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Biden predicts Russia will invade Ukraine, warns Putin
President Joe Biden said Wednesday he thinks Russia will invade Ukraine and warned President Vladimir Putin that his country would pay a “dear price” in lives lost and a possible cutoff from the global banking system if it does.
Biden, speaking at a news conference to mark his one-year anniversary in office, also said a “minor incursion” by Russia would elicit a lesser response. He later sought to clarify that he was referring to a non-military action, such as a cyberattack, that would be met with a similar reciprocal response, and that if Russian forces cross the Ukrainian border, killing Ukrainian fighters, “that changes everything.”
But the comments also hinted at the challenge of keeping the United States and its NATO allies united in their response to Russia. In explaining the minor incursion remark, he said “it’s very important that we keep everyone in NATO on the same page.”
The news conference came at a critical moment in Europe as Russia has amassed 100,000 troops near the Ukrainian border and a series of talks in Europe last week failed to ease tensions. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday. On Wednesday, Blinken met with Ukraine’s president in Kyiv and he heads to Berlin on Thursday for talks with allies.
READ: Biden, Putin set video call Tuesday as Ukraine tensions grow
Biden reiterated that he did not think that Putin has made a final decision on whether to invade, but speculated “my guess is he will move in.”
Even after he sought to clarify his comments about a potential NATO response to a “minor incursion” by Russia, the White House moved quickly to make clear that Biden was not telegraphing to Putin that the U.S. would tolerate some military action against Ukraine.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki noted that the Russians could turn to an “extensive playbook of aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics.”
“President Biden has been clear with the Russian President: If any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response from the United States and our Allies,” Psaki said in a statement.
As the White House did cleanup, Biden faced a barrage of criticism over the “minor incursion” remark.
“This is the wrong way to view this threat,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, who was part of a bipartisan congressional delegation that traveled to Kyiv over the weekend to meet with Ukrainian officials. “Any incursion by the Russian military into Ukraine should be viewed as a major incursion because it will destabilize Ukraine and freedom-loving countries in Eastern Europe.”
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said Biden effectively “gave Putin a green light to invade Ukraine by yammering about the supposed insignificance of a ‘minor incursion.’”
“He projected weakness, not strength,” Sasse said.
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If Russia invades, Biden said, one action under consideration was limiting Russian transactions in U.S. financial institutions, including “anything that involves dollar denominations.” Biden was referring to potentially limiting Russia’s access to “dollar clearing” — the conversion of payments by banks on behalf of clients into U.S. dollars from rubles or other foreign currency, according to a senior administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly.
The U.S. president said he believes the decision will “solely” be Putin’s and suggested he was not fully confident that the Russian officials with whom top White House advisers have been negotiating are fully informed about Putin’s thinking.
“There’s a question of whether the people they’re talking to know what he’s going to do,” Biden said.
Ukraine, meanwhile, said it was prepared for the worst and would survive whatever difficulties come its way. The president urged the country not to panic.
Russian military activity has been increasing in recent weeks, but the U.S. has not concluded whether Putin plans to invade or whether the show of force is intended to squeeze the security concessions without an actual conflict.
Biden, who spoke with Putin twice last month, said he’s made it clear to him that Russia would face severe sanctions. Still, he said the decision for Putin could come down to “what side of the bed” he wakes up on.
“He’s never seen sanctions like the ones I promised will be imposed if he moves, No. 1,” Biden warned. “This is not all just a cake walk for Russia,” Biden said. “They’ll pay a stiff price immediately” and in the medium and long term “if they do it.”
In Kyiv, Blinken reiterated Washington’s demands for Russia to de-escalate the situation by removing its forces from the border area, something that Moscow has flatly refused to do. And, Blinken said he wouldn’t give Russia the written response it expects to its security demands when he and Lavrov meet in Geneva.
Meanwhile, a top Russian diplomat said Moscow would not back down from its insistence that the U.S. formally ban Ukraine from ever joining NATO and reduce its and the alliance’s military presence in Eastern Europe. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow had no intention of invading Ukraine but that its demands for security guarantees were non-negotiable.
The U.S. and its allies have said the Russian demands are non-starters, that Russia knows they are and that Putin is using them in part to create a pretext for invading Ukraine, which has strong ethnic and historical ties to Russia. The former Soviet republic aspires to join the alliance, though has little hope of doing so in the foreseeable future.
Blinken urged Western nations to remain united in the face of Russian aggression. He also reassured Ukraine’s leader of NATO support while calling for Ukrainians to stand strong.
