March, 2022 | últimas notícias

China locks down city of 9 million amid new spike in cases – ABC News

BEIJING — China on Friday ordered a lockdown of the 9 million residents of the northeastern city of Changchun amid a new spike in COVID-19 cases in the area attributed to the highly contagious omicron variant.

Residents are required to remain at home, with one family member permitted to venture out to buy food and other necessities every two days. All residents must undergo three rounds of mass testing, while non-essential businesses have been closed and transport links suspended.

The latest lockdowns, which also include Yucheng with 500,000 people in the eastern province of Shandong, show China is sticking to the draconian approach to the pandemic it has enforced for most of the past two years, despite some earlier indications that authorities would be implementing more targeted measures.

China reported another 397 cases of local transmission nationwide on Friday, 98 of them in Jilin province that surrounds Changchun, a center of the country’s auto industry. In the entire province, cases have exceeded 1,100 since the latest outbreak first struck late last week.

Just two cases were reported within Changchun itself on Friday, bringing its total to 78 in recent days. Authorities have repeatedly pledged to lock down any community where one or more cases are found under China’s “zero tolerance” approach to the pandemic.

Another 93 cases were confirmed in the nearby city of Jilin that bears the same name as the surrounding province. Authorities have already ordered a partial lockdown in the city and severed travel links with other cities.

Officials of the Jilin Agricultural Science and Technology University have been sacked after a cluster of infections was reported on campus and students complained on social media that those who tested positive were being confined in school libraries and other buildings in poor conditions.

The school has registered 74 confirmed cases and transferred more than 6,000 people to quarantine, according to state broadcaster CCTV.

Aerial images showed students in hazmat suits lining up in the cold and dark waiting to be transferred.

Source Article from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/china-locks-city-million-amid-spike-cases-83384360

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Russia opens criminal investigation of Meta over death calls on Facebook – CNBC

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Russia opened a criminal case against Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms on Friday after the social network changed its hate speech rules to allow users to call for “death to the Russian invaders” in the context of the war with Ukraine.

Russian prosecutors asked a court to designate the U.S. tech giant as an “extremist organisation”, and the communications regulator said it was restricting access to Meta’s Instagram.

“A criminal case has been initiated … in connection with illegal calls for murder and violence against citizens of the Russian Federation by employees of the American company Meta, which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said.

The committee reports directly to President Vladimir Putin. It was not immediately clear what the consequences of the criminal case might be.

No comment was immediately available from Meta in response to a Reuters request.

Two weeks into Russia’s war in Ukraine, a Meta spokesperson said on Thursday the company had temporarily eased its rules for political speech, allowing posts such as “death to the Russian invaders,” although it would not allow calls for violence against Russian civilians.

Meta said the temporary change aimed to allow for forms of political expression that would normally violate its rules. Its oversight board said on Friday that it was closely following the war in Ukraine, and how Meta is responding.

Internal Meta emails seen by Reuters showed the U.S. company had temporarily allowed posts that call for the death of Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko.

“We hope it is not true because if it is true then it will mean that there will have to be the most decisive measures to end the activities of this company,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

Information wars

Russia has for more than a year been striving to curb the influence of U.S. tech giants including Alphabet‘s Google and Twitter, repeatedly fining them for allowing what it deems to be illegal content.

But the invasion of Ukraine – met by a storm of international condemnation and unprecedented sanctions – has sharply raised the stakes in the information war.

Social media provide an opportunity for dissent against Putin’s line – loyally followed by the tightly controlled state media – that Moscow was forced to launch its “special military operation” to defend Russian-speakers in Ukraine against genocide and to demilitarise and “denazify” the country.

The Investigative Committee said the Facebook move could violate articles of the Russian criminal law against public calls for extremist activities.

“Such actions of the (Meta) company’s management not only form an idea that terrorist activity is permissible, but are aimed at inciting hatred and enmity towards the citizens of the Russian Federation,” the state prosecutor’s office said.

It said it had applied to a court to recognise Meta as an extremist organisation and prohibit its activities in Russia.

The United Nations human rights office said the potential change in Facebook policy was worrying.

“It is a very concerning issue because it does have a certain risk to generate and encourage and allow hate speech that is directed at Russians in general,” spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell said.

Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services are all popular in Russia, with 7.5 million, 50.8 million and 67 million users last year respectively, according to researcher Insider Intelligence.

