A German military base near the western city of Cologne was temporarily closed on Wednesday as authorities investigated the possible sabotage of water supplies.

The Cologne-Wahn barracks employs around 5,500 people, including 4,300 soldiers and 1,200 civilians, according to German newspaper Der Spiegel.

A military spokesman, Ulrich Fonrobert, said that a hole was discovered in a fence leading to waterworks at the Cologne-Wahn barracks.

He continued: “In addition, the barracks were closed because it could not be ruled out at the time that the person was still on the premises.” However, the perpetrators were not found “despite an intensive search.”

The barracks have now reopened although the drinking water system has been shut down as a precautionary measure, Fonrobert said.

“We are taking this incident very seriously; police, military police and military counterintelligence services (MAD) are investigating,” he added.

Also on Wednesday, the security level at a NATO air base in the western German town of Geilenkirchen was raised due to a suspected case of sabotage in a similar incident to that of the Cologne-Wahn base, Reuters reported. However, after checking the condition of the water, the air base was not sealed off, according to a NATO spokesperson.

It is unclear who entered the Cologne-Wahn barracks. Wednesday’s incident comes amid heightened concerns that Russia could be carrying out sabotage attacks across Europe.

In May NATO said it was “deeply concerned about recent malign activities” by Moscow. The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

The last operating public hospital in Sudan’s North Darfur state is at risk of closure, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Wednesday, amid fierce fighting between the country’s rival military factions that have left more than 18,000 people dead and 33,000 injured.

Civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in April last year and has intensified in El Fasher, the North Darfur capital, since May when the paramilitary RSF group encircled the city.

The MSF-supported Saudi Hospital in El Fasher has suffered extensive damage following the continued bombardment of the city over the last week, leaving it barely functional, MSF said. At least 15 people were killed in those attacks and more than 130 others were wounded, it added.

The facility is the last remaining public hospital in the city with the capacity to treat the wounded and perform surgery, according to MSF.

On Sunday, another attack on the hospital hit the surgical ward, killing a patient carer and injuring five others.

“Sunday’s attack on Saudi Hospital – which is the largest hospital in North Darfur state – makes it crystal clear that the warring parties are making no efforts to protect health facilities or the civilians inside them. Patients fear for their lives as a result of the relentless attacks,” Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of MSF’s emergency operations, said in a statement Wednesday.

As people flee to the Zamzam camp for displaced people near El Fasher in western Sudan, which was hit by shelling one week ago, MSF’s field hospital is under “exceptional pressure” with casualties continuing to arrive, the aid agency said.

Crisis facing children

The latest dire reports from El Fasher come as UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, said Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was “the biggest in the world” for children, by numbers.

“Tens of thousands” of Sudanese children are at risk of death if action is not urgently taken, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder warned at a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Thousands of children have been killed or injured in Sudan’s war. Sexual violence and recruitment are increasing. And the situation is even worse where an ongoing humanitarian presence remains denied,” Elder said.

Five million children have been forced to flee their homes, making Sudan the world’s largest child displacement crisis, Elder stressed, adding that children are dying as famine starts to take hold in the Zamzam camp.

“This month’s determination of famine in one part of Sudan risks spreading and leading to a catastrophic loss of children’s lives,” the spokesman said.

German authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of carrying out the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline two years ago.

The explosions left gas billowing from Nord Stream 1 and 2 – two major conduits that transported Russian gas to Europe – and prompted a huge operation to find who was responsible.

A spokeswoman for Poland’s Public Prosecutors Office, Anna Adamiak, confirmed Poland had received a warrant from Germany seeking the arrest of a Ukrainian man, named as Volodymyr Z. Reuters, citing Polish prosecutors, said he was able to leave Polish territory as German authorities had not included him on a database of wanted people.

The news comes after three German outlets reported that the man – described as a male diver – along with two other Ukrainian suspects, are believed by German federal prosecutors to have launched an audacious underwater attack on the pipeline from a sailing boat in September 2022.

