Global Pulse

标签： Europe

欧洲

  • German court convicts Iraqi couple of enslaving Yazidi girls

    German court convicts Iraqi couple of enslaving Yazidi girls

    In a landmark ruling that marks a milestone for international justice for atrocities committed by the Islamic State (IS) against the Yazidi minority, Germany’s Munich Higher Regional Court has convicted an Iraqi couple of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and membership in the IS extremist group, over their role in enslaving two underage Yazidi girls in northern Iraq more than a decade ago.

    The male defendant, identified only as Twana H.S. under German privacy regulations, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Monday following a months-long trial. His co-defendant and former wife, Asia R.A., who was a minor at the time of the crimes, received a nine-and-a-half year juvenile sentence. The pair were taken into custody in the southern German state of Bavaria in 2024 after years of investigation into their alleged ties to IS and participation in the group’s systematic persecution of the Yazidi community.

    The background of this case stretches back to 2014, when IS fighters seized large swathes of territory across northern Iraq and eastern Syria, launching a coordinated campaign to eliminate the Yazidi people, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority with ancient roots in the region. According to historical accounts and international investigations, thousands of Yazidi men were executed in mass killings, while tens of thousands of women and children were abducted, trafficked as sex slaves, and forced into hard labor by IS militants. German law formally recognizes this coordinated campaign as an act of genocide, a designation echoed by the United Nations and dozens of national governments.

    Court documents and prosecution accounts lay out a detailed timeline of the couple’s radicalization and alleged crimes. Twana H.S. first arrived in Germany as an asylum seeker in the early 2000s, building a life in Munich where he worked as a hairdresser and fathered a child. German outlet Der Spiegel reports that while his initial asylum application was rejected, he was granted permission to remain in the country as the parent of a German citizen. After becoming radicalized at a local mosque in Munich, he returned to Iraq in 2015, where he married Asia R.A. under Islamic law and the pair joined IS, remaining active members of the group from October 2015 through December 2017.

    Prosecutors told the court that in autumn 2015, at Asia R.A.’s request, Twana H.S. purchased a five-year-old Yazidi girl from a slave bazaar in the IS-held city of Mosul. Less than two years later, in early October 2017, the couple bought a second, 12-year-old Yazidi girl to add to their household. The pair forced both children to perform unpaid household labor and childcare work, barred them from practicing their Yazidi faith, and subjected them to repeated physical abuse. Prosecutors detailed specific accounts of violence: the children were beaten on multiple occasions, sometimes with heavy solid objects, and Asia R.A. once scalded the younger girl’s hand with boiling water as punishment. Most severely, Twana H.S. was found guilty of repeatedly raping both child victims, while his wife helped facilitate the abuse by preparing the girls and the room for the assaults.

    During the trial, the court heard harrowing firsthand testimony from the older of the two survivors, who detailed years of beatings, forced labor, and sexual violence, according to local outlet BR News. Tragically, the younger victim remains missing to this day.

    The trial was held in Germany under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, a framework that allows national courts to prosecute individuals for severe international crimes including genocide and war crimes, regardless of where the offenses were committed. This principle has allowed Germany to hold dozens of IS members and associates accountable for atrocities carried out in Iraq and Syria over the past decade.

    In court, Asia R.A., who has since separated from Twana H.S., offered a formal apology for her actions. In her final statement to the court, she simply said, “I’m sorry.” Twana H.S., by contrast, declined to make any statement or enter a plea during the proceedings.

  • UK says an Iran-backed group was behind attacks on Jewish community, bans Revolutionary Guard

    UK says an Iran-backed group was behind attacks on Jewish community, bans Revolutionary Guard

    LONDON – In a significant move to counter foreign state-sponsored hostile activity on British soil, the United Kingdom government announced Monday that a wave of coordinated arson and vandalism targeting Jewish community sites across the country has been linked to an Iran-backed proxy organization. In response, authorities have moved to formally ban both the proxy group and Iran’s influential paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, labeling them unacceptable threats to national security.

    The group being outlawed is the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right (IMCR), also referred to as Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia. Alongside the ban on this proxy network, the UK is also formally proscribing Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, a decision that will bring harsh legal consequences for anyone acting on the groups’ behalf once parliamentary approval is finalized. Under the new legislation, which government officials confirm is on track to pass by the end of this week, individuals convicted of coordinating sabotage for the banned organizations could face up to life imprisonment.

    Security Minister Angela Eagle confirmed in an official statement that the IMCR has publicly claimed responsibility for seven separate attacks across the UK. In online postings, the group took credit for a string of recent arson incidents targeting Jewish sites in London, including synagogues and ambulances operated by a Jewish charity. The group also claimed an attack on a Persian-language media outlet that is openly critical of Iran’s ruling government. No casualties were reported in any of the fire attacks.

