Summer in Southern Europe.
It's hot. 🔥
Southern Europe is on fire. There are reports of wildfires and extreme heat hitting Italy, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, and Greece. Tourists are being evacuated. Firefighters are abandoning their posts.
A security zone was set up around a Greek air force base after wildfires triggered explosions at an ammunition depot. Scicily’s Palermo Airport was closed after fires broke out nearby.
I am not in Europe this summer in large part because the price of flights across the Atlantic quadruples during the summer months. I toyed with the idea of spending a chunk of August when Congress is out of session, and I can work remotely, holed up in little beach towns in Italy, Greece, or Spain. But that option was not in the cards, mainly because the summer tourism boom makes trekking across Europe unbearable.
Now it seems climate change could make those journeys intolerable for reasons unrelated to large crowds and inflated prices, which raises questions about whether everyone will be forced to abandon their summer trips to southern Europe forever. Bloomberg reports that Record Heat in Southern Europe Sends Travelers Heading for the Nordics. But what will that do to communities that rely on tourism for their income? Will everyone move their summer plans to September or October? Will we one day spend December on the beach? Or will people start vacationing in Canada over the summer? Oh, whoops, there are wildfires there, too.
I heard there are fires on the Greek island of Corfu, and that made me wonder about a cantankerous hotel owner I met there years ago, who viciously attacked me when I was in my 20s because I made some offhanded comment about not wanting to procreate. My assertion that I had “more important things to do with my life” than raising children was taken as an affront to her values and life choices. She didn’t seem to realize or care that I was just a kid who still didn’t know what I would or wouldn’t want to do with my life. She had a young son who sat naked in the lobby of her hotel, fervently examining his penis in front of the guests.
I didn’t particularly enjoy that family on a personal level, but I would rather not see their livelihoods destroyed. Corfu also had the best beaches I’ve ever been on.
Balkan Insight reports that “a bumper tourism season in many Balkan countries is providing hard-hit economies with a welcome cash injection.” So at least it hasn’t become impossible to travel everywhere, yet.
Perhaps I am especially concerned because, as a Southern European, I am pretty attached to that part of the world and would prefer not to see it engulfed in flames. Call me crazy.
Meanwhile, climate change was not a topic of conversation as Italy’s far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni visited Washington this week. Republican lawmakers told me they found a lot of common ground with Italy’s first female head of government. In fact, they said they could barely find points of disagreement. Both Meloni and centrist Republicans support Ukraine’s fight for its sovereignty and want to crack down on migration to their southern border. Days before she arrived in Washington, Meloni hosted Mediterranean leaders in Rome for a conference that aimed to expand an EU-backed deal with Tunisia to curb the arrival of migrants in Europe. Climate change and its impact on migration were discussed there.
For those looking for an update, the results from Spain’s election last Sunday were inconclusive.
Neither of the two centrist parties (Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s center-left Partido Socialista Obrero Español or the center-right Partido Popular led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo) won enough seats to form a government.
The far-right Vox Party lost seats, meaning it won’t enter government by playing kingmaker. Sanchez will need to gin up support from the Catalan separatist parties, which also lost seats, or the country could head to another election.
But the Catalans might want some concessions, like, for example, a recognized referendum on independence. Meanwhile, Spanish prosecutors are still trying to arrest the architects of the last referendum, who are currently in exile.
There’s also a tiny chance the PP and PSOE could form a broad centrist coalition with Feijóo as Prime Minister. But that seems unlikely.
The results are TKTKTKTK, as we journalists like to say.
What I’m writing:
• Here’s my look at one former Russian MP's plan for Vladimir Putin’s eventual fall from power, the Russian legion fighting for Ukraine, and the daunting task of uniting Russia’s opposition in exile. Ilya Ponomarev claims that Putin’s regime could collapse within the year, and he and his movement are preparing for that scenario. This story is unlocked and free to read.
• Rep. Ami Bera wants Washington to help clear the millions of pieces of unexploded ordnance that still litter Southeast Asia decades after the end of the Vietnam War. The fact that millions of tons of unexploded ordnance continue to plague Southeast Asia sheds light on what other countries at war, particularly Ukraine, will be forced to deal with in the decades after the conflict ends. This story is unlocked and free to read.
