captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, february 13: global leaders respond as the threat of a russian invasion of ukraine continues. the journalists fighting for press freedom as myanmar cracks down on free speech. and the olympics, super bowl sunday, and more. next on “pbs newshour weekend.” >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernard and denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter

foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live ithe moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has bn provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> sreenivasan: good evening and

thank you for joining us. president joe biden spoke with ukrainian president volodymyr zelensky today as more u.s. troops aived in eastern europe and diplomatic talks continued. in a readout of the call between the two leaders, the white house said, “president biden made clear that the united states would respond swiftly and decisively, together with its allies and partners, to any further russian aggression against ukraine.” and in a tweet today, ukraine's foreign minister said that the country would request a meeting with all 56 member-states of the organizationor security and cooperation in europe, “to discuss its reinforcement and redeployment along our border,” after russia failed to notify ukraine about major military exercises. despe the diplomatic move, zelensky cautioned against panic, saying that he has yet to see convincing evidence of an imminent russian invasion of ukraine. this morning, pentagon spokesman john kirby said there is what he called a “mosaic of intelligence” that suggests

russia could invade in the next few days. >> we believe that major military action could happen any day now. and, again, these assessments are coming from a variety of sources, and not exclusively just inside intelligence, but also what we're seeing in plain sight: theseore than 100,000 troops now continuing to be arrayed against ukraine's border. >> sreenivasan: in kyiv, many ukrainians remained skeptical of the possibility of war, despite new u.s. estimates of more than 130,000 russian troops now posioned along their country's borders. a spokesman for zelensky also said the country is not closing its airspace, though my airlines are halting or diverting flights into and out of ukraine. the dutch airline k.l.m. said it would cancel all flights to the country, and germany's airline lufthansa is considering suspending its ukrainian flights. today, german chancellor olaf scholz joined the chorus of international voices threatening sanctions on russia if it invades ukraine. scholz is scheduled to meet with

presidents zelensky and putin this week in a diplomatic attempt to de-escalate the situation. the protest blocking the bridge between windsor, canada, and detroit against government vaccine mandates and other regulations resulted in arrests this morning. canadian police moved in after most of the vehicles left the roads leading up to the bridge yesterday. a few protesters were arrested and two vehicles were towed away. officials said they hoped to reopen the ambassador bridge later today. but in ottawa this weekend, thousands of people continued to join a demonstration that began more than two weeks ago when truckers pked their cabs and trailers blocking streets near the nation's parliament building. in afghanistan today, former president hamid karzai condemned president biden's recent order to set aside $3.5 billion in frozen afghan assets for the families of 9/11 victims. karzai called on the u.s. courts to reverse the decision, while expressing sympathy for those who lost family members in the 2001 terrorist attacks. >> we commiserate with them and

the afghan people are as much victims as those families who lost their loved ones are, in that withholding money or seizing money from the people of afghanistan in that name is unjust and unfair and an atrocity against afghan people. >> sreenivasan: on friday, president biden ordered the release of $7 billion in afghan assets currently held in the u.s., to be divided between 9/11 victims and humanitarian aid to afghans. for the first time since the winter games began, real snow fell, causing some events to be postponed. china produced artificial snow for this year's events, but sudden storm brought high winds and heavy snow to the site of several downhill and freestyle skiing events in the mountains northwest of beijing. athletes trained and practiced until conditions shut down the venues temporarily.

volunteers made a snowlympic mascot while others used brooms to clear streets. in beijing, spectators braved the frigid weather and snow, but events went on as scheduled. also today, u.s. speed skater erin jackson became the first black woman to win a speedskating medal, winning gold in the 500 meter event. itas the first speed skating medal for the u.s. at th beijing games. we will have more on the olympics and tonight's super bowl coming up later in the broadcast. for more national and international news, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: when the labor department announced last week that inflation had increased at its fastest rate in 40 years, it may not have come as a surprise to consumers who have seen rising costs in ods and commodities like fuel. and while some prices might fluctuate over time, the rise in gasoline prices is likely to stick around for awhile. for more, i recently spoke with

