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      Putin Replaces Defense Minister in Rare Cabinet Shake-up

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      Mr. Putin shifted Sergei Shoigu to run the security council, and nominated an economist to run the defense ministry.President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia replaced his minister of defense on Sunday with an economist, shaking up his national security team for the first time since his invasion of Ukraine and signaling his determination to put Russia’s war effort on an economically sustainable footing.Mr. Putin kept the minister, Sergei K. Shoigu, in his inner circle, tapping him to run the country’s security council — a position giving Mr. Shoigu close access to the president but little direct authority. Mr. Shoigu will replace Nikolai P. Patrushev, a former K.G.B. colleague of Mr. Putin, who the Kremlin said would be moved to another position to be announced in the coming days.Andrei R. Belousov, an economist who had served as first deputy prime minister since 2020 and long been seen as one of Mr. Putin’s most trusted economic advisers, was nominated to become the new defense chief.The Kremlin said Russia’s ballooning defense budget warranted putting an economist in charge, and that Mr. Belousov would help make the Russian military “more open to innovation.”The cabinet shifts represented a rare overhaul for Mr. Putin, who tends to avoid rash changes, and they could mark a turning point in Russia’s more than two-year war in Ukraine.A photo provided by Russian state media showing President Vladimir Putin of Russia, right, with Andrei R. Belousov at the Kremlin in November.Gavriil Grigorov/Sputnik, via Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Spain’s Socialists Win Catalan Vote Dominated by Amnesty for Separatists

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      For the first time in over a decade, the regional government in Catalonia may be led by a party opposed to independence.Spain’s governing Socialist party emerged on Sunday as the winner of regional elections in Catalonia that had been widely seen as a litmus test for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s polarizing amnesty measure for separatists.The Socialists are celebrating what they claim is a momentous victory, though they did not clinch enough seats to govern on their own. They most likely face weeks of bargaining, and possibly a repeat election if no agreement is reached. But for the first time in over a decade, they may be able to form a regional government led by an anti-independence party.Addressing supporters late Sunday night at Socialist headquarters in Barcelona, the party leader, Salvador Illa, declared: “For the first time in 45 years, we have won the elections in Catalonia, in terms of both seats and votes. The Catalans have decided to open a new era.”Still, Mr. Illa, who has promised improvements in social services, education and drought management, will need 68 of the Catalan Parliament’s 135 seats to form a government. On Sunday, his party got only 42, meaning he will have to seek support from the pro-independence party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan Republican Left) and the left-wing Comuns.“Winning does not mean governing,” Toni Rodon, a professor of political science at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, said before the results were in. While Esquerra has supported Mr. Sánchez in the Spanish Parliament, he said, negotiations in Catalonia are not expected to be easy.The Socialists’ main rival was the pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), led by Carles Puigdemont, who campaigned from exile in France. Junts came a close second, but with 35 seats would not be able to form a government with other pro-independence parties, which performed badly.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Russia’s Victory Day Parade, Putin Keeps Ukraine in the Distance

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      A fighter fly-past returned to Russia’s World War II commemorations, where President Vladimir V. Putin permitted himself a single reference to his “special military operation.”The ballistic missiles rolled through Red Square, the fighter jets zipped overhead and rows of foreign dignitaries impassively looked on. Russia’s annual commemoration of the end of World War II presented a traditional ceremony on Thursday cherished by millions of Russians, a reflection of President Vladimir V. Putin’s broader attempts to project normalcy while resigning the population to a prolonged, distant war.At last year’s Victory Day celebration, as Russia struggled on the battlefield, Mr. Putin said the country was engaged in a “real war” for survival, and accused Western elites of seeking the “disintegration and annihilation of Russia.” On Thursday, he merely referred to the war in Ukraine once, using his initial euphemism for the invasion, “special military operation.”And on Russia’s most important secular holiday, he dedicated more time to the sacrifices of Soviet citizens in World War II than to the bashing of modern adversaries.Still, he did not ignore those adversaries entirely, reviving familiar criticisms and grievances about what he says are attempts to undermine Russia and accusing the West of “hypocrisy and lies.”“Revanchism, abuse of history, attempts to excuse modern heirs of the Nazis — these are all parts of the policies used by the Western elites to spark more and more new regional conflicts,” Mr. Putin said in an eight-minute address.The ceremony itself was slightly more expansive than last year’s bare-bones procedure, a sign of a nation that has recovered from the initial shock of the war and currently holds the advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Podesta Meets With China’s Climate Envoy Amid Deep Economic Tensions

