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Russia and China slam NATO after alliance raises alarm
NATO faced rebukes from Moscow and Beijing on Thursday after it declared Russia a “direct threat” and said China posed “serious challenges ” to global stability.
The Western military alliance was wrapping up a summit in Madrid, where it issued a stark warning that the world has been plunged into a dangerous phase of big-power competition and myriad threats, from cyberattacks to climate change.
NATO leaders also formally invited Finland and Sweden to join the alliance, after overcoming opposition from Turkey. If the Nordic nations’ accession is approved by the 30 member nations, it will give NATO a new 800-mile (1,300 kilometer) border with Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned he would respond in kind if the Nordic pair allowed NATO troops and military infrastructure onto their territory. He said Russia would have to “create the same threats for the territory from which threats against us are created.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said Putin’s threats were “nothing new.”
“Of course, we have to expect some kind of surprises from Putin, but I doubt that he is attacking Sweden or Finland directly,” Kallas said as she arrived at the summit’s conference center venue. “We will see cyberattacks definitely. We will see hybrid attacks, information war is going on. But not the conventional war.”
China accused the alliance of “maliciously attacking and smearing” the country. Its mission to the European Union said NATO “claims that other countries pose challenges, but it is NATO that is creating problems around the world.”
NATO leaders turned their gaze south for a final summit session Thursday focused on Africa’s Sahel region and the Middle East, where political instability — aggravated by climate change and food insecurity sparked by the war in Ukraine — is driving large numbers of migrants toward Europe.
“It is in our interest to continue working with our close partners in the south to fight shared challenges together,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
Also Read: Macron says Russia can’t win in Ukraine after strike on mall
But it was Russia that dominated the summit. Stoltenberg said Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine had brought “the biggest overhaul of our collective defense since the end of the Cold War.”
The invasion shattered Europe’s peace, and in response NATO has poured troops and weapons into Eastern Europe on a scale unseen in decades. Member nations have given Ukraine billions in military and civilian aid to strengthen its resistance.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who addressed the summit by video link, asked for more. He urged NATO to send modern artillery systems and other weapons and warned the leaders they either had to provide Kyiv with the help it needed or “face a delayed war between Russia and yourself.”
“The question is, who’s next? Moldova? Or the Baltics? Or Poland? The answer is: all of them,” he said.
At the summit, NATO leaders agreed to dramatically scale up military force along the alliance’s eastern flank, where countries from Romania to the Baltic states worry about Russia’s future plans.
They announced plans to increase almost eightfold the size of the alliance’s rapid reaction force, from 40,000 to 300,000 troops, by next year. The troops will be based in their home nations but dedicated to specific countries in the east, where the alliance plans to build up stocks of equipment and ammunition.
U.S. President Joe Biden, whose country provides the bulk of NATO’s firepower, announced a hefty boost in America’s military presence in Europe, including a permanent U.S. base in Poland, two more Navy destroyers based in Rota, Spain, and two more F35 squadrons in the U.K.
The expansion will keep 100,000 troops in Europe for the foreseeable future, up from 80,000 before the war in Ukraine began.
Biden said Putin had believed NATO members would splinter after he invaded Ukraine, but the Russian leader got the opposite response.
“You’re gonna get the NATO-ization of Europe,” Biden said. “And that’s exactly what he didn’t want, but exactly what needs to be done to guarantee security for Europe.”
Still, strains among NATO allies have emerged as the cost of energy and other essential goods has skyrocketed, partly because of the war and tough Western sanctions on Russia. There also are tensions over how the war will end and what, if any, concessions Ukraine should make.
Money remains a sensitive issue — just nine of NATO’s 30 members currently meet the organization’s target of spending 2% of gross domestic product on defense.
Britain, one of the nine, announced a further 1 billion pounds ($1.21 billion) in military support to Ukraine on Thursday,
At what Stoltenberg called a “transformative” summit, the leaders published NATO’s new Strategic Concept, its once-a-decade set of priorities and goals.
The last such document, in 2010, called Russia a “strategic partner.” Now, NATO is accusing Russia of using “coercion, subversion, aggression and annexation” to extend its reach.
The 2010 document made no mention of China, but the new one addressed Bejing’s growing economic and military reach.
“China is not our adversary, but we must be clear-eyed about the serious challenges it represents,” Stoltenberg said on Wednesday.
NATO said that China “strives to subvert the rules-based international order, including in the space, cyber and maritime domains” and warned of its close ties with Moscow.
The alliance said, however, that it remained “open to constructive engagement” with Beijing.
China shot back that NATO was a source of instability and vowed to defend its interests.
“Since NATO positions China as a ‘systemic challenge,’ we have to pay close attention and respond in a coordinated way. When it comes to acts that undermine China’s interests, we will make firm and strong responses,” its statement said.
Climate concerns grow as US helps Europe replace Russian gas
Amos Hochstein, President Joe Biden’s point man for global energy problems, says he knows that transitioning away from the climate-wrecking pollution of fossil fuels is the only way to go. He advocates urgently for renewable energy, for energy-smart thermostats and heat pumps.
But when it comes to tackling the pressing energy challenges presented by Russia’s war on Ukraine, Hochstein also can sound like nothing as much as the West’s oilfield roustabout, taking a giant pipe wrench to the world’s near-crisis-level energy shortfalls.
Appearing before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee this month on U.S. help in Europe’s Russian-fueled energy problems, Hochstein spoke enthusiastically of prospects for a new floating natural gas terminal in Albania, new gas connections elsewhere in the Balkans, bumping up the flow of gas from Central Asia and getting gas out of Spain to the rest of Europe.