Last week, Russia said it was banning Facebook in the country in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on the platform.

The communications regulator said on Friday it was also now restricting access to Instagram.

Instagram is a favoured tool of jailed Putin opponent Alexei Navalny, who used it in a message posted via his lawyers and supporters on Friday to call for Russians to join protests against the Ukraine war and “mad maniac Putin” this weekend.

WhatsApp will not be affected by the legal moves, Russia’s RIA news agency cited a source as saying, as the messaging app is considered a means of communication not a way to post information.

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/11/russia-opens-criminal-case-against-meta-over-death-calls-on-facebook.html

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Russians pounding Ukraine, but Mariupol’s no Aleppo — yet – The Associated Press – en Español

BRUSSELS (AP) — The Russian airstrike on a children’s and maternity hospital in the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol is the latest in a series of attacks that have gutted apartment buildings and killed people in their homes or simply going about their business.

Allegations of war crimes, impossible yet to prove, are mounting and an investigation is underway at the International Criminal Court. Russia’s willingness to use overwhelming force — aerial bombardment and artillery in civilian areas — is already drawing comparisons with its attacks in Chechnya and Syria.

But any similarity with the destruction visited on the Chechen capital of Grozny, or Aleppo in northern Syria, is premature, for now. The invasion is only in its third week, and military analysts say that while Russia has expanded its use of airpower, its forces are still not pressing their aerial advantage to the full.

In the wake of Thursday’s airstrike in Mariupol — at least three people, including a child, were killed — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wondered: “What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed this as “pathetic shrieks” from the enemy.

It was the shrieks of bombs and shells raining down during two wars from 1994 to 2000 that flattened Grozny. In early December 1999, Russian planes dropped flyers on the Chechen capital with a simple ultimatum to rebel fighters and civilians holed up in the battered city: Leave or be destroyed.

Russian forces had entered the breakaway republic in September that year after Chechen rebel fighters moved into neighboring Dagestan. The militants were also blamed for apartment bombings in Russian cities that left 300 people dead.

Grozny was bombed and shelled for weeks to dislodge entrenched rebels. Moscow’s initial upbeat forecasts of quick victory — echoing its predictions for the rapid surrender of Ukraine — were revised as commanders realized they faced a longer, harsher war.

Airpower was the weapon of choice. The Russian army balked at storming Grozny for fear that street battles would deliver the kind of heavy casualties that its troops suffered in the city in the 1994-96 war.

In January this year, as the Kremlin’s forces closed in on Ukraine’s borders, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned the Russian people that invading would be “a painful, violent and bloody business,” with heavy street fighting of the same kind, and that they risk seeing “a new Chechnya.”

Russian airpower also helped President Bashar Assad during Syria’s civil war. It was not gentle to civilians. Hundreds of them were killed in the city of Aleppo.

In 2016, after punishing aerial bombardments by Russian and Syrian planes and years of street fighting, the staggering extent of the damage began to emerge. Tens of thousands of homes left uninhabitable, most factories looted or destroyed, and ancient landmarks reduced to rubble.

Experts said the cost of rebuilding would run into tens of billions of dollars and take years. The city had once been an industrial hub, home to factories producing textiles, plastics and pharmaceuticals. Its ancient center was a World Heritage site that drew hordes of tourists.

Russia is not the only country to use disproportionate force when its military aims are frustrated, with the U.S. facing heavy criticism for indiscriminate attacks in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Aleppo “resembles those cities that were stricken during World War II,” Maamoun Abdul-Karim, head of the government’s museums and archaeology department, said in late 2016. The scale of devastation evoked comparisons to Grozny, or the British World War II firebombing of the German city of Dresden.

The damage inflicted on Aleppo and Grozny by Russian warplanes was relentless; a tactic to avoid being sucked into street fighting and to limit troop casualties. Russia’s war on Ukraine has barely begun. The prospect of close-quarters street fighting, should it come to that, lies ahead.

“This may end up looking like something out of the Middle Ages in terms of cities being besieged and bombarded … with extraordinary misery, very brutal tactics, indiscriminate shelling by the Russians,” Douglas Lute, a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO, told the Associated Press.

___

Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report from Washington.

