Junior Digest

Mar 15,2022: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been denied permission to appeal to the UK Supreme Court against moves to extradite him to the United States, where he could face a lifetime in prison.

“The application has been refused by the Supreme Court and the reason given is that application did not raise an arguable point of law,” a Supreme Court spokesperson said on Monday.
Washington wants to put the 50-year-old on trial in connection with the publication of 500,000 secret military files relating to the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The ruling brings the long-running legal saga in the UK courts closer to a conclusion.
A British district court judge had initially rejected a US extradition request on the grounds that Assange was likely to kill himself if held under harsh US prison conditions. US authorities later provided assurances that the WikiLeaks founder would not face the severe treatment that his lawyers said would put his physical and mental health at risk.
In December, the High Court overturned the lower court’s decision, saying that the US promises were enough to guarantee that Assange would be treated humanely.

The case is now expected to be formally sent to British Home Secretary Priti Patel for approval, after which Assange can try to challenge the decision by judicial review. A judicial review involves a judge examining the legitimacy of a public body’s decision.

WikiLeaks wrote on its Twitter account: “The case now moves to @UKHomeSecretary Priti Patel to authorise the extradition.”

‘Extremely disappointing’
Assange’s legal team said they will make representations to Patel as she considers whether to allow or block the extradition.
It also indicated it could launch further appeals on other points in the case.

“No appeal to the High Court has yet been filed by him in respect of the other important issues he raised previously,” his lawyers Birnberg Peirce Solicitors said in a statement.

“That separate process of appeal has, of course, yet to be initiated.”
Meanwhile, Barry Pollack, Assange’s US-based lawyer, said Monday that it was “extremely disappointing” that the UK’s Supreme Court is unwilling to hear the appeal.

“Mr Assange will continue the legal process fighting his extradition to the United States to face criminal charges for publishing truthful and newsworthy information,” he said.

The case has become a cause celebre for media freedom, with Assange’s supporters accusing Washington of trying to muzzle reporting of legitimate security concerns.

Assange is wanted to face trial for violating the US Espionage Act by publishing military and diplomatic files in 2010.

He could face up to 175 years in jail if found guilty, although the exact sentence is difficult to estimate.

He has been held on remand at a top-security jail in southeast London since 2019, for jumping bail in a previous case accusing him of sexual assault in Sweden.

That case was dropped but he was not released from prison after serving time for breaching bail on the grounds he was a flight risk in the US extradition case.

Assange spent seven years at Ecuador’s embassy in London to avoid being removed to Sweden but was arrested when the government changed in Quito and his diplomatic protection was removed.

Mar 19,2022: U S President Biden warned China’s leader, Xi Jinping, that there would be “implications and consequences” for providing direct military aid to Russia amid a grinding assault in Ukraine that is increasingly aimed at civilian targets.

The leaders’ nearly two-hour video call came amid intermittent peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, and was the latest example of the international pressure bearing down on Russia’s diminishing circle of allies.

Biden’s goal was to clarify the “implications and consequences” of China’s decision to support Russia, as its military “conducts brutal attacks” against Ukrainians, according to the White House.

NATO wants Chinese banks to avoid helping Russia evade the consequences of the financial sanctions. Despite the warning, China’s public stance did not appear to change.

Biden’s counterpart stated the Russia-Ukraine war, which started on Feb. 24, was “not in anyone’s interest,” according to China’s Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, Chinese media portrayed China-U.S. relations as facing a “dilemma created by” former President Donald Trump, amid “more and more challenges,” The Associated Press reported.

Xi and Putin met in early February to declare a “friendship” between the two countries.