ryan dezember from "the wall street journal." so, ryan, when we hear these abstract ideas of inflation, people understand gas prices, they understand the price at the pump and how that's affecting them personally. how did we get here? >> we've come out of the pandemic and we've all started driving around, and the demand for oil and gasoline has risen much faster than supply. the industry had to shut down to adjust to much lower consumption during the pandemic, and they haven't quite caught up to mand yet. >> sreenivasan: and then will they catch up to demand by the time summer travel season starts, where people take longer road trips using more gas or fly? >> well, that's the big question, right? jet fuel for flying, that has not caught uyet, so we would expect that to continue to rise for consumption of jet fuel, which will create more oil demand. now, when people start driving in t summer, you know, that's a lot of optional travel, and we're getting to the sort of prices that can affect household dgets and decisions. do we drive to florida for vacation? maybe not if oil is $100 a

barrel and a gallon of gasoline is $4.00. we're looking at a situation where it's hard to see a solution in a lot of supply coming online before summer. the u.s. industry is kind of just waking up from its pandemic slowdown and the countri, the opec nations and their market allies have haa lot of trouble pumping enough oilo meet what they've told the market they'll produce and that could even get worse, depending on the situation in russia. >> sreenivasan: that's what i was going to say. speaking of opec nations, what's happening in russia and ukraine right now, if there is a war, hopefully there's not, but what does that do to the amount of oil and natural gas that russia produces? and then what's the ripple effect of that? >> yeah, so, russia is one of the world's largest energy exporters, and we got a glimpse of what will happen on friday in the market when after the white house warned americans in ukraine to leave, the price of oil shot up a few dollars a barrel. what that's telling us is that traders in the market believe that any sort of escalation in

the situation along the ukrainian border will affect oil supplies that will reduce what russia is able to put on the market, whether it's through their own ability, which they've already had trouble living up to their quotas or meeting their quotas for production. and also, you have the prospect of sanctions by western nations. >> sreenivasan: so, we should remind people that the price of a barrel of oil doesn't necessarily mean you're going to feel t gas price the same day, that happens, what, a coup of weeks later? so, the prices that might have happened on friday afternoon in the oil market, when are we going to feel that at the pump? >> well, that's the price for barrels that will be delivered to market next month. and by market, we probably mean like pipelines, refiner companies that will take a barrel of crude oil and turn it into gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and all the other products that come from a barrel of oil. you know, wall street put out forecasts early in the year, calling for much higher oil prices based on the supply and demand situation. already, they've sort of torn up those forecasts, raised their

prices, they think we're going to be around $100 a barrel, which in the summer, and we're already almost there. the main u.s. price for a barrel of oil, west texas intermediate is trading around $92, $93 a barrel. that's working out to a national average gasoline price of about $3.50. and we haven't seen those kind of prices since 2004, before opec and the u.s. shale industry got into a price war, which sort of drove prices down because everybody was trying to pump more oil for market share. we got really used to low fuel prices in america. that's a long oil bust, and it has really altered the u.s. producers' ability to ramp back up quickly. you think about people who have left the industry, companies that provide services and equipment who may haveone out of business or scrapped old equipment during the oil bust. there's just not that much equipment there. halliburton's c.e.o., they're one of the biggest companies that serves oil producers and helps them get the oil out of the ground, their c.e.o. told investors they're already sold

out of the equipment and the services they sell to u.s. producers in texas to crack open wells and get them flowing. >> sreenivasan: ryan dezember of "the wall street journal," thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: in myanmar yesterday, there was a show of military force, with hundreds of troops participating in a parade celebrating the country's “union day,” marking independence from british colonial rule. the celebration comes as the government continues to crack down on free expression after last year's coup which removed democratically elected leader aung san suu kyi. in myanmar, and in other countries, news organizations and journalists have been facing severe crackdowns, including threats on their lives or imprisonment. newshour weekend special correspondent kira kay traveled to thailand to tell the story of a journalist from myanmar risking their life to keep covering the civil conflict in myanmar. this story was produced in

collaboration with the bureau for international reporting. >> reporter: as he shelters in a foreign country in a new home with almost no furniture, ko aung kyaw shares one of his few remaining personal items from his former life in myanmar: x-rays of the injuries he sustained during eight months of imprisonment and torture. >> ( translated ): they said the damage is quite bad, and the eye socket areas and the skull itself. >> reporter: ko aung kyaw is a journalist, which in myanmar is an especially risky profession these days, as the country is in the grips of a military coup, followed by a counter-revolution that ignited one year ago and shows no signs of ending. even before the coup, ko aung kyaw was despised by the myanmar military. as a reporter for an independent outlet, he tirelessly chronicled the army's corruption and their support of buddhist nationalist monks who incited violence

against the country's muslim minorities. on february 1, 2021, ko aung kyaw's day started like any other, but then he realized something was wrong. >> ( translated ): i couldn't reach my office. i was worried about what to do next. i called some local journalists. how do we proceed with the news? we discussed what to do for the security of others and us. they were scared. they had experience under military rule and know what the military can do. i decided to continue working. >> reporter: on march 1, ko aung kyaw livestreamed on facook a report about soldiers ransacking homes and arresting and beating people in his home village. he knew that put a target on his back. and later that night, military police swarmed his family's grocery store and grabbed him from the apartment upstairs. it was all documented on closed circuit tv cameras.