___

Follow the AP’s coverage of the war between Russia and Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-boris-johnson-europe-aleppo-chechnya-efe1d49811703e230c2b15de4f14d69b

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Harris says US commitment to NATO is ‘ironclad’ as she aims to reassure its Romanian allies – CNN

By Kevin Liptak, CNN

Updated 10:13 AM ET, Fri March 11, 2022

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/11/politics/kamala-harris-romania/index.html

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Twitter, Facebook remove Russian embassy tweet on Mariupol hospital bombing – Reuters.com

March 10 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc (TWTR.N)and Meta Platform’s (FB.O) Facebook have removed posts from the Russian Embassy in the United Kingdom about the bombing of a children’s hospital in Mariupol for breaking its rules against denying violent events, the companies said on Thursday.

Three people including a child were killed in Wednesday’s air strike on the maternity and children’s hospital in the Ukrainian city, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday.

“We took enforcement action against the Tweets you referenced as they were in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically our Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior policies related to the denial of violent events,” said a Twitter spokesperson.

One of the tweets from @RussianEmbassy posted images with a red label saying “fake” and said the maternity house was non-operational and was being used by Ukrainian armed forces.

Russia has shifted its stance over the hospital bombing, with a mix of statements on Thursday that veered between aggressive denials and a call by the Kremlin to establish clear facts. read more

Moscow has cracked down on tech platforms during the invasion of Ukraine, which it calls a “special operation,” including restricting Twitter and blocking Meta-owned (FB.O) Facebook. Twitter has also launched a privacy-protected version of its site, known as an “onion service”, which can be accessed through the dark web and could bypass such restrictions.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Source Article from https://www.reuters.com/world/twitter-removes-russian-embassy-tweet-mariupol-hospital-bombing-2022-03-10/

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Mariupol children’s hospital bombing one of many attacks on medical facilities since Russian invasion, WHO says – CNN

Kyiv, Ukraine (CNN)An injured woman, heavily pregnant, is carried on a stretcher past the smoldering wreckage of Mariupol’s maternity and children’s hospital. Her face is pale, one hand cradles her belly in a protective gesture. Every window on that side of the building appears to be blown out; wreckage litters the ground around it.

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CNN’s Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych reported from Kyiv, while Laura Smith-Spark wrote from London. CNN’s Nick Paton Walsh, Henrik Pettersson, Mariya Knight, Hira Humayun, Angus Watson, Lindsay Isaac, Richard Roth, Matt Egan, Joseph Ataman and Anastasia Graham-Yooll contributed to this report.

Source Article from https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/10/europe/russia-invasion-ukraine-03-10-intl/index.html

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Russia-Ukraine war: What happened today (March 10) – NPR

In this photo released by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (center) chairs a tripartite meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba(right) in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP

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Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP

In this photo released by the Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu (center) chairs a tripartite meeting with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (left) and Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba(right) in Antalya, Turkey, on Thursday.

Russian Foreign Ministry Press Service via AP

As Thursday draws to a close in Kyiv and in Moscow, here are the key developments of the day:

No breakthrough came from the highest-level Ukraine-Russia meeting since fighting began. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov reached no significant agreement in Antalya, Turkey, in the countries’ first cabinet-level meeting since the start of the invasion on Feb. 24.

The toll of Russia’s attack on a maternity hospital in Mariupol becomes clearer. Ukrainian officials say three people died, including one child, and at least 17 people were wounded in Wednesday’s attack. Russian authorities claim the hospital was used as a paramilitary base. Russia’s Embassy in the U.K. claimed in a tweet that a pregnant beauty blogger “played” an injured victim for photos with “realistic makeup.” Mariupol, meanwhile, remains under siege. These satellite images show the devastation.

The U.S. still believes a no-fly zone over Ukraine could result in a larger war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said either a full or limited no-fly zone would “almost certainly” lead to a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S. and NATO. Visiting Poland, Vice President Kamala Harris voiced support for an international investigation into war crimes by Russia.

Goldman Sachs became the first major Wall Street bank to pull out of Russia. This follows exits by McDonald’s, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Starbucks and hundreds of other foreign companies. Despite concerns from journalists and activists, Google imposed more restrictions on payments from YouTube — among the country’s most popular platforms, and one of the few to evade Kremlin shutdowns so far.

The Senate is expected to vote soon on a $13.6 billion emergency aid package for Ukraine that the House of Representatives approved late Wednesday as part of a massive government spending package. Lawmakers more than doubled the amount of aid as the conflict grew.

In-depth

How Russia’s war in Ukraine could end, according to Condoleezza Rice.

