Your Friday Briefing: Russia’s growing isolation

April 8, 2022

Good morning. We're covering Russia's departure from the U.N. human rights council, a political blow to Pakistan's Imran Khan and Shanghai's growing frustration with Covid restrictions.

Residents surveyed the damage in Dergachi, on the outskirts of Kharkiv.Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

Russia leaves U.N. rights council

The U.N. voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council on Thursday, leading Russia to withdraw. China said it opposed the measure. U.S. lawmakers also voted to strip Moscow of its preferential trade status and ban the import of Russian energy. Here's the latest.

The diplomatic pressure may continue to mount. The E.U. is weighing a ban on Russian coal, a significant step for a bloc that is heavily dependent on the country's fossil fuels. But lengthy deliberations and the dilution of some measures indicated that the E.U.'s appetite for sanctions may be diminishing.

Fighting may soon escalate, too. NATO met to discuss sending more military aid to Ukraine, in anticipation of an intensified Russian onslaught in the east. Officials there warned civilians that they faced their "last chance to leave" and urged them to evacuate.

Soldiers: Body bags are returning to Russia from the front, causing some families of fallen soldiers to question the war — and leading others to harden their resolve.

Diplomacy: Prospects for successful peace talks have dimmed: Russia's foreign minister said Ukraine had proposed a new draft deal that deviated from previous versions, and President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus demanded that his country be included in the negotiations.

State of the war:

Ukrainian forces were holding out amid fierce fighting in Mariupol, officials said, despite a dire humanitarian situation. The mayor said 5,000 people have died there.
German intelligence intercepted radio transmissions in which Russians discussed killings of civilians, officials said.
Facial recognition companies are being used to identify Russian soldiers, living or dead, to verify that they are not actors and show Russians the cost of the conflict.

Prime Minister Imran Khan may soon be voted out of power.Saiyna Bashir for The New York Times

Khan in jeopardy after court ruling

Pakistan's Supreme Court overturned Prime Minister Imran Khan's move to dissolve Parliament on Thursday, setting the stage for a no-confidence vote on Saturday.

The vote, which Khan had tried to block, is widely expected to remove him from office. Should that happen, a caretaker government will be formed and the country will prepare for elections in the coming months.

The Supreme Court ruling is a major victory for opposition leaders, who said that Khan had attempted an "open coup." New elections would be a test for the coalition of opposition parties, which are typically at loggerheads but have teamed up around the no-confidence vote.

Analysis: The military controls the main levers of power, and Khan's relationship with key leaders soured after he refused to back a new chief of the country's intelligence agency last year.

Economy: The Pakistani rupee sank to a record low on Thursday. Analysts say the current crisis has further polarized the country and could lead to unrest.

Workers erected barriers to seal off a Shanghai neighborhood last week.Aly Song/Reuters

Shanghai's devastating outbreak

The city of 26 million is confronting its worst outbreak since the pandemic began, and Chinese authorities have deployed their usual hard-line restrictions to curb transmission.

But Shanghai is different. Residents of the city — the wealthiest and most populous in China — are airing their grievances. They have signed petitions to protest a policy that separates infected children from their parents, criticized conditions at isolation facilities and defiantly confronted officials.

Their grumblings could eat away at the central government's power, as the crisis quickly becomes the most significant political test to date of the country's zero tolerance approach — a policy on which the Chinese Communist Party has staked its legitimacy.

Analysis: The city is home to a vibrant middle class and also many elites, who are accustomed toa relatively high level of political autonomy.

Background: Officials had insisted that Shanghai was too important to quarantine. "The fact that Shanghai is being locked down suggests that we are pretty close to the red line, to the tolerable limit of how defensible zero Covid is." a political scientist said.

Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.

In other news:

Several Biden administration officials and Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, have tested positive.
German lawmakers rejected a vaccine mandate for people 60 and older, a blow to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition.

Continue reading the main story

THE LATEST NEWS

World News

President Biden and Ketanji Brown Jackson watched the vote together.Al Drago for The New York Times

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will now be Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson: The U.S. Senate confirmed her historic nomination to the Supreme Court in a 53-47 vote.
At least two people were killed and eight wounded in a shooting in central Tel Aviv, the latest in a deadly wave of terrorism in Israel.
The trial in the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi will likely end without justice: A Turkish court moved the proceedings to Saudi Arabia.

The leader of Yemen abdicated after a cease-fire took effect, a sign that Saudi Arabia may be looking to end the war. The kingdom's callous moves exacerbated seven years of bloodshed and a humanitarian crisis.

The French Election

Campaign posters of the 12 official candidates, on display in northeastern France.Andrea Mantovani for The New York Times

France will head to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the country's presidential election. Here's an explainer.
Marine Le Pen, the leading right-wing candidate, has tried to sanitize her extremist image and present herself as a clearheaded choice.
President Emmanuel Macron, seeking a second term, is leading in the polls. But his economic promises have yielded checkered results.

What Else Is Happening

Astronomers may have found the most distant galaxy to date.
Novels by Olga Tokarczuk, Mieko Kawakami and Claudia Piñeiro are in the running for the International Booker Prize, a prestigious award for translated fiction.

A Morning Read

At the Dior show at Paris Fashion Week last month.Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images

Rihanna's bare-belly maternity outfits are both haute couture and, perhaps, transgressive political statements. As right-wing lawmakers fight to control women's bodies, Rihanna is "connecting the right to dress how you like with all sorts of other, more constitutional rights," our chief fashion critic writes. "It's a pretty radical move."

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ARTS AND IDEAS

Venezuela's hidden art museum

Sculptures decorate the gardens outside the museum.

For years, the storied collection of Caracas's Museum of Modern Art has sat in storage in the midst of a decaying housing complex, as unpaid workers and cultural officials struggled to preserve the collection.

Oil wealth once buoyed the museum, a jewel in Venezuela's modernization project. But in 2001, the Socialist government launched a "cultural revolution," turning every institution into an ideological battleground. The art, which includes works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall and Lucian Freud, got caught in the crossfire.

This February, the museum began a partial reopening after a two-year closure; workers painted galleries and fixed the lighting in a few rooms. The new exhibition is a modest one, with just 86 of the museum's 4,500 works on display, and reflects the country's uneven economic recovery.

Experts worry that the collection remains at risk from decay and theft without higher wages and a profound change in how the state views culture. Officials last year earned an equivalent of $12 a month and the museum received a daily budget of $1.50 to maintain its facilities.