- Ukraineʼs economy lost €400 mn due to the Polish border blockade. Some military cargo also blocked, including 1000s of tourniquets Euromaidan Press
- Ukraine and Poland open crossing to ease blockade as tensions mount • FRANCE 24 English FRANCE 24 English
- Russia-Ukraine war live: Poland will demand EU restores permits for Ukrainian truckers as first vehicles cross border The Guardian
- First empty lorries pass through new Ukraine crossing at Polish border Reuters
- Truck Stop: Ukraine’s Border Blockade Center for European Policy Analysis
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Tag Archives: blockade
UN to hold emergency meeting on Azerbaijan’s blockade of road from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh – The Associated Press
- UN to hold emergency meeting on Azerbaijan’s blockade of road from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh The Associated Press
- Türkiye expects Armenia to avoid ‘provocative steps’ on Lachin road Anadolu Agency | English
- UN Experts Urge Azerbaijan To Lift Blockade Of Lachin Corridor Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
- With Nagorno-Karabakh under blockade for 8 months, Armenia seeks urgent UN Security Council meeting The Associated Press
- Baku says peace efforts ‘hostage’ to Yerevan’s policy of ‘deliberate tension, revanchism’ Anadolu Agency | English
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McConnell opposes Alabama Republican’s blockade of military nominees over Pentagon abortion policy – The Associated Press
- McConnell opposes Alabama Republican’s blockade of military nominees over Pentagon abortion policy The Associated Press
- US defense secretary cites security concerns as senator holds promotions over abortion Yahoo News
- McConnell breaks with Tuberville over blanket hold on military nominees The Hill
- Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin slams Sen. Tommy Tuberville for blocking military promotions USA TODAY
- SECDEF Austin: Tuberville’s ‘Unprecedented’ Hold on Pentagon Nominees Creates ‘Perilous Precedent’ – USNI News USNI News
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Russia Resumes Blockade of Ukraine’s Grain Exports, Reigniting Concerns Over Food Crisis
Ukraine’s military says Russia is massing troops on the right bank of the Dnieper River as both sides appear poised for what could be a key battle for Kherson in Ukraine’s south, while Russian officials claim all civilians were evacuated from the city.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said on October 28 that Moscow has sent in up to 1,000 recently mobilized soldiers to make up for personnel losses suffered at the hands of an ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in Kherson region.
Live Briefing: Russia’s Invasion Of Ukraine
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“The command of the Russian occupying forces, in order to avoid panic among the personnel, is trying by all means to hide the real losses of servicemen…. There is a strengthening of the enemy group on the right bank of the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region with mobilized servicemen numbering up to 1,000 people,” the General Staff said in a statement.
Ukraine has pushed ahead with an offensive to reclaim the Kherson region and its capital of the same name, which Russian forces captured during the first days of the war.
Ukrainian forces were surrounding Kherson from the west and attacking Russia’s foothold on the right bank of the Dnieper River.
However, tough terrain and bad weather held up the Ukrainian Army’s main advance in Kherson, officials said.
Kherson, one of four partially occupied provinces that Russia proclaimed to have seized last month, controls the only land route to the Crimean Peninsula that Russia illegally annexed in 2014 and the mouth of the Dnieper that bisects Ukraine.
Sergei Aksyonov, the Russia-installed governor of Crimea, said on October 28 that President Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff, Sergei Kiriyenko, has visited Kherson.
Kiriyenko, one of the most powerful officials in the Kremlin, visited the ferry port that is evacuating people from the right bank of the Dnieper ahead of the expected Ukrainian offensive, Aksyonov said.
“The work on organizing the departure of residents has been completed,” he said.
Aksyonov’s statement came a day after Russia-appointed officials in Kherson said that more than 70,000 people had left the city, including members of the Moscow-installed regional administration.
The Ukrainian military said on October 28 that forces had killed 44 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours, adding that its forces had destroyed an ammunition depot and a hangar with equipment.
The claim could not be independently verified.
However, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said 23 of his soldiers were killed and another 58 wounded in a Ukrainian artillery attack this week in Kherson. The comments were unusual as pro-Moscow forces have rarely admitted to major battlefield losses.
WATCH: A local official told Russian conscripts “You are not cannon fodder” in a video published online recently. The men responded by angrily shouting that, actually, that’s exactly what they are. The incident, in the Ardatovsky district some 360 kilometers east of Moscow, followed a stream of videos in which Russian conscripts complain of old equipment and poor training.