My weekly news blurbs:
What I’m reading:
For the wise it is easy to go anywhere.
Because the whole world is home for a good soul – Democritus
• The Ukrainian military has retaken about 50% of the territory seized by Russia, Axios reports.
• Ukrainian forces launched a fresh push in their counter-offensive against Russia and made some advances in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Washington Post reports. Ukrainian forces aim to reach the Sea of Azov to sever Moscow’s land bridge to occupied Crimea.
• The U.S. and its allies are looking to recruit high-level Russian officials to spy for the West to exploit cracks in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s power base following the failed armed action in Russia, the Hill reports.
• Despite being forewarned of the paramilitary organization Wagner group armed action days in advance, Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared “paralyzed,” leading to “absolute dismay and confusion,” the Washington Post reports.
• Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia may close their borders with Belarus if there are serious incidents involving the paramilitary organization Wagner group along their frontiers with Belarus, Reuters reports.
• Azerbaijani authorities arrested a prominent opposition leader and scholar, Gubad Ibadoghlu, on spurious criminal charges, Human Rights Watch said.
• Spanish prosecutors are calling for a new international arrest warrant against Catalan independence leaders Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín, weeks after they were stripped of their European Parliament immunity, Politico Europe reports.
• Serbia’s Public Prosecutor's Office requested a ban on the Leviathan movement, which is known for using animal rights issues to promote a far-right agenda, Balkan Insight reports.
• The leader of Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union, Friedrich Merz, caused a major storm within his party after he opened the door to cooperating with the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, Politico Europe reports.
• Over 40 people died in Algeria, Italy, and Greece, and thousands have been evacuated as Mediterranean wildfires rage, the BBC reports. The heatwave is expected to continue as temperatures are forecast to rise above 111F in parts of Greece.
• Israel’s Parliament passed its controversial judicial overhaul law, the Wall Street Journal reports. Under the law, the Supreme Court’s ability to overturn government decisions it finds “unreasonable in the extreme” was removed.
• The Israeli Supreme Court could challenge the judicial overhaul law in three ways, the New York Times reports. Firstly, it could strike down the law. Secondly, it could narrowly interpret the law to curb its impact. Finally, it may avoid a decision by refusing to hear any petitions. Israel’s Supreme Court said it would review the judicial overhaul law in September.
• The Israeli parliament quietly passed a law that could see Palestinian citizens of Israel prevented from living in almost half the country's small villages and towns, the Middle East Eye reports.
• Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party withdrew a bill that would have stripped the attorney general of the right to oversee the prosecution of government ministers, including the prime minister, the New York Times reports. The Likud leadership disowned the bill after opposition leaders said it confirmed the party’s effort to interfere in Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial.
• A one-mile stretch of highway in the lush green foothills of India's Manipur state has become the symbol of a vicious sectarian conflict that has killed over 180 people since May and severely dented the strongman image of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Reuters reports. The bitter fighting between the Meitei community and the Kuki tribals is in the country’s remote northeast and has lasted for almost three months.
• China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang was abruptly replaced by his predecessor Wang Yi, CNN reports. The ousting comes after weeks of questions and speculation about Qin’s future after he disappeared from public view last month.
• Three government and military officials from Mali were sanctioned for facilitating the deployment and expansion of the paramilitary organization Wagner Group in Mali, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced.
• Soldiers from Niger's presidential guard blockaded the presidential palace and detained President Mohamed Bazoum, NPR reports.
• Soldiers in Niger then announced a coup, the BBC reports. They said on national television that they dissolved the constitution, suspended all institutions, and closed the borders. Niger President Mohamed Bazoum was promised “unwavering support” in a call from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and full support from United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
• The chaotic anti-government demonstrations in Kenya, which left at least 31 people dead in recent weeks, are worsening after the police clashed with demonstrators protesting against soaring food and fuel prices and steep tax hikes, the New York Times reports.
Interesting statements:
You can write to me for any reason: c.maza@protonmail.com