United News of Bangladesh

India has refrained from voting on a UN General Assembly resolution denouncing the recent annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia, describing the decision as a "well thought out national position". Earlier too, India had abstained from voting on three resolutions against Russia -- a similar Security Council resolution recently and two General Assembly resolutions in March. Though a total of 35 nations, including China, South Africa and Pakistan, refrained from voting on Wednesday, this resolution was passed with a two-third majority. In her speech, Ruchira Kamboj, India's permanent representative to the UN, reiterated Prime Minister Narendra Modi's call for a diplomatic solution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis. "We have decided to abstain, keeping with our firm resolve to strive for a peaceful solution through dialogue and diplomacy," she said. "Our PM has said unequivocally that this cannot be an era of war. We have consistently advocated that no solution can ever be arrived at the cost of human lives. Escalation of hostilities and violence is in no one's interest," the diplomat said. Experts believe that India's"neutral stand" in the Russia-Ukraine war stems from the fact that Moscow still continues to be its largest arms supplier. India imports nearly 50% of its arms and fighter aircraft from Russia.  

The U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to condemn Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions and demand its immediate reversal, a sign of strong global opposition to the seven-month war and Moscow’s attempt to grab its neighbor’s territory. The vote in the 193-member world body was 143-5 with 35 abstentions. It was the strongest support from the General Assembly for Ukraine and against Russia of the four resolutions it has approved since Russian troops invaded Ukraine Feb. 24. Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, called the vote “amazing” and “a historic moment.” U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said supporters were “holding our breaths” and called it “a monumental day.” European Union Ambassador Olof Skoog called it “a great success” that sends “a resounding message to Russia that they are and remain isolated.” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement that the vote demonstrated the world “is more united and more determined than ever to hold Russia accountable for its violations.” It is “a clear message” that “Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map” and it “cannot change borders by force,” he said. The Western-sponsored resolution was a response to Russia’s announced annexation last month of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Moscow acted following Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” that the Ukrainian government and the West have dismissed as sham votes conducted on occupied land amid warfare and displacement. During two days of speeches at the assembly’s resumed emergency special session on Ukraine speaker after speaker accused Russia of violating key principles of the United Nations Charter — respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all U.N. member nations. There was intense lobbying by supporters of the EU-facilitated resolution ahead of Wednesday’s vote. U.S. envoy Thomas-Greenfield told the assembly before the vote that when the United Nations was established on the ashes of World War II it was built on an idea — “that never again would one country be allowed to take another’s territory by force.” Afterward, she told reporters the vote means “that in the eyes of the world and the United Nations, Ukraine’s borders remain the same.” “The resolution also sends an enormously important signal to Moscow and to everyone: It does not matter if you as a nation are big or small, rich or poor, old or new. If you are a U.N. member state, your borders are your own and are protected by international law,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “They cannot be redrawn by anyone else by force.” A key issue for the resolution’s Western backers was how many countries would support it, and the result went beyond their most optimistic expectations. The General Assembly voted 141-5 with 35 abstentions March 2 to demand an immediate Russian cease-fire, withdrawal of all its troops and protection for all civilians. On March 24, it voted 140-5 with 38 abstentions on a resolution blaming Russia for Ukraine’s humanitarian crisis and urging an immediate cease-fire and protection for millions of civilians and the homes, schools and hospitals critical to their survival. But the assembly voted by a far smaller margin April 7 to suspend Russia from the U.N.’s Geneva-based Human Rights Council over allegations Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in rights violations that the United States and Ukraine have called war crimes. That vote was 93-24 with 58 abstentions. A 2014 resolution affirming Ukraine’s territorial integrity and declaring the referendum that led to Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula illegal was adopted by a vote of 100-11 with 58 abstentions. Among the surprise supporters of Wednesday’s resolution were the “yes” votes from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other members of the Gulf Cooperation Council as well as Brazil. Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, had appealed to countries to vote against the resolution, calling it “a politicized and openly provocative document” and denouncing its sponsors as “unscrupulous Western blackmailers.” He expressed regret the vote was not by secret ballot, as Russia sought but the assembly rejected. Nebenzia reiterated Russia’s claims the referendums were valid, saying “the populations of these regions do not want to return to Ukraine.” The four countries that joined Russia in voting against the resolution were North Korea, Belarus, Syria and Nicaragua. Ukraine’s Kyslytsya expressed profound regret that the four countries made “the wrong choice against the U.N. Charter” and urged them to reconsider their commitment to the U.N.’s principles. Among the 35 countries that abstained, 19 were from Africa, including South Africa. China and India, the world’s two most populous countries, also abstained along with Pakistan and Cuba. The more powerful Security Council, whose resolutions are legally binding, has been stymied on taking action on Ukraine because of Russia’s veto power, which it used Sept. 29 to block condemnation of Russia’s attempts to annex Ukrainian territory. By contrast, the General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, has now approved four resolutions criticizing Russia over Ukraine. Its votes reflect world opinion but are not legally binding. The resolution adopted Wednesday declares that Moscow’s actions violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, are “inconsistent” with the principles of the U.N. Charter, and “have no validity under international law and do not form the basis for any alternation of the status of these regions of Ukraine.” It demands that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.” And it supports “the de-escalation of the current situation and a peaceful resolution of the conflict through political dialogue, negotiation, mediation and other peaceful means” that respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders. Many countries among the more than 70 speakers urged a negotiated end to the war. The EU’s Skoog called the appeal for a peaceful solution “very important,” but stressed it must be based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity. During Wednesday’s debate there was strong support for the resolution. Australian Ambassador Mitch Fifield called Russia’s attempted annexation “illegal and a dangerous escalation” and urged all countries to oppose acts of aggression. Ambassador Fergal Mythen of Ireland said voters in the “sham” referendums in the four regions “faced intimidation by the Russian military and Russia’s illegitimately appointed authorities.” Cambodian Ambassador Sovann Ke didn’t indicate how he would vote but said that “the forcible annexation of regions from a sovereign country is a flagrant violation of the U.N. Charter and international laws, which is not acceptable” and urged that internationally respected borders “be fully respected.” In the voting, Cambodia supported the resolution. South Korea’s ambassador, Hwang Joonkook, gave unequivocal support “to the sovereignty, political independence and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.” He said his country’s “own painful experiences” after the 1950-53 Korean War “can testify that any attempt to divide a nation in any form or method is merely the beginning of lasting very serious troubles, rather than a solution.” On the other side of that divide, North Korean Ambassador Kim Song supported the “self-determination” of the people in the four regions annexed by Russia as a right protected in the U.N. Charter and said the results must be respected. He accused the United States and Western countries of “brutally” violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya under “the pretext” of promoting international peace and security without ever having its actions called into question by the Security Council. He argued that U.S. interference in the internal affairs of countries is continuing in the 21st century. Syrian Ambassador Bassam Sabbagh accused the General Assembly of “being manipulated flagrantly by some Western countries for their own geopolitical interests” and urged countries to oppose efforts “to isolate Russia and to employ double standards.”