The origin of the explosions has been a subject of intense speculation and further stoked political tensions in Europe seven months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Neither of the pipelines were actively transporting gas to Europe at the time of the leaks, though they still held gas under pressure.

Investigators found evidence of explosives at the sites in November 2022, leading Swedish prosecutors to conclude that the blasts were caused by an act of sabotage.

According to the new German media reports, investigators in Germany believe that the sailing boat set sail from Rostock, Germany in September 2022, stopping in Denmark, Sweden and Poland, with a six-person crew including five men and one woman.

During that voyage, the crew is reportedly suspected of diving into the Baltic Sea and attaching explosives to the massive Nord Stream pipelines, which subsequently detonated and damaged both lines, according to the outlets.

The New York Times meanwhile reported in 2023 that intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested a group loyal to Ukraine, but acting independently of the government in Kyiv, were involved in the operation.

Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the blasts.

The Nord Stream project had been controversial long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Several Western countries, among them Poland, raised fears it would increase Moscow’s influence over Europe.

Germany nonetheless championed the expensive multimillion dollar, 750-mile second pipeline, before eventually pulling the plug on the plans after Russia’s invasion, just as it was set to become operational.

This story has been updated with additional information.

As Kyiv’s forces advance farther into Russia following their surprise incursion last week, Ukrainians living near the border are watching with mixed feelings: a sense of justice combined with fear of what could come next.

“We entered their territory not because we wanted to, but because they came to our home and took away our peaceful life. Now they have to deal with it. I hope that it will not be in vain and that we will get peace.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv’s forces were pushing farther into Russia after claiming hundreds of square miles of its territory. Kyiv said its troops have been expanding on a “buffer zone” inside Russia, which they say will better protect communities in northern Ukraine.

Fedorkovska, 21, came to the evacuation center with her 72-year-old grandmother, who was inconsolable after leaving her husband and the home they’ve shared for 52 years.

The two women were among hundreds of Ukrainians evacuated from border areas in recent days. Fedorkovska, a student, said her 85-year-old grandfather insisted on staying behind, telling her: “You save your grandmother, and I will guard what we own.”

The surprise counteroffensive brought a much-needed boost for Ukraine’s military, but it has also left some Ukrainians, including Fedorkovska and her grandmother, worried about what will happen once Russia gathers enough troops to the area to push back.

Mariupol, in the Donetsk region, fell to Russian control in 2022 following months of besiegement and bombardment, thousands of reported deaths, and tales of horror and starvation.

Russian aerial attacks

Nila Buhaiova, who works at the Department of Social Protection in the Sumy regional administration, said hundreds of people came through the center’s doors in recent days.

“The evacuation has intensified over this past week … when the shelling of the Sumy district started, people could not stay anymore, so they left. On Friday there were 270 people, on Saturday 382, and on Sunday 250,” she said.

The numbers are dwarfed by the evacuations on the Russian side of the border. Local officials in the Kursk region said some 180,000 people there have been put under evacuation orders, with thousands more evacuated from neighboring Russian regions.

But for many Ukrainians, it’s hard to feel sorry for their neighbors.

Fedorkovska’s grandparents stayed in their home in Myropillya after the war broke out in 2022, even though the village is surrounded by Russia’s Kursk region on three sides and has been under frequent attack ever since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But the area has become too dangerous now that Ukraine has launched its surprise incursion.

“After the start of the Kursk operation, artillery and mortar attacks stopped because our guys drove them away from the border. But the attacks with guided bombs and aircraft have intensified. Now they can’t reach us with artillery, so they shoot from the aircraft,” Fedorkovska said, explaining why her grandmother had finally decided to evacuate.

“We want people to understand what it’s like to live under constant shelling, to live in a place where you have lived your whole life, a place you put your heart and soul into, where you raised your children, went to school … and that you are forced to leave and move somewhere else because there’s constant shelling now.”

Olena Lozko is an accountant from the Ukrainian village of Velyka Rybytsia, which sits about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Russian border. She too has left in recent days amid the intensifying attacks by Moscow’s forces.

