News Wire | August 2022 Archive

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Reformist Soviet Leader, Is Dead at 91

By Marilyn Berger | The New York Times

Mikhail S. Gorbachev, whose rise to power in the Soviet Union set in motion a series of revolutionary changes that transformed the map of Europe and ended the Cold War that had threatened the world with nuclear annihilation, has died in Moscow. He was 91.

U.N. Nuclear Chief Sets Off for Russian-Occupied Zaporizhzhia Plant

By John Hudson | The Washington Post

A team of United Nations nuclear experts packed into a convoy of armored vehicles in Ukraine’s capital Wednesday and drove off to the embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the culmination of six months of painstaking international negotiations aimed at preventing a catastrophe at the facility.

More from WPR: Only Ukraine Can Set the Terms to End the War With Russia

Solomon Islands Bans Foreign Navies From Docking, in Blow to U.S., U.K.

By Andrew Jeong | The Washington Post

The Solomon Islands will bar all foreign military ships from docking at its ports, the country’s government said late Tuesday, more than a week after requests from a U.S. Coast Guard ship and a British naval vessel went unanswered and months after the Pacific nation signed a defense pact with China.

U.N. Race Panel Sounds the Alarm on Abortion Access in the U.S.

By Nick Cumming-Bruce | The New York Times

An influential United Nations panel that examined the state of race relations in the United States called on the Biden administration Tuesday to address a host of concerns, including imperiled abortion access for minorities, curbs on voting rights and the country’s “increasingly militarized approach” to immigration.

More from WPR: Latin America’s ‘Green Tide’ Has Lessons for U.S. Abortion Rights Activists