Attempts to End the Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Against the backdrop of Donald Trump assuming the presidency for the second time, the Administration has made a key goal to try to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine as quickly as possible. Originally trying to decouple Russia from China, the Administration attempted to bring the Kremlin to the negotiating table by voting against a United Nations resolution condemning the invasion, reducing weapons deliveries to Ukraine, and applying more pressure on Kyiv than Moscow.

Instead, Washington has found itself at a crossroads as the Kremlin has continued an aggressive posture, even when the U.S. government publicly ambushed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as an attempt to bring Moscow to the table.

The Alaska Summit was intended to find a close solution to ending the war in Ukraine—potentially frozen lines akin to those on the Korean Peninsula, without guaranteed NATO membership for Kyiv. Still, Moscow’s demands included no Western troops providing peacekeeping, full sanctions lifting, and the entirety of the Donbas region, which Russian forces still do not control fully, including the remaining fortress cities under Ukrainian control.

Seeking options to finally bring Moscow to concrete talks, the U.S. and Western governments should utilize their global soft power by decoupling countries long considered Russian vassals and helping them grow more independent of Russia.

Russia is Losing Control of Its Former Sphere of Influence

During the invasion of Ukraine, Russia has suffered militarily and diplomatically. Countries that were initially hesitant to upset the Kremlin have begun to reassess their relations with Moscow, including some CSTO member states.

Formed in 2002, the CSTO comprises Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Armenia as its member states. However, not all members of CSTO have been synchronized and on the same page.

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have experienced numerous border clashes due to the Soviet Union’s reconfiguration of their perimeter. Belarus and Armenia are engrossed in a diplomatic conflict, and Kazakhstan has pushed back against Russia’s historical revisionism, moving closer to China. Furthermore, due to numerous inactions taken by Russia during the Second Karabakh War, Armenia has not only strained relations with the former but also limited their participation in CSTO.

Outside of the CSTO, Russia has also suffered military setbacks and lost influence in certain parts of Africa and the Middle East. Russian mercenaries are taking heavy casualties in the Sahel with their junta allies in Mali and Sudan on the back foot against jihadists, Tuareg separatists, and the Sudanese army, respectively.

Against the backdrop of the collapse of the Ba’athist Syrian military, Russia would lose its strategically important naval base in Tartus and its only military stronghold in the Middle East. Without Syria, not only is Russia’s Mediterranean fleet limited in maritime maneuvers, but also the shadow fleet of tankers will not have a key base to dock and export fuel to continue the Kremlin’s war effort.

How to Bring CSTO Nations into the Fold

Russia’s costly and miscalculated invasion and prolonged occupation have only isolated the country into a de facto vassal status of China. With waning Russian influence, the West can use rapprochement policies towards CSTO countries to decouple them from the Kremlin’s orbit.

In Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan have developed closer relations with China and Turkey; however, pivotal Western policies, such as the United States’ promotion of sovereignty without Russian interference in 2023, have also played an integral role in enhancing relations in the region. President Trump could continue advancing this Biden Administration policy that further sidesteps Russia while ongoing trade negotiations continue.

In the South Caucasus, the economic corridor submitted between Azerbaijan and Armenia as part of a planned peace agreement has excluded Russia from the finalized documents. The Trump Administration scored a key diplomatic victory after years of the U.S. government’s rapprochement with Armenia following the 2020 war.

France has played a key role in American relations in the South Caucasus, as Paris is at the forefront of limiting Russian influence in the region, as Moscow has done the same towards French soft power in Africa. With Armenia’s government showing signs of wanting to transform into a full Western democracy with potential European Union membership, the U.S. should, in the future, promote Yerevan towards non-NATO ally status.

Regarding Belarus, its armed forces have shot down more Russian drones than NATO during the ongoing invasion. Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime leader of Belarus, arguably sticks close to Russia after decades of isolation from Europe due to his authoritarian policies.

Nevertheless, the West could initiate a slow and gradual process of rapprochement with Belarus—neither lifting sanctions, but offering Lukashenko amnesty and potential exile in a comfortable villa if the Belarusian autocrat promotes democratic norms and gradually drifts away from Russia.

Utilizing soft power, not just through sanctions, is a policy the West can use going forward to apply pressure on Russia. With Moscow’s drifting soft power in several regions while relations with CSTO continue to drift, the United States and Europe have an opportunity for rapprochement to isolate the Kremlin further and bring the Russian government to get serious in negotiations for their invasion of Ukraine, finally.

