Ukraine’s Zelenskiy calls Russia ‘terrorist state’ over aid shelling as forces close in on Kyiv

Ukraine president accuses Moscow of deliberate attack on humanitarian corridor in Mariupol as Russian forces fan out around capital and Biden prepares further trade restrictions

Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
What we know on day 16


Martin Farrer, and Luke Harding in Lviv

Fri 11 Mar 2022 

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Russia of being a “terrorist state”, saying it prevented a delivery of food, water and medicine to the besieged city of Mariupol by attacking a humanitarian corridor with tank fire.

As Russian forces appeared to be regrouping in order to encircle Kyiv and the US planned to ratchet up the economic pressure on Vladimir Putin, Zelenskiy tried to rally Ukrainians with another video address late on Thursday condemning Moscow’s relentless assault on cities.



‘A necessary war’: reporting on the Ukraine ‘disagreement’ outside the west

“This is outright terror ... from experienced terrorists,” he said of the alleged attack on the aid convoy. “The world needs to know this. I have to admit it – we are all dealing with a terrorist state.

“They did it deliberately, they knew what they were blowing up, they have an order to keep the city a hostage, abuse it and bomb it constantly, and shell it.”

More than 400,000 people remain trapped in Mariupol, which is surrounded by Russian forces, and basic supplies are running out. Some 200,000 are believed to want to leave amid a relentless Russian artillery onslaught but have not been able to do so despite the daily declaration of humanitarian corridors.

Mariupol’s mayor, Vadym Boichenko, said Russia was targeting residential areas “every 30 minutes”. At least 1,207 people have died although the real figure is believed to be much higher because residents cannot leave their homes to retrieve dead bodies from the streets.

Zelenskiy said no one had been able to escape the city on Thursday, although 100,000 had managed to leave other under-fire cities such as Irpin near Kyiv, Sumy and Hostomel in the past two days.

In a potentially significant military development, satellite images released by the US company Maxar Technologies on Thursday appeared to show that the large Russian military convoy last seen north-west of Kyiv had largely dispersed and redeployed. Maxar said its pictures showed that armoured units had fanned out through towns and forests in the area, with artillery pieces moved into potential firing positions.


No longer scared – just tired: Mariupol residents focus solely on survival

A US defence official cited by CNN said that Russian forces had moved 5km (about 3 miles) closer to Kyiv, despite Ukrainians fighting back “very, very well” around the capital city.

The Ukrainian military said in its daily operational report on Friday morning that Russian troops had dispersed to regroup and replenish supplies.

In Lviv, Ukraine’s westernmost large city, air sirens were heard in the early hours of Friday. Explosions were also reported in Lutsk in north-western Ukraine, near the Polish border, as well as in Dnipro, a major stronghold in central-eastern Ukraine. Three air strikes in Dnipro killed at least one person, state emergency services said, adding that the strikes were close to a kindergarten and an apartment building.

The strike in Lutsk targeted an airfield according to city’s mayor, Igor Polishchuk, who urged his citizens to take cover in a Facebook post early on Friday.

US president Joe Biden will announce another ratcheting up of the economic pressure on Friday when he calls for the end of normal trade relations with Russia. This measure, which is likely to be rubber-stamped and passed into law by Congress, will make Russia a pariah in the world economy in the same category as Cuba and North Korea. It could lead to increased tariffs on Russian goods and will remove what in international trade is termed “most favoured nation status” .

It follows the decision by Biden and British prime minister Boris Johnson this week to ban oil imports from Russia into their countries as they attempt to increase already crippling pressure on Russia brought on by its exclusion from global financial markets.

The price of oil slipped back again on Friday and is set to record its biggest weekly drops since November after see-sawing on fears that more countries would ban Russian imports, balanced by the growing prospect that other big producers could bring on more supply.

Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell 0.67% to $108.60 at 2am GMT after dropping 1.6% in the previous session. US West Texas intermediate crude fell 0.13% to $105.88 a barrel, following a 2.5% decline on Thursday.

Outlawing all US trade with Russia would deepen the already serious economic problems facing Putin’s regime.

Earlier on Thursday, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, said Russia was “moving into a deep recession”, with massive depreciation of the rouble and sinking purchasing power for its citizens. A debt default was no longer “an improbable event”, she said.

A stream of leading international companies such as Apple, Shell, Ikea and McDonald’s have pulled out of Russia, but the Kremlin is threatening to retaliate by seizing corporate assets.

European Union leaders meeting at Versailles to discuss the Ukraine crisis said in a statement on Thursday night that Russia was “inflicting unspeakable suffering on the Ukrainian population” and called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of forces.

They “acknowledged the European aspirations” of Ukraine and agreed to support Ukraine in “pursuing its European path”. They also praised Ukraine’s courageous resistance and promised “we will not leave them alone”.

Many east European member countries such as Estonia and Lithuania have called for Ukraine to be fast-tracked into the 27-member club. But the careful language of the statement stopped a long way short of any hard commitments and reflected unease in western countries such as France, Spain and the Netherlands about any rapid admission.

“What’s important is that Ukraine has asked to be member of the EU,” said Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte. “There is no fast-track procedure to become a member of the EU.”

Zelenskiy attempted to keep the pressure up on the EU, however, saying in his address that he believed the Ukrainian people “have done everything to be welcomed” into the European club.

“This is the final exam for Europe,” he said, adding that ordinary people in Europe had shown their support for Ukraine by protesting in the streets, and that “they would definitely choose Ukraine”.

Russian forces edge closer to Kyiv as city becomes ’fortress’

KYIV

Russian troops edged closer to Kyiv on March 11, as officials said the Ukrainian capital was being transformed into a "fortress" and President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of again targeting humanitarian corridors.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain holed up in Ukrainian cities, including besieged Mariupol, under a Russian bombing campaign after the first talks between Moscow and Kyiv’s top diplomats ended without any progress.
The Ukrainian military in a statement warned "the enemy is trying to eliminate the defences of the Ukrainian forces around" regions to the west and northwest of the capital "to block Kyiv."

