AFP

Ukraine’s maritime grain exports were halted Sunday after Russia suspended its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed the vital shipments, blaming drone attacks on its ships in Crimea.

The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between Russia and Ukraine and brokered by Turkey and the UN, is critical to easing the global food crisis caused by the conflict.

The agreement had already allowed more than nine million tonnes of Ukrainian grain to be exported and was due to be renewed on November 19.

On Saturday, Russia said it was halting its participation after its army accused Kyiv of a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea fleet, which Ukraine labelled a “false pretext”.

US President Joe Biden called the move “purely outrageous” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Moscow was “weaponising food”. 

The centre coordinating the logistics of the deal said in a statement that no traffic was planned for Sunday.

“A joint agreement has not been reached at the JCC for the movement of inbound and outbound vessels on 30 October,” it said. “There are more than ten vessels both outbound and inbound waiting to enter the corridor.”

Ukraine and the UN have urged that the agreement remains in force.

“I call on all states to demand that Russia stop its hunger games and recommit to fulfilling its obligations,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian move “an absolutely transparent intention of Russia to return the threat of large-scale famine to Africa and Asia”.

“Just today, more than two million tons of food are in the sea. This means that access to food has actually worsened for more than seven million consumers,” he said in his nightly address.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said: “It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is a critical humanitarian effort”.

– ‘Peddling false claims’ –

Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea has been targeted several times in recent months and serves as the headquarters for the Black Sea fleet and a logistical hub for operations in Ukraine.

The Russian army claimed to have “destroyed” nine aerial drones and seven maritime ones in an attack on the port early Saturday. 

“In light of the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.

Moscow’s forces alleged British “specialists”, whom they said were based in the southern Ukrainian city of Ochakiv, had helped prepare and train Kyiv to carry out the strike. 

In a further singling out of the UK — which Moscow sees as one of the most unfriendly Western countries — Russia said the same British unit was involved in explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month.

Britain strongly rebutted both claims, saying “the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale”.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday Moscow would raise the blasts and the alleged drone attack at the UN Security Council.

Moscow’s military said ships targeted at their Crimean base were involved in the grain deal.

The United Nations Coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Amir Abdulla, reported that Russia had notified him earlier Saturday of “its concerns about the safety of movements of merchant vessels” under the agreement.

Russia had recently criticised the deal, saying its own grain exports have suffered due to Western sanctions. 

– ‘Massive’ attack –

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Saturday’s drone attack was the “most massive” the peninsula had seen. 

City authorities said the harbour was “temporarily” closed to boats and ferries and urged people “not to panic”.

Attacks on Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have increased in recent weeks, as Kyiv presses a counter-offensive in the south to retake territory held by Moscow for months. 

Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson, just north of Crimea, have vowed to turn the city into a fortress, preparing for an inevitable assault. 

In early October, Moscow’s bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland — personally inaugurated by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 — was damaged by a blast that Putin blamed on Ukraine. 

The Russian fleet stationed in the port had also been attacked by a drone in August.  

Russia’s allegations Saturday came as the Ukrainian army reported fighting in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions in the east, including near Bakhmut — the only area where Moscow’s forces have advanced in recent weeks.  

Pro-Russian separatists fighting alongside Moscow also announced a new prisoner exchange with Kyiv, saying 50 will return home from each side. 

US retailers are hustling to sell their stockpiles of Christmas decorations as the festive season approaches, after tangled supply chains caused many shipments to arrive only after the holidays last year.

As major economies bounced back from the pandemic, companies had struggled to keep up with soaring demand, with manufacturing hit by factory shutdowns during virus outbreaks.

The situation was worsened by a shortage of shipping containers, along with delays at ports from a lack of workers to unload products and transport them to retailers.

It was “very difficult with supply” last year, especially to procure enough Christmas trees and products for customers, said Chris Butler, CEO of decorations seller National Tree.

“This year is a little bit of the opposite,” he told AFP.

“Every retailer, every manufacturer has a lot of trees, has a lot of garlands because everything came late,” he added.

Due to supply chain problems, retailers said part of their festive decorations arrived only in January or February.

“We went from ‘we don’t have enough’ to now ‘we have too much,'” said James Zahn, editor-in-chief at trade publication The Toy Book.

– Reduced spending –

But with soaring consumer prices weighing on household budgets, business executives have expressed concern that customers may tighten their purse strings.

“Consumers might not spend as much,” Butler said.

Inflation rose 8.2 percent from a year ago in September, and the elevated figure triggered concerns that price pressures have become more ingrained.

The Federal Reserve is now walking a tightrope trying to wrestle cost increases down without triggering a recession in the world’s biggest economy.

For toy makers such as Hasbro, which distributes Monopoly, Nerf guns and Transformers action figures, all this means adapting to parents’ reduced purchasing power.