    Eagle emphasized that the IMCR is not an independent network, noting: “Sitting behind IMCR were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force, who almost certainly directed IMCR attacks across Europe.” The Qods Force, named for Jerusalem, serves as the Revolutionary Guard’s specialized overseas expeditionary branch tasked with conducting foreign operations and supporting proxy groups globally.

    First emerging on digital platforms earlier this year, the IMCR has also claimed responsibility for similar attacks targeting synagogues in Belgium and the Netherlands, expanding the scope of its disruptive activity across Western Europe. Law enforcement and intelligence analysts across the continent have documented a steady rise in Iran-backed proxy attacks in Europe in recent years, with most incidents targeting two primary groups: Jewish communities and exiled Persian-language media outlets that oppose Iran’s Islamic government. These proxy networks typically operate by recruiting existing criminal gang members to carry out sabotage and violent attacks, creating a layer of separation between the Iranian state and the illegal activity.

    Monday’s announcement also included a separate proscription: the UK has designated the GRU Volunteer Corps, a group controlled by Russia’s military intelligence agency, as a national security threat. According to authorities, the group carries out foreign intelligence gathering and covert hostile operations on behalf of the GRU, expanding the scope of the UK’s crackdown on foreign state-sponsored activity from both Iran and Russia.

    UK officials stressed that the new proscriptions will streamline law enforcement and intelligence agency efforts to crack down on what they have called “thugs for hire” – any individual or network that provides support to foreign proscribed proxy groups. Prime Minister Keir Starmer underscored the gravity of the government’s action in a statement, saying: “We have already taken tough action against the Iranian regime and those linked to it, and against Russian operatives and networks targeting our country. These new powers will make it easier to prosecute and lock up anyone carrying out their dirty work here in Britain.”

    The bans mark the first major use of a new UK counter-hostile activity law that entered into force just last week. The legislation grants the national government expanded authority to proscribe and dismantle proxy organizations that carry out illegal operations on behalf of hostile foreign states. The announcement comes less than two weeks after two Romanian men were handed prison sentences for the stabbing of a journalist working for a Persian-language television outlet, with the presiding judge explicitly ruling the attack was ordered and coordinated on behalf of the Iranian state.

    As of Monday evening, Iran has not issued any immediate public response to the UK’s proscription announcements. The European Union already took similar action earlier this year, listing the entire Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization in response to Tehran’s violent crackdown on domestic anti-government protests.

  • EU chief weighs age restrictions for children using social media

    EU chief weighs age restrictions for children using social media

    BRUSSELS – On Monday, a leading European Union executive has thrown its weight behind strict age-based limitations on children’s access to social media, backing a landmark expert panel recommendation that would bar users under 13 from platforms until tech firms can conclusively prove their services do not harm young users. The push from Brussels comes as part of a growing global crackdown on unregulated youth social media use, with countries across five continents already rolling out tighter rules to protect developing minds from documented harms.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who trained as a medical doctor, laid out a sweeping set of concerns about the impact of digital platforms on childhood development during a press briefing Monday, shortly after receiving the final report from the EU’s special independent panel on online child safety. She argued for the urgent need for tiered access rules tied to age, stressing that early childhood development is irreversible once damaged.

    “Childhood won’t wait and once it’s gone, we can never give it back,” von der Leyen told reporters. She drew a parallel to long-standing public safety regulations that most societies take for granted: “Just as we don’t give our children keys to the car before they have their license, or we do not let them buy alcohol until they are legally allowed. We need to set the age at which children can legally access social media.”

    Among the most pressing harmful design features von der Leyen highlighted is infinite scrolling, a common platform function intentionally engineered to keep users engaged for as long as possible, which she labeled an addictive trait that tech companies must be forced to modify. For very young children, she put forward an even stricter baseline, calling for zero screen exposure for children under 3 years old.

    While von der Leyen stopped short of announcing a fully drafted regulatory proposal on Monday, she confirmed that the European Commission – the EU’s 27-nation executive body with the exclusive right to propose new bloc-wide laws – will unveil formal legislation for member states to consider in the near future. As the head of the commission, von der Leyen’s policy priorities heavily shape the final text of proposals that go on to be negotiated by EU member states and the European Parliament.

    The 13-page recommendation from the special expert panel, delivered to von der Leyen earlier Monday, shifts the responsibility of proving platform safety from regulators and families to the tech companies themselves. The report argues that current frameworks unfairly place the burden of mitigating harm on parents and watchdogs, rather than the firms that design and profit from the platforms.