In the eastern region of Donetsk, Russian shelling killed four local residents, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the region’s military administration, said on October 28.
Russian air strikes, drone attacks, and shelling of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were forcing electricity cuts in the capital, Kyiv, and other places, officials said.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told a briefing on October 28 that Ukraine has shot down more than 300 Iranian Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones so far. The drones have become a key weapon in Russia’s attacks on crucial Ukrainian energy infrastructure.
Iran has denied Ukrainian and Western accusations that it is supplying drones to Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainians will not be cowed by such tactics.
“Shelling will not break us — to hear the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than the enemy’s rockets in our sky,” Zelenskiy said in his regular video address on October 27 as he stood outside in the dark next to the wreckage of a downed drone.
WATCH: Ukrainian troops are targeting Russian-launched drones, fighter planes, and helicopters, using Soviet-era antiaircraft systems with limited radar capabilities. They also use Western-supplied, shoulder-launched missiles like the Stinger, but factors such as the weather can have a major impact on their effectiveness.
Meanwhile, U.S. officials quoted by Reuters and the Associated Press said the United States is preparing a new $275 million package of military assistance for Ukraine to bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there are no major new weapons in the U.S. package, which is expected to be announced as early as October 28.
Instead, the U.S. aid is largely aimed at restocking thousands of rounds of ammunition for weapons systems already there, including for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, which Ukraine has been successfully using in its counteroffensive against Russia.
White House national-security spokesperson John Kirby declined to confirm details of the package in a CNN interview, saying only that a new tranche of weaponry for Ukraine would be announced “very, very soon.”
With reporting by AFP, BBC, Reuters, and guardian.co.uk
Barrack testifies he told Trump to use Khashoggi murder to end Qatar blockade
By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tom Barrack, a onetime fundraiser for Donald Trump, testified on Thursday at his trial on charges of being an illegal foreign agent that he urged the then-president to use the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi as a “lever” to get the kingdom to end a blockade on Qatar.
The testimony from Barrack that he pushed for Qatar’s interests could undermine charges by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn that he acted as an agent of the United Arab Emirates – one of the countries that implemented the blockade – without informing the U.S. attorney general, as required by law.
Barrack, 75, is not charged with acting as a Saudi agent, but the country is close with the UAE. He has pleaded not guilty, and argues his interactions with Middle Eastern officials were part of his role running private equity firm Colony Capital, now known as DigitalBridge Group Inc.
On Thursday, his fourth day testifying in his own defense, Barrack said that during an October 2018 phone call with Trump -following Khashoggi’s murder in Saudi Arabia’s consulate in Turkey – he urged the then-president to use global outrage over the killing “as a lever over this idiotic blockade.”
U.S. intelligence says the murder of Khashoggi, a Saudi insider-turned-critic, was approved by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler. The prince has denied ordering the killing but acknowledged it took place “under my watch.”
The blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others began in 2017. Prosecutors say that during the blockade, Barrack told Rashid Al Malik – an associate also accused of being an Emirati agent – that the United States was considering hosting a summit to resolve the conflict. Al Malik, who is at large, then told UAE officials about the possible meeting, prosecutors say.
Barrack said he spoke to Qatar’s ambassador in the United States as well as its foreign minister in June 2017. That came after Trump tweeted his support for the blockade on the Gulf nation.
Barrack said he then persuaded Trump administration officials to speak with Qatari counterparts, and eventually spoke directly with Trump to encourage him to host a summit at the Camp David presidential retreat to resolve the dispute involving U.S. allies.
“I had told him again from the cheap seats … he should send his teams and conclude this to force Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia to the table,” Barrack said. He denied telling Al Malik about the plans for the summit.
CROSS-EXAMINATION
Barrack in 2019 said at a conference in Abu Dhabi that it was a “mistake” to criticize the kingdom over the killing. He later apologized for the comments.
On the stand on Thursday, he said he should have prefaced the comments by saying that the taking of a life anywhere is unacceptable, but that he “hesitated” at the conference because of a lack of free speech in the UAE.
Prosecutors are expected to ask Barrack more about the comments when they begin cross-examining him later on Thursday.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
US officials looking to salvage Ukrainian grain with no good solution yet to Russia’s export blockade
The work that the US is doing to open up overland routes for the grain to get into neighboring countries, get containers into the country, and implement long-term changes meant to drive down global reliance on Ukrainian grain could collectively have an impact on the crisis. But many view the efforts as marginal fixes to a much larger problem that can’t be completely resolved until Russia eases its blockade, particularly of Ukraine’s biggest port in Odessa, which has been surrounded by Russian warships for months.