Blinken told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the U.S. and its allies were steadfast in backing his country and its democratic aspirations against Russian attempts to incite division and discord through “relentless aggression.”
“Our strength depends on preserving our unity and that includes unity within Ukraine,” he told Zelenskyy. “I think one of Moscow’s long-standing goals has been to try to sow divisions between and within our countries, and quite simply we cannot and will not let them do that.”
The Biden administration had said earlier it was providing an additional $200 million in defensive military aid to Ukraine. Blinken said more assistance is coming and that it would only increase should Russia invade.
Washington and its allies have kept the door open to possible further talks on arms control and confidence-building measures to reduce the potential for hostilities.
Ryabkov insisted, however, that there can’t be any meaningful talks on those issues if the West doesn’t heed the main Russian requests for the non-expansion of NATO with a formal response. He said the Russian demands are “a package, and we’re not prepared to divide it into different parts, to start processing some of those at the expense of standing idle on others.”
Blinken, though, said no such formal response was coming. “I won’t be presenting a paper at that time to Foreign Minister Lavrov,” he said. “We need to see where we are and see if there remain opportunities to pursue the diplomacy and pursue the dialogue.”
Biden says nation weary from COVID but rising with him in WH
President Joe Biden acknowledged Wednesday that the pandemic has left Americans exhausted and demoralized but insisted at a news conference marking his first year in office that he has “outperformed” expectations in dealing with it.
Facing sagging poll numbers and a stalled legislative agenda, Biden conceded he would likely have to pare back his “build back better” recovery package and instead settle for “big chunks” of his signature economic plan. He promised to further attack inflation and the pandemic and blamed Republicans for uniting in opposition to his proposals rather than offering ideas of their own.
This is a perilous time for Biden: The nation is gripped by a disruptive new surge of virus cases, and inflation is at a level not seen in a generation. Democrats are bracing for a potential midterm rout if he can’t turn things around.
Biden insisted that voters will come to embrace a more positive view of his tenure — and of his beleaguered party — in time. His appeal to voters for patience came with a pledge to spend more time outside Washington to make the case to them directly.
Biden also addressed the brewing crisis on the Ukraine border, where Russia has massed some 100,000 troops and raised concerns that Moscow is ready to launch a further invasion.
The president said his “guess” is Russia may move further but he believes President Vladimir Putin doesn’t want full-blown war. He declared Russia would pay a “dear price” if Putin launches a military incursion.
“He has to do something,” Biden said of Putin. “He is trying to find his place in the world between China and the West.”
Biden suggested a “minor incursion” might elicit a lesser response than a full-scale invasion of the country, a comment that drew immediate condemnation from some corners.
“President Biden basically gave Putin a green light to invade Ukraine by yammering about the supposed insignificance of a ‘minor incursion,’” said Republican Sen. Ben Sasse.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki indicated in a subsequent statement that that wasn’t necessarily about tanks and troops.
“President Biden also knows from long experience that the Russians have an extensive playbook of aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics. And he affirmed today that those acts of Russian aggression will be met with a decisive, reciprocal, and united response,” she said.
Biden held forth for 1 hour and 50 minutes in the East Room of the White House, appearing to relish the opportunity to parry questions from two dozen journalists with doses of wit and a few flashes of anger. At several points, he looked at his watch, smiled and kept calling on reporters.
He fielded questions about inflation, nuclear talks with Iran, voting rights, political division, Vice President Kamala Harris’ place on the 2024 ticket, trade with China and the competency of government. Those questions showed the multitude of challenges confronting the president, each of them as much a risk as an opportunity to prove himself.
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The president began by reeling off early progress in fighting the virus and showcasing quick passage of an ambitious bipartisan roads-and-bridges infrastructure deal. But his economic, voting rights, police reform and immigration agenda have all been thwarted in a barely Democratic-controlled Senate, while inflation has emerged as an economic threat to the nation and a political risk for Biden.
Despite his faltering approval numbers, Biden claimed to have “probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen” in a country still coping with the coronavirus.
“After almost two years of physical, emotional and psychological impact of this pandemic, for many of us, it’s been too much to bear,” Biden said.
“Some people may call what’s happening now ’the new normal,″ he added, his voice rising. “I call it a job not yet finished. It will get better.”
On his nearly $2 trillion economic agenda that West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin has blocked from moving forward, Biden said he’ll pass the parts of the package that can net sufficient votes. This likely means not extending the expanded child tax credit or providing financial support to community colleges, Biden said.
“I think we can break the package up, get as much as we can now, come back and fight for the rest,” he said, later adding that he would apply the same strategy to his voting reform agenda.