Mar 15,2022: The United States warned China against providing military or financial help to Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine, as sanctions on Russian political and business leaders mounted and civilians sought to flee intense fighting on the ground.
Further talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators to ease the crisis were expected on Tuesday after discussions on Monday via video ended with no new progress announced.
Thousands have been killed in intense fighting and bombardments since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Russia calls its actions a “special military operation” to “denazify” the country and prevent genocide, a claim the United States and its allies reject as a pretext for an unjustified and illegal attack.
According to U.S. officials, Russia has asked for military and economic support from Beijing, which signalled a willingness to provide aid.
Moscow denies that, saying it has sufficient resources to fulfil all of its aims. China’s foreign ministry has labelled the reports on assistance as “disinformation”.
“We have communicated very clearly to Beijing that we won’t stand by,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters after U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome. “We will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses.”
The seven-hour meeting was “intense” and reflected “the gravity of the moment,” according to a U.S. official.
‘NO WAR’
In Russia, a rare anti-war protest occurred in a studio during the main news programme on state TV’s Channel One, which is the primary source of news for millions of Russians and closely follows the Kremlin line.
A woman held up a sign in English and Russian that said: “NO WAR. Stop the war. Don’t believe propaganda. They are lying to you here.”
Britain’s defence ministry said Russia could be planning to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine in response to a staged fake attack on Russian troops, without citing evidence. U.S. officials have made similar statements.
Russia has accused Ukraine of planning to use biological weapons. The United Nations on Friday said it had no evidence Kyiv had such a programme.
Moscow on Monday allowed the first convoy to escape besieged Mariupol, home to the worst humanitarian crisis of the conflict.
“In the first two hours, 160 cars left,” Andrei Rempel, a representative of the Mariupol city council told Reuters.
Local authorities say as many as 2,500 civilians have died so far, a toll that cannot be independently confirmed.
The United Nations says more than 2.8 million people have now left Ukraine since the start of the war.

SHANGHAI ,Mar 22,2022: Not a single country managed to meet the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) air quality standard in 2021, a survey of pollution data in 6,475 cities showed on Tuesday (March 22), and smog even rebounded in some regions after a Covid-19-related dip.

The WHO recommends that average annual readings of small and hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5 should be no more than 5 micrograms per cubic metre after changing its guidelines last year, saying that even low concentrations caused significant health risks.

But only 3.4 per cent of the surveyed cities met the standard in 2021, according to data complied by IQAir, a Swiss pollution technology company that monitors air quality.
As many as 93 cities saw PM2.5 levels at 10 times the recommended level.

“There are a lot of countries that are making big strides in reduction,” said Ms Christi Schroeder, air quality science manager with IQAir.

“China started with some very big numbers and they are continuing to decrease over time. But there are also places in the world where it is getting significantly worse.”

India’s overall pollution levels worsened in 2021 and New Delhi remained the world’s most polluted capital, the data showed.

Bangladesh was the most polluted country, also unchanged from the previous year, while Chad ranked second after the African country’s data was included for the first time.

China, which has been waging war on pollution since 2014, fell to 22nd in the PM2.5 rankings in 2021, down from 14th place a year earlier, with average readings improving slightly over the year to 32.6 micrograms, IQAir said.

Hotan in the north-western region of Xinjiang was China’s worst performing city, with average PM2.5 readings of more than 100 micrograms, largely caused by sandstorms.

It fell to third on the list of the world’s most polluted cities after being overtaken by Bhiwadi and Ghaziabad, both in India.

Mar 18,2022: After Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) has bought two million barrels of Russian crude oil as Indian refiners stepped up efforts to secure Russian oil available at deep discounts.

Just like IOC, HPCL also bought Russian Urals crude through European trader Vitol, sources with knowledge of the development said.

Separately, Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) has floated a tender seeking one million barrels of similar crude oil.

Western sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine has prompted many companies and countries to shun its oil. This has led to Russian crude being available in the market at deep discounts.

To capture the opportunity, Indian refiners are floating tenders to buy such discounted oil. The tenders are mostly won by traders, who would have stocked inventories of the cheap Russian oil.

The sources said IOC, the nation’s top oil firm, late last week bought three million barrels of Urals through Vitol for May delivery at a discount of USD 20-25 a barrel to dated Brent.
HPCL this week made the rare purchase of two million barrels of Urals crude for loading in May, they said.

Meanwhile, Reliance Industries Ltd, operator of the world’s biggest refining complex, may avoid buying Russian fuel as it has huge exposure in the US and the sanctions against Moscow may impact its business.

Since 2020, IOC has had a term or fixed volume deal to buy crude oil from Russias Rosneft. But, it rarely imported volumes under the term deal as the cost of transporting the oil from Russia made it uneconomical.

But, with discounts of USD 20-25 per barrel have turned the tide in favour of Russian crude and Indian refiners are lapping it up, the sources said.

New Delhi has historic diplomatic and defence ties with Moscow and has called for an end to the violence in Ukraine but stopped short of condemning the invasion.

Many countries, including European nations, remain heavily dependent on fuel from Russia, the world’s second-largest crude oil exporter behind Saudi Arabia. However, only one per cent (nearly 45,000 barrels a day in 2021) of India’s total crude oil imports come from Russia.

