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☆ Putin ally Medvedev says Russia hasn't used all its weapons yet in Ukraine, a hint at its nuclear arsenal after another major loss
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Dmitry Medvedev noted pointedly that Russia still has weapons it's not used in Ukraine. Russia has been hit by heavy setbacks in the war, mostly recently its loss of the city of Kherson. Medvedev wrote in his latest message: "Russia, for obvious reasons, has not yet used its entire arsenal of possible weapons, equipment and munitions. Ukraine has pushed back Russian forces across a large swath of east Ukraine. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last month the consequences of using nuclear weapons for Russia would be "catastrophic."

The respective chief executives of $139 billion Philip Morris International (PM.N) and $95 billion Rio Tinto (RIO.L) are attempting takeovers that are central to their strategies. Olczak, who needs 90% of shareholders to accept in order to automatically de-list the company, initially faced opposition to his $16 billion offer. The mining giant asked for the postponement at the request of Quebec’s financial regulator, Turquoise Hill said. Two key investors in Turquoise Hill have agreed to withhold their votes on the bid, with their final deal dependent on Canadian arbitration. Turquoise Hill shares closed at C$41.6 on Nov. 4.

☆ Russia's war in Ukraine rages on without a clear end in sight. Here are 6 ways the conflict could play out.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Alia Shoaib | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

As Russia's war in Ukraine continues, there does not appear to be a clear end in sight. Russian victoryWhen it began its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia's goal was to take over the country completely. Rather than taking more territory, Russia's objectives in the current stage of war seem to be to weaken Ukraine's resources, economy, and army. Nuclear war and/or NATO interventionPutin has repeatedly made nuclear threats since he began the invasion of Ukraine and, in September, claimed that it was "not a bluff." One senior official previously said that a Russian nuclear strike could trigger a "physical response" from NATO itself.

☆ Ex-KGB sleeper agent on Russia's nuclear threats: 'Putin is not a suicide bomber'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Putin's repeated nuclear threats during the Ukraine war have raised alarm worldwide. But Jack Barsky, a former KGB agent, threw cold water on the possibility Putin would use a nuke. Putin could even decide to attack Ukraine with a tactical nuclear weapon if he gets desperate enough, Western governments and top Russia analysts have warned. "During the Cold War, it was pretty tense and we got pretty close to nuclear war a couple of times. Shortly after the war began, Putin claimed to have placed Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on high alert.

☆ Former US ambassador says Putin using a nuke would spell 'the end of the Russian military'
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-02 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A former US ambassador said Russian use of nukes in Ukraine would "end" Putin's military. Putin recently said he wouldn't use nuclear weapons, following earlier hints that he would. US intelligence learned that senior Russian military leaders recently held discussions over using a tactical nuclear weapons, as The New York Times reported. Russia is estimated to have around 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons amid an even larger stockpile of bigger, strategic nukes. "They also know that there would be a devastating military response against Russian forces if they did it," he said.

☆ Factbox: Has Putin threatened to use nuclear weapons?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - The West says Russia has made repeated threats to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but what has President Vladimir Putin actually said on the possible use of nuclear weapons? The Kremlin chief said the West was plotting to destroy his country, engaging in "nuclear blackmail" by allegedly discussing the potential use of nuclear weapons against Moscow. And those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that the weathervane can turn and point towards them," Putin said. Putin, the ultimate decision maker on any nuclear launch, has not publicly mentioned tactical nuclear weapons in relation to Ukraine. Russia's nuclear doctrine allows for a nuclear strike after "aggression against the Russian Federation with conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is threatened".

