“We must continue our coverage, no matter how many journalists they kill.” Palestinian reporters who worked with the Al Jazeera journalists killed in Gaza say they are determined to carry on their work exposing the reality of Israel’s genocide.
Deadly wildfires are sweeping across southern Europe, killing at least three people in Spain, Turkey and Albania as firefighters struggle against flames fuelled by weeks of scorching temperatures.
In Greece, emergency teams are working desperately to shield Patras, the nation’s third-largest city, where fires have consumed surrounding pine forests and olive groves, destroying dozens of vehicles and moving dangerously close to residential neighbourhoods.
“Today is another very difficult day with the level of fire risk remaining very high across many parts of the country,” fire service spokesman Vassilis Vathrakoyiannis said on Wednesday, adding that at least 15 firefighters needed medical treatment for injuries and exhaustion.
The perilous mix of “high temperatures, strong winds … and minimal humidity” has created ideal conditions for fires to spread, according to Nikos Gyftakis, civil protection head for western Greece.
In Spain, authorities have evacuated nearly 6,000 residents as flames threaten the UNESCO World Heritage Roman mining site in Castile and Leon. Seven people have been hospitalised with burns, with four in critical condition.
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska announced late on Wednesday that Spain had requested European Union assistance, including two water-bombing aircraft.
He called on European allies to deploy the planes rapidly, given “weather forecasts” suggesting conditions could deteriorate, telling Cadena Ser radio that Spain might also request additional firefighting personnel if needed.
In neighbouring Portugal, more than 2,100 firefighters and 20 aircraft are battling five large blazes, concentrating efforts on a fire in central Trancoso that has been burning since Saturday.
Powerful wind gusts reignited flames overnight, threatening nearby villages where television footage showed residents joining firefighters beneath thick smoke clouds.
“It’s scary … but we are always ready to help each other,” a mask-wearing farmer told Sic Noticias television while holding a spade.
Across the Balkans, dozens of fires have overwhelmed emergency services, with drought and a prolonged heatwave intensifying the region’s typical fire season.
An 80-year-old man died in Albania on Tuesday night after losing control of a garden fire that rapidly spread to adjacent homes, injuring eight people.
Albanian authorities have evacuated residents in central and southern regions, while improving weather in neighbouring Montenegro has helped firefighters protect homes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that he would meet with his United States counterpart in Alaska to discuss a settlement in Ukraine triggered a diplomatic flurry between Ukraine and its European allies – all of whom have been left out of the discussion.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Putin is not earnest about peace as the Russian army continues to pound away at Ukraine.
“There is no indication whatsoever that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a post-war situation,” Zelenskyy said, citing recent intelligence, in his Monday evening address to the Ukrainian people. “On the contrary, they are redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.”
European leaders have also warned US President Donald Trump against trading away Ukrainian land.
“Until Russia agrees to a full and unconditional ceasefire, we should not even discuss any concessions,” said Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.
On Wednesday, EU states forming the Coalition of the Willing, a military grouping including some of Europe’s largest militaries, warned that “international borders must not be changed by force” and that if Russia did not agree to an immediate ceasefire, more economic sanctions should be imposed on Moscow.
Putin and Trump will talk one-on-one first, with only translators present, before participating in meetings with delegates, a Russian official said on Thursday, adding that there will be a joint news conference later on in the day.
As Russia confirmed the Alaska meeting, its army pounded away at Ukraine, seizing the village of Yablunivka in the eastern Donetsk region on Saturday.
Some 535 Russian drones and missiles rained on Ukraine during the week of August 7-13. Ukraine intercepted just under two-thirds of them; and Moscow’s forces launched eight missiles against Ukraine, five of which got through its defences.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov announced the Alaska summit on August 7, a day after Putin met with Trump envoy Steve Witkoff and suggested it.
The statement led to immediate confusion within the Trump White House. An unnamed administration official denied it, saying a Putin-Zelenskyy meeting would have to happen first.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to agree, telling the Fox entertainment network, “Obviously, the Ukrainians have a right to be part of this process. We have to find a compromise between both sides so that the chief mediator, President Trump, can step in and make it happen.”
But on Monday, Trump said that Zelenskyy was not invited to Alaska. Nor were Ukraine’s European allies.
