US
US, China seek to calm rising tensions on many fronts
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Chinese counterpart on Saturday in a new effort to try to rein in or at least manage rampant hostility that has come to define recent relations between Washington and Beijing.
Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi were holding talks in the Indonesian resort of Bali, a day after they both attended a gathering of top diplomats from the Group of 20 rich and large developing countries that failed to reach consensus over Russia's war in Ukraine and how to deal with its impacts.
Wang and Blinken were discussing a range of contentious issues from tariffs and trade and human rights to Taiwan and disputes in the South China Sea. Just two days earlier, the two countries' top military officers had faced off over Taiwan during a virtual meeting.
“In a relationship as complex and consequential as the one between the United States and China, there is a lot to talk about and I’m very much looking forward to a productive, constructive conversation,” Blinken said as the pair headed into the closed-door meeting.
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Wang said “it is necessary for the two countries to maintain normal exchanges” and “to work together to ensure that this relationship will continue to move forward along the right track.”
He echoed frequent Chinese lines about remaining committed to the principles of “mutual respect,” “peaceful coexistence” and “win-win cooperation.” That, he said, "serves the interests of the two countries and two peoples. It is also the shared aspiration of the international community.”
U.S. officials said ahead of time they don’t expect any breakthroughs from Blinken's talks with Wang. But they said they are hopeful the conversation can help keep lines of communications open and create “guardrails” to guide the world’s two largest economies as they navigate increasingly complex and potentially explosive matters.
The United States and China have staked out increasingly confrontational positions, including on Ukraine, that some fear could lead to miscalculation and conflict. The U.S. has watched warily as China has refused to criticize the Russian invasion, while condemning Western sanctions against Russia and accusing the U.S. and NATO of provoking the conflict.
The Biden administration had hoped that China, with its long history of opposing what it sees as interference in its own internal affairs, would take a similar position with Ukraine. But, it has not, choosing instead what U.S. officials see as a hybrid position that is damaging the international rules-based order.
At the G-20 meeting, Wang made an oblique reference to China's policy on global stability, saying “to place one’s own security above the security of others and intensify military blocs will only split the international community and make oneself less secure,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
On Thursday, China's joint chiefs of staff chairman Gen. Li Zuocheng upbraided his U.S. counterpart Gen. Mark Milley over Washington's support for Taiwan, which Beijing regards as a renegade province.
Li demanded that the U.S. cease military “collusion” with Taiwan, saying China has “no room for compromise” on issues affecting its “core interests,” which include self-governing Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory to be annexed by force if necessary.
“China demands the U.S. ... cease reversing history, cease U.S.-Taiwan military collusion and avoid impacting China-U.S. ties and stability in the Taiwan Strait,” Li said.
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At the same time, Li was also quoted in a Defense Ministry news release as saying China hoped to “further strengthen dialogue, handle risks, and promote cooperation, rather than deliberately creating confrontation, provoking incidents and becoming mutually exclusive.”
China routinely flies warplanes near Taiwan to advertise its threat to attack, and the island’s Defense Ministry said Chinese air force aircraft crossed the middle line of the Taiwan Strait dividing the two sides on Friday morning.
The meeting between Li and Milley followed fiery comments by Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe at a regional security conference last month that was also attended by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Wei accused the United States of trying to “hijack” the support of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to turn them against Beijing, saying Washington is seeking to advance its own interests “under the guise of multilateralism.”
At the same meeting in Singapore, Austin said China was causing instability with its claim to Taiwan and its increased military activity in the area.
In May, Blinken incurred Chinese wrath by calling the country the “most serious long-term challenge to the international order” for the United States, with its claims to Taiwan and efforts to dominate the strategic South China Sea.
The U.S. and its allies have responded with what they term “freedom of navigation” patrols in the South China Sea, prompting angry responses from Beijing.
PM Hasina urges the US to lift sanctions against Russia
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday asked the US to withdraw the sanctions it imposed on Russia as their punitive action is causing immense sufferings across the globe.
"I think that it is justified to retreat from the act of punishing one country which is hurting the people of the whole world,” she said while inaugurating the new building of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka.
The prime minister joined the event virtually from her official residence Ganobhaban.
Remain cautious about US to protect Bangladesh's RMG: Chinese envoy
Chinese Ambassador to Bangladesh Li Jiming has urged the people of Bangladesh to remain cautious saying the US interference may harm Bangladesh's apparel industry.