Customers have “become increasingly price-sensitive as the year has progressed,” Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks told an earnings call this month, adding that promotions “will be key in the quarters ahead.”

Similarly, Mattel, the seller of Barbie dolls and Fisher-Price toys, said this week that it would have more discounts as the holidays approach.

“Instead of shippers ramping up activity to prepare for the holiday season, September brought a change of fortune as shipping volumes slowed and shipping prices declined,” said Oren Klachkin, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, in a recent note.

He cited weaker consumer demand and overstocked sellers, factors which experts say could result in steep discounting that cuts profit margins.

– Higher costs –

Some toys have become about 15 percent more expensive due to inflation, said Zahn of The Toy Book.

“That is going to make a difference for families that are already feeling a pinch when groceries and fuel are more expensive,” he said.

Even including storage costs and interest, goods that arrived too late for last year’s holiday season were “still a little cheaper” than those added to inventory this year, Costco chief financial officer Richard Galanti told a recent earnings call.

Merchants like clothing chain Express are opting to sell their products this year in factory outlets instead of clearing them out at lower margins, said chief financial officer Jason Judd at a September conference.

“Santa, snowmen and Christmas trees haven’t changed a lot,” said Jill Timm, chief financial officer at department store chain Kohl’s in a recent conference.

“They’re still going to sell,” he said.

In the run-up to the high-stakes midterm elections next week, President Joe Biden is out on the stump in many states.

But his one-time boss, former president Barack Obama, is also campaigning hard to rescue a faltering Democratic Party.

On Friday, the two men spoke at the same time, in two different corners of the United States: Biden in Pennsylvania and Obama in Georgia, two crucial states for Democratic Party aspirations in Congress.

Both presidents have employed nearly the same speech: the need to save American democracy by blocking Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

– Stealing the show –

Long-known for his oratory skills, Obama has sometimes stolen the limelight from his former vice president, whose campaign appearances are more prosaic.

“If they win, there’s no telling what might happen,” Obama said on Friday about the Republicans, visibly enjoying the enthusiasm of his audience in Atlanta.

“I need you to get off your couch and vote! Put down your phone and give TikTok a rest and vote!”

It was a return to the stage for the former president, who governed for two terms ending in early 2017. Out of the public eye, Obama devoted himself to producing documentaries, writing and philanthropy.

But now, as a campaign surrogate, Obama is keeping very busy. After Georgia, Obama headed to Michigan and Wisconsin for campaign events Saturday. He will be in Nevada Tuesday, then on to Pennsylvania.

Obama’s deft handling of campaign crowds was on display Saturday in Detroit when a heckler interrupted him. “Right now, I’m talking,” Obama said calmly. “You’ll have a chance to talk sometime later… It’s not how we do things.”

Recent opinion polls offered the Democratic Party hope of retaining precarious control of the Senate, while losing control of the lower House of Representatives to the Republicans.

Even more recently, though, some right-wing candidates are rising in polls, including some of former president Trump’s fiercest Republican defenders. Now, the White House fears the losses in the House could be greater than expected.

If those losses spread to key Senate races, it would put both houses of Congress under Republican control.

– ‘Inherent danger’ –

Barack Obama is, in a way, well-placed to sound the alarm: his party suffered what he himself called a “shellacking” in the 2010 legislative elections marking the halfway point of his first term.

“There is an inherent danger in being in the White House and being in the bubble,” he said at the time, referring to the 160-year history of midterm elections that almost always punish the party in power.

Joe Biden, who prides himself on being a president of the “middle class,” far from the Washington bubble, has nevertheless given the impression since the beginning of the campaign that he does not relish straying into hostile electoral territory.

He travels regularly and raises funds for the Democratic Party, but the unpopular 79-year-old president has not ventured into some of the most highly contested states, such as Arizona. Biden will hold a final rally in Maryland, considered a very safe choice.

Obama, for his part, expressed concern in an interview posted online in mid-October about the direction Democrats were taking.

He fretted that they were mired in abstract polemics around complex social issues, appearing  disconnected from people’s everyday lives, while Republicans bashed Democrats on crime and the soaring cost of living.

Believing that politics should not be a matter of “buzzkill,” Obama warned the party should help people “not feel as if they are walking on eggshells.”

He urged the party to be “a little more real and a little more grounded,” saying that tack would go “a long way in counteracting what is… the systematic propaganda that I think is being pumped out by Fox News,” the preferred TV channel of Republicans.

Moscow on Saturday suspended its participation in a landmark agreement that allowed vital grain exports from Ukraine, blaming drone attacks on Russian ships in Crimea.