Trump has stoked fears before among Ukrainian and European officials that he would elbow them aside to partition Ukraine in a great power deal with Russia.
During Monday’s news conference, Trump offered conflicting information about whether that was still his intention, on the one hand saying, “I am going to call up President Zelenskyy and the European leaders, right after the meeting, and tell them what kind of a deal…,” then interrupting himself and saying, “I’m not going to make a deal. It’s not up to me to make a deal”.
Both Trump and Rubio intimated that Putin had shared with them his red lines.
“I think for maybe the first time since this administration began, we have concrete examples of what Russia might require to end the war,” Rubio said, without giving details of the Kremlin’s demands.
“There will be some land swapping going on,” Trump said. “I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”
Zelenskyy publicly pitted himself against the Alaska summit. In July alone, he said, Russia dropped more than 5,100 guided aerial bombs, more than 3,800 drones and nearly 260 missiles on Ukraine.
Ukrainian Commander in Chief Oleksandr Syrskii said that during July, Russian forces “tried to advance along almost the entire line of contact”.
He also revealed that the Russian armed forces were managing to out-recruit their losses.
Despite sustaining heavy losses of 33,000 troops last month, Syrskii said, “The enemy is increasing its grouping by 9,000 people every month.”
Russia plans to form 10 new divisions by the end of the year, two of which have already been created, said Syrskii.
“Therefore,” he concluded, “we have no choice but to continue mobilisation measures, improve combat training, and strengthen the drone component of our troops”.
Zelenskyy on Saturday said that Putin wanted the part of the Donetsk region that Russia does not occupy, in addition to keeping the Luhansk region.
Bloomberg on Friday cited unnamed sources as confirming that Russia had made this demand for Ukraine’s east.
“He was allowed to take Crimea, and this led to the occupation of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday, referring to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in January 2014, and his open support for pro-Moscow separatists in Ukraine’s east. “We will not allow this second attempt to partition Ukraine.”
Russia claims all of Luhansk and Donetsk, as well as the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, but only controls Luhansk. Roughly a quarter of the other three regions remain in Kyiv’s hands.
The free portion of Donetsk is particularly important, said the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, because it contains a 50km (30-miles) long “fortress belt” of heavily fortified cities: Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhivka and Konstyantynivka.
Seizing them would be a “multi-year effort”, the ISW said, because Ukraine had been investing in their defence since recapturing them from Russian control in 2014.
Similarly, the city of Zaporizhzhia, which lies in the unoccupied portion of the region, has been heavily fortified, and the unoccupied part of Kherson is separated from the Russian front line by the wide Dnipro river, the ISW said.
Ceding all these territories to Russia would weaken Ukraine’s ability to defend its remaining areas, the ISW said.
“Potential Ukrainian defensive lines in this area would run through open fields, and natural obstacles such as the Oskil and Siverskyi Donets rivers are too far east to serve as defensive positions,” it said.
On Saturday, Ukraine and the EU presented a plan to US officials outlining mutual territorial concessions and NATO membership for what remained of Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Putin has in the past suggested a partial ceasefire on deep strikes, while preserving front-line hostilities.
Some observers have suggested that this would suit Russia because Ukraine has been successful at interdicting its supply lines and wearing down its defence industrial base and energy infrastructure.
On Saturday, Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said a long-range strike set fire to a Russian drone warehouse in the Republic of Tatarstan, where Russia has built a large factory producing Iranian-designed Shahed drones.
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency also said that sabotage operations had caused explosions at a Russian anti-aircraft missile base in Afipsky, in the Krasnodar Krai border region.
President Donald Trump’s administration wants to overhaul the nation’s visa programme for highly skilled foreign workers.
If the administration does what one official described, it would change H-1B visa rules to favour employers that pay higher wages. That could effectively transform the visa into what one expert called “a luxury work permit” and disadvantage early-career workers with smaller salaries, including teachers. It could also upend the current visa programme’s lottery system used to distribute visas to eligible foreign workers.
“This shift may prevent many employers, including small and midsize businesses, from hiring the talent they need in shortage occupations, ultimately reducing America’s global competitiveness,” said David Leopold, a former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association whose practice includes representing employers in the H-1B process.
It’s hard to find US workers in certain types of specialty fields, including software engineers and developers and some STEM positions.
