A German military base near the western city of Cologne was temporarily closed on Wednesday as authorities investigated the possible sabotage of water supplies.

The Cologne-Wahn barracks employs around 5,500 people, including 4,300 soldiers and 1,200 civilians, according to German newspaper Der Spiegel.

A military spokesman, Ulrich Fonrobert, said that a hole was discovered in a fence leading to waterworks at the Cologne-Wahn barracks.

He continued: “In addition, the barracks were closed because it could not be ruled out at the time that the person was still on the premises.” However, the perpetrators were not found “despite an intensive search.”

The barracks have now reopened although the drinking water system has been shut down as a precautionary measure, Fonrobert said.

“We are taking this incident very seriously; police, military police and military counterintelligence services (MAD) are investigating,” he added.

Also on Wednesday, the security level at a NATO air base in the western German town of Geilenkirchen was raised due to a suspected case of sabotage in a similar incident to that of the Cologne-Wahn base, Reuters reported. However, after checking the condition of the water, the air base was not sealed off, according to a NATO spokesperson.

It is unclear who entered the Cologne-Wahn barracks. Wednesday’s incident comes amid heightened concerns that Russia could be carrying out sabotage attacks across Europe.

In May NATO said it was “deeply concerned about recent malign activities” by Moscow. The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian dissident rapper who escaped the death penalty earlier this summer has been cleared entirely of the original charges by a lower court in Isfahan, central Iran.

Salehi became a key voice of anti-government dissent in Iran during the 2022 ‘Woman, Life Freedom’ protests, with lyrics that galvanized protesters and urged them to unite. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth” last year.

But in a reversal of the high-profile case, Salehi’s sentenced was later overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court and referred back to the lower court in Isfahan for re-sentencing.

His lawyer in Iran, Amir Raesian announced on X Tuesday that Salehi had been acquitted.

But the Iranian rapper will remain behind bars for now.

“Today, this branch issued its decision regarding Mr. Salehi’s case by holding a hearing and listening to the arguments of the lawyers of the case,” Salehi’s lawyer Raesian told reformist newspaper Shargh Daily. “According to the decision, Mr. Salehi was acquitted of corruption charges.”

Salehi still faces two legal charges; he has been also accused by Iranian authorities of publishing false statements on social media and disrupting public order. On Wednesday, the Isfahan appellate court referred these two charges to a criminal court after finding that it could not rule on these charges.

Rights advocacy group Index Against Censorship, who have campaigned heavily for Salehi’s release, recently called for his “immediate release” from incarceration.

In a social media post as Salehi faced into his latest hearing on August 9, the group stressed that Salehi should never “have had to spend a single day behind bars, let alone in front of a judge.”

People in Kiribati went to the polls on Wednesday for the first round of voting in a national election expected to serve as a referendum on rising living costs and the government’s stronger ties with China.

A second round of voting is scheduled on Aug. 19 for all parliamentary seats that are not won by a majority vote on Wednesday. Results from the first round are expected Thursday.

The nation of low-lying atolls with 120,000 people is one of the most threatened in the world by rising sea levels and does not command the resource wealth or tourism branding of other Pacific islands. But its proximity to Hawaii and its huge ocean expanse have bolstered its strategic importance and provoked an influence skirmish between Western powers and Beijing.

The Kiribati government switched its allegiance from pro-Taiwan to pro-Beijing in 2019, citing its national interest and joining several other Pacific nations that have severed diplomatic ties with Taipei since 2016.

Kiribati is one of the most aid-dependent nations in the world and is rated at high risk of external debt distress by the International Monetary Fund. Its existence is threatened by coastal erosion and rising seas that have contaminated drinking water and driven much of the population onto the most populous island, South Tarawa.

Analysts say few details about the campaigning or this week’s vote have appeared online and there are few English-language news sources in the country. The blocked or delayed entry of Australian officials to Kiribati and a stalled flow of information between the governments in recent years have prompted anxiety in Canberra about the scale of Beijing’s influence.

“A lot of countries in the region are really trying to find their place with a lot of geostrategic competition,” said Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Kiribati has “taken the approach of keeping its cards pretty close” and is not divulging details “that might impact the way those relationships are trending,” he said.

