President Joe Biden
Biden co-hosting 2nd COVID summit as world's resolve falters
President Joe Biden will appeal for a renewed international commitment to attacking COVID-19 as he convenes the second global COVID-19 summit at a time when faltering resolve at home jeopardizes that global response.
Eight months after he used the first such summit to announce an ambitious pledge to donate 1.2 billion vaccine doses to the world, the urgency of the U.S. and other nations to respond has waned.
Momentum on vaccinations and treatments has faded even as new, more infectious variants rise and billions across the globe remain unprotected. Congress has refused to meet Biden’s request to provide another $22.5 billion in what he has called critically needed aid funding.
The White House said Biden will address the opening of the virtual summit Thursday morning with prerecorded remarks and will make the case that addressing COVID-19 “must remain an international priority.” The U.S. is co-hosting the summit along with Germany, Indonesia, Senegal and Belize.
The U.S. has shipped nearly 540 million vaccine doses to more than 110 countries and territories, according to the State Department — by far more than any other donor nation.
Also read: Biden, Mexican president confer on migration, diplomacy
After the delivery of more than 1 billion vaccines to the developing world, the problem is no longer that there aren’t enough shots, but a lack of logistical support to get doses into arms. According to government data, more than 680 million donated vaccine doses have been left unused in developing countries because they were set to expire soon and couldn’t be administered quickly enough. As of March, 32 poorer countries had used fewer than half of the COVID-19 vaccines they were sent.
U.S. assistance to promote and facilitate vaccinations overseas dried up earlier this year, and Biden has requested about $5 billion for the effort through the rest of the year.
“We have tens of millions of unclaimed doses because countries lack the resources to build out their cold chains, which basically is the refrigeration systems; to fight disinformation; and to hire vaccinators,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week. She added that the summit is “going to be an opportunity to elevate the fact that we need additional funding to continue to be a part of this effort around the world.”
“We’re going to continue to fight for more funding here,” Psaki said. “But we will continue to press other countries to do more to help the world make progress as well.”
Congress has balked at the price tag for COVID-19 relief and has thus far refused to take up the package because of political opposition to the impending end of pandemic-era migration restrictions at the U.S.-Mexico border. Even after a consensus for virus funding briefly emerged in March, lawmakers decided to strip out the global aid funding and solely focus the assistance on shoring up U.S. supplies of vaccine booster shots and therapeutics.
Biden has warned that without Congress acting, the U.S. could lose out on access to the next generation of vaccines and treatments, and that the nation won't have enough supply of booster doses or the antiviral drug Paxlovid for later this year. He's also sounding the alarm that more variants will spring up if the U.S. and the world don't do more to contain the virus globally.
“To beat the pandemic here, we need to beat it everywhere,” Biden said last September during the first global summit.
The virus has killed more than 995,000 people in the U.S. and at least 6.2 million globally, according to figures kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization.
Also read: Biden sees bigger role for US farms due to Ukraine war
Demand for COVID-19 vaccines has dropped in some countries as infections and deaths have declined globally in recent months, particularly as the omicron variant has proved to be less severe than earlier versions of the disease. For the first time since it was created, the U.N.-backed COVAX effort has “enough supply to enable countries to meet their national vaccination targets,” according to vaccines alliance Gavi CEO Dr. Seth Berkley, which fronts COVAX.
Still, despite more than 65% of the world’s population receiving at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose, fewer than 16% of people in poor countries have been immunized. It is highly unlikely countries will hit the World Health Organization target of vaccinating 70% of all people by June.
In countries including Cameroon, Uganda and the Ivory Coast, officials have struggled to get enough refrigerators to transport vaccines, send enough syringes for mass campaigns and get enough health workers to inject the shots. Experts also point out that more than half of the health workers needed to administer the vaccines in poorer countries are either underpaid or not paid at all.
Donating more vaccines, critics say, would miss the point entirely.
“It’s like donating a bunch of fire trucks to countries that are on fire, but they have no water,” said Ritu Sharma, a vice president at the charity CARE, which has helped immunize people in more than 30 countries, including India, South Sudan and Bangladesh.
“We can’t be giving countries all these vaccines but no way to use them,” she said, adding that the same infrastructure that got the shots administered in the U.S. is now needed elsewhere. “We had to tackle this problem in the U.S., so why are we not now using that knowledge to get vaccines into the people who need them most?”
Sharma said greater investment was needed to counter vaccine hesitancy in developing countries where there are entrenched beliefs about the potential dangers of Western-made medicines.
“Leaders must agree to pursue a coherent strategy to end the pandemic instead of a fragmented approach that will extend the lifespan of this crisis,” said Gayle Smith, CEO of The ONE Campaign.
GAVI’s Berkley also said that countries are increasingly asking for the pricier messenger RNA vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, which are not as easily available as the AstraZeneca vaccine, which made up the bulk of COVAX’s supply last year.
The emergence of variants like delta and omicron have led many countries to switch to mRNA vaccines, which seem to provide more protection and are in greater demand globally than traditionally made vaccines like AstraZeneca, Novavax or those made by China and Russia.
