Friday, March 18, 2022

Six In The Morning Friday 18 March 2022

 

Ukraine: Arnold Schwarzenegger's anti-war video trends on Russian social media

A video address by Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger to the Russian people was trending on Russian Twitter on Friday and has sparked reaction.

In it, Schwarzenegger warns Russians they are being fed misinformation about their country's assault on Ukraine.

Addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, he says: "You started this war, and you can stop it".

His intervention has been praised by Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine.


British-Iranian Morad Tahbaz returned to Tehran prison

Family says he was taken from home in Iranian capital by armed guards only 48 hours after being released

 Diplomatic editor


Morad Tahbaz, the British-Iranian given a furlough as part of a deal to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Annoosheh Ashoori has been returned to Evin prison in Tehran under armed guard only 48 hours after being released.

His family said he was taken from the family home in Tehran in a black car with three armed guards and his wife standing by in tears.

A distressed member of the Tahbaz family said “the furlough negotiated by the UK government with the Iranians was just a cover so the UK could free the other two British-Iranians, and then enjoy a victory lap”.


Calls to boycott Subway grow as company continues doing business in Russia

‘It’s so disappointing that Subway is spreading Ukrainian blood on their Footlong sandwiches’

Bevan Hurley

Subway is facing a growing backlash as around 450 of its restaurants continue to operate in Russia, nearly a month into the war in Ukraine.

But the sandwich conglomerate says it is powerless to shut down the stores as they are run by independent franchisees.

After more than 150 US companies withdrew from Russia in response to the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, there are growing calls on social media for consumers to boycott Subway.


A new Arab Spring, thanks to the Ukraine war?

The price of bread is rising rapidly in the Middle East, thanks to concerns about wheat supply from Ukraine and Russia. In the past, such increases have led to violent protests and political upheaval.


The protests are already starting. Last week in southern Iraq, hundreds of demonstrators met in the center of the city of Nasiriyah to decry price rises for bread and cooking oil, among other goods. Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, prices for products imported from there have risen by up to 50% in Iraq.

Then this week, thousands of Sudanese took to the streets to protest ongoing military rule and the fact that the price of bread had gone up there by about 50% too.


UN report to lay out options to halt climate crisis

Nearly 200 nations gather on Monday to confront a question that will outlive Russia's invasion of Ukraine: how do we stop carbon pollution overheating the planet and threatening life as we know it?

The answer is set to arrive on April 4 after closed-door, virtual negotiations approve the summary of a phonebook-sized report detailing options for drawing down greenhouse gases and extracting them out of thin air.

"The science is crystal clear, the impacts are costly and mounting, but we still have some time to close the window and get ahead of the worst of them if we act now," said Alden Meyer, a senior analyst at climate and energy think tank E3G.

'We come for our own': How Black volunteers rallied online to help African students in Ukraine

Updated 1203 GMT (2003 HKT) March 18, 2022


After some of the hundreds of Black students stranded in the besieged city of Sumy, Ukraine, released desperate pleas for help on social media earlier this month, a grassroots group of volunteers sprang into action to help them safely evacuate the war zone.

Black Women for Black Lives, a new coalition focused on helping Black residents escape Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion, amplified the students' pleas to the international community with the hashtag #SaveSumyStudents. The group started a Change.org petition, which received thousands of supporters, calling on governments to urgently respond to the crisis. And it dispersed upwards of $55,000 dollars in donations to nearly 500 stranded students for food and necessities.


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