As anti-government protests roil cities and towns in Iran for a fourth week, tens of thousands of Iranians living abroad have marched on the streets of Europe, North America and beyond in support of what many believe to be a watershed moment for their home country. From those who fled in the 1980s after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution to a younger generation of Iranians born and raised in Western capitals, many in the diaspora community say they feel an unprecedented unity of purpose and affinity with the demonstrations at home sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman detained by Iran’s morality police. “I see this as a turning point for Iran in many ways -- we’ve always had political fault lines that divided us, but this time it’s people saying, ‘I’m with women’,” said Tahirih Danesh, 52, a human rights researcher who lives and works in London. “It’s phenomenal, it’s happened at such speed, and this sense of camaraderie among Iranians has been amazing.” In the past month, large crowds of people of Iranian origin in dozens of cities from London to Paris to Toronto have turned out every weekend for rallies in solidarity with protests that erupted in Iran after Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was detained for allegedly violating strict Islamic dress codes for women. Many say they have been kept awake at night by a mixture of hope, sadness and apprehension – hope that their country may be on the brink of change after decades of oppression, and fear that authorities will unleash more violence in an increasingly brutal crackdown that has seen dozens killed and hundreds arrested. Some, like Danesh –- whose family smuggled her and her siblings out of Iran in the 1980s to escape persecution — say the images of protesters being violently suppressed by authorities recall afresh the trauma of similar scenes around the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. “I’m thousands of miles away, it’s 40 years later but the images I see are bringing it all back, it’s as if I’m reliving it again,” Danesh said. While Iran has seen waves of protest in recent years, many agree that this time the resistance feels broader in nature and in scope because it challenges the fundamentals of the Islamic Republic. Some say they have never seen the likes of global solidarity for Iran shown by politicians, intellectuals and celebrities, many of whom have cut off locks of their hair in a gesture of support of Iranian women. “Before, many of us outside had a distanced view of what’s happening inside, we couldn’t find the same connection. But today Iranians inside are calling for fundamental change. They’re saying ‘retrieve my Iran’,” said Vali Mahlouji, 55, an art curator in London who left Iran in the 1980s. He said he is self-exiled because his work deals with censored artists and art history. “This unites every Iranian I know, all the different generations of exiles,” he added. “People who have been out of Iran most of their lives are feeling restless and sleepless. I don’t know anyone who is not sympathetic, and of course, not worried.” The Iranian diaspora is large, including not just those who fled soon after the 1979 revolution, but also later waves leaving Iran because of continued repression or economic woes. More than half a million live in the U.S., and France, Sweden and Germany have communities in the hundreds of thousands, with major centers in Los Angeles, Washington, London, Paris and Stockholm. In Paris, 28-year-old Romane Ranjbaran was among thousands last week who came out despite a heavy downpour and marched, sang and chanted “Khamenei get out” in Persian and French, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Several women cut off locks of their hair and threw them in the air joyfully. Ranjbaran, who grew up in France, said she felt “stricken” by what’s happening in Iran. “Iran is part and parcel of my history. My mom has known a free Iran when women were free,” she said, as her mother and other family members stood by her side at the rally. “It’s an international fight. If we want the situation in Iran to improve, we need international support.” The 1979 revolution ousted the U.S.-backed shah, the monarch whose rule was resolutely secular but was also brutally repressive and plagued with corruption. The revolution joined leftists and other political factions including Islamists, who after the shah’s fall seized total power and created the Islamic Republic, ruled over by Shiite Muslim clerics. Some expatriates have been wary of joining protests because they have family in Iran and regularly travel back and forth. Some raised concerns about the suspected presence of Iranian intelligence agents or extremist factions. Others say they felt some unease about the protests’ aims beyond the unifying cry of “Women, Life, Freedom” and the leaderless nature of the protests. “I love my country, I want to show support, but every time I go I’m also confused because in every corner of the demonstrations there’s a different chant,” said Amanda Navaian, a luxury handbag designer in her early 40s who has attended all the recent weekend rallies in London. Navaian said she wanted to attend protests “for as long as it takes,” and has even made plans to potentially organize one herself. She wasn’t sure demonstrations abroad will make a real difference, but she said it was crucial “to show we care.” At the very least, she knows she is doing something to dispel what she described as pervasive negative perceptions of Iran and Iranians. “Islam was forced upon us, this extremism is not who we are. Our country has been hijacked — we were a country of music, dance and poetry,” Navaian said. “People were coming up to me in Trafalgar Square to ask, ‘What are you doing?’ and I explained why we were there,” she added. “Through these demonstrations there’s more awareness. Maybe now the international community should wake up to what’s happening.”

