标题: 2022.02.18俄罗斯总统普京入侵乌克兰 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-2-19 10:41 标题: 2022.02.18俄罗斯总统普京入侵乌克兰 The world in brief
Catch up quickly on the global stories that matter
President Joe Biden said he was convinced that Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, has decided to invade Ukraine and attack its capital, Kyiv, within days. Mr Biden reiterated that America would not send troops to defend Ukraine, but would continue to send arms and financial aid. The United States embassy relocated from Kyiv to Lviv, in western Ukraine, earlier in the week. Mr Putin will oversee nuclear drills this weekend, ratcheting up tensions further.
Police in Ottawa said they arrested 70 protesters in a crackdown against the truck convoy that has blockaded the Canadian capital’s downtown for nearly three weeks. Protesters were angry about covid-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates. This week Justin Trudeau, Canada’s prime minister, invoked a 34-year-old emergency law for the first time in order to quell the demonstrations.
America’s Federal Reserve overhauled trading rules for its leadership and staff in the wake of scandals that caused three senior officials to resign. The new rules will bar senior officials from trading assets including stocks, bonds and cryptocurrencies. Last year it was revealed that two regional bank presidents and a vice-chair were trading as the central bank launched measures to bolster the economy against the effects of the pandemic.
Health authorities in Malawi declared a polio outbreak, after Africa’s first wild case since 2016 was found in a three-year-old child. World Health Organisation officials said the case was likely imported from Pakistan, one of two countries where polio is endemic (the other being Afghanistan). On Thursday Bill Gates told reporters in Pakistan that polio could be eradicated in the coming years.
Stockmarkets shuddered at the prospect of war in Ukraine, with several big indices falling. On Thursday America’s Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.8% in its worst session of 2022. Sell-offs this year have already wiped over $3trn from the total stockmarket value of firms listed in America. In Asia several major stockmarkets opened lower on Friday and then fell further.
People view climate change as the biggest threat to world security, according to a survey commissioned ahead of the Munich Security conference. Despite the poll coinciding with the start of military tension between Russia and Ukraine in November, the 12,000 people questioned globally listed global warming, habitat destruction and extreme weather as the three most notable risks.
Tesla, an electric-car maker, accused the Securities and Exchange Commission, the main regulator of America’s stock markets, of “unrelenting” harassment of Elon Musk, its chief executive. In 2018 the SEC sued Mr Musk for a misleading tweet about taking Tesla public. Since then, Tesla asserted, the SEC has launched several investigations, mostly motivated by Mr Musk’s outspoken criticism of the government.
Fact of the day: 1,000, roughly the number of roadkill-salvage permits Montana’s Fish and Wildlife Commission issues each year. Read the full article.
Hard times at EDF
PHOTO: REUTERS
Once Electricité de France was a source of national pride. But the outlook for France’s state-controlled, quasi-monopolistic electricity provider, which serves 88% of French homes, is bleak. When EDF reported its financial results for 2021 on Friday, it said production could fall this year, partly owing to outages at 44 reactors for maintenance and inspection. Little wonder then that the state is lending a hand. The government plans to inject more than €2bn into the troubled utility, following up an earlier announcement to build at least six colossal nuclear reactors at existing sites starting in 2028.
Energy prices are already under upward pressure because Russia is curtailing its supply of natural gas to western Europe as a bargaining chip in the Ukraine crisis. And because of the outages France had at times to import expensive electricity, which in turn reduced supply for Germany and other countries that rely on EDF’s nuclear energy.
A notable absence at the Munich Security Conference
PHOTO: PA
Rarely has the Munich Security Conference, an annual diplomatic gabfest, taken place amid such threats to European security. Covid-19 means that this year’s event, which runs from Friday to Sunday, will be much smaller than the usual teeming affair. But the Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s borders, and worrying signs of shelling in the country’s contested east, will concentrate minds. More than 30 heads of state—among them Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president—and 100 government ministers plan to attend. Kamala Harris, America’s vice-president, will lead a high-powered delegation.
A notable absentee will be the country on everyone’s mind. For the first time in two decades, there will be no Russian delegation. Sergei Lavrov, the combative foreign minister, usually shows up. In 2007 an aggressive speech by Vladimir Putin at the conference signalled Russia’s turn from the West. This year, much of the conversation will be about Russia—but not with it.
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The debate over trans athletes
PHOTO: AP
College sport is popular in America. But this year’s women’s Ivy League swimming and diving championships, which began on Wednesday, are attracting more attention than usual, thanks to the presence of Lia Thomas of the University of Pennsylvania. She is a transgender woman, meaning she was born male but identifies, and competes, as a woman. Despite reportedly taking hormone-blocking drugs and oestrogen for two and a half years, she seems to have an advantage in the pool.
The question of whether to allow trans women to compete in women’s sport is divisive. The International Olympic Committee, whose lead many sports follow, recently announced a further loosening of restrictions for trans women in women’s sports. British sporting bodies, by contrast, said in September that it was impossible to allow trans women to compete fairly with natal women. World Rugby has barred them from the international women’s game, though many national unions have not followed suit. Whatever happens in the pool, this argument will not go away.
Vaccines in shipping containers
PHOTO: DPA
BioNTech, which co-developed a revolutionary mRNA covid-19 vaccine in partnership with Pfizer, hopes to revolutionise another area of pharmaceuticals: vaccine manufacturing. It is developing vaccine factories to sit inside a series of standard metal shipping containers, which it plans to send to parts of the world that lack their own vaccine-manufacturing capabilities—notably Africa.
By standardising the factories, BioNTech hopes to create a reliable, repeatable way to meet pharmaceutical manufacturing standards. Transferring the very complicated recipe for vaccines from one facility to another is normally time-consuming and difficult. BioNTech hopes that with the containers the process can be transferred from traditional factories just once and then rapidly cloned around the world. Each facility, BioNTech says, will be able to produce up to 60m doses of covid vaccines and other vaccines each year, and will cost “significantly less” than conventional factories. If so, this could be the future of drugmaking.
Democracy dashed in Zimbabwe
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
In 2017, the ousting of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s dictator, in a military coup, prompted hopes of change in the country’s corrupt, violent politics. Nelson Chamisa, the charismatic opposition leader, came to symbolise the popular demand for free and fair elections. The following year he ran against—and lost to—the incumbent president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in an election marred by the customary intimidation and vote-rigging. Camilla Nielsson’s film “President” is an intimate portrait of a hopeful moment in Zimbabwe’s past, and how it was crushed.
The fervour around the elections is palpable, as is the violence that follows them. In a pivotal courthouse scene, the camera pans from the opposition’s legal documents showing the elections were fraudulent to the police stockpiling batons. “President” won a Sundance Special Jury Award for Verité Filmmaking. The documentary raises a hand to those who, like Mr Chamisa, have the courage to fight for democracy.
Daily quiz
The quiz is back. Our baristas will serve you a new question each day. On Friday your challenge is to give all five answers and tell us the connecting theme. Email your responses (and include mention of your home city and country) by 1700 GMT today to QuizEspresso@economist.com. We’ll pick randomly from those with the right answers and crown one winner per continent on Saturday.
Friday: Which political organisation was formed by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in 1966?
Health can be good. The disease can sometimes be even better. Illnesses are questions, they are also tasks, even honours. It all depends on how one notes them.