Harris positive for COVID-19, Biden not a ‘close contact’
Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday, the White House announced, underscoring the persistence of the highly contagious virus even as the U.S. eases restrictions in a bid to return to pre-pandemic normalcy.
Neither President Joe Biden nor first lady Jill Biden was considered a “close contact” of Harris in recent days, said the vice president’s press secretary, Kirsten Allen. Harris had been scheduled to attend Biden’s Tuesday morning Presidential Daily Brief but was not present, the White House said.
She had returned Monday from a weeklong trip to the West Coast. The last time she saw Biden was the previous Monday, April 18.
“I have no symptoms, and I will continue to isolate and follow CDC guidelines,” Harris tweeted. “I’m grateful to be both vaccinated and boosted.”
After consulting with her physicians, Harris, 57, was prescribed and is taking Paxlovid, the Pfizer antiviral pill, her office said late Tuesday. The drug, when administered within five days of symptoms appearing, has been proven to bring about a 90% reduction in hospitalizations and deaths among patients most likely to get severe disease.
Biden phoned Harris Tuesday afternoon to make sure she “has everything she needs” while working from home, the White House said.
Also Read: Does Kamala Harris have children? Many eager to know
Harris, received her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine weeks before taking office and a second dose just days after Inauguration Day in 2021. She received a booster shot in late October and an additional booster on April 1. Fully vaccinated and boosted people have a high degree of protection against serious illness and death from COVID-19, particularly from the most common and highly transmissible omicron variant.
Harris’ diagnosis comes a month after her husband, Doug Emhoff, recovered from the virus, as a wave of cases of the highly transmissible omicron subvariant has spread through Washington’s political class, infecting Cabinet members, White House staffers and lawmakers including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tested positive on Tuesday.
Allen said Harris would follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines “and the advice of her physicians.” It was not immediately clear whether she is being prescribed any antiviral treatments.
The White House has put in place strict COVID-19 protocols around the president, vice president and their spouses, including daily testing for those expected to be in close contact with them. Biden is tested regularly on the advice of his physician, the White House has said, and last tested negative on Monday.
“We have a very contagious variant out there,” said White House COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Aashish Jha on Tuesday. “It is going to be hard to ensure that no one gets COVID in America. That’s not even a policy goal.” He said the administration’s goal is to make sure people don’t get seriously ill.
Jha added that despite the precautions it is possible that Biden himself will come down with the virus at some point.
Also Read: Kamala Harris makes history
“I wouldn’t say it’s just a matter of time, but of course it is possible that the president, like any other American, could get COVID,” he said. “There is no 100% anything.”
Psaki said she “would not expect” any changes to White House protocols.
After more than two years and nearly a million deaths in the U.S., the virus is still killing more than 300 people a day in the U.S., according to the CDC. The unvaccinated are at a far greater risk, more than twice as likely to test positive and nine times as likely to die from the virus as those who have received at least a primary dose of the vaccines, according to the public health agency.
Harris’ diagnosis comes as the Biden administration is taking steps to expand availability of the life-saving Paxlovid, reassuring doctors that there is ample supply for people at high risk of severe illness or death from the virus.
In addition to her husband’s diagnosis, Harris was identified as a “close contact” after her communications director tested positive on April 6.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines “close contact” with an infected person as spending 15 minutes or more with them over a 24-hour period. The CDC says people with “close contact” do not need to quarantine if they are up to date on their vaccines but should wear well-fitting masks around other people for 10 days after the contact.
Biden set to announce new military assistance for Ukraine
President Joe Biden is set to announce plans to send additional military aid to help Ukraine fight back against the Russian invasion, according to a U.S. official.
The official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Biden will deliver a Thursday morning address at the White House detailing his plans to build on the roughly $2.6 billion in military assistance the administration has already approved for Ukraine.
The new package is expected to be similar in size to the $800 million package Biden announced last week. It includes much needed heavy artillery and ammunition for Ukrainian forces in the escalating battle for the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
Also read:Ukraine war refugees top 5 million as assault intensifies
Earlier this week, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said his country will send heavy artillery to Ukraine. And Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that the Netherlands will send more heavy weapons, including armored vehicles.
A senior U.S. defense official on Wednesday said training of Ukrainian personnel on American 155mm howitzers has begun in a European country outside Ukraine.
Biden on Wednesday lauded U.S. military officials for “exceptional” work arming Ukraine as he gathered the nation's military brass for their first in-person group meeting at the White House of his presidency.
It's an annual tradition that had been put on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic but is now being resurrected as the U.S. arms Ukraine to help it fight back against Russia's invasion.
“I don’t know about you, but I’ve been to Ukraine a number of times before the war ... and I knew they were tough and proud but I tell you what: They’re tougher and more proud than I thought,” Biden told military commanders. "I’m amazed at what they’re doing with your help.”
Biden brought together the Pentagon’s top civilian and uniformed officials amid the most serious fighting in Europe since World War II. Russia’s nearly two-month-old invasion of Ukraine was at the center of wide-ranging talks with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and combatant commanders.
Biden also used the gathering to reflect on his administration's efforts to diversify Pentagon leadership. Hicks is the first Senate-confirmed woman to hold her role. Biden also chose Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost of the Air Force as commander of United States Transportation Command and Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson of the Army as commander of United States Southern Command. They are just the second and third women to lead combatant commands.