The International Monetary Fund is downgrading its outlook for the world economy for 2023, citing a long list of threats that include Russia’s war against Ukraine, chronic inflation pressures, punishing interest rates and the lingering consequences of the global pandemic. The 190-country lending agency forecast Tuesday that the global economy would eke out growth of just 2.7% next year, down from the 2.9% it had estimated in July. The IMF left unchanged its forecast for international growth this year — a modest 3.2%, a sharp deceleration from last year’s 6% expansion. “The worst is yet to come,″ said IMF chief economist Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas. Three major economies — the United States, China and Europe — are stalling. Countries accounting for a third of global economic output will contract next year, suggesting that 2023 “will feel like a recession″ to many people around the world, he said Tuesday. In its latest estimates, the IMF slashed its outlook for growth in the United States to 1.6% this year, down from a July forecast of 2.3%. It expects meager 1% U.S. growth next year. The fund foresees China’s economy growing just 3.2% this year, down drastically from 8.1% last year. Beijing has instituted draconian zero-COVID policy and has cracked down on excessive real estate lending, disrupting business activity. China’s growth is forecast to accelerate to 4.4% next year, still tepid by Chinese standards. In the IMF’s view, the collective economy of the 19 European countries that share the euro currency, reeling from crushingly high energy prices caused by Russia’s attack on Ukraine and Western sanctions against Moscow, will grow just 0.5% in 2023. The world economy has endured a wild ride since COVID-19 hit in early 2020. First, the pandemic and the lockdowns it generated brought the world economy to a standstill in the spring of 2020. Then, vast infusions of government spending and ultra-low borrowing rates engineered by the Federal Reserve and other central banks fueled an unexpectedly strong and speedy recovery from the pandemic recession. But the stimulus came at a high cost. Factories, ports and freight yards were overwhelmed by powerful consumer demand for manufactured goods, especially in the United States, resulting in delays, shortages and higher prices. (The IMF expects worldwide consumer prices to rise 8.8% this year, up from 4.7% in 2021.) In response, the Fed and other central banks have reversed course and begun raising rates dramatically, risking a sharp slowdown and potentially a recession. The Fed has raised its benchmark short-term rate five times this year. Higher rates in the United States have lured investment away from other countries and strengthened the value of the dollar against other currencies. Outside the United States, the higher dollar makes imports that are sold in the American currency, including oil, more expensive and therefore heightens global inflationary pressures. It also forces foreign countries to raise their own rates — and burden their economies with higher borrowing costs — to defend their currencies. Maurice Obstfeld, a former IMF chief economist who now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, has warned that an overly aggressive Fed could “drive the world economy into an unnecessarily harsh contraction.”

Angela Lansbury, the scene-stealing British actor who kicked up her heels in the Broadway musicals “Mame” and “Gypsy” and solved endless murders as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher in the long-running TV series “Murder, She Wrote,” has died. She was 96. Lansbury died Tuesday at her home in Los Angeles, according to a statement from her three children. She died five days shy of her 97th birthday. Hers was a 75-year career that included beloved musicals on stage, iron-fisted matriarchs on film, singing the theme song for the animated movie “Beauty and the Beast,” being made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II and the creation of one of television’s best loved characters. Lansbury won five Tony Awards for her Broadway performances and a lifetime achievement award. She earned Academy Award nominations as supporting actress for two of her first three films, “Gaslight” (1945) and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1946), and was nominated again in 1962 for “The Manchurian Candidate” and her deadly portrayal of a Communist agent and the title character’s mother. Her mature demeanor prompted producers to cast her much older than her actual age. In 1948, when she was 23, her hair was streaked with gray so she could play a fortyish newspaper publisher with