How can a country without a navy sink ships, attack bases and corner a fleet inside its port? What was impossible months ago has become routine today. If before Crimea and the Russian bases on the peninsula were seen as something

Yesterday, Pope Francis began a two-day visit to Marseille with a more political than religious background, as this occurs in the midst of the migratory crisis, after the arrival last week of thousands of illegal immigrants to the Italian island of Lampedusa and when Europe is debating what do with them. Having just landed, the Supreme Pontiff, who has always been very sensitive to this drama, sent a clear message: “Immigrants who are at risk of drowning must be helped,” he said in the presence of representatives of other religions and after a brief prayer. in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde for the migrants who died at sea.

In the last week, some 10,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in Lampedusa from North Africa and so far this year more than 120,000 people have reached Italy, the gateway to Europe.. Pope Francis' first trip was precisely to this island and he regretted that it had become “a cemetery”. What has happened these days “is cruelty and a terrible lack of humanity,” he had warned AFP journalists on the papal plane.

While Italy, overwhelmed, asks Europeans for solidarity when it comes to welcoming illegal immigrants, Germany has suspended reception due to “migratory pressure” and France has also been clear about this: It will not accept them on its territory.. Francisco was forceful and asked for “humanity” from Europeans: “We must solve the problems that the sea presents to us, for the European Union and for everyone it is important to be able to survive.”. We have to face this problem unitedly. Compose together a mosaic of bridges,” he said.

The Supreme Pontiff was received at the airport by the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, and presided over a prayer in the Basilica of Notre-Dame de la Garde, where he urged us to be “men and women with compassion.”. Already outside the temple, he said: “In the face of such a great drama there are no words, but there must be deeds and actions, we need humanity.”

He continued: “We cannot resign ourselves to seeing human beings treated as bargaining chips, imprisoned and tortured in atrocious ways.. We can no longer witness the tragedies of shipwrecks caused by atrocious traffic and the fanaticism of indifference,” he said.. So far this year, some 1,300 people have died or disappeared at sea trying to reach Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Marseille is the last stage of the Mediterranean meetings in which he participates and the framework of his two-day visit: a series of meetings between bishops and faithful from several countries. Francis agreed to go to the city at the request of Archbishop Jean-Marc Aveline, but always made it clear that it was not a state trip: “I will go to Marseille, not to France”. It is the second city in the country, a multicultural enclave where populations of different origins and religions coexist: It is “a model of integration, with different realities. Marseille must be a mosaic of hope for Europe,” the Pope said.

This Saturday he meets at the Pahro Palace with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, just when the French Government is about to present its immigration law, highly criticized by the extreme right, which considers it lax, and by the left, which look restrictive. Macron moves between two waters: on the one hand, he wants to facilitate integration for all those who have work and live stably in the country; On the other hand, he wants firmness when controlling flows.

The Supreme Pontiff will celebrate a mass this Saturday to which some 57,000 faithful are expected to attend. Macron's participation in it has been controversial, since France is a secular country and the opposition believes that his presence interferes with secularism, with that neutrality of public powers with regard to religion, which is one of the pillars of the Republic. The Elysée has stressed that his presence is as head of state, not as a Catholic.

France, a secular Republic, has received a king and the Pope in just three days. The British monarchs, Charles III and Camilla, closed their visit to France yesterday in Bordeaux. The papal event in Marseille represents an enormous challenge in terms of security, since the Supreme Pontiff and Macron coincide. 5,000 agents have been mobilized, an unprecedented device for a city that already suffers from insecurity problems linked to drug trafficking in its so-called quartiers nord, the northern neighborhoods.

Perhaps the visit of the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to Washington, on Thursday, has had some practical, or even decisive, consequence in the course of the war unleashed by the invasion of that country by Russia. The White House appears to be about to decide in favor of delivering a limited number of ATACMS missiles, which have a range of action between 72 and 305 kilometers – depending on the versions – to Kiev, according to various US media reports. citing sources from the Government of that country.

The ATACMS are similar to the HIMARS, which stopped the advance of Russian troops in Ukraine dead when they reached the front in July 2022, and which became the most feared weapon for the Russians for the next six months. Its big difference is its range, since the HIMARS only reach a maximum of 83 kilometers.. The US has gone so far as to deliver 'caped' HIMARS launchers so that the Ukrainians cannot use them to fire longer-range missiles.

Ukraine has continued to launch HIMARS daily. But its effectiveness has decreased. Russia, contrary to what many believe, “has a great capacity for technological innovation, and that has allowed it to make the HIMARS lose precision,” according to an executive of a US military technology company with a strong presence in Ukraine, explains to EL MUNDO. who prefers to remain anonymous. At the same time, Russian air defense has been improving, to the point of being able to shoot down missiles.. What Moscow has not managed to do is destroy a single one of the shuttle trucks from which they are fired.. Meanwhile, the GLSBD gliding bombs, which have a range of 200 kilometers, promised by the US to Ukraine eleven months ago, have still not arrived.. For now, Kiev's only long-range weapons are its own domestically-made missiles and drones, as well as several hundred Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALPs, an insufficient number considering that since receiving the HIMARS, Ukraine has released 20,000.

