The Full Belmonte, 6/26/2023
Wagner Group fighters prepare to depart Rostov-on-Don, Russia, on Saturday as crowds cheer.
Russia
“Russia may have avoided an insurrection over the weekend, but there are still a lot of questions about what transpired. It's unclear what will happen to Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who led the insurrection against Russian military leadership. It's also too soon to know how the uprising might affect the war in Ukraine, and there will likely be other implications as well. One key takeaway: Russian President Vladimir Putin looks weak as a result. ‘It feels like the beginning of the end for him,’ writes CNN's Nick Paton Walsh. Meanwhile, Ukraine claims it has made inroads against Russian forces around Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.” [CNN]
Extreme weather
“Several cities in northern India are experiencing heavy rain after a sweltering heat wave that recently engulfed countries across Asia. But while the showers provide some respite from the high temperatures, one researcher said that the country will be ‘approaching the limits to survivability by mid-century.’ In the US, hundreds of thousands of people are without power across the Southeast and the Ohio Valley after tornado-spawning storms slammed the region. Separately, a new analysis shows that extreme floods are happening far more often than federal data suggests, which could seriously affect everything from the building of new roads and bridges to the rising cost of flood insurance.” [CNN]
Suspect in attack at Colorado Springs gay nightclub set to plead guilty
“The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to plead guilty Monday in an attack that killed five people and wounded 17 last year. The plea could bring a life sentence for Anderson Lee Aldrich and end the court case seven months after the shooting — sparing victims a potentially painful trial. Victims’ family members and survivors are expected to speak at the hearing about how their lives were forever altered by the terror that erupted just before midnight on Nov. 19 when the suspect walked into Club Q and opened fire.” Read more at USA Today
US Coast Guard opens investigation into Titan implosion
“Efforts to retrieve the Titan submersible from the sea floor were ongoing Monday, days after the vessel imploded while carrying five people to the Titanic. The U.S. Coast Guard said Sunday it was leading an investigation to determine what caused it to implode. The Coast Guard board can make recommendations to prosecutors to pursue civil or criminal sanctions as necessary. ‘My primary goal is to prevent a similar occurrence by making the necessary recommendations to advance the safety of the maritime domain worldwide,’ said Capt. Jason Neubauer, the chief investigator. Read more at USA Today
Five roses with the names of the passengers of the Titan are seen placed near the waterfront on Saturday, June 24, 2023 in St. John's, Newfoundland.
Adrian Wyld, AP
Train derailment
“Cleanup has begun after a train derailment in Montana over the weekend caused a bridge across the Yellowstone River to collapse and sent several train cars into the water below. No injuries were reported. Some of the train cars were carrying molten sulfur and asphalt, while two cars carrying sodium hydrogen sulfate did not land in the river, according to Montana Rail Link. The company said it's continuing to test public drinking water and will monitor the impact on the nearby area.” [[CNN]
Immigration
“The Supreme Court has revived Biden administration immigration guidelines that prioritize which noncitizens to detain and which to deport. Friday's 8-1 ruling dismisses a challenge from Republican state attorneys general in Texas and Louisiana, who had argued that the policies conflicted with immigration law. It also tightens the rules around when states can challenge federal policies with which they disagree — the second decision in a week to do so. The ruling is a major victory for President Joe Biden and the White House, who have consistently argued the need to prioritize who they detain and deport given limited resources. And with the Supreme Court beginning its final week, all eyes will be on the high court as the justices will release cases on issues such as affirmative action, student loan payments, election law and LGBTQ rights.” [CNN]
AAUP Joins Suit Over ‘Stop WOKE’ Act
By Scott Jaschik
“The American Association of University Professors is filing a brief today with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit backing faculty members who sued over the “Stop WOKE Act”—officially the Individual Freedom Act—which prohibits professors at Florida’s public universities from expressing certain viewpoints while teaching on topics including racial and sexual discrimination and injustice. The AAUP’s brief argues that the law violates the First Amendment and threatens to destroy academic freedom, sabotage higher education, and undermine democracy.