“From a practical perspective, the only option is still try and see how to unblock Odessa,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told CNN on Tuesday. “Every option should be explored and if possible, every option should be used … but unfortunately, without exploring and going forward with the Odessa option, I don’t think that there’s any other way.”
“If Russians don’t allow it, we need to, as a global community, we need to find a solution how to do it without Russian agreement,” Landsbergis said.
UN and Turkish officials are preparing for separate rounds of diplomatic talks with Moscow coalescing around a new plan to try to open up sea routes for Ukrainian grains, sources say.
Meanwhile, millions of tons of grain remain stuck in Ukraine, stored in silos and at the port in Odessa, leading to a dramatic spike in global food prices that’s likely to worsen as the war continues. Ukraine is the world’s fourth-largest exporter of corn and the fifth-largest exporter of wheat, according to the State Department, and the UN’s program to fight food insecurity buys about half of its wheat from Ukraine each year.
As CNN reported last week, Russia also appears to be ramping up its efforts to steal large quantities of Ukrainian grain.
The emphasis on finding a solution to getting the millions of tons of grain out by sea, despite the complications, is understandable: it would take an estimated five months by ship versus 18-24 months by rail, a European diplomat said.
And the clock is ticking, with the silos currently full and more grain on its way in the fall.
“In a way it’s going to get worse soon,” the diplomat said. “Nothing that exists solves the problem completely.”
US officials have hunted for alternative routes to export at least some of Ukraine’s harvest, including railing and trucking it through the western parts of the country and using sea ports outside of Ukraine. In addition to exploring options related to temporary storage supplies, they’re considering taking steps like teaching other countries how to use fertilizer more effectively so they can grow more agricultural products domestically in the long-term, administration officials said.
Addressing Russia’s blockade militarily would be a complicated task — and something that could risk escalation with Russia that the Biden administration has worked to avoid. US Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told reporters Tuesday that because the sea lanes “are blocked by mines and the Russian Navy,” opening them up to allow for exports “would be a high-risk military operation that would require significant levels of effort.”
US Ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith told reporters on Wednesday she didn’t see a NATO role either.
“I don’t foresee any NATO role as of today,” Smith said. “We’re at a point where we’re open to seeing countries engage with Moscow, but what we’re disheartened to see is that there’s no indication that Russia is taking any of this seriously or negotiating in good faith.”
“Given Russian behavior in these negotiations (throughout the conflict), I think we’re skeptical that at this juncture it’s going to lead to some sort of major breakthrough,” she added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke by phone with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday. According to a Kremlin readout, Putin said that Moscow would support an “unimpeded” export of Ukrainian grain. Putin also said that Russia was ready to “export significant volumes of fertilizers and agricultural products” — if Western sanctions were lifted, according to the Kremlin readout.
There is strong opposition to lifting of sanctions to facilitate the unblocking of the ports. Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told CNN this week it was simply a non-starter, a sentiment echoed by US officials.
Landsbergis told CNN that the Russians believe they have leverage by blocking ships from safely transiting the Black Sea and that the world needs to make clear that this is not the case.
Diplomatic channels
Turkey will likely play a significant role in brokering any potential solution to the blockade, as the country controls routes into and out of the Black Sea.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov plans to visit Turkey on June 8 to discuss a sea corridor for Ukrainian exports, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday.
The senior Biden administration official says the US is backing any diplomatic efforts with Russia, though the White House is skeptical that the talks with Turkey will lead to a breakthrough.
UN officials are more hopeful of a potential agreement and have devised a plan to get grain out of Odessa through the Black Sea, and a UN diplomat said the Turks were supportive of the idea. Martin Griffiths, a British diplomat and UN under-secretary for humanitarian affairs, will be discussing that plan when he visits Moscow this week.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted on Tuesday that Ukraine was working on an “international UN-led operation with navies of partners ensuring a safe trade route with no security risks.”
But US and European diplomats said the idea of using international navies to protect any UN-effort is still not developed and isn’t likely to happen as of now. And Landsbergis noted that any UN effort that requires Security Council approval is poised to fail due to Russia’s membership on the council.
