The World Blog by humble servant.

A host of private companies have deployed spy satellites over Ukraine to track the movement of Russian forces from space, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday. Some sell this data to Western governments and media outlets, while others send it directly to the government in Kiev. With the line between observation and participation blurred, some of these firms are keeping their work quiet. When outlets such as the Wall Street Journal publish aerial photos from Ukraine, they’re not relying on spy satellites operated by the US and its allies. Instead they’re paying private firms to do this surveillance work, with the WSJ reporting that it buys imagery directly from Maxar Technologies. Maxar’s satellites, the newspaper stated, can take photographs from space with a resolution down to 12 inches. However, companies such as Maxar are not just deploying their satellites to help the Western media land scoops but are also supplying military intelligence to Ukraine and NATO allies, which is...

Taiwan has observed the conflict in Ukraine and drawn several lessons for its own confrontation with mainland China, the disputed island’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, told CNN in an interview aired on Sunday. Wu argued that Beijing is hesitant to move on the island due to what he described as Russia’s lack of progress in Ukraine and the international community’s response. Taiwan is “watching this very carefully,” Wu told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “We try to see what we can learn from Ukraine in defending ourselves.” Wu described Ukraine as being “on the frontline against Russia’s outward expansion,” and accused Russia of using the military “for its historical glory,” in what he said was a parallel to the China-Taiwan situation. Taiwan’s two big takeaways from the conflict are that Ukraine is using “small personal weapons to go against a large enemy,” and that its male population is highly motivated. “They want to serve in the military. They want to go to the war zones to fight against...

Fewer than half of US adults have “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of confidence in the abilities of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, US President Joe Biden, or either party’s congressional leaders to do “the right thing” for the economy, according to a poll conducted by Gallup during the first three weeks of April and published on Monday. Equally troublingly, nearly half have “almost no” confidence in these leaders, who have repeatedly dangled rosy predictions of economic recovery in the face of a gross domestic product that actually declined for the first quarter of 2022. Powell leads the pack, with 43% of respondents expressing confidence in his abilities, while Biden trails at 40%, tied with Republican leaders in Congress and two points ahead of their Democratic counterparts (38%). Those numbers have fallen precipitously over the past year as the inflation rate has more than doubled to its highest rate in over four decades. Despite reassuring words from their leaders, Am...

Morgan Stanley has slashed its forecast for the EU’s GDP in 2022 and 2023, saying a slowdown in the bloc’s economic growth is imminent amid geopolitical pressure. In a note published on Monday, the financial institution said it had lowered its 2022 euro area GDP growth forecast to 2.7% from the previous 3%. It has also cut the growth forecast for the European economy in 2023 by a full percentage point, from 2.3% to 1.3%. “Despite the resilience in economic activity shown so far against geopolitical headwinds, we think more material impacts will show in the second half of the year, through various channels of transmission,” the note from the US-based investment bank said. Morgan Stanley explained that the drop in economic growth will stem from the prospect of a significant reduction of energy flows from Russia, which is crucial for many European industries and businesses. The EU is currently considering an embargo on Russian crude oil and natural gas as an expansion of sanctions aga...

If a nation provides “instructions or training” to a party to a conflict, including in using specific weapons in addition to supplying it with arms, this nation could lose its “safe” status as a neutral party in the conflict under international law, the panel of experts told German MPs in the report. The weapons deliveries themselves do not pose such a risk under international law, the 12-page document issued back in mid-March says. Berlin has brushed off the concerns, saying it does not believe it is crossing a red line by allowing Ukrainian troops to be trained at US bases on German soil. The government is well aware of the March report, spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told the media. “We are convinced that the training of Ukrainian soldiers [in using] weapons systems in Germany still does not mean directly joining the war,” he said. Germany’s government announced plans to supply Ukraine with self-propelled anti-aircraft guns last week. Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht also ann...