☆ Factbox: Dominic Raab returns to government as deputy PM under Sunak
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-25 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

LONDON, Oct 25 (Reuters) - British lawmaker Dominic Raab was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of justice on Tuesday, returning to the roles he held for a year until September. Here are five facts about Raab:- Raab, 48, lost his roles as deputy prime minister and justice minister when Liz Truss entered Downing Street earlier this year and has been a staunch supporter of now Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in two leadership campaigns. - As deputy prime minister under Boris Johnson, Raab had to step in when the former leader was hospitalised in intensive care with COVID-19 in April 2020. - Raab is a hardline eurosceptic, who long campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union and was appointed to Brexit minister in 2018 by another former prime minister, Theresa May. - Raab ran against Johnson to become leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister in 2019.

☆ Russia's 'dirty bomb' claims fuel fears of Putin escalation in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-24 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Yuliya-Talmazan-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Yuliya Talmazan | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Putin’s embattled defense chief was busy this weekend making phone calls to Kyiv’s closest allies to voice Moscow’s latest evidence-free allegations. Gen. Sergei Surovikin specifically warned that Ukraine was preparing to attack a key dam in the region, threatening to flood the area. “This is classic Russian ‘vranyo’ — a lie that I know you don’t believe, and I don’t believe it either. But this is my story and I’m sticking to it,” Michael Clarke, a professor of war studies at King’s College London, told NBC News. “So it’s a clumsy double bluff,” he said, “trying to make the West frightened of pushing Moscow too hard.”

☆ Washington state woman fended off black bear by punching it in the nose, official says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Dennis-Romero-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Dennis Romero | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

A Washington state woman was injured after a bear knocked her to the ground outside her home Saturday morning, a wildlife official said. The bear was ultimately killed in the same area later in the morning by Fish and Wildlife officers, it said. "Black bear mothers seldom attack people in defense of cubs," the U.S. Forest Service said in a primer on black bears. Washington hasn't had a fatal black bear attack on humans since 1974, Fish and Wildlife officials said. Each case involved a different species, including a brown bear in Alaska, a black bear in Connecticut, and a grizzly in Wyoming, officials said.

☆ How to survive a nuclear bomb attack: Minute-by-minute steps to protect yourself
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( Aria Bendix | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

If a nuclear bomb were headed toward the US, residents would have 30 minutes or less to shelter. Russian Presidential Press Service/APA nuclear attack remains highly unlikely, but it's not out of the question, experts say. Redlener said the best way to learn of an impending nuclear attack would probably be TV or radio. Survivors of a nuclear attack would have about 15 minutes before sandlike radioactive particles, known as nuclear fallout, reached the ground. The US Department of Health and Human Services recommends staying indoors for at least 24 hours after a nuclear explosion.

☆ 60 years after the Cuban missile crisis, the nuclear dangers posed by the war in Ukraine are 'far worse,' experts warn
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-16 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

October marks 60 years since the Cuban missile crisis, when the US and USSR were on the brink of nuclear war. "The current crisis is far worse than the Cuban missile crisis," one historian recently told Insider. But today's simmering Ukraine war poses 'far worse' nuclear dangers, experts say. "The current crisis is far worse than the Cuban missile crisis, in part because during the Cuban missile crisis both Kennedy and Khrushchev were willing to discuss a way of walking back the confrontation. "This crisis is more dangerous than the Cuban missile crisis," Andy Weber, a former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological programs, recently told Politico.

☆ Putin's nuclear threats are pushing people like Trump and Elon Musk to press for a Ukraine peace deal. A nuclear expert warns that's 'dangerous.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Growing fear of nuclear war has prompted calls for an immediate settlement to end the war in Ukraine. But abandoning support for Ukraine now could spur Russia and others to make more nuclear threats. "Just giving in at this point would actually be dangerous," nuclear expert Pavel Podvig told Insider. In discussions with Insider, Podvig said that Russia could decide to use nuclear weapons if its hold over Crimea were threatened. Instead of capitulation, dressed up in a universal desire for peace, he argued, "You could in effect show – demonstrate in practice — that nuclear weapons are not a useful instrument of terror and compellence."

