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Russia Seeds Clouds in Siberia to Contain Raging Wildfires

Flames and smoke rise from a site of a fire at the Yarakta oil field, operated by a subsidiary of the Irkutsk Oil Company, in Irkutsk region, Russia, in this screen grab taken from video released June 8, 2020. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT.
Flames and smoke rise from a site of a fire at the Yarakta oil field, operated by a subsidiary of the Irkutsk Oil Company, in Irkutsk region, Russia, in this screen grab taken from video released June 8, 2020. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT.
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Russia Seeds Clouds in Siberia to Contain Raging Wildfires

Flames and smoke rise from a site of a fire at the Yarakta oil field, operated by a subsidiary of the Irkutsk Oil Company, in Irkutsk region, Russia, in this screen grab taken from video released June 8, 2020. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT.
Flames and smoke rise from a site of a fire at the Yarakta oil field, operated by a subsidiary of the Irkutsk Oil Company, in Irkutsk region, Russia, in this screen grab taken from video released June 8, 2020. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN SUPPLIED BY A THIRD PARTY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES. MANDATORY CREDIT.

Russian firefighters have been seeding clouds to bring down rain over wildfires raging in Siberia, the authorities said on Friday.

The Russian forestry agency said active work was underway to battle 158 forest fires covering 46,261 hectares as of Friday.

Just a few days ago, that area was more than three times larger, according to Reuters.

Firefighters were using planes to fire chemicals into the clouds above fires in northern, remote parts of the Krasnoyarsk and Irkutsk regions of Siberia, the agency reported.

Sweltering heat and dry weather have helped wildfires spread across the region and into the boreal forest and tundra that blanket northern Russia.

Environmental group Greenpeace, which monitors the spread of wildfires in Russia, confirmed that rain has helped reduce fires in northern Siberia but that others had appeared in the south near the big regional cities of Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk. Greenpeace said that 4.62 million hectares of forest had burned across Russia since the start of the year.

States of emergency have been declared in the regions of Krasnoyarsk and Yakutia, and in parts of several other Russian regions.

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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
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Taiwan President Will Visit Allies in South Pacific as Rival China Seeks Inroads

FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)
FILE -Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te delivers a speech during National Day celebrations in front of the Presidential Building in Taipei, Taiwan, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying, File)

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te will visit the self-governing island’s allies in the South Pacific, where rival China has been seeking diplomatic inroads.
The Foreign Ministry announced Friday that Lai would travel from Nov. 30 to Dec. 6 to the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu and Palau.
The trip comes against the background of Chinese loans, grants and security cooperation treaties with Pacific island nations that have aroused major concern in the US, New Zealand, Australia and others over Beijing's moves to assert military, political and economic control over the region.
Taiwan’s government has yet to confirm whether Lai will make a stop in Hawaii, although such visits are routine and unconfirmed Taiwanese media reports say he will stay for more than one day.
Under pressure from China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory and threatens to annex it by force if needed, Taiwan has just 12 formal diplomatic allies. However, it retains strong contacts with dozens of other nations, including the US, its main source of diplomatic and military support.
China has sought to whittle away traditional alliances in the South Pacific, signing a security agreement with the Solomon Islands shortly after it broke ties with Taiwan and winning over Nauru just weeks after Lai's election in January. Since then, China has been pouring money into infrastructure projects in its South Pacific allies, as it has around the world, in exchange for political support.
China objects strongly to such US stopovers by Taiwan's leaders, as well as visits to the island by leading American politicians, terming them as violations of US commitments not to afford diplomatic status to Taiwan after Washington switched formal recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979.
With the number of its diplomatic partners declining under Chinese pressure, Taiwan has redoubled efforts to take part in international forums, even from the sidelines. It has also fought to retain what diplomatic status it holds, including refusing a demand from South Africa last month that it move its representative office in its former diplomatic ally out of the capital.