As of midnight, Lithuanian border control stopped 11 Russian citizens from entering the country, the Lithuanian Interior Ministry reported. This comes after the prime ministers of four of the five Baltic nations bordering Russia — Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — agreed earlier this month to stop admitting Russian citizens, a move in support of Ukraine.

Going forward, Russians traveling for tourism, culture, sport or business purposes, even if they hold a valid visa, will be denied entry to the four nations. In a tweet, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said he reiterated his proposal to impose an EU tourist ban for Russian citizens.

In May, the European Union tightened travel restrictions on Russian officials and businesspeople and banned all flights from Russia, leaving only rail and road links. While not sharing a border with Russia, the Czech Republic was one of the first EU countries to stop issuing visas to Russian citizens, imposing the restriction the day after Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine.

However, the most recent ban exempts holders of EU residence cards, family members of EU citizens, those with humanitarian cases, serving diplomats, transportation employees and Russian dissidents or long-stay national visa holders.

Andrzej Romanczuk, a Polish citizen, told The Associated Press that regions on both sides of the borders would suffer economically because border traffic drives local trade.

Bordering countries cannot stop Russians from entering their countries via another third nation, such as Finland, which despite bordering Russia, decided to keep its borders open.

“There is a loophole, and the loophole is Finland,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told Reuters, adding that as a result, the travel restrictions are not entirely effective but still better than nothing.

Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press and Reuters.
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VOA Eastern Europe bureau chief Myroslava Gongadze spoke to Ukraine’s Minister of Infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov about a United Nations program to deliver Ukrainian grain to the world and his country’s efforts to replace bridges damaged during Russia’s invasion. The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

VOA: After you signed the agreement with the World Food Program under the U.N., and over 3 million tons of grain was delivered to the world, does it mean that the World Food Program and this agreement [are] working?

KUBRAKOV: Yes, you’re absolutely right. … Almost each week, we load in one, two vessels, which is going to Somalia, to Ethiopia, Kenya, and other African countries which are suffering now because you know that according to statistics of United Nations almost 70 million people now, they feel lack of food and there is a huge risk for these countries.

VOA: There was a report about Russia stealing Ukrainian grain. How are you dealing with this issue?

KUBRAVOV: We are trying to block these supplies. Normal countries which appreciate, which try to stick to international laws, they understand this, and they are not accepting such vessels with stolen grain from our country. But still there is Syria. Still there are some other countries oriented on the Russian Federation and they support such transactions.

VOA: And they are accepting the grain, Ukrainian grain under Russian pretext. There are a lot of Ukrainian grains. The world learned how big Ukraine is as an agricultural country and how much impact Ukraine has in the world. How are you planning to actually save Ukrainian grain?

KUBRAVOV: The most important for us is just to increase volume of our exports. Results of August were quite optimistic. We reached almost 5 million. It’s very similar volumes which we had before the war. So, I hope that if we will continue with the same volumes, I think we will save all our agricultural products and nothing will be spoiled. So, we will reach volumes which we had before the war.

VOA: My understanding that you are developing other ways to deliver grain, tell me about that.

KUBRAVOV: Last month we exported more than 2 million, about 2.2 million tons of different products through three ports on [the] Danube [River] and 1.6 million tons of agricultural products. So, it’s also like a huge contribution to whole export. We are developing our railway lines in direction to Poland, to Romania. It’s also important because we passed over 1 million tons of exports through these channels.

And for sure we are trying to simplify border cross checkpoints and all of these issues with our colleagues from Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Hungary. It’s not so easy, we understand that our points, they were not ready for such volumes. But we are working on this, and the European Commission also supports us.

VOA: We are standing on this bridge. It’s a fresh new building. You are replacing all the bridges that were destroyed during the first stage of invasion. My understanding [is that] a lot of infrastructure would have to be replaced. How are you dealing with that? And how much you are relying on the international community for support?

KUBRAVOV: First of all, we understand that the war is continuing, and now we’re focusing only on the main roads, the main railway roads, the main infrastructure. So, we are standing on a bridge which is part of international road, so that’s why we understand it’s like top priority for us. And we have 320 destroyed bridges. We have 53 temporary bridges which are already constructed. This bridge won’t be temporary. It will be a permanent, normal bridge. I hope that we will finish it in less than one and a half months, before first of November we will open the bridge.

And you asked about support of our international partners. Fortunately, they support us, and recently we have received the decision of the European Commission and European investment Bank, they will provide financing for such recovery of like fast recovery. It’s first part of the most important bridges, railway lines and almost half a billion euro program. So, I hope that it will be enough just to cover all these urgent issues.

