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King Charles III delivers his address to the nation and the Commonwealth from Buckingham Palace following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
What We're Watching: King Charles III addresses the nation, IAEA warns of potential Zaporizhzhia plant catastrophe
King Charles III makes first public address as monarch
King Charles III addressed the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, and the world on Friday with a public address following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Striking both a personal and formal tone, Charles paid tribute to his “darling mama” and her “unswerving devotion” to Britain. In discussing his faith, Charles said he was brought up to “cherish a sense of duty to others,” and he vowed to “solemnly pledge [himself] … to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation.” He also spoke about the changing roles of his wife, Camilla, his Queen Consort, and his son William and daughter-in-law, Katherine, who now assume the titles of Prince and Princess of Wales. As Charles’s address aired, a service of remembrance was held for the late monarch at London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral. Attendees included Britain’s newly installed prime minister, Liz Truss, who had her first meeting with the king earlier on Friday at Buckingham Palace. The queen’s coffin remains at Balmoral and will be moved this weekend to Holyrood, the royal residence in Edinburgh, where King Charles III – officially proclaimed the monarch on Saturday – and the Queen Consort will head on Sunday. A service will be held for the queen in Edinburgh on Sunday before her coffin is moved to London. Her funeral is expected to take place within two weeks at Westminster Abbey. World leaders, including President Joe Biden, will attend, paying tribute to a queen who worked with 15 prime ministers and met 13 US presidents throughout her 70-year reign.
IAEA warns of potential nuclear catastrophe at Zaporizhzhia
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, reiterated on Friday that a safe zone needs to be established around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. The plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, came under Russian control at the beginning of the war – though Ukrainian staff continue to operate it. The plant accounted for 20% of Ukraine’s electricity production before the conflict and is coveted by Moscow because of its geographical proximity to Russian-occupied Crimea. Grossi issued a dire warning, saying that the situation at the plant – repeatedly hit by shelling that Russia and Ukraine blame on each other – is “unsustainable” and “increasingly precarious.” The plant has been cut off from Ukraine’s electricity grid since Monday, running on “emergency mode'' and relying heavily on diesel generators that will soon run out of fuel. These factors mean the risk of a nuclear catastrophe is steadily rising in a country long traumatized by the deadly events of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Meanwhile, the IAEA Board of Governors, made up of 35 countries, meets next week, when it’s likely to pass a resolution calling on Russia to immediately withdraw from the nuclear site. But this will be largely symbolic as the group cannot force Moscow to abide by its resolution.An FBI photograph of documents and classified cover sheets recovered from former US Pesident Donald Trump's Florida estate.
What We're Watching: Trump obstruction evidence, IAEA team in Zaporizhzhia, IMF-Sri Lanka bailout deal
Did Trump conceal top-secret documents?
Donald Trump repeatedly blocked US law enforcement from accessing highly-classified documents stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence (and lied about how many files remained there), according to a scathing new document released Tuesday by the Department of Justice. The filing came in response to a recent request by the former president that the documents — seized from his Florida estate by the FBI on Aug. 8 — be reviewed by a third-party arbiter to decide if any are covered by executive privilege. (The DOJ opposes this on the legal grounds that the records don’t belong to Trump.) It’s the most detailed account to date of the months-long attempt by the National Archives – an independent agency that stores and preserves government records – to obtain classified files Trump took from the White House after the 2020 election. The filing includes a photograph of documents labeled “Top Secret” and claims that some material was so sensitive that some FBI and DOJ personnel required additional security clearances to review them. Crucially, it also states that “efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation” after Trump’s legal team ignored in the spring a grand jury subpoena seeking all classified documents. A federal court decides Thursday whether the arbiter can be brought in.
Nuclear inspectors in Zaporizhzhia
A team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors finally arrived Wednesday in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine. Despite heavy fighting in the area, they plan to visit the city’s contested nuclear power plant on Thursday. The group — which excludes US and UK members, as demanded by Moscow — will assess the damage from shelling and power outages that last Friday briefly disconnected the facility from Ukraine’s power grid, raising fears of another Chernobyl at Europe's largest nuclear plant. The IAEA had been asking for access to the site since March, when Russian forces took over the facility. Indeed, the task will be anything but easy: the inspectors want to interview Ukrainian workers and establish a permanent monitoring mission at the site. The Kremlin reluctantly agreed to the latter, but won't withdraw to create a demilitarized zone around the perimeter. Kyiv, for its part, is worried that Moscow will threaten workers not to speak out against the Russian presence there, giving a false impression to the international inspectors that everything is under control. Meanwhile, southern Finland reported Wednesday small amounts of radioactive isotopes, which could indicate a leak from the Ukrainian plant. Although the source is unknown, in 1986 the first hint that something had gone horribly wrong in Chernobyl was unusually high levels of radiation detected at a nuclear plant in southern Sweden. Just in case, Ukraine is doling out iodine pills to people living near Zaporizhzhia.
Down-and-out Sri Lanka close to IMF deal
Mired in its worst economic crisis ever, Sri Lanka has reportedly reached a bailout deal with the International Monetary Fund. Good news for the government in Colombo, which in May became South Asia’s first to default on its foreign debt in over two decades. Years of economic mismanagement and graft under the former Rajapaksa dynasty pummeled Sri Lanka’s economy. More recently, big tax cuts in 2019 decapitated the country’s main source of revenue, while COVID decimated its tourism industry and slashed remittances. As its foreign currency reserves dried up, Colombo resorted to printing more money, pushing inflation to a whopping 70% in July. Scarce food and fuel in recent months caused mass social dislocation, prompting a run on the presidential palace and President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to flee the country. News of the IMF deal came one day after new President Ranil Wickremesinghe released his first budget, which includes some tax hikes that will be painful to the struggling poor and middle class. What’s more, Sri Lanka still needs to restructure around $30 billion of debt owed to foreign creditors — including China. That might be challenging, considering that Sri Lanka is often cited as a case study in the perils of China’s debt trap diplomacy.
US Energy Secretary on the Ukrainian nuclear power plant in peril
"We are in the fog of war," says US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm about the increasingly dangerous situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which is currently caught in the crossfire of Russian and Ukrainian fighting. Granholm says the Department of Energy is monitoring the situation closely and has "no indications of increased radiation levels right now" but added that the situation could change at any moment.
Even if disaster is averted this time, Granholm believes that a line has been crossed: "No country should turn a nuclear power plant into an active war zone." Her comments were part of a larger conversation with Ian Bremmer which will air in an upcoming episode of GZERO World.
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