The letter Z is becoming a symbol of Russia’s war in Ukraine. But what does it mean?

A Polish hotel recovering from its own tragic past has become a refuge for Ukrainians.

The first of Ukraine’s fallen soldiers are starting to return home. Hundreds gather to honor them.

The U.K. sanctions Roman Abramovich, halting his plan to sell Chelsea Football Club.

As oil prices climb, the U.S. sees a potential thaw in tensions with Venezuela — Russia’s top ally in Latin America.

Earlier developments

You can read more news from Thursday here, as well as more in-depth reporting and daily recaps here. Also, listen and subscribe to NPR’s State of Ukraine podcast for updates throughout the day.

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Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085716785/russia-ukraine-war-what-happened-today-march-10

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Disney employees ‘angry’ over response to Florida LGBTQ bill – Los Angeles Times

Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Chapek on Wednesday tried to soothe outrage at the company’s muted response to Florida’s controversial bill restricting classroom instruction of sexual orientation and gender identity.

But his belated statement opposing the legislation, and outreach to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, did not satisfy critics, including queer Disney employees outraged by reports that the company had donated to politicians who backed the bill. The company is a huge Florida employer, with tens of thousands of workers at Walt Disney World Resort.

A group of employees at Disney-owned Pixar Animation Studios sent a statement to leadership, expressing their frustration with the company’s position.

“We are writing because we are disappointed, hurt, afraid, and angry,” said the statement, attributed to the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar and their allies. “In regards to Disney’s financial involvement with legislators behind the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, we hoped that our company would show up for us. But it didn’t.”

The statement, released after Wednesday’s annual shareholder meeting, called on Disney’s “leadership to immediately withdraw all financial support from the legislators behind the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, to fully denounce this legislation publicly, and to make amends for their financial involvement.”

Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During the shareholder meeting, Chapek said Disney was “opposed to the bill from the outset” but chose not to take a public stance “because we thought we could be more effective working behind-the-scenes, engaging directly with lawmakers.”

The bill forbids classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through third grade “or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.” Florida’s Legislature passed the bill this week, and DeSantis is expected to sign it into law.

Chapek said he called DeSantis to “express our disappointment and concern that if the legislation becomes law, it could be used to unfairly target gay, lesbian, non-binary and transgender kids and families.” DeSantis agreed to meet with Chapek and a small delegation of Disney LGBTQ+ leaders, Chapek told investors.

DeSantis’ office confirmed the call, but said the governor’s position has not changed and that “no in-person meeting has been scheduled yet.”

Chapek said in his remarks that Disney would reassess its approach to advocacy and “political giving in Florida and beyond.” Disney, like many corporations, has a long history of donating to both Republicans and Democrats in the places where it operates.

Chapek said Disney had pledged $5 million to LGBTQ+ rights groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, and said the company would sign the organization’s statement opposing anti-gay legislation.

The Human Rights Campaign, however, said it would turn down Disney’s donation until the company takes further action against anti-LGBTQ legislation at the state level.

“The Human Rights Campaign will not accept this money from Disney until we see them build on their public commitment and work with LGBTQ+ advocates to ensure that dangerous proposals, like Florida’s Don’t Say Gay or Trans bill, don’t become dangerous laws, and if they do, to work to get them off the books,” the organization’s interim president, Joni Madison, said in a statement. “This should be the beginning of Disney’s advocacy efforts rather than the end.”

Disney said in a statement that while the company was “surprised and disappointed” by Human Rights Campaign’s decision, “we remain committed to meaningful action to combat legislation targeting the LGBTQ+ community.”

Chapek on Monday sent a memo to employees explaining why he hadn’t publicly condemned the measure, writing that corporate statements “do very little to change outcomes or minds” and instead are “often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame.”

Multiple employees and people who have worked on Disney shows have spoken out publicly in reaction to both Chapek’s memo and his additional comments on Wednesday reversing course. Those who’ve taken their dismay public include “The Owl House” creator Dana Terrace and TV animation writer Benjamin Siemon.

“The most important thing to me and, I believe, all our community right now, is that you say clearly and publicly that you’re going to stop giving money to all of these politicians that voted for this very hateful bill,” Simeon said in a video posted Wednesday on Twitter.

Ryan Aguirre, who works at Disney Television Studios, tweeted: “I love Disney. A lot. And getting to work for them has literally been a dream come true. My heart is broken right now.”