The measure, signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis. a Republican, prohibits faculty at the state’s public colleges and universities from engaging in ‘instruction’ that ‘espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels … student[s] or employee[s] to believe’ certain concepts involving racial and sexual discrimination and injustice.
A federal district court judge issued an injunction barring enforcement.” [Inside Higher Education]
Wild weather has devastated Georgia’s peaches.
“What happened? Georgia saw record-warm temperatures this winter. The warmth caused the trees to bloom early; then a few deep freezes killed that early growth.
The damage: Farmers have lost as much as 95% of their crop, experts say. Other states also supply peaches, but prices could be a bit higher this year.”
Read this story at Washington Post
Mother of teenager who died on Titan sub said she gave her place to son
Christine Dawood said Suleman, 19, was ‘so excited’ and planned to break a Rubik’s cube world record
“The mother of the teenager who died on the Titan submersible has said she gave up her place to her son ‘because he really wanted to go’.
Suleman Dawood, 19, and his father Shahzada, 48, were among five people who died when the vessel imploded on a journey to view the wreck of the Titanic.
Christine Dawood told the BBC the original trip had been scheduled before the pandemic and said her son had been disappointed that he was not old enough to accompany them.
She said: ‘It was supposed to be Shahzada and I going down. I stepped back and gave the place to Suleman because he really wanted to go.’
Asked how she felt about the decision, she replied: ‘Let’s just skip that.’
She said ‘both of them were so excited’ and her son had taken a Rubik’s Cube with him because he wanted to break a world record.
Dawood said her son loved the puzzle so much that he carried it with him everywhere and could solve it in 12 seconds. He planned to solve the puzzle 3,700m below sea by the remains of the Titanic.
The family boarded the Polar Prince, the sub’s support vessel, on 18 June – Father’s Day – anticipating the trip of a lifetime. Dawood and her 17-year-old daughter Alina were still onboard when word came through that communications with Titan had been lost.
She said: ‘We all thought they are just going to come up so that shock was delayed by about 10 hours or so. There was a time … when they were supposed to be up on the surface again and when that time passed, the real shock, not shock but the worry and the not so good feelings started.’
’We had loads of hope, I think that was the only thing that got us through it … We talked about things that pilots can do like dropping weights, there were so many actions people on the sub can do in order to surface. We were constantly looking at the surface. There was so many things we would go through where we would think ‘it’s just slow right now, it’s slow right now’.’
She said she ‘lost hope’ when 96 hours had passed since her husband and son boarded the submersible, which indicated they had run out of oxygen. At that point, she sent a message to her family saying she was ‘preparing for the worst’.
Her daughter remained hopeful until the call with the US Coast Guard when they were informed debris had been found, she said.
The family returned to St John’s in Newfoundland, Canada, on Saturday, and on Sunday held a funeral prayer for Shahzada and Suleman.
Dawood said she and her daughter had vowed to learn to finish the Rubik’s Cube in Suleman’s honour and she intended to continue her husband’s philanthropic work….” Read more at The Guardian
Canada is having its worst fire season in modern history.
“The numbers: Some 17.8 million acres of land have burned so far this year, 3.5 million of which burned just last week. The peak of Canada’s typical season still lies ahead.
The wider impact: Smoke from the fires could hit the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast in the coming days. A plume also appears to be on its way to parts of Europe.”
Read this story at Washington Post
Greece
“Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has won another four-year term, while his center-right New Democracy party scored a resounding victory. Sunday's elections were dominated by financial stability and cost-of-living issues, and Mitsotakis had positioned himself as someone who could boost growth in difficult global circumstances. His government staged a stunning economic turnaround, with Greece now on the brink of returning to investment grade on the global market for the first time since it lost market access in 2010. The vote also came after a devastating migrant boat disaster, and although authorities were criticized for their response to the tragedy, it didn't hinder Mitsotakis’ lead.” [CNN]
Millions begin Hajj pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia
“Two million Muslim pilgrims began the annual Hajj pilgrimage on Monday, making their way out of Mecca after circling Islam's holiest site, the Kaaba, and converging on a vast tent camp nearby for a day and night of prayer. One of the largest religious gatherings in the world has returned to full capacity for the first time since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago. The pilgrimage is one of the five pillars of Islam, and all Muslims are required to make the five-day Hajj at least once in their lives if they are physically and financially able.” Read more at USA Today
Somali pilgrims prepare for a selfie in front of the Kaaba, the cubic building at the Grand Mosque, during the annual hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, Monday, June 26, 2023.