“We have to face the reality that today Europe’s system is dependent on gas,” Hochstein told the AP after the hearing. It was a relatively rare public account from an envoy whose work normally is behind the scenes. “And I need to make sure that people in the winter have heating, and they have electricity."
Read: EXPLAINER: What’s next after Russia reduced gas to Europe?
Increasingly, however, some climate advocates are expressing concern at what they see as an emphasis from the Biden administration on new, U.S.-heavy natural gas and infrastructure projects as part of an all-out effort by Europe and the U.S. to wrest Europe away from its reliance on Russian oil and gas.
Climate groups charge that new spending on building pipelines, terminals, port facilities and storage threatens to lock in increased reliance on fossil fuel for decades to come, while doing little to solve Europe’s most immediate energy crisis.
Criticism increased Tuesday, after Biden and other leaders in the Group of Seven softened their 2021 climate pledges to move away from public financing of new fossil fuel infrastructure, citing Russia’s war.
“Public support for gas infrastructure is not the climate presidency Joe Biden promised,” Kate DeAngelis, international finance program manager of Friends of the Earth, said in a statement in response.
But as U.S. companies have nearly tripled America's exports of liquified natural gas to Europe in the months since Russia invaded Ukraine, Hochstein cites his immediate challenge: getting Europeans through the end of the year without freezing in their homes.
The European Union received roughly 40% of its natural gas from Russia before the war. Western-led sanctions and Russian cutoffs, as well as Europe's major switch to non-Russian suppliers, are depriving Europe of Russian natural gas.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike welcomed Hochstein's efforts to decouple Europe from Russian pipelines, and asked for more. Climate change and clean energy are “important challenges,” Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, chair of the Europe and Regional Security Cooperation panel where Hochstein appeared, told the AP. “But I think our No. 1 priority here needs to be to defeat Putin and help Ukraine.”
The Biden administration has struggled to ease two problems simultaneously: a global energy crunch and a rapidly heating Earth.
The shortfalls in oil and gas supplies are creating problems for European and Asian allies that if left unaddressed could threaten the united economic front against Russian President Vladimir Putin. At home, the energy shortfall is contributing to high gasoline prices, inflation and discontent that threatens Democrats in November's midterm elections and Biden's reelection down the road.
But at the same time, scientists, climate advocates and the Biden administration itself say global governments are counting down the time in the last few years left to stave off the more devastating scenarios of climate change.
The rate at which the world now burns through oil, natural gas and coal gives humans a 50-50 chance of blasting through the hoped-for maximum average temperatures targeted in the Paris climate accord within five years, the World Meteorological Organization said last month.
Some climate advocates fear the current energy shortfalls have Biden and other world leaders reverting to an oil and gas drill-and-build outlook they'd sworn off in the name of climate change, despite Biden's climate efforts elsewhere.
Many were dismayed by the joint declaration this week from Biden and other leaders in the G-7 club of wealthy democracies that it was once again OK for governments to invest in gas infrastructure as a “temporary response.”
A dangerous move, and an unnecessary one, climate advocates said of the G-7's climate step back.
“New funding for fossil fuel exploration and production infrastructure is delusional,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres tweeted after the G-7 statement. “Fossil fuels are not the answer. Renewable energy is.”
Read: Russia confirms halt of gas supply to Finland
Climate advocates are wary of what they see as Hochstein's support of some infrastructure projects in Europe for liquified natural gas.
Friends of the Earth points to his oil and gas industry ties. Those include his serving as a senior vice president for Houston-based LNG exporter Tellurian and as an advisory board member for Ukraine's state-owned Naftogaz, before resigning in 2020 to protest corruption he outlined in a newspaper column. In Hochstein's government position, Biden has entrusted him with top policy missions, including working with oil giant Saudi Arabia at a time of frosty relations.
Hochstein described the U.S.-backed LNG buildout in Europe as essential to blocking Russia from wielding power over Europe's energy and economy.
“Unfortunately, we don't have the clean infrastructure to replace natural gas in the short- or medium-term,” Hochstein told the AP. “So that is a tough and difficult balance to have. But that is what we're committed to.
“And I agree with all those who say this only strengthens the absolute need to accelerate the energy transition” from oil and gas, he added.
Energy experts with environmental groups say there are cleaner ways to break from Russian gas.
Moving faster to curb gas flaring and venting by the energy industry, and plug natural gas leaks — both things the Biden administration already has pledged to work on — could get fast results without damaging the climate further, said Mark Brownstein, a senior vice president for energy at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Brownstein pointed to an International Energy Agency finding that the fossil fuel industry leaked or otherwise wasted more natural gas last year than all the gas used across Europe's power sector.
Natural gas is mostly methane. Methane from agriculture and fossil fuels alone drives about a quarter of all climate damage.
David Kieve, president of the Environmental Defense Fund's advocacy arm, said the days have “come and gone” from when natural gas could be considered a “bridge fuel.” He was director of public engagement at the White House's Council on Environmental Quality in Biden's first year.
"I think there’s an understanding that we need to go even much much faster.”
1/6 hearings fuel the question: Did Trump commit a crime?
The House Jan. 6 committee has heard dramatic testimony from former White House aides and others about Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to overturn the 2020 election — and his encouragement of supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol bent on achieving his goal. But the big question remains: Was any of it criminal?
Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide in Trump’s White House, added fresh urgency to the question Tuesday as she delivered explosive new testimony about Trump’s actions before and during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. She said Trump was informed that there were armed protesters at his morning rally before he stood onstage and told them to “fight like hell” at the Capitol. Then he argued with his security detail, she said, trying to go with the crowd.
Trump’s aides knew there could be legal consequences. Hutchinson said White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told her “we’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable” if Trump had gone to the Capitol that day as Congress was certifying President Joe Biden’s win. Cipollone said Trump could be exposing himself to obstruction of justice charges or defrauding the electoral count, she said.
On the heels of Hutchinson’s public testimony, the House committee on Wednesday issued a subpoena for Cipollone, saying in a letter that while he had provided an “informal interview” on April 13, his refusal to provide on-the-record testimony made their subpoena necessary.
The Justice Department has recently expanded its investigation into the Jan. 6 attack, targeting some of Trump’s allies in Washington and around the country who participated in his scheme to invalidate Biden’s victory. But prosecutors have not indicated whether they will bring a case against the former president.
A look at potential crimes, and what Congress and the Justice Department might do:
WHAT HAS THE EVIDENCE SHOWN?
Witnesses have testified that Trump was repeatedly advised by campaign aides and top government officials that he had lost the election to Biden and that his claims of widespread voter fraud were divorced from reality.
Yet he pressed ahead, shouting the false allegations that culminated in the riot at the Capitol.
Still in office, he leaned on the Justice Department to get government law enforcement officials to take up his cause. He pressured the states — asking Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” votes, for example — and Vice President Mike Pence, who was presiding over the joint session of Congress that day.
Read: 1/6 panel: Told repeatedly he lost, Trump refused to go
Hutchinson testified that Trump said he wanted metal detectors removed from the area near where he was delivering a speech on Jan. 6. He said it did not matter to him if the supporters, who were to head to the Capitol, were carrying weapons because they were not there to hurt him.
Trump took to his social media website on Tuesday to deny much of Hutchinson’s testimony, which was based on both her own interactions with Trump and information from others who talked to him that day.
WERE ANY CRIMES COMMITTED BY TRUMP?
He hasn’t been charged, but legal experts believe the testimony, presuming it can be corroborated, does give prosecutors avenues to pursue.
Federal law, for instance, makes it a crime to incite, organize, encourage or promote a riot like the one that enveloped the Capitol. But that’s a high bar for prosecutors to clear. Trump’s exhortation to “fight like hell” could be construed as a more general call to action. He was acquitted by the Senate of an incitement charge in his impeachment trial after the insurrection.
Still, a federal judge in February, in rejecting a request by Trump to toss out conspiracy lawsuits from Democratic lawmakers and two Capitol Police officers, said Trump’s words “plausibly” led to the riot. And Hutchinson’s first-hand account of hearing Trump complain about metal detectors suggested he was aware that some supporters were capable of violence but brushed it off.
READ: Biden suspends rules limiting immigrant arrest, deportation
A more likely option for prosecution, said Jimmy Gurule, a former federal prosecutor who is a Notre Dame law professor, would be to pursue a case that Trump conspired to defraud the United States through his wide-ranging efforts to overturn the election and to obstruct the congressional proceeding at which the results were to be certified.
That broad statute was cited by the House committee when it asserted in a March legal filing that it had evidence Trump had engaged in a “criminal conspiracy.”
“He was perpetuating the big lie. To what end? To remain in power and to prevent Biden from assuming the reins of the presidency,” Gurule said. “It was fraud on the American people.”
Some legal experts say it doesn’t matter if Trump believed the election was stolen or not. But others say much would depend on the president’s intent and state of mind and whether he supported activities he knew to be unlawful. Though witnesses have testified under oath about telling Trump he had lost, it would be hard to prove what he actually believed.
“I can confidently say that any serious felony-level federal crime that is going to be charged here is going to require proof beyond a reasonable doubt of criminal intent,” said Samuel Buell, a Duke University criminal law professor.
“Any argument that he doesn’t believe that he’s doing something that is against the law ... is still an argument he can make and still something the prosecutor has to prove.”
WILL THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT ACTUALLY BRING A CASE?
That’s anyone’s guess. The congressional hearings have produced eye-popping testimony, but the one-sided presentation of facts, with no opportunities for cross-examination of witnesses, is a far cry from the burden of proof and trial constraints in criminal prosecutions.
One of the more striking accounts from Hutchinson — that Trump, irate at being driven to the White House instead of the Capitol on Jan. 6, tried to grab at the steering wheel of his presidential vehicle — was something she heard second-hand, likely inadmissible before a jury.
There are clear signs prosecutors are moving beyond the rioters, serving subpoenas last week on multiple state Republican Party chairmen in examining a scheme by Trump allies to create slates of alternate, or fake, electors in an attempt to subvert the vote.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, a former federal appeals court judge and circumspect by nature, has pledged the Justice Department will hold accountable wrongdoers “at any level” — more than 800 people have been charged so far — but he has not said one way or another that he’s considering a case against Trump.
Some Democrats in Congress have been pressing Garland to act. The Jan. 6 committee itself could make a formal criminal referral based on its more than 1,000 interviews. The Justice Department wouldn’t have to act on such a referral, but it has been pressuring the panel to hand over its interview transcripts as it weighs making its own case.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.
There’ no legal bar to prosecuting Trump as a former president. Since he is no longer in office, Justice Department legal opinions that shielded him from criminal charges no longer apply.
