Exclusive: U.S. Treasury's Yellen and trade czar Tai at odds over China tariffs

Tue, May 17, 2022
By Trevor Hunnicutt and David Lawder

WASHINGTON(Reuters) - President Joe Biden will have to resolve a heated internal debate among his aides over whether to cut taxes on goods from China as his administration tries to battle inflation, according to two U.S. officials and three other people familiar with the conversations.

Officials within Biden's administration have been debating for months the future of tariffs of up to 25% on hundreds of billions of dollars in imports from China imposed by former President Donald Trump that cost U.S. companies billions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is among those who want to slash many of these tariffs, while U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai wants to hold off for a broader China trade strategy that addresses protecting U.S. jobs and China's behavior in global markets, sources say. This approach could even include new strategic tariffs.

The clear divide is rare in a White House that has made providing a unified front part of its bedrock approach to governing the world's biggest economy.

Adding fuel to the debate, unions that are crucial to Democrats' November campaigns are opposed to relaxing tariffs at this time, said one adviser. Biden personally told union leaders they would be involved in any final tariff decision.

Inflation spiked 8% over the last year, putting pressure on Biden and the Federal Reserve to push down costs on groceries, gasoline and other consumer goods. Biden's Democrats face tough fights in November's midterm elections to retain control of Congress.

The administration believes there are few short-term fixes for inflation - an issue that it initially hoped would be temporary - amid supply chain kinks, high labor costs, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and China's COVID-19 lockdowns.

Reducing tariffs is one of the last major steps they could take that could meaningfully cut costs, economists inside and outside the administration say.

Yellen has publicly said tariff cuts are "worth considering" for their "desirable effects" on lowering U.S. inflation, echoing comments by Biden's deputy national security adviser Daleep Singh.

Yellen believes some of the tariffs are not in the U.S.'s economic interest and cost consumers irrespective of the inflation argument, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

The Peterson Institute for International Economics concluded that reducing China tariffs could cut inflation by as much as 1.3 percentage points, or $797 per household. Tai has publicly questioned those findings as "something between fiction or an interesting academic exercise" and called for viewing the tariffs through a "strategic lens."

The Biden administration officially launched a review last month of the China tariffs imposed by Trump in 2018 and 2019. The tariffs started on $50 billion worth of strategic industrial goods to punish China for forced technology transfers and theft of intellectual property, but after China retaliated, they ballooned to $370 billion, covering t-shirts, bicycles, toys, flooring and other goods.

That review could take months, with a public comment period between July 5 and Aug. 22 before any final decision is made..

Some trade experts say a faster way to provide inflation relief is to broaden the number of exclusions granted to importers of Chinese goods. Thousands of these expired as Biden took office, but Tai has only revived exclusions on 352, and over 140 U.S. lawmakers have called for the list to be expanded.

Political advisers have been divided, too, with some seeing risks of alienating labor unions or other China hawks in key political battlegrounds, and others arguing that removing tariffs to lower inflation would have broad support in a country where rising costs has become the primary political issue.

Tai believes the disposition of the China tariffs needs to be decided as part of an overall trade strategy with China that takes a more strategic approach, said a person familiar with the conversations. A rapid, unilateral move was unlikely.

The divide between Yellen and Tai is likely to force Biden to make a decision by mid-summer, according to one person in touch with administration officials.

(Additional reporting by Jarrett Renshaw; Editing by Heather Timmons and Richard Pullin)

Couple follows ‘elusive’ animal into cemetery and gets rare sight, Montana video shows

Jessica Jaeger

Maddie Capron
Mon, May 16, 2022

An animal dashed down a busy road in Montana and into a cemetery.

Jessica Jaeger and her husband, Dylan Heiner, spotted the critter in Butte and knew this wasn’t an animal they had typically seen.

“We were driving down a fairly busy road in Butte when he ran out of a neighborhood and into the cemetery,” Jaeger told McClatchy News. “We had no idea what he was because of how he was running, so we followed him.”

The couple was experiencing a rare sight.

The animal was an elusive and rarely seen wolverine, wildlife officials told McClatchy News. The Montana Standard first reported the May 2 sighting.

Wolverine sightings are rare, especially in populated areas, Molly Parks, carnivore coordinator for Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks told McClatchy News.

“They are typically found in remote, high elevation areas and are solitary and quite elusive,” Parks said in an email.

The couple didn’t know it initially, but they did their own research to determine they saw a wolverine. They were blown away.

“It felt pretty special since it’s very rare for them to be in town like that,” Jaeger said.

Wolverines can be between 38 and 47 inches long, and weigh between 13 and 31 pounds, according to the National Park Service.

They’re “active year-round” and breed from April to October, according to the National Park Service. During the winter months, they “den in deep snow.”