VOA: So far, your assessment, how much would have to be replaced?

KUBRAVOV: I can rely on figures of Kyiv School of Economy and World Bank, they are very close because one of the organizations they calculated the date on — the date was beginning of summer — Kyiv School of Economy, they are trying to update almost each week, months. So, they are close to $100 billion of direct losses of infrastructure and number one point in this figure, it’s residential buildings and second issue it’s transport infrastructure.
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U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden paid their respects to Queen Elizabeth II Monday, joining world leaders, the royal family and a small group of invited guests at a somber, pomp-filled funeral ceremony at Westminster Abbey that celebrated her 70 years of service as Britain’s longest-serving monarch.

The Bidens arrived late Saturday for the event and have kept a low profile in the British capital, holding no official diplomatic meetings and keeping their public comments to the topic of the queen’s recent death September 8 at the age of 96.

White House officials told VOA before the funeral that Washington’s strong ties to London will continue after the recent change in leadership — which includes the new king, Charles III, and the recently installed prime minister, Liz Truss. Biden will meet with Truss Wednesday in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

“We are confident that with King Charles and with Prime Minister Truss that the special relationship between the United States and Great Britain will endure, we’re not worried about that at all,” National Security Council director of strategic communications John Kirby told VOA.

On Sunday, Biden and his wife paid their respects as the queen’s body lay in state at Westminster Hall, where tens of thousands lined up for hours to pass by her elaborately draped casket, which also bore the Imperial State Crown, orb and scepter — a priceless and instantly recognizable piece capped by the massive, glittering Star of Africa diamond, a 530-carat stone given to the Crown by then-colony South Africa, in 1907.

On Sunday, the Bidens also signed condolence books, and the president praised the queen for her legacy of selfless duty.

“I think what she gave us is a sense of, maybe above all, the notion of service, that we all owe something,” he said. “There’s something within our capacity to do that can make things — not just the world better, but your neighborhood better, your household better, your workplace better. And that’s what she communicated to me anyway.”

The king also hosted a formal state reception for dignitaries Sunday, which Biden attended.

The British crown has extended a controversial funeral invitation to Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is widely believed to be responsible for ordering the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. They did not invite the leaders of Russia, Belarus, Syria, Afghanistan or Venezuela.

Elizabeth will be buried privately later on Monday at St. George’s Chapel within the grounds of Windsor Castle, next to her husband of 73 years, Prince Philip.
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The European Union’s executive branch has unveiled plans for new laws that it said would help protect media freedom and independence in the 27-nation bloc at a time of mounting concern about the dangers of political influence in several member countries.

Spurred into action allegations of state spying on reporters, the use of political pressure on news outlets and the placing of advertising to peddle influence, the European Commission said the EU needs a European Media Freedom Act.

“We see a lot of worrying trends regarding media in Europe, and it’s not only a matter of one or two countries,” European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told reporters in Brussels. She said the proposed legislation is needed “for the times we live in, not for the times we would like to live in.”

The commission has criticized the governments of Hungary, Poland and Slovenia in recent years for trying to pressure their national media. But EU officials say they see the risk of political influence in more than 20 member countries.

“We need to establish clear principles: No journalist should be spied on because of their job. No public media should be turned into propaganda channel,” Jourova said.

The main thrust of the new act is to protect media outlets from governments attempting to determine what they can publish or broadcast, and to prevent countries from spying on media workers.

The legislation also aims to ensure stable funding of public service media and to make media ownership more transparent.

The proposal would only take effect once it has been debated and endorsed by EU member countries and the European Parliament.

The centerpiece of the legislation would create an independent body, made up of national media authorities, to issue opinions on national measures and decisions affecting media markets and media market ownership. But the opinions of the European Board for Media Services would not be binding on national authorities.

Jourova rejected suggestions that the board would be answerable to the European Commission or serve as an oversight body that itself keeps tabs on what reporters and editors are doing.

“We are not going to regulate the media themselves, but the space for media,” she said.

The act would ban the use of spyware against journalists and their families, with exceptions only for investigations of crimes such as terrorism, child abuse or murder. Journalists would have the right to judicial protection, and countries would set up an independent authority to handle complaints.

The allocation of state advertising to media would also be made more transparent. Officials say that 21 countries are at medium to high risk of misusing advertising revenue to influence editors and journalists.