"We can’t rule out a movement of the enemy to the east towards Brovary," the statement added.
In the capital, mayor Vitali Klitschko said half the population had fled, adding that the city "has been transformed into a fortress".
"Every street, every building, every checkpoint has been fortified."
Russian forces are currently encircling at least four major Ukrainian cities and armoured vehicles have rolled up to Kyiv’s northeastern edge, where suburbs including Irpin and Bucha have endured days of heavy bombardment.
Ukrainian soldiers there described fierce fighting for control of the main highway leading into the capital, and AFP reporters saw missile strikes in Velyka Dymerka just outside Kyiv’s city limits.
"It’s frightening, but what can you do?" said Vasyl Popov, a 38-year-old advertising salesman. "There is nowhere to really run or hide. We live here."

Britain’s defence ministry said in an intelligence update that "Russian forces are committing an increased number of their deployed forces to encircle key cities."
"This will reduce the number of forces available to continue their advance and will further slow Russian progress," a statement tweeted by the ministry said.

But there has been no let-up in the onslaught on several major cities, with the besieged southern port city of Mariupol suffering relentless bombardment, including on attempted aid deliveries, according to Zelensky.
He said Moscow had launched a "tank attack" targeting a humanitarian corridor where he had dispatched a convoy to try to get food, water and medicine into the city.
The attack, which Zelensky described in a video statement as "outright terror", came a day after the bombing of a children’s hospital there that local officials said killed three people, including a young girl.
Zelensky branded that attack a Russian "war crime", a position backed by top Western officials, while Russia’s army claimed the bombing was a "staged provocation" by Ukraine.
In a video, Mariupol mayor Vadym Boichenko said Russian warplanes had targeted residential areas in the city "every 30 minutes" on Thursday, "killing civilians, the elderly, women and children."
The situation in city has been described as "apocalyptic", with more than 1,200 civilians killed in 10 days of constant attacks, according to the mayor.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said some residents had started fighting for food, and many had run out of drinking water.

"Some people still have food but I’m not sure for how long it will last. Many people report having no food for children," said Mariupol-based ICRC representative Sasha Volkov in an audio recording.
Some humanitarian corridors out of cities under attack have held.
Around 100,000 people have been able to leave the northeastern city of Sumy, the eastern city of Izyum, and areas northwest of Kyiv in the last two days, Ukrainian officials said.
Moscow said it would also open daily humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians to Russian territory, but Kyiv has rejected routes leading to Russia.
The UN’s refugee agency estimates more than 2.3 million refugees have left Ukraine since Russia shocked the world by invading its neighbour on February 24, and some 1.9 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced.
Overall, at least 71 children have been killed and more than 100 wounded in Ukraine since the war began, said Lyudmyla Denisova, the Ukraine parliament’s point person on human rights.
And the UN says two other Ukrainian maternity hospitals have been attacked and destroyed, including one in Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, in addition to the Mariupol attack.

In Turkey, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said his talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov ended with "no progress," even on a 24-hour ceasefire.
Lavrov said the two sides would keep talking, but also insisted Russia’s invasion was purely defensive.
Asked by a reporter if Moscow was planning to attack other nations, he insisted "we don’t plan to attack other countries" and Russia "did not attack Ukraine".
He said Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the operation as the situation in Ukraine "posed a direct threat to the Russian Federation".

STUPID RUSSIAN TRICKS

Video analysis reveals Russian attack on Ukrainian nuclear plant veered near disaster

By Geoff Brumfiel,
Meredith Rizzo, Tien Le, Alyson Hurt
Published March 11, 2022 

Last week's assault by Russian forces on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant was far more dangerous than initial assessments suggested, according to an analysis by NPR of video and photographs of the attack and its aftermath.

A thorough review of a four-hour, 21-minute security camera video of the attack reveals that Russian forces repeatedly fired heavy weapons in the direction of the plant's massive reactor buildings, which housed dangerous nuclear fuel. Photos show that an administrative building directly in front of the reactor complex was shredded by Russian fire. And a video from inside the plant shows damage and a possible Russian shell that landed less than 250 feet from the Unit 2 reactor building.

The security camera footage also shows Russian troops haphazardly firing rocket-propelled grenades into the main administrative building at the plant and turning away Ukrainian firefighters even as a fire raged out of control in a nearby training building.

 Energoatom
Photos show heavy damage to an office at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Using buildings visible outside the window, NPR was able to verify the location as the main administrative building at the front of the facility.

The evidence stands in stark contrast to early comments by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which while acknowledging the seriousness of the assault, emphasized that the action took place away from the reactors. In a news conference immediately after the attack, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi made reference to only a single projectile hitting a training building adjacent to the reactor complex.

"All the safety systems of the six reactors at the plant were not affected at all," Grossi told reporters at the March 4 briefing.

In fact, the training building took multiple strikes, and it was hardly the only part of the site to take fire from Russian forces. The security footage supports claims by Ukraine's nuclear regulator of damage at three other locations: the Unit 1 reactor building, the transformer at the Unit 6 reactor and the spent fuel pad, which is used to store nuclear waste. It also shows ordnance striking a high-voltage line outside the plant. The IAEA says two such lines were damaged in the attack.

"This video is very disturbing," says Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists. While the types of reactors used at the plant are far safer than the one that exploded in Chernobyl in 1986, the Russian attack could have triggered a meltdown similar to the kind that struck Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in 2011, he warns.

"It's completely insane to subject a nuclear plant to this kind of an assault," Lyman says.

In a news conference on Thursday, Grossi said that he had met with Ukrainian and Russian officials but failed to reach an agreement to avoid future attacks on Ukraine's other nuclear plants. "I'm aiming at having something relatively soon," he told reporters in Vienna.

