The authorities of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh announced this Thursday an order for its dissolution on January 1, 2024, after more than three decades of control of the territory and following last week's military offensive by Azerbaijan, which thus reintegrated the territory.

The president of Nagorno Karabakh, Samvel Shahramanián, has signed a decree that contemplates that the self-proclaimed republic will cease to exist due to the “serious situation at the political and security level” and “based on the priority of guaranteeing physical security and the interests of the people of Artsakh.

Likewise, he highlights in a statement published on the Artsakh Presidency account on Telegram that the decision “takes into account the agreement reached with Azerbaijan, mediated by Russian peacekeeping troops, for the free, voluntary and unrestricted passage of residents of Nagorno Karabakh, including the military personnel who have handed over their weapons.

The dissolution of the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno Karabakh, recognized by no one, not even by Armenia, was one of the conditions imposed by Azerbaijan to stop the military operation that it launched on the 19th against the enclave and that concluded the next day with the capitulation. of the Karabakhs.

The document states that the inhabitants of Nagorno Karabakh, including those outside its territory, must take note of the conditions presented by Azerbaijan for reintegration and then “decide individually” whether to remain in Nagorno Karabakh or return to it.

Road to “reintegration” in Azerbaijan

Nagorno Karabakh is a territory of about 4,400 square kilometers in the South Caucasus recovered by Azerbaijan in the aforementioned military offensive.. Until then, the area, with an Armenian majority, had been under the control of pro-Armenian forces for more than three decades despite the fact that the international community recognized the region as Azeri sovereignty.

The ceasefire announced on September 20 after the offensive, which left more than 200 dead in Nagorno Karabakh and resulted in the death of more than 190 Azeri soldiers, includes the disarmament of armed groups, the withdrawal of Armenian soldiers — yes Although Yerevan denies that they are deployed in the area– and the “reintegration” of the territory in Azerbaijan, for which two meetings have been held so far between delegations from Azerbaijan and Armenian representatives from the region.

Nearly 120,000 refugees

The capitulation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has caused the exodus of Karabakhs to Armenia. More than half of the enclave's population, estimated at about 120,000 inhabitants, has left their homes since Sunday and moved to Armenia.

“By 0400 GMT, 65,036 forcibly displaced people from Nagorno Karabakh had arrived in Armenia,” Nazeli Baghdasarián, spokesperson for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinián, wrote on Facebook today.

According to the Armenian Executive, the majority of displaced people have housing in Armenia or relatives who welcome them.. The rest are placed in hostels, hotels, reception centers and other buildings in the city of Goris, which is located near the border with Azerbaijan.

The flight of Armenians from Karabakh continues despite the fact that the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Alíev, promised to respect the rights of the population of the enclave. In Yerevan, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has denounced that “ethnic cleansing” of the mountainous territory is taking place.

More than half of the population of Nagorno Karabakh, an Azerbaijani territory populated by Armenians, has already left their homes since Sunday and moved to Armenia after the Azeri military operation on the 19th, as reported this Thursday by the Yerevan Government. .

“65,036 forcibly displaced people from Nagorno Karabakh have arrived in Armenia,” said Nazeli Baghdasarián, spokesperson for the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinián, on his Facebook social network account.

The UN special adviser on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said this Wednesday that images of Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave “for fear of identity violence” are “alarming.”

In a statement read at the daily UN press briefing, Wairimu reiterated his “deep concern” about the situation in this Caucasus region.

The advisor did not explicitly mention Azerbaijan, which has taken control of the enclave, although the exodus of the Armenians is due to fear of the measures that the Azeris may take against them.

A pilot has been fired by the airline where he worked after using cocaine before embarking on a flight full of passengers to the United Kingdom.

First officer Mike Beaton, belonging to the British Airways company, was about to make a Johannesburg-London flight, when a stewardess raised the alarm that the aviator had revealed that he had had a 'night of excesses' in which he had consumed alcohol and drugs, in addition to “getting involved with a woman while married”, as reported by The Sun.

Beaton told his crewmate all the details of his night out, about which he himself boasted that he had been “a very naughty boy.”. The pilot met a woman from Wales and a young Spaniard who were on vacation in the South African city, as can be read in the conversation that has been collected by the British media.. After having several alcoholic drinks in a restaurant, the three went with a group of people to an apartment where they were going to “have one last drink” before going to bed.