In the video message "A Minute With Ambassador," Ambassador Li said he had noticed that a certain readymade garments (RMG) industry association in Bangladesh recently alerted its members to the risks associated with cotton from China due to the US allegation of "forced labour in Xinjiang."
He said Washington uses this lie about Xinjiang to smear and defame China, with the ultimate goal of containing the country.
"The reason why I brought it up here today is that if Bangladeshi people are not cautious enough, this lie may hurt the country's RMG industry as well," said Ambassador Li.
The envoy said he also noticed that the alert was issued following a meeting between the association and two representatives from "Indo-Pacific Opportunity Project" affiliated with some US agency.
The so-called "forced labour in Xinjiang" is a complete lie, the envoy said.
"It is now circulating on the internet that two US diplomats previously posted in Guangzhou reportedly confessed in 2021," Ambassador Li said.
He quoted the diplomats as saying: "Nothing is wrong about Xinjiang, but to attack their human rights policies is an effective means to make Xinjiang break away from the international industrial chain, and to make Uyghurs unhappy, turbulent and then fight against the Chinese government."
This disclosure echoes a statement made by a former high-rank US official in 2018, the ambassador said.
US wants fair elections in Bangladesh:Envoy
US Ambassador to Bangladesh Peter Haas has wished the Bangladesh Election Commission all success in its great "civic responsibility" of conducting free and fair elections.
On July 3, ambassador Haas and other heads of diplomatic missions in Dhaka met with Chief Election Commissioner Kazi Habibul Awal.
"Democracy is humanity’s most enduring means to advance peace, prosperity, and security, and elections are the cornerstone of democracy," said the US Embassy in a Facebook post shared on Tuesday.
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The United States said it looks forward to the Bangladeshi people choosing their leaders freely in upcoming national elections.
Bangladesh gets another 4 mn doses of COVID-19 vaccine from US
The United States has donated another 4 million ready-to-use doses of Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines to Bangladesh.
This brings the total of US-donated vaccines to over 68 million doses delivered to date.
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The doses will help the government of Bangladesh to expand vaccination and booster campaigns across the country and continue protecting people from COVID-19, said the US Embassy in Dhaka on Monday.
Senior US officials visit Sri Lanka to help resolve crisis
Senior U.S. officials arrived in Sri Lanka on Sunday to find ways to help the island nation in the throes of an unprecedented economic crisis and severe shortages of essential supplies, as the energy minister warned that new fuel shipments would be delayed.
The U.S. over the past two weeks has announced millions of dollars in assistance to Sri Lanka, which has been surviving on $4 billion in credit lines from neighboring India. It also has received pledges of $300 million to $600 million from the World Bank to buy medicine and other items.
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe last week announced the economy had “collapsed” due to dwindling foreign exchange reserves and a mounting debt, worsened by the pandemic and other longer term troubles.
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The U.S. delegation was led by Robert Kaproth, deputy assistant secretary of Treasury for Asia, and Kelly Keiderling, deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia.
During their four-day stay, they will meet a wide range of political representatives, economists, and international organizations to “explore the most effective ways for the U.S. to support Sri Lankans in need, Sri Lankans working to resolve the current economic crisis, and Sri Lankans planning for a sustainable and inclusive economy for the future,” the U.S. Embassy said in a statement.
“This visit underscores our ongoing commitment to the security and prosperity of the Sri Lankan people,” said Julie Chung, U.S. ambassador to Sri Lanka.
She said that as Sri Lankans endure some of the “greatest economic challenges in their history, our efforts to support economic growth and strengthen democratic institutions have never been more critical.”
The U.S. has announced $120 million in new financing for small and medium-sized businesses, a $27 million contribution to Sri Lanka’s dairy industry and $5.75 million in humanitarian assistance to help those hit hardest by the economic crisis. Another $6 million was committed in new grants for livelihoods and technical assistance on financial reform.
Sri Lanka says it’s unable to repay $7 billion in foreign debt due this year, pending the outcome of negotiations with the International Monetary Fund on a rescue package. It must pay $5 billion on average annually until 2026. Authorities have asked the IMF to lead a conference to unite Sri Lanka’s lenders.
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Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera in a tweet on Saturday evening urged people not to line up for fuel, saying new shipments would be delayed due to “banking and logistics reasons.”
He said limited stocks of fuel will be distributed to limited stations throughout next week. He said until the next shipments arrive, “public transport, power generations and industries will be given a priority.”
Wickremesinghe said last week that the state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation was $700 million in debt and as a result, no country or organization was willing to provide fuel.
