Tonnes of oil leaked after suspected sabotage act in Norway
On Monday, Norwegian police said they were investigating the break-in at the disused electricity transformer station in Norway's Bærum municipality.
Part of the fence surrounding the premises had been cut and the cover at the bottom of the transformer was unscrewed and left open. National power grid operator Statnett believe the incident was an act of deliberate sabotage.
"It appears that someone has broken in and removed a cover on the transformer, and left it open, causing a significant amount of oil to spill out," Thomas Fennefoss, Project Manager at Statnett said.
However, police authorities said in a statement that they currently had no concrete evidence to confirm so.
The oil, harmful to the environment but not to humans, reached the Sandvikselva River nearby the station. Some of the oil also seeped underground.
Richard Kongsteien, Communication Manager for Bærum municipality, said efforts are underway to minimise the environment impact. Oil barriers and absorbents have been deployed to contain and clean up the spill.
The Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina has issued a nationwide arrest warrant for Milorad Dodik and two others, after the President of Bosnia's Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity ignored a state-level one last week.
The other two are the entity's Prime Minister Radovan Višković and National Assembly Speaker Nenad Stevandić. The warrant means that any police officer in the country who encounters them must arrest them immediately.
They are all accused of anti-constitutional conduct. Bosnian media reports that Stevandić has left the country for Serbia.
Bosnia's state-level prosecutors issued arrest warrants for the trio last week, which was has not been carried out.
Dodik has not commented yet on the new warrant but has posted on X that Republika Srpska is taking steps to form its own border police. This will control the border between the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Republika Srpska, the two entities in the country.
Dodik, who previously said he does not recognise the country's state-level prosecutor's office, has rejected last week's warrant's validity and any attempts at his arrest, and said he will not go to Sarajevo for questioning.
Bosnia's state-level court convicted Dodik in late February of going against the decisions of the country's international peace envoy, Christian Schmidt, which constitutes a criminal act. The verdict is not final, and Dodik can appeal it.
Shortly after, Dodik introduced new laws meant to ban the operation of state-level security and judicial institutions in what comprises about half of the Western Balkan country's territory.
The decisions have been temporarily suspended by the state-level Constitutional Court.
The European peacekeeping force in Bosnia, EUFOR, has said it was stepping up the number of its troops in response to the tensions.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Euronews
3 hours ago
- Euronews
European leaders show cautious optimism towards Ukraine talks outcome
As they emerged from talks in the White House, European leaders expressed guarded optimism that US President Donald Trump could be finding momentum in his quest to fulfil his campaign promise of ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The leaders of France, Germany, Finland, Italy and the UK, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO chief Mark Rutte showed a united front in the talks with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said after the meeting that there was 'real progress' and a 'real sense of unity.' European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said all the parties were working together on 'a lasting and durable peace.' Praise mixed with caution While they heaped praise on Trump for committing to security guarantees for Ukraine, they also suggested forging a temporary ceasefire is not off the table. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said 'the path is open now' to halting the fighting but next steps are 'more complicated.' 'I don't want to hide the fact that I wasn't sure it would go this way — it could have gone differently,' he said. 'But my expectations were not just met, they were exceeded.' 'Let's try to put pressure on Russia,' Merz said, adding that he would like to see a ceasefire come together. Trump was noncommittal, saying, 'If we can do the ceasefire, great,' but suggested it was far from a dealbreaker. Following his meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump dropped his demand for an immediate ceasefire and said he would look to secure a final peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine — a sudden shift to a position favoured by Putin. Support for trilateral meeting The 'most important' outcome of the meeting was the 'US commitment to work with us on providing security guarantees' to Ukraine, French President Emmanuel Macron said. Macron told reporters that the participants of Monday's talks are willing to set up a bilateral meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy 'in the coming days' and the trilateral meeting including Trump 'by two to three weeks.' He added that he has 'the greatest doubt' about Putin's will to stop the war. Merz said that such a meeting 'must, like all meetings, be well-prepared; we will do this with President Zelenskyy.' He said he doesn't currently know what the meeting could produce. He stressed that the Europeans and Americans will need to discuss who participates in the security guarantees and to what extent. 'It's completely clear that the whole of Europe should participate,' he said. 'This is not just about the territory of Ukraine,' he added. 'It's about the political order of Europe.' Asked about the possibility of German peacekeeping troops, he said it was too early to give a final answer. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said membership is not on the table, but the US and European leaders are discussing 'Article 5 kind of security guarantees for Ukraine.' Article 5 of the NATO treaty says an attack on one member nation is an attack on all members, the heart of the transatlantic defence pact. Details around US involvement in Ukraine 'will be discussed over the coming days,' which will give Zelenskyy the clarity he needs to decide whether Ukrainians can remain safe following a peace deal.