>> ( translated ): around 40 soldiers. >> reporter: 40 soldiers for one man. >> ( translated ): yeah. ey kicked me with their boots. they put my head in a plastic bag and stepped on my back to suffocate me. two officers tied my hands behind my back so that i couldn't move. i almost lost consciousness. they put out cigarettes on my face. they kept saying that reporters are money grubbers who are destroying the country. >> reporter: before he was seized, he was quick enough to wipe his cell phone clean to protect his journalistic sources. >> ( translated ): they said, where is the woman who was in the live video? we are going to arrest her. but i stayed silent. that's why i was tortured more during interrogation. >> reporter: myanmar, also known as burma, had en a dictatorship for decades, when in 2012 it changed course and started to open to the world. thousands of political prisoners were released, including democracy advocate aung san suu

kyi, who was allowed to run for parliament. activists and lawyers were also set free, as were journalists. whatever that means, it was a hopeful time as young writers huddled with their editors. local cameramen were allowed access to the long, cloistered aung san suu kyi and even walk the halls of parliament with her. news outlets returned from exile, like mizzima, whose editors had been in india. the irrawaddy newspaper, which had long published from thailand, opened a bureau atop a downtown office tower. i visited in 2015 and spoke with its editor, aung zaw. >> and we'd be seen as a dissident media and an enemy of the state, and we were blacklisted here in this country. but things started changing in this country, and we've been back here instead of in an office. yeah, i'm sitting here with my colleagues. >> reporter: another media group

that returned was called democratic voice of burma, made famous by the documentary film, "burma vj." ko aung kyaw joined them in 2015. like those of thousands of other burmese, his family's land had been appropriated by the military when he was a child. >> ( translated ): there were many people around us who were suffering because of this evil system, but they didn't dare say anything. i need to be bold. that's why i chose the media. i chose to be a journalist to let people know the truth about what is happening in our region and to have the courage to speak out on injustice. >> reporter: even under aung san suu kyi d her democracy party, there were still no go topics for reporters. two journalists working for "reuters" spent 17 months in jail for covering the military's operations against the muslim rohingya minority. aung san suu kyi herself refused requests to release them. >> ( translated ): not only the international community, but all of o people had high hopes for

aung san suu kyi. i personally campaigned for the release of political prisoners, including her. i was imprisoned for that. after 2012, i have disagreed with some of her political activities. the main one is a relationship that is very close with the military. another is that aung san suu kyi produced good followers instead of good leaders. she raised up only those who agreed with her. >> reporter: irrawaddy newspaper >> reporter: in june last year, ko aunt kyaw was sentenced to two years for defaming the military. so he was surprised to find himself released in an amnesty in october. danny fenster, an american who edited an english language magazine in myanmar, spent six months in the notorious insein prison before he was also released. but activists say 9,000 burmese are still political prisoners, with 46 journalists among them, including han thar nyein, who

worked with newshour during myanmar's 2015 elections. there had been hope he would be released in another amnesty a few weeks ago, but the gates of thprison did not open even as families waited outside. so far, aung san suu kyi has been sentenced to six years, with more charges being heard that could keep her imprisoned for the rest of her life. ko aung kyaw made the decision to flee his country with his wife and young daughter and his sister-in-law, who is also a journalist. but today they wait in exile in thailand, hoping for residency in australia. he has continued his reporting from afar. meanwhile, myanmar descends into civil war as its people dig in against the military junta. >> ( translated ): i think it will take at least twor three years, and at the very least there will be a lot of bloodshed, and once we win, it will not be over. we will overcome military rule, but it will take a long time to