    “Until they demonstrate that their services are safe by design, social media and other digital services providers should have restricted access to children under the age of 13 in the EU,” the panel’s report stated. The recommendation is widely expected to shape the commission’s upcoming legislative draft, as von der Leyen has cited the panel’s work as a key input for her policy. The panel also went a step further, urging individual EU member states to consider additional precautionary age restrictions for teens between 13 and the legal age of majority.

    The EU’s move aligns with a growing global trend of tightening youth social media regulations. In recent years, Australia, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Indonesia and dozens of other nations have passed legislation banning or restricting users under the ages of 15 or 16 from accessing major platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Instagram, as mounting research links excessive unregulated social media use to higher rates of anxiety, depression, poor academic outcomes and developmental delays in children and adolescents.

  • Zelenskyy will discuss Ukraine support and air defenses with European leaders in Paris

    Zelenskyy will discuss Ukraine support and air defenses with European leaders in Paris

    As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine enters its third year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy touched down in Paris on Monday for high-stakes talks with two dozen European leaders from the pro-Ukraine Coalition of the Willing, a gathering that signals unified Western resolve to back Kyiv’s fight against Russian aggression. The summit comes amid a sharp intensification of cross-border drone attacks, shifting battlefield momentum, and urgent negotiations to ramp up Ukraine’s defensive capabilities against relentless Russian aerial assaults.

    Parallel to the Paris talks, European Union foreign ministers gathered separately in Brussels to deliberate on Ukraine’s pressing military and humanitarian needs, as well as the growing threat Russia poses to European continental security. Both Kyiv and its European backers are moving to capitalize on Ukraine’s recent battlefield gains to push Russian President Vladimir Putin toward meaningful peace negotiations—though Moscow has refused any compromise, even after a year of peace efforts led by the U.S. Trump administration.

    Military analysts and Western officials attribute Ukraine’s recent advances to major breakthroughs in domestic drone development, which has given Kyiv a critical edge on the battlefield. Targeted strikes on Russian supply routes behind front lines have drained the Russian military’s operational momentum, forcing Moscow to slow its advances and accept extremely high personnel and equipment losses. Most notably, Ukraine’s sustained campaign targeting Russian supply lines into Russian-annexed Crimea has triggered the worst fuel shortage on the Black Sea peninsula since 2014, dealing a major blow to the Kremlin’s official narrative that it is winning the war.

    A top priority for Zelenskyy at the Paris summit is accelerating plans for joint European-Ukrainian development of anti-ballistic air defense systems, a critical capability to block Russia’s devastating attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure. In remarks posted to social media Monday following another round of overnight Russian airstrikes across Ukraine, Zelenskyy emphasized, “Everyone in the world sees that Ukraine needs more air defense, more protection of life.” A recent pledge from U.S. President Donald Trump to grant Ukraine a license to domestically produce Patriot air defense systems has been hailed as a potential breakthrough, though experts and Ukrainian officials caution it will likely take years for this policy to translate into operational weapons in Ukraine’s arsenal.

    The Paris Coalition of the Willing gathering, which officially includes more than 30 pro-Ukraine nations, brought roughly 25 heads of state and government to the French capital. The high turnout is widely interpreted as a public demonstration of long-term European commitment to Ukraine, and a unified warning to Moscow amid ongoing Russian efforts to test European resilience against escalation. In a separate development Monday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that France would summon the Russian ambassador to Paris and impose new sanctions on Russian hackers, in response to what Barrot described as “a vast cyber campaign aimed at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European countries.”

    The spillover impact of the war is already being felt by Ukraine’s neighboring countries. On Monday, Moldova’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Odesa region crashed and detonated on Moldovan territory, calling the incident “serious and unacceptable.”

    Zelenskyy’s trip to Paris also comes against a backdrop of major domestic and political shifts in Kyiv and Washington. The visit follows the recent passing of U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, one of Kyiv’s most steadfast supporters in Washington, whose death has raised Ukrainian concerns over future U.S. support. It also comes amid an ongoing major government reshuffle in Kyiv, which saw Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko step down from her post on Sunday.

    Over the past 48 hours, drone activity between the two warring sides has reached new levels of intensity. Ukraine launched a massive wave of domestically developed long-range drones and missiles targeting deep inside Russian territory, matching and even exceeding the scale of relentless Russian aerial assaults on Ukraine. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced that Russian air defenses shot down 350 Ukrainian drones headed toward the capital since late Sunday, including 50 in the immediate Moscow area. Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, reported that 81 drones were downed overnight, with three civilian deaths and three injuries recorded in a strike on the Pionersky settlement outside Istra, where five private homes were destroyed by fire.