Its decision to take up discounted Russian oil will not violate any of the US sanctions on Moscow, the White House has said.

Mar 1,2022: The Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab government is likely to take key decisions in its first Cabinet meeting on Saturday, informed sources. The first meeting of the council of ministers will be held after the expansion of the Cabinet with the swearing-in of 10 ministers, which will take place around 11 am today.

According to the sources, the Bhagwant Mann government is likely to take the decision in the Cabinet meeting to implement one of the election promises of the Aam Admi Party (AAP). Among other poll promises of the AAP in Punjab, the national convenor of the party and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had promised to improve the condition of government schools and hospitals in the state, generate employment avenues, free electricity up to 300 units per billing cycle and also promised Rs 1,000 per month to women above 18 years.

He had also promised a corruption-free government and controlling drug menace in the state. Earlier on Thursday, the Punjab Chief Minister announced that an anti-corruption helpline will be launched in the state on ‘Shaheed Diwas (Martyr’s Day)’ on March 23.

Mann had said that the people will be able to lodge complaints against corruption via WhatsApp. A day after Mann assumed office, the AAP-led Punjab government took the first step towards fulfilling the promises which it had made in the run-up to the state Assembly polls – a corruption-free government and controlling drug menace in the state that shares a border with Pakistan.

Earlier, on March 17, Punjab’s newly-elected MLAs, including Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, took oath as members of the Legislative Assembly. The AAP leader and the party’s face for recently held Punjab Assembly polls took oath as the Chief Minister of the state on March 16.

The AAP won a landslide victory in the recently concluded Punjab Assembly polls, winning 92 seats, pushing most of its rivals to the margins of the electoral politics in the state.

Mar 18,2022: Rescue workers searched for survivors in the rubble of a theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol which Ukraine said had been hit by a Russian air raid, as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine entered its fourth week.

Hundreds of civilians had been taking shelter in the grand, columned theatre in central Mariupol after their homes were destroyed in three weeks of fighting in the southern port city of 430,000. Russia denied bombing the building.
City authorities said they were still not able to estimate the number of possible casualties from the attack on the theatre.

“Yesterday and today, despite continuous shelling, rubble is being cleared as much as is possible and people are being rescued. Information about victims is still being clarified,” the city council said in a statement. It provided no figures on the numbers rescued.
Commercial satellite pictures showed the word “children” had been marked out on the ground in front of the building before it was hit.

Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the allegation that Russia had bombed the theatre was a “lie”.

“Russia’s armed forces don’t bomb towns and cities,” she told a briefing.

Local authorities said 350,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol, and that 30,000 had been evacuated in recent days.

No breakthrough at talks
Officials from both sides met again for talks but said their positions remained far apart as Western sources and Ukrainian officials said Russia’s assault had stalled.

The assault on Ukraine started with troops crossing the border or landing by sea and air on February 24.
But Western countries say its expectations of a swift victory and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government have been dashed and its invasion force has become bogged down.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian defence ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzyanyk said Russian forces had made no significant advances around the capital, Kyiv, in the previous 24-48 hours and had resorted to “chaotic” shelling.

Mar 21,2022: Pakistan’s parliament will convene on Friday to take up a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, the lower house speaker’s office said on Sunday, heightening fears of political turmoil in the country.

An alliance of opposition parties filed the motion against Khan earlier this month, saying he had lost his parliamentary majority after more than a dozen defections from his party.
Pakistan’s parliament will convene on Friday to take up a no-confidence motion against Prime Minister Imran Khan, the lower house speaker’s office said on Sunday, heightening fears of political turmoil in the country.

Under the constitution, the speaker of the lower house of parliament is required to convene the session within 14 days of receiving the motion, a deadline which would fall on Monday.

But a statement from the speaker’s office said the date was pushed back several days because of a conference of Islamic countries in the capital Islamabad scheduled for March 23.
Without the coalition partners and the dissidents, Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which has 155 seats in the lower house, would fall short of the 172 needed to retain power.

The joint opposition has a strength of nearly 163 but could build a majority if most of the defectors effectively join its ranks via a no-confidence vote.

The opposition accuses Khan of mismanaging the economy and foreign policy.

No Pakistani PM has ever completed a full term.

WASHINGTON,Mar 17,2022: As the war in Ukraine rages on, diplomats trying to salvage the languishing 2015 Iran nuclear deal have been forging ahead with negotiations despite distractions caused by the conflict. They now appear to be near the cusp of a deal that would bring the U.S. back into the accord and bring Iran back into compliance with limits on its nuclear program.