The plan is the commission’s second recent foray into the media world. On Sept. 6, it launched a consortium of 18 European news agencies to “carry out independent reporting on EU affairs.” The European Newsroom benefits from around 1.8 million euros ($1.8 million) in EU funding.
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The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II is being held at London’s historic Westminster Abbey.

Her body has been lying in state since Wednesday at Westminster Hall, where thousands of mourners have filed past her coffin to pay their respects.

Heads of state and dignitaries from around the world have flown into London to attend Elizabeth’s funeral which is certain to be full of British pomp and circumstance.
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The state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II is being held Monday at London’s historic Westminster Abbey. 

Her body has been lying in state since Wednesday at Westminster Hall, where thousands of mourners have filed past her coffin to pay their respects. 

Heads of state and dignitaries from around the world have flown into London to attend Elizabeth’s funeral which is certain to be full of British pomp and circumstance.

The queen is reported to have had a hand in planning some of the details of her final farewell. 

The dean of Westminster, David Hoyle, will preside over the service; the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, will deliver a sermon. Prime Minister Liz Truss, who was appointed to her office by the queen just two days before Elizabeth died, will read a lesson.

The queen’s coffin will be carried Monday morning to Westminster Abbey on the State Gun Carriage of the Royal Navy that will be drawn by 142 sailors. The carriage also was used for the funeral of Elizabeth’s father, King George VI, in 1952.

Westminster Abbey also was the site of Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 and her wedding to Prince Philip in 1947. 

After the funeral, King Charles III and other members of the royal family, in a walking procession, will accompany Elizabeth’s coffin to Wellington Arch, Elizabeth’s last stop before her burial at Windsor Castle.  

Britain’s last state funeral was held almost 60 years ago for Winston Churchill, the prime minister who led Britain to a World War II victory.
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Floodwaters were starting to recede in some parts of western Alaska that were battered by the worst storm in a half century, leaving debris flung by the powerful Bering Sea waves on beaches and in seaside communities.
 

he storm, the remnant of Typhoon Merbok, was weakening Sunday as it moved north from the Bering Strait into the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast. But it remained a hazardous threat to smaller communities along Alaska’s northwest coast, said National Weather Service meteorologist Kaitlyn Lardeo.

“This guy is going to hang out in the Chukchi Sea for the next few days and just rapidly weaken because it’s so stationary,” she said.

The storm’s crashing waves caused widespread flooding and damage along 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) of the Alaska coastline, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said.

It was also massive system — big enough to cover the mainland U.S. from Nebraska west to the Pacific Ocean and from Canada to Texas — that has influenced weather systems as far away as California, where a rare late-summer storm was dropping rain on the northern part of the state.

There have been no reports of injuries or deaths in Alaska, the governor said during a Saturday evening news conference. However, roads have been damaged and state officials are assessing potential damage to seawalls, water and sewage systems, airports, and ports.

Several communities reported the force of the incoming water, often propelled by winds gusting near 70 mph (113 kph), knocked some homes off their foundations. One house in Nome floated down a river until it got caught under a bridge.

Many homes were flooded and about 450 residents on the western coast sought refuge in shelters, with more than half of them at a school in Hooper Bay, where they ate processed moose donated by village residents. Others rode out the storm on higher ground outside their communities.

The former typhoon caused the highest water level at Nome — 11.1 feet (3.38 meters) above the normal tide level — since a large storm in 1974, and other communities might have surpassed levels seen in 48 years ago.

“One of the big features of this storm was the wide swath of significant damage,” said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“So, did it live up to the hype? I would say absolutely,” he said of the storm, which had officials urging people to prepare days before it hit.

Becca Luce and her family live about a half mile from the Bering Sea coast in Nome.

“We have a pretty good view of the ocean from our living room,” she said. “We could see the waves crashing from our window and going over the road.”

Nome itself was inundated, including Front Street, the city’s main business thoroughfare that also doubles as the finish line for the Iditarod Trail Sled-Dog Race. The city’s mini-convention center, which also serves as Iditarod headquarters for the end of the race each March, was surrounded by water.

One downtown restaurant, the Bering Sea Bar and Grill, was destroyed by fire Saturday night, but the cause and whether it was related to the storm is not yet known, said interim city manager Bryant Hammond.

The receding water revealed the detritus left in the streets and yards, including trash, organic debris, rocks and asphalt, Hammond said. Cleanup was to start immediately.

Part of a highway was washed out in Nome, forcing residents to use a bypass to reach the community of Council, adding up to 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the 72-mile (116-kilometer) trip, he said.