    In a parallel wave of Russian attacks on Ukraine, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia launched 134 long-range strike drones and three guided aviation missiles across Ukrainian territory. Ukrainian air defenses shot down or jammed all three missiles and 123 of the drones, though six remaining drones caused damage at five locations across the country. In the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov reported that over 70 residents have been hospitalized after recent Russian strikes damaged 11 residential apartment blocks.

    Russian security officials also announced Monday that they had thwarted a large-scale Ukrainian drone plot targeting two key Russian air bases: the Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region, and the Shagol air base in the southern Ural region of Chelyabinsk. According to Russia’s Federal Security Service, the domestic intelligence agency, small drones were smuggled into Russia’s western Bryansk region via air balloons and larger transport drones, then transported by car to the vicinity of the targets by Ukrainian agents. The FSB said it had arrested the Ukrainian agents and their accomplices, and seized 24 drones, calling the alleged plot “unprecedented in its scale and the level of threat” to Russian military infrastructure. The foiled plot comes just over a year after Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb, a covert strike that destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Russia’s strategic bomber fleet after drones were smuggled into Russian territory, per Ukrainian official accounts.

  • EU targets Russian intelligence officers accused of running a yearslong cyber spying campaign

    EU targets Russian intelligence officers accused of running a yearslong cyber spying campaign

    BRUSSELS – In a significant escalation of tensions between Brussels and Moscow, the European Union rolled out punitive sanctions Monday against Russian military intelligence officials, cyber hackers and private entities, formally condemning what bloc leaders describe as a years-long pattern of state-aligned cyber espionage designed to destabilize the 27-nation union.

    The sanctions regime targets a total of nine individuals and four organizations that the EU links to a sophisticated cross-border online spying network. According to official documents, this network has carried out targeted attacks against government institutions and conducted sabotage operations against European critical infrastructure – including heating facilities and power stations – dating back to 2010. In a public statement, the European Council emphasized that all sanctioned parties directly “contribute to Russia’s efforts to destabilize the EU, its member states and international partners.” Evidence confirms these malicious cyber activities have been executed in at least nine EU member states, with France, Germany, Poland, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Romania and Finland explicitly named as targeted nations.

    Notably, the European Council’s public announcement did not release the full identities of the sanctioned individuals and entities, a departure from standard public sanctions documentation in many previous cases.

    France, one of the nations most impacted by the alleged cyber activities, has announced additional diplomatic action in response. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told BFM Television that Paris will summon Russia’s ambassador to France in the coming days to address the incidents. Barrot outlined the dual harmful goals of the Russian campaign: exfiltrating sensitive confidential information, and carrying out disruptive sabotage of key public infrastructure. He referenced a prior attack on Polish railway networks as a clear example of the sabotage campaign’s real-world impact.

    At the center of the EU’s punitive measures is the 16th Center of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s main domestic intelligence and security agency. The EU’s official designation confirms the unit has maintained direct control over a range of cyber threat groups operating across Europe, and has overseen a steady expansion in the scope and severity of malicious cyber operations against the bloc.

    This latest action builds on growing international alarm over Russian state-aligned cyber activity across Europe. Multiple nations have previously publicly accused Russia of leveraging cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns to interfere in sovereign democratic election processes. Most recently, in April, Swedish officials confirmed that a pro-Russian hacking group with ties to Russian intelligence services was responsible for a cyberattack on a Swedish heating facility in 2023. That announcement followed repeated public warnings from security officials in Poland, Norway, Denmark and Latvia, who have all documented increasing Russian cyber incursions against critical national infrastructure across the continent.

  • Fire in Fontainebleau forest near Paris triggers evacuations, disrupts trains and highway

    Fire in Fontainebleau forest near Paris triggers evacuations, disrupts trains and highway

    As extreme heat blankets Western Europe in the region’s third red-alert heat wave of 2024, a series of destructive wildfires have spread across France and Spain, forcing evacuations, disrupting critical infrastructure, and leaving a trail of deadly destruction.

    On Monday, a rapidly expanding wildfire broke out in Fontainebleau forest, a beloved historic natural area located just 44 miles south of Paris. The forest, which surrounds the iconic Fontainebleau Chateau once favored by French leader Napoleon Bonaparte, draws millions of local and international visitors every year. The proximity of the blaze to the French capital marks an unusual and alarming development, as the region rarely faces large-scale wildfire threats this close to major population centers.

