标题: 2022.02.28 乌克兰和俄罗斯之间的谈判结束时没有达成协议 [打印本页] 作者: shiyi18 时间: 2022-3-1 04:02 标题: 2022.02.28 乌克兰和俄罗斯之间的谈判结束时没有达成协议 The world in brief
Catch up quickly on the global stories that matter
Updated less than 1 hour ago (19:03 GMT / 14:03 New York)
Negotiations between Ukraine and Russia ended without an agreement, according to Russian state media. The two delegations will reportedly return to their capitals before holding a second round of talks. Ukraine previously said it wants an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops.
Russia enacted capital controls in an attempt to stem the damage from Western sanctions. The Kremlin barred Russians from transferring foreign currency overseas or servicing foreign-currency debt outside the country. The central bank reportedly ordered financial institutions to block foreign clients from selling Russian securities. Earlier it raised its key interest rate from 9.5% to 20% in an effort to prop up the rouble, which fell by as much as 30% against the dollar. Trading was halted on Moscow’s stock exchange.
Shell said it would exit its joint ventures with Gazprom, including its 28% stake in a major offshore gas project. Earlier BP said that it was getting rid of its 20% stake in Rosneft, Russia’s state-backed oil giant. Switzerland broke with its long tradition of neutrality and froze the assets of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and nearly 400 other Russians already targeted by EU sanctions.
Russia claimed to have seized two small cities in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region, after Ukrainian officials claimed their forces had repulsed a Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. Kyiv, though, remains under siege. Britain’s defence ministry said the Russian advance had been frustrated by “logistical failures and staunch Ukrainian resistance”. Ukraine said it had killed an estimated 5,300 Russian troops. The UN confirmed that 102 civilians had been killed, warning that the real number could be “considerably higher”.
FIFA and UEFA, football’s global and European governing bodies, suspended Russia’s clubs and national teams from all competitions. The decision bars Russia from qualifying for the World Cup. The International Olympic Committee called for Russian and Belarusian athletes to be banned from all global sporting events. It said that in cases where it was impossible to stop them taking part, the athletes should not compete as representatives of their countries.
Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, asked the EU to immediately admit Ukraine as a member. Earlier, Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said she wanted Ukraine eventually to join the bloc. “Over time, they belong to us,” she said. Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign-affairs chief, said members of the bloc would supply Ukraine with fighter jets.
European interior ministers promised that Ukrainian refugees would be allowed to enter the bloc without seeking asylum through normal processes. The UN estimates that 500,000 Ukrainian refugees—mostly older men, women and children—have left already. Millions more are expected to follow. Most are in neighbouring countries including Poland and Hungary. But others are joining families as far away as Greece.
Fact of the day: 1m-3m, the number of Ukrainians who might try to leave their country in the coming weeks, according to UN agencies. Read the full article.
China’s tightrope walk on Ukraine
PHOTO: PRESS ASSOCIATION
As the scale and violence of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine become ever clearer, China is still trying to avoid any explicit criticism of the operation. On Friday it abstained from voting on a UN resolution condemning Russia (that Russia itself vetoed). But maintaining this stance will become trickier for China’s diplomats as casualties mount and the West ratchets up economic sanctions against Russia. Bloomberg reports that at least two of China’s big state-owned banks are restricting financing for purchases of Russian commodities. This suggests concern about repercussions for their business should they be deemed to be undermining sanctions.
It is unclear how much China knew in advance about Russia’s plans and how prepared it was for the diplomatic fallout. The New York Times reports that America presented Chinese officials with intelligence on Russia’s troop build-up before the invasion, but were rebuffed. Even if China was surprised, however, it will not show public irritation with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Isolating Russia’s central bank
Western sanctions on Russia have tended to be long on macho rhetoric and short on impact. But new measures targeting Russia’s financial system, and in particular its central bank, are brutal. It holds $630bn of foreign reserves, equivalent to 38% of Russia’s GDP in 2021. Although Russia has shifted the composition of its reserves away from dollars, it is likely that the majority of its holdings are held with financial institutions, or in jurisdictions, that will enforce Western sanctions. That means some, or even much, of Russia’s national war chest can be frozen.
If the central bank does not have instant access to the reserves it will be hard for it to intervene in the currency market or to offer foreign-currency liquidity to banks. That all points to an intensifying panic in Russia’s financial system. On Monday the ruble fell by 30% and the central bank raised interest rates to 20%, cancelled share trading for at least a day, and introduced some capital controls.
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Germany’s security-policy U-turn
PHOTO: REUTERS
For decades Germany, under American protection, has shied away from military operations and neglected its armed forces. Donald Trump only managed to persuade a reluctant Angela Merkel into spending the 2% of GDP on defence required of NATO members by 2031. But Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has succeeded in bringing that date forward considerably, and more.
On Sunday Olaf Scholz, Mrs Merkel’s successor as chancellor, performed an astonishing about-face. He told the Bundestag that Germany will raise military spending above the 2% threshold “from now on” and even proposed putting the figure in the constitution. He will put €100bn ($113bn) this year into a special fund to modernise the armed forces. And he will send defensive weapons to Ukraine. He also vowed to boost Germany’s presence in NATO countries in eastern Europe.
Just a few days ago Germany appeared loth to halt Nord Stream 2, a gas pipeline from Russia. That changed when Russia invaded Ukraine. Mr Putin’s war, said Mr Scholz, had “created a new reality”. And how.
A new report on climate change
PHOTO: AFP
With temperatures on Earth currently around 1.1-1.3°C above pre-industrial levels, the impacts of global warming are already more severe than previously thought, and they are accelerating faster. At least 3.3bn people are now vulnerable to climate change. These bleak conclusions come from a new report, released on Monday, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change—its most comprehensive assessment ever of the consequences of a warming world.
Since 2014, when the report’s predecessor came out, scientific understanding of how humanity has changed the climate has advanced. So has the pace of climate change itself, including more extreme weather events. Scientists now have a clearer picture of what is to come, and more empirical evidence that some natural systems and human societies are already approaching the limits of possible adaptation. Every time temperatures rise by even a fraction of a degree, the scope for the world to cope becomes more constrained.
Roadblocks to India’s economic recovery
PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
Last year India’s government said the country was on track to have the “fastest-growing economy in the world”. Such optimism may be premature. Growth rates of 20.1% and 8.4% in the first two quarters of the 2021-22 financial year were flattered by comparison periods at the start of the pandemic. The release today of GDP data for the quarter ending December 2021 revealed growth slowing to 5.4% compared with the same period a year earlier, when covid-19 was less rampant.
Growth could slow even further in the quarter that is now under way. Omicron-related restrictions introduced in January hit economic activity. The war in Ukraine could be an even bigger dampener. As a big importer of oil India is sensitive to its price, which has surged. According to one estimate, a 10% increase in the crude-oil price could cut GDP growth rates by 0.2 percentage points. Inflation, already bubbling, could also soar.
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