The Full Belmonte, 3/19/2022
“Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called urgently for ‘meaningful and fair’ peace talks over Russia’s invasion amid further attacks, including a claim by Moscow that it had used a hypersonic missile for the first time, hitting a depot in the west of the country.
In a video address early on Saturday, Zelenskiy said: ‘It’s time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise Russia’s losses will be so huge that several generations will not be enough to rebound.’
‘The war must end,’ he added. ‘Ukraine’s proposals are on the table.’
As the war entered its 24th day, Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, proposed a total ban on EU trade with Russia, and there was hope of some relief for stricken civilians as Ukrainian authorities said 10 humanitarian corridors had been agreed.
A corridor was said to have been agreed with Russia for the besieged city of Mariupol, although the authorities’ previous efforts to evacuate civilians there under a temporary ceasefire have mostly failed, with both sides blame each other. Several corridors were also said to have been agreed in Kyiv and in the Luhansk region.
However, aid agencies were still being prevented from reaching people trapped in Ukrainian cities surrounded by Russian forces, the UN’s World Food Programme warned.
Hours after Zelenskiy’s call for talks, Russia said it had used a hypersonic weapon for the first time, destroying an underground military depot in western Ukraine. Hypersonic missiles are fast enough that they can evade detection by missile defence systems.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday it had destroyed a large underground depot for missiles and aircraft ammunition in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, state media reported.
Earlier, Vladimir Putin claimed in a call with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that Kyiv was ‘attempting to stall peace talks’ but that Moscow was still keen to continue negotiations.
In the south, at least 40 Ukrainian soldiers were reported killed following a Russian air strike on an army barracks in the city of Mykolaiv, according to local media reports.
The mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevich, said on Facebook on Friday that several villages in the region had been occupied and the city had been under heavy fire, calling it a ‘difficult day’.
Fighting continues in the key port city of Mariupol, with Ukraine’s defence ministry saying late on Friday it had ‘temporarily’ lost access to the Sea of Azov, which connects to the Black Sea and would be a major loss for Ukraine.
Zelenskiy accused Russian forces of creating a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ there by deliberately blocking supplies from reaching the city in a bid to force residents to comply with their attackers. Calling the move a war crime, the president said Russian soldiers would face a ‘one-way compulsory ticket to The Hague’, where the international criminal court sits.
More than 350,000 civilians have been stranded with little food or water in Mariupol, which was under constant bombardment on Friday. Russia said its forces were ‘tightening the noose’ around the city, where an estimated 80% of the city’s homes have been damaged.
About 9,000 people have managed to flee Mariupol, while work continues to reach the hundreds of civilians believed to be trapped in a shelter under the city’s theatre, which was destroyed by Russian bombing on Wednesday. About 130 people have been rescued from the rubble, some seriously injured. There is no word yet on a death toll.
Zelenskiy said the advance of Russian forces had ground to a halt across Ukraine, a view echoed by western intelligence agencies. The continued targeting of civilians in Mariupol was said by the British military to be a sign of Russia’s failures in the first three weeks of the war.” Read more at The Guardian
Julian Borger in Washington
Joe Biden speaks with Xi Jinping from the White House on Friday. Photograph: The White House/AFP/Getty Images
“Joe Biden spoke for nearly two hours with Xi Jinping as the US sought to dissuade China from backing Russia’s war on Ukraine.
A White House account of the call on Friday said that the US president ‘described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians’.
A senior administration official said there would be consequences ‘not just for China’s relationship with the United States, but for the wider world’, but would not give more details on whether Biden had gone into specifics on possible sanctions, other than to point out what had happened to Russia as an example.
‘The president really laid out in a lot of detail the unified response from not only governments around the world, but also the private sector to Russia’s brutal aggression in Ukraine,’ the official said. ‘The president made clear that there would likely be consequences for those who would step in to support Russia at this time.’
Biden did not make any direct requests to Xi to persuade Putin to end the attack.
