Month: March 2022

Mastercard and Visa are suspending their operations in Russia, the companies said Saturday, in the latest blow to the country’s financial system after its invasion of Ukraine. Mastercard said cards issued by Russian banks will no longer be supported by its network and any Mastercard issued outside the country will not work at Russian stores or ATMs. “We don’t take this decision lightly,” Mastercard said in a statement, adding that it made the move after discussions with customers, partners and governments. Visa said it’s working with clients and partners in Russia to cease all Visa transactions over the coming days. …

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WNBA All-Star Brittney Griner was arrested last month at a Moscow airport after Russian authorities said a search of her luggage revealed vape cartridges. The Russian Customs Service said Saturday that the cartridges were identified as containing oil derived from cannabis, which could carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The customs service identified the person arrested as a player for the U.S. women’s team and did not specify the date of her arrest. Russian media reported the player was Griner, and her agent, Lindsay Kagawa Colas, did not dispute those reports. “We are aware of the situation …

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China has decided to raise its defense spending by 7.1%, which is the largest increase since 2019. The rise is significant because the country’s economy is expected to grow this year at the lowest level in decades at 5.5%. China’s defense spending is being carefully watched around the world in view of the atmosphere of political uncertainties caused by the Ukraine war. China has refused to pick sides or condemn the Russian attack. Some experts believe China will look for opportunities to invade Taiwan. Beijing regards Taiwan as a rogue province and has often indicated plans to take it over …

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When Matthew Parker, an American veteran with 22 years of service in the U.S. Army, heard that Russian forces had invaded Ukraine, he thought about a Ukrainian American soldier who had served alongside him with U.S. forces in Iraq and decided he wanted to help the Ukrainians defend their homeland. “I had a soldier in Iraq with me who was from Ukraine,” he told VOA of his decision to join what he sees as a fight about justice and friendship. “He became an American citizen, joined the Army, and he told me about his home. He told me about his …

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Russia’s demand for written U.S. guarantees that sanctions on Moscow would not damage Russian cooperation with Iran is “not constructive” for talks between Tehran and global powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal, a senior Iranian official told Reuters Saturday. The announcement by Russia, which could torpedo months of intensive indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in Vienna, came shortly after Tehran said it had agreed a roadmap with the U.N. nuclear watchdog to resolve outstanding issues which could help secure the nuclear pact. “Russians had put this demand on the table [at the Vienna talks] since two days ago. …

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Two men originally from China are among the 1 million refugees fleeing Ukraine into neighboring countries this week after Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. VOA chronicled the journeys of Ibrahim Abliz, a Uyghur, and Ersin Erkinuly, a Kazakh. Abliz and Erkinuly were among thousands of Uyghurs and Kazakhs who fled China because of its “anti-terrorism” policy in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where rights groups and some Western countries accuse China of crimes against humanity and arbitrarily detaining more than 1 million people in internment camps in recent years. Beijing denies the mistreatment as lies and fabrication and says China’s …

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The U.S. Embassy in Ukraine said that attacking a nuclear power plant is a war crime, after Russia on Friday seized a Ukrainian nuclear facility that is the biggest in Europe. The statement on the embassy’s Twitter account went further than any U.S. characterization of Russia’s actions in Ukraine since it launched its invasion Feb. 24. “It is a war crime to attack a nuclear power plant. Putin’s shelling of Europe’s largest nuclear plant takes his reign of terror one step further,” U.S. Embassy Kyiv said in its post. Russian invasion forces seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant in heavy …

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Russia’s blocking of Facebook is a symptom of its broader effort to cut itself off from sources of information that could imperil its internationally condemned invasion of Ukraine, experts say. The often-criticized social network is part of a web of information sources that can challenge the Kremlin’s preferred perspective that its assault on Ukraine is righteous and necessary. Blocking of Facebook and restricting of Twitter on Friday came the same day Moscow backed the imposition of jail terms on media publishing “false information” about the military. Russia’s motivation “is to suppress political challenges at a very fraught moment for (Vladimir) …

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