HIGH SCHOOL FLAG FOOTBALL

FRIDAY’S RESULTS

CITY SECTION

Huntington Park 20, Kennedy 7

Sotomayor 21, New Designs University Park 0

Sotomayor 8, New Designs University Park 7

Wilson 37, Huntington Park 6

Wilson 38, Kennedy 0

SOUTHERN SECTION

Aliso Niguel 13, Long Beach Poly 6

Classical Academy 53, Mission Viejo 0

Dos Pueblos 12, Aliso Niguel 0

Dos Pueblos 20, Fullerton 6

Esperanza 19, Woodbridge 6

Esperanza 19, Mira Costa 0

Fullerton 20, Long Beach Poly 6

Gahr 34, Cypress 13

Hacienda Heights Wilson 13, Villa Park 12

Lancaster 19, Saugus 12

Long Beach Cabrillo 33, Glenn 22

Long Beach Jordan 42, Mayfair 6

Mater Dei 25, Mission Viejo 0

Mission Hills 30, Santa Monica 0

Norwalk 13, Western 6

Orange Lutheran 32, Warren 6

Orange Lutheran 12, Western Christian 0

Sage Hill 15, Garden Grove Pacifica 0

Segerstrom 33, Garden Grove Santiago 0

St. Anthony 12, St. Paul 7

Vasquez 33, PACS 0

Villa Park 12, Hacienda Heights Wilson 13

Western Christian 20, Warren 6

INTERSECTIONAL

LA Marshall 35, Alemany 6

Mission Hills 30, Santa Monica 0

Vincent Memorial 28, Mira Costa 6

Vincent Memorial 21, Woodbridge 19

SATURDAY’S RESULTS

SOUTHERN SECTION

Agoura 20, Ayala 6

Agoura 48, Oxnard Pacifica 7

Anaheim Canyon 12, Upland 0

Anaheim Canyon 25, Upland 6

Ayala 39, Oxnard Pacifica 6

Beaumont 51, Shadow Hills 16

Bishop Amat 20, Hart 6

Bonita 25, West Covina 12

Bonita 45, San Gabriel 0

Bonita 48, Sierra Vista 0

Buena Park 14, Nogales 7

California 32, Montebello 0

Camarillo 26, Sherman Oaks Notre Dame 8

Camarillo 33, Westlake 22

Canyon Springs 19, Yucaipa 7

Chaparral 33, Ontario Christian 8

Chino 13, Colton 0

Citrus Valley 23, Los Osos 19

Corona Santiago 6, El Dorado 0

Esperanza 20, Aliso Niguel 14

Fillmore 24, Calabasas 7

Fullerton 7, Mission Viejo 6

Keppel 12, Baldwin Park 12

La Sierra 23, California Military Institute 6

Los Osos 50, Victor Valley 2

Mater Dei 20, Esperanza 19

Mission Viejo 14, Long Beach Poly 13

Newbury Park 44, Highland 16

Norco 18, Murrieta Valley 0

Orange Lutheran 26, Aliso Niguel 0

Oxnard 52, Thousand Oaks 6

Oxnard 54, St. Bonaventure 0

Rio Mesa 28, Fillmore 0

Rio Mesa 46, Calabasas 0

Riverside Poly 21, Canyon Springs 0

Riverside Poly 24, Yucaipa 7

San Marcos 52, Highland 6

San Marcos 33, Newbury Park 12

Santa Margarita 13, San Marcos 0

Santa Margarita 44, Newbury Park 12

Sierra Vista 25, San Gabriel 15

Temescal Canyon 2, Norco 0

Temecula Prep 20, Chaparral 12

Temecula Prep 32, Temecula Valley 0

Temple City 28, Arroyo 6

Thousand Oaks 19, St. Bonaventure 14

Upland 19, South Hills 13

Upland 26, Corona Santiago 19

Warren 13, Mira Costa 6

Warren 12, Fullerton 7

Westlake 28, Camarillo 6

Woodbridge 13, Mission Viejo 0

Woodbridge 20, Warren 0

INTERSECTIONAL

Castaic 7, San Fernando 0

Bonita Vista 18, Downey 2

North County San Marcos 27, Santa Monica 0

Valencia 26, Kennedy 12

Aug. 10 (UPI) — Four C-130 military aircraft equipped with firefighting equipment have been deployed to battle a series of wildfires in the western United States as triple digit temperatures and low humidity readings combine to create conditions for blazes to spark and spread rapidly, government officials reported Sunday.

Two of the large tanker planes have been deployed from the Colorado Springs Airtanker base and the other pair from Mesa Gateway Airport in Mesa, Ariz.

There are currently 37 large wildfires burning across the United States, which have prompted officials to deploy 374 crews, 975 engines, 125 helicopters and 13 incident management teams to battle the blazes, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Nearly 43,000 fires have blackened more than 3.6 million acres across the country in 2025. That is nearly twice as many fires as last year, but the blazes this wildfire season have burned nearly half as many acres.

Forecasters predict wind gusts of up to 25 mph and single digit humidity readings in the Four Corners area will persist into the first part of the week, heightening the danger, creating conditions for fires to spread.

“Lighter winds, but still dry conditions are expected across the rest of the Great Basin and into the central Rockies,” the NIFC said Sunday.

“Hot, above normal temperatures and low (relative humidity) will spread across most of California and southern Oregon away from the coast.”

There are seven fires burning in California and Colorado, 6 in Arizona, 5 in Idaho and three fires each in Washington, Utah and Nevada.

Firefighters routinely battle challenging terrain in addition to the weather, making it especially difficult to contain fires in the most remote areas.

A group of over two dozen mostly European foreign ministers denounced Israeli attacks on Palestinian aid seekers in a joint statement condemning the “drip feeding” of aid and saying “the war in Gaza must end now.”

Moscow is closely monitoring the West’s supply of weapons to Ukraine, the Kremlin’s spokesperson says shortly after United States President Donald Trump announced the resumption of arms deliveries to Kyiv.

Dmitry Peskov also noted on Wednesday that a new phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was not currently planned but could quickly be arranged, according to Russian news reports.

The comments from the Kremlin came two days after the US president showed growing impatience with Russia over its war in Ukraine.

In his sharpest rebuke of Moscow so far, Trump announced on Monday that Putin had until early September, 50 days, to accept a peace deal or his country would face steep US sanctions.