The election will decide 44 of the 45 seats in Parliament but not the Kiribati presidency, which is due to be resolved in October. A public vote will be held to choose the leader from three or four candidates selected from among those elected this month.

The incumbent, Taneti Maamau, who has been in office since 2016, is expected to seek another term as leader if returned to his seat.

The increased cost of living, scarce medicine supplies and fuel shortages are expected to be central issues for voters. Analysts say voters are likely to reward the incumbent government for the introduction of universal unemployment benefits and increased subsidies for copra, or dried coconut flesh.

“People are taking time to link that the challenges they’re facing are a result of the policies that are in place,” Rimon Rimon, an independent journalist in Kiribati, said by phone. He said the prospect of incumbents being reelected was “quite strong at the moment.”

The question of how much influence Beijing has is not a simple one. Dismay from Australia, New Zealand and the United States about China’s sway is not always specific or well-articulated and has often caused frustration in the Pacific, Johnson said.

He said Australia’s worries include reports that Beijing has trained and equipped Kiribati police officers, and the suspension of foreign judges serving in the island nation.

“Interestingly, these Western countries maintain their own connections with China, but when small island states do the same, it suddenly raises concerns,” said Takuia Uakeia, director of the Kiribati campus of the University of the South Pacific. “This is well understood by the people.”

Rimon, the journalist, said policy shifts since Kiribati switched to a pro-Beijing stance include a requirement that researchers and reporters apply for permits for filming and a more “hard-line” approach to information access. The government remains very secretive about the content of 10 agreements signed between Kiribati and China in 2022, he added.

Voters who spoke by phone on Wednesday said a list of polling places had only been published by the government on Tuesday and there had been uncertainty before voting opened about whether identification cards were required to vote.

Political parties are loose groups in Kiribati, and lawmakers do not confirm their allegiance until elected to office. Kiribati was traditionally a society governed by consensus, with strong democratic principles and respect for its constitution, but the contest for foreign influence had sowed divisions, Rimon said.

“How we’re seeing things in terms of donors and cooperation with partners is that we’re not sure how this is helping us that they’re competing in this sense,” he said.

There are 115 candidates contesting the election, including 18 women. Candidates were unopposed for four seats — three of them incumbent lawmakers from the governing Tobwaan Kiribati Party, according to Radio New Zealand.

As Kyiv’s forces advance farther into Russia following their surprise incursion last week, Ukrainians living near the border are watching with mixed feelings: a sense of justice combined with fear of what could come next.

“We entered their territory not because we wanted to, but because they came to our home and took away our peaceful life. Now they have to deal with it. I hope that it will not be in vain and that we will get peace.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv’s forces were pushing farther into Russia after claiming hundreds of square miles of its territory. Kyiv said its troops have been expanding on a “buffer zone” inside Russia, which they say will better protect communities in northern Ukraine.

Fedorkovska, 21, came to the evacuation center with her 72-year-old grandmother, who was inconsolable after leaving her husband and the home they’ve shared for 52 years.

The two women were among hundreds of Ukrainians evacuated from border areas in recent days. Fedorkovska, a student, said her 85-year-old grandfather insisted on staying behind, telling her: “You save your grandmother, and I will guard what we own.”

The surprise counteroffensive brought a much-needed boost for Ukraine’s military, but it has also left some Ukrainians, including Fedorkovska and her grandmother, worried about what will happen once Russia gathers enough troops to the area to push back.

Mariupol, in the Donetsk region, fell to Russian control in 2022 following months of besiegement and bombardment, thousands of reported deaths, and tales of horror and starvation.

Russian aerial attacks

Nila Buhaiova, who works at the Department of Social Protection in the Sumy regional administration, said hundreds of people came through the center’s doors in recent days.

“The evacuation has intensified over this past week … when the shelling of the Sumy district started, people could not stay anymore, so they left. On Friday there were 270 people, on Saturday 382, and on Sunday 250,” she said.

The numbers are dwarfed by the evacuations on the Russian side of the border. Local officials in the Kursk region said some 180,000 people there have been put under evacuation orders, with thousands more evacuated from neighboring Russian regions.

But for many Ukrainians, it’s hard to feel sorry for their neighbors.