The social spending bill was once viewed as a catch-all home for various progressive priorities, but now Democrats are sensing a need to deliver a solid accomplishment to voters in the midterm year and are beginning to come to terms with a slimmed-down package that can overcome Manchin’s reticence.
The White House and congressional Democratic leaders are expected to refocus their attention on it beginning next week, after the all-but-certain collapse of the Democrats’ push on voting rights legislation. Talks to craft a new bill that meets Manchin’s demands and can garner the virtually unanimous Democratic support needed to pass Congress will likely take weeks.
The Democrats’ goal is to have a package — or be on the cusp of one — that Biden can highlight in his March 1 State of the Union address.
If Biden seemed to have one set of regrets so far, it was his inability because of the coronavirus to connect with more Americans outside the capital. He noted that this challenge was most acutely felt by Black voters who wanted him to push more aggressively on expanding access to voting.
“I don’t get a chance to look people in the eye because of both COVID and things that are happening in Washington,” he said.
Speaking as Democrats were mounting a doomed effort to change Senate rules to pass the voting measure, Biden said he still hoped that it would pass in some form and wasn’t prepared yet to discuss possible executive actions on the issue. The vote spotlighted the constraints on Biden’s influence barely a week after he delivered an impassioned speech in Atlanta suggesting opponents of the measures were taking a historical stance alongside segregationists and exhorting senators to action.
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Still, he said he understood that civil rights groups were anxious and frustrated about the lack of action, particularly Black voters who question why he didn’t press the issue harder and earlier.
There are at least 19 Republican-backed laws in states that make it harder to vote, and Jan. 6 insurrection supporters are filling local election posts and running for office.
It was Biden’s seventh solo news conference as president. The ongoing threat from the coronavirus was evident in the setup of Wednesday’s gathering: A limited number of reporters were allowed to attend and all had to have been tested for the virus and wear masks.
The president used the event to pay heed to growing anxiety about rising prices. Staring down an inflation rate that has gone from 1.7% at his inauguration to 7%, he called on the Federal Reserve to lessen its monetary boosting of the economy by raising interest rates, which would in theory help to reduce inflation.
“Given the strength of our economy, and the pace of recent price increases, it’s important to recalibrate the support that is now necessary,” Biden said. “Now, we need to get inflation under control.”
Despite it all, Biden said he’s convinced the country is still with him — even if they don’t tell that to pollsters.
“I don’t believe the polls,” he said.
Voting bill blocked by GOP filibuster, Dems try rules change
Voting legislation that Democrats and civil rights groups argued is vital for protecting democracy was blocked Wednesday by a Republican filibuster, a setback for President Joe Biden and his party after a raw, emotional debate.
Democrats immediately pivoted to debate a Senate rules change as a way to overcome the filibuster, but that was also headed toward defeat. Biden has been unable to persuade two holdout senators in his own party, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, to change the Senate procedures for this one bill.
“This is a moral moment,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga.
The nighttime voting capped a day of piercing debate that carried echoes of an earlier era when the Senate filibuster was deployed by opponents of civil rights legislation.
Voting rights advocates are warning that Republican-led states nationwide are passing laws making it more difficult for Black Americans and others to vote by consolidating polling locations, requiring certain types of identification and ordering other changes.
Vice President Kamala Harris briefly presided, able to break a tie in the 50-50 Senate, but her vote did not appear to matter.
“The president and I are not going to give up on this issue,” Harris said as she left the Capitol.
Sinema and Manchin are unwavering in their resistance to changing the filibuster rules, denying their party the votes. The two have withstood an onslaught of criticism from Black leaders and civil rights organizations, and they risk further political fallout as other groups and even their own colleagues threaten to yank campaign support.
The Democrats’ bill, the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, would make Election Day a national holiday, ensure access to early voting and mail-in ballots — which have become especially popular during the COVID-19 pandemic — and enable the Justice Department to intervene in states with a history of voter interference, among other changes. It has passed the House.
Both Manchin and Sinema say they support the legislation but, Democrats fell far short of the 60 votes needed to advance the bill over the Republican filibuster, failing 49-51 on a party-line vote. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., voted no for procedural reasons so Democrats can revisit the legislation.
Instead, Schumer put forward a more specific rules change for a “talking filibuster” on this one bill. It would require senators to stand at their desks and exhaust the debate before holding a simple majority vote, rather than the current practice that simply allows senators to privately signal their objections.
But even that was expected to fail because Manchin and Sinema have said they are unwilling to change the rules on a party-line vote by Democrats alone.
Emotions were on display during the floor debate.
When Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., asked Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky whether he would pause for a question, McConnell left the chamber, refusing to respond.