Trump said they would be secondary tariffs targeting Russia’s trading partners in a bid to isolate it from the global economy.

Russia’s approach, in the meantime, is to “keep calm and carry on” in the face of Trump’s threats, experts said. There’s no certainty the pressure will push Putin towards ending the war.

On the campaign trail before November’s presidential election, Trump boasted that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.

However, after at least six phone conversations between Trump and Putin as well as several meetings between US officials and officials from Russia and Ukraine, no ceasefire has been reached.

“My conversations with him are very pleasant, and then the missiles go off at night,” Trump said of his frustration with Putin.

The US leader added that he would supply more weapons to Ukraine with European allies buying “billions and billions” of dollars of US military equipment to be transferred to Kyiv.

Patriot air defence systems are included in the plan, which Ukraine needs to defend itself against Russian missile and drone attacks.

Trump, however, has said Ukraine should not target Moscow after he reportedly asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy if Kyiv could strike the Russian capital if he provided long-range weaponry.

Trump made the comments after The Financial Times on Tuesday reported that Trump had encouraged Zelenskyy to step up strikes deep inside Russian territory during their phone call on July 4.

The report, which quoted two unnamed people familiar with the discussion, said Trump had also asked his Ukrainian counterpart whether he could hit Moscow and St Petersburg if supplied with weapons with enough range.

In response to a question on Tuesday about whether Zelenskyy should target Moscow, Trump told reporters at the White House that he should not.

Overnight, the Russian military launched 400 drones and one ballistic missile, targeting cities across Ukraine, including Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and Vinnytsia.

The strikes injured at least 15 people and damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian authorities said on Wednesday.

Power was down for 80,000 families in Kryvyi Rih and other parts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK said on Telegram.

The Ukrainian air force stated it had successfully shot down most of the drones but 12 targets were hit by 57 drones and the missile.

In recent weeks, Moscow has increased its aerial bombardments against Ukraine with daily record numbers of drones and missiles being fired.

“Russia does not change its strategy, and to effectively counter this terror, we need a systemic strengthening of defences: more air defences, more interceptor [missiles], more determination to make Russia feel our response,” Zelenskyy wrote on X on Wednesday.

After starting his second presidential term in January, Trump sought to portray Washington’s support for Ukraine as a drain on US resources.

Despite Trump’s more critical stance against Moscow this week, some American politicians continue to express concerns about his approach, warning that Putin could use the 50-day tariff deadline to capture more Ukrainian territory.

In a report that has yet to be independently verified, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that its army seized the settlement of Novokhatske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

In March, NewsGuard – a company that tracks misinformation – published a report claiming that generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, were amplifying Russian disinformation. NewsGuard tested leading chatbots using prompts based on stories from the Pravda network – a group of pro-Kremlin websites mimicking legitimate outlets, first identified by the French agency Viginum. The results were alarming: Chatbots “repeated false narratives laundered by the Pravda network 33 percent of the time”, the report said.

The Pravda network, which has a rather small audience, has long puzzled researchers. Some believe that its aim was performative – to signal Russia’s influence to Western observers. Others see a more insidious aim: Pravda exists not to reach people, but to “groom” the large language models (LLMs) behind chatbots, feeding them falsehoods that users would unknowingly encounter.

NewsGuard said in its report that its findings confirm the second suspicion. This claim gained traction, prompting dramatic headlines in The Washington Post, Forbes, France 24, Der Spiegel, and elsewhere.

But for us and other researchers, this conclusion doesn’t hold up. First, the methodology NewsGuard used is opaque: It did not release its prompts and refused to share them with journalists, making independent replication impossible.

Second, the study design likely inflated the results, and the figure of 33 percent could be misleading. Users ask chatbots about everything from cooking tips to climate change; NewsGuard tested them exclusively on prompts linked to the Pravda network. Two-thirds of its prompts were explicitly crafted to provoke falsehoods or present them as facts. Responses urging the user to be cautious about claims because they are not verified were counted as disinformation. The study set out to find disinformation – and it did.

This episode reflects a broader problematic dynamic shaped by fast-moving tech, media hype, bad actors, and lagging research. With disinformation and misinformation ranked as the top global risk among experts by the World Economic Forum, the concern about their spread is justified. But knee-jerk reactions risk distorting the problem, offering a simplistic view of complex AI.

It’s tempting to believe that Russia is intentionally “poisoning” Western AI as part of a cunning plot. But alarmist framings obscure more plausible explanations – and generate harm.

So, can chatbots reproduce Kremlin talking points or cite dubious Russian sources? Yes. But how often this happens, whether it reflects Kremlin manipulation, and what conditions make users encounter it are far from settled. Much depends on the “black box” – that is, the underlying algorithm – by which chatbots retrieve information.

We conducted our own audit, systematically testing ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and Grok using disinformation-related prompts. In addition to re-testing the few examples NewsGuard provided in its report, we designed new prompts ourselves. Some were general – for example, claims about US biolabs in Ukraine; others were hyper-specific – for example, allegations about NATO facilities in certain Ukrainian towns.

If the Pravda network was “grooming” AI, we would see references to it across the answers chatbots generate, whether general or specific.

We did not see this in our findings. In contrast to NewsGuard’s 33 percent, our prompts generated false claims only 5 percent of the time. Just 8 percent of outputs referenced Pravda websites – and most of those did so to debunk the content. Crucially, Pravda references were concentrated in queries poorly covered by mainstream outlets. This supports the data void hypothesis: When chatbots lack credible material, they sometimes pull from dubious sites – not because they have been groomed, but because there is little else available.

