United News of Bangladesh

President Joe Biden said Tuesday there will be “consequences” for Saudi Arabia as the Riyadh-led OPEC+ alliance moves to cut oil production and Democratic lawmakers call for a freeze on cooperation with the Saudis. Biden suggested he would soon take action, as aides announced that the administration is reevaluating its relationship with the kingdom in light of the oil production cut that White House officials say will help another OPEC+ member, Russia, pad its coffers as it continues its nearly eight-month war in Ukraine. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced legislation that would immediately pause all U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia for one year. This pause would also halt sales of spare and repair parts, support services and logistical support. But it remains to be seen how far Biden is willing to go in showing his displeasure with the Saudis, a vital but complicated ally in the Middle East. Biden came into office vowing to recalibrate the U.S. relationship because of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record but then paid a visit to the kingdom earlier this year. Biden said in a CNN interview he would look to consult with Congress on the way forward, but stopped short of endorsing the Democratic lawmakers’ call to halt weapons sales. “There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia,” Biden said. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be — there will be consequences.” John Kirby, a White House National Security Council spokesman, said Biden believes “it’s time to take another look at this relationship and make sure that it’s serving our national security interests.” Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the White House has no timeline for its review nor has the president appointed an adviser to serve as point person. Meanwhile, officials underscore the central role that Saudi Arabia plays in addressing broader national security concerns in the Middle East. Blumenthal and Khanna unveiled their legislation one day after Sen. Robert Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, said it was unacceptable that OPEC+ had moved to cut oil production and effectively assist Moscow in its war on Ukraine. Menendez promised to use his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to block any future arms sales to the Saudis. Menendez did not warn the White House before announcing his intention to block future Saudi arms sales, Kirby said. OPEC+, which includes Russia as well as Saudi Arabia, announced last week it would cut production by 2 million barrels a day, which will help prop up oil prices that are allowing Russian President Vladimir Putin to keep paying for his eight-month invasion of Ukraine. The production cut also hurts U.S.-led efforts to make the war financially unsustainable for Russia, threatens a global economy already destabilized by the Ukraine conflict and risks saddling Biden and Democrats with newly rising gasoline prices just ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud told Saudi-owed Al Arabiya on Tuesday that his government’s justification of the production cuts was “purely economic.” Biden and European leaders have urged more oil production to ease gasoline prices and punish Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine. Putin has been accused of using energy as a weapon against countries opposing Russia’s invasion. “They are certainly aligning themselves with Russia,” Jean-Pierre said. “This is not a time to be aligning with Russia.” As for the Saudis, Sen. Blumenthal said, “We cannot continue selling highly sensitive arms technology to a nation aligned with an abhorrent terrorist adversary.” However, the White House takes note that its weapon sales to Riyadh serve, in part, as an important counterweight in the region to Iran, which is quickly moving toward becoming a nuclear power. “There’s 70,000 Americans living in Saudi Arabia right now, not to mention all the other troops we have throughout the region,” Kirby said. “So, it’s not only in our interest that missile defense in the region become more integrated and cooperative. It’s in the interest of our allies and partners in that part of the world as well.” Still, the pressure is mounting for Biden. As a candidate for the White House, he vowed that Saudi rulers would “pay the price” under his watch for the 2018 killing of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, a critic of the kingdom’s leadership. Biden said that he’d look to make the oil-rich country a “pariah.” But in July, amid rising prices at the pump around the globe, Biden decided to pay a visit to Saudi Arabia. During the visit, he met with the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who he once shunned as a killer for the death of Khashoggi. The U.S. intelligence community determined that the crown prince, often referred to by his initials MBS, likely approved the killing of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. MBS denies he was involved. The Saudis have also drawn international criticism for airstrikes killing civilians in the years-long war between the kingdom and Houthi rebels in Yemen — as well as for embargoes that exacerbated hunger and pushed Yemen to the brink of famine. “Saudi Arabia’s disastrous decision to slash oil production by two million barrels a day makes it clear that Riyadh is seeking to harm the U.S. and reaffirms the need to reassess the U.S.-Saudi relationship,” Khanna said. “There is no reason for the U.S. to kowtow to a regime that has massacred countless civilians in Yemen, hacked to death a Washington-based journalist and is now extorting Americans at the pump.”  