Employees who spoke to The Times anonymously because they’re afraid for their jobs said anger and frustration is widespread throughout the company. Under prior Chief Executive Bob Iger, the company occasionally weighed in on state legislation, threatening to stop filming in Georgia if the state’s restrictive abortion bill became law, for example.

“I don’t know that [Chapek] could have achieved anything by saying something earlier, but waiting until after it passes the Legislature is a great way to ensure nothing is achieved,” said one employee who who was not authorized to comment publicly.

The Pixar employee letter took issue specifically with Chapek’s argument in Monday’s email that Disney could more effectively create social change through its diverse movies and TV shows, such as “Encanto” and “Love, Victor.” The letter alleged that Disney has limited scenes of LGBTQ affection in Pixar content.

“Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest, regardless of when there is protest from both the creative teams and executive leadership at Pixar,” the letter said. “Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”

Source Article from https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2022-03-10/disney-employees-hurt-and-angry-over-ceos-response-to-florida-lgbtq-bill

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Americans are experiencing unprecedented stress levels, poll shows – NBC News

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White House warns Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine, rejects false ‘conspiracy’ of U.S. biolabs – The Washington Post

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/10/ukraine-russia-disinformation-us-biolabs-chemical-weapons/

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Harris urges probe of Ukraine maternity hospital attack, accuses Russia of ‘unimaginable’ atrocities – USA TODAY

Harris was visiting NATO ally Poland in a show of solidarity against Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine.
The vice president said “Absolutely there should be an investigation. And we should all be watching.”
Harris announced $53 million in humanitarian aid to Poland.

Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday condemned Russia’s airstrikes on a maternity hospital in Ukraine as “atrocities of unimaginable proportions” and urged an investigation into the attacks.

Harris underscored the United States’ commitment to “defend every inch of NATO territory.” The vice president visited Poland as part of an effort to show unity among NATO allies in response to Russia’s war on Ukraine, where the death toll has been rising.

The trip came amid a controversy after the Pentagon declined Poland’s surprise proposal to provide Soviet-built MiG-29 fighter jets for the United States to give to Ukraine.

“We have been witnessing for weeks, and certainly just in the last 24 hours, atrocities of unimaginable proportions,” Harris said. “A maternity hospital, a children’s hospital, where we have witnessed pregnant women who were there for care for one reason being taken out because they required care, because of an act of violence, unprovoked, unjustified.”

Russian airstrikes hit the hospital in the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol on Wednesday. Three people were killed, including a child, and 17 people wounded.

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‘Horrifying’:Russia strike on Ukraine maternity hospital draws outrage as civilian war toll rises

Harris noted the United Nations has started to review Russian attacks on civilians.

“Absolutely there should be an investigation. And we should all be watching,” Harris said at a news conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”

Duda went further than Harris.

“Russians are committing war crimes,” he said. “This is an act of barbarity, bearing the features of a genocide aimed at eliminating or destroying a nation.”

VISUALS:Mapping and tracking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Fighter jets debacle

Harris and Duda stood as a united front, bucking any concerns of tension between the two countries after the United States turned down Poland’s fighter jet proposal.

“I want to be very clear, the United States and Poland are united in what we have done and are prepared to do to help Ukraine and the people of Ukraine,” she said. “Full stop.”

When asked whether there is an alternative plan to get materials to Ukraine to defend itself, Harris noted the United States has given billions in aid.

What weapons are used in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? A visual guide to military equipment and locations

“We’re making deliveries every day in terms of what we can do in terms of assistance,” she said. “In particular, when you look at what we’ve been doing as it relates to anti-tank and anti-defense systems, that is an ongoing process, and that’s not going to stop to the extent that there is a need.”

Duda tried to clear up Poland’s fighter jet proposal, saying he wanted NATO to decide on the plan so “that Poland remains a credible member of NATO, not a country who decides on its own on important issues.”

In Washington, Republican senators blasted the Biden administration Thursday for declining to send donated Polish jet fighters to Ukraine despite pleas from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for air support.

Two of them, Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., and Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said they didn’t buy the administration’s reliance on a U.S. intelligence assessment that concluded that transferring jet fighters directly to Ukraine would escalate U.S. involvement more than providing anti-aircraft batteries and other weapons and that it could drag the United States into a war with Russia.