If data voids, not Kremlin infiltration, are the problem, then it means disinformation exposure results from information scarcity – not a powerful propaganda machine. Furthermore, for users to actually encounter disinformation in chatbot replies, several conditions must align: They must ask about obscure topics in specific terms; those topics must be ignored by credible outlets; and the chatbot must lack guardrails to deprioritise dubious sources.

Even then, such cases are rare and often short-lived. Data voids close quickly as reporting catches up, and even when they persist, chatbots often debunk the claims. While technically possible, such situations are very rare outside of artificial conditions designed to trick chatbots into repeating disinformation.

The danger of overhyping Kremlin AI manipulation is real. Some counter-disinformation experts suggest the Kremlin’s campaigns may themselves be designed to amplify Western fears, overwhelming fact-checkers and counter-disinformation units. Margarita Simonyan, a prominent Russian propagandist, routinely cites Western research to tout the supposed influence of the government-funded TV network, RT, she leads.

Indiscriminate warnings about disinformation can backfire, prompting support for repressive policies, eroding trust in democracy, and encouraging people to assume credible content is false. Meanwhile, the most visible threats risk eclipsing quieter – but potentially more dangerous – uses of AI by malign actors, such as for generating malware reported by both Google and OpenAI.

Separating real concerns from inflated fears is crucial. Disinformation is a challenge – but so is the panic it provokes.

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

A flawed start and a worrying amount of possession and opportunity for the Force gave way to a strong win in the end for the Lions.

McCarthy was a compelling force up front as the Lions backline eventually ran amok.

They will sweat on what looked like a hamstring injury for Williams, who had been playing like a thoroughbred.

Jamison Gibson-Park has not yet played for these Lions, although he is expected to be available for midweek in Brisbane. It is a worry for coach Andy Farrell.

The Lions got off to a flyer on the night after a sustained bout of possession when Russell dipped into his box of tricks with a sumptuous cross-kick to Sheehan on the right wing.

Sheehan tapped to James Lowe, who gave it back to his captain for the score. The creator banged over the conversion.

A blistering beginning, but there was trouble ahead. Just as the Lions scored with their first attack, so too did the Force.

Again it was a slow turning of the screw before White sprung from the bottom of a ruck just short the line. Ben Donaldson was good with the conversion.

The Force were heavy underdogs but for 40 minutes they played with a confidence that belied their poor season in Super Rugby. They repeatedly got into the Lions 22 and time and again the tourists got pinged.

The Lions conceded five penalties in 80 minutes against the Pumas in Dublin. They conceded four in 10 minutes in Perth. Sheehan was warned about the ill discipline of his team as early as the 11th minute. This is not how it was supposed to be.

If the Force had been more accurate they would have capitalised on all those entries into the Lions 22.

They won a penalty and went for touch on the right, but nothing came of it. They won another penalty and went for touch on the left, but nothing came of that either.

Credit the tenacity of the Lions defence too, but they were doing much of it. When they got ball in hand, they were the polar opposite of the Force.

It must have been a sickener for the hosts when the visitors lifted the siege in their own territory only to score straight away.

A break from Ireland’s Josh van der Flier, a big burst from England’s Pollock and a support line from Wales’ Williams and over they went. Ruthless. More Force wastefulness followed and soon another Lions try arrived.

Like the first, it was Russell at the root of it, his tap penalty, break and offload putting Daly over. A minor scuffle broke out in the aftermath.

The Force’s angst carried on. Once more they had a close-range lineout – and a one-man advantage after Pollock saw yellow at breakdown – but they could not execute.

Down here in Australia there’s a world of awe-inspiring wonders to behold, natural and man-made totems so stunning they can make your jaw drop to the floor.

Which, in a rugby context, is a power that David Campese still possesses, in a way that’s part-Alan Partridge with a hint of David Brent.

At times, the once-great wing makes you stand back in bewilderment at some of the things that he’s prepared to commit to air or print, with a seemingly unembarrassable air.

He was at it after the Lions loss to Argentina and he’s been at it again since. Maro Itoje is “not a captain”, he thundered. Itoje is not in the squad for the Force game, but it’s a revelation that a fine leader is not actually a leader at all.

“I don’t know why you play [Marcus] Smith at full-back [against the Pumas], [Blair] Kinghorn is a far better player.” The only problem with that searing contribution is that Kinghorn is still with Toulouse, Campo.

“There’s no [Brian] O’Driscoll at 13,” he continued. Er, well spotted. Andy Farrell, he says, is playing rugby league tactics that could put him in a lot of trouble against the Wallabies. Hmm. Didn’t Farrell’s Ireland beat the Wallabies last autumn?

Campo, to be fair, is an equal opportunities assassin, turning his guns on Joe Schmidt for wanting to play “Joe Schmidt rugby.” As opposed to…

His musings are all part of a Lions show in Australia. Frankly, if he wasn’t piping up you’d be minded to check his pulse. None of what he says – or what anybody else on the outside says – matters, of course.

The only thing that counts now is performance. And if this tour is going to reach lift-off on Saturday then perform the Lions must.

It should be a soaring Lions win. That’s not being disrespectful to the Force, it’s being realistic. The Force finished ninth of 11 in Super Rugby this season, the lowest of the four Australian franchises.