Durbin said he would have asked McConnell, “Does he really believe that there’s no evidence of voter suppression?”
The No. 2 Republican, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said at one point, “I am not a racist.”
McConnell, who led his party in doing away with the filibuster’s 60-vote threshold for Supreme Court nominees during Donald Trump’s presidency, warned against changing the rules again.
McConnell derided the “fake hysteria” from Democrats over the states’ new voting laws and called the pending bill a federal takeover of election systems. He admonished Democrats, and said doing away with filibuster rules would “break the Senate.”
Manchin drew a roomful of senators for his own speech, upstaging the president’s news conference and defending the filibuster. He said majority rule would only “add fuel to the fire” and it was “dysfunction that is tearing this nation apart.”
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“For those who say bipartisanship is impossible, we have proven them wrong,” Manchin said, citing the recent infrastructure bill he helped pass into law. “We can do it again. ... We can make it easier to vote.”
Several members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked across the Capitol building for the proceedings. “We want this Senate to act today in a favorable way. But if it don’t, we ain’t giving up,” said Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., the highest-ranking Black member of Congress.
Manchin did open the door to a more tailored package of voting law changes, including to the Electoral Count Act, which was tested during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. He said senators from both parties are working on that and it could draw Republican support.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said a bipartisan coalition should work on legislation to ensure voter access, particularly in far-flung areas like her state, and to shore up Americans’ faith in democracy.
“We don’t need, we do not need a repeat of 2020 when by all accounts our last president, having lost the election, sought to change the results,” said Murkowski.
She said the Senate debate had declined to a troubling state: “You’re either a racist or a hypocrite. Really, really? Is that where we are?”
At one point, senators broke into applause after a spirited debate between Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, among the more experienced lawmakers, and new Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., over the Voting Rights Act.
Sinema sat in her chair throughout much of the debate, largely glued to her phone.
Once reluctant himself to change Senate rules, Biden has stepped up his pressure on senators to do just that. But the push from the White House, including Biden’s blistering speech last week in Atlanta comparing opponents to segregationists, is seen as too late.
Russia moves more troops westward amid Ukraine tensions
Russia is a sending an unspecified number of troops from the country’s far east to Belarus for major war games, officials said Tuesday, a deployment that will further beef up Russian military presence near Ukraine amid Western fears of a planned invasion.
Amid the soaring tensions, the White House warned that Russia could attack its neighbor at “any point,” while the U.K. delivered a batch of anti-tank weapons to Ukraine.
Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin said the joint drills with Belarus would involve practicing a joint response to external threats.
Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia could launch an attack on Ukraine from several directions, including from its ally Belarus.
The U.S. again stressed its concern Tuesday, with White House press secretary Jen Psaki describing the Russian forces’ move into Belarus as part of as “extremely dangerous situation.”
“We’re now at a stage where Russia could at any point launch an attack in Ukraine,” she said.
A series of talks last week between Russia, the U.S. and NATO failed to quell the tensions over Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Geneva on Friday in another attempt to defuse the crisis.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday it has received a shipment of anti-tank weapons from the U.K., noting that they will help “strengthen our defense capability.”
Russia already has started moving troops for the war games in Belarus. Fomin said it would take through Feb. 9 to fully deploy weapons and personnel for the Allied Resolve 2022 drills, which are expected to take place Feb. 10-20.
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Fomin didn’t say how many troops will be involved, but mentioned that Russia will deploy a dozen Su-35 fighter jets and several air defense units to Belarus. The deployment would bolster an estimated 100,000 Russian troops with tanks and other heavy weapons who are already amassed near Ukraine.
Russia has denied that it intends to attack its neighbor but demanded guarantees from the West that NATO will not expand to Ukraine or other former Soviet nations or place its troops and weapons there. Washington and its allies firmly rejected Moscow’s demands during Russia-U.S. negotiations in Geneva and a related NATO-Russia meeting in Brussels last week.
Fomin said the drills in Belarus, which involve an unspecified number of troops from Russia’s Eastern Military District, reflect the need to practice concentrating the country’s entire military potential in the west.
“A situation may arise when forces and means of the regional group of forces will be insufficient to ensure reliable security of the union state, and we must be ready to strengthen it,” Fomin said at a meeting with foreign military attaches. “We have reached an understanding with Belarus that it’s necessary to engage the entire military potential for joint defense.”
Belarus’ authoritarian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said the joint maneuvers will be conducted on Belarus’ western border and in the country’s south, where it borders Ukraine. Lukashenko, who has edged increasingly close to Russia amid Western sanctions over his government’s crackdown on domestic protests, has recently offered to host Russian nuclear weapons.
