The World Blog by humble servant.

ExxonMobil said on Wednesday that its Russian unit Exxon Neftegas has declared force majeure for its Sakhalin 1 operations due to sanctions. It has become increasingly difficult to ship crude to customers, the company explained. The Sakhalin 1 project produces Sokol crude oil off the coast of Sakhalin Island in Russia’s Far East, exporting about 273,000 barrels per day, mainly to South Korea, as well as other destinations including Japan, Australia, Thailand, and the US. Exxon announced last month it would exit about $4 billion in assets and discontinue all its Russia operations, including the Sakhalin 1 project. The US oil giant has also significantly phased down its chemical and lubricant businesses in Russia. The company is taking steps to exit Sakhalin 1, which includes addressing contractual and commercial obligations, Exxon spokesperson Julie King told Reuters. “As operator of Sakhalin 1, we have an obligation to ensure the safety of people, protection of the environment and ...

Obesity rates have reached “epidemic proportions” in Europe, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said. The issue was highlighted in a major report unveiled at the European Congress on Obesity on Tuesday. The rates are “still escalating,” the health watchdog warned, stating that no country in the region was expected to meet the WHO global noncommunicable disease (NCD) goal of halting rising obesity rates by 2025. “Alarmingly, there have been consistent increases in prevalence of overweight and obesity, and not a single Member State of the Region is on track to reach the target of halting the rise in obesity by 2025,” the report reads. The disease is contributing to some 1.2 million deaths and causing some 200,000 cases of cancer in the region annually. This figure is set to grow further, and in some countries obesity is projected to overtake other cancer risk factors, including even smoking, the report says. “Across the WHO European region, obesity is likely to be directly resp...

Pope Francis has said that NATO’s eastward expansion may have provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin into launching an attack against Ukraine. In an interview published on Tuesday by Italian daily Corriere Della Sera, the pontiff speculated that “the barking of NATO at Russia’s door” could have driven the Kremlin into launching the military campaign on February 24. “I can’t say if it was provoked, but perhaps, yes,” he said. Francis also said he requested a meeting with Putin during the early weeks of the conflict, but has still not received a reply. He said he had asked the Vatican’s top diplomat to contact the Russian president about setting up a meeting about three weeks into the hostilities. "We have not yet received a response and we are still insisting," he told the paper. "I fear that Putin cannot, and does not, want to have this meeting at this time. But how can you not stop so much brutality?" he added. The pontiff said he had earlier spoken with t...

None of the US allies in the Pacific are currently willing to host intermediate-range missiles, says a new report by the RAND corporation, a think-tank tasked with developing strategies for the Pentagon. Instead, its author advises, Washington should encourage Japan to develop a missile arsenal of its own in order to threaten Chinese ships. Within days of the US pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August 2019, the Pentagon revealed it was working on previously banned missiles and wanting to station them somewhere on the Pacific rim. As RAND analyst Jeffrey W. Hornung points out, that seems to be easier said than done. In the report, which RAND publicized on Monday, Hornung argues that “the likely receptivity to hosting such systems is very low as long as current domestic political conditions and regional security trends hold,” pointing specifically to Thailand, Australia, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan. So long as Thailand has a “military-bac...

Taiwanese defense officials have been forced to regroup on plans for artillery forces after being told that the US has pushed back the estimated delivery date for 40 howitzer systems by at least three years as Washington races to supply more weapons to war-torn Ukraine. Taipei’s $750 million order was “crowded out” of US production lines, delaying delivery to 2026 at the soonest, rather than starting in 2023 as planned, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said on Monday. As a result, the ministry is looking at other available weapons systems, such as truck-based rocket launchers produced by Lockheed Martin Corp., to fill the void and will submit a budget proposal once a decision has been made. Taiwan is trying to modernize its military with precision and long-range weaponry to fend off a possible attack by mainland China, which considers the republic to be a breakaway province. The artillery order was approved last year, making it Taiwan’s first arms deal with the US since Preside...

Russian supersonic Oniks missiles have struck a logistics hub at a military airfield used to supply troops with foreign weapons near the Black Sea port of Odessa, Moscow said on Tuesday. Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said at a daily press briefing that a hangar with Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 combat drones was destroyed, along with weapons from the US and Europe. The ministry released a video of three missiles being launched from the ground. Overall, six military sites were hit by airstrikes overnight, including a fortified command center near Kharkov in eastern Ukraine, Konashenkov said. Moscow previously reported that it had struck a depot with Western arms near Odessa on Sunday. Ukraine has accused Russia of shelling residential areas in Odessa and killing civilians. Moscow, however, insists that it only strikes military targets.Russia attacked the neighboring state in late February, following Ukraine’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk ag...

Russia holds about 2,000 Ukrainian servicemen “who have voluntarily laid down their arms,” including five brigade commanders who “were fighting against the Donbass population,” head of the Russian Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin claimed amid Moscow’s military offensive in the neighboring country. In an interview , published on Tuesday, Bastrykin said that investigators were working with prisoners of war and were getting “many details about the circumstances of the Ukrainian regime’s crimes.” “Everyone sees that Ukrainian servicemen, no matter how it sounds in the Western media and propagandist social media, prefer to surrender when a good opportunity arises. They understand the futility of resistance,” Bastrykin said. The testimonies of those captured have provided the Russian authorities with information about the Ukrainian forces’ work with foreign advisors, as well as about foreign mercenaries, the Investigative Committee’s head revealed. “Based on the available dat...

