Ukrainian forces seek to tighten the encirclement around Bakhmut while continuing the slow but stubborn reconquest of territories in the south of the country, where they encounter fierce Russian resistance.

“The most active military operations are currently taking place in the direction of Bakhmut,” acknowledged the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Hanna Maliar, on Telegram.

Maliar specified that in the area of Klishchivka, one of the suburbs of Bakhmut, as a result of the offensive actions, the Ukrainian forces “were successful”, without offering further details.

The head of the Ukrainian presidential office, Andri Yermak, has published, for his part, a photo of Ukrainian soldiers with the country's flag, allegedly made in Klishchivka.

Klishchivka, new reconquest

“Ukraine always returns what is its own,” Yermak wrote, hinting at the seizure of the town, which the Ukrainian General Staff has not yet commented on.

Control over Klishchivka, less than 10 kilometers from Bakhmut, will seriously affect the balance of forces in that area and will allow the Ukrainians to deliver blows to the Russian rear.

Russia, for the moment, has not officially commented on the situation in that village either, and its military bloggers have been divided between those who consider the town lost and those who insist that the fate of the village has not yet been determined.

At the same time, according to Kiev, its forces also have successes in the direction of Melitopol, in the south, where they inflict significant losses on the Russian forces, “forcing them to withdraw from occupied positions,” Maliar noted.

New rain of drones in Russia

At the same time, kyiv maintains pressure on Moscow with drone attacks on Russian territory. Russian anti-aircraft defenses shot down two drones that “intended to attack the Russian capital” during the night of this Saturday, reported the capital's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.

The first drone was neutralized in the town of Istra, in the Moscow region, and the second, hours later, in Ramenskoe, 50 kilometers from the capital. According to Sobianin, preliminary information indicates that “there was no damage or destruction due to falling fragments” of the downed aircraft.

The Russian Defense Ministry has reported, for its part, the downing of drones in the Moscow region and the annexed Crimean peninsula. In Crimea, according to the Russian military, an attempt by the kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack with four drones was “repelled.”

Russia has also recorded drone attacks this Sunday in Oriol, where the drone damaged an oil deposit; in Tula, where the drone crashed into a logistics center, and in Voronezh, where the device was intercepted before hitting a target.

The day before, Russia shot down two drones in regions bordering Moscow that were apparently also heading to the Russian capital.

Moscow troops resist the push

According to the Russian military, the country's army is resisting the Ukrainian push in the east and south of the country, where it repels successive attacks by Ukrainian troops.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, since the start of the war in Ukraine its forces have destroyed a total of 11,919 enemy tanks and other armor.

Meanwhile, in the fighting on different fronts on the last day alone, more than 600 enemy soldiers were killed, according to the latest Russian military report, which still does not recognize the progress claimed by Kiev.

A “long” war

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, reiterated this Sunday in an interview that the war in Ukraine does not have a quick end and will be “long.”

“We must prepare for a long war,” warned the Norwegian politician, who assured that if Kiev stops fighting, “its country will disappear,” while if Russia does, “then we will have peace.”

The head of NATO has also expressed his conviction that sooner or later Ukraine will become part of the alliance.

A group of environmental activists from the group Letze Generation (Last Generation) sprayed the emblematic Brandenburg Gate, located in the German capital, Berlin, with orange and yellow paint this Sunday to protest the climate crisis.

A Police spokesperson has detailed that the six columns of the monument were affected. Police officers made arrests at the scene, according to the German news agency DPA.

The group of environmentalists has indicated that they used fire extinguishers prepared to spray the color and, in addition, they also sprinkled paint on the floor of the Pariser Platz (Paris Square), next to the Brandenburg Gate.

Thus, some of the activists have stepped on the paint and left colored footprints on the cobblestone floor of the square.. “The protest makes it clear that it is time for a political change: away from fossils, towards what is fair,” Última Generación stressed.

“We will continue with our protests until there is a change in policy against the climate crisis. By 2030 at the latest we have to abandon coal, oil and gas,” said the group's spokesperson, Marion Fabian.

The Last Generation group has been characterized by extreme forms of protest that have included traffic blockades and have displaced the Fridays for Future demonstrations from the focus of public attention.

The group announced that next week there will be blockades on the streets of Berlin again. The activists claim to have collected donations worth 600,000 euros for their protest actions.

Police in Poland have found the lifeless bodies of three newborn babies in the basement of a house in the northern province of Pomerania, near the Baltic Sea.

A 20-year-old woman, the mother of the children, has been charged with suspicion of murder, as reported this Saturday by the Prosecutor's Office to the PAP news agency.. The woman's father, a 54-year-old man, has also been arrested.

Police found the first dead newborn in a house in the village of Czerniki, southwest of Gdansk, on Friday afternoon.. A new search of the premises revealed another body in an advanced state of decomposition.