    In response to the spreading fire, local officials ordered immediate evacuations of nearby residential neighborhoods. The blaze also caused widespread disruption to regional transport: train services traveling to and from Paris’ busy Gare de Lyon station were suspended late Sunday, though limited services resumed by Monday morning, and a key stretch of the A6 highway— one of Paris’ major southeast-bound routes— was closed over ongoing fire risk concerns. More than 300 firefighters have been deployed to contain the fire, supported by two water-bombing aircraft assigned to drop fire retardant and water on burning areas, regional fire service spokesperson Paul Laurain confirmed to public broadcaster France-Info.

    The Fontainebleau fire is just one of dozens of wildfires burning across France. Large blazes in the country’s southern region have already scorched thousands of hectares of forest and brush land since last week, forcing organizers of the annual Tour de France cycling race to reroute stages and stretching national firefighting resources thin. France is currently at the peak of its third heat wave of the summer, with temperatures soaring above 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) across western and central parts of the country, while Paris recorded highs of around 98 F (37 C).

    To the south, Spain is reeling from one of the deadliest wildfires in its recent history. A blaze that tore through a remote remote expat community in southern Spain last week has now killed 13 people, including a 93-year-old British national who succumbed to burn injuries in a hospital Sunday. Ten additional people remain unaccounted for as of Monday. The wildfire burned through roughly 27 square miles of forest and agricultural land— an area larger than the entire island of Manhattan— before regional authorities announced it had been contained on Sunday. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was scheduled to visit the disaster site Monday to meet with first responders and affected families.

    Officials warn that the extreme heat, combined with persistent high winds and near-zero rainfall across the Iberian Peninsula, has created perfect tinder conditions that allow small ignitions to explode into large, uncontrollable blazes almost instantly. Climate data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service underscores the severity of the crisis: Europe is warming faster than any other continent on Earth, with average temperatures rising twice as quickly as the global average since the 1980s, a trend scientists directly link to increasing frequency and severity of extreme wildfire and heat wave events across the region.

  • Greece awaits Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ with anticipation despite casting controversy

    Greece awaits Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ with anticipation despite casting controversy

    As Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated big-screen adaptation of Homer’s epic *The Odyssey* prepares for its global theatrical release this Friday, a firestorm of pre-release debate over casting choices has dominated headlines in international conservative circles — but public opinion in Greece, the birthplace of the 3,000-year-old tale, tells a far different story.

    Discourse around literary adaptations often fixates on rigid faithfulness to the original source material. But for Greeks, who grow up studying and revisiting Homer’s epic at every level of education, the poem’s centuries-long survival has never depended on staying static: it has thrived precisely because of constant reinvention.

    Filippos Mantzaris, a seventh-grade educator who teaches *The Odyssey* to young Greek students, explained that the core lesson of the epic is not about rigid adherence to an ancient text. “What we want children to understand is that every new creation is exactly that — a new creation,” he told the Associated Press. In Greek classrooms, *The Odyssey* is not taught as a fixed artifact: students debate the morality of Odysseus’ revenge, question whether the battle-weary king qualifies as a positive role model, and participate in role-play exercises to step into the hero’s journey themselves. For 12-year-old student Kyriakos Agapiou, the epic’s core message is one of resilience: “That everything is possible and we should never give up.”

    This culture of open interpretation extends beyond school walls. Farm scientist Nikos Varelas recently attended a local stage adaptation of *The Odyssey* with his 4-year-old son, after the pair read simplified youth versions of both *The Odyssey* and *The Iliad* together. “It is our duty as parents, as Greeks,” Varelas said of passing the story to a new generation. Manos Pintzis, an actor who portrayed Odysseus in the stage production, noted that live performance makes the ancient myth accessible to young people in a way mandatory reading cannot. “You don’t tell a child, ‘Just read the story because you have to,’ because the child will resist when something is forced on them,” Pintzis explained. “When the child sees all of this unfolding before their eyes — that becomes a valuable step toward learning, to willingly learn what they’re expected to study.”

    The pre-release controversy ignited largely in the United States, where conservative commentators and public figures have attacked Nolan’s casting choices, most notably the casting of Black actor Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy. Billionaire Elon Musk went so far as to claim the director had desecrated the epic, despite having not seen the film. Other conservative voices, including commentator Matt Walsh, have echoed these complaints, arguing the casting prioritizes “identity politics” over tradition, a familiar line of attack against recent diverse reboots of beloved genre properties.

    Nolan has pushed back against the pre-release criticism, noting that these debates hold little weight before audiences have a chance to see the finished film. “Backlash comes with the territory,” he told The Telegraph, adding “these conversations that happen before people see the film — they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet.” Speaking to the AP, the director explained his goal was to create a version of the ancient story that feels modern and accessible, breaking from outdated conventions of how ancient Greek stories have been portrayed in past Hollywood productions. “You want to question people’s assumptions about how things should be portrayed in movies and what those are based on,” he said. “There’s a challenge to that and a risk to that. But my hope is that by creating a cohesive world, people understand the world as they watch the movie and they feel they understand it.”

