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Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 655
Sun, 10 Dec 2023 01:40:36 GMT
Kyiv condemns plans to hold Russian elections in occupied territory; Volodymyr Zelenskiy heads to Argentina for inauguration of far-right counterpart Javier Milei
Ukraine condemned Russian plans to hold presidential elections next spring on occupied territory, declaring them “null and void” and pledging to prosecute any observers sent to monitor them. Russia’s upper house set the country’s presidential election this week for next March, and chair Valentina Matviyenko said residents in four occupied Ukrainian regions would be able to vote for the first time. Ukraine’s foreign ministry said: “We call on the international community to resolutely condemn Russia’s intention to hold presidential elections in the occupied Ukrainian territories, and to impose sanctions on those involved in their organisation and conduct.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was travelling to the inauguration of Argentina’s president-elect, Javier Milei, Kyiv said on Saturday. Zelenskiy congratulated Milei, a far-right populist who has challenged Argentina’s political establishment, on his victory and both leaders spoke on the phone soon after Milei’s election. Zelenskiy then thanked Milei for his “clear support for Ukraine”, saying: “This is well-noticed and appreciated by Ukrainians.” Milei’s office published a statement after the call saying he had “offered that Argentina could be the host of a summit between Ukraine and Latin America”.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, warned that Ukrainians were in “mortal danger” of being left to die if western countries did not continue their financial support. Zelenska made the remarks a day after Republican senators in the US blocked a key aid bill that would have provided more than $60bn worth of support to Ukraine.
The Polish government denied reports that the delivery of military equipment to Ukraine was being hindered by protesting Polish truckers blockading the border. “I categorically deny that such a situation occurred,” said Polish vice-minister of national defence, Marcin Ociepa. “Military convoys that cross the border are convoys escorted by military police.”
Avdiivka, the eastern Ukrainian city that has seen some of the most intense fighting of the war, is on the verge of “imminent collapse” to Russian forces, according to a report. A dispatch in the Times by its former Kyiv correspondent said Ukrainian troops defending the frontline area were “starved of ammunition” and hamstrung in their attempts to repel the advancing enemy soldiers.
Olympic chiefs have been criticised for allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete next year as neutrals, outside team events and if they do not actively support the invasion.
The Finnish supreme court has blocked the extradition of a Russian neo-Nazi group leader who fought in Ukraine, Jan Petrovsky, warning of the risk that he could be susceptible to inhuman treatment, which is precluded under the European convention on human rights.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s investigation into safety concerns at Europe’s most hazardous nuclear plant
The Guardian has found that the UK’s most hazardous nuclear site, Sellafield, has been hacked into by cyber groups closely linked to Russia and China, as well as uncovering other safety concerns. Reporters Anna Isaac and Alex Lawson tell Michael Safi about the Guardian’s investigation.
A Sellafield spokesperson said: “We take cybersecurity extremely seriously at Sellafield. All of our systems and servers have multiple layers of protection. Critical networks that enable us to operate safely are isolated from our general IT network, meaning an attack on our IT system would not penetrate these.
Continue reading...Climate activists likely to be concerned by another fossil fuel-reliant country taking over summit presidency
Azerbaijan has been announced as the host of next year’s climate summit after fraught negotiations.
Under UN rules it was eastern Europe’s turn to take over the rotating presidency but the groups need to unanimously decide on the host. Russia had blocked EU countries and Azerbaijan and Armenia were blocking each other’s bids.
Continue reading...Trump ahead 47% to 43%, worrying some Democrats as others caution avoiding ‘mad poll disease’
Donald Trump has nudged ahead of Joe Biden in national polling for the 2024 presidential election, a survey published on Saturday revealed, a day after the US president branded his predecessor as “despicable” at an event in California.
The Wall Street Journal poll shows Biden with the lowest approval rating of his presidency, a finding broadly in line with other recent studies that have sparked concern in Democratic circles less than a year before voters go to the polls.
Continue reading...(Banger Factory)
Trumpeter Mark Kavuma and tenor sax player Theo Erskine join forces on an intimate, retro set that reflects on the pandemic era with sensitivity and soul
Over recent years, trumpeter Mark Kavuma has been a busy man on London’s jazz scene, establishing his own ensemble, the Banger Factory, cutting five albums with assorted accompanists, and generally rousing the capital’s diverse talents. Kavuma likes inclusion: lineups featuring both old and young, the odd gospel choir, and the community big band Kinetika Bloco, which he credits with nurturing his youthful interest.