Officers found a third dead baby on Saturday morning, prosecutors said. At the moment, the background to the discoveries is unclear.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Sunday from the Italian island of Lampedusa (south), the epicenter of the Mediterranean migration crisis, a European action plan to contain irregular immigration and share the management of transfers of migrants arriving on the Italian coasts.

“I have come to Lampedusa to say that illegal immigration is a European challenge and requires a European response,” said Von der Leyen accompanied by the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who requested the assistance of the European leader after the arrival of more of 10,000 migrants to the island in just three days.

The announced program consists of ten commitments, including a solidarity mechanism for other European countries to transfer migrants arriving in Lampedusa out of Italy, updating European legislation against human trafficking and defining new legal and safe humanitarian corridors.

Von der Leyen has also promised to increase aerial surveillance of the Mediterranean, through European agencies such as Frontex, and coordinate with countries of origin protocols to safely repatriate migrants who do not meet European asylum conditions.

“We must decide who enters the European Union, not the traffickers,” he said in his speech after visiting the reception center where dozens of barges from Africa arrive daily.

The visit of the European leader has coincided with the arrival of more than 1,000 migrants to the island in the last few hours, a considerable number but far from the more than 10,000 who arrived in three days in the middle of this week.

This situation has completely overwhelmed the reception capacity of the island, whose area is 20 square kilometers, and led the leader of the Italian Executive to demand help from the European Union. For this reason, Meloni stated that he did not consider Von der Leyen's attendance at Lampedusa an “act of solidarity”, but rather one of “responsibility”.

“It is a border of Italy but also of Europe. If anyone in Europe thinks that the global crisis can be resolved only by leaving it to the Italians, they are wrong,” said the far-right leader flanked by the European representative.

The European program represents a boost to the strategy defended by Meloni since he took office almost a year ago: abandon disputes over the distribution of migrants between European countries and focus efforts on stopping the departures through agreements with African states.

For this reason, one of the most anticipated commitments by the Italian Government was the last of those pronounced by Von der Leyen, who urged to accelerate the application of the migration agreement that Brussels signed with Tunisia last July and that included macro-financial aid of more than 1,000 million euros in exchange for immigration containment measures.

Minutes before, the two leaders toured the hot spots of the Lampedusa migration drama during a walk of just two hours, such as the dock where thousands of migrants were stranded a few days ago and the reception center in its port, managed by the Cross. Red with little capacity for 400 people.

“Traffickers are unscrupulous people, they deceive people and put them at risk just to make money,” denounced Von der Leyen, also accompanied by the European commissioner for internal affairs, Ylva Johansson.

During its journey, a citizen protest interrupted its passage to express its feeling of abandonment by Europe and demand more resources.

So far this year alone, 127,207 immigrants have landed in Italy, almost double that of the 66,237 of the same period in 2022 and triple that of 2021 (42,750), according to the latest data updated by the Ministry of the Interior.

“The future of Europe is at stake here, and it depends on Europe's ability to face great challenges. Illegal immigration is one of these momentous challenges. I have found a collaborative disposition in Von der Leyen,” said Meloni.

The mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, said in an interview with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to win for Russia all the countries that were in the former Soviet orbit, including the territory of the former GDR.

“He does not explicitly mention the GDR. But it's easy to imagine. “The GDR was part of the Soviet power orbit and Putin is known to have a special relationship with the GDR,” the mayor said.

Putin was an envoy of the KGB – the Soviet secret services – in Dresden (eastern Germany) when the Berlin Wall fell and paved the way for the reunification of Germany.

“Putin has this sick vision: he says that the greatest tragedy for him was the collapse of the Soviet Union. “He wants to rebuild the Soviet empire,” Klitschko explained.

Klitschko said that at first it had been difficult to explain the situation in Germany and the reasons why Ukraine needed help but that now the vast majority understood what was at stake.

“Today almost all Germans understand the danger that exists not only for Ukraine, but also for Germany. Before, no one could imagine a war between Russia and Ukraine, but it is a harsh reality.. Today no one can imagine a war in Germany, but in current times there are no guarantees,” he said.

Klitschko, on the other hand, reiterated the need to accelerate military aid since “for every delay Ukraine pays a high price.”

The UNESCO committee has inscribed this Sunday the prehistoric ruins of Tel es Sultan, located two kilometers from the city of Jericho, considered the oldest city in the world located in Palestine, as a World Heritage Site at the annual convention that takes place. celebrates in Riyadh.

Without any intervention, the 21-member committee has quickly approved the inscription of this site, which joins the three places that Palestine already has on the UN agency's list, such as the Church of the Nativity and the pilgrimage route , in Bethlehem.

After approval, the Palestinian delegation pointed out that this is the first time they have presented a candidacy made solely by local personnel and thanked “the immediate registration” thanks to the “singularity” of this property, among other elements.

UNESCO, which states that this site is located in the Jordan Valley, describes the property as an oval-shaped mound containing the prehistoric deposits of human activity, and includes the adjacent perennial spring of Ain es Sultan.