The assault

On March 3, the nuclear plant was preparing for a fight. A news release posted to its website just hours before the assault described the facility as operating normally, with its assigned Ukrainian military unit ready for combat.

The Russian decision to move on the plant was clearly premeditated, according to Leone Hadavi, an open-source analyst with the Centre for Information Resilience, who helped NPR review the video.

"It was planned," Hadavi says, and it involved around 10 armored vehicles as well as two tanks. That is far more firepower than would have been carried by, say, a reconnaissance mission that might have stumbled across the plant by chance.

Just before 11:30 p.m. local time, someone began livestreaming the plant's security footage on its YouTube channel. The livestream rolled on as Russian forces began a slow and methodical advance on the plant. The column of armored vehicles, led by the tanks, used spotlights to cautiously approach the plant from the southeast along the main service road to the facility.



Around an hour and 20 minutes later, one of the two tanks that led the column was struck by a missile from Ukrainian forces and was disabled.

That marked the beginning of a fierce firefight that lasted for roughly two hours at the plant. Immediately after the tank was disabled, Russian forces returning fire appeared to hit a transmission line connected to the plant's main electrical substation. The IAEA says two of four high-voltage lines were damaged in the attack. Lyman says that these lines are essential to safe operations at the plant.



Russian forces then pushed their way into the parking area near the front gate and began shooting.

Much of the fire was directed toward the training center and the plant's main administrative building. But at various points in the battle, Russian forces lobbed rounds deep into the nuclear complex in the direction of the reactor buildings.



It's unclear whether the Russian troops were deliberately trying to strike more sensitive sections of the plant or whether they were returning fire from Ukrainian forces off camera. But what is clear is that the shooting was not accidental.

"We don't see random volleys of fire," Hadavi says. "The fire is very concentrated. They clearly want to hit Point A, Point B, Point C and Point D."

The afternoon after the battle, the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine reported that the reactor compartment of Unit 1, which lay in the direction of some of the Russian fire, had sustained damage. It also reported that two shells had landed in an area used to hold old nuclear waste that lay to the north of the battle. Later statements by the regulator and the IAEA reported further damage to the power transformer for the Unit 6 reactor.

At one point, the video shows Russian forces directing their firepower northward toward Unit 6 and the spent fuel area, corroborating those reports.

Hadavi says the Russian troops remained disciplined through most of their attack. Toward the end of the fight, however, some Russian soldiers seemed to be discharging rocket-propelled grenades indiscriminately toward the main administrative building. One was seen stepping from behind an armored vehicle, raising the weapon and — without kneeling to take careful aim — firing it into the upper floors of the building. A total of five rocket-propelled grenades were lobbed into the facility.


Firefighters denied entry

By 2:25 a.m. on March 4, the fighting was largely over. Reinforcements arrived, including a Russian-built MRAP armored vehicle with a gray paint job resembling those used by the Russian National Guard.

Firefighting vehicles arrived at around 2:50 a.m., likely from the nearby town of Enerhodar. But even as the fire raged in the training building, Russian forces apparently forced the firefighters to turn around.


The damage

In the days after the assault, Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned utility that ran Zaporizhzhia, released several photos showing damage to the site on the social media platform Telegram. Most notably, a short video shows what might be a Russian artillery shell on an elevated walkway leading toward the Unit 2 reactor building.

The possible shell was heavily damaged and could not be identified with confidence, but Hadavi says it bears resemblance to some 100 mm and 125 mm munitions used by Russian armored vehicles and tanks. The video also shows two holes that were punched through the walkway's ceiling, presumably by Russian fire, and damage to the steel beams holding up the roof.



The location of the possible shell and the damage is within just a few hundred feet of the Unit 2 reactor building, says Tom Bielefeld, an independent nuclear security analyst based in Germany.

Bielefeld says that the walkway also runs alongside a building used to handle radioactive waste from the plant. That building is not as hardened, or reinforced against attacks and other catastrophic events, as the nuclear reactor buildings are. Had it been struck, there would have been the potential for a localized release of radioactive contamination.

"It was a near miss," Bielefeld says.

Energoatom also released several photos of battle damage to offices at the plant. NPR was able to verify the location as the main administrative building at the front of the facility.

Based on photos and damage assessments by Ukrainian officials and the IAEA, Lyman says that the damage appears to have been to some of the less hardened points within the nuclear plant. Unlike office buildings and elevated walkways, the reactors themselves and their spent fuel are sealed within a thick steel containment vessel that would withstand a great deal of damage.

But he also says that the host of systems required to keep the reactors safe are not hardened against attack. Cooling systems rely on exterior pipework; backup generators are kept in relatively ordinary buildings; vital electrical yards are out in the open; and the plant's control rooms are not designed to operate in a war zone.

Energoatom

A second office in the main administrative building. A Russian flag and the Soviet-era "Banner of Victory" are visible through the window, indicating the photos were taken after the assault.

Lyman says that the reactors at Zaporizhzhia have an inherently safer design than the ones at Chernobyl, which in 1986 was the site of the worst nuclear disaster the world has ever seen.

Nevertheless, he said, if the firefight had damaged more of the plant's critical subsystems and the nuclear engineers on-site hadn't been able to reach emergency backups, the situation could have turned dire.

"In a couple of hours, you have core damage starting and a situation that is potentially irreversible," he says. "And then you have Fukushima."

In 2011, at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, a massive tsunami disabled electrical and cooling systems. Without cooling, the cores of the three operating reactors overheated and the nuclear fuel eventually melted. The ensuing meltdown breached the containment vessels, and radioactive material spilled into the environment. Over 100,000 people were forced to evacuate from their homes for a prolonged period, and thousands have yet to return.

"Dangerous idiocy"

That did not happen at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which is now firmly under Russian control. Russian state media showed off the capture of the plant on Wednesday while carefully framing out some of the damage Russian troops had caused. Meanwhile, Ukraine's nuclear inspectorate says that reactors 1 and 6 at the site have been effectively disabled by the fighting. A lack of personnel and parts is hindering scheduled maintenance at Unit 1 and repairs to the damaged Unit 6 transformer, respectively.