Russian forces showered Ukraine with more missiles and munition-carrying drones Tuesday after widespread strikes killed at least 19 people in an attack the U.N. human rights office described as “particularly shocking” and amounting to potential war crimes. Air raid warnings sounded throughout Ukraine for a second straight morning as officials advised residents to conserve energy and stock up on water. The strikes have knocked out power across the country and pierced the relative calm that had returned to Kyiv and many other cities far from the war’s front lines. “It brings anger, not fear,” Kyiv resident Volodymyr Vasylenko, 67, said as crews worked to restore traffic lights and clear debris from the capital’s streets. “We already got used to this. And we will keep fighting.” The leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers condemned the bombardment and said they would “stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.” Their pledge defied Russian warnings that Western assistance would prolong the war and the pain of Ukraine’s people. Russia launched the widespread attacks in retaliation for a weekend explosion that damaged the Kerch Bridge between Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. Russian President Vladimir Putin alleged that Ukrainian special services masterminded the blast. The Ukrainian government has applauded it but not claimed responsibility. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told the G-7 leaders during a virtual meeting that during the past two days Russia fired more than 100 missiles and dozens of drones at Ukraine, and that while Ukraine shot down many of them, it needs “more modern and effective” air defense systems. The Pentagon earlier announced plans to deliver the first two advanced NASAMs anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine in the coming weeks. The systems, which Kyiv has long wanted, will provide medium- to long-range defense against missile attacks. In a phone call with Zelenskyy on Tuesday, President Joe Biden “pledged to continue providing Ukraine with the support needed to defend itself, including advanced air defense systems,” the White House said. Zelenskyy thanked the U.S. and also Germany for speeding up the delivery of the first of four promised IRIS-T air defense systems. Ukraine’s defense minister tweeted that the German system had just arrived, and that a “new era” of air defense for Ukraine had begun. Zelenskyy also urged the G-7 leaders to respond “symmetrically” to the attacks on the Ukrainian energy sector by doing more to stop Russia from profiting off its exports of oil and gas. “Such steps can bring peace closer,” he said. “They will encourage the terrorist state to think about peace, about the unprofitability of war.” Ukrainian officials said the diffuse strikes on power plants and civilian areas made no “practical military sense.” However, Putin’s supporters had urged the Kremlin for weeks to take tougher action in Ukraine and criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing battlefield setbacks. Pro-Kremlin pundits lauded the attacks as an appropriate response to Kyiv’s successful counteroffensives. Many of them argued that Moscow should keep up the intensity to win a war now in its eighth month. The head of Britain’s cyber-intelligence agency, Jeremy Fleming, said Tuesday in a rare public speech that Russia is running out of military supplies and struggling to fill its ranks. “Russia’s forces are exhausted,” Fleming said. “The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.” Like Monday’s strikes, the bombardment Tuesday struck both energy infrastructure and civilian areas. One person was killed when 12 missiles slammed into the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire, the State Emergency Service said. A local official said the missiles hit a school, residential buildings and medical facilities. Energy facilities in the western Lviv and Vinnytsia regions also took hits. Officials said Ukrainian forces shot down an inbound Russian missile before it reached Kyiv, but the capital region experienced rolling power outages as a result of the previous day’s strikes. The State Emergency Service said 19 people died and 105 people were wounded in Monday’s strikes. At least five of the victims were in Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. More than 300 cities and towns lost power. A spokesperson for the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said Tuesday that strikes on “civilian objects,” including infrastructure such as power plants, could qualify as a war crime. “Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva. “Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law.” War crimes investigations have long been underway in towns where mass graves were found, along with other evidence of atrocities, after they were liberated from Russian occupation. In Lyman, a city in the eastern Donetsk region, forensic workers pulled several bodies from a mass grave Tuesday, part of an arduous effort to piece together evidence of what happened under more than four months of Russian occupation. Regional Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said the bodies of 32 Ukrainian soldiers have been exhumed so far from one mass grave. The tempo of the war in the last month fanned concerns that Moscow might broaden the battlefield and resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. As Ukraine’s counteroffensives in the east and south forced Russia’s troops to retreat from some areas, a cornered Kremlin ratcheted up Cold War-era rhetoric. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow would only employ nuclear weapons if the Russian state faced imminent destruction. Speaking on state TV, he accused the West of encouraging false speculation about the Kremlin’s intentions. Russia’s nuclear doctrine envisions “exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state,” Lavrov said. In Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would hold annual war exercises testing the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities next week as scheduled. Asked whether it was the wrong time for them, Stoltenberg replied: “It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, longtime-planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine.” Stoltenberg called Putin’s rhetoric “irresponsible” but said he believes “Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.” NATO as an organization does not possess nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries — the United States, the U.K. and France. The G-7, leaders who held the emergency meeting in response to Monday’s attack, said the “indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime” and reaffirmed their “commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The pledge appeared to come in response to Kremlin warnings that Western military assistance, including training Ukrainian soldiers in NATO countries and feeding real-time satellite data to target Russian forces, increasingly made Ukraine’s allies parties to the conflict. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said continued U.S. weapons deliveries to Ukraine would prolong the fighting and inflict more damage on the country without changing Russia’s objectives. As Russian forces pounded three districts around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant overnight, Ukraine’s state nuclear operator said Russian forces kidnapped the plant’s deputy human resources director. Russians previously detained the facility’s general director and released him following pressure from International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi. Grossi met with Putin on Tuesday in St. Petersburg and urged him to agree to a “safety and security protection zone” around the occupied plant to prevent a radiation disaster.

This year’s Nobel Prize in economic sciences has been awarded to the former chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, and two U.S.-based economists, Douglas W. Diamond and Philip H. Dybvig, “for research on banks and financial crises.” The prize was announced Monday by the Nobel panel at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The committee said their work had shown in their research “why avoiding bank collapses is vital.” With their research in the early 1980s, the laureates laid the foundations for regulating financial markets and dealing with financial crises, the panel said. Bernanke, 68, who is now with The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., examined the Great Depression of the 1930s, showing how dangerous bank runs — when panicked savers withdraw their deposits — can be. Diamond, 68, based at the University of Chicago, and Dybvig, 67, who is at Washington University in St. Louis, showed how government guarantees on deposits can prevent a spiraling of financial crises. “The laureates’ insights have improved our ability to avoid both serious crises and expensive bailouts,” said Tore Ellingsen, chair of the Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences. Their research took on great real-world significance when investors sent the financial system into a panic during the fall of 2008. Bernanke, then head of the Fed, teamed up with the Treasury Department to prop up major banks and ease a shortage of credit, the lifeblood of the economy. He slashed short-term interest rates to zero, directed the Fed’s purchases of Treasury and mortgage investments and set up unprecedented lending programs. Collectively, those steps calmed investors and fortified big banks. They also pushed long-term interest rates to historic lows and led to fierce criticism of Bernanke, particularly from some 2012 Republican presidential candidates, that the Fed was hurting the value of the dollar and running the risk of igniting inflation later. The Fed’s actions under Bernanke extended the authority of the central bank into unprecedented territory. They weren’t able to prevent the longest and most painful recession since the 1930s. But in hindsight, the Fed’s moves were credited with rescuing the banking system and avoiding another depression. Nobel prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on Dec. 10. Unlike the other prizes, the economics award wasn’t established in Alfred Nobel’s will of 1895 but by the Swedish central bank in his memory. The first winner was selected in 1969. Last year, half of the award went to David Card for his research on how the minimum wage, immigration and education affect the labor market. The other half was shared by Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens for proposing how to study issues that don’t easily fit traditional scientific methods. A week of Nobel Prize announcements kicked off Oct. 3 with Swedish scientist Svante Paabo receiving the award in medicine for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system. Three scientists jointly won the prize in physics Tuesday. Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger had shown that tiny particles can retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, that can be used for specialized computing and to encrypt information. The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded Wednesday to Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, and Danish scientist Morten Meldal for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to explore cells, map DNA and design drugs that can target diseases such as cancer more precisely. French author Annie Ernaux won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature Thursday. The panel commended her for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman to explore life in France since the 1940s.  The Nobel Peace Prize went to jailed Belarus human rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties on Friday.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said with a global network and universal service mandate to ensure access for all, the postal sector is a key partner in the drive to deliver the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development."On World Post Day, we celebrate the critical contributions of postal workers in connecting people around the world with essential services that improve their daily lives and boost the development of their communities," said Guterres, in a message marking World Post Day that falls on October 9 (today).The theme of this year’s World Post Day – “Post for Planet” – recognizes the many ways in which postal services are finding cleaner, greener means to reach our doorsteps day in, day out.   Read: "On World Post Day, we celebrate critical contributions of postal workers" “Post for Planet” is also a call to action for the postal sector to use its position as a connector between governments, businesses, and people to take a leading role in our fight against climate change, said the UN chief.Working with partners from across the logistics, financial and digital spheres, postal services have the power to catalyze positive actions across a wide range of other sectors, Guterres said."I thank the Universal Postal Union for leading this call to action and look forward to working together towards a more prosperous and sustainable future for all," he mentioned.

The number of global Covid cases has crossed 626 million. According to the latest global data, the total case count mounted to 626,457,718, and the death toll from the virus reached 6,560,582 Sunday morning. The US has recorded 98,549,246 cases so far, while 1,087,873 people have died from the virus in the country, both highest counts around the world. India's daily Covid-19 caseload fell to 2,756 in the 24 hours to Sunday morning from 2,797 cases Saturday, taking the country's total tally to 44,612,013, officials said. Read: Global Covid cases top 625 million The country also logged 21 Covid-related deaths in 24 hours, pushing the overall death toll to 528,799 since the beginning of the pandemic, India's health ministry said. Bangladesh reported zero Covid death and 299 new cases in 24 hours to Saturday morning. The country's total fatalities remained unchanged at 29,380, and its caseload stood at 2,029, 314, according to the Directorate General of Health Services.  

A United Nations organization on Friday committed to sharply cut carbon emissions from air travel by 2050 in response to growing pressure for airlines to reduce their pollution. Several major environmental groups praised the move, saying it could encourage the production of more sustainable aviation fuel. But they cautioned that it will be difficult to push countries to follow up with policies that actually reduce emissions. Aviation is a relatively small contributor to overall climate-changing emissions, but its share is expected to grow. More people are expected to travel on planes in the coming years, and aviation lacks cleaner alternatives such as electric power that are rapidly becoming widely available for cars and trucks. On Friday in Montreal, representatives of nearly 200 nations in the U.N.’s International Civil Aviation Organization adopted what the agency called an “aspirational goal” of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050. The decision capped nearly a decade of negotiations and occurred as aviation comes under more pressure to fall in line with conditions of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate, which aims to cap the rise in global temperature. Crucially, the U.N. agency’s resolution does not set targets for individual countries or airlines. Mark Brownstein, a senior official at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the resolution raised hope that travel will be more sustainable. “But the work isn’t over,” he said. “Now is the time for countries to act by establishing policies that support achievement of a 2050 net-zero goal for aviation with measurable progress in the interim.” Dan Rutherford, who tracks the issue for the International Council on Clean Transportation, said that to hit the net-zero target, aviation emissions will need to peak and start decreasing as soon as 2025, “with richer countries taking the lead.” Airlines and governments expect to greatly reduce emissions by gradually switching from kerosene-based jet fuel to fuels made from fats, grease, plants or renewables. The European Union has proposed higher taxes on fossil fuels including jet fuel. But reaching net zero could require tougher measures including limits on flights – at least until large electric- or hydrogen-powered planes are feasible decades from now. Airlines for America said it applauded the U.N. group’s resolution, which could avoid a patchwork of policies by individual countries. The industry trade group called the 2050 milestone “ambitious,” but said airlines are already working with the U.S. government to make 3 billion gallons of sustainable aviation fuel available by 2030.