Wolverines were nearly extinct in Montana in the 1900s but its population has since grown, according to Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Now they can be found in remote locations such as Glacier National Park, the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex and near Yellowstone National Park, according to Lee Enterprises.

In March, a tour group at Yellowstone National Park spotted an elusive wolverine walking on the road in front of them, McClatchy News reported. No other vehicles were around, and the tour group spent 3 minutes watching the wolverine.

“We turned around to make our way back, when I saw what I thought was a black bear running down the road,” Carl Kemp, a person on the tour, said on YouTube. “As soon as it turned, we realized we were in the middle of a once in a lifetime experience.”

Wheat importers in Asia scramble for supplies after Indian export ban


Workers fill sacks with wheat at a market yard on the outskirts of Ahmedabad

Mon, May 16, 2022
By Michael Hogan and Maytaal Angel

HAMBURG/LONDON (Reuters) - Wheat importers in Asia were scrambling to find new sources of supply on Monday after India banned exports of the grain at the weekend in a bid to keep a lid on soaring domestic prices, trade sources told Reuters.

Importers, especially those in Asia, were banking on wheat from India, the world's second-biggest producer, after exports from the Black Sea region plunged following Russia's Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

Russia and Ukraine jointly account for about 30% of global wheat exports. Ukraine's exports are severely hampered because the war has forced it to close its ports, while Russia's exports have been hit by Western sanctions.

"Asian importers are likely to be in deep trouble. India was the Ukraine/Russia alternative especially for feed wheat. (They are) already today casting around for alternatives," said a Europe-based wheat trader at a global trade house.

He said importers in Asia were even looking to buy more Russian wheat despite payment problems linked to sanctions on Russian banks and elevated shipping insurance premiums.

Benchmark wheat futures in Chicago jumped by their 6% limit on Monday as markets reacted to the surprise ban, which came just days after New Delhi said it was targeting record wheat shipments of 10 million tonnes this year.

Its policy reversal now means only exports backed by letters of credit (LCs), or payment guarantees, issued before May 13 can proceed.

That equates to only about 400,000 tonnes, industry sources told Reuters, adding that 1.8 million tonnes is now trapped at the country's ports.

Traders holding that wheat face heavy losses because they will have to cancel their export deals and resell onto a weakening domestic market.

"It started already this morning. Traders (who don't have LCs) had to announce cancellation of contracts. I'd assume from mid-June there will be no more (India) shipments," said a second Europe-based wheat trader.

India's export ban, prompted by a heatwave that has cut harvest prospects and pushed domestic prices to a record high,

also comes amid output issues in traditional export powerhouses Canada, Europe and Australia.

Traders say the ban could drive global prices to new record peaks, hitting poor consumers in Asia and Africa particularly hard.

Top destinations for Indian exports include Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal and Turkey, and top global wheat buyer Egypt recently agreed to make a first ever purchase of Indian wheat.

That deal is officially still on the cards as India has said it will still allow exports to countries that request supplies "to meet their food security needs", but market experts are sceptical.

"There's uncertainty over how much will be exported to countries India considers having food security needs. They might just export to friendly neighbouring countries," said Carlos Mera, agri commodities analyst at Rabobank.

(Reporting by Maytaal Angel in London and Michael Hogan in Hamburg; Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz in Paris; editing by David Evans)

India’s wheat export ban is another reality check for its lofty soft power goals

By Manavi Kapur
Reporter

QUARTZ
Published May 16, 2022

In 2020, India wanted to vaccinate the world. Shortly after, it was forced to do a volte-face following an acute shortage at home.

A few weeks ago, it claimed it could feed the world should the World Trade Organization allow it. Later, on May 4, prime minister Narendra Modi reiterated his desire to “save the world from hunger.” After all, in the wake of the Russia-Ukraine war, India had got the perfect window to become a major wheat exporter.

On May 14, however, India banned the export of wheat, largely owing to a record high domestic food inflation. Lower yield due to intense heat waves piled on the country’s agony.

The G-7 has criticised India’s backtracking. Hardeep S Puri, the country’s agriculture minister, responded saying India will meet its immediate commitments.

The unofficial ban on vaccine exports during the deadly delta variant wave in April 2021 had hampered Serum Institute of India’s commitments to the World Health Organization’s vaccine-sharing initiative. The ban on wheat exports puts immense pressure on the global supply.

This may be deemed a failure for India from a soft-power, geopolitical standpoint.
Can India become a major wheat exporter?

Modi’s goal of India becoming a major wheat exporter hinged on the opportunity presented by the war. While India has been the world’s second-largest producer of the commodity, most of it was used domestically. Its share in the global wheat exports has been only around 1%.

It hoped to considerably plug the deficit created by Russia, which accounts for 30% of the global wheat exports. To some extent, Indian wheat exports did rise. Countries like Egypt and Turkey, besides others in Asia, tapped India following the onset of the war.