A White House office proposed the change on August 8, Bloomberg Law reported. Once the proposal appears in the Federal Register – the daily public report containing notices of proposed federal rule changes – the plan will become subject to a formal public comment period. It could be finalised within months, although it is likely to face legal challenges.
Joseph Edlow, the director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, told The New York Times in July that H-1B visas should favour companies that plan to pay foreign workers higher wages. The proposal Bloomberg Law described was in line with that goal.
PolitiFact did not see a copy of the proposal, and the White House did not respond to our questions. But the Department of Homeland Security submitted the proposed rule to a Trump administration office in July, the Greenberg Traurig law firm wrote.
Trump sought to reform the H-1B program during his first term but made limited progress. In January 2021, near the end of Trump’s term, the Department of Homeland Security published a final rule similar to the current proposal, but the Biden administration did not implement it.
Work visas were not a central part of Trump’s 2024 immigration platform, but it was a point of debate in the weeks before he took office, with billionaire businessman Elon Musk – a megadonor to Trump who would briefly serve in his administration – speaking in favour of them.
The H-1B visa programme lets employers temporarily hire foreign workers in specialty fields, with about two-thirds working in computer-related jobs, according to the Congressional Research Service. Most H-1B visa holders come from India, followed by China.
Currently, prospective H-1B employers must attest that they will pay the H-1B worker actual wages paid to similar employees or the prevailing wages for that occupation – whichever would result in the highest pay.
To qualify for the non-immigrant visa, the employee must hold a specialised degree, license or training required by the occupation. The status is generally valid for up to three years and renewable for another three years, but it can be extended if the employer sponsors the worker for permanent residency, which includes permission to work and live in the US.
Leopold said that the proposed change goes beyond the law’s current wage mandate.
“This statutory mechanism is designed to prevent employers from paying H-1B workers less than their American counterparts, thereby protecting US workers from displacement,” Leopold said.
Congress caps new H-1B visas at 85,000 per fiscal year, including 20,000 for noncitizens who earned advanced degrees. The government approved 400,000 H-1B applications, including renewals, in 2024, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
Amazon has led the nation’s employers since 2020 in its number of H-1B workers, Pew found.
The New York metro area received more H-1B application approvals than any other metro area; College Station, Texas had the highest concentration of approvals.
The proposed policy favours higher-paid employees, experts said.
Malcolm Goeschl, a San Francisco-based lawyer, said the rule will likely benefit tech companies, including many specialising in artificial intelligence. Such companies pay high salaries, including for entry-level positions. He said it will harm traditional tech companies’ programmes for new graduates.
“There will likely be plenty of lottery numbers available at the top of the prevailing wage scale, but very few or none at the bottom,” Goeschl said. “You may see young graduates shy away from the US labour market early on because of this. Or you could see companies just pay entry-level workers from other countries much higher salaries to get a chance in the lottery, leading to the perverse situation where the foreign workers are making a lot more money than similarly situated US workers.”
The prevailing wage requirements are designed to protect US jobs from being undercut by lower paid foreign workers.
David Bier, director of immigration studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the change would likely make it nearly impossible for recent immigrant college graduates, who tend to earn lower wages, to launch their careers in the United States on an H-1B visa.
“The short-term benefit would be the people who get selected are more productive, but the long-term cost might be to permanently redirect future skilled immigration to other countries,” Bier said. “It would also effectively prohibit the H-1B for many industries that rely on it. K-12 schools in rural areas seeking bilingual teachers, for instance, will have no chance under this system.”
Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, some school districts have hired H-1B visa holders, including smaller districts such as Jackson, Mississippi, and larger districts, including Dallas, Texas. Language immersion schools also often employ teachers from other countries using this visa programme.
The debate around H-1B visas does not neatly fall along partisan lines.
Proponents say the existing visa programme allows American employers to fill gaps, compete with other countries and recruit the “best minds”. Critics point to instances of fraud or abuse and say they favour policies that incentivise hiring Americans.
In December, high-profile Republicans debated the visa programme on social media.
MAGA influencer Laura Loomer denounced the programme and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called it a “scam”. On the other side, billionaire Elon Musk, a former H-1B visa holder whose companies employ such visa holders, called for the programme’s reform but defended it as an important talent recruitment mechanism.
Trump sided with Musk.