Grief-stricken families prayed Saturday morning at a Buddhist temple filled with children’s keepsakes, flowers and photos of the smiling toddlers who were slain as they napped on blankets at a day care center in northeastern Thailand. Coffins containing the 36 killed, 24 of them children and most of them preschoolers, were released Friday and placed inside Wat Rat Samakee and two other temples in the town nestled among rice paddies in one of Thailand’s poorest regions. Several mourners stayed at Wat Rat Samakee overnight in the tradition of keeping company for those who died young. “All the relatives are here to make merit on behalf of those who died,” said Pensiri Thana, an aunt of one of the victims, referring to an important Buddhist practice. She was among those staying the night at the temple. “It is a tradition that we keep company with our young ones. It is our belief that we should be with them so they are not lonely.” The massacre left no one untouched in the small town, but community officials found helping others was helping assuage their own grief, at least momentarily. “At first, all of us felt so terrible and couldn’t accept this. All the officials feel sad with the people here. But we have to look after everyone, all these 30 victims. We are running around and taking care of the people, giving them moral support,” Somneuk Thongthalai, a local district official, said. A mourning ceremony will continue for three days before the royal-sponsored funerals, which will culminate in the cremation of the bodies according to Buddhist tradition. No clear motive may ever be known for Thailand’s deadliest mass killing after the perpetrator left the day care center Thursday and killed his wife and son at home before taking his own life. Late Friday, King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida visited hospitals where seven people wounded in the attack are being treated. The monarch met with family members of the victims in what he said was a bid to boost morale. “It is a tragedy that this evil thing has happened,” the king told reporters in a rare public appearance. “But right now, we have to think of what we can do to improve things to the best of our ability.” Outside the Young Children’s Development Center in Uthai Sawan, bouquets of white roses and carnations lined an outside wall, along with five tiny juice boxes, bags of corn chips and a stuffed animal. At Wat Rat Samakee, mourners and those trying to lend them support crowded the grounds. “It was just too much. I can’t accept this,” said Oy Yodkhao, 51, sitting Friday on a bamboo mat in the oppressive heat as relatives gave her water and gently mopped her brow. Her 4-year-old grandson Tawatchai Sriphu was killed, and she said she worried for the child’s siblings. The family of rice farmers is close, with three generations living under one roof. Police identified the attacker as Panya Kamrap, 34, a former police sergeant fired earlier this year because of a drug charge involving methamphetamine. An employee at the day care told Thai media Panya’s son had attended but hadn’t been there for about a month. Mass shootings are rare but not unheard of in Thailand, which has one of the highest civilian gun ownership rates in Asia, with 15.1 weapons per 100 people. That’s still far lower than the U.S. rate of 120.5 per 100 people, according to a 2017 survey by Australia’s GunPolicy.org nonprofit organization. Thailand’s previous worst mass killing involved a disgruntled soldier who opened fire in and around a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for some 16 hours before being killed by them. The previously worst attack on civilians was a 2015 bombing at a shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 people. It was allegedly carried out by human traffickers in retaliation for a crackdown on their network.