Russia made the announcement after its army accused Kyiv earlier Saturday of a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea fleet, which Ukraine labelled a “false pretext” and the UN urged the deal’s preservation.

US President Joe Biden called the move “purely outrageous” while Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Moscow was “weaponising food”.

The July deal to unlock grain exports signed between Russia and Ukraine and brokered by Turkey and the UN, is critical to easing the global food crisis caused by the conflict.

The agreement already allowed more than nine million tonnes of Ukrainian grain to be exported and was due to be renewed on November 19.

A Turkish security source told AFP that Ankara had not been “officially notified” of Russia’s suspension, while Ukraine and the UN pushed for the agreement to remain in force.

“I call on all states to demand that Russia stop its hunger games and recommit to fulfilling its obligations,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Twitter. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian move “an absolutely transparent intention of Russia to return the threat of large-scale famine to Africa and Asia”.

“Just today, more than two million tons of food are in the sea. This means that access to food has actually worsened for more than seven million consumers,” he said in his nightly address.

Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said: “It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is a critical humanitarian effort”.

– ‘Peddling false claims’ –

Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea has been targeted several times in recent months and serves as the headquarters for the Black Sea fleet and a logistical hub for operations in Ukraine.

The Russian army claimed to have “destroyed” nine aerial drones and seven maritime ones, in an attack in the port early Saturday. 

“In light of the terrorist act carried out by the Kyiv regime with the participation of British experts against ships of the Black Sea fleet and civilian vessels involved in the security of grain corridors, Russia suspends its participation in the implementation of the agreement on the export of agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” the Russian defence ministry said on Telegram.

Moscow’s forces alleged British “specialists”, whom they said were based in the southern Ukrainian city of Ochakiv, had helped prepare and train Kyiv to carry out the strike. 

In a further singling out of the UK — which Moscow sees as one of the most unfriendly Western countries — Russia said the same British unit was involved in explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month.

Britain strongly rebutted both claims, saying “the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale”.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Saturday Moscow would raise the blasts and the alleged drone attack at the UN Security Council.

The British defence ministry said this “invented story says more about arguments going on inside the Russian Government than it does about the West”.

Moscow’s military said ships targeted at their Crimean base were involved in the grain deal.

The United Nations Coordinator for the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Amir Abdulla, reported that Russia had notified him earlier Saturday of “its concerns about the safety of movements of merchant vessels” under the agreement.

Russia had recently criticised the deal, saying its own grain exports have suffered due to Western sanctions. 

– ‘Massive’ attack –

Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, said Saturday’s drone attack was the “most massive” the peninsula had seen. 

City authorities said the harbour was “temporarily” closed to boats and ferries and urged people “not to panic”.

Attacks on Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, have increased in recent weeks, as Kyiv presses a counter-offensive in the south to retake territory held by Moscow for months. 

Moscow-installed authorities in Kherson, just north of Crimea, have vowed to turn the city into a fortress, preparing for an inevitable assault. 

On Thursday, Razvozhayev said a thermal power station had been attacked in Balaklava, in the Sevastopol area.

He claimed there was only minor damage and no casualties.  

In early October, Moscow’s bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland — personally inaugurated by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 — was damaged by a blast that Putin blamed on Ukraine. 

The Russian fleet stationed in the port had also been attacked by a drone in August.  

Russia’s allegations Saturday came as the Ukrainian army reported fighting in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions in the east, including near Bakhmut — the only area where Moscow’s forces have advanced in recent weeks.  

Pro-Russian separatists fighting alongside Moscow also announced a new prisoner exchange with Kyiv, saying 50 will return home from each side. 

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi said Saturday she and her family were “heartbroken and traumatized” by the violent attack on her husband at their California home. 

An intruder had broken into the couple’s house in San Francisco early Friday morning and attacked the speaker’s husband Paul Pelosi with a hammer, fracturing his skull.

“Our children, our grandchildren and I are heartbroken and traumatized by the life-threatening attack on our Pop,” Pelosi said of the incident in a letter posted to Twitter Saturday evening. 

“We are grateful for the quick response of law enforcement and emergency services, and for the life-saving medical care he is receiving,” she said, in her first comment about the attack.

Paul Pelosi, 82 — who underwent surgery and is recovering in hospital — was at home alone, as his wife was working in Washington.

“His condition continues to improve,” Pelosi said in the letter. 

San Francisco police said officers found the assailant at the couple’s home just before 2:30 am (0930 GMT), where he and Paul Pelosi were scuffling over a hammer.

“The suspect pulled the hammer away from Mr. Pelosi and violently assaulted him with it,” San Francisco police chief Bill Scott told reporters, saying later that Paul Pelosi was hit at least once.

Police identified the assailant as 42-year-old David Depape, with Scott saying Depape would be charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, burglary and other felonies.

