On Friday, August 8, 2018, this is how things are going.
Fighting
The Afipsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region of Russia was targeted by the Ukrainian military’s drone units. The refinery, which processed 7.2 million metric tons of crude oil in addition to the Krasnodar refinery in 2024, was unsure of the extent of the damage.
A fire at the Afipsky refinery was reportedly put out by local Russian emergency services as a result of falling drone debris. Nine Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight in the region, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.
Eight British-made Storm Shadow missiles launched by the Ukrainian army over the past 24 hours have been shot down by Russian air defense systems, according to the Defense Ministry of Russia.
According to the ministry, Russia also struck a Ukrainian railroad hub, which is used to transport military and weapons to the region of Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine.
The southern Ukrainian gas transmission operator, the Orlovka interconnector, which was attacked by Russian drones on Wednesday, continued to supply gas on Thursday through it.
Ceasefire
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump may meet next week, according to Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, who denied knowledge that Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy had any plans to do so.
Trump claimed that Zelenskyy and Putin need not agree to meet in order for them to meet.
One of the ideal locations for a meeting with Trump was stated by Putin as the United Arab Emirates.
Putin continued that “certain conditions should be created” for such a meeting and that he was not “on the whole” opposed to meeting Zelenskyy. He argued that the current circumstances were “far from ready.”
Following a “long discussion” with Zelenskyy and other European leaders, French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated France’s full support for a ceasefire in Ukraine and the start of negotiations to reach a lasting and solid peace.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, confirmed that Zelenskyy and the Commission had spoken about the latest developments and the upcoming steps.
According to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Lavrov, the country’s foreign minister, spoke with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan during a phone call.
tariffs and sanctions
Russia and India made clear that they would work together in “strategic partnership” during bilateral security discussions in Moscow one day after Trump imposed higher tariffs on Indian imports as a result of Russia’s oil purchases.
Ajit Doval, the Indian National Security Advisor, was quoted by Russia’s Interfax news agency as saying that Putin would visit New Delhi by the end of the year.
The central bank of Russia has changed its non-residential rules to allow foreigners to transfer funds from special type-C accounts to Russian investors when they are engaged in asset-exchange, a move that could free up previously unused funds both domestically and internationally.
A state-owned explosives manufacturer evaded Western sanctions by purchasing Siemens’ equipment from a middleman that imports technology from China as Russia sought to boost military production for the Ukrainian conflict, according to Reuters news agency.
regional changes
On a call with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, Zelenskyy said he had a conversation about a new financial assistance program that would “strengthen Ukrainians now and in the post-war period.”
In a heated discussion over the cancellation of a concert by Russian conductor Valery Gergiev in Italy, Russia claimed to have protested to Italy this week over what it termed “odious” anti-Russian statements.
Brandon Blackstock, Kelly Clarkson’s ex-husband and father to their children, died of cancer on Thursday, and tributes have sinced poured in to the star, from Fort Worth, Texas
Kelly Clarkson was married to Brandon Blackstock for nearly 10 years(Image: Getty Images for NARAS)
One of Kelly Clarkson’s last interviews about ex-husband Brandon Blackstock has resurfaced following the talent manager’s death.
The three-time Grammy Award winner, who was married to Brandon for nine years until their divorce in 2022, gushed about her ex in the chat with People. However, the 43-year-old singer also admitted “love is hard” in the fascinating interview in January last year, around 10 months after the messy divorce had been finalised.
Brandon, who had two children with Kelly, died on Thursday after a journey with cancer. The passing came hours after Kelly postponed her Studio Session concerts in Las Vegas, writing on Instagram: “While I normally keep my personal life private, this past year, my children’s father has been ill and at this moment, I need to be fully present for them.”
While Kelly is as yet to address Brandon’s death publicly, comments from the 2024 interview about her former spouse have resurfaced. She told how they started dating in early 2012 and married in Walland, Tennessee, in October of the following year. Kelly candidly said, in the 2024 interview, marriage was particularly important for Brandon, who became her manager during their relationship.