A senior Biden administration official said the Russian troop deployment to Belarus raises concerns that Moscow may be planning to stage troops there to stretch Ukraine’s defenses with an attack from the north. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues, noted that the movement may also indicate Belarus’ willingness “to allow both Russian conventional and nuclear forces to be stationed on its territory.”
Amid the tensions, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it was speeding up efforts to form reserve battalions that would allow for the rapid deployment of 130,000 recruits to expand the country’s 246,000-strong military.
The United States and its allies have urged Russia to deescalate the situation by calling back the troops amassed near Ukraine.
“In recent weeks, more than 100,000 Russian troops with tanks and guns have gathered near Ukraine without an understandable reason, and it’s hard not to understand that as a threat,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters Tuesday after talks in Moscow with her Russian counterpart, Lavrov.
Lavrov responded by restating Moscow’s argument that it’s free to deploy its forces wherever it considers it necessary on its territory.
“We can’t accept demands about our armed forces on our own territory,” Lavrov said. “We aren’t threatening anyone, but we are hearing threats to us.”
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Baerbock emphasized that the West was ready “for a serious dialogue on mutual agreements and steps to bring everyone in Europe more security.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Tuesday. He said “the main task now is to make progress on the political way forward” to prevent a military attack against Ukraine.
“NATO allies are ready to meet with Russia again, and today I have invited Russia and all the NATO allies to attend a series of meetings in the NATO-Russia Council in the near future to address our concerns but also listen to Russia’s concerns,” Stoltenberg said.
He added that NATO “in the near future” will deliver its written proposals in response to Russian demands and “hopefully we can begin meeting after that.”
“We need to see what Russia says, and that will be a kind of pivotal moment,” the NATO chief said.
Lavrov, meanwhile, reaffirmed that Russia wants a quick Western answer to its demand for security guarantees that would preclude NATO’s expansion to Ukraine and limit its presence in Eastern Europe. He repeated that in a phone conversation with Blinken, who will visit Ukraine on Wednesday and meet with Lavrov on Friday.
Speaking on a visit Tuesday to Ukraine, Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly denounced the Russian troop buildup as unacceptable. She noted Canada’s efforts to help train Ukraine’s military, adding that it’s currently considering Ukraine’s demand to provide it with military equipment and will make “a decision in a timely manner.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 after the ouster of Ukraine’s Moscow-friendly leader and also threw its weight behind a separatist insurgency that took over large sections in eastern Ukraine. More than 14,000 people have been killed in nearly eight years of fighting there.
Volcanic ash delays aid to Tonga as scale of damage emerges
Thick ash on an airport runway was delaying aid deliveries to the Pacific island nation of Tonga, where significant damage was being reported days after a huge undersea volcanic eruption and tsunami.
New Zealand’s military is sending much-needed drinking water and other supplies, but said the ash on the runway will delay the flight at least a day. A towering ash cloud since Saturday’s eruption had prevented earlier flights. New Zealand also sent a navy ship to Tonga Tuesday with another planned to leave later in the day and pledged an initial 1 million New Zealand dollars ($680,000) toward recovery efforts.
Australia sent a navy ship from Sydney to Brisbane to prepare for a support mission if needed.
Communications with Tonga have been extremely limited, but New Zealand and Australia sent military surveillance flights to assess the damage on Monday, with aerial photos showing the vibrant Tongan landscape transformed by the ash into a gray moonscape.
U.N. humanitarian officials and Tonga’s government “report significant infrastructural damage around Tongatapu,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
“There has been no contact from the Ha’apai Group of islands, and we are particularly concerned about two small low-lying islands — Mango and Fonoi — following surveillance flights confirming substantial property damage,” Dujarric said.
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New Zealand’s High Commission in Tonga also reported “significant damage” along the western coast of the main island of Tongatapu, including to resorts and along the waterfront area. The commission said Tonga police had confirmed two deaths from the tsunami, including one who was a British national.
Satellite images captured the spectacular eruption, with a plume of ash, steam and gas rising like a giant mushroom above the South Pacific. Tsunami waves of about 80 centimeters (2.7 feet) crashed into Tonga’s shoreline, and crossed the Pacific, causing minor damage from New Zealand to Santa Cruz, California. The eruption set off a sonic boom that could be heard as far away as Alaska.
Two people drowned in Peru, which also reported an oil spill after waves moved a ship that was transferring oil at a refinery.
Family said British woman Angela Glover, 50, died after being swept away by a wave in Tonga.