“I don’t see large NATO navies lining up to do that at this moment. It seems that the idea is not mature enough,” a European diplomat said.
Overland routes
It will also be difficult to re-orient the flow of grain shipments out of Ukraine, where the entire infrastructure is set up to transport grain south into the country’s large ports along the Black Sea, which are currently blockaded by Russian warships.
Caitlin Welsh, the director of the Global Food Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies said any overland routes that US and European officials are considering for exports should be seen as a “transitional solution.”
Without much progress in the Black Sea, US officials have been promoting the prospect that overland routes can help alleviate the grain problem, at least somewhat.
At his Senate confirmation hearing last week, Biden’s nominee to be the next head of US European Command, Gen. Chris Cavoli, pointed to alternative routes for exports that included Germany’s national rail company and a Romanian port that goes through a portion of the Black Sea not being blockaded by the Russian navy.
Another administration official said the European land routes offer some potential to alleviate the logjam. “There’s wide recognition that this is probably the quickest way to address at least some of the backup exports,” the official said.
The official noted that the UN has updated their export forecast for Ukraine by either a million or half a million tons next month, just based on the work that’s already been done with the Europeans to expand the railway and trucking aspects.
However, the overland routes are not without their complications, and according to the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, some of them are very unlikely to be viable solutions.
A route via Belarus to Lithuania was not a good option, for instance, Landsbergis said, because it would be crossing through territory ruled by Putin ally and longtime dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who could demand concessions in order to allow the safe transport of the grain. A train route through Poland was not viable, he added, due to the railway gauges being different.
Supplying Ukraine with temporary storage mechanisms — such as bins and bags — is also a way to potentially salvage this year’s crop in Ukraine because the storage facilities in the country currently are nearing capacity. Temporary storage could also be used to help get the grain onto trucks and trains out of the country, one administration official said.
These efforts come as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out an overall plan last month at the UN that the US is trying to implement which includes steps such as trying to connect countries that are major agricultural producers with countries in need of those products. Blinken said Wednesday that Russia risks “what’s left of its reputation” by not allowing food to get out of Ukrainian ports, but he did not cite any additional cost that the US was willing to impose on Russia for what he called an “effective blockade.”
“It seeks relationships with countries around the world, including many countries that are now the victim of Russian aggression because of growing food insecurity resulting from that aggression,” said Blinken at a joint press conference with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
Long-term impacts
Concerned about the long-term impact of the war in Ukraine, the Biden administration is also considering how they can incentivize American farmers to produce more wheat and other agricultural products that are now on short supply around the globe. But those moves would not have the capability to increase output this summer, because the planting season has passed.
The administration is looking to other countries as well, including helping teach them how to use fertilizer more effectively to grow more agricultural projects, officials said. Fertilizer is on short supply globally because Russia has traditionally been a primary exporter of the crop-boosting soil.
If the effort to teach countries how to more efficiently use fertilizer is successful in countries that are reliant in Ukrainian wheat imports, it could drive up their own wheat production.
“There are a number of different kinds of fertilizers and fertilizer overuse is a problem,” said an administration official, adding that the administration is considering working with other countries and providing technical assistance. “If you’re not over-utilizing it, you actually get better crop yields, and you conserve fertilizer.”
No matter what happens, Ukraine’s grain exports aren’t likely to rebound to pre-war levels anytime soon. Welsh, the CSIS expert, explained that insurance and shipping costs will remain elevated even if the ports are unblocked, and as long as the war wages on, the risk to future harvests and the potential for a global food crisis remain.
Still others have said the best option is to give Ukraine weapons like anti-ship to use against Russia’s blockade and deter further Russian aggression against Ukraine’s ports.
“Cheaper & more sustainable solution to food security would be to arm Ukraine enough to unblock the Black Sea ports,” said Daria Kaleniuk, a leading Ukrainian civil society activist.
This story has been updated with comments from a European diplomat.
Denmark offers Ukraine Harpoon missiles to fight Russia’s Black Sea blockade
The United States developed Harpoon missiles during the Cold War. They are highly versatile and can be fired from surface ships, submarines, aircraft and land-based launch vehicles. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin did not specify what variant Copenhagen had offered to send, but a 2013 guide to the missile system by manufacturer Boeing states that coastal defense systems use the land-based option.