READ MORE: Brandon Blackstock dead: Kelly Clarkson’s ex-husband dies aged 48READ MORE: ‘I was told I had mum tiredness before aggressive diagnosis’
The couple, pictured in 2018, share two children(Image: Invision)
In the piece, Kelly referred to the 2015 song Piece By Piece, written in honour of her then husband, who she said gave her security her father never did.
But the mum of two, originally from Fort Worth, Texas, added: “I’ve always known that love is hard. For me, love has always come with this elephant in the room of sadness. I’ve known love is not forever. I don’t mean that to sound depressing, but I think we put a lot of pressure on that word.
” Sometimes love is looking at someone and going, ‘ This is not good for you. This is not good for me. ‘ That’s a hard thing to face. But I believe you will develop when you do.
Continue reading the article.
A representative for the family yesterday told PEOPLE in a statement that Brandon had been diagnosed with cancer more than three years ago. They said in a statement: “It is with great sadness that we share the news that Brandon Blackstock has passed away.
Brandon bravely battled the disease for more than three years. He was surrounded by family and passed away peacefully. We appreciate your prayers and thoughts, and we ask that everyone’s privacy is respected in this challenging time.
Bangkok, Thailand – A surge in rare earth mining in rebel-held pockets of Myanmar supplying Chinese processing plants is being blamed for toxic levels of heavy metals in Thai waterways, including the Mekong River.
China dominates the global refining of rare earth metals – key inputs in everything from wind turbines to advanced missile systems – but imports much of its raw material from neighbouring Myanmar, where the mines have been blamed for poisoning local communities.
Recent satellite images and water sample testing suggest the mines are spreading, along with the environmental damage they cause.
“Since the mining operation started, there is no protection for the local people,” Sai Hor Hseng, a spokesman at the Shan Human Rights Foundation, a local advocacy group based in eastern Myanmar’s Shan state, told Al Jazeera.
“They don’t care what happens to the environment,” he said, or those living downstream of the mines in Thailand.
An estimated 1,500 people rallied in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province in June, urging the Thai government and China to pressure the mining operators in Myanmar to stop polluting their rivers.
Villagers in Chiang Rai first noticed an odd orange-yellow tint to the Kok River – a tributary of the Mekong that enters Thailand from Myanmar – before the start of this year’s rainy season in May.
Repeated rounds of testing by Thai authorities since then have found levels of arsenic and lead in the river several times higher than what the World Health Organization (WHO) deems safe.
Thai authorities advised locals living along the Kok to not even touch the water, while tests have also found excess arsenic levels in the Sai River, another tributary of the Mekong that flows from Myanmar into Thailand, as well as in the Mekong’s mainstream.
Locals are now worried about the harm that contaminated water could do to their crops, their livestock and themselves.
Arsenic is infamously toxic.
Medical studies have linked long-term human exposure to high levels of the chemical to neurological disorders, organ failure and cancer.
“This needs to be solved right now; it cannot wait until the next generation, for the babies to be deformed or whatever,” Pianporn Deetes, Southeast Asia campaign director at the advocacy group International Rivers, told Al Jazeera.
“People are concerned also about the irrigation, because … [they are] now using the rivers – the water from the Kok River and the Sai River – for their rice paddies, and it’s an important crop for the population here,” Pianporn said.
“We learned from other areas already … that this kind of activity should not happen in the upstream of the water source of a million people,” she said.
A satellite image of a rare earths mine site on the west side of the Kok River in Myanmar’s Shan state, as seen on May 6, 2025 [Courtesy of the Shan Human Rights Foundation]
‘A very good correlation’
Thai authorities blame upstream mining in Myanmar for the toxic rivers, but they have been vague about the exact source or sources.
Rights groups and environmental activists say the mine sites are nestled in pockets of Shan state under the control of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a well-armed, secretive rebel group that runs two semi-autonomous enclaves in the area, one bordering China and the other Thailand.
That makes the sites hard to access. Not even Myanmar’s military regime dares to send troops into UWSA-held territory.
While some have blamed the recent river pollution on the UWSA’s gold mines, the latest tests in Thailand lay most of the fault on the mining of rare earth minerals.
In a study commissioned by the Thai government, Tanapon Phenrat, an associate professor of civil engineering at Naresuan University, took seven water samples from the Kok and surrounding rivers in early June.