“It’s not impossible to figure out a way to solve the problem if we wanted to solve the problem,” Sasse told top U.S. intelligence officials testifying at a Senate intelligence hearing on the annual Worldwide Threat Assessment report. “And women and children are being bombed. Nobody on this committee is calling for U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. But there’s more we can do, and we should be going faster.”

Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, said U.S. military and intelligence officials believe providing planes could cross some sort of red line and prompt Russian President Vladimir Putin to lash out.

“I do believe that there is an escalation ladder,” Berrier said. “And there’s a difference between an anti-tank weapon, a shoulder-fired air defense weapon and a combat aircraft and a jet that could cross a border and actually conduct operations on Russian soil.”

US aid to Poland

Harris announced the United States will give $50 million in humanitarian aid to Poland.

Harris said the excess amount of refugees fleeing the war “put an extraordinary burden on Poland and the people of Poland.”

“We will continue with the support that we can give you, Mr. President, in terms of the work that you and the people of Poland have been doing to bear this burden,” Harris said.

Poland has accepted more than 1.4 million Ukrainian refugees, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.

Oil, gold, trade:Congress looks for options to punish Russia for invading Ukraine

The vice president said two U.S. Patriot missile systems were delivered to Poland, as promised. There have been growing fears that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine could spill over to neighboring countries, such as Poland.

Harris reaffirmed that the United States would fulfill its obligation under NATO’s Article 5 to defend member countries if they are attacked.

“The United States commitment for Article 5 is ironclad,” she said. “The United States is prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory. The United States takes seriously that an attack against one is an attack against all.”

Contributing: Josh Meyer

Reach Rebecca Morin at Twitter @RebeccaMorin_

Source Article from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/03/10/kamala-harris-urges-probe-into-strike-ukraine-maternity-hospital/9451468002/

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U.S. Says North Korea Is Testing a New Intercontinental Missile – The New York Times

The two experts judged the missile’s engines to be liquid-fueled and said that if its first stage held four engines, the missile could, “in principle,” deliver up to nearly four tons of payload “to any point in the continental United States.” Its lifting power, they added, would thus be “much greater” than that of the Hwasong-15 — previously North Korea’s most capable ICBM, tested in November 2017.

In an interview, Mr. Van Diepen said he was surprised at Washington’s characterization of the missile as a new ICBM because it went to peak heights of just 385 and 350 miles, respectively, during its testing on the first and second day this year. In an article, he had characterized it as a medium-range missile.

In contrast, the Hwasong-15, on its one and only test flight, flew to a height of 2,780 miles, according to the North Koreans.

Mr. Van Diepen said that if Washington’s ICBM analysis was correct for the new missile, it had soared far short of its capabilities, perhaps as part of a cautious approach to engine testing. “Maybe it was not fully fueled or they cut off the engines,” he said.

Still, if more flight-testing proves it to be the same missile that made its public debut in 2020 during the military parade, Mr. Van Diepen said, it would represent a fearsome addition to North Korea’s expanding arsenal. For instance, its vast lifting power in theory would let it loft multiple nuclear warheads at once, greatly increasing its destructive power.

“It’s another potential threat to the homeland,” he said. “But they’ve got a way to go” to perfect its hundreds of systems and prove its ability to send a warhead that speeds easily through space and then experiences the jolt of a fiery atmospheric re-entry toward a target on the ground.

To date, Mr. Van Diepen said, “they haven’t yet tested any ICBM to full range, so by definition they haven’t confirmed that their warheads could survive re-entry.”

Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/us/politics/north-korea-intercontinental-missile.html

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US VP Harris embraces call for war crimes probe of Russia – The Associated Press – en Español

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday embraced calls for an international war crimes investigation of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, citing the “atrocities” of bombing civilians, including a maternity hospital.

Speaking alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda at a press conference in Warsaw, where she is demonstrating U.S. support for NATO’s eastern flank allies, Harris expressed outrage over the bombing Wednesday of the maternity hospital and scenes of bloodied pregnant women being evacuated, as well as other attacks on civilians. She stopped short of directly accusing Russia of having committed war crimes.

“Absolutely there should be an investigation, and we should all be watching,” said Harris, noting that the United Nations has already started a process to review allegations. “I have no question the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities.”

Harris’ visit to Poland came amid a kerfuffle between Warsaw and Washington over a Polish proposal to send its Soviet-made fighter jets to a U.S. and NATO base in Germany so they could then go to Ukraine. Poland, in turn, would receive American F-16s.