☆ Five dads who bonded over trail running bought family vacation homes together in Hawaii. Now they jog under palm trees while their 21 children play.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-15 | by ( Zoe Rosenberg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Ryan Seare, 47, was the first of his neighborhood friends to invest in a Hawaii vacation home. He convinced four other families to join him at a property in Kauai where shares start at $445,000. For his precedent-setting investment, Seare chose Timbers Kauai, an intimate community of 47 homes tucked away on Kauai's southeast shore near a lighthouse, a marina, and a Costco. Between the Seare, Phillips, and Smith families, there are 13 kids ranging in age from 2 to 17. "Sometimes when you're on vacation, you don't want to see people you know, because that's part of vacationing.

☆ For a Suburban Kid, There Was No Purer Sport Than Wiffle Ball
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Rich Cohen | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Anyone who grew up on the North Shore of Chicago in the 1980s can tell you about at least one of my Wiffle ball pitches. Maybe it’s the sinker, which I perfected one August as the street lamps clicked on along Bluff Road. Thrown overhand, the ball came in high, then dove for a strike. Or maybe it’s the sidearm floater, which came from way on the left, described a painfully slow arc, then crossed at the hitter’s knees. Especially when I hammered a hanging curve, then stood watching it travel down the driveway, over the sidewalk and into the distant hedge, which, even more than the ivy at Wrigley Field, marked the threshold of every childhood dream.

☆ How to Keep the Ukraine Conflict From Going Nuclear
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Scott D. Sagan | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats have been menacing and apocalyptic. In March 2018, he told an interviewer that he would not start a nuclear war, but if “aggressors” attacked Russia, “vengeance is inevitable.... We will go to heaven as martyrs. This is not a bluff.” And then he led the crowd in chanting, “Russia, Russia, Russia.”President Joe Biden suggested last week that the “prospect of Armageddon” hasn’t loomed so close in 60 years. Are Mr. Putin’s threats serious or mere saber rattling? Are they calculated bluffs to frighten NATO and deter intervention, or bellicose rants from an isolated and unhinged bully?

☆ Russian roulette: Is Putin serious about nuclear war, or bluffing?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Jason Corcoran | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

On Oct. 26, President Vladimir Putin appeared on Russian state television overseeing a practice run of Russia's strategic nuclear deterrence forces. The conflict has revived Cold War-era fears of nuclear war across the region. In August, a Ukrainian official said that 9,000 Ukrainian military personnel had been killed, though another source said the number could be far higher. (President Zelensky previously estimated that 30% of Ukraine's power stations have been damaged or destroyed, although the figure is now likely to be greater.) In a wide-ranging answer, Putin had offered, almost as an aside, that Russian victims of nuclear war "will go to heaven as martyrs" while Western citizens would perish without having "time to repent."

☆ Russia's army would be 'annihilated' by the West if Putin uses a nuke in Ukraine, senior EU official predicts
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( Mia Jankowicz | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The EU's tio diplomat said Russia's army would be "annihilated" if Putin used a nuke in Ukraine. Putin has suggested multiple times that he is willing to use Russia's massive nuclear arsenal. Putin and various Kremlin officials have alluded to Russia's nuclear stockpile and threatened dire military when warning the West to keep out of the invasion of Ukraine. Borrell said that the West needs to show "complete determination" in the face of Russia's aggression. He said that the West must not waver in its support for Ukraine and should "continue looking for diplomatic solutions when possible."

☆ Malibu Mansion Sells for $100 Million to Billionaire Media Mogul
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Billionaire media mogul Byron Allen has paid $100 million for a Malibu estate formerly owned by self-storage billionaire Tammy Hughes Gustavson, according to a person familiar with the situation. The deal represents the most ever paid for a home by an African-American buyer in the U.S. and is one of the highest prices paid for a U.S. home this year. The roughly 11,000-square-foot compound, built around 2000 and located in the sought-after Paradise Cove enclave, has been on the market since May, when it was listed for $127.5 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. It sits on about 3.5 acres on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean and is directly adjacent to a roughly $190 million compound owned by WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum.

