ABU’S will be opening at 19 Cheltenham Crescent, next to the Cattlemens Grill, where the Kinara Tandoori restaurant and take-away used to be, in a part of the town that is dominated by food and drink outlets.

It follows Abu Raihan and his father Chef Abdul Mannan running Abu’s in Duke Street, Darlington, since 2019.

The family-run restaurant is the home of “Apna” Indian Cuisine, where “Apna” means ours, reflecting the family’ dedication to bringing diners “the most delicious Indian food that celebrates our heritage and culture.”

The menu will feature the regular Indian favourites including tikka, baltis, kormas, tandoori, karahi, plus a wide range of signature dishes.

Abu told the Press: “We are a family run restaurant. My father is the chef. I ( Abu) run the front of the house.

“The restaurant we are taking over first opened in 1987 called AliShaan and my father was the head chef who opened it.”

Abu’s father also had businesses in Harrogate during the early 1980s.

Abu continued: “Both my younger brothers also work with us in the family business. My sisters also help out on weekends. We will be serving Indian Food. My father has 53 year’s experience as a chef.”

Abu says the family are coming to Harrogate as this is where he was born. There is no confirmed opening date yet for the new restaurant, which will undergo a makeover before it opens, likely to be in around six weeks, once the renovations are completed.

If the Harrogate restaurant is as good as the Darlington original, diners look set for a treat. Darlington diners will also be relieved to know their own restaurant will remain open.

Tripadvisor awards Abu’s 4.8 stars out of five, based on 569 reviews, ranking it third out of 239 restaurants in Darlington.

One recent comment said: “My family went to Abu’s for the first time. The food was absolutely amazing and very good portions. Very friendly staff, and we will definitely be returning in the future. Also the toilets were sooo posh and clean, so clean I wouldn’t have minded eating my curry on the bog.”

Another said: “Went early doors on a Saturday and was fairly busy for the time of day. Welcoming and friendly staff, food was tasty with good size portions. Pretty impressive toilets as well.”

Google awards Abu’s 4.5 stars out of five based on 246 reviews.

The retailer opened its latest location at The Bridges shopping centre in Sunderland today (Thursday, February 26), offering visitors a fresh shopping experience after relocating from its previous site nearby.

The new store, spanning 16,200 sq ft, promises the same mix of discounted designer labels and high-street finds, with stock updated weekly in typical TK Maxx treasure-hunt style.

The store had their grand opening today (Thursday, February 26). (Image: Run Free PR)

A spokesperson for TK Maxx said: “We’re thrilled to relocate our Sunderland TK Maxx store to this prime location in The Bridges Shopping Centre.

“This exciting move gives customers a fresh, modern space to explore our fantastic brands for less, making every visit even more enjoyable than ever. At TK Maxx, we’re committed to delivering the very best for our customers and can’t wait for everyone to discover the treasures our new store has to offer”

The opening day kicked off with a bit of fun, as TK Maxx hosted a treasure hunt for shoppers with the chance to win gift cards valued at £50, £20, £10, and £5.

Shoppers were eager to explore the new store. (Image: Run Free PR)

Karen Eve, centre director at The Bridges, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to welcome TK Maxx to their fantastic new store at the Bridges. As a valued anchor retailer for many years, their move into this brand-new space marks an exciting new chapter.

“It not only enhances the shopping experience for our visitors but also reflects both their continued success and our ongoing commitment to investing in and evolving the centre.”

The store features fashion for the entire family, accessories, and homeware for visitors to explore.

Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has announced the country will hold an early election next month.

It comes as the country continues a standoff with the US over President Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland, with Ms Frederiksen seeking to capitalise on a surge in support for her defiant stance.

“I have recommended to King Frederik that elections be held on March 24,” Ms Frederiksen told the Danish parliament in Copenhagen on Thursday. The country was due to go to the polls no later than the end of October.

The Folketing, or parliament, has 179 seats – 175 of which are allocated to lawmakers representing Denmark and two apiece to lawmakers from Greenland and the Faroe Islands, its two semi-autonomous territories.