    For most Greeks, the casting controversy is nothing new: Hollywood has a long history of casting non-Greek foreign actors in iconic ancient Greek roles, a practice audiences have grown accustomed to over decades. Scotsman Gerard Butler became globally famous for playing Spartan King Leonidas in *300*, Oklahoma-born Brad Pitt portrayed Achilles in *Troy*, and Irish actor Colin Farrell led the 2004 biopic *Alexander* — and even one of the most beloved on-screen Greek characters of all time, Zorba, was portrayed by Mexican-American actor Anthony Quinn in the 1964 classic. Nolan’s all-star cast, which includes Matt Damon as Odysseus alongside Nyong’o, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya and Charlize Theron, is simply the latest iteration of this longstanding tradition.

    Only a small niche of Greek public opinion has aligned with the international backlash: far-right nationalist party Niki has objected to both the casting and the Greek government’s decision to provide roughly 6 million euros ($6.9 million) in production subsidies, claiming public funds are being used to impose “woke-type ideology” on Greek cultural identity, echoing Musk’s criticism. But Greece’s Culture Minister Lina Mendoni issued a sharp rejection of these demands. “It is not the state’s role to dictate to a creator how they should artistically interpret a work or a myth,” she told Greek pop culture magazine Lifo. “Can we seriously be having a conversation about whether the state should censor Christopher Nolan?”

    Christos Tsagalis, a professor of ancient Greek literature at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, noted that whether the adaptation succeeds is ultimately up to individual viewers to decide. What matters most, he argued, is that the epic continues to be reimagined for new audiences. Homer’s works have endured for millennia precisely because they have been reinterpreted across generations and adopted as shared global culture, he explained. “I think it’s wonderful that something that is created at a specific point in time by a given people is shared by so many people across the globe … It’s shared culture,” Tsagalis said. “It’s a fascinating story. It is like a movie.”

  • Ukraine reels after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death, fearing a weaker link to Trump

    Ukraine reels after Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sudden death, fearing a weaker link to Trump

    In the wake of the sudden passing of veteran Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, Ukraine is confronting a significant and unexpected gap in its Washington advocacy networks, as the long-standing pro-Kyiv lawmaker stood as Kyiv’s most trusted, high-profile link to former President Donald Trump — a connection that has left Ukrainian leaders and analysts bracing for weakened influence ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.

    Just two days before news of his death broke, Graham stood in Kyiv’s iconic St. Michael’s Square, framed by the gilded domes of the historic monastery and the charred wreckage of destroyed Russian military hardware on public display. There, he delivered a message of cautious optimism to Ukrainians, announcing that a sweeping, hard-hitting new package of economic sanctions against Russia — legislation he had spent years co-developing with Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut — was finally close to advancing through Congress. He was set to return to Washington to hold meetings with bipartisan leaders to push the proposal over the finish line.

    Graham’s passing on Sunday sent waves of grief and concern across official Kyiv. For years, the South Carolina senator had stood out as one of Ukraine’s most unwavering allies in the U.S. capital, and uniquely positioned as a trusted go-between for Kyiv and Trump, who has long had a strained public relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Ukrainian officials now warn that Graham’s absence will not only put the long-awaited Russia sanctions bill at risk, but could also erode Ukraine’s ability to shape White House policy across a wide range of priorities tied to its war against Russian invasion.

    “Huge and absolutely unexpected loss,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, a senior lawmaker from Zelenskyy’s ruling Servant of the People party. “He was truly indispensable. I even don’t know who might be as important for us now in Trump’s entourage. He was the closest link between Ukraine, our president and Trump. Our position in Trump’s entourage might be weaker.”

    Condolences poured in from across Ukraine’s top leadership, with Zelenskyy leading tributes to Graham as one of Kyiv’s most steadfast champions in Washington, who maintained constant communication with Ukrainian officials throughout the war. Zelenskyy said he was “deeply saddened” by the senator’s sudden passing, noting that Graham had made 10 visits to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, always showing up when Ukrainians needed international support most. “We were in constant dialogue and will miss that greatly,” Zelenskyy wrote on his official Telegram channel, recalling that the two had met twice in the week before Graham’s death — first at the NATO summit, and again during Graham’s recent Kyiv visit.

    Ukrainian Parliament Speaker Ruslan Stefanchuk echoed those remarks, calling Graham a “steadfast friend of Ukraine” whose support for the country was “principled and resolute.” He noted he would long remember their “meaningful, sincere, and warmly personal meetings,” and expressed confidence that Graham’s work to advance tougher Russian sanctions would be completed in his honor.