Poland had publicly floated the proposal without first consulting the U.S. Just as Harris arrived in Warsaw late Wednesday, the Pentagon definitively rejected the idea, saying it would run the risk of escalating the Russia-Ukraine war.

At Thursday’s news conference, both Harris and Duda sought to brush aside differences on the fighter jets issue.

“I want to be very clear, the United States and Poland are united in what we have done and are prepared to do to help Ukraine and the people of Ukraine, full stop,” she said.

Duda for his part sidestepped questions about why Poland announced its proposal without first consulting the United States. He stressed his government’s intention was driven by a desire for “NATO as a whole to make a common decision” on the matter.

“In a nutshell we have to be a responsible member of the North Atlantic Alliance,” Duda said.

Harris’ embrace for an investigation of war crimes came after the Biden administration on Wednesday warned that Russia might seek to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine as the White House rejected Russian claims of illegal chemical weapons development in the country it has invaded.

The White House raised the notion after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova — without evidence — accused Ukraine of running chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor announced last week he was launching an investigation that could target senior officials believed responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide amid a rising civilian death toll and widespread destruction of property during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

But investigations at the ICC take many years, and relatively few convictions have ever been won. The ICC was set up in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. The crime of aggression, which can’t be investigated in Ukraine because neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member of the court, was added later.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki called the hospital bombing “horrific” and said the U.S. is going through a “legal review process” to determine whether to label the bombing a war crime.

Duda said “it is obvious to us that in Ukraine Russians are committing war crimes.” He added that in his view the invasion was “bearing the features of a genocide — it aims at eliminating and destroying a nation.”

Harris praised the Polish people for their generosity for taking in nearly 1.5 million refugees since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.

“I’ve been watching or reading about the work of ordinary people doing extraordinary things, and so I bring you thanks from the American people,” Harris said earlier during a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hours after the U.S. House passed a massive spending bill that includes $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine and its European allies.

The legislation includes $6.8 billion to care for refugees and other economic aid to allies.

Harris also met Thursday with seven refugees who have fled from Ukraine to Poland since the Russian invasion began. She praised the refugees for their “courage” and said the conversation would help inform U.S. assistance efforts. The group included a Ukrainian advocate for people with disabilities, a Moroccan university student, a professional film producer from Odessa, a Senegalese community leader and teacher, a LGBTQIA+ rights activist from Kyiv, and a Ukrainian energy expert and her young adult daughter.

“We are here to support you, and you are not alone,” Harris told the group. “And I know there’s so much about the experience that you’ve had that has made you feel alone. You are not alone. We around the world are watching.”

The vice president also met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while in Warsaw. The Canadian leader has been in Europe in recent days meeting with allies about Ukraine. Trudeau credited the Biden administration for rallying Europe’s largely unified response.

“Vladimir Putin totally underestimated the strength and resolve of the Ukrainian people,” Trudeau said. “But he also underestimated the strength and resolve of democracies to stand up in support of Ukraine, (and) in support of those values, and principles that underlie everything we do.”

Harris’ whirlwind visit to Poland and Romania was billed by the White House as a chance for the vice president to consult with two of the leaders from eastern flank NATO nations about the growing humanitarian crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Already, more than 2 million refugees have fled Ukraine — with more than half coming to Poland — and even more expected to arrive in the days ahead.

Duda warned of a “refugee disaster” if Poland doesn’t receive more assistance to help house and feed Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. He said he asked Harris for the U.S. to “speed up” the process for those Ukrainian refugees who would want to go to the U.S. and might have family there.

“The United States is absolutely prepared to do what we can and what we must to support Poland, in terms of the burden that they have taken on,” Harris said.

Harris will travel on Friday to Bucharest, where she will meet Romanian President Klaus Iohannis.

___

Miller contributed from Washington. Associated Press writers Mike Corder at The Hague, Netherlands, and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed reporting.

Source Article from https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-harris-embraces-calls-for-war-crimes-probe-792555553cca39ef9e1b4f1e7f8cebe6

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Twitter removes tweets by Russian Embassy in United Kingdom for denying ‘violent events’ in Ukraine – CNBC

In this article

TWTR

Twitter took down two tweets by Russia’s embassy in the United Kingdom on Thursday for what the social media giant called “the denial of violent events” during the ongoing Russian attack on Ukraine.