Ms Frederiksen, 48, has spent recent months discussing with European leaders ways to counter the US president’s renewed interest in annexing the Arctic island.

Opinion polls suggest this has provided a much-needed popularity boost for the Danish prime minister after public dissatisfaction over rising living costs and welfare pressures.

“This will be a decisive election, because it will be in the next four years that we as Danes and as Europeans will really have to stand on our own feet,” Ms Frederiksen said.

“We need to define our relationship with the United States, and we must rearm to ensure peace on our continent.”

She added: “As everyone knows, the conflict over Greenland is not over yet. The government will of course continue to look after Denmark’s interests.”

Mr Trump’s push to annex Greenland resulted in his short-lived threat last month to impose new tariffs on Denmark and several other European nations.

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The US, Denmark and Greenland subsequently held discussions on an Arctic security deal, though Ms Frederiksen and other Danish and Greenlandic officials have refused to negotiate on sovereignty.

After the negotiations, the US leader said he had “formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland”.

A general election must be held at least every four years in Denmark – but the prime minister can call one at any point.

The last election of the NATO and European Union member country was held on 1 November, 2022, and resulted in a three-party coalition staggering the left-right divide.

Ms Frederiksen, a centre-left Social Democrat, has held office since mid-2019.

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She currently heads a government with the Liberal Party of Defence Minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, and the centrist Moderate party of Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, a former PM.

The Social Democrats suffered a significant setback in the 2025 municipal elections, losing the Copenhagen mayoralty for the first time in 87 years.

However, although the party’s support fell to 18% in polls in December, it has since rebounded to 22%, the highest of any party, as Ms Frederiksen’s approval ratings were boosted by her handling of the Greenland dispute.

Discussing the Greenland crisis earlier this month, Ms Frederiksen said she remains wary, though the situation has calmed.

The standoff has further raised Ms Frederiksen’s profile on the international stage, where she gained attention for her swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic and for bolstering European support for Ukraine.

Benfica have categorically denied that Gianluca Prestianni admitted to his team-mates he racially abused Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior.

Portuguese media had reported the Argentinian winger, who denies the accusation, had confessed his guilt to the rest of the squad.

However, his club insisted that was not the case.

“Benfica categorically denies that player Prestianni communicated to the squad or the club’s management that he had uttered a racist insult against Real Madrid player Vinicius Junior,” said a statement.

“As has already been made public, the player apologised to his team-mates for the incident that occurred during the match against Real Madrid, regretting its magnitude and consequences and assuring everyone, as he has done from the very beginning, that he is not racist.”

Prestianni was provisionally suspended for Wednesday’s Champions League play-off defeat against Real after Vinicius alleged he was racially abused by the Argentinian in the first leg.

The Brazilian left the field and refused to return, resulting in a stoppage in play that lasted 10 minutes in Lisbon.

Benfica boss Jose Mourinho was roundly criticised for his comments about the incident after appearing to intimate the winger had brought any abuse upon himself with his goal celebration, saying “a stadium where Vinicius plays, something happens, always”.

NEW YORK (AP) — Humans and Neanderthals cozied up from time to time when they lived in the same areas tens of thousands of years ago. But we don’t know much about who got with whom, or why.

A new genetic analysis offers some ancient gossip: The pairings were more often female humans with male Neanderthals.

How exactly this happened remains a huge question mark. Did human women venture into Neanderthal populations, or were the Neanderthal males drawn to larger human enclaves? Were these interactions peaceful, confusing, secretive or even violent?

“I don’t know if we’ll ever get a definitive answer to how this happened, since we can’t travel back in time,” said population genetics expert Xinjun Zhang with the University of Michigan, commenting on the new analysis.

But the study, published Thursday in the journal Science, shows “that whenever Neanderthals and modern humans have mated, there has been a preference for male Neanderthals and female modern humans, as opposed to the other way around,” said author Alexander Platt, who studies genetics at the University of Pennsylvania.