Also read:Russia hits Ukrainian cities, pours more troops into war
“It’s an important milestone," Biden said. “I think that speaks to how we’re harnessing the strength and diversity of our country.”
Following the meeting, Biden and first lady Jill Biden hosted the military leaders and their spouses for dinner in the White House Blue Room.
Such a gathering was last held in October 2019. Donald Trump was president at the time and was facing a House inquiry that would lead to his first impeachment, which centered on allegations that he withheld military assistance from Ukraine as part of an effort to pressure Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Biden's adult son's business dealings in Ukraine.
Biden planning to tap oil reserve to control gas prices
President Joe Biden is preparing to order the release of up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from the nation’s strategic petroleum reserve, according to two people familiar with the decision, in a bid to control energy prices that have spiked as the U.S. and allies have imposed steep sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine
The announcement could come as soon as Thursday, when the White House says Biden is planning to deliver remarks on his administration’s plans to combat rising gas prices. The duration of the release hasn’t been finalized but could last for several months. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the decision.
High oil prices have not coaxed more production, creating a challenge for Biden. The president has seen his popularity sink as inflation reached a 40-year high in February and the cost of petroleum and gasoline climbed after Russia invaded Ukraine. Crude oil on Wednesday traded at nearly $105 a barrel, up from about $60 a year ago.
Still, oil producers have been more focused on meeting the needs of investors, according to a survey released last week by the Dallas Federal Reserve. About 59% of the executives surveyed said investor pressure to preserve “capital discipline” amid high prices was the reason they weren’t pumping more, while fewer than 10% blamed government regulation.
Read: Ukraine war fuels global economic downturn
The steady release from the reserves would be a meaningful sum and come near to closing the domestic production gap relative to February 2020, before the coronavirus caused a steep decline in oil output.
The Biden administration in November announced the release of 50 million barrels from the strategic reserve in coordination with other countries. And after the Ukrainian war began, the U.S. and 30 other countries agreed to an additional release of 60 million barrels from reserves, with half of the total coming from the U.S.
According to the Department of Energy, which manages it, more than 568 million barrels of oil were held in the reserve as of Mar. 25.
News of the administration’s planning was first reported by Bloomberg.
Biden pledges new Ukraine aid, warns Russia on chem weapons
President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances.
Biden also announced the U.S. would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — though he said many probably prefer to stay closer to home — and provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water and other supplies.
The Western leaders spent Thursday crafting next steps to counter Russia’s month-old invasion — and huddling over how they might respond should Putin deploy chemical, biological or even a nuclear weapon. They met in a trio of emergency summits that had them shuttling across Brussels for back-to-back-to-back meetings of NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations and the 27-member European Council.
Biden, in an early evening news conference after the meetings, warned that a chemical attack by Russia “would trigger a response in kind."
Also read: Biden, Western allies open 1st of 3 summits on Russian war
“You’re asking whether NATO would cross. We’d make that decision at the time,” Biden said.
However, a White House official said later that did not imply any shift in the U.S. position against direct military action in Ukraine. Biden and NATO allies have stressed that the U.S. and NATO would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine.
The official was not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
Zelenskyy, while thankful for the newly promised help, made clear to the Western allies he needed far more than they're currently willing to give.
“One percent of all your planes, one percent of all your tanks,” Zelenskyy asked members of the NATO alliance. “We can’t just buy those. When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.”
Biden said more aid was on its way. But the Western leaders were treading carefully so as not to further escalate the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine.
“NATO has made a choice to support Ukraine in this war without going to war with Russia," said French President Emmanuel Macron. "Therefore we have decided to intensify our ongoing work to prevent any escalation and to get organized in case there is an escalation.”
Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries are seeking clarity on how the U.S. and European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as the refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland.
Biden is to visit Rzeszów, Poland, on Friday, where energy and refugee issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. He'll get a briefing on humanitarian aid efforts to assist fleeing refugees and he'll meet with U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division who have been deployed in recent weeks to bolster NATO's eastern flank.
Billions of dollars of military hardware have already been provided to Ukraine. A U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Western nations were discussing the possibility of providing anti-ship weapons amid concerns that Russia will launch amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast.
Biden said his top priority at Thursday's meetings was to make certain that the West stayed on the same page in its response to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
"The single most important thing is for us to stay unified," he said.
Finland announced Thursday it would send more military equipment to Ukraine, its second shipment in about three weeks. And Belgium announced it will add one billion euros to its defense budget in response to Russia’s invasion..
At the same time, Washington will expand its sanctions on Russia, targeting members of the country’s parliament along with defense contractors. The U.S. said it will also work with other Western nations to ensure gold reserves held by Russia's central bank are subject to existing sanctions.
With Russia facing increasing international isolation, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also warned China against coming to Moscow's rescue. He called on Beijing “to join the rest of the world and clearly condemn the brutal war against Ukraine and not support Russia.”
But Stoltenberg, too, made clear that the West had a "responsibility to prevent this conflict from becoming a full-fledged war in Europe.”
The possibility that Russia will use chemical or even nuclear weapons has been a grim topic of conversation in Brussels.