In one of those tweets, Russia’s embassy claimed that a pregnant woman seen in a photo of casualties at a children’s hospital in the besieged port city of Mariupol that was destroyed by a Russian airstrike Wednesday was actually a Ukraine “beauty blogger” and suggested that the photo was staged propaganda.

That tweet contained two separate photos of women the embassy claimed are the same person. Another tweet referencing the claim remained online Thursday after two of the other tweets were taken down by Twitter.

“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules,” the link to that tweet later read.

At least one child and two adults were killed at the hospital, and another 17 were injured, Ukraine officials have said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a tweet containing video showing damage at the hospital, wrote, “children are under the wreckage.”

A Twitter spokesperson told CNBC in an email, “We took enforcement action against the Tweets you referenced as they were in violation of the Twitter Rules, specifically our Hateful Conduct and Abusive Behavior policies related to the denial of violent events.”

CNBC has requested comment from the embassy, and from a spokesperson at Russia’s embassy in Washington.

The Russian Embassy in Geneva claimed in a tweet that remains online that the Mariupol hospital was attacked because it was being used as a headquarters by a Ukraine paramilitary group, which was firing on the Russian military while using “#HumanShields.” Russia’s U.K. embassy retweeted that post.

Earlier Thursday, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Russia’s invasion has killed at least 549 civilians in Ukraine, of whom 41 were children.

An additional 957 civilians have been injured since the attack began two weeks ago, the office said, while noting that the actual casualty total is believed to be “considerably higher.”

“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multilaunch rocket systems, and missile and airstrikes,” that office said.

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Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/10/twitter-removes-russian-uk-embassy-tweets-for-ukraine-denials.html

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Travel mask mandate extended from March 18 to April 18 – NPR

In this 2020 photo, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant prepares a plane for takeoff at the Kansas City International airport in Kansas City, Mo. TSA’s travel mask mandate has been extended a month, to April 18, 2022.

Charlie Riedel/AP

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Charlie Riedel/AP

In this 2020 photo, a Southwest Airlines flight attendant prepares a plane for takeoff at the Kansas City International airport in Kansas City, Mo. TSA’s travel mask mandate has been extended a month, to April 18, 2022.

Charlie Riedel/AP

The Transportation Security Administration is extending the current mandate for mask use on public transportation and in transportation hubs through April 18.

The mandate had been set to expire on March 18.

The extension is based on a recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In a statement Thursday, TSA said the CDC will work on a “revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor.”

Like recent guidance regarding masks in other settings, the CDC says any revision will be based on the levels of COVID-19 at the community level, as well as on the risk of new variants, national data and the latest science.

The agency left the door open to an earlier termination of the policy, should the science support that.

The travel extension comes two weeks after the CDC relaxed its mask guidance for communities where hospitals aren’t under high strain, and as states around the country — and across the political spectrum — have relaxed a number of precautionary measures, including on indoor mask usage.

Citing the changing guidelines surrounding hospitalization rates and local pandemic requirements, a number of travel industry stakeholders had hoped to see the mask mandate expire on the original March 18 cutoff.

A Feb. 25 letter to Jeffrey Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, asked that the Biden administration repeal the travel mask mandate and roll back other precautionary travel measures.

“With declining hospitalization rates, increased immunity, widely available vaccines and cutting-edge treatments on the horizon, America is reaching an inflection point where endemic-focused policies can replace pandemic-driven restrictions,” said the letter, which was signed by Airlines for America, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Travel Association.

The trade organizations represent some of the biggest players in the U.S. travel industry, including airlines American, Delta and United, and hotel companies Marriott and Hilton.

“As leading U.S. travel and business organizations, we respectfully urge the Administration to chart a clear course for replacing pandemic-era travel advisories, requirements and restrictions with endemic focused policies of a ‘new normal’ that enable travel to resume fully, freely and safely,” the letter said.

Among its recommendations, the travel organizations asked that the White House collaborate internationally to “normalize” travel conditions and entry requirements.

Source Article from https://www.npr.org/2022/03/10/1085739883/mask-mandate-planes-trains-ferries-tsa-cdc

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White House warns Russia could use chemical weapons in Ukraine, rejects false ‘conspiracy’ of U.S. biolabs – The Washington Post

Source Article from https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/10/ukraine-russia-disinformation-us-biolabs-chemical-weapons/

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