Scientists know that Neanderthals and humans mated because there is a small but important percentage of Neanderthal DNA in most modern humans outside of sub-Saharan Africa — including genes that can help us fight some diseases and make us more susceptible to others.

But they have also known that the Neanderthal DNA is not distributed evenly throughout the human genome.

In particular, there is a surprising lack of Neanderthal DNA in the human X chromosome, one of the bundles of genes in each cell known as a sex chromosome, compared with the amount of Neanderthal DNA in the other, non-sex chromosomes in the cell.

Scientists thought that maybe the genes in those locations were simply not beneficial – or even harmful. Perhaps people with those gene patterns didn’t survive as well so those genes were filtered out by evolution over time.

Or, they thought, maybe the difference could be explained by how the two species intermingled.

To try to solve the riddle, Platt and colleagues looked instead at the Neanderthal genome and the human DNA that got interspersed during a “mating event” 250,000 years ago.

When comparing these genes, they found more of a human fingerprint on the Neanderthal X chromosome – the same chromosome that, in humans, has less Neanderthal DNA than would be expected.

The most likely explanation for this mirror image pattern is mating behavior. That’s because of the way sex chromosomes are passed from parents to children, explained Platt. Because genetic females have two X chromosomes and genetic males have one X and one Y chromosomes, two out of every three X chromosomes in a population, on average, are inherited from people’s mothers.

If more human females mated with Neanderthal males than the other way around, over thousands of years you would expect to see just what they found: more human DNA in Neanderthal X chromosomes and less Neanderthal DNA in human X chromosomes.

“I think that they’ve taken some really important steps in filling missing pieces to the puzzle,” said Joshua Akey, who studies evolutionary genomics at Princeton University and wasn’t involved with the new study.

The study can’t totally rule out other explanations. For example, Zhang said, it’s possible that the offspring of human males and Neanderthal females just didn’t survive as well.

But the simplest and most likely, explanation, the study found, is also the most interesting: “It’s not the result of a strictly Darwinian survival of the fittest,” Platt said. “It’s really the result of how we interact with each other, and what our culture and society and behavior is like.”

—-

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Of the 1,863 public and stakeholder responses to the first question, 647 were in general support/agreement with the proposals, but 472 disagreed with them. There were 439 comments raising “suggestions or concerns” about traffic congestion and 308 that raised concerns about the problems it would create for people with disabilities.

As John Davidson faces fresh public attention following the BAFTAs, his powerful documentary I Swear, I Can’t Help It is now streaming on Amazon Prime offering vital context about life with severe Tourettes syndrome

A powerful BBC documentary is now available to stream on Amazon Prime, offering timely insight into the life of Tourette’s advocate John Davidson following renewed public attention around his condition.

Davidson’s life first entered the public eye when, aged just 16, when the BBC filmed him for the half-hour documentary John’s Not Mad aired in 1989. The show explored what it was like growing up with severe Tourette’s syndrome in a small Scottish town.

The programme proved life-changing and later inspired the award-winning film I Swear, which took home three of its six nominations, including Casting at the 2026 BAFTAs. While actor Robert Aramayo, who portrayed Davidson, made history by winning both the EE Rising Star Award and Best Actor.

Now, a follow-up to John’s original documentary is available to stream. I Swear, I Can’t Help It, which first aired on the BBC in 2009, follows Davidson through his 30s as he continues to live with Tourettes syndrome. While it is less widely known than John’s Not Mad, its arrival on Amazon Prime Video gives viewers a deeper and more personal insight into Davidson’s life beyond the programme that first made him known and the film that stole the show at the BAFTAs.

Davidson, whose condition causes involuntary vocal and physical tics, found himself back in the spotlight after a controversial moment at the British Academy Film Awards. During the ceremony, he involuntarily shouted a racist slur while actors Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage presenting an award.

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The incident was broadcast on BBC One despite a two-hour delay, and was only removed from BBC iPlayer the following morning. BAFTA host Alan Cumming later issued an on-air apology to viewers, explaining that Tourette’s syndrome is a disability and that the outburst was not intentional.