ATACMS is like the older brother of HIMARS. The range of its most advanced version is more than triple, its speed is greater and, if the first is guided by GPS, this one is guided by GPS and, in addition, by inertial navigation.. All of this makes it more difficult to intercept.. But its greatest advantage for Ukrainians is its radius of action. With the ATACMS, kyiv will be able to strike without problems and with a weapon that is in principle invulnerable any part of the territory that Russia still occupies.

The much more complex and risky attacks, with Franco-British Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, with drones and with nationally manufactured anti-ship missiles, will no longer be the only way for Ukraine to bomb, for example, Crimea, where the barracks was blown up this Friday. general of the Russian flora in the Black Sea. The ATACMS, in addition, are launched from the same trucks as the HIMARS, so there will be no need for the meager Ukrainian Air Force to risk its few devices and pilots as it has to do every time it fires the Storm Shadow/SCALP.

An important detail is that the US would send to Ukraine, according to the Washington Post, ATACMS with cluster munitions. That is a decision that, if carried out, would be controversial, because cluster bombs open and, in turn, release dozens of small explosives, some of which do not explode, thus becoming a permanent threat that lasts years or decades for civilians returning to live in combat zones. For this reason, several EU countries have thousands of ATCMS with cluster munitions stored for a decade and a half and with no intention of using them again.. Each missile delivers between 350 and 950 bombs, making it extremely effective at attacking concentrations of troops and material, but less effective at targeting highly protected targets, such as command centers.. The United States delivered cluster artillery shells to Ukraine in July, when that country had practically exhausted its stockpile of conventional ammunition sent by South Korea and the West found its arsenals so empty that it could not replace those losses.. Since then, the Ukrainian offensive in the south of the country has been progressively advancing, something that the US believes is due in part to those shells.

The leader of the Labor opposition Keir Starmer has once again caused a political storm by ensuring that his party “does not want divergence” with the European Union. All together, the conservatives have loaded the artillery, accusing him of wanting to revoke Brexit and of plotting re-entry into the EU, with the help of former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Starmer's new statements occurred again outside the United Kingdom, while passing through Canada, where he declared that “the more values we share (with the EU) the more we will share the future and the less conflict we will have.”. In the presence of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Labor leader reiterated his intention not to deviate from EU rules and “not to lower environmental standards, or labor rights, or food standards, or anything else.”

His words were amplified by the conservative media and especially by The Daily Mail, which is setting the agenda for Rishi Sunak and his shift towards the hard right.. The British tabloid headlined directly with “the betrayal of Brexit” and opened the Tories' cannon of thunder.

“Keir (Starmer) voted to remain, and then he supported a second referendum, and then he backed out,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly declared at the event.. “Now he wants to return to the EU but without the name. What really is Labour's position?”

“Starmer wants to return to the EU for all purposes and reactivate the Brexit agony of the past,” warned housing secretary Michael Gove, Boris Johnson's former traveling companion in the 'Vote Leave' campaign.

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel fired back: “Starmer has spent the last eight years opposing Brexit in Parliament and trying to overturn it.. “He and his party are 'married' to the EU and to the era of European sovereignty.”

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith assured that behind Starmer's maneuvers “is the influence of Tony Blair” and the decision to take “small steps towards the EU.”. “We now know exactly what Starmer's plan is for a Labor Government,” Duncan Smith added.. “They want to leave us attached to the EU with an umbilical cord, and little by little they will say that this is not useful, and then they will come back with the idea that the best thing would be to return to membership and renegotiate re-entry.”

“Labor's mask has fallen: what they really want is to take us back to the EU,” concluded Iain Duncan Smith, recalling the existence of an alleged plan designed by Blair – and aired by several conservative media during the recent meeting of Starmer with Emmanuel Macron in Paris – to bring the UK closer to the EU as an “associate member”.

In the midst of the controversy, Starmer has reiterated that he does not plan a return to the EU, nor re-entry into the single market or the customs union.. The Labor leader has insisted that his purpose is to “make Brexit work”, but the narrative is already being set by the conservative media, anticipating what will be one of Rishi Sunak's main lines of attack in the 2024 campaign.

Starmer has meanwhile been criticized by the right and the left for his silence in the face of Sunak's “reversal” in action on climate change, with his express renunciation of most of the objectives to reach zero emissions set by en his day by Boris Johnson. Sunak's plan has been harshly criticized even in Conservative ranks, but the Labor leader has decided not to respond personally or present an alternative plan.