TAIPEI, TAIWAN: China’s leader Xi Jinping kicks off a six-day trip to Europe this Sunday, his first visit to the continent since 2019. The trip will include stops in France, Serbia and Hungary and comes amid rising tensions over trade with the European Union and concerns over Beijing’s support of Russia. Some analysts say that […]
AUG 31: Mr Gorbachev, who took power in 1985, opened up the then-USSR to the world and introduced a set of reforms at home.
But he was unable to prevent the slow collapse of the Soviet Union, from which modern Russia emerged.
Tributes have been paid worldwide, with UN chief Antonio Guterres saying he "changed the course of history".
"Mikhail Gorbachev was a one-of-a kind statesman," UN Secretary General Mr Guterres wrote in a Twitter tribute. "The world has lost a towering global leader, committed multilateralist, and tireless advocate for peace."
The hospital in Moscow where he died said he had been suffering from a long and serious illness.
In recent years his health has been in decline and he had been in and out of hospital. In June, international media reported that he had been admitted after suffering from a kidney ailment, though his cause of death has not been announced.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed his deepest condolences following Mr Gorbachev's death, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian news agency Interfax, according to Reuters.
US President Joe Biden called him a "rare leader" and praised Mr Gorbachev as a unique politician who had the "imagination to see that a different future was possible" amid the tensions of the Cold War.
European Union President Ursula von der Leyen praised him as a "trusted and respected leader" who "opened the way for a free Europe".
"This legacy is one we will not forget," she added.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he admired Mr Gorbachev's courage and integrity, adding: "In a time of Putin's aggression in Ukraine, his tireless commitment to opening up Soviet society remains an example to us all."
Mr Gorbachev became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, and de facto leader of the country, in 1985.
At the time, he was 54 - the youngest member of the ruling council known as the Politburo, and was seen as a breath of fresh air after several ageing leaders. His predecessor, Konstantin Chernenko, had died aged 73 after just over a year in office.
Few leaders have had such a profound effect on the global order, but Mr Gorbachev didn't come to power seeking to end the Soviet grip over eastern Europe. Rather, he hoped to revitalise its society.
The Soviet economy had been struggling for years to keep up with the US and his policy of Perestroika sought to introduce some market-like reforms to the state run system.
Internationally he reached arms control deals with the US, refused to intervene when eastern European nations rose up against their Communist rulers and ended the bloody Soviet war in Afghanistan that had raged since 1979.
Meanwhile, his policy of glasnost, or openness, allowed people to criticise the government in a way which had been previously unthinkable.
But it also unleashed nationalist sentiments in many regions of the country which eventually undermined the stability of the country and led to its collapse.
In 1991, after a shambolically organised coup by communist hardliners failed, Mr Gorbachev agreed to dissolve the Soviet Union and left office.
He is seen in the West as an architect of reform who created the conditions for the end of the Cold War in 1991 - a time of deep tensions between the Soviet Union and Western nations, including the US and Britain.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 "for the leading role he played in the radical changes in East-West relations".
But in the new Russia that emerged after 1991 he has been on the fringes of politics, focusing on educational and humanitarian projects.
Mr Gorbachev made one ill-fated attempt to return to political life in 1996, receiving just 0.5% of the vote in presidential elections.
His divisive legacy is reflected in the tributes that followed his death.
Henry Kissinger, who served as US Secretary of State under President Richard Nixon, told the BBC's Newsnight programme that Mr Gorbachev will be "remembered in history as a man who started historic transformations that were to the benefit of mankind and to the Russian people".
James Baker, who negotiated the reunification of Germany with Mr Gorbachev's government, told the New York Times that "history will remember Mikhail Gorbachev as a giant who steered his great nation towards democracy".
But many Russians never forgave him for the turmoil that followed the collapse of the USSR.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed official in occupied Ukraine, said Mr Gorbachev had "deliberately led the (Soviet) Union to its demise" and called him a traitor.
He will be buried in Moscow's Novodevichy cemetery, the resting place of many prominent Russians, next to his wife Raisa who died of leukaemia in 1999, Tass news agency said.
AUG 19: The deaths, most from falling trees, were reported in Italy and Austria, and on the French island of Corsica.
Heavy rain and winds wrecked campsites on the island, while in Venice, Italy, masonry was blown off the belltower of St Mark's Basilica.
The storms follow weeks of heatwave and drought across much of the continent.
In Corsica, winds gusting up to 224 km/h (140mph) uprooted trees and damaged mobile homes.
Authorities there said a 13-year-old girl was killed by a falling tree on a campsite.
A man died in a similar incident and a 72-year-old woman was killed when her car was hit by the detached roof of a beach hut.
Two other people, a fisherman and a female kayaker, died out at sea.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, who arrived in Corsica on Thursday, said 20 people had been injured - four of them seriously.
Several campsites were evacuated on Thursday evening ahead of more expected damage.
A state of natural disaster could be declared, Mr Darmanin said. Extreme storms have become more frequent recently because of climate change.
Witnesses to the storms said they had been completely unexpected and no warning was given.
"We have never seen such huge storms as this, you would think it was a tropical storm," restaurant owner Cedric Boell told Reuters news agency.
On the French mainland, some southern areas were hit by power cuts and streets were flooded in the country's second city, Marseille.
In Austria two girls were killed by a falling tree near a lake in Carinthia.
Later, three more deaths were reported by media in Lower Austria province, also as a result of a falling tree.