Stoltenberg said that NATO leaders agreed Thursday to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a chemical weapons attack.
White House officials said that both the U.S. and NATO have been working on contingency planning should Russia deploy nonconventional weaponry. NATO has specially trained and equipped forces if there should be such an attack against a member nation's population, territory or forces. Ukraine is not a member.
Stoltenberg said in an NBC News interview that if Russia deployed chemical weapons, that would make “an unpredictable, dangerous situation even more dangerous and even more unpredictable.” He declined to comment about how the alliance might respond.
The White House National Security Council launched efforts days after the invasion through its “Tiger Team,” which is tasked with planning three months out, and a second strategy group working on a longer term review of any geopolitical shift that may come, according to a senior administration official. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Also read: Biden seeks new sanctions, help for Ukrainians in Europe
Both teams are conducting contingency planning for scenarios including Russia’s potential use of chemical or biological weapons, targeting of U.S. security convoys in the region, disruptions to global food supply chains and the growing refugee crisis.
Biden before departing for Europe on Wednesday said that the possibility of a chemical attack was a “real threat.” In addition, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN this week that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there were “an existential threat for our country.”
Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Thursday warned, “Russia is capable of anything.”
"They don’t respect any rules,” Marin told reporters. “They don’t respect any international laws that they are actually committed to.”
The Russian invasion has spurred European nations to reconsider their military spending, and Stoltenberg opened the NATO summit by saying the alliance must “respond to a new security reality in Europe.”
The bolstering of forces along NATO's eastern flank will put pressure on national budgets.
The energy crisis exacerbated by the war is a particularly hot topic for the European Council summit, where leaders from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece are hoping for an urgent, coordinated bloc-wide response. EU officials have said they will seek U.S. help on a plan to top up natural gas storage facilities for next winter, and they also want the bloc to jointly purchase gas.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has dismissed calls to boycott Russian energy supplies, saying it would cause significant damage to his country's economy. Scholz is facing pressure from environmental activists to quickly wean Germany off Russian energy, but he said the process will have to be gradual.
“To do so from one day to the next would mean plunging our country and all of Europe into recession," Scholz said Wednesday.
Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Union’s executive arm, said before Biden’s visit that she wanted to discuss the possibility of securing extra deliveries of liquefied natural gas from the United States for the 27-nation bloc “for the next two winters.”
The EU imports 90% of the natural gas used to generate electricity, heat homes and supply industry, with Russia supplying almost 40% of EU gas and a quarter of its oil. The bloc is hoping to reduce its dependence on Russian gas by diversifying suppliers.
The U.S. is looking for ways to “surge” LNG supplies to Europe to help, said Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security adviser.
Four new NATO battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000-1,500 troops, are being set up in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Don’t help Russia’s invasion, Biden tells China’s Xi
Face to face by video, President Joe Biden laid out to Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday the stiff consequences the Chinese would face from the U.S. if they provide military or economic assistance for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
There was no indication he got any assurance in return.
In fact, Xi blamed the U.S. for the crisis and insisted with a Chinese proverb that the next move was up to Biden:
“He who tied the bell to the tiger must take it off,” Xi said, according to a Chinese government readout.
More formally after the nearly two-hour conversation, China’s Foreign Ministry deplored “conflict and confrontation” as “not in anyone’s interest,” but assigned no blame to Russia and said nothing of next steps.
At the White House, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “China has to make a decision for themselves, about where they want to stand and how they want the history books to look at them and view their actions.”
She declined to detail possible consequences Biden specified to the Chinese president if his country provides support for the Russian invasion.
But a senior administration official who briefed reporters following the leaders’ call said that Biden pointed to the economic isolation that Russia has faced — including economy-battering sanctions and major Western corporations suspending operations — as he sought to underscore the costs that China might suffer.
Xi urged the U.S. and Russia, which have had limited engagement since the Feb. 24 invasion, to negotiate. He noted China’s donations of humanitarian aid for Ukraine, while accusing the U.S. of provoking Russia and fueling the conflict by shipping arms to the embattled country. He also renewed China’s criticism of sanctions imposed on Russia over the invasion, according to State media. As in the past, Xi did not use the terms war or invasion to describe Russia’s actions.
Ahead of the call, Psaki noted Beijing’s “rhetorical support” of Putin and an “absence of denunciation” of Russia’s invasion.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying pushed back, calling the U..S. administration “overbearing” for suggesting China risks falling on the wrong side of history.
The two leaders also discussed the longer-simmering U.S.-China dispute over Taiwan. In a reminder of China’s threat to assert its claim by force, the Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Friday, just hours before the Biden-Xi call. The U.S. is legally obligated to ensure the self-governing island democracy can defend itself and treats threats to it with “grave concern.”
Planning for the leaders’ discussion had been in the works since Biden and Xi held a virtual summit in November, but differences between Washington and Beijing over Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prosecution of his three-week-old war against Ukraine were at the center of Friday’s conversation.
The U.S.-China relationship, long fraught, has only become more strained since the start of Biden’s presidency. Biden has repeatedly criticized China for military provocations against Taiwan, human rights abuses against ethnic minorities and efforts to squelch pro-democracy advocates in Hong Kong.