This, however, pushed prices to record highs at home. In the past few weeks, wheat prices have soared by 15%-20% in India, forcing the government’s hand. Now, with the ban, prices are rising globally, too.

This, combined with a lack of long-term policies on taxes and supply chain, is unlikely to make India a major wheat exporter anytime soon.

In US, states struggle to replace fossil fuel tax revenue

Oil rigs stand in the Loco Hills field along U.S. Highway 82 in Eddy County, near Artesia, N.M., one of the most active regions of the Permian Basin. Government budgets are booming in New Mexico. The reason behind the spending spree — oil. New Mexico is the No. 2 crude oil producer among U.S. states and the top recipient of U.S. disbursements for fossil fuel production on federal land. But a budget flush with petroleum cash has a side effect: It also puts the spotlight on how difficult it is for New Mexico and other states to turn their rhetoric on tackling climate change into reality. (AP Photo/Jeri Clausing, File)More

MORGAN LEE and MEAD GRUVER
Mon, May 16, 2022

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Government budgets are booming in New Mexico: Teacher salaries are up, residents can go to an in-state college tuition-free, moms will get medical care for a year after childbirth, and criminal justice initiatives are being funded to reduce urban violence.

The reason behind the spending spree — oil. New Mexico is the No. 2 crude oil producer among U.S. states and the top recipient of U.S. disbursements for fossil fuel production on federal land. But a budget flush with petroleum cash has a side effect: It also puts the spotlight on how difficult it is to turn state rhetoric on tackling climate change into reality.

State governments in the nation’s top regions for producing oil, natural gas and coal have by far the highest per-capita reliance on fossil fuels — led by Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska and New Mexico. The revenue bankrolls essential public services, from highway maintenance to prisons. In Carlsbad, New Mexico, oil infrastructure property taxes are underwriting a high school performing arts center, expanded sports facilities and elementary school renovations.

None of that would be possible without oil revenue, said schools superintendent Gerry Washburn.

“We can’t slow down in that area and what we do to fund schools until we have a legitimate replacement” for oil and natural gas income, he said. “Whether you’re in the middle of the oil patch or in an area with no oil and gas drilling going on, those policies are going to impact revenue in every school district in the state.”

Federal, state and local governments receive an estimated $138 billion a year from the fossil fuel industry, according to a study from the Washington-based nonpartisan economics group Resources for the Future, which does not advocate on energy policies. That's equivalent to the annual state spending of New York and Texas combined.

The cashflow is dominated by gasoline and diesel retail taxes in every state, but energy-producing states have the deepest dependence on fossil fuel income through a gamut of taxes, royalties, lease sales and fees. Because that revenue helps pay for government services, they tend to tax residents less, said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future, and co-author of the study.

“That’s a really challenging dynamic if you think about a shift away from fossil fuels," he said. "They’re going to be faced with the question: Do we raise our taxes on our residents or do we reduce the level of services we provide?”

In New Mexico, oil and gas account for 42% of state government income, a share that is rising amid the war in Ukraine and record-setting oil production in the Permian Basin that stretches across southeastern New Mexico and western Texas. Additional oil income flows to a new interest-bearing trust for early childhood education.

Soaring fossil fuel industry profits also allowed the Democratic-controlled New Mexico Legislature to try to tackle the highest-in-the-nation unemployment rate and persistently high poverty. Lawmakers provided $1.1 billion in tax relief and direct payments of up to $1,500 per household to offset inflation.

At the same time, legislators balked this year at climate initiatives that might restrain petroleum production. They rejected a bill to limit climate-warming pollution in the production and distribution of transportation fuels, a step taken by West Coast states. New Mexico also shunned a state constitutional amendment for the right to clean air.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, up for reelection in November, said her administration is working to contain oilfield methane pollution and diversify the economy. New mandates call for electricity production from solar, wind and other renewable sources. But she has cautioned the federal government against significant restrictions on oil exploration and production, still the lifeblood of the state budget.

“We can work very effectively with oil and gas producers to both meet clean energy standards ... while still managing pretty incredible exploration of fossil fuels to meet the current energy demands of the world," the governor said in April.

Preserving income from oil, natural gas or coal production while acting on climate change can be especially tricky in blue states where Democrats often campaign on tackling global warming.

Colorado's Democratic Gov. Jared Polis is pursuing an ambitious clean-energy plan while trying to preserve $1 billion in annual oil and gas production tax revenue. To justify air pollution restrictions, Polis has cited real-time evidence of climate change, drought and fire.

But Polis, a wealthy tech entrepreneur, last year threatened to veto a proposal that might impose per-ton emission fees on polluters. William Toor, executive director of the governor's Colorado Energy Office, said the state's not targeting fossil fuel production — only the industry's emissions.