Between the 9th and 8th millennium BC. A permanent settlement had already emerged here, due to the oasis' fertile soil and easy access to water.. The skulls and statues found at the site attest to cult practices among the Neolithic populations who lived there, and the archaeological material from the Early Bronze Age shows signs of urban planning.

The remains of the Middle Bronze Age reveal the presence of a large Canaanite city-state occupied by a socially complex population.

The Unesco committee continues this Sunday for the second day with the examination of the fifty candidates for this year to register them or not as a World Heritage Site.

“Redflation”, the procedure of some industries that reduce the quantity of product in a packaging without lowering the price, will be prohibited in France from November, Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has announced.

“We are going to ban it. Since November, all products subject to quantity changes will have to indicate this on the labels to avoid further misleading the consumer,” Borne said in an interview published this Sunday in the newspaper Le Parisien.

This is an increasingly widespread practice in France, as reported by consumer organizations in recent weeks after investigative visits to supermarkets.

They add that in a good number of cases, the packed volume decreases, and the price not only does not decrease but even increases.. A phenomenon that has occurred on practically all supermarket shelves, such as those for ice cream, drinks and all types of food.

In one specific case, the combination of volume reduction and price increase on a bag of dog food resulted in a price per kilogram increase of 113%.

The Carrefour distribution chain, the most important in France, began last week to mark on its own the products that had suffered this practice, in an attempt to show that the responsibility lies with the manufacturer.

Carrefour labels say: “This product has reduced its content and increased its price.”

The organization '60 million consumers' has criticized, however, that some of the company's products have also reduced their volume without lowering the price.

The prime minister has also announced that fuel distributors will be able to sell products at a loss – breaking a prohibition that dates back to 1963 – to try to stop the spiral of fuel inflation.

This authorization will be extended “for a period limited to a few months,” said Borne, who foresees “tangible results” for consumers without the Government having to subsidize fuel as it did last year after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

This year, fuel prices have risen due to the increase in the price of oil as a result of production cuts by some large producing countries in OPEC and its allies (OPEC+), led by Saudi Arabia.

The city of Bury, in the north of England, has been baffled for days by a curious discovery. It is a pink dove that has been seen by many locals in various areas of the town center.

Even the Greater Manchester Police have found her on one of their usual patrols and have not hesitated to photograph her to make her known to the rest of the world on their social networks.. “Have you seen the Bury pink dove yet?” they asked their followers on Twitter.

The bird has an intense pink plumage, which has surprised the inhabitants of Bury and has sparked all kinds of theories about the origin, natural or artificial, of its pink feathers.

This “rare pink pigeon”, as the Police have called it, accepts food from those who offer it to it, and this has been seen in the city center.

“I saw someone give him a French fry. “Everyone wonders why it's pink, but it brings a bit of color to the place,” says Samantha Brown, 43, in statements reported by the BBC.. “I think it has been dyed, but who knows?” he concludes.

This has not been the only case seen in a city of a pigeon with a strange color. In New York, last February another pigeon was rescued from a park after being dyed bright pink for a baby's gender reveal party, increasingly popular in the US.

The entrance door to the house where the American actress Sharon Tate was murdered by Charles Manson's gang in 1969 has been sold at auction and has reached $127,000 (120,000 euros).

As reported by the portal specialized in celebrities TMZ.com, about 40 bidders competed for the piece. The highest bid was $127,000, when it was estimated that it would sell for between $2,000 and $4,000 (1,800 and 3,500 euros).

Musician Trent Reznor of the group Nine Inch Nails recorded an album in the famous Cielo Drive house in 1992, long after the terrible murders of 1969. Reznor ended up taking the door before the house was demolished. He took it to his recording studio in New Orleans, but left it in 2004 when he moved his studio.

From there, a doctor bought Trent's recording space and wanted to get rid of her when he found out about her story.. Then, a man named Christopher Moore bought the door from the doctor in 2017.

Finally, the door arrived at the auction house Julien's Auctions. It is not known who the new buyer of the door is.

According to TMZ.com, Sharon Tate's sister, Debra, stated that she was upset about the sale of the door, adding that it should be destroyed, given its macabre history.

In this Friday's EuroMillions draw there were two top category winners (five hits plus two stars), who shared the jackpot of 54 million euros.

One of them has already claimed his prize. This is a winner who validated his ticket in the United Kingdom, and who wins a prize of 27,475,869 euros, as confirmed to Mirror Camelot, the company responsible for gambling in Great Britain.

The winner will now have to go through the validation process, which includes checks to ensure that the game's terms and conditions are met.

The prize will then be paid at an appointment with one of Camelot's winners' advisors.. Once the ticket has been validated and paid for, the ticket holder will decide whether or not to make their identity public.

“This win makes it six lucky winners of the EuroMillions jackpot in the UK so far this year.”. “Our focus now is on supporting the ticket holder through the process and helping them start enjoying their truly life-changing prize,” said Camelot spokesperson Andy Carter.