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The NEW YORK TIMES
10 July 2023
Ukraine must wait on NATO membership, Biden says
Ukraine is not ready for membership in NATO, President Biden said in an interview that aired yesterday on CNN. It would be “premature,” he said, to begin the process to allow the country to join the alliance in the middle of a war, because doing so would thrust all NATO members into military conflict with Russia.
Biden said that he did not think there was “unanimity in NATO about whether or not to bring Ukraine into the NATO family now,” and that the process could occur only after a peace agreement with Russia was in place. There would be “other qualifications that need to be met, including democratization,” for Ukraine to be considered for membership, he added.
The president began a trip to Europe yesterday that will include a two-day NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Russia’s war in Ukraine — and a decision last week by the U.S. to supply Kyiv with cluster munitions that are banned by most of its allies — will be a main focus.
Analysis: “The main task of this NATO summit is to show the alliance’s unity and solidarity in support of Ukraine,” Steven Erlanger, our chief diplomatic correspondent in Europe, said. “Russia believes, we think, that it can outwait Western support for Ukraine. And truly the main task of this summit is to say to President Vladimir Putin, ‘That’s not going to happen.’” Read more about the aims of the summit.
500 days of war: Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, marked the milestone with a video of his visit to a Black Sea island that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Far-right parties gain ground in Europe
In Spain’s national elections later this month, polls suggest that the liberal prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, will be ousted as conservative parties take control. Vox, a hard-right party, may join more moderate conservatives in a coalition — making it the first right-wing party since Francisco Franco’s dictatorship to enter the national government in Spain.
The rise of Vox is part of an increasing trend of hard-right parties surging in popularity and, in some cases, gaining power by entering governments as junior partners in Europe. Their steady advances have added urgency to a now pressing debate among liberals over how to outflank a suddenly more influential right.
The parties have differences but generally fear the economic ramifications of globalization, and say that their countries will lose their national identities to migration, often from non-Christian or nonwhite-majority countries, but also to an empowered E.U. that they believe looks after only the elites.
Elsewhere: In Sweden, the government now depends on a party with neo-Nazi roots and has given it some sway in policymaking. In Finland, the right has ascended into the governing coalition. And in Italy, the far right has taken power on its own — even as Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has governed more moderately than many expected.
Janet Yellen’s visit to China
After 10 hours of meetings over two days in Beijing, Janet Yellen, the U.S. treasury secretary, said that she believed the U.S. and China were on a steadier footing despite their “significant disagreements.” She added, “We believe that the world is big enough for both of our countries to thrive.”
Yellen came to China amid hopes that the U.S. could restart a relationship that has been deteriorating for years and that had gone off the rails recently over significant points of tension — including the war in Ukraine, a Chinese spy balloon that flew over U.S. territory and the two countries’ escalating exchange of restrictions on trade.
Yellen announced that the two sides would pursue more frequent communication at the highest levels, describing improved dialogue as a way to prevent mistrust from building and fraying a relationship that she called “one of the most consequential of our time.”
Next steps: A meaningful easing of the economic tension may not be likely. There were no announcements of breakthroughs or agreements to mend the persistent fissures between the two nations, and Yellen made clear that the Biden administration had serious concerns about many of China’s commercial practices.
Around the World
In France, the similarity of recent violent riots to 2005 protests has raised questions about whether government efforts to improve conditions in its suburbs have failed.
The Dutch government collapsed on Friday after failing to reach an agreement on migration policy, a flashpoint in European politics.
The BBC suspended a male staff member after a report that an unnamed host had paid a teenager for “sexually explicit photographs.”
Mexico is taking tough steps to discourage migrants from massing along the border, including transporting them to places deep in the country’s interior.
Pope Francis announced that he would create 21 new cardinals in September, choosing clerics from across the world.
From Opinion
Yevgeny Prigozhin’s failed mutiny has exposed Russia’s dysfunctional dependence on the Wagner group and other private military companies, Colin Clarke writes.
As A.I. becomes more integral to health care, doctors — and patients — will face complicated questions about the practice of medicine, Dr. Daniela Lamas says.
We shouldn’t lose faith in organized religion, Tish Harrison Warren writes.
Tech bros appear to be especially susceptible to brain-rotting contrarianism, Paul Krugman writes.
David Mack makes the case for traveling without checked luggage.
Opening night
Beyoncé took the stage in Toronto on Saturday night for the first North American show of her Renaissance World Tour, centered on an album that romps through the history of dance music, with an emphasis on the contributions of Black and queer innovators.
Wearing a glimmering, chain-mail mini dress, Beyoncé opened the show with a nearly 30-minute stretch of ballads and deep cuts that harked back to her earlier days. Thus began a “two-and-a-half-hour set that was visually spectacular, vocally ambitious, and sometimes tonally confused,” the pop music critic Lindsay Zoladz writes in The Times.