But while it may be hard for the department to turn away from a case if the cumulative evidence is provable beyond a reasonable doubt, there are other factors to consider. No former president has ever been prosecuted by the Justice Department, and a criminal case against the already polarizing former president risks dividing the country even further.
Trump has also been laying the groundwork for another presidential run, and the department may want to avoid any perception that it is targeting a political adversary of Biden in the heat of an election.
“It will be,” Buell said, “one of the hardest issues that any U.S. attorney general has ever confronted.”
Dictator’s son Marcos Jr taking oath as Philippine president
Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the namesake son of an ousted dictator, is to be sworn in as Philippine president Thursday in one of history’s greatest political comebacks but which opponents say was pulled off by whitewashing his family’s image.
His rise to power, 36 years after an army-backed “People Power” revolt booted his father to global infamy, upends politics in the Asian democracy, where a public holiday, monuments and the Philippine Constitution stand as reminders of his father’s tyrannical rule.
Activists and survivors of the martial law-era under his father plan protests timed to Marcos Jr.’s inauguration at the steps of the National Museum in Manila. Thousands of police officers, including anti-riot contingents, SWAT commandos and snipers, were deployed in the bayside tourist district for security.
Chinese Vice President Wang Qishan and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, are among foreign dignitaries attending the noontime ceremony.
“Wow is this really happening?” asked Bonifacio Ilagan, a 70-year-old activist who was detained and severely tortured by counterinsurgency forces during the elder Marcos’s rule. “For victims of martial law like me, this is a nightmare.”
Such historical baggage and antagonism stand to hound Marcos Jr. during a six-year presidency beginning at a time of intense crises.
The Philippines has been among the worst-hit countries in Asia by the two-year coronavirus pandemic, after more than 60,000 deaths and extended lockdowns that sent the economy to its worst recession since World War II and worsened poverty, unemployment and hunger. As the pandemic was easing early this year, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent global inflation soaring and sparked fears of food shortages.
Last week, Marcos Jr. announced he would serve as secretary of agriculture temporarily after he takes office to prepare for possible food supply emergencies. “I think the problem is severe enough,” he said and added he has asked his key advisers to brace for “emergency situations, especially when it comes to food supply.”
He also inherits decades-old Muslim and communist insurgencies, crime, gaping inequality and political divisions inflamed by his election.
Congress last month proclaimed his landslide victory, as well as that of his running mate Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing president, in the vice presidential race.
“I ask you all pray for me, wish me well. I want to do well because when the president does well, the country does well,” he said after his congressional proclamation without taking any questions.
Read: 1/6 panel: Told repeatedly he lost, Trump refused to go
Marcos Jr. received more than 31 million votes and Sara Duterte more than 32 million of the more than 55 million votes cast in the May 9 election — massive victories that will provide them robust political capital as they face tremendous doubts arising from their fathers’ reputations. It was the first majority presidential victory in the Philippines in decades.
Outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte presided over a brutal anti-drugs campaign that left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead in an unprecedented scale of killings the International Criminal Court was investigating as a possible crime against humanity. The probe was suspended in November, but the ICC chief prosecutor has asked that it be resumed immediately.
Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte have faced calls to help prosecute her father and cooperate with the international court when they office, a looming political dilemma.
Marcos Jr., a former governor, congressman and senator, has refused to acknowledge or apologize for massive human rights violations and plunder under his father’s rule and has defended his legacy.
During the campaign, he and Sara Duterte avoided controversial issues and focused on a call for national unity, although their fathers’ presidencies opened some of the most volatile divisions in the country’s history. Marcos Jr. appealed to be judged “not by my ancestors, but by my actions.”
His father was forced from power by a largely peaceful pro-democracy uprising in 1986 and died in 1989 while in exile in Hawaii without admitting any wrongdoing, including accusations that he, his family and cronies amassed an estimated $5 billion to $10 billion while in office.
A Hawaii court later found him liable for human rights violations and awarded $2 billion from his estate to compensate more than 9,000 Filipinos who filed a lawsuit against him for torture, incarceration, extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
Imelda Marcos and her children were allowed to return to the Philippines in 1991 and worked on a stunning political comeback, helped by a well-funded social media campaign to refurbish the family name.
Along metropolitan Manila’s main avenue, democracy shrines and monuments erected after Marcos’ 1986 downfall stand prominently. The anniversary of his ouster is celebrated each year as a special national holiday, and a presidential commission that has worked for decades to recover ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses still exists.
Marcos Jr. has not explained how he will deal with such stark reminders of the past.
India tests high-speed expendable aerial target
India successfully tested Abhyas, an indigenously-designed high-speed expendable aerial target, on Wednesday, defense ministry officials said.
The test was carried out from the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Chandipur off the coast of the eastern state of Odisha.
According to defense ministry officials, Abhyas was designed and developed by the aeronautical development establishment of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).
Also Read: India's Mukesh Ambani kickstarts dynastic succession
Philippines affirms news site shutdown order: Maria Ressa
Filipino journalist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa announced in a speech in Hawaii Tuesday that the Philippine government is affirming a previous order to shut down Rappler, the news website she co-founded, which has gained notoriety for its reporting of President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on illegal drugs.
The Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission affirmed its earlier decision to revoke the certificates of incorporation of Rappler, Ressa said while speaking at the East-West Center in Honolulu.
“Part of the reason I didn’t have much sleep last night is because we essentially got a shutdown order,” Ressa told the audience.