The world’s second-largest wheat producer, India, is facing a drop in wheat output this year due to the unusually hot weather in March, Reuters reported on Monday. The country saw five consecutive years of record wheat harvests, and officials were expecting another record yield this year, hoping to step up exports amid supply disruptions due to the Ukraine crisis, Reuters said. In the fiscal year to March, India exported a record 7.85 million tonnes of wheat – up 275% from the previous year – and was planning to export 12 million tonnes this fiscal year. However, an official note from the government seen by Reuters estimates that the harvest will be at least 6% less than expected, threatening the export plans. India recorded its warmest March in 122 years this year, with the maximum temperature across the country rising nearly two degrees above normal to 33.1C (91.58F), according to data from the country’s Meteorological Department. Arm Ukraine to prevent global famine – German mi...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been added to the notorious online database pro-Kiev activists use to blacklist people they consider enemies of Ukraine. The Mirotvorets (‘Peacemaker’) website was created in 2014 as a public database of “pro-Russian terrorists, separatists, mercenaries, war criminals, and murderers.” It contains links to social media accounts and personal information, such as home addresses, phones, and emails. Orban is listed as “an accomplice of Russian war criminals,” and an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist.” The website mentioned that the Hungarian PM refused to back an embargo on Russian oil and gas, among other things. He also broke ranks in the EU by refusing to send weapons to Ukraine or allow the transit of foreign weapons to Ukraine through Hungarian territory. Orban, who won re-election last month, built his campaign around promises to keep his country out of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and, in a victory speech, named Ukrainian President Volodymyr Ze...

panish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Defense Minister Margarita Robles had their mobile phones targeted with Israeli-made Pegasus spyware, Minister of the Presidency Felix Bolanos said on Monday. It is unknown who deployed the malware, but Catalan independence leaders have also accused the Spanish government of using it against them. Bolanos told a press conference that Sanchez’ phone had been infected in May 2021, and that at least one data leak had occurred, Reuters reported. “The interventions were illicit and external. External means carried out by non-official bodies and without state authorization,” he said, without disclosing whether foreign or Spanish groups are thought to have been behind the operation. Pegasus is a sophisticated hacking tool developed by an Israeli firm, NSO Group, and sold to state-level clients around the world. Its widespread activity was revealed last summer by Amnesty International and more than a dozen media organizations, and those targeted by t...

Finnish group Fennovoima said on Monday it had canceled its contract with Russian state-owned nuclear power giant Rosatom to build a nuclear power plant. The planned Hanhikivi-1 site was commissioned by Finnish-Russian consortium Fennovoima, in which Finnish stakeholders own two-thirds, and the rest is held by Rosatom subsidiary RAOS. Cooperation with the RAOS Project has been “terminated with immediate effect” due to “significant delays during the last years” and “risks for the project” associated with the conflict in Ukraine which RAOS “has been unable to mitigate,” Fennovoima said in a statement published on its website on Monday. The press release adds that the design and licensing of the project, as well as works at the site, will come to an end. Rosatom said it was disappointed by Fennovoima’s decision, which was made without due consultation with shareholders, the company’s statement released on Monday reads. Rosatom also says the RAOS Project was fulfilling all of its contr...

Russia will see its income from the oil sector rise sharply this year and reach more than $180 billion, despite production cuts related to international sanctions, suggests a report published by independent research house Rystad Energy on Monday. Thanks to the rising oil prices, Russia’s tax revenues will be 45% higher than last year and a whopping 181% higher than in 2020, Rystad Energy says. “Europe’s dependence on Russian energy has been a deliberate and decades-long and mutually beneficial relationship. In this early phase of sanctions and embargoes, Russia will benefit as higher prices mean tax revenues are significantly higher than in recent years.” says Daria Melnik, a senior analyst at Rystad Energy. According to the firm, the initial issues Russia had with its oil exports when European customers started shunning its oil were quickly resolved and loadings began to recover in late March, supported by orders from China and India. Russian crude exports remained resilient in Ap...