The NEW YORK TIMES
16 June 2023
Ukraine’s grueling — but promising — counteroffensive
Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russia is making gains, albeit at a high cost, Ukrainian and American officials said. But after initially retaking some small settlements and villages, Ukraine’s advances in the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions are better measured in yards than miles, according to independent analysts.
The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, acknowledged that Ukraine’s forces were meeting fierce resistance and suffering losses both in human casualties and in the Western tanks and other armored vehicles newly supplied to them. Those difficulties had been expected, they said.
“There is progress in all directions of the attack,” Hanna Malyar, a deputy Ukrainian defense minister, said late yesterday. Ukrainian forces heading south in the direction of Berdiansk and Mariupol — two key coastal cities long held by the Russians — had moved forward about a mile, she said.
On the ground: With each step forward, Ukraine’s soldiers become more exposed to Russian firepower, Andrew Kramer, our Kyiv bureau chief, reports from a village in the south recently retaken by Ukraine.
Aerial attacks: Russia has recently stepped up its missile and drone attacks on targets far from the front line, often civilian ones. Ukraine’s air defenses are able to shoot down most attacking munitions around Kyiv, but they are spread thin elsewhere.
In other news from the war:
NATO allies vowed to keep up their support for Ukraine indefinitely. Denmark and the Netherlands are organizing training for Ukrainian pilots to fly American-made F-16s.
The top U.N. nuclear official visited the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant to assess its safety.
Curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art are teaching military officers to save Ukraine’s art.
Report on Boris Johnson’s lockdown parties released
Boris Johnson, the former British prime minister, deliberately misled British lawmakers over lockdown-breaking parties in Downing Street, the House of Commons Privileges Committee has concluded. Here’s the 108-page documentof its findings.
The report offered a damning verdict on Johnson’s honesty and integrity, concluding that he had committed “a serious contempt” of the House. “The contempt was all the more serious because it was committed by the prime minister, the most senior member of the government,” the committee said in the report, noting that there was no precedent for such an act.
Johnson resigned as a lawmaker last week, but if he hadn’t, the committee would have recommended a 90-day ban from Parliament. It also recommended that his parliamentary pass be revoked, preventing him from visiting Parliament.
Next steps: On Monday, members of Parliament will be asked to vote on whether to endorse the report. That could serve as a referendum on Johnson’s career, either revealing persistent divisions within the Conservative Party, if some Tories reject the findings, or ratifying his fall from grace. The government will not pressure members to vote one way or the other.
Analysis: Johnson and Donald Trump were both accused of breaking rules. The former U.S. president now faces federal criminal charges — but only Johnson is experiencing a loss of party support, writes Mark Landler, our London bureau chief.
9 charged after boat disaster in Greece
The authorities in Greece have detained nine Egyptian nationals on criminal charges in connection with a shipwreck in which at least 78 people are known to have died and 104 people were rescued. The search for survivors continues, though the prospects are slim and hundreds more are feared to be missing.
Photographs of the vessel, a fishing trawler, taken by a Greek Coast Guard helicopter showed it to be hugely overcrowded with people, none of whom appeared to be wearing life vests. Survivors have told Greek officials that as many as 500 people were aboard the vessel, according to a Shipping Ministry official.
The boat sank in one of the deepest spots of the Mediterranean, where the seabed is at a depth of 4,000 meters, or about 2.5 miles, complicating the search for survivors. Those rescued so far, all men, will be moved to a state camp in Malakasa, north of Athens, as soon as processing by coast guard officials is completed, according to the authorities.
Around the World
The European Central Bank raised interest rates to their highest level in more than two decades and warned that more rate increases could be coming.
Kenya is charging the survivors of a starvation cult with attempted suicide. Some are still refusing to eat.
Amid heightened U.S.-China tensions, Chinese brands like Shein are moving their operations and headquarters to places like Singapore and Ireland.
North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles, its first missile test in two months, as the U.S. and South Korean militaries conducted a joint live-fire exercise.
From the U.S.
Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman accused of sharing U.S. intelligence online, was indicted on charges of mishandling secrets.
The U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law that gives Native American tribes priority over non-Native families in the adoption of Native children.
Another round of eastward winds is pushing Canadian wildfire smoke toward the East Coast.
Jurors have begun their deliberations in the federal trial of the man charged with killing 11 at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018. He faces the possibility of a death sentence if convicted.
The Week in Culture
Ticketing giants, under pressure from the White House, said that they would show customers the full cost of concerts, including fees.
Berlin’s state prosecutor has begun an investigation into accusations that Till Lindemann, of the German rock band Rammstein, drugged and sexually assaulted women.
A new series reunites the characters and writer of the British film “The Full Monty,” 25 years later and in another age of austerity.
Wes Anderson’s new film, “Asteroid City,” is comic and wry with the soul of a tragedy, our critic writes.
Did Beyoncé contribute to inflation in Sweden?