Last year, Ressa became the first Filipino and she and Russian Dmitry Muratov became the first working journalists in more than 80 years to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was a featured speaker at this week's East-West Center’s International Media Conference.
The order is dated June 28 and reaffirms the earlier decision to revoke the certificates of incorporation of Rappler Inc. and Rappler Holdings Corp., Rappler said in a statement. “We are entitled to appeal this decision and will do so, especially since the proceedings were highly irregular," the statement said.
Read: Journalist Maria Ressa reflects on Nobel Peace Prize win
“We’re not shutting down,” Ressa said. “Well, I'm not supposed to say that.”
No announcements about the decision appeared on the Philippines Securities and Exchange website before business hours in the Philippines, where it was already Wednesday.
The AP was not able to immediately reach Ressa in Honolulu.
She co-founded Rappler in 2012. The website is one of several news agencies deemed critical of Duterte's policies.
Since taking office in 2016, Duterte has openly lambasted journalists who write unfavorable stories about him. He has particularly bristled at critical coverage of his anti-drug campaign, which has left thousands of mostly poor suspects dead and drawn international condemnation.
President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and Vice President-elect Sara Duterte — Duterte's daughter — take office Thursday after winning landslide victories in last month's elections.
Ressa was convicted of libel and has remained free on bail while the case is on appeal.
The Philippines' Securities and Exchange Commission revoked Rappler's license over what it ruled was a breach of the ban on foreign ownership and control of media outlets.
Gas lines and scuffles: Sri Lanka faces humanitarian crisis
Chamila Nilanthi is tired of all the waiting. The 47-year-old mother of two spent three days lining up to get kerosene in the Sri Lankan town of Gampaha, northeast of the capital Colombo. Two weeks earlier, she spent three days in a queue for cooking gas -- but came home with none.
“I am totally fed up, exhausted,’’ she said. “I don’t know how long we have to do this.’’
A few years ago Sri Lanka’s economy was growing strongly enough to provide jobs and financial security for most. It's now in a state of collapse, dependent on aid from India and other countries as its leaders desperately try to negotiate a bailout with the International Monetary Fund.
What’s happening in this South Asian island nation of 22 million is worse than the usual financial crises seen in the developing world: It's a complete economic breakdown that has left ordinary people struggling to buy food, fuel and other necessities and has brought political unrest and violence.
Read:Senior US officials visit Sri Lanka to help resolve crisis
“It really is veering quickly into a humanitarian crisis,’’ said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington.
Such disasters are more commonly seen in poorer countries, in sub-Saharan Africa or in war-torn Afghanistan. In middle-income countries such as Sri Lanka they are rarer but not unheard of: 6 million Venezuelans have fled their oil-rich home country to escape a seemingly unending political crisis that has devastated the economy.
Indonesia, once touted as an “Asian Tiger’’ economy, endured Depression-level deprivation in the late 1990s that led to riots and political unrest and swept away a strong man who’d held power for three decades. The country now is a democracy and a member of the Group of 20 biggest industrial economies.
Sri Lanka’s crisis is largely the result of staggering economic mismanagement combined with fallout from the pandemic, which along with 2019 terrorism attacks devastated its important tourism industry. The COVID-19 crisis also disrupted the flow of payments home from Sri Lankans working abroad.
The government took on big debts and slashed taxes in 2019, depleting the treasury just as COVID-19 hit. Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves plummeted, leaving it unable to pay for imports or defend its beleaguered currency, the rupee.
Ordinary Sri Lankans -- especially the poor -- are paying the price. They wait for days for cooking gas and petrol -- in lines that can extend more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). Sometimes, like Chamila Nilanthi, they go home with nothing.
Eleven people have died so far waiting for gasoline. The latest was a 63-year-old man found dead inside his vehicle on the outskirts of Colombo. Unable to get gasoline, some have given up driving and resorted to bicycles or public transportation to get around.
The government has closed urban schools and some universities and is giving civil servants every Friday off for three months, to conserve fuel and allow them time to grow their own fruit and vegetables.
Food price inflation is running at 57%, according to government data, and 70% of Sri Lankan households surveyed by UNICEF last month reported cutting back on food consumption. Many families rely on government rice handouts and donations from charities and generous individuals.
Unable to find cooking gas, many Sri Lankans are turning to kerosene stoves or cooking over open fires.
Read: Why Sri Lanka’s economy collapsed and what’s next
Affluent families can use electric induction ovens for cooking, unless the power is out. But most Sri Lankans can’t afford those stoves or higher electric bills.
Sri Lankans furious over fuel shortages have staged protests, blocked roads and confronted police. Fights have broken out when some try to jump ahead in fuel lines. Police have attacked unruly crowds.
One night last week, a soldier was seen assaulting a police officer at a fuel station in a dispute over gasoline distribution. The police officer was hospitalized. The police and military are separately investigating the incident.
The crisis is a crushing blow to Sri Lanka’s middle class, estimated to account for 15% to 20% of the country’s urban population. Until it all came apart, they enjoyed financial security and increasing standards of living.
Such a reversal is not unprecedented. In fact, it looks like what happened to Indonesia in the late 1990s.
The U.S. Agency for International Development -- which runs aid projects for poor countries -- was preparing to close up shop in the Indonesian capital Jakarta; the country didn’t seem to need the help. “As one of the Asian Tigers, it had worked its way off the aid list,’’ recalls Jackie Pomeroy, an economist who worked on a USAID project in the Indonesian government before joining the World Bank in Jakarta.
