US Business

The United States and other G7 powers will hold crisis talks Tuesday on Russia’s recent bombing blitz across Ukraine, with Britain’s Liz Truss expected to insist they “must not waver one iota” in their support for Kyiv.

The meeting comes a day after Russian missiles rocked the Ukrainian capital for the first time in months, with President Volodymyr Zelensky warning Moscow that his country “cannot be intimidated”.

Russian forces rained more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine on Monday, according to Kyiv, in apparent retaliation for an explosion that damaged a key bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the strikes showed Moscow was “desperate” after a spate of embarrassing military setbacks, as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of “severe” responses to any further attacks.

At an urgent meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Monday — called to debate Moscow’s declared annexation of four partly occupied Ukrainian regions — Ukrainian ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya branded Russia a “terrorist state”, noting his own immediate family had come under attack on Monday.

“Unfortunately, you can hardly call for a stable and sane peace as long as an unstable and insane dictatorship exists in your vicinity,” he said, telling member states at least 14 civilians were killed and 97 wounded in the strikes.

– ‘Stay the course’ –

Zelensky and G7 leaders are set to convene Tuesday to discuss the latest Russian attacks.

Truss’s office said the British prime minister, who succeeded Boris Johnson just over a month ago, would use the call “to urge fellow leaders to stay the course”.

“The overwhelming international support for Ukraine’s struggle stands in stark opposition to the isolation of Russia on the international stage,” she is expected to say.

“Nobody wants peace more than Ukraine. And for our part, we must not waver one iota in our resolve to help them win it.”

German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told reporters Monday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz had spoken with Zelensky and assured him “of the solidarity of Germany and the other G7 states”.

French President Emmanuel Macron met with his defence and foreign affairs ministers over the strikes, which he said signalled “a profound change in the nature of this war”.

US President Joe Biden condemned Monday’s attacks in stark terms, saying they “demonstrate the utter brutality” of Putin’s “illegal war”.

In a statement, the White House said Biden had spoken to Zelensky and had pledged to furnish Ukraine with “advanced air defence systems”. 

Ahead of Monday’s General Assembly session, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the latest attacks as an “unacceptable escalation of the war”, his spokesman said.

Though Russian representative Vasily Nebenzya did not directly address the missile strikes at the session, he defended his country’s annexation of Ukrainian regions, saying the aim was “to protect our brothers and sisters in eastern Ukraine”.

– ‘In an instant… it’s death’ –

Residents across Ukraine expressed shock and rage after Monday’s barrage.

Ivan Poliakov, 22, was so angry he struggled for words as he tried to describe one of the strikes on Kyiv.

“I saw children and women cry,” he told AFP. “I love Kyiv. The people are good, they are courageous. But in an instant… it’s death.”

In Dnipro, soldier Maxim was on leave from the front lines for the first time in six months to celebrate his wife’s birthday when Russian missiles slammed into the central Ukrainian city, damaging their home.

“We are fighting on the front exactly to protect these places” far from enemy lines, he said. “But they still manage to hit them.”

The strike, he said, had made him more determined than ever to push back the Russians in northeast Ukraine.

Since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, more than 7.6 million Ukrainian refugees have been recorded across Europe, while another nearly seven million people have been displaced within the country.

Monday’s missile strikes prompted a fresh warning from the UN’s refugee chief that more people could soon be forced to flee their homes.

“The bombing of civilians, of houses… of non-military infrastructure in an indiscriminate manner in many cities across Ukraine, means the war is becoming harder and more difficult for civilians,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi told journalists in Geneva.

“I fear that the events of these last hours will provoke more displacements.”

Doomsday could start with a football — the so-called “nuclear football” as the attache case carried wherever the US president goes is popularly known.

The rather awkwardly stuffed black bag doesn’t look like much, the only clue to its importance being that it never leaves the hand of a uniformed military aide.