“This was not a random act,” Scott said. “This was intentional, and it is wrong.”

The suspect “demanded to confront me and brutally attacked my husband Paul,” Pelosi — who is second in line to the presidency — said in Saturday’s letter. 

– ‘This talk produces the violence’ –

US media, citing family sources, said the intruder told Paul Pelosi he was going to tie him up and wait for the speaker to get home.

Local media had earlier reported that the intruder shouted “Where’s Nancy?” during the assault, which came less than two weeks ahead of the midterm elections.

And speaking after voting in his home state of Delaware Saturday afternoon, President Joe Biden said he didn’t “know for certain, but it looks like this (assault) was intended for Nancy.”

He again denounced the attack, calling out increasingly polarizing political rhetoric.  

“You can’t condemn the violence unless you condemn those people who continue to argue the election was not real, that it’s being stolen — all the malarkey that’s been put out there to undermine democracy,” he said. 

“This talk produces the violence,” he added. 

The suspect, whom the Wall Street Journal reported broke in through a sliding-glass door, citing enforcement officers, had espoused extreme right-wing positions on social media, one of the officers told the newspaper.

Several Republicans also spoke out against the attack, including House minority whip Steve Scalise, who himself was shot at a congressional baseball practice in 2017 and said he was “disgusted” by Friday’s assault. 

First, Elon Musk revolutionized the automobile industry, then he tackled space travel. By taking control of Twitter, the eccentric billionaire now wields a nearly untold level of influence.

In using his fortune to grab hold of such an important platform, experts say, he has even inserted himself squarely in today’s global political conversation.

“He is not just expressing views on an instrument of communication, he now owns it and sets the policy of how that instrument will be used,” Jeffrey Winters, a specialist in elites and oligarchs at Northwestern University, told AFP.  

The question now is what he will do with that power, starting with the topic on everyone’s mind: Whether or not Musk will allow former US president Donald Trump to return to the site. 

Without anyone to answer to, Musk “is going to change the constellation of political voices that are going to be expressed through Twitter,” Winters said. 

According to the professor, Musk represents a typical oligarch — a person whose fortune lends them social and political power not available to an average citizen — though Musk does not have any governments or militaries under his control.

– Oracle –

In the business world, Musk’s bona fides as an innovator are well-established. 

“He goes into directions that people just never go in, and he creates brand new products that proved to be highly effective and successful,” said Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research.

Musk did not invent the electric car, but with Tesla, “he showed it was possible in a big scalable way,” Colas explained. 

With SpaceX, Musk introduced internet satellites and reusable rockets, technologies that were “something that’s been promised but never really delivered until he came along,” Colas added. 

For Colas, Musk can in some ways be compared with inventors as prolific as Thomas Edison or iconic Apple founder Steve Jobs.

He has proven at least that he knows how to make money: Tesla is by far the highest-valued car company on the stock market and SpaceX is worth more than $125 billion. 

So when the richest man in the world gives his two cents on a business matter, such as his opinion on a company or on cryptocurrency, like an oracle — his fans listen. 

He can shake up the markets with just a few words. 

In 2021, when Musk edited his Twitter bio to simply say “#bitcoin,” the price of the virtual currency temporarily soared 20 percent. 

He could have stuck to his role as a businessman and adopted a low profile. According to Winters, that’s what most rich people do, fearing hostile reactions to their wealth. 

They employ lawyers and lobbyists to discreetly protect their interests, sometimes financing political campaigns. 

But “Elon Musk is unafraid to be very rich and very visible,” Winters said. 

– Red line? –

“The creation of Tesla as an iconic brand brought him to people’s attention and great wealth,” said Arizona State University communication and marketing specialist Mark Hass. 

“Then he just was willing to put himself out there continually on social media on issues that other CEOs would never publicly engage (with) the way he did,” he added. 

“He’s not afraid to say what is on his mind, regardless of who he insults, regardless of which regulator he angers,” said Hass. 

When Musk took to Twitter to propose a peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow, he probably viewed himself “as just giving his opinion like anyone else,” Winters said. 

“When you control the satellites that are important for Ukrainians’ ability to communicate, your opinion has massive ripple effects,” he explained. 

But in Washington, Musk still has less influence than other financial heavy-hitters such as JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon or Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, who “control the banking system,” Colas said. 

In buying Twitter — largely with his own money, but also with significant backing from investors who expect a return on their own risk — Musk has taken on a huge potential liability. 

“He can’t just flip a switch and make an anarchy there (at Twitter), because every big advertiser will back away,” Colas cautioned. 

“He likes to push things to the edge,” Hass said. And so far, “he’s never self-destructed.”

But in controlling Twitter, Musk has a more direct line to the public than ever before, and “I don’t know where his red line is,” Hass added.