“I have many H-1B visas on my properties,” Trump told the New York Post in late December. “I’ve been a believer in H-1B. I have used it many times. It’s a great programme.”
Senator Bernie Sanders disputed Musk, saying corporations abuse the programme as a way to get richer and should recruit American workers first.
Such visa debates have continued.
When US Representative Greg Murphy, a urologist, argued on X August 8 that the visas “are critical for helping alleviate the severe physician shortage”, thousands replied. Christina Pushaw, a Republican who works for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, pushed back: “Why not figure out the causes of the domestic physician shortage and try to pass legislation to address those?”
At least 40 people have died from cholera in Sudan’s Darfur region in what medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, described as the country’s worst outbreak in years.
MSF said on Thursday that the vast western region, already devastated by more than two years of fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), is bearing the brunt of an outbreak that began a year ago.
“On top of an all-out war, people in Sudan are now experiencing the worst cholera outbreak the country has seen in years,” the group said in a statement cited by the AFP news agency. “In the Darfur region alone, MSF teams treated over 2,300 patients and recorded 40 deaths in the past week.”
Nationwide, health authorities have reported 99,700 suspected cases and 2,470 deaths linked to cholera since August 2023.
The bacterial infection, transmitted through contaminated food and water, can cause severe diarrhoea, vomiting and muscle cramps. It can kill within hours without treatment, though simple oral rehydration or antibiotics can save lives.
On Wednesday, health officials launched a 10-day vaccination drive in the capital, Khartoum, to slow what aid agencies warn is a fast-moving outbreak worsened by war, mass displacement and heavy rainfall.
MSF said millions forced from their homes by the conflict now struggle to access clean water for drinking, cooking and hygiene. In Tawila, North Darfur, where about 380,000 people have fled ongoing fighting near el-Fasher, residents survive on just 3 litres (3.2qt) of water per day – less than half the emergency minimum of 7.5 litres (8qt) per person.
“In displacement and refugee camps, families often have no choice but to drink from contaminated sources and many contract cholera,” said Sylvain Penicaud, MSF’s project coordinator in Tawila. “Just two weeks ago, a body was found in a well inside one of the camps. It was removed, but within two days, people were forced to drink from that same water again.”
Since the army retook Khartoum in March, fighting has intensified in Darfur, with the RSF attempting to seize el-Fasher, the last major city in the region still under army control. The United Nations has described dire conditions for civilians trapped inside.
Heavy rains have further contaminated water sources and damaged sewage systems, MSF warned, while people fleeing the fighting are carrying the disease into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan.
MSF’s head of mission in Sudan, Tuna Turkmen, described the situation as “beyond urgent”.
“The outbreak is spreading well beyond displacement camps now, into multiple localities across Darfur states and beyond,” Turkmen said. “Survivors of war must not be left to die from a preventable disease.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump will meet on Friday in Alaska to discuss ending Moscow’s three-year-long war in Ukraine.
The leaders are expected to discuss “land swapping”, suggesting that Trump may support an agreement where Russia will maintain control of some of the Ukrainian territory it currently occupies, but not all.
In a news conference at the White House on Tuesday, Trump said, “Russia’s occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They occupied prime territory. We’re going to try to get some of that territory back for Ukraine.”
But the idea of a swap also suggests that Ukraine might need to give up some land that it currently controls.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly said that any deal involving the ceding of Ukrainian land to Russia would be unsuccessful.
Last month, Trump warned that tougher sanctions would be put in place unless Russia halted fighting with Ukraine within 50 days. That deadline has now passed, and no new measures have hit Moscow, but the US has imposed 50 percent tariffs on India to punish it for its continued purchase of Russian oil.
Trump has demanded that Putin agree to a ceasefire on Friday to avoid the US imposing further tariffs on other countries buying Russian energy assets.
Putin has stated that he wants full control of Ukraine’s eastern regions, including Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson, parts of which Russia annexed in 2022, along with Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
If Kyiv were to agree, it would mean withdrawing troops from parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, where much of the recent fighting has been concentrated.
Bloomberg reported on August 8 that US and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would “freeze the war”, and allow Moscow to keep the territory it has taken.
In addition, Putin has consistently demanded that Ukraine remain a neutral state, abandoning its ambitions to join NATO.