His new album, in partnership with tenor saxophonist Theo Erskine, is a more intimate, small group affair, with the pair backed by pianist Noah Stoneman, bassist Michael Shrimpling and drummer Shane Forbes. Ultrasound follows on the heels of 2022’s Warriors, but reaches back to the era when the pandemic had closed down music. Opening track IT celebrates a moment of release. Named for the It Club where Thelonious Monk recorded, it captures Monk’s wry, oblique style. The rest of the album follows in similarly retro manner as it tracks the pandemic era; The Loneliest is wistful, enlivened by Stoneman’s contemplative piano. June welcomes lockdown release with sunny abandon, while The Return of Johnny Bravo and The Day After Tomorrow are exuberant, allowing Kavuma to reaffirm his hard bop credentials while showing his more reflective, soulful side. An enjoyable, upbeat tour.
Continue reading...Chicago police officer Raymond Piwnicki has 99 civilian complaints on his record, many of them involving racist invective and violence.
The post Why Does the Chicago Police Department Tolerate Abusive Racists in Its Ranks? appeared first on The Intercept.
The Green New Deal sputtered on launch yet still made it into global orbit. Left policymakers can learn from the experience.
The post The Rise and Rollout of AOC’s Green New Deal appeared first on The Intercept.
This week, Joe Biden admitted that he probably would not be running for re-election if Donald Trump was not likely to be the Republican candidate. The thoughts of a rehashed presidential race in 2024 has many Americans dreading next year, and some are looking to third-party or independent candidates as potential alternatives.
So why hasn’t an outsider been more successful in the past? Is running independently of the Democrat and Republican parties a legitimate offer to voters, or nothing more than an election spoiler? And if the answer is the latter, why should the president be the one to worry?
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Nitish Pahwa of Slate about why Democrats are worried that Biden could suffer the same fate as Hilary Clinton in 2016
Archive: CNN, CSPAN, CBS News, AP News
Continue reading...We bring you an audio documentary, adapted from Ryan Grim’s newest book “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.”
The post “The Squad,” Part 1: The Rise and (First) Fall of Bernie appeared first on The Intercept.
In state Supreme Court, ousted DA Monique Worrell fought Gov. Ron DeSantis’s attempt to turn Florida’s justice system into a partisan cudgel.
The post DeSantis Lawyer Can’t Name a Single Policy That Led to Reform Prosecutor’s Suspension appeared first on The Intercept.
Republicans understand that America loves celebrities. Democrats need funny and famous people running for office.
The post Jon Stewart for Celebrity President. This Is Not a Joke! appeared first on The Intercept.
Meet the couple who poured their heart and soul into a home in Italy
The idea of the forever home is a romanticised concept when it comes to finding the perfect property. But what if the perfect property wasn’t the forever home? Would you really want to transform it with all your interiors passion, mining the clippings collected on Pinterest and from magazines for years for inspiration? Would you travel to Europe’s art fairs and flea markets to find the perfect pieces of furniture for it, and employ a lighting director to get the ambience just right, even though you didn’t own it?
In the case of Karoline Dilitz, the answer is yes, yes and yes. Looking around her palatial apartment in Merano, northern Italy, it’s not hard to see why her family agreed to lavish all their interiors affection on it for a contractual 20 years.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here
Russian police have put the prominent Russian American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
The independent Russian news outlet Mediazona was the first to report on Friday that Gessen’s profile has appeared on the online wanted list of Russia’s interior ministry, and the Associated Press was able to confirm that it was. It was not clear from the profile when exactly Gessen was added to the list.
Continue reading...Anastasia was living in Zaporizhzhia and was pregnant with Dorothy and Charlie’s baby. Then Russia invaded and she knew she had to escape to save the child …
One cold day in December 2021, a former primary schoolteacher in Suffolk opened her laptop, clicked on a Zoom link and was introduced to a beautician in Ukraine who would carry her baby. Dorothy, then 43, and her husband Charlie, 44, who worked for a printing company, had been trying to conceive for eight years. When the last attempt ended in miscarriage, a consultant had suggested surrogacy.