As he turns 70 on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin finds himself in the eye of a storm of his own making: His army is suffering humiliating defeats in Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of Russians are fleeing his mobilization order, and his top lieutenants are publicly insulting military leaders. With his room for maneuvering narrowing, Putin has repeatedly signaled that he could resort to nuclear weapons to protect the Russian gains in Ukraine — a harrowing threat that shatters the claims of stability he has repeated throughout his 22-year rule. “This is really a hard moment for him, but he can’t accuse anyone else. He did it himself,” said Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment. “And he is going straight ahead to big, big problems.” By unleashing the disastrous war in Ukraine, Europe’s largest military conflict since World War II, Putin has broken an unwritten social contract in which Russians tacitly agreed to forgo post-Soviet political freedoms in exchange for relative prosperity and internal stability. Mikhail Zygar, a journalist who has had extensive contacts among the Kremlin elite and published a bestselling book about Putin and his entourage, noted that the invasion came as a complete surprise not only for the public but for Putin’s closest associates.  “All of them are in shock,” Zygar said. “None of them wanted to see the developments unfold in such a way just because they are going to lose everything. Now they are all stained by blood, and they all understand they have nowhere to run.” Stanislav Belkovsky, a longtime political consultant with extensive contacts among the ruling class, described the invasion as a mechanism of “self-destruction for Putin, his regime and the Russian Federation.” With the Russian army retreating under the blows of Ukrainian forces armed with Western weapons, Putin raised the stakes by annexing four Ukrainian regions and declaring a partial mobilization of up to 300,000 reservists to buttress the crumbling front line. The poorly organized call-up has triggered broad chaos. The military is struggling to provide supplies for new recruits, many of whom were told to buy medical kits and other basics themselves and were left to sleep on the floor while waiting to be sent to the front. Social networks have been abuzz with discussions about how to dodge recruitment, and hundreds of thousands of men fled the mobilization, swarming Russia’s borders with ex-Soviet neighbors. The mobilization, Kolesnikov noted, has eroded Putin’s core support base and set the stage for potential political upheavals. “After the partial mobilization, it’s impossible to explain to anyone that he stabilized the system. He disrupted the foundation of stability,” he said. The military setbacks also drew public insults from some of Putin’s top lieutenants directed toward military leaders. The Kremlin has done nothing to halt the criticism, a signal that Putin could use it to set the stage for a major shakeup of the top brass and blame them for the defeats. “The infighting between powerful clans in Putin’s entourage could destabilize the system and significantly weaken Putin’s control over the situation in the country,” Belkovsky said. The widening turmoil marks a dramatic contrast with the image of stability Putin has cultivated since taking helm in 2000. He has repeatedly described the turbulent rule of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, as a time of decay when national riches were pilfered by Kremlin-connected tycoons and the West while millions were plunged into poverty. Russians have eagerly embraced Putin’s promises to restore their country’s grandeur amid oil-driven economic prosperity, and they have been largely indifferent to the Kremlin’s relentless crackdown on political freedoms. Insiders who have closely studied Putin’s thinking say he still believes he can emerge as a winner. Belkovsky argued that Putin hopes to win by using energy as an instrument of pressure. By reducing the gas flow to Europe and striking a deal with OPEC to reduce oil output, he could drive prices up and raise pressure on the U.S. and its allies. Putin wants the West to tacitly accept the current status quo in Ukraine, resume energy cooperation with Russia, lift the most crippling sanctions and unfreeze Russian assets, Belkovsky said. “He still believes that he will get his way in the long showdown with the West, where the situation on the Ukrainian front line is just one important, but not decisive, element,” Belkovsky said. At the same time, Putin threatened to use “all means available” to defend the newly annexed Ukrainian territories in a blunt attempt to force Ukraine and its Western allies to back off. The U.S. and its allies have said they are taking Putin’s threats seriously but will not yield to what they describe as blackmail to force the West to abandon Ukraine. Ukraine vowed to press its counteroffensive despite the Russian rhetoric. Kolesnikov described Putin’s nuclear threats as a reflection of growing desperation. “This is the last step for him in a sense that this is a suicidal” move, Kolesnikov said. “If he’s ready for the step, it means that we are witnessing a dictator who is even worse than Stalin.” Some observers have argued that NATO could strike Russia with conventional weapons if Putin presses the nuclear button. Belkovsky warned that Putin firmly believes that the U.S. and its allies wouldn’t dare to strike back if Russia used a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine. “If the U.S. believes that there is no psychologically readiness for that, it’s mistaken,” he said. Zygar compared the Russian leader to a fighter pilot who tries to win a dogfight by attacking the enemy head-on and waiting for him to turn away first. “He thinks he has the nerve, and he believes he must escalate to the end,” Zygar said. He noted that pundits failed to predict Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the current invasion just because they were using rational criteria. “Our past perceptions about rational limits all have proven false,” he said. “There are no such limits.”