Reaction online was immediate and completely divided, with some wrongly attributing the tic to Davidson’s beliefs, while others criticised the broadcaster’s duty of care.

Davidson apologised the following day, saying he was “deeply mortified if anyone considers my involuntary tics to be intentional or to carry any meaning.”

He described feeling a “wave of shame” and stressed that the slur was a word he would “never use” and would “completely condemn” without Tourette’s. “It’s the last thing in the world I believe,” he said, adding that his tics are “not an intention, not a choice and not a reflection of my values.”

A long-time advocate for Tourette’s awareness, Davidson has appeared in multiple BBC documentaries over the years. One of the most notable is the 2009 film I Swear, I Can’t Help It, a 59-minute documentary that follows his life after John’s Not Mad and focuses on his ongoing campaign to educate the public about the condition.

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I Swear, I Can’t Help It, shows an insight into Davidson’s advocacy for Tourette’s as it shows him meeting with Greg, a young boy diagnosed with the syndrome whose tics occasionally make him collapse or appear frozen, as the pair get together to see how each copes with the condition.

Now, this documentary has arrived on Amazon Prime giving viewers a better understanding of the condition which has considerably impacted Davidson’s life since he was 12 years old suffering from a severe form of Tourette’s.

Although it is not known when the documentary was added to Amazon Prime, other than the year date of 2026, it seems perfectly fitted for the situation at the BAFTAs over the weekend.

Davidson has endured significant backlash from social media users, many of whom have never heard of Davidson and his story – making the documentary on Amazon Prime more relevant than ever.

The charity Tourettes Scotland explained that the BAFTAs incident was a coprolalia tic. Speaking exclusively the Daily Record, the charity described what this is. They said: “Corporelia is an involuntary tic just like any other tics. There is no meaning behind it, and it should never be taken personally.

“Only 10 per cent of the Tourette’s population have these tics and they are quite often linked to contextual/environmental tics. Examples of coprolalia could be shouting something racial when you see someone with a different skin colour. It may also be something homophobic, sexual, or regarding disability.”

Through the documentary viewers can see Davidson deal with corporelia, with the opening scenes showing him shouting ‘f**k off’ out loud in his local ASDA. As well as various tics shouting ‘sha**ing,’ ‘beast’ and other tics about body parts and pedophiles.

With Tourettes Scotland highlighting that these involuntary comments do not mean anything. They said: “The person with Tourette’s does not mean what they are saying. Offensive tics can happen at any time they are not controlled.”

Watch I Swear, I Can’t Help It on Amazon Prime now.

NEW YORK (AP) — Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Anthropic an ultimatum this week: Open its artificial intelligence technology for unrestricted military use by Friday, or risk losing its government contract.

Defense officials in the Trump administration also warned they could designate Anthropic, which makes the AI chatbot Claude, as a supply chain risk — or invoke a Cold War-era law called the Defense Production Act to give the military more sweeping authority to use its products, even if the company doesn’t approve.

Some experts say that using the law this way would be unprecedented, and could bring future legal challenges. The government’s efforts to essentially force Anthropic’s hand also underscore a wider, contentious debate over AI’s role in national security.

Here’s what we know.

What is the Defense Production Act?

The Defense Production Act gives the federal government broad authority to direct private companies to meet the needs of national defense.

The act was signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1950 amid supply concerns during the Korean War. But over its now decades-long history, the law’s powers have been invoked not only in times of war but also for domestic emergency preparedness, as well as recovery from terrorist attacks and natural disasters.

One of the act’s provisions allows the president to require companies to prioritize government contracts and orders deemed necessary for national defense, with the goal of ensuring the private sector is producing enough goods needed during war or other emergencies. Other provisions give the president the ability to use loans and additional incentives to increase production of critical goods, and authorize the government to establish voluntary agreements with private industry.

The DPA is “one of the government’s most powerful and adaptable industrial policy tools,” said Joel Dodge, an attorney and the director of industrial policy and economic security at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator.

