TOP NEWS

China's foreign policy
China and Myanmar want to normalize trade after the military coup

China and Myanmar want to normalize border trade and strengthen cooperation in energy and mining, according to a statement from Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who visited the capital Naypyidaw. Bloomberg reports.

During the meeting with Myanmar President Min Aung Hlaing, cooperation in agriculture, technology and measures against online fraud were also discussed. Trade between the two countries has been greatly affected since the military coup in 2021.

Myanmar is still in a political and economic crisis after the coup, with an ongoing civil war and a state of emergency in large parts of the country. At the same time, the regime is trying to normalize relations with regional actors, Bloomberg writes.

Security in Europe
Macron: "Unique situation" when the US, China and Russia all go against Europe

European countries need to do more to defend their own interests, as the US, China and Russia all go against Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron said this on Friday, according to Politico.

– We should not underestimate that this is a unique moment where an American president, a Russian president and a Chinese president are all hostile to Europe. This is the right time for us to wake up, he said.

He also believes that the rift that has emerged between Europe and the United States will persist after Donald Trump. During Donald Trump's first term, many European leaders believed that it was an aberration that would pass. Now, according to Macron, leaders are more "clear-sighted."

– We must act as Europeans, be more united and defend our own interests. For me, that is the right way forward.
 

The future of NATO
British editorials see Donald Trump: "Bizarre"

The editorials of the British newspapers The Telegraph and The Independent are criticizing Donald Trump after a leaked email suggested that the United States could change its position on Britain's claim to the Falklands.

According to The Independent’s writer, it would be extremely unfortunate – even “terrifying” – if the US were to side with Argentina over the self-governing British territory. The newspaper believes that this is “typical Trump” and that it brings to mind how the American president handles Greenland and Canada.

Such a development would put even more pressure on an already strained relationship.

“It is a bizarre thought.”

Both newspapers note that the leak occurs just a couple of days before King Charles and Queen Camilla visit Washington. A nice gesture from Trump would be to distance himself from the “malicious provocation,” the editorial says.

“The timing of this conflict is particularly unfortunate.”

The change of power in Hungary

Orbán leaves his seat in the Hungarian parliament

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is leaving his seat in parliament after the stinging election defeat earlier in April, reports the AP.

In a video post on Facebook, he says that the Fidesz parliamentary group will take a new shape and that he will not be part of it.

– Right now I am not needed in parliament, but in the reorganization of the national camp.

Opposition candidate Péter Magyar and his Tisza party won a landslide victory, winning 141 of the 199 seats. Fidesz went from 135 to 52 seats and Orbán was elected as a member thanks to his place on the party list, writes the BBC.

A completely different Orbán becomes Foreign Minister in Hungary

Hungary's newly elected leader Péter Magyar has now appointed his deputy prime minister, who is also foreign minister. The choice has fallen on the politician, diplomat and businesswoman Anita Orbán.

Orbán will therefore be very visible in European contexts in the future. Today she is part of the Hungarian group that is in Brussels to negotiate with the EU Commission on Hungary's regaining access to frozen funds.

In a post on Facebook, she thanks him for the trust:

"It is a great honor and a great responsibility."

Orbán is a relatively common surname in Hungary and she is not related to the outgoing prime minister.

 

Middle East crisis Palestinian elections

Every second person in the West Bank voted – unexpectedly high

Turnout was unexpectedly high when people in the occupied West Bank voted in this weekend's local elections, reports AP.

Just over 53 percent went to the polls, which is in line with previous local elections. According to the news agency, the figure surprises analysts, who had expected signs of reduced trust in institutions.

In the small part of war-torn Gaza that was allowed to vote, turnout was just over 22 percent. According to the Palestinian Authority, it was a kind of pilot test with the aim of linking the West Bank with Gaza politically.

The results are expected on Sunday.

Few political options as Palestinians go to the polls

Today, almost 1.5 million Palestinians will vote in local elections in the occupied West Bank and in a small part of Gaza. It is the first time since the war broke out in 2023 that elections have been held.

Most of the options are linked to Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah party, which leads a limited government in the West Bank. Hamas has no candidates of its own and according to AFP there are few candidates linked to the terror movement.

There are also some independent candidates running in the elections, but in general there are few political options.

The politicians who are elected do not make laws, but are responsible for local infrastructure such as water supply and road construction. Since there have been no presidential or parliamentary elections since 2006, local elections are seen as one of the few functioning political institutions for Palestinians.

The PA has been criticized for corruption and is accused by many of lacking legitimacy.

 

The problems with mass tourism

Anger at Athens tourism: “Cannot function as a hotel”

The Greek capital Athens needs laws and regulations to cope with mass tourism, the city’s mayor Haris Doukas tells The Guardian. The former climate and energy professor warns that attractive neighborhoods risk losing their charm and that rising prices are forcing residents to move.