"We emphasize that incomplete and/or untimely implementation of maintenance measures for equipment important to safety can decrease its reliability and in turn lead to its failure and emergencies and accidents," the regulator said in a statement.

Bielefeld says he is deeply worried about the prospects of firefights at Ukraine's three remaining nuclear power stations. At Rivne Nuclear Power Plant in the country's north, the plant's director, Pavlo Pavlyshyn, told NPR that Ukrainian forces were prepared to mount a defense should Russian troops try to take the plant. And Russian forces are now advancing toward a second plant, the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Station.

"I hope this will be the last time we have to talk about these things," Bielefeld says. "But this war is not over yet."

Without some sort of rules of engagement regarding nuclear facilities, he worries that a more serious accident could be just a matter of time.

"Everybody knows that nuclear reactors are not designed to withstand all-out military assaults," he says. "It is dangerous idiocy."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org


Geoff Brumfiel
Geoff Brumfiel works as a senior editor and correspondent on NPR's science desk. His editing duties include science and space, while his reporting focuses on the intersection of science and national security.
See stories by Geoff Brumfiel

  

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for CHERNOBYL 

NOT RECORDED ANYWHERE

Donald Trump Says Putin Assured Him He Would Not Invade Ukraine While He Was President

BY GERRARD KAONGA 

NEWSWEEK

ON 3/11/22 

Donald Trump claimed the Ukraine invasion wouldn't have happened while he was president, citing a conversation he had with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The former president spoke with Fox News' Sean Hannity on Thursday night and discussed the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

Trump also reflected on the withdrawal from Afghanistan under President Joe Biden and insisted that world leaders had lost respect for the U.S. as a result.

"When this horrible situation happened in Afghanistan, it is not even believable how incompetent it was, the way in which they withdrew or surrendered or whatever you want to call it," Trump said.

"Bad things started happening for our country, the border is bad, a lot of things are bad, inflation is bad.

"But the way they got out of Afghanistan looked like a complete surrender.

"I'll tell you Vladimir Putin was watching and Xi Jinping and the leaders of Iran were watching and Kim Jong-un was watching, North Korea, they were all watching, Sean.

"Bad things started to happen, they no longer respected our country and this is how it all came about."

Conversation With Putin

Hannity then questioned how Trump could say with such confidence that nothing would have happened while he was president.

"I had a very strong conversation with President Putin and he understood and I won't go into the great details of the conversation because no one has to know that," Trump told Hannity.

"But I will tell you that it never would have happened if I was president.

"If we had the Trump administration in there like we had tremendous years, tremendous success, economy, energy independence, the largest tax cuts in the history of our country which helped bring about the greatest economy we have ever had.

"This would have never ever happened."

Trump then closed by commenting on the horror of the war facing the Ukrainian people and insisted that it needed to stop.

Newsweek has contacted Donald Trump for comment.

Many Trump supporters and conservatives have echoed his confidence regarding the timing of Russia's invasion.

This includes his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who this week insisted that Donald Trump had exuded strength as president.

"Obviously Donald Trump, he is a guy that nobody wanted to mess with. He exuded strength and you have a very different situation on your hands right now."

She continued: "We didn't have this sort of thing happening under Donald Trump.

"That is what happens when you put a weak and inept person in the office of president of the United States."

Despite this criticism, President Biden has been able to win some support for his handling of the Ukraine situation. This support has come from those who would regularly be critical of his leadership, namely Republican senators.

"I think there's broad support for the president in what he's doing now. Our biggest complaint is, what took him so long?" Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said last week.

Senator Mitt Romney also praised Biden's leadership on sanctions against Russia.

"The president has successfully brought together our friends and allies to coordinate a unified and powerful response to Putin's actions," Romney said after Biden's State of the Union speech.

President Vladimir Putin attends the Russian Geographical Society's Trustee Council meeting in Saint Petersburg on April 27, 2018. Donald Trump makes an entrance at the Rally To Protect Our Elections conference on July 24, 2021, in Phoenix, Arizona. Trump claimed that Putin gave assurances that he would not invade during his presidency.

MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV AND BRANDON BELL/GETTY IMAGES

Striking Minneapolis teachers denounce increased military funding while schools starve: “War fills the capitalists’ coffers”

Anthony Bertolt

WSWS.ORG

Do you work at Minneapolis or St. Paul Public Schools? Tell us about the conditions in your school and what you think is the way forward in the strike. Comments will be published anonymously.

Striking Minneapolis educators (WSWS Media)

Over 4,000 Minneapolis teachers and educational support staff are entering their fourth day on strike Friday. Fighting for major wage increases, manageable classroom sizes, increased staffing, and protections from COVID-19, educators find themselves pitted in a struggle against the Democratic Party, which is insisting that teachers accept yet another austerity contract.

Negotiations between the Minneapolis Public School (MPS) system and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers’ (MFT) chapter for support staff continued Thursday, following a 90-minute mediation session between the MFT’s teacher chapter and the district on Wednesday.

Significantly, in a graphic released by the school district earlier this week showing the most recent contract proposals, it was revealed that the MFT had already dropped its call for a 20 percent raise in the first year of the contract.

The new proposals by the MFT instead call for raises of 12 percent in the first year and 5 percent in the second year, along with a 3.4 percent “step” advancement, which are all but certain to be lowered still further in the course of negotiations. The MFT has stated that it will be “flexible,” signaling its willingness to surrender even more of the wage demands of teachers. In the previous 2019–2021 contract, a 1 percent wage increase was implemented for teachers and a 3 percent increase was implemented for ESPs (education support professionals) “who qualify for a raise.”