But the relationship may have reached a new low with the Russian invasion.
In the days after Putin deployed Russian forces in Ukraine, Xi’s government tried to distance itself from Russia’s offensive but avoided the criticism many other nations have leveled at Moscow. At other moments, Beijing’s actions have been provocative including amplifying unverified Russian claims that Ukraine ran chemical and biological weapons labs with U.S. support.
Earlier this week, the U.S. informed Asian and European allies that American intelligence had determined that China had signaled to Russia that it would be willing to provide both military support for the campaign in Ukraine and financial backing to help stave off the impact of severe sanctions imposed by the West.
Read: Hundreds feared trapped in Ukraine theater hit by airstrike
The White House says China has been sending mixed messages. There were initial signs that Chinese state-owned banks were pulling back from financing Russian activities, according to a senior Biden administration official who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal analyses. But there have also been public comments by Chinese officials who expressed support for Russia being a strategic partner.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and senior Chinese foreign policy adviser Yang Jiechi met in Rome this week for an intense, seven-hour talk about the Russian invasion and other issues.
Read: Rescuers search theater rubble as Russian attacks continue
Ahead of the Rome talks, Sullivan said the U.S. wouldn’t abide China or any other country helping Russia work around economy-jarring sanctions inflicted by the U.S. and other allies in response to the invasion.
Sullivan also said the administration determined China knew that Putin “was planning something” before the invasion of Ukraine, but the Chinese government “may not have understood the full extent” of what Putin had in mind.
Xi and Putin met in early February, weeks before the invasion, with the Russian leader traveling to Beijing for the start of the Winter Olympics. The two leaders issued a 5,000-word statement declaring limitless “friendship.”
Beijing’s leaders would like to be supportive of Russia, but they also recognize how badly the Russian military action is going as an overmatched Ukrainian military has put up stiff resistance, according to a Western official familiar with current intelligence assessments.
The official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Beijing is weighing the potential “reputational blowback” of being associated with the Russian camp. The Chinese response to Russia’s request for help is still being formulated, the official said.
Though seen as siding with Russia, China has also reached out to Ukraine, with its ambassador to the country on Monday quoted as saying: “China is a friendly country for the Ukrainian people. As an ambassador, I can responsibly say that China will forever be a good force for Ukraine, both economically and politically.”
“We have seen how great the unity of the Ukrainian people is, and that means its strength,” Fan Xianrong was quoted by Ukraine’s state news service Ukrinform as telling regional authorities in the western city of Lviv, where the Chinese Embassy has relocated to.
State media quoted Xi as saying China-U.S. relations had yet to “emerge from the dilemma created by the previous U.S. administration, but instead encountered more and more challenges,” singling out Taiwan as one area in particular.
“If the Taiwan issue is not handled properly, it will have an undermining impact on the relationship between the two countries,” Xi reportedly told Biden.
Who’s a war criminal, and who gets to decide?
President Joe Biden on Wednesday flatly called Russia’s Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the unfolding onslaught in Ukraine, where hospitals and maternity wards have been bombed. But declaring someone a war criminal is not as simple as just saying the words. There are set definitions and processes for determining who’s a war criminal and how they should be punished.
The White House had been avoiding applying the designation to Putin, saying it requires investigation and an international determination. After Biden used the term, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the president was “speaking from his heart” and renewed her statements that there is a process for making a formal determination.
In popular usage, though, the phrase has a taken on a colloquial meaning as a generic term for someone who’s awful.
“ Clearly Putin is a war criminal, but the president is speaking politically on this,” said David Crane, who has worked on war crimes for decades and served as chief prosecutor for the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone, which tried former Liberian President Charles Taylor.
The investigations into Putin’s actions already have begun. The U.S. and 44 other countries are working together to investigate possible violations and abuses, after the passage of a resolution by the United Nations Human Rights Council to establish a commission of inquiry. There is another probe by the International Criminal Court, an independent body based in the Netherlands.
“We’re at the beginning of the beginning,” said Crane, who now heads the Global Accountability Network, which works with the international court and United Nations, among others. On the day of the invasion, his group set up a task force compiling criminal information for war crimes. He’s also drafting a sample indictment against Putin. He predicted an indictment of Putin could happen within a year. But there is no statute of limitations.
Read: India unsure of Russian arms to meet China, Pakistan threats
Here’s a look at how this all works:
WHO IS A WAR CRIMINAL?
The term applies to anyone who violates a set of rules adopted by world leaders known as the law of armed conflict. The rules govern how countries behave in times of war.
Those rules have been modified and expanded over the past century, drawn from the Geneva Conventions in the aftermath of World War II and protocols added later.
The rules are aimed at protecting people not taking part in fighting and those who can no longer fight, including civilians like doctors and nurses, wounded troops and prisoners of war. Treaties and protocols lay out who can be targeted and with what weapons. Certain weapons are prohibited, including chemical or biological agents.
WHAT SPECIFIC CRIMES MAKE SOMEONE A WAR CRIMINAL?
The so-called “grave breaches” of the conventions that amount to war crimes include willful killing and extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity. Other war crimes include deliberately targeting civilians, using disproportionate force, using human shields and taking hostages.