restore democracy. >> sreenivasan: with the ongoing winter olympics and this evening's super bowl, it may be one of the biggest sporting days of the year. but with allegations of human rights violations in host countries, to claims of racism and harassment, both the international olympic committee and the n.f.l. have found themselves in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. for more i spoke with jane mcmanus, director of the center for sports communication at marist college. so, the olympics right now, it's hard for a lot of people to watch the olympics without this kind of gnawing feeling athe back of their head on whether they should be thinking about what's happening in the rest of china. >> i think that's very true, particularly when china chose to use two uyghur athletes in opening ceremonies. you also have peng shuai, the tennis player who was tained

two months ago after making a sexual assault claim against a chinese official. and now she has been brought to these venues to watch, and did an interview with l'equipe, and the photo that went along with the story had in the background a chinese official. so, very clearly she was being watched, and i think that is very difficult for a lot of people. >> sreenivasan: i wonder going forward, is this kind of ethical quandary something that we're going to see in global sports? >> the countries that want to make the investment in the olympics are also countries that have something that they want to prove, whether it's china, you know, proving that it can have something other than a traditional liberal democracy and still be a showcase for the games. you know, whether it's russia who wanted to make a play for an internal audience about the status of its power and the ruling party there. and i think now you look and you see that the i.o.c. has had to overlook things like the doping

scandal in russia and allowing russia to compete not as a traditional country, but as more of a federation, and the distinction that it's making there that i think raises a lot of eyebrows. and you have to say, what are the sacrifices that are made in the name of being able to hold these competitions like this? >> sreenivasan: and you know, whether it's the olympics or it's the super bowl, the sponsors play an enormous role. i mean, kind of shifting gears here, the super bowl is still expected to be watched by millions of americans. and when you look at the olympics, toyota is still sponsoring everything. you know, here in the united states, we had a lot of companies say that black lives matter and we are committed to dirsity, equity and inclusion. and yet, the n.f.l. is, while it's hosting the super bowl, on multiple fronts dealg with issues of race. >> yes, the n.f.l. has really had to grapple with this issue. you have league that is 70% black and you have coaching

ranks were only generally you have two coaches now who are black and you have had in the past, you know, maybe three, maybe four, but more like one or two. there's a real reckoning here about what is acceptable in terms of who are you letting be leaders, who are you letting be owners, anthen who are you expecting to do the work. and i think a lot of people look at the n.f.l. right now, and they feel fairly uncomfortable with the way that pipeline has existed for black coaches to be able to rise to the highest level of the game. >> sreenivasan: even when it comes to the halftime show, in the past couple of years, the n.f.l.'s ptnered with jay-z's company, roc nation, and it's going to be kind of a glaring difference. here you have again, the talent that's on the field are predominantly african-american, and yet the leadership are not. >> and this has been a real critique for people who watch these issues, whh is that if you're comfortable with black people as athletes and entertainers, but not as coaches

and not as owners, that's not enough. that's not okay. and i think you're going to look at this halftime show, and i think there are probly a lot of people who are wondering, you know, are the people who are actually performing in the halftime show, dr. dre, eminem, mary j. blige, kendrick lamar, are they the type of people who are going to be quiet? they are going to have a microphone in their hands, and i think it'll be interesting to see whether or not they comment in some way or another, stylistically like beyonce d when she was the halftime performer, or any in a more deliberate and vocal way during the game on sunday. >> sreenivasan: one of the biggest differences, i think, if anybody who's been on the internet in the last couple of weeks has seen the overwhelming number of ads for sports betting because so many states have made it legal now for you to be betting online and i can't imagine, i mean, super bowl sunday is going to be one of the biggest betting days ever. >> so, what you've had in the last three years is the supreme court decided that states could regulate sports betting, and a

lot of state i believe it's around 30 now, have taken them up on that and are doing it. so, you knowthere are apps, there are casinos, there are all of these different entities that are looking to get piece of a very lucrative betting market. and what they're trying to do is normalize betting for the american sports market to teach you how to bet, essentially. and they're doing that not just through this advertising, but through partnerships with different media organizations which are now able to talk about parlays and spreads and all of these things when before, just like five years ago, that was completely verboten. >> sreenivasan: yeah. jane manus, thanks so much. >> happy to be here. >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy, and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. bernarand denise schwartz. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the anderson family fund. the estate of worthington mayo-smith. leonard and norma klorfine. the rosalind p. walter foundation. koo and patricia yuen, committed to bridging cultural

differences in our communities. barbara hope zuckerberg. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group: retirement services and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs. show is brought to you

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