As many as 11 people were killed and 38 others injured after a bus caught fire following a collision with a truck in the western Indian state of Maharashtra early on Saturday morning. The accident occurred on Aurangabad road  in the state's Nashik district around 5.15am, police said. "Most of those killed were passengers of the bus, a sleeper coach. The inured have been shifted to the hospital for treatment," Amol Tambe, deputy commissioner of Nashik Police, told the local media. Local TV channels reported that some of the bus passengers were charred to death while others lost their lives in the impact of the collision. State Chief Minister Eknath Shinde announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the families of each of the victims. A probe has been ordered into the accident, the police officer said. Road accidents are common in India, with one taking place every four minutes. These accidents are often blamed on poor roads, rash driving and scant regard for traffic laws. The Indian government's implementation of stricter traffic laws in recent years has failed to rein in accidents, which claim over 100,000 lives every year.    

A series of explosions rocked the eastern Ukraine city of Kharkiv early Saturday, sending towering plumes of illuminated smoke into the sky and triggering a series of secondary explosions. There were no immediate reports of casualties The blasts came hours after Russia concentrated attacks in its increasingly troubled invasion of Ukraine on areas it illegally annexed, while the death toll from earlier missile strikes on apartment buildings in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 14. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the early-morning explosions were the result of missile strikes in the center of the city. He said that the blasts sparked fires at one of the city’s medical institutions and a nonresidential building. In a rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his conduct of Europe’s worst armed conflict since World War II, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to human rights organizations in his country and Ukraine, and to an activist jailed in Russia’s ally Belarus. Berit Reiss-Andersen, the committee’s chair, said the honor went to “three outstanding champions of human rights, democracy and peaceful coexistence.” Putin this week illegally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory, including the Zaporizhzhia region that is home to Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, whose reactors were shut down last month. Fighting near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant has alarmed the U.N.’s atomic energy watchdog, which on Friday doubled to four the number of its inspectors monitoring plant safeguards. An accident there could release 10 times more potentially lethal radiation than the world’s worst nuclear disaster at Chernobyl in Ukraine 36 years ago, Ukrainian Environmental Protection Minister Ruslan Strilets said Friday. “The situation with the occupation, shelling, and mining of the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants by Russian troops is causing consequences that will have a global character,” Strilets told The Associated Press. The U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported more trouble at the plant, saying Friday on Twitter that external power had again been cut off to one of Zaporizhzhia’s shutdown reactors, necessitating the use of emergency backup diesel generators to run safety systems. The city of Zaporizhzhia is located 53 kilometers (33 miles) away from the nuclear plant as a crow flies and remains under Ukrainian control. To cement Russia’s claim to the region, Russian forces bombarded the city with S-300 missiles on Thursday, with more attacks reported Friday. Ukrainian authorities said the death toll from the strikes on apartment buildings rose to 14 on Friday, while 12 people wounded in the bombardment remained hospitalized. Missiles also struck the city overnight, wounding one person, Zaporizhzhia Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said. Russia also used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones there for the first time and damaged two infrastructure facilities, he said. With its army losing ground to a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the south and east, Russia has deployed unmanned, disposable Iranian-made drones that are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but still can damage ground targets. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Russia’s use of the explosives-packed drones was unlikely to affect the course of the war. “They have used many drones against civilian targets in rear areas, likely hoping to generate nonlinear effects through terror. Such efforts are not succeeding,” analysts at the think tank wrote. In other Moscow-annexed areas, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported Friday that its forces had repelled Ukrainian advances near the city of Lyman and retaken three villages elsewhere in the eastern Donetsk region. The ministry also claimed that Russian forces had prevented Ukrainian troops from advancing on several villages in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Friday that this week alone, his military has recaptured 776 square kilometers (300 square miles) of territory in the east and 29 settlements, including six in the Luhansk region, which Putin has annexed. In total, Ukrainian forces have liberated 2,434 square kilometers (940 square miles) of land and 96 settlements since the beginning of its counteroffensive, he said. In Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian troops shelled the city of Nikopol overnight, killing one person, wounding another and damaging buildings, natural gas pipelines and electricity systems, the governor reported. Nikopol lies along the Dnieper River across from Russian-held territory near the nuclear power plant. The city has been shelled frequently for weeks. The trail of Russia’s devastation and death from areas where its troops retreated became clearer Friday. A report by Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Yevhen Yenin revealed that 530 bodies of civilians have been found in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region since Sept. 7. The residents killed during the Russian occupation included 257 men, 225 women and 19 children, with 29 people unidentified, Yenin said. Most of the bodies were found in a previously disclosed mass grave in the city of Izium. According to Yenin, the recovered bodies bore signs of gunshots, explosions and torture. Some people had ropes around their necks, hands tied behind their back, bullet wounds to their knees and broken ribs. Authorities have identified 22 torture sites in parts of the Kharkiv region that Ukrainian forces recently liberated, said Serhiy Bolvinov, a regional police official. In recently recaptured Lyman, workers found 200 individual graves and a mass grave with an unknown number of victims, Donetsk Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko reported on Telegram. In Sviatohirsk, 24 kilometers (15 miles) from Lyman, 21 bodies of civilians were reburied. Russian military equipment and weapons, meanwhile, is getting into Ukrainian hands. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Friday that Ukrainian forces have captured at least 440 tanks and about 650 armored vehicles since the Russian invasion started Feb. 24.  “The failure of Russian crews to destroy intact equipment before withdrawing or surrendering highlights their poor state of training and low levels of battle discipline,” the British ministry said. “With Russian formations under severe strain in several sectors and increasingly demoralized troops, Russia will likely continue to lose heavy weaponry.” Putin ordered a partial mobilization of Russian army reservists last month to reinforce manpower on the front lines in Ukraine. Mistakes have dogged the military call-up, however, and tens of thousands of men have fled Russia, unwilling to fight Putin’s war. That has left Russia desperate for troop reinforcements. The Ukrainian military said Friday that 500 former criminals have been mobilized to reinforce Russian ranks in the eastern Donetsk region, where Ukrainian forces have retaken territory. Law enforcement officers are commanding the new units, the military said. Russia’s state news agency Tass reported Friday that a court in the Russian city of Penza had dismissed the first case against a Russian man called up to serve but who refused. The 32-year-old man’s lawyers had argued that the law under which he was charged applies only to conscription evaders, not those subject to the partial mobilization. In another sign of trouble, reports have surfaced of poor training and few supplies for the new Russian troops. At least two Russian cities — St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod — announced Friday they were canceling their Russian New Year’s and Christmas celebrations and redirecting that money to buy supplies for Russian troops. Under increasing pressure from his own supporters as well as critics, Putin continued to reshuffle his military’s leadership, replacing the commander of Russia’s eastern military district.