Greta Callahan, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers, stated on the opening day of the strike, “I can’t stress enough that all we want is competitive pay. … The only number we are hard on is $35,000 for ESPs.”

Even a 12 percent raise would likely fail to keep up with rapidly rising inflation, which economists are projecting to rise even more quickly as supply disruptions from the war in Ukraine and the economic sanctions against Russia make themselves felt throughout the global economy. Data released Thursday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics for February showed that the consumer price index had increased 7.9 percent compared to a year ago, with costs for items such as meat (13 percent) and heating gas (23.8 percent) and motor fuel (38.1 percent) increasingly even more sharply.

Provocatively, Minneapolis school board chair Kim Ellison suggested that a 12 percent raise would necessitate cuts elsewhere. Ellison attempted to both blackmail teachers and stoke racial divisions, saying, “We all know where those cuts historically have happened. It’s going to affect our students of color and our students most in need.” The MFT, for its part, has backed a reactionary plan to prioritize race in the hiring and firing of teachers, implicitly accepting the argument of the Democrats that there are not enough resources to bring all school staff up to a decent standard of living.

Felix, an ESP worker for MPS schools, told the WSWS on the picket lines Thursday, “I don’t even make $20 an hour. Most of us work two jobs, and that includes teachers.” When a reporter spoke about how the US drive to war is at the center of demands for austerity, another striking ESP chimed in, “Of course they invest in war. War fills the capitalists’ coffers, it’s a profitable business for them.”

Felix (WSWS)

The moves by the MFT confirm warnings made to teachers by the World Socialist Web Site, which wrote on March 1 that the 20 percent wage demand was “widely seen as symbolic and only a ‘starting point’ in negotiations, which the MFT will quickly retreat from.”

The teachers’ unions have been working to ensure that the strike in Minneapolis is contained, isolated and shut down at the earliest opportunity. On Monday evening, the St. Paul Federation of Educators announced that it had reached a tentative agreement with St. Paul’s school district, blocking a strike by several thousand more teachers and school staff that was set to begin the same day as the walkout in neighboring Minneapolis. Details of the agreement in St. Paul have yet to be released publicly, but the SPFE had stated it was calling for raises of just 2.5 percent a year for teachers, a massive cut in real wages with inflation.

The American Federation of Teachers, the parent of the MFT and SPFE, and its president, Randi Weingarten, a key ally of the Biden administration, are determined to enforce the demands for austerity by the Democratic Party, which is in the midst of ramping up war preparations. On Wednesday night, Democrats and Republicans overwhelmingly passed a massive funding package for the military, amounting to $782 billion, not including additional money for nuclear arms development and the Department of Homeland Security.

WSWS reporters spoke with striking educators and their supporters across Minneapolis Thursday.

One teacher, pointing to the immense strain on schools posed by the social crisis and rampant poverty, said, “It’s not fair that schools have to serve as a safety net for society when there aren’t any safety nets for teachers and parents.”

Josh, another ESP, spoke with the WSWS about the growing dissatisfaction among educators with the MFT’s promotion of the Democratic Party. “There are a lot of us who have been trying to raise this question; even after [Minneapolis Mayor] Jacob Frey promised to freeze funding for the police and stop no-knock warrants, they want us to vote for the Democrats.”

The Twin Cities have emerged as an epicenter of opposition to police violence since the start of the pandemic, with global protests sparked following the brutal murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis. In February of this year, Amir Locke was brutally killed by police in Minneapolis following a no-knock raid. Attempting to placate popular anger, Frey had previously issued empty promises to reduce police funding in Minneapolis.

Josh continued, “This is the same party that we are striking against in both cities.”

Peter, a hotel worker and artist who was demonstrating to support striking teachers, said, “I am here supporting the teachers’ fight for better conditions. I think it’s ridiculous that teachers have been starved of funding for so long. I agree that bringing everyone together would be good for workers.”

Peter, right (WSWS)

Speaking about the press’s attempts to pit the community against teachers and the efforts of the Democratic Party–controlled unions to split the struggle of St. Paul teachers from Minneapolis teachers, a striking Minneapolis teacher, Mary-Ann, said, “There are a lot of forces trying to keep us divided in many ways.”

Justin, a teacher at Washburn High School, spoke with the WSWS about the $9 billion-plus budget surplus in the state of Minnesota. “That money is our money. It is the collective money of our state. That should be going in to support programs and people. And the reason that money is there is because it’s been siphoned off from the working class for a long time, including from public schools.”

Justin continued, “I think the biggest thing is that there is this kind of myth-making—‘we can’t afford this, we have to settle.’ They’re saying we don’t have the money. But that often is not the case. They find the money for wars and a myriad of things.”

The recent moves by the MFT to lower its proposed wage increases indicate that the unions are moving quickly to impose the Democratic Party’s demands in the Twin Cities. Teachers must not wait for whatever miserable austerity agreement emerges from the negotiations, but instead must take the initiative now and break the isolation of their strike.

Despite the efforts of the White House and the corporate media to promote a fraudulent “national unity” and deflect social anger outward against a “foreign adversary,” anger continues to build within the working class over precipitously falling living standards and intolerable working conditions. Educators in two Chicago suburban school districts have launched strikes over the last week, striking aerospace workers at a defense contractor in Iowa voted down a second contract offer by a near-unanimous margin, and opposition among oil refinery workers remains high as they vote on a sellout agreement negotiated by the United Steelworkers.

The WSWS urges educators to form new, rank-and-file committees to take the conduct of the strike out of the hands of the unions and expand their struggle to all sections of workers, in the Twin Cities and throughout the country. The defense of educators, public education and students requires a break with the unions and the Democratic Party, which along with the Republicans has presided over the catastrophic response to the COVID-19 pandemic and is now threatening to precipitate a catastrophic war with Russia.