On Colorado's northeastern plains, Weld County Commission Chairman Scott James said state regulations stifle new drilling needed to support production and government revenue, especially for schools. The county is centered on a vast oil field stretching from the Denver area into Wyoming and Nebraska.

“I agree with the overall mission of reducing greenhouse gas, but there’s an environment that exists at the state Legislature that we must electrify everything, we must mandate it, we must do it now,” James said. "And these technologies are not yet ready for prime time. We simply don’t have the capacity to do it.”

Rural and economically isolated communities could find it hardest to adapt to a low-carbon economy, said Montana-based Headwaters Economics researcher and economist Kristin Smith, who studies public finances in North Dakota’s Bakken oil region. She anticipates “very hard decisions” about cutting areas like public health care and policing.

Some major petroleum producing states are forging ahead with their climate agendas.

Pennsylvania in April became the first major fossil-fuel state to adopt a carbon-pricing policy, joining an 11-state regional consortium that sets a price and declining limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf's initiative comes without approval from the Republican-controlled Legislature in the nation’s No. 2 state for natural gas production — and a major exporter of gas-generated electricity. A per-well drilling fee on the state’s booming Marcellus Shale gas industry has rained cash on rural counties and municipalities for nearly a decade.

South of Pittsburgh, Washington County reaped over $100 million in the past decade. That’s equivalent to $500 per resident — a “game changer,” said county board chairwoman Diana Irey Vaughan. The windfall paid for park and bridge improvements, among others.

Democratic state Rep. Greg Vitali, an advocate for stronger climate change action, said local governments relying on gas drilling money will simply have to use traditional tools such as property taxes to get by.

Republican-dominated Wyoming, the top coal production state, has bold goals to reduce greenhouse emissions to less than zero even while fossil fuels account for over half its revenue.

That vision relies on eventually capturing carbon dioxide from coal- and gas-fired power plants and pumping it underground, possibly to increase oil production in aging fields in the middle of the state. Wyoming leaders are also looking to alternative fuels like hydrogen and nuclear power, using reactors that produce less waste.

Meanwhile, a decade of declining coal demand has sapped government income. Republican Gov. Mark Gordon in March signed a coal tax reduction, forgoing about $9 million annually to help the coal industry stay economically viable.

The state — one of only two with no taxes on individual income, corporate income or gross receipts — must confront its dependence on fossil fuel money eventually, said Jennifer Lowe, executive director of the Equality State Policy Center, a government watchdog group.

“At some point, there’s going to have to be a come-to-Jesus moment,” Lowe said.

___

Gruver reported from Cheyenne, Wyoming. Associated Press writers Jim Anderson in Denver and Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, contributed to this report.

WAR WINFALL
Soaring oil and gas prices help Russia more than triple its current account surplus to $96 billion, its largest in 28 years


Phil Rosen
Mon, May 16, 2022, 

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Kaliningrad in 2018.Alexei Nikolsky/Reuters

Russia has a current account surplus of $95.8 billion in the first four months of 2022, central bank data shows.

That's more than triple the $27.5 billion from the same span last year.

Russian oil export revenue is up 50% since the start of 2022, the International Energy Agency said last week.

Russia has a current account surplus of $95.8 billion so far in 2022, the central bank said, helped by surging prices for oil and gas exports paired with cratering imports amid Western sanctions.

This year's surplus is more than triple the $27.5 billion in the same span last year and is the highest since 1994.

Western sanctions have yet to fully deter global customers from buying Russian oil. While the European Union has publicly condemned the Kremlin for its war in Ukraine, it has yet to impose an oil embargo and remains Russia's top export market. Meanwhile, China and India have stepped up purchases of Russian oil.

Last week, the International Energy Agency said Russian oil export revenue is up 50% since the start of 2022 with the Kremlin generating close to $20 billion per month in sales.

Export volume has rebounded to levels seen before Russia invaded Ukraine. In April, Russian oil exports climbed by 620,000 barrels per day from the prior month to 8.1 million, back to their January and February average, the IEA said.

Revenue from oil and gas sales — as well as Moscow's strict capital controls — have helped prop up Russia's ruble, which has become the world's top-performing currency against the dollar.

The Ukraine war is creating a jobs crisis in Russia

REUTERS / ANTON VAGANOV

Lights out.

By Samanth Subramanian
Looking into the Future of Capitalism
Published May 16, 2022

As companies flee Russia, their Russian employees are seeing their jobs suddenly vanish. Tens of thousands of such employees will be cut loose into an economy where inflation is at a 20-year-high, and where diverse, flourishing jobs were hard to find even before the Ukraine war.

