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Move to seize Russian assets to help Ukraine meets resistance in Washington

Move to seize Russian assets to help Ukraine meets resistance in Washington

The New York Times reports: The devastation in Ukraine brought on by Russia’s war has leaders around the world calling for seizing more than $300 billion of Russian central bank assets and handing the funds to Ukraine to help rebuild the country. But the movement, which has gained momentum in parts of Europe, has run into resistance in the United States. Top Biden administration officials warned that diverting those funds could be illegal and discourage other countries from relying on…

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Putin’s men, the Israeli smugglers, and the great St. Petersburg drug bust

Putin’s men, the Israeli smugglers, and the great St. Petersburg drug bust

RFERL reports: The man in bulky winter fatigues licked his pinky, dabbed it inside the hand-sized package his underlings had just opened, and brought it, covered in white powder, to his mouth. “Tastes bitter. Numbs the tongue,” he said as laughter filled the room. It was February 1993 in St. Petersburg, and the man in the military uniform was sampling what was billed as the largest cocaine haul in Russian history: just over a metric ton — with an estimated…

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Mass shootings will continue across the U.S. until the majority can overrule the minority

Mass shootings will continue across the U.S. until the majority can overrule the minority

Rebecca Solnit writes: The dots are easy to connect, because they’re so close together, and because they’re the entry and exit wounds inflicted on US society by the subculture whose sacrament is the gun. Texas, while tightening restrictions on abortion, has steadily loosened them on guns. These weapons are symbols of a peculiar version of masculinity made up of unlimited freedom, power, domination, of a soldier identity in which every gunslinger is the commander and anyone is a potential target,…

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Mass killings in other parts of the world have led to serious gun control

Mass killings in other parts of the world have led to serious gun control

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad writes: On the morning of March 13, 1996, a 43-year-old gunman had entered the Dunblane Primary School and killed 16 children and a teacher, injuring 15 others. The man was carrying four handguns — two Browning Hi-Power pistols and two Smith & Wesson Model 19 revolvers — all purchased legally. The massacre horrified the country and united both major parties. Following an official inquiry, the Conservative government of Prime Minister John Major introduced the Firearms (Amendment) Act…

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Unprecedented bird flu outbreaks sweeping the world are concerning scientists

Unprecedented bird flu outbreaks sweeping the world are concerning scientists

Nature reports: A highly infectious and deadly strain of avian influenza virus has infected tens of millions of poultry birds across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. But scientists are particularly concerned about the unprecedented spread in wild birds — outbreaks pose a significant risk to vulnerable species, are hard to contain and increase the opportunity for the virus to spill over into people. Since October, the H5N1 strain has caused nearly 3,000 outbreaks in poultry in dozens of countries….

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In Europe, will growing fears of recession overshadow the threat of Russian imperialist expansion?

In Europe, will growing fears of recession overshadow the threat of Russian imperialist expansion?

The Wall Street Journal reports: Collectively, European governments have been able to agree on measures to isolate Russia’s economy that once would have been unthinkable, including an embargo on most of the crude oil Russia sells to Europe. But opinion is sharply divided on the stakes of the war and Ukraine’s chances. Public statements by the leaders of France and Germany and comments by those countries’ officials suggest they are skeptical Kyiv can expel the invaders and they have called…

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‘I watched from afar Russia’s latest merciless assault on Severodonetsk’

‘I watched from afar Russia’s latest merciless assault on Severodonetsk’

Quentin Sommerville reports: Russian forces have entered the city of Severodonetsk, as they continue their attempts to capture the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. One of the region’s governors says that the bombardment of the industrial centre is so intense that they have given up counting the casualties. Just days ago, I watched from a rooftop in Lysychansk as, on the horizon, its twin city of Severodonetsk was being bombed indiscriminately. Shells were landing every minute on its length and…

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Putin needs no outside assistance constructing an ‘off-ramp’

Putin needs no outside assistance constructing an ‘off-ramp’

Timothy Snyder writes: Some observers of the Russo-Ukrainian war seem to think that its greatest danger is that Ukraine will win, or win too quickly, and that this will be uncomfortable for Putin, and that we should care. This is a deeply perverse way of seeing things. Putin has chosen to fight a war of aggression and destruction in Ukraine. Wherever Russia controls Ukrainian territory, Russians commit genocidal crimes against citizens of Ukraine, including mass rape, mass killing, and mass…

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The Russians who now struggle to understand what it means to be Russian

The Russians who now struggle to understand what it means to be Russian

Ivan Philippov writes: The day of the invasion – 24 February – is a day that will be forever seared into my memory. The enormity and the irrationality of the war was like a physical blow. In my carefully constructed social bubble, there wasn’t a single person who supported the war. We felt like leaves, scattered by a hurricane. We still feel like this. Some of us left Russia and some stayed. I left with the film director Kantemir Balagov….

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Students challenge Prof. Tim Hayward’s ‘both sides’ stance on Putin and Assad’s war crimes

Students challenge Prof. Tim Hayward’s ‘both sides’ stance on Putin and Assad’s war crimes

BBC News reports: It was the start of a new term at the University of Edinburgh and Mariangela Alejandro couldn’t wait to take her next course. The 21-year-old history and politics student had heard good things about the professor, Tim Hayward. But a few weeks into the course, she said things started to get “weird”. “He goes from talking about global financial markets [and] poverty, into this realm of conspiracy theories about [Syrian President Bashar al] Assad and Russia,” she…

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The NRA doesn’t sell weapons, but it sells the fear that sells the guns

The NRA doesn’t sell weapons, but it sells the fear that sells the guns

Rolling Stone reports: On the third floor of Houston’s massive convention center, far above the noise and rabble of the gun show at the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting, a luxury hospitality suite was closed to normal NRA members. It was reserved instead for the gun lobby’s biggest donors, who belong to its “Ring of Freedom.” Here, grandees could escape from the masses, sink into plush leather couches, belly up to the refreshment tables, and marvel at a surreal pair…

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How China has raced ahead in a Pacific contest for influence

How China has raced ahead in a Pacific contest for influence

Damien Cave writes: Take a walk through the city where China’s foreign minister met on Monday with the leaders of nearly a dozen Pacific Island nations, and China’s imprint is unmistakable. On one side of Suva, the capital of Fiji, there’s a bridge rebuilt with Chinese loans and unveiled with the country’s prime minister standing beside China’s ambassador. On the other, down Queen Elizabeth Drive, sits Beijing’s hulking new embassy, where the road out front has been fixed by workers…

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Ukraine suffers on battlefield while pleading for U.S. longer range weaponry

Ukraine suffers on battlefield while pleading for U.S. longer range weaponry

The Washington Post reports: In a video address early Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the situation on the battlefield in Donbas was “very difficult,” with Russian forces attacking Ukrainian positions with “maximum artillery and maximum reserves.” “We are defending our land insofar as the defense resources we have today will allow. We’re doing everything we can to strengthen them — and we will strengthen them,” Zelensky said. “If the occupiers think Severodonetsk or Lyman will be theirs, they are…

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The Russians have withdrawn from Kharkiv, but the hardship they’ve left behind will last for years

The Russians have withdrawn from Kharkiv, but the hardship they’ve left behind will last for years

Tom Mutch reports: Flowers bloom over an unmarked grave in Kharkiv. We never found the woman’s name, but the neighbors buried her in a shallow grave in the garden she had tended her whole life. Springtime has come to Ukraine’s biggest city, which has mostly been relieved of the agony of three months of Russian bombardment. Galina, a 61-year-old teacher from Kharkiv, lived underground for nearly three months, but her daughter in Russia refused to believe that their city was…

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