‘The president really wasn’t making specific requests of China. He was laying out his assessment of the situation … and the implications of certain actions,’ the official said. ‘Our view is that China will make its own decisions.’
The Chinese account of the conversation in the state news agency, Xinhua, said it was ‘candid and in-depth’ but gave little detail about Ukraine. The report said that Xi expressed the wish that the war was not happening, but gave no sign of what the Chinese leader’s intentions were towards support for Moscow.
Xi said the situation in Ukraine had developed to such a point ‘that China does not want to see’ according to the report, which stuck to Beijing’s policy of avoiding the words ‘war’ or ‘invasion’.
Beijing’s readout of the call did not suggest any Chinese role in ending the war. It quoted Xi as referring to a favourite aphorism, ‘Let he who tied the bell on the tiger’s neck take it off’, a seeming reference to China’s position that the US and Nato are ultimately to blame for Vladimir Putin’s actions.
Beijing blames the war on Nato’s refusal to rule out future Ukrainian membership of the alliance, and western supplies of weapons to the country. Xi also expressed concern about the impact on Taiwan, which he has vowed to restore to rule from Beijing.” Read more at The Guardian
Sergei Lavrov: ‘We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the western countries to manipulate media.’ Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/EPA
“Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has praised Fox News for its coverage, appearing on the Russian state-controlled RT network to hail the right-leaning US cable channel, whose primetime host Tucker Carlson has played down the invasion.
‘We know the manners and the tricks that are being used by the western countries to manipulate media, we understood long ago that there is no such thing as an independent western media,’ said Lavrov, speaking in English in a studio interview on Friday.
‘If you take the United States, only Fox News is trying to present some alternative point of view,’ he said.
He also denounced the social media ban of former president Donald Trump and took exception to the description of January 6 rioters as terrorists.
‘But when you watch other channels, read the social networks and internet platforms, when the acting president was blocked and this censorship continues in a very big way … Whenever something is happening by the way of mass protest, mass demonstrations – which they don’t like – they immediately call it domestic terrorism.
‘So it’s a war, and it’s a war which involves the methods of information terrorism,’ he said.
Russian media regularly play clips of Carlson criticising the US and Ukraine, and he was still praising President Vladimir Putin hours before Russia invaded Ukraine almost four weeks ago.
In contrast, as Moscow’s bombardment escalated, Russian apologism by numerous Fox hosts, commentators and guests was being corrected on air by the network’s own national security correspondent, Jennifer Griffin.
The mental split-screen effect only sharpened earlier this week when a Fox news team on the ground in Ukraine came under Russian fire on the frontline.
Cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova were both killed during a Russian attack outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Correspondent Benjamin Hall was badly wounded in the incident.
Lavrov’s comments on Friday came as six western nations accused Moscow of using the UN security council to launder disinformation and spread propaganda, after Russian diplomats again raised allegations that the US was involved in biological weapons, which have been repeatedly denied by both Washington and Ukraine.
Western diplomats slammed the claims, with Britain’s UN ambassador, Barbara Woodward, calling Russia’s tactics the ‘disinformation of the desperate’.” Read more at The Guardian
A sign advertising Koch Industries is seen in Boston in 2019. Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP
“Pressure is mounting on Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by the rightwing billionaire Charles Koch, to pull out of Russia after it was revealed it was continuing to do business in Russia through three wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Hundreds of companies including Coca-Cola, KPMG, McDonald’s, Netflix and Starbucks have paused operations in Russia following its invasion of Ukraine. But, as news site Popular Information revealed last week, three Koch subsidiaries are still operating in the country.
‘Koch Industries is shamefully continuing to do business in Putin’s Russia and putting their profits ahead of defending democracy,’ the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and Senator Ron Wyden, said in a joint statement. ‘As the democracies of the world make huge sacrifices to punish Russia for Putin’s illegal and vicious invasion of Ukraine, Koch Industries continues to profit off of Putin’s regime.’
“It must stop,” Schumer wrote on Twitter, adding that he and Wyden were “exploring legislation to add Russia to existing laws denying foreign tax credits for taxes paid to North Korea & Syria.”