But inside are top secret codes and plans enabling a president to authorize nuclear strikes — and pick from a sort of menu of targets — anywhere in the world.

In the White House, the president has his secure Situation Room, where he could order war and communicate with military leaders.

But when President Joe Biden, for example, traveled to Puerto Rico, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Maryland within the space of a few days this November, he traveled, as he does everywhere, with his “football.”

According to Biden, Russian President Vladimir Putin is threatening the world with “Armageddon” when he hints at using nuclear weapons against Ukraine.

The US riposte, if it happened, could be launched from the back of the Beast limousine. Or Air Force One. Or a secret bunker.

Or really anywhere the “football”  and the president were together.

– Biscuits –

The public has caught glimpses of the “football,” officially known as the Presidential Emergency Satchel, ever since one was photographed being carried behind John F. Kennedy at his seaside family home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, in 1963. Another accompanied Ronald Reagan right into Red Square during his summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1988.

More discreet — and also bearing a deceptively innocuous nickname — is the other important element in triggering nuclear war: the “biscuit.”

If the “football” houses the menu of war plans, the “biscuit” contains the codes, known as Gold Codes, by which the president can identify himself and make the order.

About the size of credit cards, one of these is meant to be carried by the president at all times.

Ultra-secret, ultra-secure they may be, but both items have had their share of misadventure.

Bill Clinton was said to have mislaid his “biscuit,” while the one carried by Reagan was inadvertently dumped with his clothing in a plastic hospital bag when he was stripped for surgery after being shot in Washington in 1981.

When Donald Trump’s mob of supporters invaded the Capitol on January 6, 2021, vice president Mike Pence had to flee to safety — along with a military aide holding the backup “football,” which also always accompanies the president’s successor.

– President decides –

The chain of command — legally speaking — could not be shorter.

“The US president has sole authority to authorize the use of US nuclear weapons,” the Congressional Research Service states.

The president does have to identify himself (with the “biscuit” codes) and he can, and presumably would, discuss options with the top brass.

But even if presidents “seek counsel” from military staff, “those advisors are then required to transmit and implement the orders authorizing nuclear use,” the congressional analysis says.

The order would pass through the ranks down to service members manning the switches in silos or submarines or in the air.

In a memo to Congress in 2021, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley, said that even he is not in the “chain of command” — only the “chain of communication.”

– Unless… –

The president has no big red button to push and whatever he orders still has to filter through several sets of human beings before becoming reality.

US military personnel are required to disobey illegal orders and, as John Hyten, then the commander of the  US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), said in 2017: “We think a lot about these things.”

“If it’s illegal, guess what’s going to happen? I’m going to say, ‘Mr. President, that’s illegal.’ And guess what he’s going to do? He’s going to say, ‘What would be legal?’ And we’ll come up with options, with a mix of capabilities to respond to whatever the situation is, and that’s the way it works. It’s not that complicated.”

In a more extreme situation, the cabinet could theoretically intervene to strip the president of his powers, by invoking the 25th amendment.

That hasn’t happened, although there were numerous claims that high level discussions on the subject took place during the chaotic Trump presidency.

More likely, though, is a far less dire shift in the chain of command for planned medical procedures. 

In this way, November 19, 2021, became a historic day: Biden underwent anaesthesia for a colonoscopy procedure and his vice president, Kamala Harris, became the first US woman to serve as commander in chief — for 85 minutes the keeper of the “biscuit” and “football.”

When a Donald Trump supporter was killed by police after shooting up an FBI office in the US Midwest, investigators turned to the assailant’s social media to confirm a motive they already feared.

It turned out he had discussed leading an “insurrection against the people who usurped our government” in revenge for the bureau’s raid on the former president’s Florida home in August.

“I am proposing war,” read one post from his since-deleted account on Trump’s Truth Social platform, US media reported. “Kill the FBI on sight.”

