Kyiv Spared, Energy Not: Trump’s ‘Pause’ with Putin Exposes Limits of U.S. Leverage
Russia hits Ukraine outside Kyiv despite Trump’s claimed pause - as Washington ramps up pressure on allies Britain and Canada over China.
Russia launched a ballistic missile and more than 100 drones at Ukraine overnight, none of which hit Kyiv, after US President Donald Trump’s statement that Russian President Vladimir Putin had agreed to pause air strikes on the capital and other “various towns” until February 1. The Ukrainian Air Force reported on January 30 that Russian launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile and 111 attack drones at Ukraine, including the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhya. The overnight attacks came after Trump said he had asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to halt strikes on Kyiv after weeks of pummeling Ukrainian energy sites that left tens of thousands of civilians without electricity and heating amid freezing cold temperatures that are forecast to dip to as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius in the coming days. “They’ve never experienced cold like that. And I personally asked President Putin not to fire into Kyiv and the various towns for a week. And he agreed to do that,” Trump said during a cabinet meeting at the White House on January 29. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on January 30 that Trump “did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favorable conditions for [peace]negotiations.” But he did not mention energy sites in particular, nor the situation with civilians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country would agree to stop targeting Russian energy facilities if the Kremlin agreed to the same - RFE/RL
US President Donald Trump threatened Britain and Canada over their deepening of relations with China, after both countries’ leaders struck deals during recent trips to Beijing. Trump warned Britain’s prime minister that it was “very dangerous” to strengthen ties with China, and announced restrictions on Canadian aircraft sales to the US, starkly illustrating — despite insistence from London and Ottawa that they need not choose between Beijing and Washington — that he believes they must. The two countries are among a string of traditional US allies, including Finland, Germany, and South Korea, whose leaders have visited China in recent weeks or are set to soon, underscoring how they are seeking to diversify ties and reduce dependence on an increasingly unpredictable Washington - Semafor
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Panama’s Supreme Court cancelled a contract for a Hong Kong firm to run ports along the country’s canal, dealing a blow to Beijing and boosting Washington’s efforts to reassert influence in Latin America. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly vowed to “take back control” of the key shipping route, which he asserts is controlled by Beijing. The ports will now be re-tendered, a move that cancels CK Hutchison’s 25-year contract. Though the Trump administration has recently ramped up its interest in Latin America — part of its push for control of the Western hemisphere — China remains the region’s biggest trading partner, recently boosting trade ties with some of Washington’s closest regional allies - Semafor
President Donald Trump’s nomination on Friday of Kevin Warsh to chair the Federal Reserve could bring about sweeping changes at a central bank that dominates the global economy and markets like no other. Warsh, if approved by the Senate, will be under close scrutiny from financial markets and Congress given his appointment by a president who has loudly demanded much lower rates than many economists think are justified by economic conditions. Whether he can maintain the Fed’s long time independence from day-to-day politics while also placating Trump will be a tremendous challenge. Still, former associates and friends of Warsh say that he has the intellectual heft and people skills to potentially pull it off. His family also has connections to Trump that could reduce the pressure from the White House. Warsh has “a judicious temperament and both the intellectual understanding but also the hopefully diplomatic talents to navigate what is a challenging position at this point,” said Raghuram Rajan, an economics professor at the University of Chicago and formerly head of India’s central bank. Warsh would replace current chair Jerome Powell when his term expires in May. Trump chose Powell to lead the Fed in 2017 but this year has relentlessly assailed him for not cutting interest rates quickly enough - AP
With widespread layoffs expected at The Washington Post in the coming weeks, teams of reporters are sending impassioned letters to owner Jeff Bezos, urging him not to shrink the newsroom. In a letter obtained by CNN, the newspaper’s White House reporters banded together to defend some of the desks facing major cutbacks. “If the plan, to the extent there is one, is to reorient around politics we wanted to emphasize how much we rely on collaboration with foreign, sports, local — the entire paper, really. And if other sections are diminished, we all are,” bureau chief Matt Viser wrote in one of the Post’s internal Slack channels on Thursday morning. The accompanying letter, signed by Viser and all seven other White House reporters, makes the case for a “diversified Washington Post.” And it tries to speak Bezos’s language, appealing to him with data and a determination to grow the Post. The unusual public pleas to Bezos have come after several private signals about imminent cuts, including an internal memo saying the Post no longer planned to send any reporters to the Winter Olympics in February. Reporters fear that the Post is slashing its way to irrelevance; moreover, they wonder whether Bezos, who bought the publication more than a decade ago, cares about it anymore. Thus, the staffers are going over the head of the Post’s publisher, Will Lewis, and trying to get Bezos’s attention directly. International correspondents, anticipating reductions to their ranks, wrote to Bezos last weekend and said “robust, powerful foreign coverage is essential to the Washington Post’s brand and its future success in whatever form the paper takes moving forward.” - CNN
CNN boss Mark Thompson was pressed by staff about why the network has not reined in MAGA mouthpiece Scott Jennings’ on-air rhetoric. Thompson hosted an all-hands meeting with CNN employees, giving them the opportunity to raise questions and concerns about the network’s current state and future. During the meeting, staff questioned the behavior of Jennings, who frequently gets into verbal spats with other CNN guests as a firebrand Trump loyalist. One area of concern was Jennings being allowed to describe undocumented immigrants as “illegal aliens,” a term that violates the network’s editorial standards, according to Status. In a typically fiery appearance on CNN’s NewsNight on Jan. 19, Jennings went on a furious tirade against fellow panelist Cameron Kasky, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting, after Kasky chastised him for saying ICE should be allowed to “chase down illegals” in Minnesota. Responding to concerns raised during the all-hands meeting Wednesday, Thompson said the network does not “police contributors” to “the same extent” as its journalists. Thompson, a former top executive at The New York Times Company and the BBC, also praised the viral arguments that take place on Abby Phillip’s NewsNight show, which often involve Jennings clashing with other guests - The Daily Beast
The journals….