LeMonde
5 hours ago
- LeMonde
Macron calls for sanctions against Russia if diplomacy fails
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Monday, August 18, for stepping up sanctions against Russia if its leader Vladimir Putin does not move forward on peace with Ukraine. "President Trump believes we can get an agreement and believes that President Putin also wants a peace accord," Macron told reporters after talks at the White House. "But if at the end this process is met by refusal, we are also ready to say that we need to increase sanctions." He pointed to recent secondary sanctions imposed by the Trump administration on India, which has emerged as a major buyer of Russian energy as Western nations cut back due to sanctions following Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The secondary sanctions on India have "had a lot of effects," Macron said. Trump invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the White House three days after the US president welcomed Putin for talks in Alaska. Over the weekend, Trump again publicly pressured Ukraine to concede territory, siding with Putin and not Zelensky, who has insisted on defending all the territory that Russia has taken by force. Asked by reporters if Trump had said that concessions were necessary before any US security guarantees to Ukraine, Macron said, "No, that wasn't discussed at all. We're well away from that." He said that Trump and the European leaders also agreed that there can be no restrictions on the size of Ukraine's military in a future deal with Russia. All the leaders meeting in Washington support a "robust Ukrainian army that can resist any attempted attack." Macron said that he hoped Russia and Ukraine would resume contact "in the coming days" with a potential three-way summit involving Trump, Putin and Zelensky "in two to three weeks."
Euronews
11 hours ago
- Euronews
Trump tells Zelenskyy US will be part of Ukraine security guarantees
As the world held its breath on Monday to watch the Trump-Zelenskyy rematch in the Oval Office, with EU leaders listening in from next door, the two presidents flipped the script of the previous harrowing shouting match, underscoring the historic gravity of the event and their determination to make their relationship work. 'Substantial progress is being made', US President Donald Trump said as he welcomed his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House, stating for the first time that the US could step in for the security guarantees for Ukraine. 'Europe is the first line of defence', Trump said, adding 'but we will help, we will be involved' as he did not reject the idea of US peacekeepers on the ground in Ukraine. After Trump and Zelenskyy finished their bilateral meeting, they were joined by the seven European leaders who came to Washington with the Ukrainian leader to show Europe's united support for both Ukraine and the US president's peace deal efforts. Trump said, "I think that the European nations are going to take a lot of the burden'. "We're going to help them, and we're going to make it very secure." Trump added that one point discussed with the leaders in Washington tonight was "who would do what." Zelenskyy said security guarantees were an important part of a "very good conversation". "We spoke about very sensitive points. The first one is security guarantees … Security in Ukraine depends on the United States, and on you and on those leaders who are with us in our hearts," the Ukrainian president emphasised. Notably, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the Kremlin would accept security guarantees for Ukraine. "I believe that in a very significant step, President Putin agreed that Russia would accept security guarantees for Ukraine," the US president explained. But as the European leaders together with Zelenskyy and Trump discussed 'who will do what' in terms of these guarantees, Moscow issued a statement that it will not accept any scenarios involving the deployment of NATO member troops in Ukraine. "(This) could lead to an uncontrollable escalation of the conflict with unpredictable consequences," Russia's foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Monday. Will Trump and Zelenskyy meet Putin? The US president reiterated that the next step was getting Putin on the phone after the talks with Zelenskyy and the European leaders. "And we may or may not have a trilateral meeting - if we don't have a (trilateral meeting), then the fighting continues. And if we do, we have a good chance, I think if we have a 'trilat' there's a good chance of maybe ending it," Trump stated. Zelenskyy said he was ready for a trilateral between himself, Putin and Trump. In the past, Ukraine's president has repeatedly called for a direct meeting with Putin, which Moscow rejected every time, including when Zelenskyy went to Turkey, calling for a face-to-face sit-down with Putin. Russia's president has so far only agreed to a meeting with Trump, which took place in Alaska last Friday. At the Monday talks at the White House, Trump said he hopes a trilateral meeting will take place as soon as possible, and this is when the territories could be discussed. "We also need to discuss the possible exchanges of territory," Trump pointed out, suggesting that it would be based on the current frontlines and what land Russia occupies. "That means the war zone, the war lines that are now, pretty obvious, very sad, actually, to look at them and negotiating positions." What the US president called 'land swapping' is arguably the most complicated aspect of any possible deal, as it only includes the territorial concessions for Ukraine and no compromise whatsoever for Russia. Any possible negotiations on this matter will undoubtedly take considerable time, which is why Zelenskyy and the European leaders said they wanted to have a ceasefire first -- only then can the talks put an end to Russia's war against Ukraine. Trump, who initially supported the idea of a ceasefire, seems to have changed his mind after the meeting with Putin in Alaska, when he started pushing a peace deal instead. The US president admitted the change of strategy on Monday, saying, 'All of us would obviously prefer an immediate ceasefire while we work on a lasting peace. Maybe something like that could happen. As of this moment, it's not happening.' The European leaders tried to steer Trump's peace efforts back to the initial approach, insisting that without a ceasefire, Putin has more time to continue raging his war. 'If you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires,' Trump stated, telling Zelenskyy, 'I don't think you need a ceasefire." As the two leaders were finishing their talks at the White House, Russia launched dozens of drones at Ukrainian cities, starting yet another overnight attack.
