标题: 2022.03.11接近基辅的庞大俄罗斯坦克车队 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-3-11 22:53 标题: 2022.03.11接近基辅的庞大俄罗斯坦克车队 The world in brief
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Updated less than 1 hour ago (14:37 GMT / 09:37 New York)
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The huge convoy of Russian tanks approaching Kyiv appears to have “dispersed and redeployed”, according to a satellite imaging company, raising fears of a new assault on Ukraine’s capital. Earlier the Pentagon said Russian troops had moved three miles closer to Kyiv. They are now just nine miles from the centre of the city.
Several blasts were reported in Lviv, Lutsk and Ivano-Frankivsk, three cities in western Ukraine, a region Russian forces had yet to bomb with any vigour. One person was killed in air strikes on Dnipro, which had become a safe haven for evacuees. A psychiatric hospital was reportedly bombed in the Kharkiv region. Ukraine’s defence minister said Russia had killed more civilians than soldiers in the last two weeks.
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, said the country would accept the help of 16,000 “volunteers” from the Middle East to fight alongside Russian troops. American officials think this might include Syrian fighters, just as Russian mercenaries, backed by the Kremlin, fought in Syria and Libya. There are unconfirmed reports that those mercenaries may be in Ukraine already. Meanwhile, Britain warned veterans of its army not to go to Ukraine, and warned that serving soldiers fighting in Ukraine would face a court martial.
Russia is moving to ban Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; the country’s prosecutor general wants to label Meta, which owns them, an “extremist organisation”. Earlier, Meta said it would temporarily allow violent speech—such as “death to the Russian invaders”—on its platforms in Ukraine and other countries in the region. Such statements are usually banned. The company, however, said it would not allow any “credible calls” which contain details on the location or method of the violence.
The UN granted Russia’s request for an emergency meeting to discuss the Kremlin’s claim that America is funding the development of biological weapons in Ukraine. America and Britain have both warned that Russia might be planning to use chemical or biological weapons itself. Meanwhile Ukraine accused Russia of “nuclear terorism” after a facility in Kharkiv lost power during shelling on Thursday night. IAEA, the international nuclear watchdog, said it has “scheduled physical inspections” of Ukrainian nuclear sites.
America’s Senate passed a $1.5trn spending bill that includes around $14bn of aid for Ukraine. It now goes to President Joe Biden to sign. He is also reportedly set to end normal trade relations between America and Russia. This would mean revoking Russia’s “most favoured nation” trading status and allow America to impose tariffs on Russian imports, in addition to existing economic sanctions.
Other news
India admitted to accidentally firing a missile into Pakistan this week. It blamed a technical malfunction, and said it was relieved no one died. Pakistan told India to make sure it doesn’t happen again • A new study published in the Lancet estimates that around 18m people have died from covid-19 globally, three times more than officially reported figures. The Economist’s own estimate is 20m • British and European antitrust authorities said they are investigating Google and Meta over allegations they illegally colluded in the online advertising market.
Fact of the day: 1,000, roughly the number of pieces of Russian equipment destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured by Ukraine over two weeks of war. Read the full article.
Behind enemy lines in Ukraine
PHOTO: YOUTUBE
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, told his country that Ukraine’s drug-addled neo-Nazi elite had perpetrated genocide and that the country needed saving. If his troops were thereby expecting a warm welcome in Ukrainian territory, they were mistaken. Russian soldiers are greeted with contempt. In Konotop, a town in north-eastern Ukraine, a local woman was filmed warning a Russian tank-driver about the town’s association with the occult. “Every second woman is a witch here,” she told him. “Tomorrow you won’t be able to get your dick to stand up.”
She was not alone in her defiance. Elsewhere, Ukrainians have stood in front of tanks. One protester admits that they are nervous about opposing Russian soldiers, but even more fearful of the repression and poverty Mr Putin has imposed on Donetsk and Luhansk, two regions controlled by Russia since 2014. The risks are stark. If the invaders can’t win hearts and minds they may resort to further violence.
Ukraine’s DIY DARPA
PHOTO: REUTERS
The day after Russia invaded, Pravda—a microbrewery in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine— switched from brewing beer to mixing Molotov cocktails. Equipment previously used for award-winning brews now blends machine oil, petrol, aluminium powder and polystyrene dissolved in solvent. The concoction burns like crazy, all the better to disable any Russian military vehicle it is hurled at. Elsewhere, Ukranians are making barricades and fearsome grenade-launchers. They are also modifying their own Russian-made weapons to be more useful against the invaders.
Ukraine has many engineers and computer programmers who are used to getting things done with limited resources. The oppressive bureaucracy of Soviet rule pushed people to find workarounds, creating an entrepreneurial spunk that is now very helpful. Vladimir Yatsenko, a Ukrainian film producer who is in Kyiv to fight, describes this as “our national DARPA”, a reference to the famous American military-research agency. War is a dirty business. But necessity is the mother of invention.
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A leftist inaugurated in Chile
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
On Friday Gabriel Boric will become Chile’s youngest ever president. His government, which includes the Communist Party, will be the most left-leaning since the country’s return to democracy in 1990. But he is considered a moderate among the wave of leftist leaders recently elected in Latin America.
Mr Boric wants universal public health care and bigger public pensions. He also plans to forgive student debt. To pay for these policies, he proposes that taxes rise by 5% of GDP in four years. His team also wants to create a state lithium firm and a national development bank.
The fate of those policies partly depends on two forces. First, Chile’s congress: Mr Boric lacks a majority but will need lawmakers’ support to pass reforms. Second, a new constitution is being drafted. The convention in charge has a big far-left element. If approved, the revised constitution will set the tone in Chilean politics for years to come. Mr Boric will have to wait and see what he gets.
Two years of the covid-19 pandemic
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
The first cases of the novel coronavirus were revealed by China at the end of December 2019, and two years ago on Friday the World Health Organisation declared a pandemic.
Since then, about 6m people are known to have died of covid-19. Modelling by The Economist suggests the true number of deaths is closer to 20m. According to the International Monetary Fund, the economic losses are expected to be almost $13.8trn by the end of 2023, relative to pre-pandemic forecasts.
There have been valid complaints about the inequity of vaccine distribution. But the scientific response to the pandemic has been without precedent. Vaccines have never been developed so fast, and more than 11bn doses were manufactured in 2021. There is now an array of drugs to fight covid. Although it seems possible that the world is moving into the final phases of the pandemic, dangerous new mutations could still emerge.
There is a lot of timely, scathing wisdom in the production, and even more in the play. Directed by Max Webster, it stars Kit Harington (of “Game of Thrones” fame) as a media-savvy king, whose cruelty and cynicism are grimly familiar. His threats and mendacity echo Kremlin doublespeak. War can be glorious, Shakespeare knew, and absurd. In the lulls between action, it can even be jittery and tedious. But this kind of war—waged dishonestly for territory and self-aggrandisement—is murder in uniform.
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