“We are very happy that our soldiers are attacking, but we are very scared. We have nowhere to go, and we are very afraid of these glide aerial bombs,” she said. “The situation is getting worse.”

Russia’s FAB-1500 guided glide bomb is a 1.5-tonne weapon nearly half comprised of high explosives. They are delivered by fighter jets from about 60-70 kilometers away, out of range of many Ukrainian air defenses.

‘You attack – we attack too’

People farther away from the front lines hope that giving the Russians a taste of their own medicine could help bring the conflict to an end.

“It’s a signal to Russia that any action can cause a reaction. You attack – we attack too,” said Borys Lomako, a café owner from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is also near the border with Russia.

“It’s life-affirming to me that we’re going to fight for our border, and we’re doing more than just pushing [the Russians] back to the front line. You enter our territory, we enter yours. Psychologically this is a change of position in this war,” he said.

Andrii Legin, a 40-year-old resident of the capital Kyiv, said he fears the response of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “crazed dictator.”

“Russia may respond in any way, starting with a completely frantic military response. Or perhaps some kind of shift will happen among the Russian people because the war has moved to Russian territory. Let’s see how the Russians react to this,” he said.

He said he is certain of one thing, however.

“I don’t think it will do any good if we Ukrainians enjoy it,” he said. “Yet if this is the only way to call for peace, then maybe it does work.”

People in Kiribati went to the polls on Wednesday for the first round of voting in a national election expected to serve as a referendum on rising living costs and the government’s stronger ties with China.

A second round of voting is scheduled on Aug. 19 for all parliamentary seats that are not won by a majority vote on Wednesday. Results from the first round are expected Thursday.

The nation of low-lying atolls with 120,000 people is one of the most threatened in the world by rising sea levels and does not command the resource wealth or tourism branding of other Pacific islands. But its proximity to Hawaii and its huge ocean expanse have bolstered its strategic importance and provoked an influence skirmish between Western powers and Beijing.

The Kiribati government switched its allegiance from pro-Taiwan to pro-Beijing in 2019, citing its national interest and joining several other Pacific nations that have severed diplomatic ties with Taipei since 2016.

Kiribati is one of the most aid-dependent nations in the world and is rated at high risk of external debt distress by the International Monetary Fund. Its existence is threatened by coastal erosion and rising seas that have contaminated drinking water and driven much of the population onto the most populous island, South Tarawa.

Analysts say few details about the campaigning or this week’s vote have appeared online and there are few English-language news sources in the country. The blocked or delayed entry of Australian officials to Kiribati and a stalled flow of information between the governments in recent years have prompted anxiety in Canberra about the scale of Beijing’s influence.

“A lot of countries in the region are really trying to find their place with a lot of geostrategic competition,” said Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Kiribati has “taken the approach of keeping its cards pretty close” and is not divulging details “that might impact the way those relationships are trending,” he said.

The election will decide 44 of the 45 seats in Parliament but not the Kiribati presidency, which is due to be resolved in October. A public vote will be held to choose the leader from three or four candidates selected from among those elected this month.

The incumbent, Taneti Maamau, who has been in office since 2016, is expected to seek another term as leader if returned to his seat.

The increased cost of living, scarce medicine supplies and fuel shortages are expected to be central issues for voters. Analysts say voters are likely to reward the incumbent government for the introduction of universal unemployment benefits and increased subsidies for copra, or dried coconut flesh.

“People are taking time to link that the challenges they’re facing are a result of the policies that are in place,” Rimon Rimon, an independent journalist in Kiribati, said by phone. He said the prospect of incumbents being reelected was “quite strong at the moment.”

The question of how much influence Beijing has is not a simple one. Dismay from Australia, New Zealand and the United States about China’s sway is not always specific or well-articulated and has often caused frustration in the Pacific, Johnson said.

He said Australia’s worries include reports that Beijing has trained and equipped Kiribati police officers, and the suspension of foreign judges serving in the island nation.

“Interestingly, these Western countries maintain their own connections with China, but when small island states do the same, it suddenly raises concerns,” said Takuia Uakeia, director of the Kiribati campus of the University of the South Pacific. “This is well understood by the people.”