Anthropic is the last of its AI peers to not supply its technology to a new U.S. military internal network. CEO Dario Amodei repeatedly has made clear his ethical concerns about unchecked government use of AI, including the dangers of fully autonomous armed drones and of AI-assisted mass surveillance that could track dissent.

The Pentagon has maintained that it has no interest in using AI for mass surveillance or to develop autonomous weapons to operate without human involvement.

If the Defense Department does invoke the DPA to give the military more authority to use Anthropic’s products without its approval, that could mean forcing the company to adapt its model to the Pentagon’s needs without built-in safety limits, or remove certain ethical restrictions from the company’s contract language.

Experts like Dodge say both would be “without precedent under the history of the DPA.”

“It’s a powerful law,” he said. ”(But) it has never been used to compel a company to produce a product that it’s deemed unsafe, or to dictate its terms of service.”

How has this law been used in the past?

Trump in his first term and former President Joe Biden invoked the DPA to boost supplies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. And during 2022’s nationwide baby formula shortage, Biden used the law to speed production of formula and authorize flights to import supply from overseas.

Biden also invoked the DPA in a 2023 executive order on AI, notably in efforts to require that companies share safety test results and other information with the government. Trump repealed the order at the start of his second term.

Decades ago, the administrations of both President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used the DPA to ensure that electricity and natural gas shippers continued supplying California utilities amid an energy crisis. And the law was used after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017 to prioritize contracts for food, bottled water, manufactured housing units and the restoration of electrical systems.

The DPA requires periodic reauthorization to remain in effect, which can expand or refine the scope of the law. According to congressional documents, its next expiration date is slated for Sept. 30 of this year. Depending on how the Defense Department’s reported demands unfold, Anthropic could be at the top of lawmakers’ minds.

Possible next steps for Anthropic

If the Defense Department uses the DPA provision aimed at prioritizing government contracts and ordering production of certain goods — which the Anthropic case suggests it would — a company can push back if the requested product isn’t something it already produces, Dodge and others say, or if it deems the terms to be unreasonable. But the government may try and overrule that, notes Charlie Bullock, senior research fellow at the Institute for Law & AI.

“If neither side backs down, it seems realistic that there would be litigation between Anthropic and the government,” Bullock said.

Some have also noted tension between the Pentagon’s warning that it could designate Anthropic as a supply chain risk while also indicating its products are so important to national defense that it needs to invoke the DPA — two assertions that seem at odds with each other.

Defense officials appeared to be backing away from the DPA option on Thursday, when Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on social media that if Anthropic didn’t agree to cooperate by 5:01 p.m. ET on Friday, “we will terminate our partnership with Anthropic and deem them a supply chain risk.”

“We will not let ANY company dictate the terms regarding how we make operational decisions,” Parnell added.

Dodge thinks the administration is counting on “a lot of forces” as it aims to get Anthropic to bend on Friday.

If Anthropic agrees to new terms in the face of such threats, that could open up “a Pandora’s box of what the government could do to assert power and control over private companies,” Dodge said.

___

Associated Press Writers Matt O’Brien in Providence, Rhode Island and Konstantin Toropin and David Klepper in Washington contributed to this report.

Donna Whitfield, who works at Bells Fish and Chips in Durham, took home the national title during the 38th annual awards ceremony, organised by the National Federation of Fish Friers.

The event, which celebrates excellence across the UK’s fish and chip industry, saw Ms Whitfield recognised for her outstanding contribution.

She said: “This recognition means so much, not just to me, but to the incredible team I work alongside every day.

“Without their support, belief and dedication, this would not have been possible. To be judged by fellow operators who truly understand the challenges of this industry makes this even more special.

“I see this award as recognition for everyone working hard in fish and chips. It is a privilege to be part of a family-run business that sits at the heart of its community.”

Judging involves a rigorous process of interviews, skills tests, live tasks, and anonymous taste testing.

Bells Fish & Chips, Durham. (Image: TOM BANKS)

Shortlisted contenders must show extensive product knowledge, sustainable business practices, employer integrity, first-rate customer service and above all be masters of cooking irresistible fish and chips.