Nick Eleini said his sister’s body had been found and that her husband survived. “I understand that this terrible accident came about as they tried to rescue their dogs,” Eleini told Sky News. He said it had been his sister’s life dream” to live in the South Pacific and “she loved her life there.”
The explosion of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano, about 64 kilometers (40 miles) north of Nuku’alofa, was the latest in a series of dramatic eruptions. In late 2014 and early 2015, eruptions created a small new island and disrupted air travel to the Pacific archipelago.
Earth imaging company Planet Labs PBC had watched the island after a new vent began erupting in late December. Satellite images showed how drastically the volcano had shaped the area, creating a growing island off Tonga.
The U.N. World Food Program is exploring how to bring in relief supplies and more staff and has received a request to restore communication lines in Tonga, Dujarric said.
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One complicating factor is that Tonga has managed to avoid outbreaks of COVID-19. New Zealand said its military staff were vaccinated and willing to follow Tonga’s protocols.
New Zealand’s military said it hoped the airfield in Tonga would be opened either Wednesday or Thursday. The military said it had considered an airdrop but that was “not the preference of the Tongan authorities.”
Communications with the island nation is limited because the single underwater fiber-optic cable that connects Tonga to the rest of the world was likely severed in the eruption. The company that owns the cable and repairs could take weeks.
Samiuela Fonua, who chairs the board at Tonga Cable Ltd., said the cable appeared to have been severed about 10 to 15 minutes after the eruption. He said the cable lies atop and within coral reef, which can be sharp.
Fonua said a ship would need to pull up the cable to assess the damage and then crews would need to fix it. A single break might take a week to repair, he said, while multiple breaks could take up to three weeks. He added that it was unclear yet when it would be safe for a ship to venture near the undersea volcano to undertake the work.
A second undersea cable that connects the islands within Tonga also appeared to have been severed, Fonua said. However, a local phone network was working, allowing Tongans to call each other. But he said the lingering ash cloud was continuing to make even satellite phone calls abroad difficult
Pediatric COVID cases rise in Oregon
Coronavirus cases are rising sharply among children under age four and between the ages of 12 and 17.
Oregon health officials said Friday they are closely monitoring the trends in pediatric cases, which made up more than 20% of the state’s overall known caseload in the most recent full week that ended Jan. 8.
Hospitalizations are also increasing in children, the Oregon Health Authority said.
Overall, state health officials reported 8,672 new confirmed or presumptive cases Friday and 13 new deaths. More than one in five test results reported to the state are now positive for COVID-19, according to the data.
There are 811 people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Oregon and 6% of staffed adult intensive care unit beds are available statewide.
Also under new rules, which took effect Friday, state health authorities will no longer require contract tracing for a student in public schools who comes into close contact with an infected student or staff member as long as both are wearing masks — regardless of the distance between them.
The new rule should reduce the pressure on school staff, particularly nurses, who have been overwhelmed with contact tracing during the omicron variant’s surge.
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“The new recommendations are based on accumulated evidence that layered mitigation efforts in K-12 schools have worked well to minimize transmission and that the vast majority of transmission has occurred following indoor unmasked contact,” the agency said.
Lawsuit: Google, Facebook CEOs colluded in online ad sales
Newly unredacted documents from a state-led antitrust lawsuit against Google accuse the search giant of colluding with rival Facebook to manipulate online advertising sales. The CEOs of both companies were aware of the deal and signed off on it, the lawsuit alleges.
The original, redacted lawsuit, filed in December 2021, accused Google of “anti-competitive conduct” and of teaming up with the social networking giant. But the unredacted version offers details on the involvement of Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in approving the deal. Facebook has since renamed itself Meta.
According to the lawsuit, Facebook’s chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, was “explicit that ‘this is a big deal strategically’” in a 2018 email thread about the deal that included Facebook’s CEO. While the names of the Facebook executives are still redacted in the suit, their titles are visible.
When the two sides hammered out the terms of the agreement, “the team sent an email addressed directly to CEO” Zuckerberg, the lawsuit states.
“We’re nearly ready to sign and need your approval to move forward,” the email read, according to the complaint. Zuckerberg wanted to meet with Sandberg and his other executives before making a decision, the complaint states.
In a statement, Google spokesperson Peter Schottenfels said the lawsuit is “full of inaccuracies and lacks legal merit.”
In September 2018, the complaint says, the two companies signed the agreement. Sandberg, who was once the head of Google’s ad business, and Pichai personally signed off on the deal, per the states’ complaint.
Meta spokesperson Chris Sgro said Friday that the company’s ad bidding agreement with Google and similar agreements it has with other bidding platforms “have helped to increase competition for ad placements.”