McDonald’s leaves behind fast-food workers: 62,000 of them, across 850 restaurants. (They will continue to be paid until the outlets are sold to a local buyer, the company said.) Renault employed 45,000 people in Russia. Ikea’s 15,000 staff will be paid only until the end of August. Siemens had 3,000 people on its rolls in Russia, until it left the country in mid-May. Blue-collar and white-collar workers alike are joining the unemployed in a fast-building jobs crisis.

The Russian unemployment rate, which hovered around 4.6% in the first quarter of 2022, is likely to rise to 9% by the end of the year, according to a survey of analysts that Bloomberg conducted in April. Simultaneously, Russian year-on-year inflation shot up to nearly 18% in April. The combination will lead to a cost-of-living crunch that will hurt the average Russian citizen as well as the economy badly. According to a leaked document, Russian’s finance ministry expects the GDP to shrink by 12% this year, erasing a full decade of economic growth.


QUARTZ ESSENTIALS

Facts and figures to help you put this story in context.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict, explained

Everything you need to know about the conflict in Ukraine, and the impacts on the global economy.


WHY DID RUSSIA INVADE UKRAINE?

MAGE COPYRIGHT:SERGEY BOBOK / GETTY IMAGES

Russia’s invasion in Ukraine is driven in part by historical and cultural ties to the region.Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991.

Ethnic Russians accounted for 17% of its population at the time the last census was taken in 2001.
During the two decades Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia, he has been focused on bringing Ukraine back into the country’s sphere of influence.

 
One of Putin’s earlier salvos included calling for a ban on potential Ukrainian membership in the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Ukraine evacuates steel plant soldiers and says it has stopped fighting in an apparent surrender of Mariupol

Sinéad Baker
Tue, May 17, 2022

A screenshot from footage shared by the Mariupol City Council in April showing Russian forces striking the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine with heavy artillery.

Mariupol City Council/Insider

The soldiers holding a steel plant in Mariupol, southern Ukraine, were being evacuated Monday.


The troops resisted Russia for weeks, but were surrounded and vastly outgunned.


Ukraine avoided using the word "surrender," but conceded that its fight in Mariupol was over.

Ukraine evacuated its soldiers from the steel plant in the pivotal city that had become a last holdout against weeks of attacks, effectively ceding the city to Russia.

The soldiers had been in the Azovstal steel plant for weeks, with many of them wounded and without adequate supplies of food and water.

The steel plant was the last major point of resistance in the Mariupol, which was surrounded by Russian early in its invasion of Ukraine and subject to relentless attacks.

The city offers Russia a strategic advantage, giving Russia control over the land route from Russian-controlled Crimea and the eastern Donbas region.

A bus carrying wounded service members of Ukrainian forces from the besieged Azovstal steel mill in Mariupol drives under escort of the pro-Russian military in the course of Ukraine-Russia conflict upon arrival in Novoazovsk, Ukraine May 16, 2022

REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that the city was technically not able to fall to Russia because it had been so totally destroyed that there was no city left. He also pledged to retake the area, and rebuild.

General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said on Tuesday that it ordered the soldiers at Azovstal leave in order to save their lives.

It did not describe the withdrawal as a surrender, though it conceded that the soldiers would be taken to an area under Russian control, where they would be exchanged for captured Russians.

Ukraine's troops had long been outnumbered and had few options for resisting aerial and artillery bombardment from Russia soldiers surrounding the steel works.

The armed forces said that the evacuation of 53 "seriously wounded" soldiers had begun, and that they would be brought to a medical facility in Novoazovsk, a Russia-controlled town.

It said 211 more soldiers would be removed from the plant and ultimately exchanged for Russian prisoners.

"Mariupol defenders are heroes of our time. They are forever in history," the armed forces said.

The armed forces praised the troops for holding Azovstal so long, tying down Russian troops who were less able to attack other parts of Ukraine.

Hundreds of civilians, whom Ukraine said were mostly women and children, were also sheltering in the plant. They were evacuated earlier this month.

A heavily damaged building is seen in Mariupol, Ukraine, on April 13, 2022.AP Photo/Alexei Alexandrov, File

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also said last month, before anyone was evacuated from the plant: "The city doesn't exist anymore. The remaining of the Ukrainian army and large group of civilians are basically encircled by the Russian forces."

There were still Ukrainian civilians in the city as of Monday. Ukraine has been trying to evacuate them, and says they have not been able to access food and water.

BANNED PHOSPHOROUS 

Burning munitions cascade down on Ukrainian steel plant - video

Sun, May 15, 2022, 

LONDON (Reuters) -White, brightly burning munitions were shown cascading down on the Azovstal steel works in the Ukrainian port of Mariupol in what a British military expert said looked like either an attack with phosphorus or incendiary weapons.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said "delicate" negotiations were proceeding on rescuing Ukrainian servicemen holed up beneath the vast complex.