“They’re hard to beat,” said Farrell. Not really. They won four, lost nine and drew one.

Farrell tried to talk them up, suggesting that they weren’t far away in Super Rugby and that nine losing bonus points tells you that they “don’t go away”. But they do, regularly. They actually only got four losing bonus points. They conceded 45 points in two games and more than 50 in three more.

And, against the Lions, they’re missing three of their best players. Lock Jeremy Williams, back-row Carlo Tizzano and wing Potter have not been released from Wallaby camp for this one. Kurtley Beale is out injured. Nic White, the veteran scrum-half, leads the side.

Ireland’s Dan Sheehan will captain the British and Irish Lions in their opening game on Australian soil against the Western Force on Saturday.

Sheehan is one of five players in the starting line-up who will make their Lions debut in Perth, his Leinster team-mates Garry Ringrose, James Lowe, Joe McCarthy and Josh van der Flier being the others.

Four more Lions are set to make their debut off the bench – Ollie Chessum, Huw Jones, Andrew Porter and Will Stuart.

Northampton tyro Henry Pollock will make his first start having come off the bench against Argentina last Friday night.

Head coach Andy Farrell is still without Jamison Gibson-Park and Hugo Keenan, both inching their way back from injury, so Elliot Daly is in at full-back and Tomos Williams is rewarded for a fine cameo against the Pumas in Dublin with a start in the nine jersey.

Finn Russell also makes his starting Lions debut having only appeared as a replacement in his one appearance against South Africa four years ago – although he did play in two of the tour games.

Farrell goes with a new midfield combination in Ringrose and Scotland’s Sione Tuipulotu, who will make successive starts.

Tuipulotu and Tadhg Beirne are the only two players selected to start against Argentina and the Force, albeit both have moved position, the Scot from outside to inside centre and the Irishman from lock to blindside flanker.

Clashes with police have left at least one person dead and about 30 injured in a major banana-producing province.

Panama has declared a state of emergency in western Bocas del Toro province, where antigovernment protesters opposing a pension reform law are accused of setting fire to a baseball stadium and of looting businesses, including a provincial airport.

The protests that erupted two months ago in Bocas del Toro, a major banana-producing region, intensified this week, culminating in clashes with police that left one person dead and injured about 30 people, including several officers, police said on Friday.

Presidential Minister Juan Carlos Orillac said in a news conference on Friday that the move to suspend some constitutional rights and ban public gatherings would allow the government to reestablish order and “rescue” the province from “radical groups”, adding that the damage caused to public properties was “unacceptable and did not represent a legitimate protest”.

“In the face of the disruption of order and acts of systematic violence, the state will enforce its constitutional mandate to guarantee peace,” he said.

The measure will be in place for five days, he said.

The protesters, backed by unions and Indigenous groups across the country, have faced off with authorities over a pension reform law passed in March.

Confrontations have been particularly intense in Bocas del Toro, largely led by workers at a local Chiquita banana plantation. The multinational banana giant Chiquita called the workers’ strike an “unjustified abandonment of work” and sacked thousands of employees.

Those workers ultimately withdrew from the protests after they were able to negotiate the restoration of some benefits that had been removed under the March pension reform.

Still, the government has said roadblocks in Bocas del Toro have yet to be lifted, though it did not directly attribute them to the Chiquita workers.

The violence peaked in the city of Changuinola, Bocas del Toro’s main city, on Thursday when groups of hooded individuals looted businesses and partially set fire to a baseball stadium with police officers inside, authorities said.

Police said “vandals took over” the local airport, stole vehicles belonging to car rental companies, and looted an office and a warehouse containing supplies belonging to Chiquita. Flights at the airport were still suspended on Friday.

Panama’s right-wing President Jose Raul Mulino has been facing protests on several fronts in recent months.

Besides the pension reforms, Panamanians have also been in the streets over a deal Mulino struck with US President Donald Trump in April allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian bases along the Panama Canal.

Mulino made the concession to Trump after the US leader repeatedly threatened to “take back” the US-built waterway.

Mulino has also angered environmentalists by threatening to reopen Cobre Panama, one of Central America’s biggest copper mines.

June 18 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Erick is forecast to become a major hurricane in the Pacific Ocean and strike western Mexico one day after becoming named storm, the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.

In its 3 p.m. CST advisory, the NHC said Erick had maximum sustained winds of 110 mph as a Category 2 storm, just 1 mph from becoming a major storm as a Category 3. Erick was about 85 miles south of Puerto Angel, Mexico, and about 185 miles southeast of Punta Maldonado, Mexico.

The storm, which was moving 9 mph northwest, became a hurricane Wednesday morning.

Erick is forecast to be a major hurricane when it reaches the coast of western Oaxaca or eastern Guerrero on Wednesday morning or early Thursday, NHC said.

“Erick has been rapidly strengthening for the past 12 hours, and given the extremely favorable atmospheric and oceanic conditions along Erick’s forecast track, further intensification in the short term appears very likely,” NHC forecaster Alex Hagen wrote in a discussion.

Devastating wind damage is possible as the core of the storm moves onshore, Hagen said.

Erick will produce heavy rainfall across portions of Central America and Southwest Mexico through this week with life-threatening flooding and mudslides likely, especially in steep terrain.

“A dangerous, life-threatening storm surge is expected to produce coastal flooding near and to the east of where the center crosses the coast, in areas of onshore winds,” Hagen said. “The surge will be accompanied by large and destructive waves.”