Rimon, the journalist, said policy shifts since Kiribati switched to a pro-Beijing stance include a requirement that researchers and reporters apply for permits for filming and a more “hard-line” approach to information access. The government remains very secretive about the content of 10 agreements signed between Kiribati and China in 2022, he added.

Voters who spoke by phone on Wednesday said a list of polling places had only been published by the government on Tuesday and there had been uncertainty before voting opened about whether identification cards were required to vote.

Political parties are loose groups in Kiribati, and lawmakers do not confirm their allegiance until elected to office. Kiribati was traditionally a society governed by consensus, with strong democratic principles and respect for its constitution, but the contest for foreign influence had sowed divisions, Rimon said.

“How we’re seeing things in terms of donors and cooperation with partners is that we’re not sure how this is helping us that they’re competing in this sense,” he said.

There are 115 candidates contesting the election, including 18 women. Candidates were unopposed for four seats — three of them incumbent lawmakers from the governing Tobwaan Kiribati Party, according to Radio New Zealand.

Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian dissident rapper who escaped the death penalty earlier this summer has been cleared entirely of the original charges by a lower court in Isfahan, central Iran.

Salehi became a key voice of anti-government dissent in Iran during the 2022 ‘Woman, Life Freedom’ protests, with lyrics that galvanized protesters and urged them to unite. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth” last year.

But in a reversal of the high-profile case, Salehi’s sentenced was later overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court and referred back to the lower court in Isfahan for re-sentencing.

His lawyer in Iran, Amir Raesian announced on X Tuesday that Salehi had been acquitted.

But the Iranian rapper will remain behind bars for now.

“Today, this branch issued its decision regarding Mr. Salehi’s case by holding a hearing and listening to the arguments of the lawyers of the case,” Salehi’s lawyer Raesian told reformist newspaper Shargh Daily. “According to the decision, Mr. Salehi was acquitted of corruption charges.”

Salehi still faces two legal charges; he has been also accused by Iranian authorities of publishing false statements on social media and disrupting public order. On Wednesday, the Isfahan appellate court referred these two charges to a criminal court after finding that it could not rule on these charges.

Rights advocacy group Index Against Censorship, who have campaigned heavily for Salehi’s release, recently called for his “immediate release” from incarceration.

In a social media post as Salehi faced into his latest hearing on August 9, the group stressed that Salehi should never “have had to spend a single day behind bars, let alone in front of a judge.”

Japanese railways and airlines are canceling services as Typhoon Ampil gathers strength in the western Pacific, with the storm expected to hit on Friday during the peak summer travel season.

As of early Thursday local time, Typhoon Ampil was recording sustained winds of 140 kph (85 mph), according to the latest advisory from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). That makes it the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic basin.

And it’s likely to strengthen further in the next 36 hours, since the storm is moving over very warm water – meaning more moisture in the air to fuel the typhoon. By Friday evening, as it nears Japan southeast of Tokyo, it could become the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, according to a JTWC forecast.

Two major airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, canceled about 500 flights in total serving the capital’s Haneda and Narita airports, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Rail travel has been disrupted too. Six lines on Japan’s extensive bullet train network are suspending services between certain stations and warning of major delays on Friday – including the important Tokaido line that connects Tokyo with Osaka.

Japan’s meteorology officials have warned that some parts of northern and eastern Japan may see violent winds, rough seas, heavy rain, flooding, landslides and overflowing rivers, according to NHK. They urged the public to exercise caution and stay prepared.

The storm’s center is expected to remain slightly offshore as it turns toward the northeast and moves away from Japan, according to JTWC and Japan’s Meteorological Agency. If it stays offshore and only brushes the coast, it might only have a light impact on Japan, bringing rain and wind to some areas including Tokyo.

However, it could have a much stronger effect if the direction changes to bring the center closer to the coast, or even makes landfall.

The storm is expected to weaken by Saturday morning local time and die down as it moves into cooler waters over the weekend.