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      Beijing’s dominance raises economic and security concerns, and tensions will be on full display as top climate diplomats meet this week.The world’s two most powerful countries, the United States and China, are meeting this week in Washington to talk about climate change. And also their relationship issues.In an ideal world, where the clean energy transition was the top priority, they would be on friendlier terms. Maybe affordable Chinese-made electric vehicles would be widely sold in America, instead of being viewed as an economic threat. Or there would be less need to dig a lithium mine at an environmentally sensitive site in Nevada, because lithium, which is essential for batteries, could be bought worry-free from China, which controls the world’s supply.Instead, in the not-ideal real world, the United States is balancing two competing goals. The Biden administration wants to cut planet-warming emissions by encouraging people to buy things like EVs and solar panels, but it also wants people to buy American, not Chinese. Its concern is that Chinese dominance of the global market for these essential technologies would harm the U.S. economy and national security.Those competing goals will be on vivid display this week, as the Biden Administration’s top climate envoy, John Podesta, meets for the first time with his counterpart from Beijing, Liu Zhenmin, in Washington.Trade tensions are likely to loom over their talks.The flood of Chinese exports, particularly in solar panels and other green-energy technology, has become a real sore spot for the Biden administration as it tries to spur the same industries on American soil. Mr. Podesta has sharply criticized China for having “distorted the global market for clean energy products like solar, batteries and critical minerals.”Not only that, he has set up a task force to explore how to limit exports from countries that have high carbon footprints, a practice that he called “carbon dumping.” That was considered a veiled reference to China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Canada Re-Criminalizes Public Drug Use in British Columbia

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      A province that was a global pioneer in harm reduction took a step back after a political backlash.The government of Canada on Tuesday walked back part of a program allowing people in British Columbia to possess small amounts of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, without fear of criminal charges. At the request of the province and after a public backlash, people in British Columbia are no longer permitted to use drugs in public places.Under the changes, which went into effect immediately, adults will still be allowed to possess small amounts of drugs. But they will now have to use them in legal residences, at safe injection sites and at other harm-reduction centers established by the health authorities.The re-criminalization of public drug use in British Columbia underscores the difficulties that governments face as they grapple with the opioid crisis. Even in a province that has been a global pioneer of the harm reduction movement, an approach that seeks to reduce risky behavior rather than to punish drug users, there are no easy answers.The province’s coroner estimated that there were a record 2,511 toxic drug deaths last year. Drug overdoses from toxic substances kill more people ages 10 to 59 than homicides, suicides, accidents and natural diseases combined in British Columbia, according to the provincial coroner’s office.The goals of decriminalizing possession were to enable police officers to focus their time on large drug distributors rather than users and encourage users to be open to treatment. But concerns about public drug use have quickly surfaced and raised repeatedly in the provincial legislature by members of opposition parties.Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, a professor in the medical school at the University of British Columbia who studies addiction and public health policy, said the decision amounted to “three steps back” in dealing with the opioid crisis.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Inquiry Into Johannesburg Fire Blames City Officials for Deadly Conditions