But then a financial crisis -- triggered when Thailand suddenly devalued its currency in July 1997 to combat speculators -- swept across East Asia. Plagued by widespread corruption and weak banks, Indonesia was hit especially hard. Its currency plummeted against the U.S. dollar, forcing Indonesian companies to cough up more rupiahs to pay back dollar-denominated loans.
Businesses closed. Unemployment soared. Desperate city dwellers returned to the countryside where they could grow their own food. The Indonesian economy shrank more than 13% in 1998, a Depression-level performance.
Desperation turned to rage, and demonstrations against the government of Suharto, who’d ruled Indonesia with an iron fist since 1968. “It very quickly rolled into scenes of political unrest,’’ Pomeroy said. “It became an issue of political transition and Suharto.’’ The dictator was forced out in May 1998, ending autocratic rule.
Although they live in a democracy, many Sri Lankans blame the politically dominant Rajapaksa family for the disaster. “It’s their fault, but we have to suffer for their mistakes,” said Ranjana Padmasiri, who works as a clerk at a private firm.
Two of the three top Rajapaksas have resigned — Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa and Basil Rajapaksa, who was finance minister. Protestors have been demanding that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa also step down. They’ve camped outside his office in Colombo for more than two months.
Resignation, Padmasiri said, isn’t enough. “They can’t get away easily,’’ he said. “They must be held responsible for this crisis.’’
Trump painted in testimony as volatile, angry president
When President Donald Trump learned his attorney general had publicly rejected his election fraud claims, he heaved his lunch at the wall with such force that the porcelain plate shattered and ketchup streamed down.
On the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, consumed by crowd size concerns, he directed staff in profane terms to remove metal detectors he thought would slow down supporters who’d amassed in Washington for a speech. Never mind that some were armed — they weren’t there to hurt him, he said.
And later that day, irate at being driven back to the White House instead of the Capitol, Trump uttered words to the effect of, “I am the f’ing president. Take me up to the Capitol now” and grabbed at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle.
Trump’s volcanic temper has been the stuff of lore throughout his career in business, but during his presidency it has rarely been described with such evocative detail as in the testimony Tuesday of Cassidy Hutchinson, a junior White House staffer whose proximity to the-then president and top aides that day gave her a remarkably close view.
Hutchinson offered previously unknown details about the extent of Trump’s rage in his final weeks of office, his awareness that some supporters had brought weapons with them and his ambivalence as rioters later laid siege to the Capitol.
READ: 51 migrants die after trailer abandoned in San Antonio heat
The testimony came as the Justice Department expands its investigation into the insurrection and deepened, but did not resolve, questions about whether Trump himself could face criminal charges for his conduct. Though Attorney General Merrick Garland has given no hint about whether his department will bring a criminal case against Trump, some legal experts said Hutchinson’s testimony could give prosecutors additional facts to pursue.
Potentially problematic for Trump could be his urging on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021 to take down metal-detecting magnetometers that he thought were slow down supporters who’d gathered for a rally near the White House.
Upset that some in the crowd might not get to see him, Trump, according to Hutchinson, said words to the effect of, “I don’t care that they have weapons. They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f’ing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here.” “Mags” refers to magnetometers.
“A congressional hearing is not a court of law, but if this isn’t powerful evidence that he wasn’t just aware of the possibility of violence on the 6th but that he actively wanted to encourage it, I’m not sure what is,” said Stephen Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor.
Whatever any outcome related to a criminal proceeding, the disclosures come as Trump is laying the groundwork for another presidential run in 2024. Aides have been debating the merits of when he should announce his intentions.
Looking to blunt negative publicity surrounding her testimony, Trump issued statements Tuesday on his social media platform calling her accounts of his behavior “fake” and denying that he had requested “that we make rooms for people with guns to watch my speech.”
Trump is well-practiced at marginalizing his critics and accusers, but Hutchinson’s well-calibrated testimony will test that power anew.
Tuesday’s hearing, the sixth by the House committee investigating the insurrection, was accompanied by suspense even before it began. It was hastily announced on Monday, but the committee did not reveal the identity of the witness until Hutchinson entered the room.
Where prior hearings have involved clusters of witnesses who have recounted pressure campaigns on the Justice Department, or on local election officials, to overturn the election results, Tuesday’s hearing involved a singular narrator with an easy-to-follow tale sprinkled with had-to-be-there color. Some anecdotes she witnessed herself. Others she heard second-hand.
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She recalled, for instance, being in the White House on the afternoon of Dec. 1, 2020 when she heard noise coming from down the hallway. Trump, it turned out, had just learned of an interview Attorney General William Barr had given to The Associated Press in which Barr said the Justice Department had not found widespread fraud sufficient to alter the outcome of the election.
Inside the dining room was a shattered porcelain plate on the floor, apparently thrown in anger by the president. Ketchup streamed down the wall. Hutchinson says she grabbed a towel to wipe it off.
She says she later heard about a separate episode on the afternoon of Jan. 6 when Trump tried to grab at the steering wheel of the presidential vehicle so that it would take him to the Capitol and not to the White House. He was, he said, “the f’ing president.” Trump was directed to take his hand off the wheel. The story drew pushback after the hearing, with a person familiar with the matter saying the agent who was driving the vehicle and another official were prepared to testify under oath that Trump never lunged for the wheel.
In that instance and others, according to the testimony, the president’s will did not always prevail and Hutchinson detailed aides’ best efforts to rein in Trump’s worst impulses. The morning of Jan. 6, for instance, White House counsel Pat Cipollone cautioned Hutchinson that if Trump did go to the Capitol to intervene in the certification of the election, “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen.”