“Another major concern is that freeze-up is near, and all of this damage to the roads will need to be repaired before the month ends,” Luce said, using the local term for the onset of winter, which is in October in many parts of Alaska. “And it’s hard to say if that will be possible, especially for the remote village villages without as many resources as Nome has.”

Dunleavy, who issued a state disaster declaration Saturday and is considering seeking a federal disaster, said state officials intend to get communities up and running again as soon as possible.

“We just have to impress upon our federal friends that it’s not a Florida situation where we’ve got months to work on this,” he said. “We’ve got several weeks.”

The rain in Northern California helped firefighters increase containment on the biggest wildfire in the state so far this year. The Mosquito Fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills northeast of the capital of Sacramento was 34% contained after downpours early Sunday. More rain was expected, which fire spokesman Scott McLean called a mixed blessing.

“It did help a bit to stifle that aggressive fire,” McLean said. “But we’re going to have new safety issues now with all the mud that’s out there. And the ground moisture could cause some of those damaged trees to fall over.”

An average of a quarter inch (2 centimeters) of rain fell overnight across Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties north of San Francisco, with more than double that amount recorded in some mountain areas, the National Weather Service said.

Winds gusting up to 40 mph (64 kph) were forecast Sunday along Northern California coastal areas and at higher elevations in the Sierra Nevada. Gusts that strong can blow down branches and drought-stressed trees and cause power outages, warned weather service meteorologist Ryan Walbrun. He said thunderstorms were expected on and off until at least Monday, making for slick roads during the morning commute.
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The British royal family is wealthy, but where does their money come from? Here, we break it down and explain some of the history.
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The Spanish charity Open Arms has rescued 372 people seeking to cross the central Mediterranean to Europe in unseaworthy smugglers’ boats and recovered the corpse of a man who had been shot by smugglers, officials said Sunday.

The rescue ship Open Arms Uno remained at sea and is seeking a safe port for the rescued people, including some who need medical attention and many who are suffering from dehydration, said Laura Lanuza, an Open Arms representative. She said they have made at least two requests for a safe port in Malta.

In all, the ship performed three rescues in 24 hours. In the largest rescue, the Open Arms picked up 294 people, mostly Egyptians, from an overcrowded barge in waters south of Malta during a nighttime operation that spanned nearly five hours before dawn Sunday. Those rescued said they had been at sea for four days.

The packed boat had been spotted by volunteer pilots combing the Mediterranean for people in distress, and a photo showed its decks packed with people waving for help.

Before that, the Open Arms rescued 59 migrants from Syria, Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea, among them 10 minors, from an oil platform they had reached in international waters near Tunisia. Still in the flimsy smugglers’ boat was the wrapped body of a migrant who had been shot on shore by smugglers, Lanuza said.

“The smugglers forced the people to take the corpse with them. They spent a day or so at sea, and kept the corpse until they were saved,” Lanuza said.

On Saturday morning, the Open Arms rescued 19 people from a rubber dinghy off Libya in international waters. They included 16 people from Syria.

A photographer with The Associated Press aboard, the Open Arms, said during each rescue, desperate people flung themselves into the water, complicating the operation.
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Hurricane Fiona has made landfall in Puerto Rico, knocking out power across the U.S. island territory and raising fears of “catastrophic flooding.”  
The storm is expected to dump as much as 64 centimeters over portions of the island in the Caribbean. 

The Miami-based National Hurricane Center said in a bulletin that Fiona came ashore along the extreme southwest coast, near Punta Tocon, at 3:20 p.m. local time Sunday. Winds were estimated at 140 kilometers per hour, making Fiona a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

LUMA [[ lumapr.com ]] energy, the operator of the island’s power grid, said on its website that “given the size and scope of the outage, as well as ongoing impacts of Hurricane Fiona, full power restoration could take several days.” The company, however, said it had “the team, the tools, and the resources in place to respond to this event.”  

Meanwhile, flights out of the main airport have been canceled and ports closed due to the weather emergency. Ahead of the storm’s arrival, some residents took shelter away from their homes. 

Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). A statement said federal emergency aid has been made available to Puerto Rico and that FEMA is authorized to coordinate disaster relief efforts to alleviate the impact of the emergency. 

Fiona’s arrival comes five years after Hurricane Maria battered Puerto Rico as a powerful storm. Maria was the strongest hurricane to hit the island in nearly 90 years when it came ashore in September 2017. 

Weather forecasters also say Fiona is moving just west of Puerto Rico toward the Dominican Republic, where hurricane warnings and watches are in effect. Forecasters are also warning of catastrophic flooding and mudslides there. 
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