Amr Nabil, AP
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reintroduced legislation yesterday to reduce the power of Israel’s courts. As Galit Altstein writes, he’s not seeking the kind of major overhaul that triggered months of furious street protests in a previous attempt by his government, but the bill may be the first of a series and could once again spark unrest.” [Foreign Policy]
“Guatemala’s former first lady, Sandra Torres, took an early lead in a vote count after a turbulent presidential election that saw poll workers doused with gasoline by an angry mob. So far none of the 22 candidates appear anywhere near the 50% needed to win in the first round, meaning the ballot will almost certainly head to an August runoff.” [Foreign Policy]
A police officer fires tear gas to disperse protesters outside a polling station yesterday. Photographer: Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images
“Pakistan’s race to restart a stalled International Monetary Fund loan program took a positive turn as the country pledged to raise taxes and cut expenses to appease the lender less than a week before the facility ends. Restarting the loans would provide a moment of respite for a nation that’s been battling multiple crises and edging closer to economic collapse.” [Foreign Policy]
“North Korea held one of its biggest anti-US rallies in years, as more than 100,000 people carried banners that pledged to ‘pulverize the American empire’ and denounced Washington as it seeks talks with Pyongyang.” [Foreign Policy]
“Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa launched his party’s election campaign as he seeks a second term running a nation struggling with high inflation and a plunging currency.” [Foreign Policy]
“New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins is on a six-day visit to China, his nation’s biggest export market, seeking to drum up demand for a wider array of goods and services than the traditional fare of milk, logs and lamb.” [Foreign Policy]
“Voters elected a member of the far-right Alternative for Germany as district administrator for the first time, handing the party a victory in an eastern stronghold as its national support surges.” [Foreign Policy]
Today's WorldView: Putin is reaping what he sowed
By Ishaan Tharoor
with Sammy Westfall
A column of Wagner mercenary group troops heads toward Moscow on the M4 highway Saturday near Voronezh. (Stringer/Reuters)
“As is his wont, Russian President Vladimir Putin railed against hegemonic Western plots in a speech last October. He blamed the United States and its allies for the conflict in Ukraine, casting the Russian onslaught there as a necessary operation to save fellow Slavic brethren from foreign domination. And he linked the turbulence and great-power competition currently reshaping global politics to a legacy of Western hubris.
‘The sower of the wind, as they say, will reap the storm,’ Putin declared.
Such logic may hold in the Kremlin’s hall of mirrors and make sense to an audience trapped in Russia’s state media information space. But 16 months after Putin launched his nation’s unprovoked, full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian president finds himself weaker and more isolated than ever, his nation’s military reeling after a long, demoralizing series of failures, and his own grip on power seemingly as tenuous as it has ever been in the more than 23 years he has held sway in Moscow.
The weekend offered one of the clearest illustrations yet that Putin himself is reaping what he sowed. A bewildering chain of events saw an insurrection launched by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the commander of the influential Wagner mercenary company who had in recent months raged against the perceived incompetence and corruption of Russia’s military leadership. On Saturday, his forces marched virtually unopposed through the southern city of Rostov en route to Moscow, reaching positions just 120 miles outside of the capital.
Then, as onlookers feverishly speculated over the prospect of a coup or civil war convulsing Putin’s Russia, Prigozhin backed down by Saturday night. He announced that thanks to a deal supposedly brokered by the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, Wagner units would be returning to base, while Prigozhin himself appeared to depart for a form of exile in Belarus.
For the Kremlin, a jarring challenge to its control seemed to have been staved off. But the damage to Putin’s image and authority may be lasting. On Saturday morning, in the face of Prigozhin’s advance, Putin warned of the ‘brutal’ response to be meted out on what he described as a ‘rebellion’ launched by ‘traitors.’ By the evening, his chief spokesman announced that looming charges against Prigozhin would be dropped and that Wagner fighters who did not participate in the mutiny would be offered contracts by the Russian Defense Ministry.