Whether the Justice Department thinks it has a case against the president, especially one that could further divide an already polarized nation, remains an open question. But there’s also no doubt that the investigation is expanding far beyond the rioters themselves, with law enforcement officials last week serving a wave of subpoenas across the country to state elections officials.
“When you have witnesses who are in these conversations, who are in these rooms, who are actively participating in the high-level discussions of Jan. 6, it seems to me that one of two things has to be true: either they’re lying, or President Trump and a lot of people close to him are in serious jeopardy,” Vladeck said.
Macron says Russia can’t win in Ukraine after strike on mall
France’s president denounced Russia’s fiery airstrike on a crowded shopping mall in Ukraine as a “new war crime” Tuesday and vowed the West’s support for Kyiv would not waver, saying Moscow “cannot and should not win” the war.
The strike, which killed at least 18 people in the central city of Kremenchuk, came as leaders from the Group of Seven nations met in Europe. It was part of an unusually intense barrage of Russian fire across Ukraine, including in the capital, Kyiv, that renewed international attention as the war drags on.
Speaking at the end of the G-7 summit in Germany, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to address that concern, vowing that the seven leading industrialized democracies would support Ukraine and maintain sanctions against Russia “as long as necessary, and with the necessary intensity.”
“Russia cannot and should not win,” he said. He called Monday’s attack on the mall “a new war crime.”
As they have in other attacks, Russian officials claimed the shopping center was not the target.
In a virtual address to the U.N. Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has become a terrorist state and called for it to be expelled from the United Nations. He also urged the U.N. to establish an international tribunal to investigate Russia’s action in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy ended his address by asking all in the chamber to stand in silent tribute to the “tens of thousands” of Ukrainian children and adults killed in the war. All council members rose, including Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Dmitry Polyansky.
How to counter Russia and back Ukraine will also be the focus of a summit this week of the NATO alliance, whose support has been critical to Kyiv’s ability to fend off Moscow’s larger and better equipped forces. Ukrainian leaders, however, say they need more and better weapons if they are to hold off and even drive back Russia, which is pressing an all-out assault in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region.
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As Macron spoke, rescuers combed through the charred rubble of the shopping mall, which officials said was struck when more than 1,000 afternoon shoppers and workers were inside.
Kateryna Romashyna, a local resident, told The Associated Press that she had just arrived at the mall when an explosion knocked her down. When another blast came about 10 minutes later, she realized she needed to get away.
“I ran away from the epicenter with all of my strength,” she said. Fighting back tears, she added: “You have to be a real monster” to strike a shopping mall.
Many of those inside quickly fled the building when an air raid siren sounded and took shelter across the street, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denis Monastyrsky said. Several of the bodies of those who didn’t make it out in time are burned beyond recognition, he said.
In addition to the 18 killed, authorities said 59 were wounded, while 21 people were still missing.
The attack recalled strikes earlier in the war that hit a theater, a train station, and a hospital. Zelenskyy called it “one of the most daring terrorist attacks in European history.”
Rocket attacks continued elsewhere in Ukraine, with authorities in the city of Dnipro reporting that workers at a diesel car repair shop were trapped in rubble after a strike from a cruise missile fired from the Black Sea, Ukrainian news agencies reported. The Ukrainian military managed to intercept and destroy other missiles fired at the city, the agencies said.
As condemnation came in from many quarters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov struck a defiant note, saying Russia would press its offensive until it fulfills its goals. He said the hostilities could stop “before the end of the day” if Ukraine were to surrender and meet Russia’s demands, including recognizing its control over territory it has taken by force.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov claimed that warplanes fired precision-guided missiles at a depot that contained Western weapons and ammunition, which detonated and set the mall on fire. Ukrainian authorities said that in addition to the direct hit on the mall, a factory was struck, but denied it housed weapons.
Konashenkov also falsely alleged that the mall was not in use.
One survivor, Oleksandr, a mall employee, told the AP from a hospital bed that the shopping center was packed with customers. He recalled stepping outside with a colleague for a cigarette when the air raid siren went off.
“There was a black tunnel, smoke, fire,” he said. “I started to crawl. I saw the sun up there, and my brain was telling me I needed to save myself.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said the missile attack was one of Russia’s “crimes against humanity.” She emphasized the need for all Ukrainians to remain alert and expect a similar strike “every minute.”
On Tuesday, Russian forces struck the Black Sea city of Ochakiv, damaging apartment buildings and killing two, including a 6-year-old child. Six more people, four of them children, were wounded. One of them, a 3-month-old baby, is in a coma, according to officials.
The unusually intense spate of fire came as the G-7 leaders pledged continued support for Ukraine and prepared new sanctions against Russia, including a price cap on oil and higher tariffs on goods.
Zelenskyy has called for more air defense systems from his Western allies to help his forces fight back. NATO’s support for Ukraine will be a major focus of a summit starting this week in Madrid, and an early signal of unity came Tuesday when Turkey agreed to lift its opposition to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.
Read: Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall in Ukraine
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the two Nordic countries to abandon their long-held nonaligned status and apply to join NATO. But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had blocked the move, insisting they change their stance on Kurdish rebel groups that Turkey considers terrorists.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned the West that “the more weapons are pumped into Ukraine, the longer the conflict will continue and the longer the agony of the Nazi regime backed by Western capitals will last.”