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“These business relationships enable Meta to deliver more value to advertisers while fairly compensating publishers, resulting in better outcomes for all,” Sgro said.
Internally, Google used the code phrase “Jedi Blue” to refer to the 2018 agreement, according to the lawsuit. Google kept this code phrase secret.
Google’s Schottenfels said the lawsuit’s allegation that Pichai approved the deal with Facebook “isn’t accurate.”
“We sign hundreds of agreements every year that don’t require CEO approval, and this was no different,” he said, adding that the agreement “was never a secret.”
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The lawsuit is led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and was joined by the attorneys general of Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah.
Strong quake shakes Indonesia’s capital; no tsunami alert
A powerful earthquake shook parts of Indonesia’s main island of Java on Friday, damaging buildings and houses and sending people into the streets, but no casualties were reported. Officials said there was no danger of a tsunami.
The U.S. Geological Survey said the magnitude 6.6 quake was located in the Indian Ocean about 88 kilometers (54 miles) southwest of Labuan, a coastal town in Banten province. It was centered at a depth of 37 kilometers (23 miles), it said.
Dwikorita Karnawati, head of Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency, said there was no danger of a tsunami but warned of possible aftershocks.
READ: 6.1 magnitude earthquake jolts Dhaka, other areas
High-rises in Jakarta, the capital, swayed for more than 10 seconds and some ordered evacuations, sending streams of people into the streets. Even two-story homes shook strongly in the satellite cities of Tangerang, Bogor and Bekasi.
Earthquakes occur frequently across the sprawling archipelago nation, but it is uncommon for them to be felt in Jakarta.
READ: Strong earthquake in southwest Pakistan kills at least 20
“The tremor was horrible ... everything in my room was swinging,” said Laila Anjasari, a Jakarta resident who lives on the 19th floor of an apartment building, “We ran out and down the stairs in panic.”
At least 257 houses and buildings were damaged, mostly in Pandeglang, the closest district to the epicenter, said National Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesperson Abdul Muhari. Minor damage was also reported elsewhere, but there were no reports of injuries.
Indonesia is prone to seismic upheaval due to its location on major geological faults known as the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
US hits NKorean officials with sanctions after missile test
The Biden administration on Wednesday slapped sanctions on five North Korean officials in its first response to Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test and later announced it will also seek new U.N. sanctions.
The Treasury Department said it was imposing penalties on the five officials over their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for the North’s missile programs. In addition, the State Department ordered sanctions against another North Korean, a Russian man and a Russian company for their broader support of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction activities.
The Treasury’s moves came just hours after North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un oversaw a successful flight test of a hypersonic missile on Tuesday that he claimed would greatly increase the country’s nuclear “war deterrent.”
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, tweeted Wednesday night that following designations by Treasury and State the U.S. is also proposing U.N. sanctions in response to North Korea’s six ballistic missile launches since September, “each of which were in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”
Read: North Korea fires suspected ballistic missile into sea
A U.S. diplomat said the U.S. is continuing to coordinate with its council partners on the proposed new sanctions.
One of the five North Koreans targeted by Treasury is based in Russia, while the other four are based in China. All are accused of providing money, goods or services to North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, which Treasury says is heavily involved in the country’s military defense programs.
“The DPRK’s latest missile launches are further evidence that it continues to advance prohibited programs despite the international community’s calls for diplomacy and denuclearization,” said Treasury’s chief of terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson. He referred to the North by the acronym of its official name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The sanctions freeze any assets that the targets have in U.S. jurisdictions, bar Americans from doing business with them and subject foreign companies and individuals to potential penalties for transactions with them.
Shortly before the announcement, North Korea’s state news agency reported that the latest missile launch involved a hypersonic glide vehicle, which after its release from the rocket booster demonstrated “glide jump flight” and “corkscrew maneuvering” before hitting a sea target 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) away.
Read: US urges NKorea to stop missile tests and return to talks
Photos released by the agency showed a missile mounted with a pointed cone-shaped payload soaring into the sky while leaving a trail of orange flames, with Kim watching from a small cabin with top officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong.
The launch was North Korea’s second test of its purported hypersonic missile in a week, a type of weaponry it first tested in September, as Kim Jong Un continues a defiant push to expand his nuclear weapons capabilities in the face of international sanctions, pandemic-related difficulties and deadlocked diplomacy with the United States.
The U.N. Security Council initially imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006 and made them tougher in response to further nuclear tests and an increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile program. In 2018, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the sanctions had cut off all North Korean exports and 90% of its trade and disbanded the pool of workers which North Korea sent abroad to earn hard currency — but Pyongyang has managed to evade some measures.