Fedorkovska’s grandparents stayed in their home in Myropillya after the war broke out in 2022, even though the village is surrounded by Russia’s Kursk region on three sides and has been under frequent attack ever since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But the area has become too dangerous now that Ukraine has launched its surprise incursion.

“After the start of the Kursk operation, artillery and mortar attacks stopped because our guys drove them away from the border. But the attacks with guided bombs and aircraft have intensified. Now they can’t reach us with artillery, so they shoot from the aircraft,” Fedorkovska said, explaining why her grandmother had finally decided to evacuate.

“We want people to understand what it’s like to live under constant shelling, to live in a place where you have lived your whole life, a place you put your heart and soul into, where you raised your children, went to school … and that you are forced to leave and move somewhere else because there’s constant shelling now.”

Olena Lozko is an accountant from the Ukrainian village of Velyka Rybytsia, which sits about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Russian border. She too has left in recent days amid the intensifying attacks by Moscow’s forces.

“We are very happy that our soldiers are attacking, but we are very scared. We have nowhere to go, and we are very afraid of these glide aerial bombs,” she said. “The situation is getting worse.”

Russia’s FAB-1500 guided glide bomb is a 1.5-tonne weapon nearly half comprised of high explosives. They are delivered by fighter jets from about 60-70 kilometers away, out of range of many Ukrainian air defenses.

‘You attack – we attack too’

People farther away from the front lines hope that giving the Russians a taste of their own medicine could help bring the conflict to an end.

“It’s a signal to Russia that any action can cause a reaction. You attack – we attack too,” said Borys Lomako, a café owner from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is also near the border with Russia.

“It’s life-affirming to me that we’re going to fight for our border, and we’re doing more than just pushing [the Russians] back to the front line. You enter our territory, we enter yours. Psychologically this is a change of position in this war,” he said.

Andrii Legin, a 40-year-old resident of the capital Kyiv, said he fears the response of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “crazed dictator.”

“Russia may respond in any way, starting with a completely frantic military response. Or perhaps some kind of shift will happen among the Russian people because the war has moved to Russian territory. Let’s see how the Russians react to this,” he said.

He said he is certain of one thing, however.

“I don’t think it will do any good if we Ukrainians enjoy it,” he said. “Yet if this is the only way to call for peace, then maybe it does work.”

Conflict between elephants and humans is a growing, and potentially deadly, problem in some parts of India. Now, the state of Assam, a northeastern region famous for its rolling tea plantations, has launched a mobile app that alerts villagers of approaching herds in an effort to reduce the risk of catastrophic encounters.

While estimates vary, such conflicts in the state led to more than 200 elephant deaths and 400 human deaths from 2017 to 2022, according to data from Aaranyak, a local conservationist group that developed the “Haati App” or “Elephant App” in collaboration with the Assam government.

The app is designed to give villagers and farmers a vital heads-up when wild elephants are close to human settlements, aiming to help people avoid dangerous encounters.

“Fueled by a combination of a population boom and poverty, man has expanded his frontiers, while animals have found their jungles shrinking,” said Aaranyak, which in Sanskrit means “to belong to the forest.”

Assam is home to over 5,000 wild elephants, the second highest in the country after Kerala in the southwestern tip of India, which has around 6,000, according to a 2017 report by the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change.

Fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants are left in the world, and they are listed as endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List. Indian elephants are a subspecies of Asian elephants native to the country, and there are about 40,000 left in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

While India has over 100 national parks and around 30 elephant reserves, many of these animals are losing their natural habitats due to increased farming and human activities, conservation groups have long warned.

Elephants are large and often travel in herds, and about half a million families in India are affected by crop-raiding elephants each year, according to WWF.

Some farmers resort to culling elephants to protect their families as any encounter with animals that weigh at least 5 tons can quickly become deadly.

On World Elephant Day, which fell on Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed the government’s effort to provide suitable habitat for elephants to thrive.

“For us in India, the elephant is linked to our culture and history, too. And it’s gladdening that over the last few years, their numbers have been on the rise,” Modi said on Facebook.