Tanapon told Al Jazeera that the samples collected closest to the border with Myanmar showed the highest levels of heavy metals and confirmed that the source of the contamination lay upstream of Thailand in Shan state.
Mekong River Commission (MRC) staff take a water sample for testing from the Mekong River along the Thai-Laos border on June 10, 2025 [Courtesy of the MRC]
Significantly, Tanapon said, the water samples contained the same “fingerprint” of heavy metals, and in roughly the same concentrations, as had earlier water samples from Myanmar’s Kachin State, north of Shan, where rare earth mining has been thriving for the past decade.
“We compared that with the concentrations we found in the Kok River, and we found that it has a very good correlation,” Tanapon said.
“Concentrations in the Kok River can be attributed about 60 to 70 percent … [to] rare earth mining,” he added.
The presence of rare earth mines along the Kok River in Myanmar was first exposed by the Shan Human Rights Foundation in May.
Satellite images available on Google Earth showed two new mine sites inside the UWSA’s enclave on the Thai border developed over the past one to two years – one on the western slope of the river, another on the east.
The foundation also used satellite images to identify what it said are another 26 rare earth mines inside the UWSA’s enclave next to China.
All but three of those mines were built over the past few years, and many are located at the headwaters of the Loei River, yet another tributary of the Mekong.
Researchers who have studied Myanmar’s rare earth mining industry say the large, round mineral collection pools visible in the satellite images give the sites away as rare earth mines.
The Shan Human Rights Foundation says villagers living near the new mines in Shan state have also told how workers there are scooping up a pasty white powder from the collection pools, just as they have seen in online videos of the rare earth mines further north in Kachin.
Two men stand inside the collection pool of a rare earths mine in Kachin state, Myanmar, in February 2022 [Courtesy of Global Witness]
‘Zero environmental monitoring’
Patrick Meehan, a lecturer at the University of Manchester in the UK who has studied Myanmar’s rare earth mines, said reports emerging from Shan state fit with what he knows of similar operations in Kachin.
“The way companies tend to operate in Myanmar is that there is zero pre-mining environmental assessment, zero environmental monitoring, and there are none of those sorts of regulations or protections in place,” Meehan said.
The leaching process being used involves pumping chemicals into the hillsides to draw the rare earth metals out of the rock. That watery mixture of chemicals and minerals is then pumped out of the ground and into the collection pools, where the rare earths are then separated and gathered up.
Without careful attention to keeping everything contained at a mine, said Meehan, the risks of contaminating local rivers and groundwater could be high.
Rare earth mines are situated close to rivers because of the large volumes of water needed for pumping the extractive chemicals into the hills, he said.
The contaminated water is then often pumped back into the river, he added, while the groundwater polluted by the leaching can end up in the river as well.
“There is definitely scope for that,” said Meehan.
He and others have tracked the effect such mines have already had in Kachin – where hundreds of mining sites now dot the state’s border with China – from once-teeming streams now barren of fish to rice stalks yielding fewer grains and livestock falling ill and dying after drinking from local creeks.
In a 2024 report, the environmental group Global Witness called the fallout from Kachin’s mining boom “devastating”.
Ben Hardman, Mekong legal director for the US advocacy group EarthRights International, said locals in Kachin have also told his team about mineworkers dying in unusually high numbers.
The worry now, he adds, is that Shan state and the neighbouring countries into which Myanmar’s rivers flow will suffer the same fate as has Kachin, especially if the mine sites continue to multiply as global demand for rare earth minerals grows.
“There’s a long history of rare earth mining causing serious environmental harms that are very long-term, and with pretty egregious health implications for communities,” Hardman said.
“That was the case in China in the 2010s, and is the case in Kachin now. And it’s the same situation now evolving in Shan state, and so we can expect to see the same harms,” he added.
‘You need to stop it at the source’
Most, if not all, of the rare earths mined in Myanmar are sent to China to be refined, processed, and either exported or put to use in a range of green-energy and, increasingly, military hardware.
But, unlike China, neither Myanmar, Laos nor Thailand have the sophisticated processing plants that can transform raw ore into valuable material, according to SFA (Oxford), a critical minerals and metals consulting firm.
The Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a local think tank, says Chinese customs data also show that Myanmar has been China’s main source of rare earths from abroad since at least 2017, including a record $1.4bn-worth in 2023.
A signboard at the Thai village of Sop Ruak on the Mekong River where the borders of Thailand, Laos and Myanmar meet [File: Sukree Sukplang/Reuters]
Myanmar’s exports of rare earth minerals were growing at the same time as China was placing tough new curbs on mining them at home, after witnessing the environmental damage it was doing to its own communities. Buying the minerals from Myanmar has allowed China to outsource much of the problem.
That is why many are blaming not only the mine operators and the UWSA for the environmental fallout from Myanmar’s mines, but China.
The UWSA could not be reached for comment, and neither China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor its embassy in Myanmar replied to Al Jazeera’s emails seeking a response.
In a June 8 Facebook post, reacting to reports of Chinese-run mines in Myanmar allegedly polluting Thai rivers, the Chinese embassy in Thailand said all Chinese companies operating abroad had to follow local laws and regulations.
The embassy also said China was open to cooperating with Mekong River countries to protect the local environment, but gave no details on what that might entail.
Thailand has said it is working with both China and Myanmar to solve the problem.
In a bid to tackle the problem, though, the Thai government has proposed building dams along the affected rivers in Chiang Rai province to filter their waters for pollutants.
Local politicians and environmentalists question whether such dams would work.
International Rivers’ Pianporn Deetes said there was no known precedent of dams working in such a manner in rivers on the scale of the Mekong and its tributaries.
“If it’s [a] limited area, a small creek or in a faraway standalone mining area, it could work. It’s not going to work with this international river,” she said.
Naresuan University’s Tanapon said he was building computer models to study whether a series of cascading weirs – small, dam-like barriers that are built across a river to control water flow – could help.
But he, too, said such efforts would only mitigate the problem at best.
Dams and weirs, Tanapon said, “can just slow down or reduce the impact”.
Scottish football fans could be forgiven for glancing out the window to make sure the sky is still blue. Well, grey.
Out of a men’s Euros last year with a whimper, not even at this year’s women’s event, and a club game with a co-efficient dropping through the floor.
Yeah, Scottish football has drama, but sometimes, it’s not very easy.
But, Thursday 7 August, 2025 is the day it all changed.
Hibs steal show in Serbia
SNS
It’s never a good sign when a team’s supporters are called The Gravediggers.
Hibernian traversed Europe to face Partizan Belgrade, still carrying the baggage of heartache from the previous week.
In Europa League qualifying, they took Midtjylland to extra-time, only to lose with an agonising – and spectacular – Junior Brumado bicycle kick. Glorious failure etc.
But not this time. Now in Conference League qualifying, the Edinburgh club blew away their hosts – who were on a five-game winning streak – finishing the game 2-0 and a man to the good.
The hero of the hour? Martin Boyle. The Scottish-born Australian international took his Hibs goal tally to 101.
The Gravediggers were buried. It’ll take some effort for them to overhaul the tie in Edinburgh next week.
“To come here and win 2-0 is unbelievable, it took some effort,” said Easter Road boss David Gray.
“We asked the players to come over here, give everything and to make sure the tie is still alive when you go home, we’ve certainly done that.
Utd’s courage shines through
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While Hibs were cruising in Belgrade, around 400 miles north in Vienna, Dundee United displayed character and dig to stun Rapid in a 2-2 draw.
Also a third-round qualifier in the Conference League, Jim Goodwin’s side twice came from behind inside a bouncing Allianz Stadion against one of last season’s quarter-finalists.
First it was Max Watters who brought them level, before Zac Sapsford repeated the feat in the second half.
But the goals are only half the story. United faced 21 shots while having just 38% of the ball. Brave defending, acrobatic goalkeeping from Yevhenii Kucherenko, and a bit of luck all played their part.
History plays its part in emphasising how significant this result could be.
Last week, United progressed in Europe for the first time in 28 years by seeing off UNA Strassen of Luxembourg.
It hints at how hard life can be on the continent. The last time United played in Europe prior to this season they lost 7-0 to AZ, albeit after winning the first lef.
