Ukraine Claims Black Sea Fleet Chief Killed | Incoming Asteroid Chunk | Macron's Troop Exit from Niger | Surge in UK Shoplifting

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Ukraine Says It Killed Chief of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet - The New York Times -

As they ramp up attacks on occupied Crimea, Ukrainian forces are repeatedly targeting the fleet based there, a key to Russia’s attacks deep into Ukraine and its blockade of Ukrainian ports.

Ukraine’s military claimed on Monday that it had killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in a strike on Crimea — a blow that, if confirmed, would be among the most damaging suffered by the Russian Navy since the sinking of the fleet’s flagship last year.

Citing “new information about the losses of the enemy as a result of the special operation,” Ukraine’s special operations forces said in a statement that the strike on Friday killed 34 officers, including the fleet commander, and wounded 105 others. It did not name the naval leader, but the commander of the Black Sea Fleet is Adm. Viktor Sokolov, one of the most senior officers in Russia’s Navy.

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A chunk of asteroid is coming to Earth - The Economist

ON SEPTEMBER 24TH, if all goes according to plan, scientists will hit Earth with part of an asteroid. That is less alarming than it sounds, for the chunk of rock in question weighs at most a few hundred grams. It will arrive in a small capsule, complete with parachute, that will drift gently to the ground in the Utah desert.

The rock is from an asteroid named Bennu, which was visited in 2018 by an American spacecraft called OSIRIS-REx. The probe will drop its cargo off en route to another asteroid, Apophis, at which it is due to arrive in 2029.

Astronomers take a great interest in asteroids. The solar system was formed around 4.5bn years ago, when a cloud of dust and gas collapsed under its own gravity into a disc, which in turn agglomerated into the sun and its planets. Asteroids are leftover chunks that never accrued enough mass to become planets. Studying them thus offers a window into the ancient astronomical past.

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Why Emmanuel Macron is pulling French troops out of Niger - The Economist

When on July 26th soldiers from Niger’s presidential guard detained and overthrew the leader they were supposed to be protecting, France insisted that it would not take orders from the new junta. When the coup leaders told France’s ambassador and its 1,500 soldiers stationed in the country to get out, the former colonial power dug in its heels, citing a point of democratic principle. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, declared that Mohamed Bazoum, Niger’s captive president, had been democratically elected and so France would recognise only his authority.

But in an abrupt reversal on September 24th, Mr Macron announced that not only was France’s ambassador, Sylvain Itté, being recalled to Paris but all troops in Niger would leave by the end of the year. France, declared its president, would thus put an end to bilateral military co-operation with Niger.

The official explanation for this about-turn is that the new authorities “no longer want to fight against terrorism”, said Mr Macron. Between 2013 and 2022 France led an anti-jihadist operation in the countries of the Sahel—Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger—initiated at their request. Backed by other European countries, including Britain, Estonia and Sweden, the operation at its peak counted over 5,000 French soldiers. Last year France decided to wind down Operation Barkhane and quit Mali after military leaders there staged a second military coup, and hired mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner group. French forces withdrew to what then seemed to be the relative stability of neighbouring Niger, where France maintains a military base, complete with fighter jets and Reaper drones.

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Why shoplifting is on the rise in Britain - The Economist

The thief was in no hurry. Seeing a pile of electric fans arranged near the front of the shop, on a busy street in Brixton, south London, he sauntered in, tucked one under his arm, and sauntered out. The cashier, fiddling with a broken self-checkout till, didn’t notice. If she had, it is unlikely she would have tried to stop him.

In an era of generally falling crime, shoplifting is rising. In the year to March 2023, police reported 342,343 cases of it, up by 24% on the previous year. That tally is, doubtless, a small share of total shop thefts. The British Retail Consortium (brc) has warned retail crime is “soaring across the country.” Primark, a cheap fashion chain, said this month shoplifting had dented its profits. Dame Sharon White, chair of the John Lewis Partnership (which owns shops and Waitrose, a supermarket), described it as an “epidemic”.

The reported statistics are less dramatic than they might at first appear: they are, more or less, back to pre-pandemic levels. Shoplifting dropped sharply when Britons were locked down. Yet the past decade has seen a gradual uptick in such crimes. And the brc says in some cities retail crime is rising particularly sharply.

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