Read: Russian footholds in Mideast, Africa raise threat to NATO
The International Criminal Court also prosecutes crimes against humanity committed in the context of “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population.” These include murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture, rape and sexual slavery.
The most likely way that Putin could come into the picture as a war criminal is through the widely recognized legal doctrine of command responsibility. If commanders order or even know or are in a position to know about crimes and did nothing to prevent them, they can be held legally responsible.
WHAT ARE THE PATHS TO JUSTICE?
Generally, there are four paths to investigate and determine war crimes, though each one has limits. One is through the International Criminal Court.
A second option would be if the United Nations turns its work on the inquiry commission over to a hybrid international war crimes tribunal to prosecute Putin.
A third would be to create a tribunal or court to try Putin by a group of interested or concerned states, such as NATO, the European Union and the U.S. The military tribunals at Nuremberg following World War II against Nazi leaders are an example.
Finally, some countries have their own laws for prosecuting war crimes. Germany, for example, is already investigating Putin. The U.S. doesn’t have such a law, but the Justice Department has a special section that focuses on acts including international genocide, torture, recruitment of child soldiers and female genital mutilation.
WHERE MIGHT PUTIN BE PUT ON TRIAL?
It’s not clear. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and would not send any suspects to the court’s headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands. The U.S. does not recognize the authority of the court, either. Putin could be tried in a country chosen by the United Nations or by the consortium of concerned nations. But getting him there would be difficult.
HAVE NATIONAL LEADERS BEEN PROSECUTED IN THE PAST?
Yes. From the post-World War II tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo to more recent ad hoc tribunals, senior leaders have been prosecuted for their actions in countries including Bosnia, Cambodia and Rwanda.
Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic was put on trial by a U.N. tribunal in The Hague for fomenting bloody conflicts as Yugoslavia crumbled in the early 1990s. He died in his cell before the court could reach a verdict. His Bosnian Serb ally Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serb military leader, Gen. Ratko Mladic, were successfully prosecuted and are both now serving life sentences.
Liberia’s Taylor was sentenced to 50 years after being convicted of sponsoring atrocities in neighboring Sierra Leone. Chad’s former dictator Hissene Habre, who died last year, was the first former head of state to be convicted of crimes against humanity by an African court. He was sentenced to life.
US, allies to revoke 'most favored nation' status for Russia
President Joe Biden is announcing Friday that, along with the European Union and the Group of Seven countries, the U.S. will move to revoke “most favored nation” trade status for Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.
That's according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement. Each country would have to follow its own national processes, the person said.
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Stripping most favored nation status from Russia would allow the U.S. and allies to impose higher tariffs on some Russian imports, increasing the isolation of the Russian economy in retaliation for the invasion.
Biden's changes on Russia's trade status come as bipartisan pressure has been building in Washington to revoke what is formally known as “permanent normal trade relations” with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pressed the U.S. and allies to take the action against Russia in remarks to Congress over the weekend. It follows days after the Biden moved to ban imports of Russian oil and gas products.
This week's moves are the latest for the sanctions that have crippled the Russian economy and a sign that the U.S. and its allies will continue to use their financial heft to retaliate against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The other measures include the freezing of central bank assets, limits on exports and sanctions against Russian oligarchs and their families. These financial tools have led to the Russian ruble losing 76% of its value against the U.S. dollar over the past month, which has caused destructive inflation that could erode Putin’s ability to wage a prolonged war in Ukraine.
Biden, after initially slow-walking congressional attempts to take the trade action against Russia, was to embrace lawmakers' efforts to do just that on Friday.
The White House said Biden would announce "actions to continue to hold Russia accountable for its unprovoked and unjustified war on Ukraine.”
The earlier sanctions on imports of Russian oil, gas and coal cut off about 60% of U.S. imports from the country.
Most favored nation status has been a baseline for global trade, ensuring that countries within the World Trade Organization are treated similarly. Some countries in the WTO have special privileges due to their status as developing economies. Russia would join the ranks of Cuba and North Korea by not having MFN status from the U.S.
The revocation carries mostly symbolic weight. Because Russian imports into the U.S. are primarily natural resources, they would generally face little to no increase in their tariffs because of the lost status, Ed Gresser of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, said in an online post.
Instead of the current tariff rate, buyers of Russian goods would pay rates established under the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which disrupted trade during the Great Depression. This would still be zero for uranium, rhodium, palladium, silver bullion and king crabs. But the import tax would shoot up for unwrought aluminum, plywood, semi-finished steel and diamonds, among other products.
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On Monday, Democrats on the powerful House Ways & Means Committee posted, then removed, an announcement on a bipartisan bill to ban Russian oil imports and slap further trade sanctions on the country, according to an aide, because of pushback from the White House against acting before Biden had coordinated with allies and reached a decision on both matters. The House voted Wednesday on a narrower bill to ban Russian energy imports after Biden instituted the ban by executive order.
Canada was the first major U.S. ally to remove most favored nation status for Russia last week.
Biden's action was first reported by Bloomberg News.
White House: Top scientist resigns over treatment of staff
President Joe Biden’s top science adviser Dr. Eric Lander resigned Monday, hours after the White House confirmed that an internal investigation found credible evidence that he mistreated his staff.