In the 21 months since a pro-Trump mob ransacked the US Capitol, violent rhetoric and the attacks it foments have become an increasingly worrying contusion on the US body politic, analysts warn. 

Many experts are bracing for a spike in the already burgeoning discourse around “civil war” as the November 8 midterm elections approach and campaign rhetoric becomes more bellicose.

Twitter mentions of the phrase skyrocketed in the hours after the FBI’s search for mishandled government secrets at Trump’s beach club — from 500 tweets an hour to 6,000, according to The New York Times.

It is often used hyperbolically to refer to bitter partisanship, but many of the mentions were literal calls to arms, envisaging war, or years of insurgency.

A YouGov poll in August showed that 54 percent of self-identified “strong Republicans” believe a civil war was at least “somewhat likely” in the next decade. 

The slice of American society holding this view includes the founder of anti-government militia the Oath Keepers, who told his cadres two days after Trump’s election defeat: “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war.”

– ‘Liberate Michigan!’ –

K. Campbell, a military intelligence veteran who has led security risk assessments for the US government, is most concerned by the threat from groups such as the Oath Keepers.

“In the 1970s to the early 1980s, left-wing groups were the highest threat inside the US. The bombing of the US Capitol in 1983 by America’s only female terrorist group is one example,” he told AFP.

“But over the past several years, far-right groups have been responsible for the majority of attacks in the US, including against law enforcement.”

Trump has regularly invoked the specter of unrest when facing some political or legal defeat.

His role in stoking anger on the day of the US Capitol riot has been widely discussed, but it is often forgotten that it was his second such transgression in months.

The previous April, he urged activists to “Liberate Michigan!” among a series of incendiary posts critical of the Midwestern state’s Covid-19 restrictions. 

Days later, heavily armed protesters occupied the state capitol.

Members of Trump’s own cabinet, not to mention the Republican leader in the Senate and the House Democrats who impeached him, blamed the ex-president for the January 6, 2021, riot in Washington.

They are backed by numerous studies demonstrating a causal link between aggressive rhetoric and political violence. 

Robert Pape of the University of Chicago has conducted several polls since the Capitol assault, demonstrating that between 15 and 20 million Americans believe violence would be justified to return Trump to office.

Republicans, however, accuse Democrats of overreacting to figurative language and ignoring leftist aggression such as harassment of conservative Supreme Court justices and the 2017 mass shooting at a congressional sports event.

– 9,600 threats in a year –

Still, law enforcement agencies say right-wing violence is the larger threat. 

Discourse that was once taboo is now commonplace on the far right, with Republican flamethrowers in Congress incorporating violent language and imagery into their stump speeches.

Threats against members of Congress reached a record high of 9,625 in 2021, according to data provided by the Capitol Police, compared with just 3,939 five years ago.

This year, a progressive Democratic lawmaker has had an armed man show up outside her home. Another livestreams videos of people harassing her outside the Capitol.

Conservatives in the House and Senate have been targeted by death threats and vandalism of their homes. One survived an attempted stabbing.

Michael Susong, a former CIA officer who was decorated for heroism in the field, says there is “no credible threat” of civil war, although he acknowledges that political discourse has “slipped the bounds of decency.” 

“Social media platforms and pervasive real-time global communications can exacerbate real and perceived grievances,” said Susong, now the senior vice president for global intelligence at risk management company Crisis24.

“This accelerates the radicalization of individuals who internalize extreme narratives of events or history. Most times the result is uncivil discourse and hollow threats. But we see, and will always see, a few individuals provoked to violence.”

The death toll from Hurricane Ian, one of the most powerful storms ever to hit the United States, soared above 100 in Florida alone on Monday, officials said.

Homes, restaurants and businesses were ripped apart when Ian roared ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane on September 26.

The confirmed number of storm-related fatalities rose to 102 statewide, the Florida Medical Examiners Commission confirmed in its latest report, with the majority located in the state’s southwest.

Another five people died in North Carolina, the state’s governor has previously reported.

