UK told Ukraine ‘we’re not Amazon’ after weapons request

Wallace will be forgiven for his frankness

UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace’s remarks about Ukraine needing to be more grateful should be seen in context.

He was not voicing frustration or anger. He was instead suggesting Kyiv needed to be more politically savvy.

He was saying Ukrainian officials should understand more about the internal politics of their allies, particularly the United States. They should not be surprised, he suggested, there were a few “grumbles” on Capitol Hill if they turned up in Washington with a shopping list of weapons, as if the US government were like a branch of Amazon.

Sudan: Over 3 million displaced by conflict, UN says

According to the estimates from the International Organization for Migration, Egypt is hosting the largest number of those who fled — more than a quarter of a million people.

A raging conflict in Sudan has driven more than 3.1 million people from their homes, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

More than 2.4 million people have been displaced internally and more than 730,000 have fled to neighboring countries, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimated.

Most have fled from the capital Khartoum, the focus of a power struggle between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

IOM said more than 72% of those displaced were from Khartoum and around 9% were from West Darfur province.

Recent French riots boost support for far right’s anti-immigration rhetoric

Widespread riots in France sparked by the police killing of a teenager with North African roots have revealed the depth of discontent roiling poor neighborhoods — and given a new platform to the increasingly emboldened far right.

The far right‘s anti-immigration mantra is seeping through a once ironclad political divide between it and mainstream politics. More voices are now embracing a hard line against immigration and blaming immigrants not only for the car burnings and other violence that followed the June 27 killing of 17-year-old Nahel Merzouk, but for France‘s social problems as well.

“We know the causes” of France’s unrest, Bruno Retailleau, head of the conservative group that dominates the French Senate, said last week on broadcaster France-Info. “Unfortunately for the second, the third generation there is a sort of regression toward their origins, their ethnic origins.”

Retailleau’s remarks, which drew accusations of racism, reflect the current line of his mainstream party, The Republicans, whose priorities to keep France “from sinking durably into chaos” include “stopping mass immigration.”

‘Like a jailhouse’: Afghans languish in US detention centres

Afghans fleeing deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions find themselves with few pathways to seek refuge.

The immigration detention centre was packed. There were more than 100 people in a single room meant to accommodate less than 20.

A, an Afghan man who asked that his name be withheld, had come to the United States with his wife to seek safety. But as they experienced their first few days on US soil, a different reality sank in: one in which their future was all but certain.

“We thought our problems had been solved, that we had escaped the risk of prison and torture in Afghanistan,” he said. “We didn’t know that this was what awaited us in the United States.”

Top Russian general Surovikin, not seen since Wagner-led mutiny, is “not available”

From CNN’s Anna Chernova

Russian military commander Gen. Sergey Surovikin, who has not been seen in public since the failed Wagner-led rebellion last month, is “resting” according to a Moscow lawmaker.

“He is resting for now. Not available,” Andrey Kartapolov, head of Russia’s State Duma Defense Committee, told the Telegram channel SHOT in a video posted on Wednesday.