A Ukrainian officer among the remaining defenders said 600 fighters remained, 40 of them seriously injured. Civilians have been evacuated from the labyrinth of bunkers.

Reuters was not able to immediately identify the type of munitions being used on the Azovstal complex or when the video was taken. It was posted on Sunday on the Telegram messaging application by Alexander Khodakovsky, a commander of the pro-Russian self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk.

"If you didn't know what it is and for what purpose - you could say that it's even beautiful," Khodakovsky said in a message beside the video. Khodakovsky could not be immediately reached for comment.

It was not immediately clear which forces had fired the munitions, or from where.

NOT ENOUGH MEDICINE OR SURGICAL EQUIPMENT

Denys Shlega, a commander of Ukraine's National Guard, described conditions beneath the plant as dire.

"There is not enough medicine or surgical equipment," Shlega told Ukrainian television. "At the moment, we have about 600 people who are injured. About 40 in a very serious condition."

Shlega said Russian forces had penetrated into parts of the steel plant "but this is not yet significant and we are holding on ... holding on with our last forces."

Russian forces have pummeled Mariupol for nearly two months.

Russia has not commented on what specific weapons it has used to attack the plant. The Russian defence ministry did not reply to a written request for comment about the video.

Ukraine's armed forces declined to make an immediate official comment. The prosecutor's office said it had launched an investigation into possible use of incendiary weapons.

White phosphorus munitions can be used on battlefields to make smoke screens, generate illumination, mark targets or burn bunkers and buildings. White phosphorus is not banned as a chemical weapon under international conventions.

Human rights groups have urged a ban on the use of phosphorus munitions because of the severe burns they cause. The United States used phosphorus munitions in the Vietnam war and the 2003-2011 Iraq war. Russia used them in the Chechen wars.

Petro Andryushchenko, an aide to Mariupol's mayor, said that Russia had used incendiary or phosphorous bombs on Azovstal. Andryushchenko was speaking from Ukrainian-controlled territory. Reuters was unable to immediately verify his comments.

Hamish Stephen de Bretton-Gordon, a former commanding officer of Britain's Joint Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Regiment, said it looked very much like phosphorus in the video, but only a sample could give absolute confirmation.

"It does look very much like white phosphorus rockets or artillery shells which are exploding just above the ground or upon the ground," he told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Tom Balmforth and Natalia Zinets in Kyiv; Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by David Clarke)

Russians confirm they are hitting Ukrainian targets with banned cluster and phosphorus weapons Security Service of Ukraine

Ukrayinska Pravda

VALENTYNA ROMANENKO — SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2022

The Russian invaders confirm that they are using phosphorus and cluster weapons in Ukraine, which are prohibited by international conventions.

Source: another intercept of the invaders' conversation by the Security Service of Ukraine

Details: These are particularly dangerous and inhumane types of weapons.

Thus, the Russian Federation continues to grossly violate the laws and customs of war, in order to destroy as many peaceful Ukrainians as possible.

Since 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine has repeatedly recorded the use of prohibited weapons by Russian occupiers in the area of the Anti-Terrorist Operation Zone/Joint Forces Operation. Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, these war crimes have been committed by the occupiers along the entire front line. The Security Service of Ukraine documents each of them.

The intercepts and the collected data will be included in the materials for the international courts, so that no Russian war criminal escapes punishment, the intelligence service notes.

Quote from the occupier: "Yes, they are still waiting for Volodka (Putin -ed.). To get all this f*cked up, he will withdraw the troops and f*cking fire "Topols" here. And so, you see, everything that was forbidden by international conventions: cluster bombs, phosphorus – we were allowed everything, we let everything go there."

Ukraine will get worse for isolated Russia, analyst says on state TV


Service members of pro-Russian troops stand guard in Mariupol


Tue, May 17, 2022
By Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON (Reuters) - One military analyst had a brutally frank message for viewers of Russian state television: The war in Ukraine will get much worse for Russia, which is facing a mass mobilisation supported by the United States while Russia is almost totally isolated.

Since President Vladimir Putin ordered the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia state media - and especially state television - have supported the Kremlin's position. Few dissenting voices have been given air time.

That appeared to have changed on Monday night when one well-known military analyst gave a blunt assessment to Russia's main state television channel of what Putin casts as the "special military operation".

"You should not swallow informational tranquilizers," Mikhail Khodaryonok, a retired colonel, told the "60 Minutes" talk show on Rossiya-1 hosted by Olga Skabeyeva, one of the most pro-Kremlin journalists on television.

"The situation, frankly speaking, will get worse for us," said Khodaryonok, a regular guest on state TV who gives often candid assessments of the situation.

He said that Ukraine could mobilise 1 armed million men.