Meanwhile in Italy, a man and a woman were killed by falling trees in separate incidents in the region of Tuscany.
High winds swept through Venice, blowing café umbrellas across St Mark's Square and dislodging brickwork from the cathedral belltower.
Seaside resorts in Tuscany and further north in Liguria were damaged by the storms.
Tuscan regional leader Eugenio Giani posted a video of a ferris wheel spinning out of control in high winds at Piombino.
But in southern Italy, the heatwave continued, with temperatures of up to 40C recorded in Sicily.
And across the Mediterranean Sea in Algeria, at least 38 people have died in forest fires.
Many parts of Europe have seen weeks of exceptionally hot and dry weather.
Extreme weather events, including both heatwaves and storms, have become more intense and more frequent in recent years because of human-induced climate change.
The world has already warmed by about 1.1C since the industrial era began and temperatures will keep rising unless governments around the world make steep cuts to emissions.
MARCH 24: This one is of the emergency variety.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine is entering its fourth week with no end in sight, and the path ahead for the US-Europe alliance is far from clear.
Here's a look at five of the most pressing concerns as Mr Biden meets European leaders and allies in the days ahead.
A show of unity
Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine, the US has made special efforts to move only in concert with its allies. That sometimes meant holding off on actions - such as different forms of sanctions or military aid - until the rest of Nato was ready to take steps concurrently.
This was never easy given the disparate interests of the 30-nation alliance, but the early, dramatic days of Russia offensive created a sense of urgency that removed some traditional obstacles to consensus. As the war drags on - and the economic fallout from the violence and resulting allied response grows more pronounced - the potential for public discord within the alliance will increase.
The primary goal of Mr Biden's trip, then, is to be seen standing shoulder-to-shoulder with America's allies (literally and figuratively) and to demonstrate that strengthened Nato resolve is not a temporary condition but the new normal in response to Russia's expansionist policies.
Refugee crisis
After meeting other leaders in Belgium, Mr Biden will travel to Poland for a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda. Given the nation's position on Nato's eastern flank, the former Soviet satellite state has been given special attention by the US in the past few months, with visits from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Vice-President Kamala Harris.
Although topics of military aid to Ukraine and an increased Nato presence on Polish soil are sure to come up, US officials say the top issue for the meeting will be dealing with the flood of refugees that has been arriving at the Ukraine-Poland border since hostilities began.
Caring for and processing millions of refugees has put a considerable financial and logistical burdens on Poland and, if not handled competently, could ultimately lead to social unrest and economic instability.
Given Poland's geopolitical importance in the confrontation with Russia, ensuring the nation remains a reliable Nato member is a pressing US concern.
Military solutions
In the past few months the US and its allies have open the spigots of lethal military aid to the uniformed and volunteer Ukrainian forces holding off the Russian assault.
As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has made clear recent in speeches to legislative bodies in Europe and North America, however, the aid so far has not been enough. He says Ukraine needs more sophisticated anti-air systems as well as jet fighters capable of "closing the skies" over Ukraine to Russian warplanes.
While the US has promised to provide more advanced long-range air defense capabilities, that's easier said than done. As seen with the friction between the US and Poland over the proposed but now shelved effort to supply Ukraine with Polish-owned Soviet-era jets, there are concerns over the kinds of anti-air support that would generate a Russian response against Nato, the logistics of getting weapons into Ukrainian hands and how to replace the weapons that are transferred.
The US is currently engaged in discussions with Nato members Slovakia and Turkey to move their anti-air systems over to Ukraine, but it will take a more deft touch than was displayed with Poland to accomplish it. If Mr Biden can pull this off while he's in Europe, it would be a notable success.
A sanctions roadmap
The US and its allies promised that they would impose unprecedented, debilitating economic sanctions on Russia if it were to invade Ukraine. After some early fits and starts, that's exactly what the allies have done. The Russian economy, its stock market and its currency have been staggered by the allied punishments, which include trade restrictions, financial isolation, limits on energy exports and targeted sanctions on Russian political and business leaders.
Severe as the restrictions may be, however, they have not deterred Russia from continuing its all-out assault. While western allies insist that the pain of the current sanctions will increase as time goes by, there is growing pressure on US and European leaders to find new ways of punishing Russian aggression that they can announce during Mr Biden's meetings this week.
Some proposals include new sanctions on oligarchs and politicians, greater restrictions on Russian energy exports and the kinds of technology that is imported to Russia.
None of these seem likely to produce a dramatic new impact on the Russian economy, but sometimes the perception of continued action is as important as the actions themselves.
The China question
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin had a warm meeting in Beijing during February's Winter Olympics, where they described a friendship between their nations that had "no limits". If that translates into ongoing Chinese economic and military support for Russia in the months ahead, it could undermine everything the US and its European allies are trying to do in Ukraine.
Last week, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met his Chinese counterpart in Rome, followed by a nearly two-hour phone call between Mr Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. The US can't act alone here, however. Both America and Europe will need to make concerted, co-ordinated efforts to convince China to keep its distance from Russia and, if possible, be more vocal in its denunciations of Russia's infringement on Ukrainian territorial sovereignty. China's recent backing of Russian participation in the upcoming G20 economic summit suggests the task will not be easy.
Like the US, Europe is a key market for Chinese goods - and the threat of US and European sanctions on China if it were to openly aid Russia is already weighing on the Chinese economy. Mr Biden has frequently spoken of how the world is in an era-defining conflict between democracies and autocracies - but pushing China and Russia into the same adversarial camp at the moment is a risky move.
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