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By enabling Putin and other global kleptocrats, the West has undermined democracy

By enabling Putin and other global kleptocrats, the West has undermined democracy

In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Anne Applebaum writes: All of us have in our mind a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like. There is a bad man at the top. He controls the police. The police threaten the people with violence. There are evil collaborators, and maybe some brave dissidents. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by networks…

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‘We’re living a nightmare’: Life inside Russian-occupied southern Ukraine

‘We’re living a nightmare’: Life inside Russian-occupied southern Ukraine

The Guardian reports: Russian soldiers patrol the streets of Berdyansk in cars and armoured vehicles marked with the “Z” symbol that denotes the Russian occupying force. Local government officials in this city in southern Ukraine, which has been controlled by Russian troops for the past two weeks, have been kicked out of their offices, and the local radio station plays Soviet ballads and Russian pop songs, interspersed with excerpts from Vladimir Putin’s speeches and news items about Ukraine being “liberated…

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Inside Chernobyl, workers toil in a single shift that now approaches 500 hours on the job at Russian gunpoint

Inside Chernobyl, workers toil in a single shift that now approaches 500 hours on the job at Russian gunpoint

The Wall Street Journal reports: It was 10 a.m., 16 days into Russia’s war on Ukraine, and a land-line phone rang inside the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The site of the world’s worst nuclear-power disaster had become an impromptu prison, and an increasingly dangerous one. The signalman on duty lifted the receiver and passed the call to shift supervisor Valentin Heiko, a veteran of the defunct facility. Mr. Heiko told managers on the other end of the line that the…

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Saudi Arabia considers accepting yuan instead of dollars for Chinese oil sales

Saudi Arabia considers accepting yuan instead of dollars for Chinese oil sales

The Wall Street Journal reports: Saudi Arabia is in active talks with Beijing to price some of its oil sales to China in yuan, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would dent the U.S. dollar’s dominance of the global petroleum market and mark another shift by the world’s top crude exporter toward Asia. The talks with China over yuan-priced oil contracts have been off and on for six years but have accelerated this year as the Saudis…

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Will Russia’s war against Ukraine spur Europe to move on green energy?

Will Russia’s war against Ukraine spur Europe to move on green energy?

Paul Hockenos writes: Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is sparking a wide-ranging revamping of energy policy in Europe with a bold new objective: to wean the continent off Russian gas — as rapidly and comprehensively as possible — and accelerate Europe’s green energy transition. In late-night sessions, Europe’s leaders have been drafting a spectrum of crisis strategies not only to pivot to other natural gas suppliers — as the United States, which imports much less gas and oil…

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Joe Manchin, the oil industry’s representative in the U.S. Senate, sank Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination

Joe Manchin, the oil industry’s representative in the U.S. Senate, sank Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination

Kate Aronoff writes: On Friday, an energetic Joe Manchin spoke to a room full of oil and gas executives in Houston. The following Monday, after long declining to state his position publicly, he came out against Biden’s nomination of Sarah Bloom Raskin to become the top banking cop at the Federal Reserve, as vice chair of supervision. Like his Republican colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee—who boycotted a vote on all pending Fed nominations over Raskin’s professed willingness to incorporate…

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Chomsky is no friend of the Syrian revolution

Chomsky is no friend of the Syrian revolution

Yassin al-Haj Saleh writes: Just three weeks following my release after 16 years in prison in Syria, I started translating a book into Arabic. The book was “Powers and Prospects: Reflections on Human Nature and the Social Order,” by Noam Chomsky. It had taken me some time to realize that the leading linguist and the harsh critic of American imperialism was the same person. I saw this as a remarkable and much-needed example of the social and political responsibility of…

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Russians asking for food and money from China, U.S. cable suggests

Russians asking for food and money from China, U.S. cable suggests

CNN reports: The US has information suggesting China has expressed some openness to providing Russia with requested military and financial assistance as part of its war on Ukraine, a Western official and a US diplomat told CNN, and is conveying what it knows to its NATO allies. It is not yet clear whether China intends to provide Russia with that assistance, US officials familiar with the intelligence tell CNN. But during an intense, seven-hour meeting in Rome, a top aide…

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Why Putin is hell-bent on capturing Ukraine’s nuclear reactors

Why Putin is hell-bent on capturing Ukraine’s nuclear reactors

The Daily Beast reports: The world watched in horror as shelling by Russian forces set fire to part of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine. Immediate catastrophe was averted when the flames were put out, but the plant—which is home to six separate reactors—was captured by the Kremlin’s forces on March 4. Russia has also taken control of the nuclear facility at Chernobyl, which although inactive, still houses deadly radioactive materials. The situation at Chernobyl took a dramatic turn…

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Ukraine dents ‘America First’ thinking deep in the heart of Trump country

Ukraine dents ‘America First’ thinking deep in the heart of Trump country

NBC News reports: Here in the middle of former President Donald Trump’s Midwest base, in a state where a sense of economic malaise lands hard on rural and working-class voters, many Republicans see higher gas prices as a small price to pay to help defend Ukraine. “I don’t think we’re doing enough,” Mary King, an unemployed caregiver, said of President Joe Biden’s ban on Russian oil last week. She spoke while waiting for GOP Senate candidate J.D. Vance to hold…

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As Ukraine war rages, Israel grapples with fate of oligarchs

As Ukraine war rages, Israel grapples with fate of oligarchs

The Associated Press reports: Israel is grappling with how to deal with dozens of Jewish Russian oligarchs as Western nations step up sanctions on businesspeople with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. A worried Israeli government has formed a high-level committee to see how the country can maintain its status as a haven for any Jew without running afoul of the biting sanctions targeting Putin’s inner circle. “Israel will not be a route to bypass sanctions imposed on Russia by…

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Roman Abramovich: New evidence highlights corrupt deals

Roman Abramovich: New evidence highlights corrupt deals

BBC News reports: A BBC investigation has uncovered new evidence about the corrupt deals that made Roman Abramovich’s fortune. The Chelsea owner made billions after buying an oil company from the Russian government in a rigged auction in 1995. Mr Abramovich paid around $250m (£190m) for Sibneft, before selling it back to the Russian government for $13bn in 2005. His lawyers say there is no basis for alleging he has amassed very substantial wealth through criminality. The Russian billionaire was…

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China pursues Afghanistan’s mineral wealth after U.S. exit

China pursues Afghanistan’s mineral wealth after U.S. exit

The Wall Street Journal reports: Following the American exit from Afghanistan, China’s move to claim the country’s vast mineral wealth is centered on a mountain south of Kabul. The mountain and the barren surrounding valley, in Logar province, a two-hour drive from the capital, contain one of the world’s biggest untapped reserves of copper. China is negotiating with Taliban authorities to start mining at the site, called Mes Aynak, according to Chinese and Taliban officials. Beijing is also in talks…

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Kindness benefits both giver and receiver, so why are some people much better at putting others first?

Kindness benefits both giver and receiver, so why are some people much better at putting others first?

The Observer reports: It was freezing cold the day Neil Laybourn saw a man in a T-shirt sitting on a high ledge on Waterloo Bridge and made a split-second decision that would change both their lives for ever. “It’s hard to pin down what it was that made me stop… but it would have played on my mind if I hadn’t,” he said. “That’s not how you live your life is it? You don’t just walk past when you see…

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