But they’ve given themselves a chance here. In a second-half of constant pressure, they didn’t buckle, and an already sold-out Tannadice awaits next Thursday.
“Outstanding away performance from Dundee United to a man,” said former Tannadice midfielder Scott Allan.
Ballon d’Or seeing double
Before a ball was kicked on Thursday, Scotland had already scored two huge accolades.
It emerged Napoli and Scotland midfielder Scott McTominay had been nominated for the Ballon d’Or. At the same time, it was also announced Real Madrid’s Caroline Weir had been shortlisted, too.
It is the first time both a man and a woman from Scotland have made their respective lists, and the most Scots nominated in the one year since 1984 (Graeme Souness, Paul McStay and Gordon Strachan).
Neither will come as a huge surprise.
McTominay – Manchester United fans, look away now – has been the totem for the locals in Naples who sang his name in the streets as their team claimed the Serie A title. He also was awarded the Serie A player of the year award.
In Spain, Weir is now going into her fourth season at Real Madrid, where she is the club’s all-time leading female goalscorer.
Is Scottish football booming?
It came a day earlier, but an honourable mention has to also go to Rangers who convincingly beat Viktoria Plzen 3-0 at Ibrox to take a giant stride towards the Champions League play-off round.
Russell Martin’s side were far from convincing in the second qualifying round, but they still found a way beyond Panathinaikos across two legs.
All of these results are much needed for Scotland’s ailing co-efficient.
This season Celtic face a play-off round to get into the Champions League rather than direct entry, and the country needs as many teams as possible to make into their respective league phases.
There is a train of thought that Scottish football, for all its drama, intrigue and excitement, wasn’t always the best quality.
However, the vast majority of clubs in the top flight are spending money, attendances are up, and there is a feel-good factor back.
A Muslim American group has sent a letter to the administration of President Donald Trump urging it to investigate the death of United States citizen Khamis Ayyad in a settler attack in the occupied West Bank.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said Ayyad’s family has “no confidence in any investigation conducted by Israeli authorities”.
The letter, penned by CAIR and its Chicago chapter, was sent on Wednesday, almost a week after Ayyad’s death on July 31.
Addressed to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Attorney General Pam Bondi, it underscored legal provisions, including the US-Israel Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), that would enable Washington to investigate Ayyad’s death.
“The Department of Justice has previously relied on these very statutes to investigate the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks in Israel, which killed several Americans. Yet it has failed to apply them when the perpetrators are Israeli,” the letter read.
“This double standard is indefensible and is a CLEAR act of discrimination. American citizenship must not be selectively protected based on the identity or political alliances of the killer.”
Ayyad, a Chicago area resident and father of five, was one of two US citizens killed in settler attacks in the West Bank in July.
According to Ayyad’s family, settlers torched cars outside his home in the town of Silwad, north of Ramallah, last week.
Ayyad woke up to put out the fire, but then the Israeli army showed up at the scene and started firing tear gas in his direction.
The family believes that Ayyad died from inhaling tear gas and smoke from the burning vehicles.
Earlier in July, Israeli settlers also beat to death 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, a Florida native, near the West Bank village of Sinjil.
The US government has acknowledged Ayyad’s death but stopped short of denouncing it or even calling for an investigation.
“We can confirm the death of a US citizen in the town of Silwad in the West Bank,” a US State Department spokesperson told Al Jazeera last week.
“We offer condolences to the family on their loss and are providing consular assistance to them. We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank.”
According to CAIR, US officials have not reached out to Ayyad’s family.
William Asfour, the operations coordinator for CAIR-Chicago, said the State Department’s statement shows that “Palestinian lives are not valued” by the US government.
“This statement from the State Department seems more like formalities than any actual concern,” Asfour told Al Jazeera. “We want to see direct action. Holding the terrorist settlers accountable is a step in the right direction.”
After Israeli soldiers or settlers kill American citizens, the US usually calls on Israel to investigate.
But Israel rarely prosecutes anyone for abuses against Palestinians. Rights advocates have long argued that Israel is not equipped to investigate its own crimes.
