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Leader Live
2 minutes ago
- Leader Live
Russia says it will no longer abide by self-imposed missile moratorium
It is a warning that potentially sets the stage for a new arms race as tensions between Moscow and Washington rise again over Ukraine. In a statement on Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry linked the decision to efforts by the US and its allies to develop intermediate-range weapons and preparations for their deployment in Europe and other parts of the world. It specifically cited US plans to deploy Typhoon and Dark Eagle missiles in Germany starting next year. The ministry noted that such actions by the US and its allies create 'destabilising missile potentials' near Russia, creating a 'direct threat to the security of our country' and carry 'significant harmful consequences for regional and global stability, including a dangerous escalation of tensions between nuclear powers'. It did not say what specific moves the Kremlin might take, but President Vladimir Putin has previously announced that Moscow was planning to deploy its new Oreshnik missiles on the territory of its neighbour and ally Belarus later this year. 'Decisions on specific parameters of response measures will be made by the leadership of the Russian Federation based on an interdepartmental analysis of the scale of deployment of American and other Western land-based intermediate-range missiles, as well as the development of the overall situation in the area of international security and strategic stability,' the Foreign Ministry said. The Russian statement follows US President Donald Trump's announcement on Friday that he is ordering the repositioning of two US nuclear submarines 'based on the highly provocative statements' of Dmitry Medvedev, who was president in 2008-12 to allow Mr Putin, bound by term limits, to later return to the office. Mr Trump's statement came as his deadline for the Kremlin to reach a peace deal in Ukraine approaches later this week. Mr Trump said he was alarmed by Mr Medvedev's attitude. Mr Medvedev, who serves as deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council chaired by Mr Putin, has apparently sought to curry favour with his mentor by making provocative statements and frequently lobbing nuclear threats. Last week he responded to Mr Trump's deadline for Russia to accept a peace deal in Ukraine or face sanctions by warning him against 'playing the ultimatum game with Russia' and declaring that 'each new ultimatum is a threat and a step toward war'. Mr Medvedev also commented on the Foreign Ministry's statement, describing Moscow's withdrawal from the moratorium as 'the result of Nato countries' anti-Russian policy'. 'This is a new reality all our opponents will have to reckon with,' he wrote on X. 'Expect further steps.' Intermediate-range missiles can fly between 500 to 5,500 kilometres (310 to 3,400 miles). Such land-based weapons were banned under the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Washington and Moscow abandoned the pact in 2019, accusing each other of violations, but Moscow declared its self-imposed moratorium on their deployment until the US makes such a move. The collapse of the INF Treaty has stoked fears of a replay of a Cold War-era European missile crisis, when the US and the Soviet Union both deployed intermediate-range missiles on the continent in the 1980s. Such weapons are seen as particularly destabilising because they take less time to reach targets, compared with intercontinental ballistic missiles, leaving no time for decision-makers and raising the likelihood of a global nuclear conflict over a false launch warning. Russia's missile forces chief has declared that the new Oreshnik intermediate-range missile, which Russia first used against Ukraine in November, has a range to reach all of Europe. Oreshnik can carry conventional or nuclear warheads. Mr Putin has praised the Oreshnik's capabilities, saying its multiple warheads that plunge to a target at speeds up to Mach 10 are immune to being intercepted and are so powerful that the use of several of them in one conventional strike could be as devastating as a nuclear attack. Mr Putin has warned the West that Moscow could use it against Ukraine's Nato allies who allowed Kyiv to use their longer-range missiles to strike inside Russia.