The climb-down revealed a fragility and instability at the heart of Russian power. Prigozhin, a former St. Petersburg hot dog vendor who, with Putin’s blessing, parlayed a successful government catering business into the creation of a huge private army, had long railed against the mismanagement of the war, explicitly calling out Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and army chief Valery Gerasimov. His angry videos spoke to the ordinary Russian servicemen dispatched to the bloody front lines, and revealed a growing cynicism and crisis of morale surrounding Putin’s war effort in Ukraine.
Analysts speculated that Putin allowed Prigozhin a long leash as part of his own politicking among circles of Kremlin elites. That Prigozhin then decided to fully turn against Putin’s establishment, to the applause of locals in Rostov and the acquiescence of confused Russian authorities on the road to Moscow, is the latest blow to the Russian president’s prestige and legitimacy since the launch of his disastrous ‘special military operation ‘in Ukraine.
‘For Putin, it was a failure that the special military operation collapsed,’ Sergei Markov, a Kremlin-connected political consultant known for his hawkish views, told my colleagues. ‘It was a failure that the West totally and firmly joined this war, and now it is a total failure that the most battle-ready part of the Russian armed forces turned against him, and the Russian authorities.’
‘Putin has unwittingly launched a stress test of his own regime,’ Stephen Kotkin, a preeminent historian of Russia and biographer of Stalin, told Foreign Affairs. ‘He had already lost his mystique with the bungling of the aggression against Ukraine. Mystique, once lost, is near impossible to regain.’
Intrigue swirls around what’s to come. Some analysts struggle to see Putin tolerating the presence of the insurrectionist forces within his camp in the months ahead. Others doubt Prigozhin will slip into obscurity in Minsk and reckon he may remain a parallel source of influence over the Russian public. For years, Putin consolidated his power by both suppressing any alternatives to his rule and cultivating a cohort of de facto warlords, like Prigozhin and Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, who seemed loyal to him if not the overall chain of command at the Kremlin.
Wagner forces, including detachments of convicts, proved to be among the most effective fighters in Russia’s attritional campaigns and were praised by Putin just a month ago for their service. The mercenary company is notorious for its ruthlessness and brutality, and is linked to myriad human rights abuses and potential war crimes in operations stretching from Ukraine to Syria to the warzones of the African Sahel. In March, Russia’s rubber-stamp Duma, or parliament, passed a law making criticism of the country’s mercenaries punishable by up to five years in prison. Now, in an echo of the histories of ancient empires, the esteemed elite guard may prove to be a dangerous fifth column.
‘It’s difficult to imagine a stable equilibrium after today,’ observed Andras Toth-Czifra, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, commenting on developments Saturday. ‘Whoever gets the upper hand will aggravate the grievances of the other side; if no one does, someone will try soon. A lot of taboos have been broken.’
Over the weekend, Russia launched another huge barrage of missiles at Ukrainian cities, a sign that its appetite and capacity for destruction may not be dimmed despite the crisis at home. Analysts can barely trace the outlines of the fallout from Prigozhin’s aborted coup. ‘We don’t know if it’s over,’ said Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Moscow and former deputy secretary general of NATO, to my colleagues. ‘We can speculate all we want, but the fact is we have little idea of what happens next.’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was unsparing in a Saturday evening address, speaking directly to the Russian people about their president’s culpability in the crisis. ‘The longer your troops stay on Ukrainian land, the more devastation they will bring to Russia,’ Zelensky said. ‘The longer this person is in the Kremlin, the more disasters there will be.’” [Washington Post]
“Florida swamps L.S.U.: The Gators scored a record 24 runs in Game 2 of the men’s College World Series final, The Athletic writes. Game 3 is tonight.
Golfing: Ruoning Yin, just 20, became just the second Chinese woman to claim a major tournament with her Women’s P.G.A. Championship victory yesterday. The Athletic explains how she won.” [New York Times]