Ukraine giving up land it has lost during this war and previously, in 2014, is not a welcome option.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy said that he would not “gift” land to Russia, and that Ukrainians would not give up their land to Russian occupiers.
More than this, ceding any territory would be illegal under the Ukrainian constitution.
Russia occupies about one-fifth – 114,500 square km (44,600 square miles) – of Ukraine’s land.
The active front line stretches some 1,000km (620 miles) through the regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Russia controls about three-quarters of the Zaporizhia and Kherson regions.
Additionally, small parts of the Kharkiv, Sumy, Mykolaiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine are under Russian occupation. Across the Sumy and Kharkiv regions, Russia controls about 400 sq km (154 sq miles) of territory. In Dnipropetrovsk, Russia has taken a tiny area near the border.
Russia controls about 46,570 sq km (17,981 sq miles), or 88 percent, of the territory known as Donbas, made up of the Luhansk and Donbas regions. Russia occupies almost all of Luhansk and three-quarters of Donetsk.
Ukraine still holds about 6,600 sq km (2,550 sq miles) of Donbas, although Russia has been focusing most of its energy along the front in Donetsk, pushing towards the last remaining major cities not in its control.
This has been part of its efforts to secure what is known as the “fortress belt”.
The “fortress belt” stretches some 50km (31 miles) along a strategic highway between the towns of Kostiantynivka and Sloviansk.
The fortress belt includes key towns — Sloviansk, Kramatorsk, Druzhkivka, Oleksiyevo-Druzhkivka and Kostiantynivka – which have remained under the control of Ukrainian troops since 2014 and are of significant strategic importance as logistical and administrative centre.
Attempts by Russian troops to capture Sloviansk and the cities of the fortress belt in 2022-2023 were unsuccessful, and Ukrainian counteroffensives drove the Russian forces far from key positions.
“Ukraine’s fortress belt has served as a major obstacle to the Kremlin’s territorial ambitions in Ukraine over the last 11 years,” the Washington, DC-based think tank Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported on August 8.
In August, Russian forces made significant gains, advancing about 10km (6 miles) beyond the front lines as they intensified efforts to seize the fortress belt from the southwest, concentrating forces in the Toretsk and eastern Pokrovsk directions.
Al Jazeera defence editor Alex Gatapoulos said, “I’m not sure what Ukraine has to offer in terms of territory. Russia has it all and is slowly winning this conflict, albeit at a great cost.
“There is already movement around Pokrovsk in the east, and Konstantinivka is also in danger of encirclement. If Ukraine hasn’t built defensive positions in-depth, Russian forces will have the ability to break out into open country. This is a really dangerous time for Ukraine. They’ve lost all the Russian territory they had taken in Kursk and have little to trade with.”
In the war’s early weeks, Russia advanced from the north, east and south, rapidly seizing vast areas of Ukrainian territory, with fierce battles in Irpin, Bucha and Mariupol – the latter of which fell to Russian forces in May 2022. The siege of Mariupol was one of the deadliest and most destructive battles of the war. Ukrainian officials estimated tens of thousands of civilian deaths.
By March 2022, Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest in Europe, and by April of that year, Russia controlled 27 percent of Ukraine.
By late 2022, Ukraine had turned the tide with major counteroffensives in Kharkiv and Kherson, with Kyiv reclaiming 54 percent of the land Russia had captured since the beginning of the war, according to ISW data, reducing Russian-occupied land to just 18 percent of the country.
In August 2024, Ukraine launched a significant incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, marking a notable escalation in the conflict. This offensive saw Ukrainian forces advancing approximately 10km (6 miles) into Russian territory, seizing control over an estimated 250 sq km (96.5 sq miles), all of which has since been retaken by Russia.
By late 2024 and into 2025, the war had settled into a grinding impasse, with both sides suffering heavy losses. However, Russia’s recent incursions, pushing towards Sloviansk, allude to the potential for another offensive to take land it has historically struggled to capture.
Prior to Russia’s full-scale 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Russia had held Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Moscow also supported separatists in the Donbas region, leading to the creation of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Russia officially recognised these entities on February 21, 2022, and launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine three days later.
The war in Ukraine has resulted in one of the largest and fastest-growing displacement crises in Europe since World War II. According to the UN, approximately 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced, which is about 21 percent of the country’s pre-war population.