Austin praised Denmark for the Harpoon contribution after a Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on Monday. Copenhagen has not publicly commented on the arms shipment, and the Danish Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Harpoons — which can cost upward of $1 million per unit — are precision-guided armaments that require GPS coordinates to strike. Kyiv could use intelligence provided by NATO assets for targeting, said Alexey Muraviev, an expert on the Russian military at Australia’s Curtin University.
There is precedent for such assistance. Washington provided Kyiv with maritime intelligence that helped it sink the Russian Black Sea Fleet flagship, Moskva, in April, which created “more than a huge problem” for Moscow, he said.
Malcolm Nance, a Navy veteran and former MSNBC analyst who volunteered to fight in Ukraine’s military last month, said on Twitter that Ukraine could use its Turkish-designed Bayraktar TB2 drones to support targeting.
Some experts suggested that Russia might see such moves as escalation by NATO, but Nance played down that risk. “What are they gonna do. Invade Ukraine?” he wrote.
One obstacle for Ukraine is the difficulty of integrating the U.S.-designed missiles into its coastal defense systems, which are built with Soviet technology, said Muraviev. He said it could take months before the Harpoons were deployed against the Kremlin’s Black Sea Fleet.
The Harpoons have been compared to Javelins, antitank weapons that Ukrainian troops have used to great effect against Russia. They are also part of the arsenal of Taiwan, the self-governing East Asian island that has a contract to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the weapons from Boeing. Some parallels have been drawn between Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the threat that Taiwan faces from China, its much larger, nuclear-armed neighbor.
If Kyiv’s forces are properly trained and the missiles are correctly integrated into its platforms, the Harpoons may force Russian ships to stay away from Ukrainian coastlines. That could mean a boost in the fight against global hunger: Ukraine was one of the world’s largest exporters of wheat and corn in 2020, and a weakening of the Russian blockade could boost the world’s food supply and bring down prices.
But Muraviev warned that Russia was likely to react to Ukrainian use of Harpoons, perhaps by intensifying efforts to take Odessa, a major Black Sea port that is still under Ukrainian control. That would force Ukraine’s fighters farther inland and away from Russian ships.
Moscow may also rely more on its submarines because the Harpoons are designed primarily to hit surface ships, he said.
G7 to discuss action to break Russian blockade of Ukraine grain exports | Ukraine
Urgent measures to break the Russian blockade of grain exports from Ukraine’s ports, including by trying to open routes through Romanian and Baltic ports, will be discussed by G7 foreign and agriculture ministers at meetings in Germany.
The grain exports blockade is fast becoming one of the most urgent diplomatic and humanitarian crises in Ukraine. On Tuesday, the US president, Joe Biden, said the US was working on solutions “to get this food out into the world so that it could help bring down prices.”
G7 foreign ministers are meeting in the Baltic Sea resort of Weissenhaus north-east of Hamburg, and the agriculture ministers in Stuttgart.
Cem Özdemir, the German agriculture minister and a Green party member, has for months been looking with the EU at alternative train routes through Poland and Belarus to Baltic ports, but the different train gauges between Ukraine and Poland, a pre-existing backlog of traffic and the shortage of suitable rail wagons all count against this option.
By one Ukrainian estimate, only 20% of the exports Ukraine normally sent through the Black Sea ports by ship could ever be transported by rail to the Baltic ports. The cost of road transport has risen five-fold in the past year.
Before the war, most of the food produced by Ukraine – enough to feed 400 million people – was exported through the country’s seven Black Sea ports. In the eight months before the conflict began, close to 51 million metric tonnes of grain passed through them, according to the UN World Food Programme. The trade was worth $47bn (£38bn) a year to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian minister of agricultural policy and food, Mykola Solsky, has studied options ranging from Gdansk or further east to the port in Klaipėda in Lithuania and three ports in Latvia. The Baltic ports have lost trade from Russia and Belarus, including of potash, so currently have spare capacity.
The Romanian port of Constanța has also taken some shipments of Ukrainian grain, but ships then carrying the grain towards Turkey would probably need to stay within Romanian waters.
The UN has also discussed whether a humanitarian corridor can be opened through Belarus to take the grain to the Baltic ports since the track gauge between Ukraine and Belarus is uniform.
The UN World Food Programme’s David Beasley, who has been sounding the alarm for weeks, warned: “Right now, Ukraine’s grain silos are full. At the same time, 44 million people around the world are marching towards starvation. We have to open up these ports so that food can move in and out of Ukraine. The world demands it because hundreds of millions of people globally depend on food that comes through these ports.”