After 11 months of on-and-off talks in Vienna, U.S. officials and others say only a very small number of issues remain to be resolved. Meanwhile, Russia appears to have backed down on a threat to crater an agreement over Ukraine-related sanctions that had dampened prospects for a quick deal.

That leaves an agreement — or at least an agreement in principle — up to political leaders in Washington and Tehran. But, as has been frequently the case, both Iran and the U.S. say those decisions must be made by the other side, leaving a resolution in limbo even as all involved say the matter is urgent and must be resolved as soon as possible.
“We are close to a possible deal, but we’re not there yet,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said Wednesday. “We are going to find out in the near term whether we’re able to get there.”
Also Wednesday in Berlin, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Christofer Burger said work “on drafting a final text has been completed” and ”the necessary political decisions now need to be taken in capitals.”

“We hope that these negotiations can now be swiftly completed,” he said.

Reentering the 2015 deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, has been a priority for the Biden administration since it took office.

Once a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration in which now-President Joe Biden served as vice president, the accord was abandoned in 2018 by then-President Donald Trump, who called it the worst deal ever negotiated and set about restoring and expanding on U.S. sanctions that had been lifted.

The Biden administration argues that any threat currently posed by Iran would be infinitely more dangerous should it obtain a nuclear weapon. Deal opponents, mostly but not entirely Republicans, say the original deal gave Iran a path to developing a nuclear bomb by removing various constraints under so-called “sunset” clauses. Those clauses meant that certain restrictions were to be gradually lifted.

Both sides’ arguments gained intensity over the weekend when Iran targeted the northern Iraqi city of Irbil with missile strikes that hit near the U.S. consulate compound. For critics, the attack was proof that Iran cannot be trusted and should not be given any sanctions relief. For the administration, it confirmed that Iran would be a greater danger if it obtains a nuke.
“What it underscores for us is the fact that Iran poses a threat to our allies, to our partners, in some cases to the United States, across a range of realms,” Price said. “The most urgent challenge we would face is a nuclear-armed Iran or an Iran that was on the very precipice of obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

Meanwhile, a new glimmer of hope for progress emerged Wednesday when Iran released two detained British citizens. The U.S., which withdrew from the nuclear deal in 2018, and the three European countries that remain parties to it had said an agreement would be difficult if not impossible to reach while those prisoners, along with several American citizens, remain jailed in Iran.

Should the prisoner issue be resolved, Price said Tuesday, the gaps in the nuclear negotiations could be closed quickly if Iran makes the political decision to return to compliance.

“We do think that we would be in a position to close those gaps, to close that remaining distance if there are decisions made in capitals, including in Tehran,” Price said.

Yet, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdolahian said a deal depends entirely on Washington.

Mar 17,2022: Mar 17,2022: Britain’s medicines regulator said on Thursday it had approved AstraZeneca’s antibody-based treatment to prevent COVID-19 in people whose immune response is poor.
The decision to grant approval for the treatment was endorsed by the government’s independent expert scientific advisory body after reviewing the evidence, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.
AstraZeneca’s antibody cocktail, branded Evusheld, has already been authorized in the United States to prevent COVID-19 infections in individuals with weak immune systems or a history of severe side effects from coronavirus vaccines.

Mar 15,2022:Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski and Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova were killed in Ukraine after the vehicle in which they were traveling was struck by incoming fire, the U.S. network said on Tuesday.

Zakrzewski, 55, was reporting with another Fox News journalist, Benjamin Hall, on Monday when they came under attack near the capital Kyiv, Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said in a note to staff. Hall remains in hospital.

Zakrzewski was a veteran war-zone photographer who had covered multiple conflicts for Fox News, including in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Based in London, he had been working in Ukraine since February.
In a second statement, Scott said Kuvshynova, 24, had been helping Fox’s crews navigate Kyiv and the surrounding area while gathering information and speaking with sources.

At least four journalists have died in nearly three weeks of fighting. American filmmaker and journalist Brent Renaud was shot dead by Russian forces in the town of Irpin in Ukraine’s Kyiv region, a regional police chief said on Sunday.

