Global flashpoints: from Arctic shipping to courtroom drama
A South Korean ship tests Arctic waters, Palestine Action trial collapses, and Europe confronts WWII munitions in wildfires.
Global flashpoints: from Arctic shipping to courtroom drama — A South Korean container ship, the PanStar Acro, set sail on Saturday for Europe via the Arctic Northern Sea Route, marking the nation's first commercial voyage on the route. [^1] The government-backed journey aims to transform the port of Busan into a global maritime hub by 2030, but the project risks friction with Western allies hoping to keep Russia isolated during its war against Ukraine. In London, a judge at the Old Bailey dissolved the jury in the trial of eight Palestine Action activists, after jurors reached only one conviction out of 15 charges following more than 37 hours of deliberation. [^2] The trial stemmed from an August 6, 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems factory in the Filton suburb of Bristol, where activists used an old prison vehicle as a battering ram, causing £1.2 million in damage and destroying forty Israeli weapons. Palestine Action was declared a terrorist organization in the UK in July 2025, but the High Court ruled that declaration unlawful in February 2026, a decision the Court of Appeal overturned in June 2026. A preliminary hearing for a possible retrial has been set for September 14. Across Europe, heatwaves and wildfires are exposing WWII-era munitions, with bomb disposal teams rushed to areas approaching former battlefields in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. [^3] In Belgium, the bomb disposal service handles over 3,000 calls a year. Meanwhile, German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that "involvement of a foreign power cannot be ruled out" after a secret weapons cache was discovered near Berlin, which Germany's domestic intelligence service had known about as early as October 2025, neutralizing the weapons, attaching surveillance devices, and returning them to the hiding place. [^4] Ra'am primaries and Sa'ar's attack on the 'failed experiment' — Ra'am party chairman Mansour Abbas spoke today (Saturday) at the party's general conference in Taybeh ahead of primaries to select candidates for the top five positions on its Knesset list.[^1] The conference is expected to be attended by 1,050 party members from across the country.[^1] The primaries