However, illegal encroachment into protected areas and forest clearing for roads and infrastructure development have led to significant habitat loss and fragmentation for elephants, which are sacred symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Wider issue in Asia

Elephants have lost almost two-thirds of their habitat across Asia, as a result of hundreds of years of deforestation and increasing human use of land for agriculture and infrastructure.

The study in the journal Scientific Reports published in April found India to be the country with the second greatest decline in elephant habitats, with 86% of suitable land lost between 1700 and 2015. That’s second only to China, which lost 94% over the same period.

The Asian elephant is found across 13 countries across the continent, but their forest and grassland habitats have been eroded by more than 64% – equating to 3.3 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) of land – since 1700, researchers said. That is roughly twice the size of Alaska.

Japanese railways and airlines are canceling services as Typhoon Ampil gathers strength in the western Pacific, with the storm expected to hit on Friday during the peak summer travel season.

As of early Thursday local time, Typhoon Ampil was recording sustained winds of 140 kph (85 mph), according to the latest advisory from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). That makes it the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic basin.

And it’s likely to strengthen further in the next 36 hours, since the storm is moving over very warm water – meaning more moisture in the air to fuel the typhoon. By Friday evening, as it nears Japan southeast of Tokyo, it could become the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, according to a JTWC forecast.

Two major airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, canceled about 500 flights in total serving the capital’s Haneda and Narita airports, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Rail travel has been disrupted too. Six lines on Japan’s extensive bullet train network are suspending services between certain stations and warning of major delays on Friday – including the important Tokaido line that connects Tokyo with Osaka.

Japan’s meteorology officials have warned that some parts of northern and eastern Japan may see violent winds, rough seas, heavy rain, flooding, landslides and overflowing rivers, according to NHK. They urged the public to exercise caution and stay prepared.

The storm’s center is expected to remain slightly offshore as it turns toward the northeast and moves away from Japan, according to JTWC and Japan’s Meteorological Agency. If it stays offshore and only brushes the coast, it might only have a light impact on Japan, bringing rain and wind to some areas including Tokyo.

However, it could have a much stronger effect if the direction changes to bring the center closer to the coast, or even makes landfall.

The storm is expected to weaken by Saturday morning local time and die down as it moves into cooler waters over the weekend.

A US citizen has been sentenced to 15 days in a Russian prison on charges of “petty hooliganism” for attacking a police officer, according to Moscow court officials.

The American man, identified as Joseph Tater, was on Wednesday given an “administrative penalty in the form of administrative arrest for a period of 15 days” by the Meshchansky Court of Moscow, according to a post on the official Telegram channel of the Moscow City Courts of General Jurisdiction.

Tater was found guilty of disorderly conduct, Russian state media TASS reported, following previous reports of police detaining a foreigner who violated public order while staying at a hotel in Moscow.

“He behaved aggressively, swore, and used foul language,” TASS quoted the court’s press service as saying, adding that Tater had “hit a [female] police officer” during detention.

Tater is also facing a criminal case for using violence against a government official, TASS said, adding that the American could face imprisonment for up to five years.

The US State Department said Wednesday it was aware of the reports about Tater.

“I don’t have specifics given privacy concerns,” State spokesperson Vedant Patel said. “We’re working to get as much information as we can, working to ascertain the consular situation, and see if consular access is available,” he said, without giving further details.

There are several American citizens serving sentences in Russia on drug or theft convictions, including Marc Fogel, who was convicted in 2022 for illegal possession of cannabis.

Fogel, who worked in Moscow as a teacher, was arrested on drug charges in 2021 after entering the country with cannabis. He was sentenced to 14 years at a hard labor camp in Russia.

His family and lawyer have said a doctor had recommend cannabis to him to treat “severe spinal pain.”

Fogel was not included in the largest prisoner exchange between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War, which happened earlier this month.

Twenty-four detainees were freed in the historic swap, which included Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian American journalist Alsu Kurmasheva. Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician and one of President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critics, was also freed.

Separately, TASS reported that Russian-US dual national Ksenia Karelina pleaded guilty in a Russian court to treason charges, after being arrested for donating $51.80 to a charity that provides humanitarian aid to people affected by the war in Ukraine.

Karelina, 33, was detained in Yekaterinburg in February while visiting her grandparents.