Typically, Ukraine would export around 5 to 6 million tonnes of grain and 700,000 tonnes of oilseeds through the Black Sea ports a month. There is an estimated backlog for export of anything between 15 and 20m tonnes according to the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club.
Markiyan Dmytrasevych, Ukraine’s designated deputy agrarian minister, said exports by rail could be expanded to between 600,000 tonnes to 1 million tonnes, but that it would take 18-24 months to clear the current inventories, and that’s before any new crop has been added. In April only 560,000 metric tonnes were exported by rail from Ukraine.
Roman Slaston, director general of the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club, said: “We need plan “A” which is unblocking Ukraine ports, and we are constantly saying and delivering that message … This might soften the global crisis which may arise from hunger.”
After the port city of Odesa was struck by Russian missiles on Monday, Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelenskiy warned: “Without our agricultural exports, dozens of countries in different parts of the world are already on the brink of food shortages. The poorest will be hit the hardest. The political repercussions of this will be terrible.”
David Miliband, the International Rescue Committee chief executive, said: “At the moment, I think it’s at least equally likely that the sanctions on Russia get the blame for the rising food prices as does the invasion of Ukraine. There is a huge contest to be won for public opinion globally.”
Signs already exist that Russian diplomacy is trying to shift the blame. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, claimed on a visit to Oman that Ukrainian authorities were refusing to let ships carrying wheat out of their ports and had mined the areas around ports. Ukraine said the accusations were absurd.
In 2020, Ukraine was the world’s fifth-largest exporter of wheat, with low- and middle-income countries being important beneficiaries. The main export destinations were Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Lebanon.
In Egypt, where a third of the population lives below the official poverty line and relies on state-subsidised bread, flour prices have risen by 15%. General inflation for April was just over 13%.
In the month after the conflict started, export prices for wheat and maize rose by 22% and 20% respectively, on top of steep rises in 2021.
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Solsky said these rises were likely to continue since Ukrainian farmers’ sowing campaign has been delayed by as much as a fifth because of a lack of herbicides, colder weather, diesel fuel and the movement of vehicles because of curfews. Farmers have switched from spring crops to sunflower and soya beans. It is estimated that about a fifth of Ukrainian agricultural land is now in Russian hands.
FSH blockade improves cognition in mice with Alzheimer’s disease
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Trucker convoy Canada 2022: Elon Musk calls truckers ‘new government’ as satellite photos show Ottawa blockade
Ottawa mayor condemns desecration of National War Memorial, Terry Fox statue
Ultra-wealthy tech billionaire and on-off Covid-19 skeptic Elon Musk has praised the convoy of truckers bringing the Canadian capital of Ottawa to a standstill over vaccine mandates, describing them as their country’s new government.
“If the government had the mandate of the people,” he tweeted, “there would be a significant counter-protest. There is not, therefore they do not.”
BJ Dichter, one of the organisers behind a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $8 million to support the convoy, said on Sunday their aim is create a “logistics nightmare” for the Canadian government and force it to repeal its vaccine mandates.
“Right now, yeah, it’s really cold, but we hang in there, the days are going to get longer and we take this block party and put it into overdrive,” he said at a press conference with only select media outlets invited.
“We’re in this one for the long haul. We don’t have a time limit.”
Meanwhile Ottawa police say they have launched multiple investigations into the ‘desecration’ of monuments by the Freedom Convoy protesters and of ‘illegal’ behaviour.
Police probe incident at Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Ottawa police are investigating an incident where several members of the truckers’ protest were seen climbing on a cenotaph and dancing on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Andrew Naughtie31 January 2022 12:15
Complaints from a soup kitchen about harassment
The Shepherds of Good Hope homelessness charity last night tweeted about the protest’s effect on its staff, pointing out that trucks were parked in their ambulance drop off zone for nearly 12 hours before being towed.
Andrew Naughtie31 January 2022 11:34
Right-wing tweeters celebrate atmosphere in Ottawa
As the truckers honk their horns and disrupt life for Ottawa citizens with their anti-mandate protest, sympathetic outlets and users are sharing video of the atmosphere around the rally in the downtown area last night.
Andrew Naughtie31 January 2022 10:45
Catch up: Why are truckers protesting in Ottawa?
If you’re only just tuning in to the events unfolding in Ottawa, The Independent’s Joe Sommerlad has this explainer.