☆ Putin's nuclear threats are stirring fears of a nightmare scenario. Here's what's in his arsenal and what could happen if he orders the unthinkable.
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( John Haltiwanger | Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

The use of a nuclear weapon is "directly tied to Russia's fate on the battlefield," one expert recently told Insider. Putin, who claimed to have placed Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on high alert just days later, has continued to remind the world of Russia's nuclear might in the months since. There are tactical nuclear weapons that are more than four times as powerful. At best, a single tactical nuclear weapon could destroy about a dozen tanks, Podvig said. Kristensen said during the ACA webinar on Tuesday that he believes it's unlikely that Russia employs nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

☆ France's Macron suggests he won't fire nukes at Russia even if Putin uses them in Ukraine, undercutting Western threats
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Sinéad Baker | Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Macron suggested he wouldn't use nuclear weapons to retaliate if Russia used them in Ukraine. Macron was asked: "Would France consider a tactical strike by Russia as a nuclear strike?" France's current nuclear policy is to use nuclear weapons only in self-defense, a definition Macron suggested would not be met by an attack on an allied nation like Ukraine. Other nations have not explicitly said how they will respond if Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon. Russia's repeated threatsRussia has repeatedly warned that it could use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

☆ Morning Bid: The Next Three Days
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Well, the Bank of England's Andrew Bailey has crowed, sort of making clear the Liz Truss government can't bank on it defending markets from the fallout of an ill-conceived economic revival plan for more than three days. "You've got three days left now. You've got to get this done," Bailey said on Tuesday, referring to the pension funds. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is up, yen is at 24-year lows, yields are soaring, sterling is wobbling and oil is slipping. That comes days after a sweeping set of export controls published by the Biden administration aimed at cutting China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment.

☆ The Next Three Days
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Well, the Bank of England's Andrew Bailey has crowed, sort of making clear the Liz Truss government can't bank on it defending markets from the fallout of an ill-conceived economic revival plan for more than three days. "You've got three days left now. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is up, yen is at 24-year lows, yields are soaring, sterling is wobbling and oil is slipping. Not all is lost for the chip industry that has been hammered in the past few days after a Reuters report on Tuesday that the U.S. government has allowed at least two non-Chinese chipmakers operating in China to receive restricted goods and services without their suppliers seeking licenses. That comes days after a sweeping set of export controls published by the Biden administration aimed at cutting China off from certain semiconductor chips made anywhere in the world with U.S. equipment.

☆ A Russian nuclear strike in Ukraine would 'almost certainly' trigger a military response from Kyiv's partners: senior NATO official
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Natalie Musumeci | John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A Russian nuclear attack would "almost certainly" trigger a military response from Kyiv's friends, a senior NATO official said. There would be "unprecedented consequences" should Putin turn to nuclear weapons, they said, per Reuters. There would be "unprecedented consequences" should Russian President Vladimir Putin turn to nuclear weapons, the unnamed NATO official said, according to Reuters. A Russian nuclear attack would "almost certainly be drawing a physical response from many allies, and potentially from NATO itself," the official warned. "I do not believe that a nuclear response is something that the United States and its allies should be placing on the table.

☆ Malibu Mansion Sells For $100 Million to Billionaire Media Mogul
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Katherine Clarke | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

☆ Former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mike Mullen calls Putin 'a cornered animal' over stumbles in Ukraine
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( John L. Dorman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mullen said Putin was "a cornered animal" over Ukraine stumbles. "I think he's more and more dangerous," Mullen said of the Russian leader on ABC's "This Week." "He's a cornered … animal and I think he's more and more dangerous," Mullen. "I think we have to take him seriously and think through what the requirements would be to respond to that. Putin last month said that his country's threat to engage in nuclear warfare was "not a bluff."

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