Acapulco to Puerto Angel is under a hurricane warning, while a hurricane watch has been issued for the area west of Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana.

The region between Puerto Angel to Salina Cruz and West of Acapulco to Tecpan de Galeana is under a tropical storm warning.

Erick will produce 8 to 16 inches of rain across the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, the NHC said.

Erick is the fifth named storm in the Pacific this year. No storms have formed in the Atlantic yet.

The hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

June 16 (UPI) — U.S. President Donald Trump participated in a meeting of the G7 in Canada on Monday that had a wide range of pressing issues including the Israel-Iran conflict and trade

He and counterparts from Europe and Japan, as well as six countries not in the group that were invited to attend, will meet for three days.

Ahead of the summit in Kananaskis, Alberta, Trump held a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, their second in less than six weeks after the U.S. president hosted Carney in the White House after his unexpected general election victory April 28, attributed in large part due to “the Trump effect.”

Trump had said he expected to ink new trade agreements at the meetings, which are also being attended by the European Union, Ukraine, Mexico, South Korea, South Africa, India and Australia, but ABC News said Israel’s strikes on Iran had “scrambled” the agenda.

The network said there were differences between the U.S. administration and its international allies, with Trump telling ABC he was open to an offer from Russian President Vladimir Putin to mediate between the parties.

French President Emmanuel rejected the idea, saying Putin lacked the necessary credibility due to his country’s military intervention in Ukraine.

The president held a roughly 60-minute call with Putin in recent days in which much of the focus was on the Israel-Iran fighting, and less on Ukraine. However, Trump was scheduled to hold a one-on-one meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during the summit.

Uncertainty generated by Trump’s positions on the big geopolitical issues was likely seen as forcing allies to seek reassurance on where he stands, from supporting Ukraine over the longer term to what to do about Iran, as well as looming fears of a global trade war.

Trump is expected to hold a series of bilateral meetings with the key trading partners at the summit, many of them slapped by the United States with hefty goods tariffs and separate tariffs on autos and steel and aluminum. Some have responded in kind.

Canada is among the countries hardest hit, with a 25% tariff on autos imported into the United and 50% on steel and aluminum. Canada also faces tariffs, along with Mexico on imports of goods not exempted by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Trump told reporters as he departed for Canada that deals with the United States’ trading partners were just a matter of formally notifying them “what you’re going to have to pay,” but the summit comes amid Trump’s 90-day pause on “reciprocal” tariffs announced May 12.

The EU, in particular, wants to get a deal done before the July 9 expiration of a 10% tariff reduction implemented by Trump to allow time for negotiations.

So far, the only country with which a deal has been reached, but not implemented, is Britain. That deal announced in May allows Britain to export 100,000 cars annually to the United States at its standard 10% baseline tariff rate.

The deal also allows for British steel and aluminum quotas that will effectively reduce the tariffs to zero, although it currently remains at 25%, but still far below the 50% imposed on all other countries.

Trump is making his first appearance at the summit since attending a meeting in the south of France in 2019. The previous year’s gathering in Canada ended with him withdrawing support for the final communique.

Israel’s international allies are growing louder in their condemnation of its war on Gaza and its continued construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

United Nations experts, human rights groups and legal scholars have all previously told Al Jazeera that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza and committing abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank.

And yet less than two weeks after receiving a stern warning from its Western allies, Israel approved 22 illegal settlements in the West Bank, amounting to what has been described as the largest land grab since Israeli and Palestinian leaders inked the Oslo Peace Accords in 1993.

“Israel is all about showing [the world] who calls the shots. They are saying … you can condemn us all you want, but in the end, you will bow down to us and not the other way around,” said Diana Buttu, a legal scholar and political analyst focused on Israel and Palestine.

The Oslo Accords were ostensibly aimed at creating a Palestinian state, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.

However, in practice, Israel has continued to expand illegal settlements and render the two-state solution impossible, analysts told Al Jazeera.

Troubling pattern

Israel has often announced the building of new illegal settlements in response to signals of support for Palestinian statehood from the UN or its allies.

In 2012, Israel went so far as to approve 3,000 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank after the Palestinian Authority (PA) – the entity created out of the Oslo Accords to govern swaths of the West Bank – was granted non-member observer status in the UN General Assembly.

Last year, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned that a new illegal settlement would be built for every country that recognises a Palestinian state.

The announcement came after Spain, Norway, and Ireland took the symbolic step in May 2024.

“I certainly think there is a pattern where Israel responds to pressure regarding its occupation – or anything else – by announcing settler expansion,” said Omar Rahman, an expert focused on Israel and Palestine for the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.

“We see that pattern repeated over and over again,” he told Al Jazeera.

As global pressure mounts against Israel’s war on Gaza, Israel has continued to test the patience of its allies.

On May 21, Israeli troops fired warning shots at a group of European, Asian and Arab diplomats who were on an official mission to assess the humanitarian crisis in Jenin refugee camp, which has been subjected to a months-long attack and siege by the Israeli army since the start of the year.

“I don’t know where the red line is. It is clear that there is no red line,” said Buttu.

Justifying inaction

After Zionist militias ethnically cleansed some 750,000 Palestinians to make way for the state of Israel in 1948 – an event referred to as the “Nakba” or catastrophe – Israel has increasingly annexed and occupied the little that remains of Palestinian land.