COULDN'T DO IT FOR BUILD BACK BETTER

Senate passes $1.5 trillion spending bill including Iron Dome aid, Ukraine help

Upper house approves $1 billion in extra funding for missile system 5 months after GOP senator held it up; $13.5 billion for Ukraine, aid for Palestinians also approved

By JACOB MAGID and AP

Today,

Rockets from Gaza, on right, are seen in the night sky fired towards Israel from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on May 14, 2021, while Iron Dome interceptor missiles, on left, rise to meet them. (Anas Baba/AFP)


The US Senate on Thursday night passed a massive omnibus 2022 spending bill loaded with political prizes for both parties, including $1 billion in supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system that Jerusalem has been seeking for months but watched from afar as it was held hostage by partisan mudslinging.

The $1.5 trillion package was approved by the Senate with a comfortable 68-31 margin a day after the House of Representatives gave its own stamp of approval. US President Joe Biden is slated to sign it on Friday in order to prevent a government shutdown.

The legislation included a host of smaller bills relevant to Israel and the Palestinians as well as $13.6 billion in humanitarian and military aid to war-torn Ukraine a day after Russia’s invasion entered its third week.
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Jerusalem was looking for additional Iron Dome funding beyond the $500 million it already receives annually in missile defense after it was forced to use up significant amounts of interceptor missiles and batteries during last May’s Gaza war when Hamas fired over 4,300 rockets at Israeli cities over an 11-day period.

The request became an issued of contention last fall when Democratic leadership sought to fold the extra $1 billion in another government spending bill only to be rebuffed by several members from the party’s progressive wing. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to remove to drop the Iron Dome funding from that particular bill in what some interpreted as indicative of a Democratic Party that was moving away from Israel.
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But just days later, a standalone vote was held on the Iron Dome funding, and it passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 420-9.

From left, European Union Ambassador Stavros Lambrinidis, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., German Ambassador Emily Haber, and Lithuanian Ambassador Audra Plepyte join other diplomats to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

It was then brought before the Senate where it was a Republican that held the bill up for months as Sen. Rand Paul refused to allow the fast-tracking of the bill due to his opposition to US foreign aid more broadly.

It took roughly five months until Congressional leadership agreed to stick the Iron Dome funding in the omnibus package.

After the spending bill passed on Wednesday night, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid hailed the victory and released statements thanking their allies in Washington.

Also included in the bill is the $3.8 billion in defense aid for Israel in line with the Memorandum of Understanding signed by former president Barack Obama in 2015.

The bill also includes the Israel Normalization Act, allocating funds to help strengthen and expand the Abraham Accords Israel has signed with several of its Arab neighbors. The legislation will include language supporting a two-state solution, which had been the reason why Republican Senator Ted Cruz was blocking the bill from advancing for months.

Fifty million from the bill will go toward funding the Middle East Peace Partnership Act, which grants $250 million in Congressional funding over five years for Israeli-Palestinian dialogue programs and Palestinian business development.

US President Joe Biden arrives to speak at the Democratic National Committee’s Winter Meeting, Thursday, March 10, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The package includes $219 million for the Economic Security Fund, which supports humanitarian projects for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is the largest amount since 2015. The Palestinian Authority security forces will also receive $40 million in US aid from the bill.

The bill increases funding for nonprofit security from $180 million to $250 million, a hike that Jewish groups have been pressing for, especially after the hostage-taking in a Texas synagogue in January. At least two proposed laws are seeking further increases: Reps. Benny Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, along with John Katko, a Republican from New York, last week got the committee to approve a bill that would increase funding for the security grants portion of the security increase to $500 million.

Other funding backed by Jewish groups in the omnibus includes $6 million for assisting elderly Holocaust survivors and $5 million to streamline and improve the tracking of hate crimes.

Around half the $13.6 billion for Ukraine will go toward arming and equipping the country along with the Pentagon’s costs for sending US troops to other Eastern European nations skittish about the warfare next door. Much of the rest included humanitarian and economic assistance, strengthening regional allies’ defenses and protecting their energy supplies and cybersecurity needs.

Republicans strongly backed that spending. But they criticized Biden for moving too timidly, such as in the unresolved dispute with Poland over how that nation could give MiG fighter jets to Ukraine that its pilots know how to fly.

“This administration’s first instinct is to flinch, wait for international and public pressure to overwhelm them, and then take action only after the most opportune moment has passed us by,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters about the Russian invasion of Ukraine following a Democratic strategy meeting at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, March 8, 2022. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

“We promised the Ukrainian people they would not go at it alone in their fight against Putin,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said just before the vote. “And once we pass this funding in a short while, we will keep that promise.”

White House aides told Congress last month that Biden wanted $6.4 billion to counter Russia’s invasion. He ended up formally requesting $10 billion, an amount that it took an eager Congress just a few days to boost to its final figure of $13.6 billion.

The $1.5 trillion bill carrying that aid gave Democrats a near 7% increase for domestic initiatives, which constituted a bit less than half the package. That translated to beefed-up spending for schools, housing, child care, renewable energy, biomedical research, law enforcement grants to communities and feeding programs.

Republicans lay claim to an almost 6% boost for defense, including money for 85 advanced F-35 fighter planes, 13 new Navy ships, upgrades for 90 Abrams tanks, a pay raise for troops and improvements for schools on military bases. There would be another $300 million for Ukraine and $300 million for other Eastern European allies on top of the measure’s emergency funding.


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., arrives to speak with reporters about aid to Ukraine, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 10, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Currently controlling both the White House and Congress, Democrats could lose their narrow House and Senate majorities in November’s midterm elections, meaning this could be the peak of their ability to win policy priorities for years. Before last year, the last time they controlled both branches was in 2010.

The largesse has been enabled, in part, by both parties’ relaxed attitudes toward gargantuan federal deficits.

Last year’s pandemic-fueled shortfall of $2.8 trillion was the second worst ever. It was so high that Biden has suggested that this year’s projected $1.8 trillion gap would be an accomplishment because it would be $1 trillion smaller, the biggest reduction ever.