The head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, has told that his team is making progress in a criminal probe into Ukraine’s alleged Pentagon-funded bioweapons program. “The analysis of the obtained documents allowed us to clearly identify the people involved in the military biological activities in Ukraine, including representatives of the US Department of Defense and American companies with ties to it,” Bastrykin said. He added that the US had spent more than $224 million on biological programs in Ukraine since 2005. The investigator added that foreign aid was used to equip and upgrade around 30 research centers governed by Ukraine’s defense, health and agricultural ministries. “The results of said research had been evacuated to Kiev-controlled territory before the start of [Russia’s] special military operation,” Bastrykin said, adding that his agency would continue to study the documents on the matter. In March, Moscow claimed that it had found evidence that ...

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson will announce a new multi-million-pound military aid package to Ukraine as the country continues to battle Russian forces, Downing Street said late Sunday. Johnson is set to become the first world leader to address the Ukrainian parliament since the launch of Russia’s military attack in February. In a speech which he will deliver via live videolink on Tuesday, the prime minister will stress that the UK is “proud to be among Ukraine’s friends.” According to a press release from the prime minister’s office, Johnson will provide details on the aid package, worth £300 million (almost $376 million), “to support Ukraine’s ongoing defence against Russia’s illegal invasion.” The package includes electronic warfare equipment, a counter battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment, and thousands of night vision devices, the prime minister’s office said. Ukraine sets out how security guarantees could workREAD MORE: Ukraine sets out how security guarantees could...

Italian Minister of Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani told Politico on Monday that Italian companies should “go ahead and pay in rubles” for Russian gas, as Moscow has demanded. Although his ministry later said that it does not back such a move, 10 EU nations are reportedly planning to do the same. “I think it would be good for a few months, at least, to allow companies to go ahead and pay in rubles, while we understand the legal framework and implications,” Cingolani said, adding that he wants “a speedy and very clear pronouncement from the European Commission” on whether such an arrangement would breach EU sanctions. Shortly afterwards, Cingolani’s ministry issued a statement saying that the minister “has never been open to a payment in rubles.” However, Italy depends on Russia for around 40% of its gas imports, and Cingolani said that while oil and gas companies “cannot risk” paying and breaking sanctions, they also “cannot risk … not paying” until recently-signed gas cont...

Ex-Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard has claimed that former President Barack Obama is behind the White House’s new Disinformation Governance Board, suggesting the current commander in chief is merely a figurehead for the project. “Biden is just a front man,” Gabbard said in a tweet on Sunday, sharing footage from an April 21 speech by former President Obama centered on “disinformation and challenges to democracy in the digital realm.” “Obama, April 21: social media censors ‘don’t go far enough,’ so the government needs to step in to do the job. Six days later, Homeland Security rolls out the ‘Ministry of Truth’ (aka Disinformation Governance Board),” Gabbard said, later calling on Democrats to oppose the “propaganda board.” In the speech in question, delivered at Stanford University, Obama argued that while social media platforms have taken efforts against “dangerous content” that “should be applauded,” decisions about moderation “shouldn’t be left solely to private intere...

Ukraine’s top security official has said that, instead of a peace treaty, Kiev is only prepared to sign a document with Moscow that would finalize Russia’s defeat. The announcement comes as the conflict between the two countries continues to rage. During an TV interview on Monday, Alexey Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), was asked about international security assurances for Kiev and possible peace with Russia. Danilov replied: “With Russia we can only sign an act of its capitulation. The sooner they do it, the better it will be for their country.” The official noted earlier in the interview that President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office handles the talks and not the NSDC. “We have our own views. The president knows my stance on the issue,” he said. He added that he believes Zelensky will not violate Ukraine’s constitution, which guarantees the country’s territorial integrity and aspirations to join NATO. Later on Monday, Zelensky’s adviser Al...

More Russian banks will be disconnected from the global banking communications system SWIFT, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrel, warned on Monday. “In the banking sector, there will be more Russian banks that will leave SWIFT,” AFP quotes Borrell as having said during a visit to Panama. He said he was yet unable to disclose the names or the number of the targeted financial institutions. According to Borrel, the EU is working on a sixth package of financial sanctions against Moscow and that he hoped it could be agreed upon later this month. Apart from the SWIFT restrictions, the EU is also looking for measures that would “significantly affect the import of Russian oil,” Borrel added. The EU has introduced five rounds of sanctions against Russia since the start of its military operation in Ukraine in February, switching off seven of its banks from SWIFT and effectively cutting the country off the dollar and euro-dominated money markets, a...