Among other things, he wants to use a proposed law, which is currently being debated, to stop new businesses in the city’s historic center.

Athens is for its residents, not people who want to exploit it, he says.

“Athens cannot function as if it were a giant hotel.”

Around 700,000 people live in Athens, which last year was visited by eight million tourists.

Barcelona is pointed out as a Greek horror scenario

Athens Mayor Haris Doukas' efforts to limit the tourism boom have been strengthened by the measures taken by his counterpart in Barcelona, ​​writes The Guardian.

In the Spanish city, Jaume Collboni, also a left-wing politician, has announced a total ban on short-term rentals from 2028. The rentals are also causing problems in Athens, according to Doukas.

- Athens must not become another Barcelona, ​​says the mayor.

According to Fox News, permits for Airbnb accommodations have been frozen in some attractive areas of Athens.

Middle East crisis Peace talks

No talks in Pakistan – Iran returns home and US cancels

Iran's delegation in Pakistan has left the country, Pakistani government sources told Reuters.

The information was confirmed by the Iranian state-controlled news agency IRNA, reports the BBC.

This is happening without having met the American delegation, which will no longer travel to the country, Donald Trump tells Fox News.

– I told my staff a while ago, when they were getting ready to leave, that "no, you are not going to make an 18-hour flight there. We have all the cards in hand", says Trump.

The US delegation was to have been led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Yesterday, a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry stated that the delegation had not planned any meeting with the US.

The White House had previously announced that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner would travel to Pakistan to meet, among other things, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is part of the Iranian delegation. 

Expert: There is a risk that we are back to square one

The risk with the failed talks between Iran and the US is that the countries "see a point in raising the temperature" in the conflict, says Iran expert Rouzbeh Parsi to Dagens Nyheter. There is a possibility that there will still be a meeting in the near future, but it could also be that one of the countries chooses to "initiate hostilities," he says.

- In that case, we would be back to square one.

Parsi also says that there are only a few people on each side who want to see a full-scale war and that it is difficult to predict what will happen now.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi left Pakistan before the American delegation's trip had even begun.

Analysis: It was unlikely that this would work

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had barely left Pakistan before it became clear that the United States was not even going there, writes Nic Robertson in an analysis for CNN.

According to Robertson, the circumstances leading up to the countries' visit were very unclear. The United States claimed that Iran had requested a meeting, Iran denied that any meeting with the United States would take place at all, and it had been logistically very difficult to arrange, he writes.

The US delegation was at least 17 hours away from there and Trump had decided to send, among others, Steve Witkoff, whom Iran's negotiators do not trust. Either Trump misjudged the "diplomatic dynamics" or Iran is not ready to meet his demands, according to Robertson.

SR's US correspondent Ginna Lindberg says that the negotiations seem to have stalled even before they have started.

– This means that the negotiations that Trump has said he hopes for are now canceled or postponed.

She further says that the countries are far apart on several issues, and that the most important thing for the US is Iranian guarantees that the country will never acquire nuclear weapons.

 

Netanyahu promises a hard blow against Hezbollah

TT

Updated 20.17 | Published 20.07

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Thursday. Photo: Ilia Yefimovich /AP/TT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to strike Hezbollah in Lebanon "with force", Israeli media reports.

The announcement comes after Hezbollah fired rockets and drones at northern Israel and soldiers stationed in southern Lebanon on Saturday, The Times of Israel reports.

Since a ceasefire came into effect last Friday, Israel and Hezbollah have repeatedly accused each other of violating it. A decision to extend the ceasefire was made late Thursday night after talks in Washington, but fighting has continued.

Six people have been killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Saturday, according to the country's Health Ministry. Also on Friday, at least six people were reported to have been killed.

 

Tjernobyls kamp mot klockan – i 100 år till

TT

Publicerad 15.25

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal firar sig ned för att inspektera skadorna på "Nya skyddsvalvet" efter drönarattacken förra året. Bild tagen den 14 februari 2025.

1 / 6Foto: Efrem Lukatsky/AP/TT

Chernobyl's race against time – for another 100 years

TT

Published 15.25

Staff descend to inspect the damage to the "New Shelter" after the drone attack last year. Picture taken on February 14, 2025.
1 / 6Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP/TT

Forty years have passed since the fateful night when reactor 4 in Chernobyl exploded. But the cleanup work has barely begun. And a Russian drone attack last year is making the race against time much worse.

- The inner "sarcophagus" is in danger of collapsing. That must not happen, says expert Shaun Burnie on the phone from Kiev.

01.23 has gone down in atomic history. It was then, in the early spring morning of April 26, 1986, that something went wrong in Chernobyl, about ten miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

Several safety systems in the nuclear power plant were shut down for testing, so a minor incident in reactor 4 quickly became a major one. An explosion was so powerful that the 1,000-ton reactor lid, known as “Elena”, flew off. This allowed flames and smoke to freely spread radioactive material into the sky, and out over Europe.