The Guardian
3 minutes ago
- The Guardian
US environmental agency freezing $3bn in climate funds is ‘capricious', court to hear
The Trump administration's decision to abruptly terminate a $3bn program helping hundreds of communities prepare for climate disasters and environmental hazards is unconstitutional and should be overturned, a court will hear on Tuesday. A coalition of non-profits, tribes and local governments is suing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the agency's administrator Lee Zeldin for terminating the entire Environmental and Climate Justice (ECJ) block grant program – despite a legally binding mandate from Congress to fund the Biden-era initiative. It's the first-of-a-kind proposed class action lawsuit that would force the EPA and Zeldin to reinstate the program and each individual grant, rather than forcing the recipients to sue individually. The $3bn ECJ program was created by Congress through the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – a long standing source for ire for Trump and his polluting industry allies – to help historically disadvantaged communities come up with local solutions to improve resilience in the face of worsening climate shocks and environmental degradation. It was intended by Congress to fund community-based projects across the country to tackle longstanding and pressing environmental harms that cause death and ill health from hazards including industrial pollution, lead pipes, flooding and urban heat islands. Almost 350 rural and urban groups, towns and tribes were selected by the EPA from 2,700 applicants, through a rigorous process that included longterm accountability and oversight over the funds. In February, Zeldin's EPA, under the direction of the Trump administration, began terminating the entire ECJ program, as part of a broader assault on climate science, climate action and environmental justice measures. In June, 23 grant recipients sued after the entire block grant was terminated and the funds frozen overnight. The plaintiffs come from every region of the country and include the Indigenous village of Pipnuk in Alaska, the Deep South Centre for Environmental Justice in New Orleans, Appalachian Voices which works with legacy coal communities and Kalamazoo county in Michigan. Several non-profit legal advocacy groups – EarthJustice, Southern Environmental Law Center, Public Rights Project and Lawyers for Good Government – filed the proposed class action lawsuit alleging that the wholesale termination violated the separation of powers and is therefore unconstitutional. They also argue that the Trump administration's decision was both 'arbitrary and capricious' – in other words, made without proper reasoning or consideration of the consequences, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. On Tuesday, attorneys representing the coalition will argue for preliminary relief at the US district court for the District of Columbia (DDC), to force the EPA to immediately reinstate the ECJ program and unfreeze the funds. 'This was an unlawful action that went against the will of Congress and violated the separation of powers,' said , senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. 'The administration terminated the entire program simply because they don't like it, without any reasoned decision making or consideration of the impacts. The decision was both arbitrary and capricious, and unconstitutional, and should be overturned.' The Trump administration has filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the DDC does not have jurisdiction, and this is a contractural case for the US court of federal claims. Under contract law, the 349 grant recipients would be forced to sue individually for breach of contract and damages, but with no possibility of the ECJ program being reinstated as Congress intended. A ruling on if and where the case continues is expected later this month. The judge will rule separately on the plaintiffs' motion for the case to proceed as a class action. The EPA said it did not comment on pending litigation.
The Guardian
16 minutes ago
- The Guardian
I was the US labor secretary. Trump's latest firing undermines a key agency
I spent much of the 1990s as the secretary of labor. One unit of the labor department is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was instructed by my predecessors as well as by the White House, and by every labor economist and statistician I came in contact with, that one of my cardinal responsibilities was to guard the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Otherwise, this crown jewel of knowledge about jobs and the economy would be compromised. If politicized, it would no longer be trusted as a source of information. So what does Donald Trump do? In one fell swoop on Friday, he essentially destroyed the credibility of the BLS. Trump didn't like the fact that the BLS revised downward its jobs reports for April and May. Well, that's too bad. Revisions in monthly jobs reports are nothing new. They're made when the bureau gets more or better information over time, which it often does. Yet with no basis in fact, Trump charged that Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of labor statistics, 'rigged' the data 'to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad'. Then he ordered her fired and replaced with someone else – presumably someone whose data Trump will approve of. How can anyone in the future trust the information that emerges from the Bureau of Labor Statistics when the person in charge of the agency has to come up with data to Trump's liking in order to stay in the job? Answer: they cannot. Trump has destroyed the credibility of this extraordinarily important source of information. When Trump doesn't like the message, he shoots the messenger and replaces the messenger with someone who will come up with messages that he approves. So we're left without credible sources of information about what is really occurring. Trump is in the process of trying to do the same with the Federal Reserve – demanding that Jerome Powell, the Fed's chair, cut interest rates or lose control of the agency. What happens to the Fed's credibility if Powell gives in to Trump? It loses it. In the future, we wouldn't have confidence that the Fed is fighting inflation as rigorously as it should. And without that confidence, longer-term interest rates will spike because investors will assume that there's no inflation cop on the beat, and therefore will demand a higher risk premium. Trump hates facts that he disagrees with. That's why he's dismembering the Environmental Protection Agency, which has repeatedly shown that the climate crisis isn't a 'hoax', as Trump claims, but more like a national emergency. It's why Trump is attacking American universities, whose scientists are developing wind and solar energy, and whose historians have revealed America's tragic history of racism and genocide of indigenous people. He is killing off the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, which are showing the sources of sickness and disease and how we can guard against them. This is a man and a regime that doesn't want the public to know the truth. He is turning the US into George Orwell's dystopian 1984. The Trumping of America is happening so fast and in so many places that it's hard to see the whole. Which partly explains why he doesn't want the facts out. He doesn't want us to know how bad it really is. Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at His next book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, will be out on 5 August