Khodaryonok, a military columnist for the gazeta.ru newspaper and a graduate of one of Russia's elite military academies, cautioned before the invasion that such a step would not be in Russia's national interests.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed thousands of people, displaced millions more and raised fears of the most serious confrontation between Russia and the United States since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Khodaryonok and Skabeyeva could not be reached for comment.

SENSE OF REALISM

The war has also shown the post-Soviet limits of Russia's military, intelligence and economic power: despite Putin's attempts to bolster his armed forces, the Russian military has fared badly in many battles in Ukraine.

An encirclement of Kyiv was abandoned and Russia has turned its focus instead towards trying to establish control over Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. The West has supplied billions of dollars of arms to Ukrainian forces.

Losses are not publicly reported but Ukraine says Russian losses are worse than the 15,000 Soviets killed in the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-1989.

"The desire to defend one's motherland in the sense that it exists in Ukraine - it really does exist there and they intend to fight to the last," Khodaryonok said before he was interrupted by Skabeyeva.

The biggest strategic consequences of Russia's invasion to date have been the unusual unity of the United States' European allies and bids by Sweden and Finland to join the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.

Khodaryonok said Russia needed to see the reality.

"The main thing in our business is have a sense of military-political realism: if you go beyond that then the reality of history will hit you so hard that you will not know what hit you," he said.

"Don't wave rockets in the direction of Finland for goodness sake - it just looks rather funny," he said.

Russia, he said, was isolated.

"The main deficiency of our military-political position is that we are in full geopolitical solitude and - however we don't want to admit it - practically the whole world is against us - and we need to get out of this situation."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alison Williams)

YouTuber Emma Chamberlain’s Met Gala necklace, allegedly stolen from Indian royalty, sparks debat



Jane Nam
Mon, May 16, 2022,

Twitter users expressed divided opinions on popular YouTuber Emma Chamberlain’s Met Gala, Cartier-designed diamond choker, which was allegedly stolen by the British from India.

The necklace, lent to the vlogger for the event, reportedly disappeared from the Patiala royal treasury around 1948. Prior to that, it had belonged to Indian ruler Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, one of the richest men in the world during his reign from 1900-1938.

In the center of the choker is a golf ball-sized, yellow 23.6 carat De Beers diamond, at one point the seventh-largest in the world. With an additional 2,930 diamonds, the necklace has a total carat weight of over 1,000.

The necklace reportedly resurfaced at a London store in 1998, where French luxury brand Cartier, which specializes in high-end jewelry, then acquired it.

Netizens commented throughout the week about the necklace, which Chamberlain, who has over 11.4 million YouTube subscribers, had worn to the Met Gala on May 2.



“Okay so nobody is gonna talk about Emma chamberlain wearing literally a necklace worn by a south Asian king at the met gala? When it comes to south Asians it’s always ignored and rejected SPEAK ABOUT THIS,” commented one user with the hashtag #culturalappropriation.

“This fills me up with rage, this level of disrespect is unacceptable,” wrote another user.



Others were not so impressed, arguing that Chamberlain was not to blame.

“Plz why did I just see someone say they think Emma Chamberlain should have kept the Maharaj's necklace and delivered it back to India... as if she had that much power.”

Some simply did not find the situation problematic, with multiple netizens claiming that “nobody cares.”

S. Vijay Kumar, founder of the India Pride Project, a citizens’ platform that traces India’s lost treasures, explained the difficulty of asserting ownership over stolen antiques.

He listed the Koh-i-Noor and Golconda Orlov diamond as other examples of smuggled jewels that have found their way to other countries, including the latter which is currently located in the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.

“It’s a pity that India doesn’t assert its weight in seeking to stop the open auction and display of its plundered treasures,” he added.

Ambiguity in international laws make it nearly impossible to obtain stolen items, especially considering that many of them have no documentation that would make it possible to trace back their ownership history.

THE MOONSTONE, COLIN WILKIE

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.202518

Why Urdu language draws ire of India’s right-wing


Zoya Mateen - BBC News, Delhi
Mon, May 16, 2022,

Urdu is a hugely popular and widespread language in India but some want to disown it

Who does Urdu belong to?

India's right-wing seems to think it's a foreign import, forced upon by so-called Islamic invaders.

The latest fracas happened in April when a reporter from a far-right news channel barged into a popular fast-food chain and heckled its employees for labelling a bag of snacks in what she thought was Urdu. The label turned out to be in Arabic, which many say underlines the broad-brush attempt to classify anything that has roots in Islamic culture as the same.

Last year, clothing retailer Fabindia was forced to withdraw an advert whose campaign title was in Urdu after protests from ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.

In the past, politicians elected to state assemblies have been barred from taking oath in Urdu; artists have been stopped from painting Urdu graffiti; and cities and neighbourhoods have been renamed. Petitions have been filed seeking the removal of Urdu words from school textbooks.