 Ukraine: World’s Defense Giants Are Making Billions From the War

By Peter Bloom

Byguest

March 11, 2022

Heavy military equipment is being pulled back from the Ukraine border. Credit: Twitter/Russia Ministry of Defense

Russia’s Ukraine war has led to a spike in defense spending, largely benefiting the global defense industry that supplies weapons to both sides.

By Peter Bloom

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been widely condemned for its unjustified aggression. There are legitimate fears of a revived Russian empire and even a new world war. Less discussed is the almost half-trillion dollar (£381 billion) defence industry supplying the weapons to both sides, and the substantial profits it will make as a result.

The conflict has already seen massive growth in defence spending. The EU announced it would buy and deliver €450 million (£375 million) of arms to Ukraine, while the US has pledged US$350 million in military aid in addition to the over 90 tons of military supplies and US$650 million in the past year alone.

Put together, this has seen the US and Nato sending 17,000 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, for instance. An international coalition of nations is also willingly arming the Ukrainian resistance, including the UK, Australia, Turkey and Canada.

This is a major boon for the world’s largest defence contractors. To give just a couple of examples, Raytheon makes the Stinger missiles, and jointly with Lockheed Martin makes the Javelin anti-tank missiles being supplied by the likes of the US and Estonia. Both US groups, Lockheed and Raytheon shares are up by around 16% and 3% respectively since the invasion, against a 1% drop in the S&P 500, as you can see in the chart below.

BAE Systems, the largest player in the UK and Europe, is up 26%. Of the world’s top five contractors by revenue, only Boeing has dropped, due to its exposure to airlines among other reasons.

Defence company share prices vs S&P 500

Orange = Lockheed Martin; cyan = Boeing; yellow = Raytheon; indigo = BAe Systems; purple = Northrop Grumman; blue = S&P 500. Credit: The Conversation/Trading View

Opportunity knocks

Ahead of the conflict, top western arms companies were briefing investors about a likely boost to their profits. Gregory J. Hayes, the chief executive of US defence giant Raytheon, stated on a January 25 earnings call:

We just have to look to last week where we saw the drone attack in the UAE … And of course, the tensions in eastern Europe, the tensions in the South China Sea, all of those things are putting pressure on some of the defence spending over there. So I fully expect we’re going to see some benefit from it.

Even at that time, the global defence industry had been forecast to rise 7% in 2022. The biggest risk to investors, as explained by Richard Aboulafia, managing director of US defence consultancy AeroDynamic Advisory, is that “the whole thing is revealed to be a Russian house of cards and the threat dissipates”.

With no signs of that happening, defence companies are benefiting in several ways. As well as directly selling arms to the warring sides and supplying other countries that are donating arms to Ukraine, they are going to see extra demand from nations such as Germany and Denmark who have said they will raise their defence spending.

A bus catches fire on a road after being bombed, this is just one of the many devastating scenarios left by the war in Ukraine. Credit: Yan Boechat/VOA Public Domain

The overall industry is global in scope. The US is easily the world leader, with 37% of all arms sales from 2016-20. Next comes Russia with 20%, followed by France (8%), Germany (6%) and China (5%).

Beyond the top five exporters are also many other potential beneficiaries of the war in Ukraine. Turkey defied Russian warnings and insisted on supplying Ukraine with weapons including hi-tech drones – a major boon to its own defence industry, which supplies nearly 1% of the world market.

And with Israel enjoying around 3% of global sales, one of its newspapers recently ran an article that proclaimed: “An Early Winner of Russia’s Invasion: Israel’s Defense Industry.”

As for Russia, it has been building up its own industry as a response to western sanctions dating back to 2014. The government instituted a massive import substitution programme to reduce its reliance on foreign weaponry and expertise, as well as to increase foreign sales. There have been some instances of continued licensing of arms, such as from the UK to Russia worth an estimated £3.7 million, but this ended in 2021.

As the second biggest arms exporter, Russia has targeted a range of international clients. Its arms exports did fall 22% between 2016-2020, but this was mainly due to a 53% reduction in sales to India. At the same time, it dramatically enhanced its sales to countries such as China, Algeria and Egypt.

According to a US congressional budget report: “Russian weaponry may be less expensive and easier to operate and maintain relative to western systems.” The largest Russian defence firms are the missile manufacturer Almaz-Antey (sales volume US$6.6 billion), United Aircraft Corp (US$4.6 billion) and United Shipbuilding Corp (US$4.5 billion).

What should be done in the Ukraine war

In the face of Putin’s imperialism, there are limits to what can be achieved. There appears little credible possibility for Ukraine to demilitarise in the face of Russia’s continued threat.

There have nevertheless been some efforts to de-escalate the situation, with Nato, for example, very publicly rejecting the request of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to establish a no fly zone. But these efforts are undermined by the huge financial incentives on both sides for increasing the level of weaponry.

What the west and Russia share is a profound military industrial complex. They both rely on, enable and are influenced by their massive weapons industries. This has been reinforced by newer hi-tech offensive capabilities from drones to sophisticated AI-guided autonomous weapons systems.

If the ultimate goal is de-escalation and sustainable peace, there is a need for a serious process of attacking the economic root causes of this military aggression. I welcomed the recent announcement by President Joe Biden that the US will directly sanction the Russian defence industry, making it harder for them to obtain raw materials and sell their wares internationally to reinvest in more military equipment.

Having said that, this may create a commercial opportunity for western contractors. It could leave a temporary vacuum for US and European companies to gain a further competitive advantage, resulting in an expansion of the global arms race and creating an even greater business incentive for new conflicts.

In the aftermath of the Ukraine war, we should explore ways of limiting the power and influence of this industry. This could include international agreements to limit the sale of specific weapons, multilateral support for countries that commit to reducing their defence industry, and sanctioning arms companies that appear to be lobbying for increased military spending. More fundamentally, it would involve supporting movements that challenge the further development of military capabilities.