An internal review last year, prompted by a workplace complaint, found evidence that Lander, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy and science adviser to Biden, bullied staffers and treated them disrespectfully. The White House rebuked Lander over his interactions with his staff, but initially signaled Monday that he would be allowed to remain on the job, despite Biden’s Inauguration Day assertion that he expected “honesty and decency” from all who worked for his administration and would fire anyone who shows disrespect to others “on the spot.”
But later Monday evening, press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden had accepted Lander’s resignation with “gratitude for his work at OTSP on the pandemic, the Cancer Moonshot, climate change, and other key priorities.”
Lander, in his resignation letter, said, “I am devastated that I caused hurt to past and present colleagues by the way in which I have spoken to them.”
“I believe it is not possible to continue effectively in my role, and the work of this office is far too important to be hindered,” he added.
The White House said Biden did not request Lander’s resignation. It marks the first Cabinet-level departure of the Biden administration.
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Earlier Monday, Psaki said senior administration officials had met with Lander about his actions and management of the office, but indicated he would be allowed to stay in the job, saying the administration was following a “process” to handle workplace complaints.
“Following the conclusion of the thorough investigation into these actions, senior White House officials conveyed directly to Dr. Lander that his behavior was inappropriate, and the corrective actions that were needed, which the White House will monitor for compliance moving forward,” she said.
Psaki added, “The president has been crystal clear with all of us about his high expectations of how he and his staff should be creating a respectful work environment.”
The White House said Lander and OSTP would be required to take certain corrective actions as part of the review. It also said the review did not find “credible evidence” of gender-based discrimination and that the reassignment of the staffer who filed the original complaint was “deemed appropriate.”
Lander on Friday issued an apology to staffers in his office, acknowledging “I have spoken to colleagues within OSTP in a disrespectful or demeaning way.”
“I am deeply sorry for my conduct,” he added. “I especially want to apologize to those of you who I treated poorly, or were present at the time.”
The letter and the findings against Lander were first reported by Politico.
Lander’s conduct and the White House’s initial decision to stand by him sparked some consternation inside the White House and among Biden allies and created an unnecessary distraction from Biden’s agenda.
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By late Monday, Lander came to believe he was in an untenable position and resigned effective no later than Feb. 18, “in order to permit an orderly transfer.”
In a statement Monday, the American Association for the Advancement of Science said Lander would no longer be invited to speak at its meeting next week, saying he was not conducting himself in a “manner befitting a scientist or scientific leader — much less a cabinet-level leader in the administration.′
“Unfortunately, toxic behavioral issues still make their way into the STEM community where they stifle participation and innovation. OSTP should be a model for a respectful and positive workplace for the scientific community — not one that further exacerbates these issues,” the group’s leadership said.
Lander, whose position was elevated to Cabinet-rank by Biden, appeared prominently with the president last week when he relaunched his “Cancer Moonshot” program to marshal federal resources behind research and treatment for cancer diseases.
The founding director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Lander is a mathematician and molecular biologist. He was lead author of the first paper announcing the details of the human genome, the so-called “book of life.”
His confirmation to his role in the Biden administration was delayed for months as senators sought more information about meetings he had with the late Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier who was charged with sex trafficking before his suicide. Lander also was criticized for downplaying the contributions of two Nobel Prize-winning female scientists.
At his confirmation hearing last year, Lander apologized for a 2016 article he wrote that downplayed the work of the female scientists. At the hearing, he also called Epstein “an abhorrent individual.″
Lander said he “understated the importance of those key advances” by biochemists Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna. The two were later awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Lander’s departure on the grounds of Biden’s respectful workplace policy echoed the February 2021 resignation of then-White House deputy press secretary TJ Ducklo, who was suspended and then resigned over threatening conversations with a reporter.
IS leader blows up self, family as US attacks Syria hideout
The leader of the Islamic State group blew himself up along with members of his family as American forces raided his Syria hideout Thursday, the U.S. said — the second time in three years the United States has taken out a leader of the violent group that has been struggling for resurgence with deadly attacks in the region.
President Joe Biden announced the overnight raid by American special operations forces, which U.S. officials called a “significant blow” to the radical militant organization.
The IS group at the height of its power controlled more than 40,000 square miles stretching from Syria to Iraq and ruled over 8 million people. Its attacks in the region included a major assault last month to seize a prison in northeast Syria holding at least 3,000 IS detainees.
The raid targeted Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who took over as head of the group on Oct. 31, 2019, just days after leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi died during a U.S. raid. Al-Qurayshi, unlike his predecessor, was far from a household name, a secretive man who presided over a far diminished version of the group and didn’t appear in public.
Biden said al-Qurayshi died as al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb that killed himself and members of his family, including women and children, as U.S. forces approached.
“Thanks to the bravery of our troops this horrible terrorist leader is no more,” Biden said at the White House. He said al-Qurayshi had been responsible for the prison assault, as well as genocide against the Yazidi people in Iraq in 2014.