The agency had sent a number of women’s profiles to choose from. Among them was Anastasia. She had a young son called Alexander, a pet hamster, and didn’t like fish or aubergines. She had a soft round face, dark hair down to her shoulders and a way of looking at her child that Dorothy thought was tender.
Continue reading...Prominent journalist – who lives in the US – was placed on the list after discussing atrocities committed in Ukraine by Russian forces
Russian police have put prominent Russian American journalist and author Masha Gessen on a wanted list after opening a criminal case against them on charges of spreading false information about the Russian army.
It is the latest step in an unrelenting crackdown against dissent in Russia that has intensified since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine more than 21 months ago, on 24 February 2022.
Continue reading...US Republicans block funding bill for Ukraine; the spat between Ukrainian and Polish lorry drivers
Every week we wrap up essential coverage of the war in Ukraine, from news and features to analysis, opinion and more.
Continue reading...The travel photography blog Capture the Atlas has published the sixth edition of its annual northern lights photographer of the year list. As another solar maximum (the period of greatest solar activity during the sun’s 11-year solar cycle) approaches, there have been displays at lower latitudes, such as in Wales, Germany, Italy’s Dolomites and Death Valley national park in the US
Continue reading...Seven of the world’s “most trusted” media companies produce and promote content touting the key talking points of oil and gas.
The post Leading News Outlets Are Doing the Fossil Fuel Industry’s Greenwashing appeared first on The Intercept.
Interesting analysis:
This paper discusses the protocol used for electing the Doge of Venice between 1268 and the end of the Republic in 1797. We will show that it has some useful properties that in addition to being interesting in themselves, also suggest that its fundamental design principle is worth investigating for application to leader election protocols in computer science. For example, it gives some opportunities to minorities while ensuring that more popular candidates are more likely to win, and offers some resistance to corruption of voters...
While Congress weighs sending more aid to both countries, a new inspector general report details oversight issues and waste within the U.S. military.
The post As U.S.-Funded Wars Rage in Israel and Ukraine, Pentagon Watchdog Warns of Military Failures appeared first on The Intercept.
But country’s climate envoy, Xie Zhenhua, would not say whether it would support phase-out wording in climate deal
China would like to see nations agree to substitute renewable energy for fossil fuels, the country’s chief climate official has said, as nations wrangled over the weekend on the wording of a deal on the climate crisis.
Xie Zhenhua, China’s climate envoy, would not be explicit on whether China supported or opposed a phase-out of fossil fuels, which more than 100 governments are pushing for at crucial climate talks, the Cop28 UN summit.
Continue reading...Guerrilla leader turned president says, faced with having to reduce their carbon consumption, upper classes fear ‘the barbarians are coming’
Middle-class fears of losing a high standard of living because of green policies is driving the rise of the far right across the world, the president of Colombia has warned.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Guardian at the Cop28 UN climate summit, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftwing president, said the world had to find carbon-free ways of being prosperous, and that his country’s rich biodiversity would be the basis of its wealth after phasing out fossil fuels.
Continue reading...Oil and gas interests are fighting hard to prevent decarbonisation, as they always have done
It was never really in doubt. But the first week of Cop28, which ended with a rest day on Thursday, made one crucial fact impossible to ignore: the fossil fuel industry is not planning to go quietly. Far more of its lobbyists are in the UAE than have attended UN climate talks before. One analysis counted 2,456 of them – nearly four times the number registered last year in Egypt.
The battle is hotting up over what next week’s report on progress towards the Paris goals, known as the global stocktake, will say. Fossil fuel interests – both corporate and national – are pushing hard to avoid references to the phase-out that would signal the end of their business model and vast profits. They don’t want an energy transition that leads to their demise.
Continue reading...The U.S. Energy Department on Friday announced a “solicitation” for up to 3 million barrels of oil for delivery to the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in March 2024. That’s part of the government agency’s ongoing efforts to refill the emergency oil reserve after a historic drawdown of 180 million barrels announced by President Joe Biden in the spring of 2022. The latest move follows a Dec. 1 solicitation for up to 3 million barrels of oil for delivery to the reserve in February. The Energy Department said it has already purchased nearly 9 million barrels for the SPR at an average of about $75 a barrel — lower than the average of $95 that the SPR crude was sold for in 2022. It also said it has secured nearly 4 million barrels in “accelerated exchange returns.” In Friday dealings, January West Texas Intermediate crude CLF24 traded at $71.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up $1.81, or 2.6%.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
How crises during the Obama administration formed the politics of the Squad.