Protesters have occupied the entrance to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s office for more than two months demanding his resignation, saying the primary responsibility for the crisis rests with him and his family, whom they accuse of corruption and mismanagement.
Padma Bridge: US greets Bangladesh; lauds its leadership
The United States has congratulated Bangladesh on the momentous opening of the Padma Bridge scheduled Saturday.
"It is also another example of Bangladesh’s leadership in promoting regional connectivity in South Asia," said the US Embassy in Dhaka in a media note on Friday.
Read: Padma Bridge: How the nation’s dream turns into reality
Building sustainable transportation infrastructure to connect people and goods efficiently is important to fostering inclusive economic growth, said the US Embassy.
The Padma Bridge will create new and important linkages within Bangladesh, boosting commerce and improving the quality of life, it said.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to formally inaugurate the Padma Bridge on Saturday.
Bangladeshi businessman shot to death in US
A 47-year-old Bangladeshi businessman was gunned down by an unidentified assailant in Atlanta, Georgia in the United States on Wednesday.
Abu Saleh Mohammad Mahfuz Ahmed was from Noakhali and lived in Atlanta with his father Abu Taher, wife Mahmuda Begum, son Faruz Ahmed (4) and daughter Faiza Mahfuz (9), the deceased's younger brother Masum Ahmed told UNB.
Saleh went to America about 12 years ago in search of a living after winning the Diversity Immigrant Visa Lottery or DV Lottery. He set up his own business in Georgia after working at a shop.
On Wednesday morning Bangladesh time, a man fired bullets at him inside his shop, killing Saleh on the spot, Tarek Hasan, a Bangladeshi who lives in Georgia, said.
Saleh's father said he will be buried at a local cemetery after funeral prayers in the small hours of Friday (Bangladesh time).
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Excessive heat rolls east, bakes much of central, eastern US
More than 100 million Americans are being warned to stay indoors if possible as high temperatures and humidity settle in over states stretching through parts of the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and east to the Carolinas.
The National Weather Service Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said Monday 107.5 million people will be affected by combination of heat advisories, excessive heat warnings and excessive heat watches through Wednesday.
The heat wave, which set several high temperature records in the West, the Southwest and into Denver during the weekend, moved east into parts of the Gulf Coast and the Midwest Monday and will expand to the Great Lakes and east to the Carolinas, the National Weather Service said.
St. Louis, Memphis, Minneapolis and Tulsa are among several cities under excessive heat warnings, with temperatures forecast to reach about 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), accompanied by high humidity that could make conditions feel close to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius).
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In Jackson, Mississippi, residents braved temperatures reaching 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) on Monday to complete their chores. Roger Britt, 67, ventured to a neighborhood garden in search of vegetables for dinner.
“It was so cold this past winter, so I know it’s going to be a hot summer,” he said.
Many municipalities announced plans to open cooling centers, including in Chicago, where officials started alerting residents Monday about where they could find relief from the heat. The city plans to open six community service centers on Tuesday and Wednesday and said in a news release that people could also cool off in 75 public libraries in the city.
The city stepped up efforts to respond to heat waves after more than 700 people, many of them elderly, died in a 1995 heat wave. The effort also comes after three women died in a senior housing facility during a brief heat wave last month, raising concerns about the city’s ability to respond to brutally hot weather.
In North Carolina’s Mecklenburg County, which includes Charlotte, the local government opened cooling stations and the area transit system was offering free rides to some of the locations.
And in South Carolina, poll workers are preparing for what could be one of the hottest primary election days ever on Tuesday, with highs forecast to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) and humidity making it feel closer to 110 (43 degrees Celsius).
Poll managers are trying to find ways to protect people who must stand outside to vote. One saving grace may be turnout for the midterm primaries are often much lower than presidential elections. Another is the state allowed early voting for the first time and more than 110,000 ballots have already been cast.
Also read: South Asia’s intense heat wave a ‘sign of things to come’
In Minneapolis, 14 schools that are not fully air-conditioned will shift to distance learning Tuesday while the city braces for temperatures in the high 90s. Schools were scheduled to finish on June 10 but a three-week teacher’s strike in April pushed the final day to June 24, to make up for the lost class time.
Excessive heat pushed the same schools into distance learning for three days during the final week of classes last year.