Clearly there is no easy answer and it will not happen overnight, but it is imperative for us to recognise as an international community that long-lasting peace is impossible without eliminating as much as possible the making and selling of weapons as a lucrative economic industry.

Peter Bloom is a Professor of Management at the University of Essex. This article was published at The Conversation and is republished under a Creative Commons License.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi released after 10

years in prison

By AFP

Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been released from prison in Saudi Arabia after serving a 10-year sentence for advocating an end to religious influence on public life, his wife says.

“Raif called me. He is free,” his wife Ensaf Haidar, who lives in Canada with their children, tells AFP.

Two years into COVID, was $800B payroll aid plan worth it?

By JOSH BOAK

 In this April 2, 2020 file photo, a notice of closure is posted at The Great Frame Up in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. President Donald Trump rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program to catapult the U.S. economy into a quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. President Joe Biden tweaked it to try to direct more of the money to poorer communities and minority-owned companies. Now, almost two years after the program made its debut, what did taxpayers get for the $800 billion? 

(AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rolled out the Paycheck Protection Program to catapult the U.S. economy into a quick recovery from the coronavirus pandemic by helping small businesses stay open and their employees working. President Joe Biden tweaked it to try to direct more of the money to poorer communities and minority-owned companies.

Now, almost two years after the program made its debut, the question is what taxpayers got for the $800 billion. The Biden administration says its version of the program helped prevent racial inequality from worsening, while a prominent academic study suggests the overall price tag was high per job saved and most of the benefits accrued to the affluent.

Nearly a year after the implementation of its $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, the Biden administration is arguing that it made critical adjustments to the forgivable loan program, pointing to internal figures showing that more benefits went to poorer communities, racial minorities and the smallest of businesses — those in which the owner is the sole employee.

“The administration came into office with a big focus on racial and social equity, and small business is a significant part of it,” said Michael Negron, the senior White House adviser for small businesses. ”For our equity goals, entrepreneurship is important because it helps create generational wealth.”

However, an outside study suggests that the program — commonly known as PPP — was troublingly expensive per job saved and the payments mostly benefitted business owners who were best prepared to weather the pandemic. On the whole, the study implies that just 23% to 34% of PPP dollars went to workers who would have lost jobs, at a cost of as much as $258,000 per job retained.

The conflicting views of PPP are part of a broader debate over how to help an economy in crisis. There are pressures to get the right amount of money out as fast as possible without driving more inequality or triggering other forms of blowback such as high inflation.

Across two presidencies, Congress approved an unprecedented $5.8 trillion in relief spending that included new interventions such as forgivable loans, direct payments and an expanded child tax credit that was deposited into people’s bank accounts monthly.

When MIT economist David Autor analyzed PPP with other economists, he saw a tool that was too blunt. The U.S. never developed the data systems to monitor what was happening to individual businesses’ payrolls, unlike in Canada, the Scandinavian region, Portugal and Brazil. Those systems would have made it easier to allocate money based on genuine need during a downturn. The U.S. failed to invest in its own data resources and could not target the aid as a result.

“The U.S. has instead ‘starved the beast,’” Autor said. “The result is not less government. It’s simply less effective government.”

By changing the PPP program’s guidelines, the Biden administration was trying to prevent the pandemic from further widening the country’s racial wealth gap.

Black Americans make up about 12% of the U.S. population, yet they control just 2% of the assets from private business ownership that are often key for ascending the economic ladder, according to the Federal Reserve. Just 4.3% of total U.S. household wealth belongs to Black Americans and 2.5% to Hispanic Americans, significantly below their share of the total U.S. population.

When the Trump administration unveiled PPP in 2020, the full impacts from the pandemic were just beginning to be felt in the economy. There was a race to get money out as quickly as possible because of how unpredictable the situation was, so the loans went through major banks that often had existing relationships with eligible businesses for the sake of expediency.

The program enjoyed bipartisan support and the treasury secretary at the time, Steven Mnuchin, told a congressional committee in September 2020 that the payments had supported 50 million jobs. Yet as he pushed for additional aid, Mnuchin said the most important thing during the pandemic was to provide aid “quickly.”

The need for speed also made it harder for historically disadvantaged groups to access the money. That’s why the Biden administration changed the guidelines and rules after taking office.

It set up a 14-day period in February 2021 when only companies with fewer than 20 employees could apply for PPP loans. It changed how PPP loans were calculated so that sole proprietors, independent contractors and self-employed people could receive funding equal to their needs. More of the loans went through community and minority-owned financial institutions.

As a result of the changes, PPP issued about 2 million loans last year to businesses in low- to moderate-income communities, a 67% increase from a year earlier, according to figures provided by administration officials. There were 6 million businesses with fewer than 20 employees that got loans, a 35% increase from the program during the Trump administration.

Because the administration was targeting more companies — including those in which the owner was the only employee — the average size of a PPP loan decreased. It averaged $42,500 last year, down dramatically from $101,500 in 2020.

“We inherited a program from the previous administration that was rife with inequities,” said Isabel Guzman, the head of the Small Business Administration.

Still, the analysis by Autor and other economists says the distributions during the Biden administration “had no discernable effect on employment.” That’s likely because the job market began to recover in May 2020 despite waves of infections that slowed momentum. Because there were fewer jobs at risk, there were fewer jobs to save.

Autor estimates that the richest 20% of households captured about 85% benefits of the program. It could be that the changes by Biden did make PPP more equitable, but the proof won’t come until tax receipts roll in over the next few years, he said.

“They tried to be better stewards of the program, which they had the luxury of doing because the crisis was not as urgent,” Autor said. “It’s not that PPP did nothing; it was a life saver for some small businesses and their creditors. It was also an astoundingly large handout from future generations of U.S. taxpayers ” to some profitable companies.

___

This story corrects the name of the head of the Small Business Administration to Isabel Guzman, not Juan Guzman.