China and Russia circulated a draft resolution in November urging the Security Council to end a host of sanctions against North Korea including a ban on exports of seafood and textiles, a cap on imports of refined petroleum products and a prohibition on its citizens working overseas and sending home their earnings. It stressed the economic difficulties in North Korea and said these and other sanctions should be lifted “with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population.”
China and Russia are both veto-wielding members of the Security Council and whether they will support new sanctions on North Korea remains to be seen.
Omicron may be headed for a rapid drop in Britain, US
Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.
The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa.
“It’s going to come down as fast as it went up,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.
At the same time, experts warn that much is still uncertain about how the next phase of the pandemic might unfold. The plateauing or ebbing in the two countries is not happening everywhere at the same time or at the same pace. And weeks or months of misery still lie ahead for patients and overwhelmed hospitals even if the drop-off comes to pass.
“There are still a lot of people who will get infected as we descend the slope on the backside,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, which predicts that reported cases will peak within the week.
Read: UK health boss: COVID-19 rules could tighten by Christmas
On Tuesday, Janet Woodcock, the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, told Congress that the highly transmissible strain will infect “most people” and that the focus should turn to ensuring critical services can continue uninterrupted.
“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is: Most people are going to get COVID, all right?,” she said. “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function — transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”
The University of Washington’s own highly influential model projects that the number of daily reported cases in the U.S. will crest at 1.2 million by Jan. 19 and will then fall sharply “simply because everybody who could be infected will be infected,” according to Mokdad.
In Britain, meanwhile, new COVID-19 cases dropped to about 140,000 a day in the last week, after skyrocketing to more than 200,000 a day earlier this month, according to government data.
Numbers from the U.K.’s National Health Service this week show coronavirus hospital admissions for adults have begun to fall, with infections dropping in all age groups.
Kevin McConway, a retired professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, said that while COVID-19 cases are still rising in places such as southwest England and the West Midlands, the outbreak may have peaked in London.
Read: UK Brexit minister quits as new COVID rules spark anger
The figures have raised hopes that the two countries are about to undergo something similar to what happened in South Africa, where in the span of about a month the wave crested at record highs and then fell significantly.
“We are seeing a definite falling-off of cases in the U.K., but I’d like to see them fall much further before we know if what happened in South Africa will happen here,” said Dr. Paul Hunter, a professor of medicine at Britain’s University of East Anglia.
Dr. David Heymann, who previously led the World Health Organization’s infectious diseases department, said Britain was “the closest to any country of being out of the pandemic,” adding that COVID-19 was inching towards becoming endemic.
Differences between Britain and South Africa, including Britain’s older population and the tendency of its people to spend more time indoors in the winter, could mean a bumpier outbreak for the country and other nations like it.
On the other hand, British authorities’ decision to adopt minimal restrictions against omicron could enable the virus to rip through the population and run its course much faster than it might in Western European countries that have imposed tougher COVID-19 controls, such as France, Spain and Italy.
Shabir Mahdi, dean of health sciences at South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand, said European countries that impose lockdowns won’t necessarily come through the omicron wave with fewer infections; the cases may just be spread out over a longer period of time.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said there have been 7 million new COVID-19 cases across Europe in the past week, calling it a “tidal wave sweeping across the region.” WHO cited modeling from Mokdad’s group that predicts half of Europe’s population will be infected with omicron within about eight weeks.
By that time, however, Hunter and others expect the world to be past the omicron surge.
“There will probably be some ups and downs along the way, but I would hope that by Easter, we will be out of this,” Hunter said.
Still, the sheer numbers of people infected could prove overwhelming to fragile health systems, said Dr. Prabhat Jha of the Centre for Global Health Research at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.
“The next few weeks are going to be brutal because in absolute numbers, there are so many people being infected that it will spill over into ICUs,” Jha said.
Mokdad likewise warned in the U.S.: “It’s going to be a tough two or three weeks. We have to make hard decisions to let certain essential workers continue working, knowing they could be infectious.”
Omicron could one day be seen as a turning point in the pandemic, said Meyers, at the University of Texas. Immunity gained from all the new infections, along with new drugs and continued vaccination, could render the coronavirus something with which we can more easily coexist.
“At the end of this wave, far more people will have been infected by some variant of COVID,” Meyers said. “At some point, we’ll be able to draw a line — and omicron may be that point — where we transition from what is a catastrophic global threat to something that’s a much more manageable disease.”
That’s one plausible future, she said, but there is also the possibility of a new variant — one that is far worse than omicron — arising.