Annexation of the occupied West Bank has accelerated in recent years thanks to far-right settlers who occupy positions in the Israeli government, said Khaled Elgindy, a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

He believes Israel was always planning to approve the 22 illegal settlements irrespective of the joint statement issued by France, the UK and Canada, as it fit in with the state’s ultimate goal of expanding Jewish settlement of the occupied West Bank.

“Nobody can really think that if those countries didn’t issue an announcement that [further] annexation wasn’t going to happen. Of course, it was going to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.

Rahman, from the Middle East Council, believes Israel’s tactic of announcing pre-planned settlement expansion in the face of Western pressure simply aims to dissuade its allies from taking concrete action.

He suspects Canada, the UK and France will likely not slap on targeted sanctions against Israeli officials, as they have threatened to do, instead using the argument that any moves against Israel will lead to a backlash against Palestinians.

“[Canada, UK and France] may say they are acting for the preservation of the two-state solution by not doing anything to save the two-state solution,” Rahman told Al Jazeera.

Analysts believe that sanctions on Israel would be the only way to rescue the two-state solution and end Israel’s war on Gaza, but accept that comprehensive sanctions against the Israeli state would still be unlikely at this stage.

Instead, Western countries like Canada, France and the UK may target sanctions at the far-right ministers most associated with pro-settler policies, Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

“These men … are trying to jam in everything they can do now because they know there is no guarantee they will maintain their positions of power indefinitely,” Elgindy told Al Jazeera.

Buttu fears that European countries will merely resort to more symbolic measures such as “recognising Palestine”, which will have little impact on the ground.

“By the time everyone gets around to recognising Palestine, there won’t be any land [for Palestinians] left,” she told Al Jazeera.

The Israeli military said it planned to ‘continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region’.

Israel has struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media have reported, in the first such aerial attack on the country in almost a month, the day after the United States envoy to Damascus said conflict between the neighbouring countries is “solvable”.

Syrian state media reported late Friday that one person was killed and three others injured by an Israeli air strike on the coastal city of Latakia.

The SANA news agency said earlier that the Israeli military targeted three sites in the countryside of the Latakia and Tartous governorates.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sites on the outskirts of Tartous and Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast.

The Israeli strike follows Syria acknowledging indirect talks with Israel earlier this month to calm tensions.

The Israeli military claimed responsibility for the strike, saying it had “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria”.

“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens”.

The Israeli strike came a day after US envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack’s visit to Damascus aimed at rebuilding ties under Syria’s new administration, during which he said the conflict between Israel and Syria is “solvable” and needed to start with “dialogue”.

“I’d say we need to start with just a non-aggression agreement, talk about boundaries and borders,” Barrack told journalists on Thursday.

The two countries have technically been at war since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. A state of heightened tension and deep enmity between Israel and Syria accelerated during the 1967 war, which also drew in Egypt and Jordan, and Israel’s subsequent occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights.

Israel has carried out frequent attacks in Syria both during the Bashar al-Assad rule and since his ouster.

Shortly before the fall of al-Assad’s regime, Israel seized more Syrian territory near the border, claiming it was concerned about President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s interim administration, which it has dismissed as “jihadist”.

During a meeting between US President Donald Trump and al-Sharaa in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier in May, the US leader urged al-Sharaa to normalise relations with Israel.

While al-Sharaa has not commented on possible normalisation with Israel, he has stated his support for returning to the terms of a 1974 ceasefire agreement that created a United Nations buffer zone in the Golan Heights.

The Madrid Group has convened in Spain’s capital for a fifth time, in a meeting attended by major European and Arab nations.

Pressure on Israel this year has been ramped up, with Spain calling for an arms embargo on Israel and the imposition of sanctions on individuals who obstruct a two-state solution to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The United Kingdom has paused trade talks and sanctioned a number of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. Canada and France have also threatened punitive measures.

And the European Union – Israel’s biggest trade partner – is reviewing its landmark Association Agreement covering trade and political dialogue.

But after 20 months of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, why is this happening now?

And without changes on the ground for Palestinians, are these actions anything more than diplomatically symbolic?

Presenter: Tom McRae

Guests:

Lynn Boylan – Member of European Parliament, and chair of the delegation of relations with Palestine

Mouin Rabbani – Non-resident fellow at the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies

Saul Takahashi – Former deputy head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in occupied Palestine

Hannah Gutierrez, the weapons handler in the ill-fated Alec Baldwin western movie “Rust,” has been released from prison after serving 14 months for her conviction last year of involuntary manslaughter.

Gutierrez was released Friday from a New Mexico women’s prison after completing her sentence in the accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins in October 2021.

Gutierrez was one of three people charged in Hutchins’ death on the movie set south of Santa Fe, N.M., but the only one who received a felony conviction. A jury found her guilty of involuntary manslaughter in Hutchins’ death following a dramatic two-week trial last year in Santa Fe.

New Mexico prosecutors faulted the Arizona woman for reckless handling of firearms and ammunition in violation of gun safety rules.

The special prosecutor also argued that Gutierrez had unwittingly brought the live bullets with her to the popular western film location, Bonanza Creek Ranch, and mingled them with inert “dummy” bullets used on film sets.

Gutierrez has denied that allegation. There was no conclusive evidence presented about the origins of the live bullets.