Forty years later, “Elena” still stands on the stilts next to the reactor. The radiation hazards have been, and are, so great that the area has only been covered with so-called sarcophagi – the first one that was built, more or less in a panic, back in 1986, and an outer vault built in the 2010s.

“More than a machine”

The newer containment is internationally known as the NSC (New Safe Confinement), and was built as a kind of gigantic workshop hangar over the first one, which was leaking from the start and needed constant monitoring.

– The NSC is more of a machine than a building. A machine that cost 2 billion euros, Shaun Burnie tells TT.

Among other things, the NSC has cranes, struts and beams that act as the unstable sarcophagus' "braces".

Shaun Burnie has 40 years of experience as a nuclear energy expert, and has also worked on the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster in Japan. He is now stationed in Ukraine on behalf of the environmental organization Greenpeace.

Radioactive debris

He has been inside the NSC several times. People are allowed to be there under strictly controlled conditions.

- Inside the reactor there is of course a lot of nuclear fuel, nuclear material, radioactive debris, concrete, steel, graphite from the reactor core ..., he describes the view.

The situation has been radically worsened by the incident that occurred one early February morning last year. During Russia's attack in the area, an Iranian Shahed war drone hit the roof of the NSC.

– There was a powerful explosion, which pierced the outer shell and also pushed through the inner shell, says Burnie.

Russia has never explained the incident, but Burnie has no doubt that it was a deliberate attack.

– The drone flew very low, below the radar. Afterwards, we could see the parts lying in the snow.

“No control”

The explosion opened a 15 square meter hole. Fires broke out, and could only be completely extinguished after three weeks.

The radiation and the ongoing war have meant that the damage could only be repaired very provisionally. So at present, the “sarcophagus” is threatening to collapse, and the structure that was supposed to save it, the NSC, is patched and repaired as best as possible.

– The firefighters had to open 300 holes, so now they have no control over the humidity. The question then becomes, how long can this structure function?

The NSC was designed to last for 100 years. It was built with air conditioning, because the hundreds of thousands of metal parts inside cannot be protected from rust and maintained in the normal way. But after the attack, weather, wind, water and snow eat into it.

Risk of reaction

No one knows exactly how it will affect the hazardous substances inside, which include volatile radioactive dust and uranium pellets – barely larger than a fingernail, but each potentially deadly.

In connection with the 40th anniversary of the accident, Greenpeace has hired one of the NSC's designers, the American Eric Schmieman, for a status report. He writes that it is not possible to rule out the risk of an "accidental nuclear chain reaction".

- The concern is mostly based on water getting into the sarcophagus, into the reactor, says Burnie.

That concern has been there all along, and the situation has been monitored via neutron meters for some time. But the situation has now worsened and become more difficult to understand when the NSC is broken.

– They have plugged the big hole, and will continue with repairs for the next 12 to 18 months.

Only two shifts

The work not only costs a lot of money, but staff is also increasingly scarce. For employees in the nuclear industry, there are higher limits for radiation doses than for the rest of us, but Burnie says that in Chernobyl it can still be extremely fast to reach a yearly dose.

– There are very large variations even within the NSC, but in some places you may only be able to work for twelve hours. So you go in and work maybe two shifts, then it's a stop.

Chernobyl is only 15 kilometers from the border with Belarus, which Russian attacks often go through.

– Not every night, but at least every second, every third night, Russian drones, Russian robots fly over Chernobyl, says Burnie.

– How many foreign engineers, contractors, welders will be allowed to come and work, he wonders.

“Getting things done”

The work must continue for many years to come. According to previous plans, the actual fuel from reactor 4 can only begin to be removed around 2050, a laborious operation that could last until the early 2100s, writes Eric Schmieman. Now, further question marks have been added with the drone attack, but there is not much room for further delays. “The 100-year lifespan of the NSC is calculated from commissioning in 2019, and thus runs until 2119,” the report states.

The cleanup work is therefore a race against time that will last more than a century, most of which remains to be done. Shaun Burnie nevertheless sounds cautiously hopeful.

– One thing that has really struck me after years of working in Ukraine is that it is a country where you get things done. They do amazing things here, incredible things.

But, he adds:

– This is an enormous challenge.

FACTS

The Chernobyl accident

On the night of April 26, 1986, reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, about ten miles north of the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

The cause was a minor incident, which could grow because safety systems had been turned off to carry out tests.

Explosions and fires destroyed the roof, and large amounts of radioactive particles were released into the atmosphere, then falling all over Europe.

Outside the then Soviet Union, the first signal of the disaster came at the Forsmark nuclear power plant outside Gävle, where the fallout triggered a radiation alarm two days later.

The radiation also meant that the cleanup work had to be done extremely carefully, and is set up as a plan that will last almost 150 years. The nuclear fuel is expected to be removed in the second half of this century, and the cleanup work will clearly not begin until the 2110s.
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