On March 1, Ukrainian camera operator Yevhenii Sakun was killed when Russian forces shelled a television tower in Kyiv, according to a social media account by a former colleague cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Washington, March 16,2022: Two US astronauts have prepared the International Space Station (ISS) for the installation of a new solar array (iROSA) boosting its electrical generating power in a nearly seven hour spacewalk, NASA announced in an official blog report. “NASA astronauts Kayla Barron and Raja Chari concluded their spacewalk at 3:06 pm EDT after 6 hours and 54 minutes in preparation for upcoming solar array installation,” the space agency said on Tuesday. The astronauts completed their major objectives in the spacewalk to prepare the space station for upcoming solar array upgrades by assembling and installing modification kits. They built a support bracket onto which a future ISS roll out solar array will be mounted. So far, two of six iROSAs have been deployed on the ISS, NASA said. It was the 247th spacewalk in support of space station assembly, upgrades and maintenance, and was the first in Chari’s career and the second for Barron. Both astronauts are serving on a six-month science mission on the ISS, according to NASA.

Ukraine ,Mar 16,2022: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday peace talks were sounding more realistic but more time was needed, as Russian air strikes killed five people in the capital Kyiv and the refugee tally from Moscow’s invasion reached 3 million.
Moscow has not captured any of Ukraine’s 10 biggest cities following its incursion that began on Feb. 24, the largest assault on a European state since 1945.

Ukrainian officials have raised hopes the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May, saying Moscow may be coming to terms with its failure to impose a new government by force and running out of fresh troops.

“The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in a video address ahead of the next round of talks.

ECONOMIC FALLOUT

The conflict has brought economic isolation upon Russia and the economic cost was fully exposed on Wednesday as its sanctions-ravaged government teetered on the brink of its first international debt default since the Bolshevik revolution.

Moscow was due to pay $117 million in interest on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds it had sold back in 2013, but it faces limits on making payments and has talked of paying in roubles, which would trigger a default.

The crisis is also being felt in the form of spiralling energy costs in many Western countries with some heavily reliant on exports from Russia and after a U.S. ban on imports of oil from the country.

The United States, the European Union and Britain announced further sanctions on Tuesday, while Moscow retaliated by putting Biden and other U.S. officials on a “stop list” that bars them from entering Russia.

The latest EU sanctions include bans on energy sector investments, luxury goods exports to Moscow, and imports of steel products from Russia.

They also freeze the assets of more business leaders believed to support the Russian state, including Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.

Mar19,2022: Chinese President Xi Jinping told his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden on Friday that the Taiwan issue needs to be handled properly to avoid a negative impact on Sino-U.S. relations, according to Chinese media.

China says Taiwan, which it views as a breakaway province to be brought back to the fold, by force if necessary, is the most sensitive and important issue in its relations with the United States.

Washington, which is seeking Beijing’s help in restoring peace in Ukraine after Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, has no formal diplomatic ties with Taipei but is Taiwan’s most important international backer and arms supplier.

“Some individuals in the United States are sending the wrong signals to pro-independence forces in Taiwan, and that’s very dangerous,” Xi told Biden on a video call.

“If the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, it will have a subversive impact on the relationship between the two countries.”

A White House statement said Biden reiterated in the call with Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan has not changed, and emphasized that Washington “continues to oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo.”

China has over the past two years stepped up its military activity near the island to assert its sovereignty claims.

Xi also told Biden that the war in Ukraine must end as soon as possible, according to Chinese state media.

All parties should jointly support the Russia-Ukraine dialogue while the United States and NATO should also conduct talks with Russia to solve the “crux” of the Ukraine crisis, Xi said.

Mar 17,2022: The key to solving the Ukraine crisis is in the hands of the United States and NATO, and China hopes that the United States can truly stand on the side of peace and justice with most developing countries in the world, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Thursday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian told a press conference that China has been promoting peace talks and making efforts to resolve the crisis peacefully, and will continue to play a constructive role on the issue.

He stressed that the initiators of the Ukraine crisis should carefully reflect on their role in it, earnestly assume their due responsibilities, and take practical steps to ease the situation and solve the problem, rather than blame others.
He said China’s position on the Ukraine issue is fair and objective, and the countries that should really “feel uncomfortable” are those that think they have won the Cold War and can dominate the world, ignore the concerns of other countries and continue to advance NATO’s enlargement through five rounds of eastward expansion.
The US government’s decision on NATO’s eastward expansion is directly linked to the current crisis in Ukraine, Zhao said, adding that the key to resolving the Ukraine crisis lies in the hands of the United States and NATO, and China hopes that the United States can truly stand on the side of peace and justice with most developing countries in the world to ease the situation in Ukraine.