Your Wednesday Briefing: Ukraine Seeks an ‘Air Shield’

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/11/briefing/ukraine-missile-defense-china-xi-jinping.html

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A day after more than 80 missiles pummeled Ukraine, killing at least 19 people, President Volodymyr Zelensky asked the Group of 7 nations at an emergency virtual meeting to help his country defend its airspace.

Zelensky asked for antimissile systems, or at least financing for them. “When Ukraine receives a sufficient number of modern and effective air defense systems,” he said, “the key element of Russian terror — missile strikes — will cease to work.”

The G7 leaders pledged “undeterred and steadfast” military and financial support for Ukraine, and warned of “severe consequences” if Russia were to use nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Separately, NATO’s secretary-general asserted that Russia was “failing” in the war and urged allies to provide Ukraine with more weapons.

The latest: Ukraine’s military said that Russia had fired 28 cruise missiles on Ukrainian territory by midday Tuesday, but that Ukraine’s air defenses had downed 20 of them. A dozen rockets struck the embattled city of Zaporizhzhia, killing at least seven people and hitting a school and a medical facility.

Analysis: The missile strikes were not as deadly as they could have been, which raises questions about whether Russia can achieve its military goals. History shows that bombing Kyiv into submission may not work, The New York Times’s Interpreter columnist writes.

Context: The U.N.’s human rights office said the recent attacks on Ukraine appeared to deliberately target critical infrastructure and civilian areas, which constitutes a war crime.

Xi Jinping, the president of China, has embraced a vision of national unity that seeks to fuse the country’s ethnic groups into one with a shared heritage dating back 5,000 years.

As Xi prepares to claim a groundbreaking third term in power, he has effectively appointed himself China’s historian in chief, crafting a story — retold in museums, on television shows and in journals — that casts his authoritarian agenda as a fulfillment of ancient values.

Appeals to the motherland have long been a part of the Communist Party’s tool kit, but Xi has taken the approach to new heights, calling for a unified “community of Chinese nationhood” as a bulwark against internal divisions and threats from the West.

Details: The government has increased funding for historical and archaeological research, but it comes with pressure for researchers’ findings to reflect the official narrative. Under Xi, schools have increasingly demanded that pupils be educated almost exclusively in Chinese, rather than in local languages. And nation-building spectacles — grandiose, often far-fetched recreations of ancient rituals — have grown more elaborate and more prominent across China.

Context: At a time when the U.S., Russia, India and other countries have experienced their own resurgent nationalism, Xi’s vision is aimed at inoculating China against unwelcome influences, especially from the West.

Criticism: At its extreme, Xi’s insistence on a singular Chinese identity has led to accusations of cultural genocide from other countries and scholars, who cite the mass detention of Uyghurs and other largely Muslim groups in Xinjiang.

The International Monetary Fund predicted a harsh worldwide recession if policymakers mishandle the fight against inflation. “The worst is yet to come, and for many people 2023 will feel like a recession,” its closely watched World Economic Outlook report said.

The prediction was published as the world’s top economic officials traveled to Washington for the annual meeting of the World Bank and the I.M.F. It comes as supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine have led to surging food and energy prices, forcing central bankers to raise interest rates.

The I.M.F.’s projection for global growth in 2022 is down from 4.4 percent at the beginning of the year to 3.2 percent, and its projection for global growth in 2023 is down from 3.8 percent at the start of the year to 2.7 percent.

Quotable: “We’re expecting about a third of the global economy to be in a technical recession,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the I.M.F.’s chief economist, said in an interview.

Officials in Hong Kong declined to seize a $500 million superyacht believed to belong to a Russian oligarch, triggering concerns that Russia may try to circumvent international sanctions through Hong Kong.

South Korea’s military said its missile defense system was capable of intercepting weapons like those North Korea tested extensively this year, The Associated Press reports.

Maria Ressa, the Filipino journalist and one of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winners, plans to appeal her libel conviction in the Philippines’ Supreme Court, according to Reuters.

President Biden is re-evaluating the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia after the kingdom collaborated with Russia to cut oil production in a move that could raise American gas prices.

Israel and Lebanon have agreed to resolve a decades-old dispute over control of a stretch of the Mediterranean Sea, a major diplomatic breakthrough between two countries that are still technically at war.

Airbus and Air France went on trial in Paris over their role in the 2009 crash of a Rio de Janeiro-Paris flight in the Atlantic Ocean, which killed all 228 people on board.

Hospitals across the U.S. are closing pediatric units because caring for adults is more lucrative.

The U.S. Labor Department unveiled a proposal that would make it far easier for janitors, gig drivers, and home-care and construction workers to be classified as employees rather than contractors.

Baltimore prosecutors dropped charges against Adnan Syed, who was released last month after he spent 23 years in prison fighting a murder conviction that was chronicled in the hit podcast “Serial.”

A blizzard of research in the last decade on black holes has revealed unexpected connections between divergent views of the universe. “The implications are mind-bending, including the possibility that our three-dimensional universe — and we ourselves — may be holograms, like the ghostly anti-counterfeiting images that appear on some credit cards and drivers licenses,” writes Dennis Overbye, The Times’s cosmic affairs correspondent.

The actress Angela Lansbury captivated Hollywood in her youth, became a Broadway musical sensation in middle age and then drew millions of fans as a widowed mystery writer on the long-running television series “Murder, She Wrote.”

Amari Cooper, the Cleveland Browns wide receiver, had Cincinnati Bengals cornerback Chidobe Awuzie on his heels. But leaning on his insider scouting report, Awuzie found his footing and countered.

Pawn to f3.

Awuzie and Cooper were playing in an online chess tournament exclusively for current and former National Football League players. Chess’s gridiron acolytes include A-list quarterbacks (Kyler Murray of the Arizona Cardinals), ascendant rookies (the Giants pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux) and well-regarded retirees (the Cardinals receiving great Larry Fitzgerald).

Fitzgerald, who has become an unofficial ambassador for chess in the N.F.L., said he played in the summer tournament to “help with the negative stigma football players have — they’re not intelligent, not thinkers, they’re barbarians.”

The athletes say the matches offer them deep contemplation away from their fast-paced profession. In some cases, they think chess helps them on the gridiron. “It teaches me to be intentional about every snap, about everything,” Cooper said.

Mayonnaise underpins a sweet and tangy sauce warmed through with chili powder in this recipe for roasted chicken thighs with tangy apricots and carrots.

E.M. Tran’s daring debut novel, “Daughters of the New Year,” is a family story that travels backward from 2016 to A.D. 40, introducing readers to women warriors at every step.

Three daylong train trips from Florence let you bask in the glory of autumn in Tuscany and taste specialties like chestnuts and truffles.

Play the Mini Crossword, and a clue: Only flying mammal (three letters).

Here are the Wordle and the Spelling Bee.

You can find all our puzzles here.

That’s all this morning. Have a great day. — Dan

P.S. The word “penguinhood,” meaning penguin youth, appeared for the first time in The Times yesterday in a story about the children’s television show “Pingu.”

The latest episode of “The Daily” is on the rise of the single family home.

You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.