Once in the room, “the girls started dancing topless,” the pilot told him, who also decided to undress.. “I lost my shirt somewhere and one of the boys took out a plate with cocaine stripes on it,” he detailed in another message.. “That's the story of how I ended up snorting cocaine off a girl's tits in Johannesburg,” he confessed to his partner.

When the flight attendant read what happened, she immediately informed the airline's higher authorities, who canceled the 12-hour flight due to the pilot's illness.. This cancellation caused the airline a loss of 100,000 pounds (about 115.48 euros), The Sun has reported.

Upon his arrival in London the next day – as a passenger – Beaton was subjected to a drug test at Heathrow Airport, where he tested positive for drug use. “Safety is always our top priority. The matter was referred to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and this individual no longer works for us,” an airline spokesperson told the British media, thus confirming that the pilot has been suspended from British Airways.

At least five people have died this Wednesday after a shooting occurred in the village of Basmat Tabun, located in northern Israel, within the framework of the increase in violence within the Arab communities living in the country.

The victims are three men and two women, while another 49-year-old person has been injured.. Crimes within the Israeli Arab community have already claimed the lives of more than 180 people, the WAFA news agency has reported.

At the end of August, the assassination of the general administrator of the municipality of Tira, Abdelrahman Qashou, and Gaz Saab, candidate for the presidency of the local council of the town of Abu Snan, in the Galilee, in the north, put the focus on the violence of Arab communities.

In this sense, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the order in August to promote an inspection law to speed up investigations, allowing the Police to seize computers and mobile phones.

The area of the Italian city of Naples was shaken this Wednesday by the largest earthquake in four decades. An earthquake that has occurred due to bradyism, the phenomenon that has been deforming the volcanic caldera that is located 9 kilometers from the city for years.

The earthquake has not caused damage but the director of the Vesuvius Observatory, Mauro Antonio Di Vito, has explained that it was the biggest shock in the last 40 years and that it belongs to a seismic swarm unleashed this Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. (3:00 p.m. peninsular time ) that has preceded 84 other earthquakes: almost all “very small” and only two above magnitude 3.

Thus, the “fiery” Phlegraean Fields, as the Greeks called them, are a vast volcanic area located in the northern part of the Gulf of Naples in municipalities such as Bacoli or Pozzuoli.. Many of its craters are under the sea and it has been an active area for more than 80,000 years. The last major eruption was in 1538, which generated Monte Nuovo, but in recent times its activity is being closely monitored because something is moving in the bowels of this land.

As Di Vito explained to Efe, the tremors in this area are normal because bradyism is continually brewing beneath its subsoil.. It is a phenomenon of rise and depression of the terrain related to the void or filling, of lava or gas, of the magmatic chamber of its subsoil.. If it fills, like a breath, the ground rises; if it empties, it goes down. And now the trend is upward.

So much so that the ground level in the Phlegraean Fields increases by about 15 millimeters per month and in the historic center of Pozzuoli it has risen 118 centimeters since 2006, which represents an obvious risk for buildings and other infrastructure.

It could be the prelude to an eruption

Di Vito has also explained that bradyism has preceded a volcanic eruption at other times but that right now “there is no evidence” that it will occur. “Right now we rule out an eruption but we are monitoring the situation with great attention,” he noted.

The Phlegraean Fields caldera has around twenty known craters, most of them underwater, but in the event of an explosion it is unknown which mouth could open to expel the magma or gas.

“We don't know which volcano could open because this is a very large caldera. We can only predict it based on the data that surveillance will give us.. But the eruption is currently not a hypothesis that we consider,” he added.

For this reason, in the neighborhoods most exposed to the Campos, such as Pozzuoli, Bacoli, Monte di Procida and Quarto, where nearly half a million people live, the Civil Protection has already drawn up a National Plan for an evacuation of the area in in case this occurs. At this time, the alert status is the “yellow” of said plan, the second on a four-level severity scale.

It should be noted that the history of the Gulf of Naples has always been closely linked to volcanoes and earthquakes, as demonstrated by the tragic fate of Pompeii and Herculaneum or the remains of the city of Baia, currently visible under the sea due to the depression of the land.

Thousands of people took to the streets of downtown Bogotá this Wednesday morning to join the demonstrations called by the Colombian president, Gustavo Petro.. The leader has called on unions, workers, indigenous people and peasants to defend the reforms promoted by his Government in the mobilization called 'For peace, for life, for social justice'.