Israel has summoned the Russian ambassador, after Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that Adolf Hitler may have had some Jewish blood, and that the “most ardent” anti-Semites are Jews themselves. “Foreign Minister Lavrov’s remarks are both an unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error,” Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid tweeted on Monday. “Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust. The lowest level of racism against Jews is to accuse Jews themselves of antisemitism.” Lapid said Israel expects an apology, and that the Russian ambassador was being summoned “for a tough talk.” Other Israeli officials expressed outrage over Lavrov’s comments as well, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who accused Russia’s top diplomat of using the Holocaust “as a political tool.” The Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem also denounced Lavrov’s words as false and dangerous. Moscow has not commented on the matter. Speaking to Italy’s Mediaset m...

Some 100 people have left the sprawling Azovstal steel plant in the Black Sea port city of Mariupol and are heading to territory controlled by Ukrainian forces, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed in a Twitter post on Sunday. The plant remains the last pocket of Kiev's resistance in the city otherwise controlled by Russian forces and the militias of the Donbass republics. Ukrainian officials are still working together with UN representatives on evacuating civilians from the area, Zelensky outlined, adding that the evacuees will be transferred to the Ukrainian city of Zaporozhye on Monday. A spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Saviano Abreu, has also confirmed to Reuters that the evacuation operation began on April 29 and is being coordinated by the International Committee of the Red Cross, as well as by Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine’s top negotiator at the talks with Moscow, David Arakhamia, has called the evacuation “the most difficult...

Former world tennis number one Andy Murray has joined generational rivals Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic in blasting Wimbledon's ban on Russian players this summer. The All England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) announced its decision a fortnight ago, which has been made as a response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine. Alongside the ATP men's tour, big names such as Djokovic and Billie Jean King immediately voiced opposition to the landmark ruling. And on the eve of the Madrid Open, Nadal and Murray have followed suit when questioned on the topic by reporters, with Murray clearly stating that he is "not supportive" of the prohibition. "I’m not supportive of players getting banned," the three-time grand slam winner began. "My understanding of the guidance was that Russians and Belarusians can play if they sign a declaration that they’re against the war and against the Russian regime," he continued, in a nod to a suggestion previously mad...

Russian President Vladimir Putin does not respect American leadership anymore and demonstrates this lack of respect by talking about nuclear weapons “all the time,” former US President Donald Trump has complained. Speaking at a rally in Nebraska on Sunday, Trump said that unlike Joe Biden’s administration, under his leadership “America was strong, America was respected, like maybe never before.” “Now leaders of other countries don’t even return the phone calls of the President of the United States,” he said, apparently referring to March reports that the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates refused to arrange calls with Biden to discuss surging oil prices. Trump said Biden “has no idea what is happening,” referring to a recent incident in which the 79-year-old Biden appeared to offer a handshake with no one there to receive it. Putin, on the other hand, “talks about nuclear weapons all the time,” Trump said. Trump claimed nobody “ever talked about nuclear weapons” b...

World Blog by humble servant. Ukraine Chronicles 992 .All ‘ingredients’ for life found on space rocks The key ‘building blocks’ of DNA and RNA have been discovered on asteroids, scientists confirm . God and his seven Universe .The whole world that is known to us and everything in it is our universe. Many astronomers think that everything in our universe was once packed together in one lump. Then, about 15 billion years ago, there was a gigantic cosmic explosion which they call the Big Bang. According to them, our universe was created from that explosion! [21:30] Do the unbelievers not realize that the heaven and the earth used to be one solid mass that we exploded into existence? And from water we made all living things. Would they be lieve? [49:18] GOD knows all the secrets in the heavens and the earth; GOD is Seer of everything you do. According to the cosmology, The Big Bang explosion sent the young universe flying out in all directions. Over vast ages of time, bits came toget...