Such attacks on Urdu, many believe, is part of a larger push to marginalise India's Muslim population.

"It clearly shows that there is a pattern of attack on symbols associated with Muslims," says Rizwan Ahmad, professor of sociolinguistics at Qatar University.

Is India waging a 'war' on Islamic names?

'Why a name change killed my city's soul'

Others say it also fits a broader right-wing agenda of the political rewriting of India's past.

"The only way that the political project of shackling Indian languages by religion can proceed is by cutting off modern Indians from a huge amount of their history," historian Audrey Truschke says.

"That severing may serve the current government's interests, but it is a cruel denial of heritage for everyone else."

The birth of Urdu can be traced to the late 18th Century

The BBC tried to reach out to three BJP leaders in connection with this story but met with no response.

A supple and expressive language, Urdu has been the preferred choice for some of India's most famous poets and writers. Some of India's most acclaimed writing has come from Urdu writers like Saadat Hassan Manto and Ismat Chughtai.

Urdu's elegance and emphasis on smooth diction have inspired both fiery nationalist poetry and romantic ghazals (semi-classical songs). It has also been the beating heart of Bollywood songs.

Opponents of the language say that Urdu belongs to Muslims whereas Hindus only speak Hindi. But history and lived experiences show quite the opposite.

What we know as Urdu today can be traced back to Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, all of which arrived in India through waves of trade and conquests.

"This common tongue was born out of the cultural hybridisation that happened in the Indian subcontinent," historian Alok Rai says.

"And it acquired different names over its evolution: Hindavi, Hindustani, Hindi, Urdu or Rekhta."

A rare Urdu book in a worn out state at a public library in Delhi

Dr Rai says that 'Urdu' - using quotes to differentiate it from its spoken forms - was the literary style invented in the last years of the Mughal dynasty in the late 18th Century by the aristocracy that clustered around the courts in Delhi.

This 'Urdu' was not seen as a Muslim language, as it is today, but had a class element - it was the tongue spoken by the elite of north India, which included Hindus as well.

'Hindi', on the other hand, was the literary style that developed in the late 19-20th Century in present-day Uttar Pradesh state, drawing from the same common base "but seeking to mark a difference".

While 'Urdu' borrowed words mostly from Persian - the elite lingua franca of medieval India - 'Hindi' took them from Sanskrit, the language of ancient Hindu texts.

"So both the languages rest on a shared grammatical base," Dr Rai explains, "but both Hindi and Urdu have also for political reasons developed myths of origin" .

What Dr Rai says is that speakers of both communities laid claim to what was a common language but ended up dividing it out of their anxiety of maintaining a separate identity.

"The whole situation would be slightly farcical if it didn't have such tragic consequences," he says.

The right-wing thinks Urdu belongs to Muslims whereas Hindus only speak Hindi - but that is far from the truth

The division was strengthened under the rule of the British, who began to identify Hindi with Hindus, and Urdu with Muslims. But the portrayal of Urdu as foreign is also not new in right-wing discourse.

Mr Ahmad says Hindu nationalists in the late 19th Century claimed legitimacy for Hindi as the official language of courts in north India. The British had changed the official language from Persian to Urdu in 1837.

The division reached its peak in the years leading to 1947 when India was partitioned into two separate states. "Urdu became one of the causes pursued by the Muslim League [which endorsed the idea of separate state for India's Muslims] and "an access to mobilisation for the demand of Pakistan", Dr Rai says.

Not surprisingly Urdu became an easy target - Uttar Pradesh banned it in schools and Dr Ahmad says that a lot of Hindus also abandoned the language at the time.

Collecting 'difficult memories' of partition's witnesses

The race to find India's hidden languages - BBC Future

Dr Truschke says that with Urdu, the right-wing has tried to create a past which doesn't exist: "If Urdu is suddenly supposed to be an exclusively Muslim language, are we never to speak again of the many Hindus who have written in Urdu or that some of our earliest Hindi manuscripts are in Perso-Arabic script?"

Schools in Uttar Pradesh state had banned Urdu in schools after Partition

Also, what about Urdu words which are liberally used in Hindi speech?

"The word jeb or pocket comes from Arabic via Persian. What is the Hindi equivalent? Probably none. And what about the timeless words like mohabbat (love) or dil (heart)?," Dr Ahmad says.

At the same time, languages are also markers of a faith, he adds.

"Urdu-speaking Muslims are more likely to use the word maghrib for sunset than Hindus. This is not different from how the language of upper caste Hindus shows difference from that of the lower caste in the same village - each language exists on a continuum."

Mr Rai says that attempts to remove Urdu from Hindi has "degraded" the latter.

"This Hindi is not the language of popular speech, it is sterile and devoid of emotional resonance."