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      Although a resident confessed to setting the August 2023 blaze that killed 76 people in a dilapidated building, a report found that officials had ignored warning signs for years.An inquiry into a deadly fire in Johannesburg last August that killed 76 people and exposed a housing crisis in South Africa’s largest city placed the blame on officials who ignored “ringing alarm bells” for years.The eight-month inquiry, led by a retired constitutional court justice, released its findings in a report on Sunday. The report said that years of inaction by city agencies had allowed the building to fall into lethal disrepair, and singled out a high-ranking official for blame.“The consequences of the fire would have been mitigated had the city complied with its legal obligations as owner and municipality,” the report said.In the early hours of Aug. 31, a fire ripped through a derelict building in downtown Johannesburg. Once a women’s shelter, it had been all but abandoned by city agencies although it was owned by the government and managed by the Johannesburg Property Company, a government agency. Instead, about 600 people desperate for affordable accommodation were squatting in the five-story building, creating a tinderbox that would lead to one of the deadliest residential fires in South Africa’s recent history.While a resident in the building later confessed to setting the fire, the report found that city officials knew about the “distressing conditions” and had allowed the building to become a firetrap. Once known as the Usindiso women’s shelter, the building was taken over by criminal organizations who collected rent.The structure had no municipal electricity or running water. Instead, residents used the building’s fire hoses and fire extinguishers to collect and store water, and created illegal electricity connections. They erected partitions of wood, cardboard and cloth, built shacks within rooms and cooked on paraffin stoves. Heaps of trash piled up around the building. The structure was known as a haven for crime in the area, and yet law enforcement was virtually nonexistent, the report found.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      In Meeting With Xi, E.U. Leader Takes Tough Line on Ukraine War

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      Ursula Von der Leyen, the European Commission president, pushed Beijing to help rein in Russia’s war in Ukraine after meeting with the Chinese and French leaders in Paris.Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, put pressure Monday on China to help resolve the war in Ukraine, saying Beijing should “use all its influence on Russia to end its war of aggression against Ukraine.”She spoke after accompanying President Emmanuel Macron of France in a meeting with Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, who began his first visit to Europe in five years on Sunday. Ms. von der Leyen has persistently taken a stronger line toward China than has Mr. Macron.With President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia again suggesting he might be prepared to use nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine, she said Mr. Xi had played “an important role in de-escalating Russia’s irresponsible nuclear threats.” She was confident, Ms. von der Leyen said, that Mr. Xi would “continue to do so against the backdrop of ongoing nuclear threats by Russia.”Whether her appeal would have any impact on Mr. Xi was unclear, and describing the conflict as Russia’s “war of aggression” in Ukraine seemed likely to irk the Chinese leader. Beijing has forged a “no limits” friendship with Russia and provided Moscow with critical support for its military effort, including jet fighter parts, microchips and other dual-use equipment.“More effort is needed to curtail delivery of dual-use goods to Russia that find their way to the battlefield,” Ms. von der Leyen said of China. “And given the existential nature of the threats stemming from this war for both Ukraine and Europe, this does affect E.U.-China relations.”It is relatively unusual for a top European official to describe the war in Ukraine as an “existential threat” to the European continent. Doing so may reflect Mr. Putin’s renewed talk of the use of nuclear weapons.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Elecciones en Panamá: la figura más prominente de la contienda no está en la boleta

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      El país centroamericano se dirige a las urnas el domingo para elegir a un nuevo líder tras una campaña que ha sido influida por un expresidente convicto que solicitó asilo en la embajada de Nicaragua.Las elecciones presidenciales de Panamá del domingo están ante una situación peculiar: la figura más prominente de la contienda no está en la papeleta de votación.Ricardo Martinelli, un expresidente de la nación centroamericana y conocido por sus simpatizantes como “el Loco”, había sido uno de los principales contendientes hasta que fue inhabilitado por una condena por blanqueo de capitales.Pero desde la embajada de Nicaragua en Ciudad de Panamá, donde se le otorgó asilo, Martinelli ha estado haciendo una intensa campaña por José Raúl Mulino, un exministro de Seguridad Pública que era su compañero de fórmula y que ahora ha tomado su lugar en la papeleta.Mulino ha encabezado las encuestas entre los ocho candidatos, prometiendo regresar a Panamá al crecimiento económico que experimentó bajo el mandato de Martinelli, quien fue presidente del país de 2009 a 2014.“Todos con el loco y el loco con Mulino”, dice un jingle en un canal de TikTok para simpatizantes de Martinelli.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More