After making landfall, Ian passed over Florida and into the Atlantic Ocean before heading ashore again, this time on the South Carolina coast.

Officials have said it could take months — and perhaps $50 billion or more — to rebuild Florida’s devastated coastal zones.

Ian was one of the deadliest storms to hit the United States this century.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the US Gulf Coast, devastating New Orleans and causing some 1,800 deaths and billions of dollars in damage.

Since then, deadly superstorm Sandy battered the country’s northeast in 2012, leaving a trail of destruction and some 120 deaths in her wake.

Irma in 2017 caused some 120 hurricane-related fatalities when it struck the US Southeast, shortly after Hurricane Harvey buffeted Texas, killing dozens and causing nearly $97 billion in damages.

The dollar extended its banner run of 2022 on Monday, pushing higher following the latest solid US jobs data as equities retreated in both New York and Europe.

The US currency, which has already struck multi-year highs against the euro and other leading currencies, rose as investors bet that the latest round of US employment data released Friday will confirm a Federal Reserve plan to continue aggressively hiking interest rates.

This week’s calendar includes the latest US consumer price index data, which will give an updated reading on inflation that has prompted a 180-degree turn from the Fed’s easy-money policies to a streak of significant interest rate hikes.

“Inflation remaining stubbornly elevated would threaten to upset the market apple cart and buoy the dollar,” said a note from Joe Manimbo of Convera.

Analysts said Monday’s gains by the greenback also reflected the worsening Russia-Ukraine conflict, which has bolstered the dollar’s standing as a “refuge” investment.

US stocks finished a choppy session lower, joining European bourses in retreating.

This week’s calendar also includes retail sales for September, as well earnings from Delta Air Lines, JPMorgan and others. 

Investors are cautious ahead of the earnings period, with rising costs expected to cut into corporate profits. 

Analysts now project the S&P 500 companies scored an earnings increase of 2.9 percent per share, down from the 10.5 percent that had been forecast in June, according to CFRA Research.

“We’re seeing mild risk aversion in the markets at the start of the week, perhaps some apprehension ahead of what could be a big few days for the US,” said market analyst Craig Erlam at OANDA.

Elsewhere the pound won little support from Britain ramping up efforts to calm markets after a heavily criticised budget.

In what was seen as coordinated action, the government brought forward the release date of key economic forecasts and the Bank of England boosted liquidity.

“With the pound remaining weak and (UK) government borrowing costs inching up again towards worrying levels, the UK government and the Bank of England have launched a two-pronged attempt to calm markets,” noted Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.

Oil prices meanwhile fell after the biggest weekly gain since March that followed last week’s decision by OPEC and allied producers led by Russia to slash crude output by two million barrels per day.

The drop Monday came also on demand concerns caused by China’s Covid flare-ups and more weak data out of Beijing owing to lockdowns.

– Key figures around 2030 GMT –

New York – Dow: DOWN 0.3 percent at 29,202.88 (close)

New York – S&P 500: DOWN 0.8 percent at 3,612.39 (close)

New York – Nasdaq: DOWN 1.0 percent at 10,542.10 (close)

London – FTSE 100: DOWN 0.5 percent at 6,959.31 (close) 

Frankfurt – DAX: FLAT at 12,272.94 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.5 percent at 5,840.55 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.6 percent at 3,356.88 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 3.0 percent at 17,216.66 (close) 

Shanghai – Composite: DOWN 1.7 percent at 2,974.15 (close)

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: Closed for a holiday

Pound/dollar: DOWN at $1.1059 from $1.1086 on Friday

Euro/dollar: DOWN at $0.9708 from $0.9745

Euro/pound: DOWN at 87.76 pence from 87.90 pence

Dollar/yen: UP at 145.72 yen from 145.25 yen

West Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.6 percent at $91.13 per barrel

Brent North Sea crude: DOWN 1.8 percent at $96.19 per barrel

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