Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during the Faith and Freedom Coalition policy conference on June 23. Andrew Kravchenko/AP Photo
NO SAIL ZONE — Russia said today it would no longer guarantee the safety of ships passing through a Black Sea transit corridor as it announced its official withdrawal from a U.N.-brokered deal that had allowed Ukraine to export its grain surplus, write Susannah Savage and Veronika Melkozerova.
Moscow’s refusal to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative agreed a year ago means the “withdrawal of navigation safety guarantees, curtailment of the maritime humanitarian corridor, [and] restoration of the regime of a temporarily dangerous area in the northwestern Black Sea,” the foreign ministry said in a statement posted on Telegram.
Some 33 million metric tons of Ukrainian grain and oilseeds have been shipped under the initiative over the last year, easing global food prices, but Russia claims the deal has not lived up to its “declared humanitarian goals.”
The Joint Coordination Center, set up to allow U.N., Turkish, Ukrainian and Russian officials to oversee the initiative’s implementation, will also be disbanded, Russia said.
“The export of Ukrainian food was almost immediately transferred to a purely commercial basis and until the last moment was directed to serving the selfish interests of Kiev and its Western curators,” said the Kremlin’s statement.
READY FOR REPRISALS — The Biden administration is steeling itself for potential Chinese government reprisals for U.S. transit stops by Taiwan’s Vice President Lai Ching-te as he travels to and from Paraguay’s presidential inauguration next month, writes Phelim Kine.
Taiwan’s Presidential Office confirmed today that Lai will transit in the U.S. to and from the August 15 inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Pe?a.
Beijing “should not use as a pretext any transit by Vice President Lai for brazen coercion or other provocative activities [and] should not be a pretext for interference in Taiwan’s election either,” said a senior administration official Sunday, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity.
Lai’s profile is doubly problematic for Beijing because he is vying to replace outgoing President Tsai Ing-wen in the self-governing island’s January 2024 elections. He has reinforced his pro-Taiwan independence credentials by declaring in January that Taiwan ” is already an independent and sovereign nation.” And with an eye to a possible election victory — polling last month put Lai, the Democratic Progressive Party candidate, as the front-runner — he said last week that elected leaders of Taiwan should be welcomed to the White House.
Nightly Number
104? Fahrenheit
The likely high temperature across much of Southern Europe this week, as government officials intensify heat warnings and ask local authorities to beef up services for the elderly who could be in need of medical care due to the heat. Power outages have already hit parts of Rome, and in Spain a wildfire that started Saturday on the Canary island of La Palma continued to burn out of control today.
RADAR SWEEP
LIFE’S TRADEOFFS — In many parts of Africa, sickle cell disease remains a significant killer. But with scientific advances — especially in genetic testing — questions around both treatment and prevention are becoming more complicated. Through tracing a love story between a sickle cell carrier and her partner — who has sickle cell himself — in Lagos, Nigeria, Krithika Varagur reports on weighing risk against attachment and what to sacrifice to be with someone you love. In Harper’s Magazine, Varagur takes on the weighty topics of sickness, health, life and death through the prism of one smaller story.
Parting Image
On this date in 1925: The Tennessee v. John Scopes case comes to an end, as Judge John T. Raulston of Winchester, Tenn., holds the decision. Scopes — a high school biology teacher who taught evolution in his classroom — was found guilty of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee law that forbid the teaching of the theory of evolution in public schools because it contradicts the Bible. Scopes was fined $100, though the state Supreme Court later overturned the decision. The Butler Act remained law until 1967.