The post “The Squad,” Part 2: From Obama to Bernie, a Crisis and a Crossroads appeared first on The Intercept.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported on Thursday that U.S. natural-gas supplies in storage declined by 117 billion cubic feet for the week ended Dec. 1. On average, analysts surveyed by S&P Global Commodity Insights forecast a weekly fall of 105 billion cubic feet. Total working gas in storage for the week was at 3.719 trillion cubic feet, up 254 billion cubic feet from a year ago and 234 billion cubic feet above the five-year average, the government said. In Thursday dealings, January natural gas NGF24 traded at $2.585 per million British thermal units, up 1.6 cents, or 0.6%, on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices traded at $2.577 ahead of the supply data.
Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.
“The United States cannot fix Syria,” an Obama administration official said. “I simply fail to understand why we have U.S. troops there.”
The post Rand Paul Wants to End Undeclared War in Syria appeared first on The Intercept.
With Senate control hanging in the balance, Nebraska Democrats are considering backing Dan Osborn in his challenge against Republican Sen. Deb Fischer.
The post Shock Poll Shows Independent Nebraska Union Leader Beating Republican Senator appeared first on The Intercept.
Internet references conflating the two films drew anger in Japan, which was twice attacked by nuclear weapons during the second world war
Audiences in Japan will finally get to see Oppenheimer – Christopher Nolan’s hit biopic about the creator of the nuclear bomb – following criticism that it was marketed in a way that trivialised the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The movie’s distributor in Japan, Bitters End, said on Thursday that the film, which examines J Robert Oppenheimer’s moral quandary over his key role in the world’s first nuclear attack on 6 August 1945, would be released in 2024.
Continue reading...As Israel resumes its bombing of Gaza, the risk of a wider regional war grows. Mouin Rabbani analyzes the military and propaganda battles between Hamas and Israel.
The post Two Months That Shook the World: The First Phase of the Gaza War appeared first on The Intercept.
They discuss Grim’s new book, “The Squad: AOC and the Hope of a Political Revolution.”
The post Krystal Ball and Ryan Grim on the Squad appeared first on The Intercept.
Despite facing multiple criminal charges, Donald Trump remains the frontrunner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. But in South Carolina, a traditionally conservative southern state, a split is opening up between Trump loyalists and more moderate Republicans who are fearful of what their party has become. The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone investigate
Continue reading...A radical faction within the Likud party plotted to kill Kissinger in 1977, according to a news report from the time.
The post Members of Israel’s Ruling Likud Party Once Planned to Assassinate Henry Kissinger appeared first on The Intercept.
Since the start of 2023, a prolonged and bloody battle has been waged for the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. In May Russian forces occupied the city, and during the height of fighting, Ukraine was suffering an estimated 100-200 casualties a day.
The Guardian's Luke Harding was granted access to one of several Ukrainian medical stabilisation points close to the frontline near Bakhmut. Inside these medical points, frequently targeted with Russian drones and missile strikes, teams of doctors work in makeshift conditions to stabilise patients before they can be evacuated via ambulance to fully equipped hospitals
Continue reading...
Video:
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Artemis in Europe: the structure and radiators for the European Service Modules that fly NASA’s Orion spacecraft to the Moon are built in Turin, Italy.
Thales Alenia Space produces the structure that acts like a chassis on a car providing the solid foundations for all other elements to be attached to and also absorbs the forces that the Artemis spacecraft will endure during launch into Earth orbit and onto the Moon.
Technicians assemble the primary structure that is made from a core of Composite Fibre Reinforced Polymer sandwich panels and aluminium alloy elements for the secondary structures. This technology keeps the European Service Module light enough to fly farther and longer but strong enough to keep its shape.
Thales Alenia Space also supplies the radiators for the European Service Modules that consist of six elements forming two independent systems. Like a car’s radiator system the European Service Module radiators are designed to expel excess heat and keep the computers and other components inside from overheating.
The structures are trucked from Turin to Bremen, Germany, where the rest of the hardware that makes a spacecraft can be installed. The first step in their voyage to the Moon.
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