a yen for Spencer Tracy in “State of the Union.” Her stardom came in middle age when she became the hit of the New York theater, winning Tony Awards for “Mame” (1966), “Dear World” (1969), “Gypsy” (1975) and “Sweeney Todd” (1979). She was back on Broadway and got another Tony nomination in 2007 in Terrence McNally’s “Deuce,” playing a scrappy, brash former tennis star, reflecting with another ex-star as she watches a modern-day match from the stands. In 2009 she collected her fifth Tony, for best featured actress in a revival of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” and in 2015 won an Olivier Award in the role. Broadway royalty paid their respects. Audra McDonald tweeted: “She was an icon, a legend, a gem, and about the nicest lady you’d ever want to meet.” Leslie Uggams on Twitter wrote: “Dame Angela was so sweet to me when I made my Broadway debut. She was a key person in welcoming me to the community. She truly lived, lived, lived!” Playwright Paul Rudnick added: “she provided the most fabulous, irreplaceable joy. She was beloved as a person and an actress, and managed to be approachable, glamorous and heartbreaking. She’ll be missed, celebrated and adored.” But Lansbury’s widest fame began in 1984 when she launched “Murder, She Wrote” on CBS. Based loosely on Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple stories, the series centered on Jessica Fletcher, a middle-aged widow and former substitute school teacher living in the seaside village of Cabot Cove, Maine. She had achieved notice as a mystery novelist and amateur sleuth. The actor found the first series season exhausting. “I was shocked when I learned that I had to work 12-15 hours a day, relentlessly, day in, day out,” she recalled. “I had to lay down the law at one point and say ‘Look, I can’t do these shows in seven days; it will have to be eight days.’” CBS and the production company, Universal Studio, agreed, especially since “Murder, She Wrote” had become a Sunday night hit. Despite the long days — she left her home at Brentwood in West Los Angeles at 6 a.m. and returned after dark — and reams of dialogue to memorize, Lansbury maintained a steady pace. She was pleased that Jessica Fletcher served as an inspiration for older women. “Women in motion pictures have always had a difficult time being role models for other women,” she observed. “They’ve always been considered glamorous in their jobs.” In the series’ first season, Jessica wore clothes that were almost frumpy. Then she acquired smartness, Lansbury reasoning that, as a successful woman, Jessica should dress the part. “Murder, She Wrote” stayed high in the ratings through its 11th year. Then CBS, seeking a younger audience for Sunday night, shifted the series to a less favorable midweek slot. Lansbury protested vigorously to no avail. As expected, the ratings plummeted and the show was canceled. For consolation, CBS contracted for two-hour movies of “Murder, She Wrote” and other specials starring Lansbury. “Murder, She Wrote” and other television work brought her 18 Emmy nominations but she never won one. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations and wins for best actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for lead actress in a drama series. In a 2008 Associated Press interview, Lansbury said she still welcomed the right script but did not want to play “old, decrepit women,” she said. “I want women my age to be represented the way they are, which is vital, productive members of society.” “I’m astonished at the amount of stuff I managed to pack into the years that I have been in the business. And I’m still here!” She was given the name Angela Brigid Lansbury when she was born in London on Oct. 16, 1925. Her family was distinguished: a grandfather was the fiery head of the Labour Party; her father the owner of a veneer factory; her mother a successful actor, Moyna MacGill.  “I was terribly shy, absolutely incapable of coming out of my shell,” Lansbury remembered of her youth. “It took me years to get over that.” The Depression forced her father’s factory into bankruptcy, and for a few years the family lived on money her mother had saved from her theater career. Angela suffered a shattering blow when her beloved father died in 1935. The tragedy forced her to become self-reliant — “almost a surrogate husband to my mother.” When England was threatened with German bombings in 1940, Moyna Lansbury struggled through red tape and won passage to America for her family. With the help of two sponsoring families, they settled in New York and lived on $150 a month. To add to their income, Angela at 16 landed a nightclub job in Montreal