Koch has defended its Russian operations. The company has three subsidiaries still operating in the country: Guardian Industries, a glass manufacturer; Molex, an electronic components manufacturer; and Koch Engineered Solutions, a provider of industrial products.
In a statement released on Wednesday Dave Robertson, Koch president, condemned the invasion. “The horrific and abhorrent aggression against Ukraine is an affront to humanity,” he wrote. But he said the company would not ‘walk away’ from its employees.
‘Koch company Guardian Industries operates two glass manufacturing facilities in Russia that employ about 600 people. We have no other physical assets in Russia, and outside of Guardian, employ 15 individuals in the country. While Guardian’s business in Russia is a very small part of Koch, we will not walk away from our employees there or hand over these manufacturing facilities to the Russian government so it can operate and benefit from them (which is what the Wall Street Journal has reported they would do). Doing so would only put our employees there at greater risk and do more harm than good,’ he wrote.
Robertson said the company was ‘complying with all applicable sanctions, laws and regulations’ and would continue to monitor the situation.
The statement was released on the same day that the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, made an address to Congress. ‘All American companies must leave their market immediately because it is flooded with our blood,’ said Zelenskiy.
The Kansas-based conglomerate – the second-largest private company in the US – is one of 40 companies ‘digging in’ and refusing to leave Russia, according to a tally compiled by the Yale professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and his research team.
Popular Information also revealed last week that a network of pundits and groups funded by Koch has been publicly advocating against imposing economic sanctions on Russia.” Read more at The Guardian
“Four U.S. Marines died in a plane crash while participating in a NATO training exercise that is unrelated to the conflict in Ukraine, the Norwegian prime minister said Saturday.
Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere tweeted that the plane crash occurred overnightwhile troops were participating in the NATO Cold Response exercise.” Read more at USA Today
“MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The bodies of the children all lie here, dumped into this narrow trench hastily dug into the frozen earth of Mariupol to the constant drumbeat of shelling.
There’s 18-month-old Kirill, whose shrapnel wound to the head proved too much for his little toddler’s body. There’s 16-year-old Iliya, whose legs were blown up in an explosion during a soccer game at a school field. There’s f Mariupol’s children to die from a Russian shell.
They are stacked together with dozens of others in this mass grave on the outskirts of theoman wrapped in a red and gold bedsheet, her legs neatly bound at the ankles with a scrap of white fabric. Workers toss the bodies in as fast as they can, because the less time they spend in t this to be finished,’ raged worker Volodymyr Bykovskyi, pulling crinkling black body bags from a truck. ‘Damn them all, those people who started this!’
The children of medical workers warm themselves in a blanket as they wait for their relatives in a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A body lies covered by a tarp in the street in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
An apartment building explodes after a Russian army tank fires in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 11, 2022. (AP Photo/Evtal basement where adults and children are laid out awaiting someone to pick them up. The youngest still has an umbilical stump attached.
Each airstrike and shell that relentlessly pounds Mariupol — about one a minute at times — drives home the curse of a geography that has put the city squarely in the path of Russia’s domination of Ukraine. This southern seaport of 430,000 has become a symbol of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drive to crush democratic Ukraine — but also of a fierce resistance on the ground.
In the nearly three weeks since Russia’s war began, two Associated Press journalists have been the only international media present in Mariupol, chronicling its fall into chaos and despair. The city is now encircled by Russian soldiers, who are slowly squeezing the life out of it, one blast at a time.
Several appeals for humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians went unheeded, until Ukrainian officials said Wednesday that about 30,000 people had fled in convoys of cars. Airstrikes and shells have hit the maternity hospital, the fire department, homes, a church, a field outside a school. For the estimated hundreds of thousands who remain, there is quite simply nowhere to go.” Read more at AP News
Don Young, who has died aged 88, in 2020. The Republican representative for Alaska credited Jack London’s Call of the Wild for first drawing him to the state. Photograph: Mark Thiessen/AP
“Don Young, a blunt-speaking Republican and the longest-serving member of Congress, has died. He was 88.