The union centers took to the streets and were joined by the Vice Minister of Labor, Edwin Palma, along with some 10,000 indigenous people who arrived in the Colombian capital in recent days from different parts of the country. With flags of the different indigenous communities and organizations and chants of “long live President Gustavo Petro”, the protesters advance through the center of the city, guarded by the indigenous guard.

In the Plaza de Bolívar, the center of political power in Colombia, a stage was installed where a concert will be held in the afternoon and where, in principle, Petro will intervene, although his office reported that this Wednesday the president will have a “private government agenda.” and no intervention is planned.

About 32,000 people are expected to arrive at this square, most of them part of the indigenous minga, according to the calculations of the organizers of the march.

“About 20,000 people have traveled to Bolívar Square from the Tercer Milenio, Renacimiento and Nacional parks along with more than 200 managers and 1,300 police units,” a spokesperson for the Government Secretariat reported on the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Due to the marches, the TransMilenio stations – Bogotá's public bus system – at Museo Nacional, Las Nieves, San Siego, San Victorino and Museo del Oro remain closed. Traffic has also been cut off on several streets, both due to cars blocking the road and due to the progress of the march.

Demonstrations throughout the country

In other cities in Colombia, such as Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla, these demonstrations of support for the Government have also been promoted.

Petro's ministers have been in charge of promoting the call, which is why complaints have arisen of alleged government aid to popular organizations to join the demonstrations, something that the Executive denies.

The storm Elías that has been hitting Greece since Tuesday has caused landslides and floods in the south and center of the country on Wednesday, just three weeks after another storm, Daniel, caused severe flooding that left 17 dead.

The biggest problems are on the island of Euboea, north of Athens, where heavy rainfall has caused landslides that have isolated towns in the western part. In the town of Kimasi, an overflowing river has caused flash floods, forcing residents to climb to their terraces to safety, while damage to homes and the regional road network is extensive.

Special teams from the Fire Department and members of the Army are acting to rescue trapped people, while electricity outages are being recorded throughout the area.

The landslides and floods occur in the area of the island that was completely burned in 2021 by a large fire that burned for more than ten days and burned more than 50,000 hectares of forest.

The storm is also hitting the regions of Trikala and Larisa in central Greece, where three weeks ago several towns were flooded by the intense rainfall caused by Daniel.

Five towns near the city of Trikala are completely isolated after the collapse of a bridge, while in Aspropotamos, firefighters are working to rescue residents who are trapped in their homes.

In the Larisa region, Civil Protection has ordered the preventive evacuation of a series of municipalities that are threatened by streams that could overflow at any time.

Heavy rainfall is also causing problems in the region of Phthiotis and Phocis (center) as well as in the north of the Peloponnese peninsula (south).

According to the National Meteorological Service (EMY), adverse conditions will persist until tomorrow, Thursday, when the storm is expected to begin to subside.

North Korea announced this Wednesday that it has decided to expel from its territory the American soldier Travis King, who was detained after entering the country through its border with the South last July.

“The relevant body of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has decided to expel Travis King, a US Navy soldier. who illegally entered the territory of the DPRK,” said the state news agency KCNA.

King, 23, crossed the border with the North after having spent 48 days in a South Korean prison because he did not pay the fine imposed in February for an incident with the police in Seoul and, according to what he said in his At the time Pyongyang, had requested asylum in the country.

Pyongyang has made the decision to expel King, “in accordance with the law of the Republic”, after concluding an investigation into the case about which no further details have been provided. The North Korean state agency also did not provide information on when or how the soldier's expulsion will take place.

During the investigation, “Travis King confessed that he illegally entered the territory of the DPRK because he harbored resentments against inhumane mistreatment and racial discrimination within the US military and was disillusioned by the unequal US society,” KCNA said, as previously reported.

On a tourist visit

On July 18, King crossed the Military Demarcation Line (MDL) and entered North Korean territory taking advantage of his participation in a tourist visit to the Joint Security Zone (JSA), in the heart of the border between the two Koreas.. The soldier was going to be repatriated as a disciplinary measure for his problems with the South Korean justice system when the incident occurred.

A month later, the North Korean regime publicly acknowledged his detention after entering “illegally into the territory” of North Korea and assured that the soldier had expressed “his desire to request asylum” there or in a third country.. The United States authorities indicated at the time that they had not been able to corroborate the information published by the North Korean media, but that they were working to bring back King, whose health status is unknown.