Andrew Crook, president of the National Federation of Fish Friers, said: “We don’t make it easy to progress through the assessments as benchmarks are always set extremely high.

“This ensures shortlisted businesses and individuals truly know about serving superb quality meals for customers and they are contributing to the growth of sector by innovating where possible, investing in their operations and people, and being exceptional advocates for the trade.

“It’s been clear from the start that those competing came with serious agendas to elevate industry best practice like never before and we are so proud to say these are the winners.

“Fish and chip businesses are the backbone of the takeaway space; the heritage is like no other and our winners represent tradition and the future to the highest degree.”

The awards are widely regarded as the most comprehensive of their kind, open to more than 10,500 takeaways across the UK and even including categories for overseas entrants.

This article was first published in The Conversation UK’s World Affairs Briefing email. Sign up to receive weekly analysis of the latest developments in international relations, direct to your inbox.

It would be wrong to say Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, four years ago this week, came out of the blue. For months there had been worrying reports of a huge build-up of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border. Through the winter of 2021/22, Moscow scoffed at suggestions it was planning to invade its neighbour as “alarmist”. But at the same time the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was making aggressive noises, issuing demands for Nato to pull its troops back from its eastern front and calling for a ban on Ukraine’s accession to the western alliance.

And on February 21, he made a speech in which he called Ukraine “an inalienable part of our own history, culture and spiritual space” which had been taken over by a neo-Nazi “puppet regime” that should be removed.

Still, it was a shock to wake in the early hours of Thursday February 22 to learn that Putin had launched what he called a “special military operation … to protect people who have been subjected to abuse and genocide by the Kyiv regime for eight years”. Images began to emerge of tanks and armoured vehicles with the now-familiar “Z” (a Russian victory symbol) streaming across the borders from Russia and Belarus, the latter the shortest route to the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.

Four years and about 1.8 million casualties later, Russia has gained about 75,000sq km of territory, about 12% of Ukraine to add to the 7% it had occupied since it annexed Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine in 2014. The war has developed into a “meat-grinder” – Russia’s advances have been glacially slow and very costly, an estimated 78 casualties per square kilometre in 2025.

But if, as many insist, the war on the battlefield itself has slowed into something resembling a stalemate, the geopolitical shifts that have accompanied the conflict have been considerable – particularly since Donald Trump was elected for a second term as US president, promising to end the conflict, “in a single day”. Of course, like many of his campaign promises this has proved to be pie in the sky, but the US president’s cordial relations with Putin, his decision to curtail US financial aid to Kyiv and his apparent support for many of the Russian president’s war aims have come as an unpleasant surprise for Ukraine and its allies.

Another big feature of this war, the biggest armed conflict in Europe since 1945, has been the huge technological changes we’ve seen employed on the battlefield. Stefan Wolff and Tetyana Malyarenko call it the “drone war”, as both sides have become heavily reliant on unmanned autonomous vehicles (UAVs) for both combat and reconnaisance. Wolff – an expert in international security at the University of Birmingham – and Malyarenko – of the National University Odesa Law Academy – have been regular contributors to our coverage of the conflict since February 2022.

This week they are part of a panel of experts analysing the four years of conflict, alongside Wolff’s colleague Mark Webber as well as Scott Lucas of University College Dublin, both also regular contributors. They have looked into the key issues raised by the four years of conflict, including the way the war has been prosecuted, the involvement of the US president and the potential for China and/or Europe to break the stalement: Beijing potentially abandoning its support for Moscow or Europe vastly increasing its support for Ukraine in an attempt to tip the balance in Kyiv’s favour.

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Ukraine war: after four surprising years, where does it go next? Experts give their view

It’s hard to imagine any reasons to be cheerful about the conflict. But optimists may take heart at the prospect of trilateral talks in March between Ukraine, Russia and the US. Realistically the prospect of the talks achieving anything significant seem pretty bleak at present. Russia continues to take Ukrainian territory and even if these are snail’s pace advances, Putin will consider that they add leverage to Russia’s negotiating position. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, will consider that the cost of this slow pace of advance, both in terms of casualties and the damage the war is now certainly doing to Russia’s economy, are good reasons to keep going. Surveys suggest he is supported in this by the majority of Ukrainians.