His office announced Young’s death in a statement on Friday night.
‘It’s with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young (R-AK), the dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved,’ said the statement from his spokesperson, Zach Brown. ‘His beloved wife Anne was by his side.’
Young was first elected to the US House in 1973 and was also the longest-serving Republican lawmaker in congressional history. He was known for his brusque style, and in his later years in office, his off-color comments and gaffes sometimes overshadowed his work. During his 2014 reelection bid, he described himself as intense and less-than-perfect but said he wouldn’t stop fighting for Alaska.” Read more at The Guardian
“The Caribbean island of Aruba drops its remaining COVID-related travel restrictions Saturday. Aruba will no longer require a negative coronavirus test or proof of vaccination for entry. Travelers will still need to complete an embarkation/disembarkation card before arrival. Previously, Aruba required a negative coronavirus test, proof of full vaccination or proof of recovery for travelers. The announcement comes at the tail end of a surge that spiked in January. But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warns the country still has ‘very high’ COVID levels and advises against travel to Aruba. The country joins others in rolling back restrictions ahead of summer travel.” Read more at USA Today
“Russia’s Brain Drain Has Become a Stampede for the Exits
Kyrgyzstan, a poor Central Asian nation that exports cheap migrant labor to Russia, has now become a safe haven to thousands of educated Russians fleeing the chaos created by the war against Ukraine. Leonid Bershidsky writes how young Russians are running for the borders.” Read more at Bloomberg“How Russia’s War Is Choking the World’s Supply of Natural Resources
Russia is a commodities powerhouse, exporting materials the world uses to build cars, transport things, make bread and keep the lights on. Its invasion of Ukraine is constraining those supplies — or threatening to — as it becomes increasingly isolated from the global economy.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Richest Russian Built NYC Power Over Decades, Lost It in Weeks
It took Vladimir Potanin decades to sit alongside the world’s financial and business elite on the advisory board of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations and as a Guggenheim Museum trustee. As Blake Schmidt reports, he lost those positions in weeks.” Read more at Bloomberg
“As Chelsea Sale Lures Bids, U.K. Just Wants Abramovich Gone
U.K. football club Chelsea spent almost two decades demonstrating how the power of money can triumph on the field under its owner, Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. David Hellier and Kitty Donaldson explain, however, that now the aim is to get the club out of his hands, and fast.” Read more at Bloomberg“Russian Influencer Among First Targeted Under New Censorship Law
A Russian Instagram influencer has become one of the first targets of Russia’s new law making criticism of the war in Ukraine punishable by up to 15 years in jail. Albertina Torsoli and Alexandre Rajbhandari report on the latest step in Russia’s crackdown on independent media.” Read more at Bloomberg“Errant Indian Missile Nearly Led to Pakistan Retaliatory Strike
An accidental missile launch by India last week prompted Pakistan to prepare a retaliatory strike, people familiar with the matter told Sudhi Ranjan Sen and Faseeh Mangi. It showed how close the nuclear-armed neighbors came to blows over a potentially disastrous mistake.The missile narrowly missed dozens of commercial jets that were in the same skies, Anurag Kotoky reports.” Read more at Bloomberg
“More than 18,000 voters in Texas’ most populous counties had their mail-in ballots rejected in the state’s primary election this month, according to a review of election data by The New York Times, a surge in thrown-out votes that disproportionately affected Black people in the state’s largest county and revealed the impact of new voting regulations passed by Republicans last year.
In Harris County, which includes Houston and is the state’s most populous county, areas with large Black populations were 44 percent more likely to have ballots rejected than heavily white areas, according to a review of census survey data and election results by the Harris County election administrator’s office.
The analysis also found that Black residents made up the largest racial group in six of the nine ZIP codes with the most ballot rejections in the county.
The thousands of ballot rejections, and the racial disparity in rejections in Harris County, provide the clearest evidence yet that the major voting law passed last year by the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature has prevented significant numbers of people from voting.” Read more at New York Times
Data: American Community Survey. Map: Jared Whalen/Axios
“The U.S. grew wealthier and better educated during the second half of the last decade, AP writes from census data released this week.