Also read: Biden says IS leader killed during US raid in Syria
About 50 U.S. special operations forces landed in helicopters and attacked a house in a rebel-held corner of Syria, clashing for two hours with gunmen, witnesses said. Residents described continuous gunfire and explosions that jolted the town of Atmeh near the Turkish border, an area dotted with camps for internally displaced people from Syria’s civil war.
Biden said he ordered U.S. forces to “take every precaution available to minimize civilian casualties,” the reason they did not conduct an airstrike on the home.
First responders reported that 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said U.S. forces were able to evacuate 10 people from the building: a man, a woman and four children from the first floor and four children from the second floor. He said when al-Qurayshi detonated the bomb, he also killed his wife and two children. Kirby said that U.S. officials were working to determine whether American action resulted in any civilian deaths.
There were no U.S. casualties, Kirby said. U.S. forces took fingerprints and DNA, which confirmed al-Qurayshi’s death, he said.
Biden, along with Vice President Kamala Harris and senior national security aides monitored a live-feed of the operation from the White House Situation Room according to an official. In December, a tabletop model of the three-floor house had been brought to the high-security room.
The raid marked a military success for the United States at an important time after setbacks elsewhere — including the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal — had led allies and opponents to conclude U.S. power globally was weakening.
The house, surrounded by olive trees in fields outside Atmeh, was left with its top floor shattered and blood spattered inside. A journalist on assignment for The Associated Press, and several residents, said they saw body parts scattered near the site. Most residents spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Idlib is largely controlled by Turkish-backed fighters but is also an al-Qaida stronghold and home to several of its top operatives. Other militants, including extremists from the rival IS group, have also found refuge in the region.
“The first moments were terrifying; no one knew what was happening,” said Jamil el-Deddo, a resident of a nearby refugee camp. “We were worried it could be Syrian aircraft, which brought back memories of barrel bombs that used to be dropped on us,” he added, referring to explosives-filled containers used by President Bashar Assad’s forces against opponents during the Syrian conflict.
Also read:13 reported killed as US forces launch raid in Syria
The top floor of the low house was nearly destroyed, sending white bricks tumbling to the ground below.
A wrecked bedroom had a child’s wooden crib and a stuffed rabbit doll. On one damaged wall, a blue plastic baby swing was still hanging. Religious books, including a biography of Islam’s Prophet Mohammad, were in the house.
Al-Qurayshi had kept an extremely low profile since he took over leadership of the Islamic State. U.S. officials said he never left his apartment except to bathe on the building’s roof. It is difficult to gauge how his death will affect the group. U.S. officials claimed he was directly overseeing operations in Syria, including last month’s attack on the prison.
“They’re leaderless today, and that’s a significant blow,” Kirby said. “This not something we believe ISIS is going to be able to get over real quickly or real easily.”
The second floor of the house was occupied by a lower-ranking Islamic State leader and his family, but the first floor contained civilians who were unconnected to the terrorist group and unaware of al-Qurayshi’s presence, according to U.S. officials, who described them as unwitting human shields.
Biden gave “the final go” on the mission on Tuesday morning during his daily national security briefing in the Oval Office, where he was joined by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
In the first stages of the operation, residents and activists said, U.S. commandos staged a large ground assault, using megaphones urging women and children to leave the area.
Much to the relief of U.S. officials, the family on the first floor exited the building unharmed.
The IS lieutenant, who officials did not name, who lived on the second floor barricaded himself inside along with his wife and engaged in combat with the commandos who entered the home after the explosion. After a firefight, in which both were killed, officials said four children were removed from the second floor alive by U.S. forces. Kirby said that it appeared that a child on the second floor also died, though the circumstances were not clear.
The special operations forces spent about two hours on the ground, longer than usual for such an operation — indicative, U.S. officials said, of caution to minimize civilian casualties.
Another firefight erupted with a local extremist group with “”hostile” intent, Kirby said. Two people were killed outside the house and “their compadres left,” he said.
U.S. troops launched the airborne raid from a base in the region, but officials would not specify the precise location due to operational security concerns. They added that the U.S. “deconflicted” the operation with a “a range of entities” but did not specify whether those included Russia, which has supported the Assad government in Syria.
Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command and the commander of the operation, said the mission goal was to capture al-Qurayshi. He said the blast set off by the IS leader was larger than would have been expected from a suicide vest, and that al-Qurayshi’s body was found on the ground outside the building, thrown from the third floor by the force of the blast.
There was no comment from the Syrian government, which rarely acknowledges or comments on attacks by foreign countries targeting areas outside its control.
A U.S. official said one of the helicopters in the raid suffered a mechanical problem and was redirected to a site nearby, where it was destroyed.
Through slickly engineered propaganda, including brutal beheading videos, IS emerged as a dominant global extremist threat in the past decade. Its clarion call to followers in the West to either join its self-described caliphate in Syria, or to commit acts of violence at home, inspired killings in the U.S. as well as thousands of travelers determined to become foreign fighters.
Last month‘s attack on the prison in Hasaka marked the group’s biggest military operation since it was defeated and its members scattered underground in 2019. The attack appeared aimed to break free senior IS operatives in the prison.
It took 10 days of fighting for U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led forces to retake the prison fully, and the force said more than 120 of its fighters and prison workers were killed along with 374 militants.