Actor Alec Baldwin during his 2024 trial in Santa Fe for his role in the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

(Ramsay de Give / Associated Press)

Baldwin, who pointed the gun at Hutchins during a rehearsal, also was charged. He pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter for the shooting that killed the 42-year-old cinematographer, a rising star in the industry, and wounded the film’s director, Joel Souza.

The New Mexico judge overseeing the “Rust” criminal prosecutions, New Mexico 1st Judicial District Court Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer, dismissed the charge against Baldwin three days into his high-profile trial last July.

Marlowe Sommer found the prosecutor and Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies had concealed evidence from Baldwin’s legal team, which the judge said prejudiced the case against Baldwin. At the time, the actor-producer’s team was exploring whether prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies botched the investigation into how the bullets made their way onto the set.

Assistant director David Halls was also charged in the shooting.

Halls pleaded no contest to negligent use of a deadly weapon and received a suspended six-month sentence, which ended in October 2023. Halls, who has since retired from the industry, agreed to pay a $500 fine, participate in a firearms safety class, refrain from taking drugs or alcohol and complete 24 hours of community service.

Gutierrez had received the maximum sentence for her role.

She was released on parole. She also is being supervised under terms of probation after pleading guilty to a separate charge of unlawfully carrying a gun into a Santa Fe bar that prohibited firearms a few days before the fatal shooting, according to the Associated Press.

Terms of her parole include mental health assessments and a ban on firearms possession.

Gutierrez, through her attorney, declined an interview request Sunday.

“When I took on ‘Rust,’ I was young and I was naive but I took my job as seriously as I knew how to,” Gutierrez told the judge during her April 2024 sentencing hearing.

Marlowe Sommer, who also presided over the armorer’s case, gave Gutierrez the maximum sentence, saying: “You were the armorer, the one that stood between a safe weapon and a weapon that could kill someone. .. You alone turned a safe weapon into a lethal weapon.”

With Gutierrez’s release, the criminal phase of the “Rust” saga has concluded.

Several civil lawsuits against Baldwin and the producers, including from Hutchins’ family members, remain unresolved.

Baldwin and other actors and crew members finished filming in Montana, 18 months after the fatal shooting in New Mexico. The movie was finally released in the U.S. this month on just a handful of screens.

The October 2021 shooting shined a harsh light on film set safety, particularly on low-budget productions.

“Rust” was racked with problems, including allegations of safety rules and hiring inexperienced crew members such as Gutierrez. “Rust” was just her second job as head armorer. She also was tasked with the job of prop assistant.

Hours before the fatal shooting, “Rust” camera crew members had walked off the job to protest safety concerns and a lack of housing near the film’s set. Crew members complained about earlier accidental gun discharges.

Gutierrez is the stepdaughter of well-known Hollywood armorer Thell Reed.

South Western Railway (SWR) has been renationalised, making it the first train company to transfer to public ownership under Labour.

The first nationalised service will leave at 05:36 from Woking to Surbiton though it will be partially covered by a rail replacement bus service.

The government has hailed the move as a “new dawn for rail” but it held back from promising lower fares, focusing more on plans to improve services and use profits to reinvest in infrastructure.

Unions have expressed concerns over outsourcing to private companies, while the opposition Conservatives said Labour must “deliver on their promises”.

SWR trains are now the responsibility of DfT (Department for Transport) Operator and will be integrated into Great British Railways (GBR), which will oversee all railway infrastructure.

GBR will not officially exist until MPs vote to create it, which looks set to be in the autumn.

On a visit to a train depot in Bournemouth earlier, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander described the nationalisation of SWR as a “real watershed moment”.

Asked whether prices would go down for passengers, she told the BBC she could not promise lower fares, but assured passengers they would get “great value for money”.

Alexander is expected to travel on the first fully rail-operated route from London Waterloo to Shepperton in Surrey at 06:14.

It will be the first service with the new GBR livery. The words “Great British Railways” and “coming soon” are painted in white against a royal blue background decorated with part of a union flag.

Two more rail firms, C2C and Greater Anglia, will be brought into public ownership later this year.

Four major operators have already been brought under public ownership under previous Conservative governments – East Coast Mainline, TransPennine, Northern and South Eastern (LNER).

Seven more companies will be renationalised by 2027 as each of their contracts end – or sooner if their performance is judged to be unacceptable.

These are:

• West Midlands Trains
• East Midlands Railway
• Avanti West Coast
• CrossCountry
• Chiltern Railways
• Govia Thameslink Railway
• Great Western

Current government plans are to renationalise nearly all passenger rail services across England, Wales and Scotland by 2030, proposals which have been attacked the Conservatives.

Shadow Transport Secretary Gareth Bacon said: “Labour have talked up the benefits of renationalisation for years and they will now have to deliver on their promises of lower ticket prices, an end to all disruption and strikes and better onboard services. The alternative is that, as usual, British taxpayers have to foot the bill for Labour.”

The RMT Union welcomed SWR’s nationalisation but said it was concerned about outsourcing to private firms.

RMT General Secretary Eddie Dempsey said: “Public ownership of South Western Railway is a major step forward and is a clear rejection of the failed privatisation model.

“But the job is incomplete when our contracted-out members remain outsourced and not reaping the benefits of nationalisation.”

The government said it could not promise fares would be cheaper despite significant cost savings through renationalisation but any additional money would be invested in making services better.

Whitehall sources have told the BBC ministers hope to find ways to cut the cost of rail travel but it is impossible to make promises before GBR is formally established and services renationalised.