The nation's median household income, which had been $59,000 from 2011 to 2015, rose to $65,000 from 2016 to 2020.
That was the final stretch of the longest expansion in the history of U.S. business cycles. The boom ended in spring 2020 as COVID spread.
With the exception of Colorado, the states with the biggest gains in household income were primarily on the coasts.
The smallest gain was in Louisiana. Household income declined by $1,500 in Alaska.
The nation's poverty rate dropped significantly in the last half of the decade, going from 15.5% from 2011-2015, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, to 12.8% in 2016-2020.
With the exception of Alaska, where the change wasn't statistically significant, poverty decreased in 49 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.” Read more at Axios
St. Peter's upset Kentucky in the first round of the N.C.A.A. tournament.Andy Lyons/Getty Images
“Murray State vs. St. Peter’s, N.C.A.A. tournament: Murray State is on an incredible run, having won its last 21 games, the longest streak in the country. But the real story here is St. Peter’s, the 15-seed from Jersey City, N.J., that toppled powerhouse Kentucky in the first round, one of the great upsets in tournament history. If St. Peter’s can win again, it’ll be a certified Cinderella. 7:45 Eastern tonight, CBS.” Read more at New York Times
“Another day in the NCAA Tournament, another two bracket-busting upsets in the men's field.
No. 11 Notre Dame knocked out No. 6 Alabama during the second day of action Friday, following a double-overtime win in the First Four games on Wednesday. Hours later, Iowa State became the third No. 11 seed to score a major upset — joining Michigan on Thursday — when it took down No. 6 LSU.
The tournament's second full day started with Ohio State, the South Region's No. 7, taking down No. 10 Loyola-Chicago, which had been backed by America's favorite nun.
The women also took center stage Friday as the first round got underway, with three No. 1 seeds in action.
No. 1 overall seed South Carolina and player of the year candidate Aliyah Boston crushed No. 16 Howard, and No. 1 Louisville overwhelmed Albany. No. 1 Stanford dominated Montana State in a late game.
Florida Gulf Coast pulled off the first major upset, as the No. 12 seed stunned No. 5 Virginia Tech. A pair of No. 10 seeds also moved into the second round on the first day.” Read more at USA Today
Happy Holi!
“On Friday, people across the Indian subcontinent celebrated the joyous festival of Holi. The Hindu holiday welcomes in springtime with clouds of color and ancient legends of love and goodness. The colored chalk that makes Holi so iconic is actually key to one of its legends. British Museum curator Sushma Jansari explains: In Hindu mythology, the deity Krishna was worried that his beloved Radha would be turned off by his unnatural blue skin. At the playful suggestion of his mother, Krishna smeared colored powder on Radha's face. And wouldn't you know it, she fell in love with him! Now, street market vendors offer a whole rainbow of powders so people can follow in the lovers' footsteps.” Read more at CNN
“At long last spring is finally here. The vernal (aka spring) equinox – the beginning of astronomical spring in the Northern Hemisphere – occurs Sunday. The equinox is the moment the sun's rays shine directly on Earth's equator. Sunday will be one of two days out of the year – the other being the autumnal equinox in September – when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor away from the sun, resulting in roughly 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness almost everywhere on Earth. It's also one of only two days each year when almost every spot on Earth – except the poles – experiences a sunrise at due east and a sunset at due west. And for the folks down under in the Southern Hemisphere, it's the autumnal equinox this Sunday, marking the first day of autumn.” Read more at USA Today
“More elephants this week? What a treat! Although, not as sumptuous a treat as the giant pile of fruit that was laid out for Thailand's annual Elephant Day. About 60 elephants were on hand to enjoy this spread of bananas, melons and pineapples at the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden this week. Elephants are a source of national pride and cultural identity for Thailand and have been used for labor, transport, and battlefield triumphs of yore.” Read more at CNN