    In the period since Trump secured the Republican presidential nomination and his impending return to the White House next year, Ukrainian officials moved quickly to build ties with Trump-aligned Republicans amid growing uncertainty over the future of U.S. military and economic support for Kyiv. Lawmakers and analysts have confirmed Graham quickly emerged as the central figure in those outreach efforts.

    Oleksandr Kraiev, a leading political analyst at the Kyiv-based think tank Ukrainian Prism, noted that Graham’s standing in Ukraine was unusually prominent, even compared to many domestic Ukrainian politicians. “Graham is even more well-known and more popular among Ukrainians than many Ukrainian politicians,” Kraiev said. Without Graham, he added, Ukraine risks losing its most influential advocate with direct, unfiltered access to Trump, and “I don’t see anyone else who will take the lead in helping Ukraine maintain those necessary connections.”

    A rare figure in today’s Trump-dominated Republican Party, Graham carved out a political identity that broke with the growing isolationist “America First” strain of the Make America Great Again movement on key foreign policy issues. He remained committed to traditional conservative foreign policy principles, including staunch opposition to Russian expansionism, hawkish policy toward Iran, and unwavering support for U.S. ally Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He also continued to back traditional U.S. alliances in Europe at a time when Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw American troops from the continent and doubled down on his criticism of NATO.

    Even as his positions put him at odds with many high-profile Trump supporters, Graham retained a close personal relationship with the former president, who often values loyalty above all else from congressional Republicans. Unlike many GOP lawmakers who have faced public ridicule from Trump for breaking with his agenda, Graham remained a trusted voice, particularly on foreign policy, that Trump was willing to listen to.

    Blumenthal, Graham’s Democratic collaborator on the Russian sanctions bill, highlighted Graham’s independent streak in a statement following his death. “He marched to his own drummer,” Blumenthal said. “He could be strong-minded, fiercely driven, and sometimes unpredictable, but also deeply compassionate and sympathetic when he saw suffering and injustice.”

    Graham’s unwavering support for Ukraine has long put him at odds with Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the volume of U.S. spending on aid for the war-torn country. Even so, Blumenthal confirmed that Graham was confident the sanctions legislation was finally within reach, telling reporters he had spoken with Graham over the weekend, when the South Carolina senator was “exulted” about the prospect of moving the package forward. Blumenthal added that passing the bill into law should now serve as a “fitting tribute” to Graham’s years of work on the issue.

  • Planes sent to tackle wildfires of ‘exceptional scale’ near Paris

    Planes sent to tackle wildfires of ‘exceptional scale’ near Paris

    A large, fast-spreading wildfire has ignited near Noisy-sur-Ecole, close to the iconic Fontainebleau forest just 60 kilometers southeast of Paris, triggering an extraordinary emergency response amid the third record-breaking heatwave to hit the French capital region this summer. Local officials have labeled the blaze as “virulent” and of “exceptional scale”, with flames tearing through more than 800 hectares of forest as of early Monday, with the fire line still expanding across the wooded landscape.

    In response to the crisis, French authorities took an unprecedented step: two dedicated firefighting aircraft were deployed from the warmer, drier southern region of the country, where large wildfires are more common, to combat the blaze near Paris. This marks the first time such aerial assets have been reassigned north to the Paris region for wildfire response, according to Eric Brocardi, a spokesperson for France’s national federation of firefighters. Joining the two water-bombing planes were two additional firefighting helicopters and a dedicated observation aircraft, all mobilized to prioritize the core mission of protecting civilian lives and nearby infrastructure, Brocardi confirmed in comments to Agence-France-Presse.

    The spreading fire has already caused major travel disruption across France, hitting the first major summer holiday weekend when millions of Parisians travel out of the capital for seasonal getaways. The blaze forced partial closure of France’s key north-south highway, snarling traffic for thousands of travelers. Earlier in the emergency, a separate fire linked to the hot, dry conditions blocked an eastbound highway out of Paris and interrupted service on the high-speed rail line connecting Paris to southern France. By Sunday evening, French national rail operator SNCF announced that travelers faced delays of up to six hours for all services arriving at or departing from Paris Gare de Lyon.

    This wildfire is not an isolated event, but part of a broader pattern of extreme heat and fire risk sweeping Europe this summer, where multiple countries across the continent have already broken all-time temperature records. In France alone, the prolonged heat has forced additional cascading disruptions beyond the wildfire: three nuclear power plants have been temporarily taken offline, as operators avoid releasing warm cooling water into already overheated rivers and waterways that would further threaten aquatic ecosystems. Even the Tour de France, one of the world’s most high-profile annual cycling events, was forced to adjust its schedule, cutting 30 kilometers from Sunday’s race stage as temperatures climbed close to 40 degrees Celsius to protect rider safety.