doing impersonations and songs. “The only thing I ever had confidence in is my ability to perform,” she said. “That has been the grace note in my sonata of life, the thing that has absolutely seen me through thick and thin.” Moyna moved the family to Hollywood, hoping to find acting work. Failing that, she and Angela wrapped packages and sold clothing at a department store. An actor friend suggested Angela would be ideal for the role of Sybil Vane in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” which was being prepared at MGM. She tested, and studio boss Louis B. Mayer ordered: “Sign that girl!” She was just 19 when her first film, “Gaslight,” earned her an Oscar nomination, but MGM didn’t know what to do with the new contract player. She appeared as Elizabeth Taylor’s older sister in “National Velvet,” Judy Garland’s nemesis in “The Harvey Girls,” Walter Pidgeon’s spiteful wife in “If Winter Comes” and Queen Anne in “The Three Musketeers.” Tired of playing roles twice her own age, she left MGM to freelance but the results were much the same: the mother of Warren Beatty in “All Fall Down,” of Elvis Presley in “Blue Hawaii,” of Carroll Baker in “Harlow,” and of Laurence Harvey in “The Manchurian Candidate,” in which she unforgettably manipulates her son and helps set off a killing spree. In the mid-1940s, Lansbury had a disastrous nine-month marriage to Richard Cromwell, a soulful young star of the 1930s. In 1949, she married Peter Shaw, a Briton who had been under an acting contract to MGM, then became a studio executive and agent. He assumed the role of Lansbury’s manager. They had two children; he had a son by a previous marriage. The 1950s were a troubled time for the Shaws. Angela’s career slowed down; her mother died after a battle with cancer; Peter underwent a hip operation; the children were on drugs; the family house in Malibu burned to the ground. Lansbury later said of the fire: “It’s like cutting off a branch, a big, luscious branch of your life and sealing it off with a sealer so it doesn’t bleed, That’s what you do. That’s how the human mind deals with those things. You have to pick up the pieces and go on.” Weary of 20 years of typecasting, Lansbury tried her luck on Broadway. Her first two shows — “Anyone Can Whistle” and “Hotel Paradiso” (with Bert Lahr) — flopped. Then came “Mame.” Rosalind Russell declined to repeat her classic role as Patrick Dennis’s dizzy aunt in a musical version. So did Mary Martin and Ethel Merman. Others considered: Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Beatrice Lillie, Judy Garland. Composer Jerry Herman chose Lansbury. The opening on May 24, 1966, was a sensation. One critic wondered that “the movies’ worn, plump old harridan with a snakepit for a mouth” could turn out to be “the liveliest dame to kick up her heels since Carol Channing in ‘Hello, Dolly.’” After her “Sweeney Todd” triumph, Lansbury returned to Hollywood to try television. She was offered a sitcom with Charles Durning or “Murder, She Wrote.” The producers had wanted Jean Stapleton, who declined. Lansbury accepted. During the series’ long run, she managed to star in TV movies, to be host of Emmy and Tony shows and even to provide the voice for a Disney animated feature. She played Mrs. Potts in “Beauty and the Beast” and sang the title song. “This was really a breakthrough for me,” she said of her young following. “It acquainted me with a generation that I possibly couldn’t have contacted.” In 2000, Lansbury withdrew from a planned Broadway musical, “The Visit,” because she needed to help her husband recover from heart surgery. “The kind of commitment required of an artist carrying a multimillion-dollar production has to be 100%,” she said in a letter to the producers. Her husband died in 2003. She was back on Broadway in 2012 in a revival of “The Best Man,” sharing a stage with James Earl Jones, John Larroquette, Candice Bergen, Eric McCormack, Michael McKean and Kerry Butler. She also recently co-starred in Emma Thompson’s “Nanny McPhee” and with Jim Carrey in “Mr. Popper’s Penguins.” At the 2022 Tony Awards, Len Cariou — her “Sweeney Todd” co-star — accepted the lifetime Tony given to Lansbury. “There is no one with whom I’d rather run a cutthroat business with,” Cariou said. In 1990, Lansbury philosophized: “I have sometimes drawn back from my career. To what? Home. Home is the counterweight to the work.” In addition to her three children, Anthony, Deirdre and David, she is survived by three grandchildren, Peter, Katherine and Ian, plus five great grandchildren and her brother, producer Edgar Lansbury.

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.