For example, no charges have been brought in the case of Musallet’s fatal beating nearly one month later.
The CAIR letter stressed that Israel has a “well-documented and deeply troubling history of distorting facts, fabricating narratives, and systematically exonerating its soldiers and illegal settlers”.
Since 2022, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed at least 10 US citizens. None of the cases have resulted in criminal charges.
“The murder of Khamis Ayyad must mark a turning point. The time to stop hiding behind legal technicalities and political convenience is now. Inaction is complicity,” the CAIR letter said.
On Monday, Congressman Chuy Garcia, who represents a district in the Chicago area, also called for the US to launch its own probe into Ayyad’s death.
As the nation continues to struggle with rampant gang violence, corruption, and economic insecurity, Haiti has appointed businessman Laurent Saint-Cyr as head of its transitional presidential council.
The Villa d’Accueil, a colonial-style mansion in a Port-au-Prince suburb, hosted Saint-Cyr’s inauguration ceremony on Thursday.
At the ceremony, Saint-Cyr remarked, “We must restore state authority.” The insecurity we face is undoubtedly related to it, but it also reflects our lack of courage, vision, and irresponsibility.
Even Saint-Cyr’s inauguration was a sign of the unrest Haiti experienced. Nearly 90% of Port-au-Prince’s gang-controlled area has seen a significant displacement of the federal government.
One well-known gang leader, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier, even threatened to disrupt Saint-Cyr’s inauguration on Thursday morning.
In a video posted online, Cherizier stated, “We have decided to march on the premier’s office and the Villa d’Accueil to end it all.
People of Haiti, take good of yourselves and help us, he urged the residents of Port-au-Prince to assist him and his fighters as they approached the mansion.
However, Cherizier ultimately had no success. A security mission led by Kenya and supported by the United Nations made a statement outlining the increase in police patrols in the area.
According to the statement, “Armed gangs had plotted to disrupt national stability and render the country ungovernable,” claiming that law enforcement had been able to stop those plans.
On August 7, Haiti’s Port-au-Prince [Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo] celebrates Laurent Saint-Cyr’s appointment to the transitional presidential council.
However, Saint-Cyr’s appointment has drawn criticism for what it represents in the country’s devastation.
Both Alix-Didier Fils-Aime, the prime minister of Haiti, and Saint-Cyr are light-skinned, mixed-race businesspeople who both made money in the private sector. While Fils-Aime led an online business, Saint-Cyr worked in the insurance sector.
Only 5% of Haitians identify as mixed race, compared to the majority of people who are Black. Latin America’s poorest nation is the one it is.
Some critics worry that Haiti’s government, which has traditionally relied on the wealthy and people with lighter skin, will experience a downward trend.
Since 2016, there hasn’t been a presidential election in the nation, and there has been more unrest since Jovenel Moise’s assassination in 2021.
Criminal organizations have criticized the current government leadership as ineffective and corrupt while utilizing the power vacuum to expand their own influence.
By the end of that year, three of its members had been charged with corruption despite having only been established in April 2024. They had all denied wrongdoing.
The transitional presidential council has been a rotating leadership position for nine members, who are widely unpopular.
Before the council’s final meeting on February 7, 2026, Saint-Cyr is supposed to be its leader. The council and Saint-Cyr are expected to give the election’s winner control at that point.
Elections for positions in the federal government are scheduled to take place in three stages, starting in November and culminating in the presidential election in February. However, opponents warn that those plans could be thwarted by gang violence.
Between October 2024 and June this year, according to the UN, 4, 864 people died in Haiti.
Nearly 1.3 million people have been displaced from their homes as a result of violent threats that have forced essential services, including hospitals and roads, to close.
Saint-Cyr pleaded with the international community to provide additional resources in response to Haiti’s humanitarian situation, which is regarded as one of the worst in the world.
At Thursday’s ceremony, Saint-Cyr urged all international partners to increase their support, send more soldiers, and train more people. I’m urging the security forces to increase their operations.
There were ambassadors from a number of foreign nations present. He made some remarks about them.
According to Saint-Cyr, “our nation is experiencing one of its greatest crises in all its history.” Not the time for beautiful speeches, he said. The time has come to take action.