    Across the continent, the record heat has sparked a series of devastating wildfires with severe human costs. In southern Spain, a wildfire near Almeria that broke out Thursday has already killed at least 13 people, making it one of the deadliest wildfire events in the country’s modern history. In the United Kingdom, emergency services declared a major incident Sunday after a large wildfire broke out in north Wales, with fire crews battling multiple blazes across both Wales and England as the region also swelters under record high temperatures.

  • British couple return to village at heart of deadly Spanish wildfire

    British couple return to village at heart of deadly Spanish wildfire

    When our vehicle wound up the steep, curved mountain road leading to Bédar, a small Andalusian town in Spain’s southeastern Almeria province, we stepped out into a scene of utter devastation. Twisted, molten fragments of burned cars littered the roadside, and every hillside stretching toward the horizon was blanketed in a thick, ashy black coating of charred vegetation. This is the aftermath of Thursday’s catastrophic wildfire, already ranked as one of the deadliest wildfire events in modern Spanish history.

    As of Sunday, the official death toll has climbed to 13, with five of the victims believed to be British citizens. The latest fatality was a 93-year-old British woman who succumbed to her burn injuries in a hospital over the weekend. Official confirmation of all victims’ identities is still pending, while emergency teams have now fully contained the blaze after it consumed roughly 7,000 hectares (17,300 acres) of forest and residential land. Fanned by gusty winds reaching 50 km/h, the flames spread with a speed and ferocity that caught many local residents off guard.

    Yet amid the widespread destruction, pockets of survival offered small, bittersweet moments of relief. Driving deeper into Bédar’s residential neighborhoods, it became clear that dozens of the region’s distinctive bright white stucco homes escaped the blaze unscathed. For British expats Emma and Simon Mitchell, who moved to the town three years ago, that escape felt nothing short of a miracle. “This is our house and it survived,” Emma told reporters, breathing a heavy sigh of relief. When the couple returned to their property Sunday as part of the first wave of evacuees allowed back into the zone, they found all 15 of their chickens alive, and power and water still running, despite the inferno that burned right up to their property line.

    That relief quickly gave way to grief and anger, however, as Emma looked across the valley to the homes of friends that were reduced to ash. The Mitchells are among 600 of the nearly 1,500 evacuated residents permitted to return to their properties to assess damage, and their experience has laid bare critical gaps in the region’s emergency alert system. The couple told reporters they received no formal advance notice of the spreading fire, despite living just a quarter kilometer from the blaze’s path. “We get an alert for earthquakes that are 50 miles away but we don’t get an alert for a fire that is a quarter of a kilometre away,” Simon Mitchell explained. “Next time it would be good to get an alert on our phones.”

    Emma Mitchell has also pushed back against claims from some local officials that victims, including the British citizens killed, failed to follow official evacuation instructions. She lashed out at authorities for engaging in victim-blaming, noting that many victims never received any instructions at all. “You need to get your act sorted and please don’t try and victim-blame afterwards,” she said. “These people that died, they had no instructions to follow, they did the best they could in the circumstances they could and they paid the price.”

    Local officials have defended their response, explaining they chose not to issue a broad phone alert Thursday night out of concern that it would reach residents outside the danger zone and create unnecessary congestion that would complicate evacuation efforts. They added that police instead relied on door-to-door notifications and phone calls to warn at-risk residents. As of Sunday night, neither the Andalusian regional government nor Spain’s national Civil Guard had responded to requests for additional comment on the response criticism.

    The disaster has had a disproportionate impact on the region’s large community of foreign expats, who have settled in the Los Gallardos area surrounding Bédar for its warm climate and scenic landscapes. Among the injured are a British couple who were out hiking when the fire spread rapidly Thursday. Local media reports say the pair was found badly burned and semi-conscious in a ravine, and they remain in intensive care after being evacuated to a major hospital.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has scheduled a visit to the devastated fire zone on Monday to meet with first responders and affected residents. This wildfire already ranks among the deadliest in recorded Spanish history: only two other major wildfires have recorded higher death tolls, a 1979 blaze near Lloret de Mar that killed 21 people, including nine children, and a 1984 fire on the Canary Island of La Gomera that killed 20.

    Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that rising global temperatures driven by anthropogenic climate change are increasing the frequency and intensity of summer heatwaves across Southern Europe, creating ideal dry, warm conditions for extreme, fast-spreading wildfires like the Almeria blaze. First responders and local leaders across the Mediterranean have called for updated emergency infrastructure and more robust alert systems to adapt to the growing risk of catastrophic wildfire events.