Andrew Naughtie31 January 2022 10:01
Updates from Ottawa Police: “Please adjust your plans in the downtown core”
The Ottawa Police last night sketched out what they expect to happen in the city’s downtown core today and this week, reassuring people that efforts to “de-escalate” the demonstration remain underway…but that they should still be vigilant in the name of public safety.
Andrew Naughtie31 January 2022 09:15
Downtown Ottawa to return to ‘significant level’ of normalcy within a day or two, police chief says
Downtown Ottawa may see a “significant level” of normalcy in the coming 24 to 48 hours, the chief of the capital city’s police has said.
“We have some relative hope that within the next 24 to 48 hours, we’ll be back to a significant level, if not a full level of normalcy,” Peter Sloly, Ottawa police chief was quoted by Ottawa Citizen as saying on Sunday.
The prediction comes after the last few days of chaotic demonstrations by the truckers which included the desecration of the National War Memorial and Terry Fox statue.
The leaders of demonstrators have announced to stay in the Canadian capital “as long as it takes” for the government to fold and withdraw vaccine mandates.
The police have registered several cases against the demonstrators for the chaos over the weekend.
Stuti Mishra31 January 2022 08:25
‘Fringe minority is actually the government,’ Elon Musk tweets on Canada truckers’ protests
Tesla CEO Elon Musk once again took a jibe at the Canadian government over the ongoing demonstrations by truckers, saying that the so-called “fringe minority” seemed to actually be the government.
In a tweet on Sunday replying to the footage of crowded Ottawa streets, Musk said: “It would appear that the so-called “fringe minority” is actually the government.”
In another tweet, he said: ‘If the government had the mandate of the people, there would be a significant counter-protest. There is not, therefore they do not.”
Earlier on Thursday, Musk tweeted “Canadian truckers rule” as reports of the truckers protesting in Ottawa made international news.
Stuti Mishra31 January 2022 08:00
Canada’s House of Commons will resume on Monday despite protests
Canada’s House of Commons will resume work on Monday as scheduled, after a six-week holiday break, despite the convoy protestors and vehicles blocking access to parliament.
“The House will reconvene at 11 am tomorrow, as planned, in accordance with the Standing Orders,” the Speaker’s office confirmed on Sunday.
No comment has been made on what security arrangements will be in place with thousands of protesters expected to still be in Ottawa.
Truckers have threatened to remain in the capital until their demands are met.
Stuti Mishra31 January 2022 07:18
Ottawa police estimates protest costs at $800k a day, urges resident to avoid travel
The Ottawa police have estimated the policing costs of managing the protest at more than $800,000 (£468,000) per day, urging residents to not travel towards the downtown core.
“Throughout the weekend, the Ottawa Police Service and its partners have been actively and patiently managing a well-funded, major demonstration in the downtown core,” the police of the Canadian capital said in a statement released on Sunday.
“We have seen multiple cases of disruptive, inappropriate and threatening behaviour from demonstrators.”
“Along with the safety issues, costs to businesses and social costs, the Ottawa Police continues to tally the financial costs of the policing costs which are estimated at more than $800,000 a day,” the statement further said.
“Police are aware that many demonstrators have announced their intention to stay in place. This will continue to cause major traffic, noise and safety issues in the downtown core. We urge all residents to avoid travel to the core,” the statement said, adding that the police has so far avoided ticketing and towing vehicle to not instigate the demonstrators.
“Still, confrontations and the need for de-escalation has regularly been required,” it said.
The police asked those working in the downtown core to plan to work from home if possible. It also said if children attend school in the downtown area, parents should first check if the school is open tomorrow
Stuti Mishra31 January 2022 07:00
Blockade preventing access to US border ‘must end’, says Alberta premier
Alberta’s premier has asked for the vehicle blockade preventing access to the Canada-US border crossing to end, warning it “dangerously” impedes emergency services.
“This blockade must end immediately,” Jason Kenney said in a statement on Sunday. “[It] could dangerously impede the movement of emergency service vehicles.”
The massive blockade of vehicles on the US-Canada border since Saturday afternoon is a result of the ongoing nationwide protests called by truckers who are demanding a repeal of vaccine mandates, masks and lockdowns.
It has brought traffic between the US and Canada to a standstill.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) said in a statement earlier that the efforts to clear the area are ongoing and they are coordinating with the protesting truckers.
Stuti Mishra31 January 2022 06:25