Abortion rights in the US could become severely curtailed, a Supreme Court document leaked to Politico has revealed, sending shockwaves around the country. According to a draft decision published in full by Politico on Monday evening, the highest legal authority in the US has voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling on abortion. The 1973 ruling provided women with the absolute right to a termination in the first trimester of pregnancy and limited rights in the second. A 1992 ruling – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – upheld the judgement. Now a majority of the Supreme Court appears to be leaning towards overturning both decisions and handing back “the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” “Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division,” Justice S...

ungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has claimed that his country has been receiving unjustified attacks for being honest about its dependence on energy supplies from Russia. “We’re looking at this issue solely from the perspective of Hungarian national interests. We’re not interested in what the East or the West thinks about it,” Szijjarto said on Tuesday during a meeting with his Kazakh counterpart Mukhtar Tleuberdi. “The real security of supplies is an issue for us because it’s currently physically impossible to run the Hungarian economy without Russian oil.” The minister stressed that Hungary gets around 65% of its oil from Russia through the Druzhba (Friendship) pipeline. Budapest confirmed earlier that it will not back an embargo on Russian energy as part of EU sanctions on Moscow over its military campaign in Ukraine. Szijjarto said that Hungary had voted for all of the previous sanctions packages but is still receiving “unjust and unfair” attacks. One of the reasons...

The European Union will turn to Africa to replace imports of natural gas from Russia, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Countries in Africa, such as Nigeria, Senegal, and Angola, offer largely untapped potential for liquified natural gas, the media outlet cites a draft EU document it reviewed. The European Commission is set to announce its plans for energy cooperation with the western African nations and other suppliers later this month as part of efforts to cut its energy reliance on Moscow amid the ongoing military offensive in Ukraine, Bloomberg adds. The EU pledged to slash Russian gas imports by two-thirds by next year and to eliminate its dependence before 2030. To achieve that, Europe has to reset its relationships with traditional suppliers and reach out to new emerging ones, the EU document adds, as the bloc needs to boost its LNG imports by 50 billion cubic meters a year until 2030 and increase shipments of pipeline gas from countries other than Russia. To meet its goal, the...

US soybean exports to China are leading their five-year average this year, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday, citing industry data. Beijing is looking to protect and bolster its supply chain as global food-security fears mount. American soybean producers shipped 27.3 million metric tons to China from September 1 to April 22, according to Scott Gerlt, an economist with the American Soybean Association. He told the SCMP that over the past five years, China ordered up to 23 million metric tons in the September-April periods. Gerlt explained that the Russia-Ukraine conflict cramped China-bound exports of wheat, corn, and sunflower oil from the two farm-rich countries. The conflict has also driven up prices of soybeans as a substitute. Meanwhile, four-fifths of US soybeans are processed into livestock feed in China and the rest into vegetable oil. Gerlt also noted that the South American soybean-exporting nations – Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay – have been struggling wit...

Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andriy Melnyk, has described the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, as an “offended liverwurst” over his refusal to pay a visit to Kiev after Ukrainian authorities snubbed German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in mid-April. “To play an offended liverwurst doesn’t sound very statesmanlike,” Melnyk said, speaking to Germany’s DPA news outlet on Tuesday, adding: “We’re talking about the most brutal war of extermination since the Nazi attack on Ukraine, it is no preschool.” The Ukrainian official noted, however, that his remark did not mean that Chancellor Scholz was not welcome in Kiev. More than “symbolic visits,” however, Melnyk said, Ukraine would appreciate Germany “implementing the Bundestag’s motion on the delivery of heavy weapons and fulfilling the earlier promises.” The diplomat also criticized Berlin for failing to provide ammunition for the Gepard self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, which Germany pledged to ship to Ukraine in late April. Th...

Bulgarian industry workers are preparing to protest the rising gas prices, the executive director of the Bulgarian Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (BFIEC), Ivaylo Naydenov, said on Monday following the recent suspension of Russian gas supplies. In an interview with Radio Bulgaria, Naydenov said the federation has called on the government to take measures to reduce prices or at least keep them at current levels. “Otherwise, we will have no choice but to organize protests, as announced by the employers’ organizations,” Naydenov said. He revealed that Prime Minister Kiril Petkov has already been informed by the BFIEC of the potential protests. The Bulgarian government earlier announced that Petkov and two of his deputies would hold a meeting on May 5 with the representatives of employers’ organizations to discuss “prices on natural gas and electricity, as well as the measures required in response.” Finland prepares to live without Russian gas – mediaREAD MORE: Finland prep...

Russian President Vladimir Putin introduced a package of economic measures on Tuesday to retaliate against international sanctions placed on Moscow. The new decree seeks to protect Russia’s national interests, and was adopted “in connection with the unfriendly actions of the United States and its allies that violate international law and aim to illegally deprive the Russian Federation and Russian legal entities of their property,” the decree, published on the Kremlin’s website, states. Putin gave the Cabinet of Ministers 10 days to determine the list of persons to be placed under the reciprocal sanctions. The new measures prohibit government agencies, organizations, and individuals from “carrying out transactions (including signing external trade contracts) with legal entities, individuals, and organizations” on the new blacklist. The decree also prohibits the export of products and raw materials if they are destined to sanctioned persons. Russian entities and persons are also pr...