US, S. Korea fly 20 fighter jets amid N. Korea tensions
The South Korean and U.S. militaries flew 20 fighter jets over waters off South Korea’s western coast Tuesday in a continued show of force as a senior U.S. official warned of a forceful response if North Korea goes ahead with its first nuclear test explosion in nearly five years.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the air demonstration involved 16 South Korean planes — including F-35A stealth fighters — and four U.S. F-16 fighter jets and was aimed at demonstrating their ability to swiftly respond to North Korean provocations.
The flight came a day after the allies fired eight surface-to-surface missiles into South Korea’s eastern waters to match a weekend missile display by North Korea, which fired the same number of weapons from multiple locations Sunday in what was likely its biggest single-day testing event.
North Korea may soon up the ante as U.S. and South Korean officials say the country is all but ready to conduct another detonation at its nuclear testing ground in the northeastern town of Punggye-ri. Its last such test and sixth overall was in September 2017, when it claimed to have detonated a thermonuclear bomb designed for its intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Traveling to Seoul to discuss the standoff with South Korean and Japanese allies, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman warned of a “swift and forceful” response if the North carries out another nuclear test.
While the Biden administration has vowed to push for additional international sanctions if North Korea goes on with the nuclear test, the prospects for meaningful new punitive measures are unclear with the U.N. Security Council divided.
“Any nuclear test would be in complete violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. There would be a swift and forceful response to such a test,” Sherman said, following a meeting with South Korea Vice Foreign Minister Cho Hyun-dong.
“We continue to urge Pyongyang to cease its destabilizing and provocative activities and choose the path of diplomacy,” she said.
Sherman and Cho are planning a trilateral meeting with Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Mori Takeo on Wednesday over the North Korean nuclear issue.
North Korea’s launches on Sunday extended a provocative streak in weapons tests this year that also included the country’s first demonstrations of ICBMs since 2017.
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Since taking power in 2011, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has accelerated his weapons development despite limited resources. Experts say with its next test, North Korea could claim an ability to build small bombs that could be clustered on a multiwarhead ICBM or fit on short-range missiles that could reach South Korea and Japan.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Monday there are indications that one of the passages at the Punggye-ri testing ground has been reopened, possibly in preparations for a nuclear test.
Hours before Sherman’s meeting in Seoul, State Department spokesperson Ned Price told reporters in Washington that the United States remains concerned that North Korea could seek its seventh test “in the coming days.”
The Biden administration’s punitive actions over North Korea’s weapons tests in recent months have been limited to largely symbolic unilateral sanctions. Russia and China vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution in the Security Council that would have imposed additional sanctions on North Korea over its previous ballistic tests on May 25.
“We have called on members of the international community, certainly members of the UN Security Council’s permanent five, to be responsible stakeholders in the U.N. Security Council as a preeminent forum for addressing threats to international peace and security,” Price said.
“Unilateral actions are never going to be the most attractive or even the most effective response, and that is especially the case because we are gratified that we have close allies in the form of Japan and the ROK,” he said, referring to South Korea’s formal name, the Republic of Korea.
North Korea’s state media have yet to comment on Sunday’s launches. They came after the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan concluded a three-day naval drill with South Korea in the Philippine Sea on Saturday, apparently their first joint drill involving a carrier since November 2017, as the countries move to upgrade their defense exercises in the face of North Korean threats.
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North Korea has long condemned the allies’ combined military exercises as invasion rehearsals and often countered with its own missile drills, including launches in 2016 and 2017 that simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean ports and U.S. military facilities in Japan.
Following the latest North Korean launches, the United States conducted separate joint missile drills with Japan and South Korea, which they said were aimed at displaying their response capability.
Nuclear talks between Washington and Pyongyang have stalled since 2019 over disagreements in exchanging the release of crippling U.S.-led sanctions for the North’s disarmament steps. Kim has since ramped up his testing activity despite mounting economic problems and has shown no willingness to fully surrender an arsenal he sees as his strongest guarantee of survival.
His government has so far rejected the Biden administration’s offers for open-ended talks and is clearly intent on converting the dormant denuclearization negotiations into a mutual arms-reduction process, experts say.
Kim’s pressure campaign hasn’t been slowed by a COVID-19 outbreak spreading across his largely unvaccinated populace of 26 million amid a lack of public health tools. The North has so far rejected U.S. and South Korean offers for help, but there are indications that it received at least some supplies of vaccines from ally China.
South Korean activist Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector who for years have launched anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets by balloon across the border, said his group on Tuesday flew 20 balloons carrying medicine, masks and vitamin pills to help North Korean civilians.