In the end it will probably be sheer exhaustion that forces and end to the conflict, writes Alex Titov of Queen’s University Belfast. Without the wholehearted support of the US president, Ukraine cannot defeat Russia on the battlefield. And, despite the massive advantage in manpower, Russia is really beginning to feel the
effects of this war of attrition – both on the health of its economy and its ability to attract enough new recruits to replace the casualties who are being either killed or wounded faster than they can be replaced. For this reason alone, Titov sees chinks of light in what is a very dark time.

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Ukraine: after four years of war, exhaustion on both sides is the main hope for peace

Let’s share Titov’s cautious optimism for the present. Say a peace deal is struck sometime soon, Ukraine is faced with a massive task of rebuilding. The most recent World Bank estimate is that this will take more than a decade and cost around US$588 billion (£435 billion). The biggest and most immediate question facing Kyiv and its allies, writes Olena Borodyna, a senior geopolitical risks advisor at ODI Global is how this can be funded.

The consensus is that Ukraine will need to find ways to incentivise private-sector investment in reconstruction, something for which Borodyna sees varying amounts of enthusiasm for from Ukraine’s partners and friends. Part of the problem is the volatile security situation, which represents a considerable risk moving forward. Add to that the corruption which has dogged Ukraine since well before the invasion and the incentive to invest looks very shaky indeed.

Another big problem, she writes, is that so many Ukrainians left the country since February 2022, which has caused acute labour shortages. The challenge of persuading people to return will be paramount and here again, the lack of security will work against Ukraine.

There is also the strong possibility that political developments in Europe could affect the level of support for Kyiv, with elections in countries such as France, Italy and Denmark. There are already several EU members which are pretty openly hostile to the notion of supporting Ukraine, including Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary – the latter is already trying to obstruct a vital €90 billion (£78 billion) to help cover Ukraine’s needs for 2026 and 2027.

Peace deal or not, it’s a long and hard road ahead for Ukraine.

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The three big challenges facing Ukraine when the war ends

But adversity can often be inspiring. Hugh Roberts, an expert in language and culture at the University of Exeter, has been charting the upsurge in Ukrainian poetry since the invasion. He has unearthed two poets who have come to represent this cultural renaissance: Yaryna Chornohuz and Artur Dron’.

Both have served in Ukraine’s armed forces. Chornohuz is still a drone operator of the Ukrainian Marine Corps in the frontline city of Kherson. Dron’ signed up in February 2022, four years before he reached the age of conscription. He’s now a veteran following serious injury. The words of both are available in English and both have been recognised with major literary awards in their home country.

Roberts gives us some of their most moving lines.

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Lines from the frontline: the poet soldiers defending Ukraine

Death in Mexico

Also this week, we heard of the death of Mexican drug kingpin Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, also known as El Mencho, in what was reportedly a massive military operation involving what appears to have been hundreds of troops and the killing of 74 people, including 25 national guard officers.

Repercussions will continue for some time, writes Raul Zepeda Gil, an expert in crime and conflict at King’s College London. The apprehension or killing of a cartel boss often causes a spike in violence as other criminal groups try to cut in on the cartel’s operations. There also likely to be a bitter and violent power struggle within El Menche’s organisation, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

À lire aussi :
Mexico may pay a steep price for the killing of Jalisco cartel leader El Mencho

There has already bee speculation that Oseguera may be succeeded by his wife, Rosalinda González Valencia. Otherwise known as “La Jefa” (the boss), she is alleged to control the cartel’s finances, although apart from a five-year jail spell for money laundering, there has reportedly never been enough evidence of the wrongdoing of which she is suspected to charge her with anything else.

Adriana Marin, who specialises in terrorism, organised crime, and transnational threats in Latin America, examines the prominent role some women have played in organised crime gangs.

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La Jefa: the wife of slain drug kingpin El Mencho and the women at the heart of the cartels

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