Russia has falsely called the war a campaign to “de-Nazify” Ukraine — a country with a democratically elected Jewish president who wants closer ties with the West.
In a sinister message to NATO leaders, Russia’s state space corporation Roscosmos published satellite images and the precise coordinates of the conference hall where their summit will be held.
It also posted images and the coordinates of the White House, the Pentagon and the government headquarters in London, Paris and Berlin — referring to them as “decision-making centers supporting the Ukrainian nationalists” in a message on the Telegram app. That wording echoes warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin that he could target such centers in response to what he has called Western aggression.
In other developments:
— One of the two Britons sentenced to death by separatist forces in eastern Ukraine has filed a formal appeal, the Russian news agency Tass reported early Wednesday. The report said the appeal filed on behalf of Shaun Pinner will be considered within two months.
Pinner, Aiden Aslin and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun were sentenced to death on June 9 and were given one month to appeal. The court claimed they were fighting for Ukraine as mercenaries so were not entitled to protections provided to prisoners of war. There was no mention of appeals for the other two men.
— The two fighting countries continued a sporadic series of prisoner exchanges. Ukraine exchanged 15 Russian prisoners-of-war for 16 Ukrainian soldiers and one civilian, the Ukrainian Pravda news outlet reported Tuesday.
— Ukrainian Pravda also reported that in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, the mayor was detained Tuesday and occupying authorities seized his computer hard drive and documents after he had refused to cooperate with Russian-appointed local officials. Russia’s Tass news agency confirmed the detention.
— Bulgaria said Tuesday it was expelling 70 Russian diplomats designated “a threat to national security,” ordering them to leave within five days. A Bulgarian foreign ministry statement said this would reduce Russia’s Sofia embassy staff “to up to 23 diplomatic and 25 administrative and technical staff.”
51 migrants die after trailer abandoned in San Antonio heat
Desperate families of migrants from Mexico and Central America frantically sought word of their loved ones as authorities began the grim task Tuesday of identifying 51 people who died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer without air conditioning in the sweltering Texas heat.
It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.
The driver of the truck and two other people were arrested, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas told The Associated Press.
He said the truck had passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint northeast of Laredo, Texas, on Interstate 35. He did not know if migrants were inside the truck when it cleared the checkpoint.
Investigators traced the truck’s registration to a residence in San Antonio and detained two men from Mexico for possession of weapons, according to criminal complaints filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. The complaints did not make any specific allegations related to the deaths.
The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio when a city worker heard a cry for help from the truck parked on a lonely back road and found the gruesome scene inside, Police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground.
More than a dozen people — their bodies hot to the touch — were taken to hospitals, including four children. Most of the dead were males, he said.
The death count was the highest ever from a smuggling attempt in the United States, according to Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.
“This is a horror that surpasses anything we’ve experienced before,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said. “And it’s sadly a preventable tragedy.”
President Joe Biden called the deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking.”
“Exploiting vulnerable individuals for profit is shameful, as is political grandstanding around tragedy, and my administration will continue to do everything possible to stop human smugglers and traffickers from taking advantage of people who are seeking to enter the United States between ports of entry,” Biden said in a statement.
Read: Russian missile strike hits crowded shopping mall in Ukraine
Authorities did not know the home countries of all of the migrants, nor how long they were abandoned on the side of the road.
By Tuesday afternoon, medical examiners had potentially identified 34 of the victims, but they were taking additional steps, such as fingerprints, to confirm the identities, said Bexar County Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores.
Among the dead, 27 are believed to be of Mexican origin based on documents they were carrying, according to said Rubén Minutti, Mexico consul general in San Antonio. Several survivors were in critical condition with injuries such as brain damage and internal bleeding, he said.
At least seven of the dead were from Guatemala and two from Honduras, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, head of the North America department in Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department, said on Twitter. About 30 people had reached out to the Mexican Consulate looking for loved ones, the officials said.
Attempts to cross the U.S. border from Mexico have claimed thousands of lives in both countries in recent decades.
U.S. border authorities are stopping migrants more often on the southern border than at any time in at least two decades. Migrants were stopped nearly 240,000 times in May, up by one-third from a year ago.
Comparisons to pre-pandemic levels are complicated because migrants expelled under a public health authority known as Title 42 face no legal consequences, encouraging repeat attempts. Authorities say 25% of encounters in May were with people who had been stopped at least once in the previous year.
South Texas has long been the busiest area for illegal border crossings. U.S. authorities discover trucks with migrants inside “pretty close” to daily, Larrabee said.
Migrants typically pay $8,000 to $10,000 to be taken across the border and loaded into a tractor-trailer and driven to San Antonio, where they transfer to smaller vehicles for their final destinations across the United States, he said.
Conditions vary widely, including how much water passengers get and whether they are allowed to carry cellphones, Larrabee said.
Authorities think the truck discovered Monday had mechanical problems when it was left next to a railroad track in an area of San Antonio surrounded by auto scrapyards that brush up against a busy freeway, Wolff said.
San Antonio has been a recurring scene of tragedy and desperation in recent years involving migrants in semitrailers.
Ten migrants died in 2017 after being trapped inside a truck parked at a San Antonio Walmart. In 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city. More than 50 migrants were found alive in a trailer in 2018, driven by a man who said he was to be paid $3,000 and was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
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Other tragedies have occurred long before migrants reached the U.S. In December, more than 50 died when a semitrailer rolled over on a highway in southern Mexico. In October, Mexican authorities reported finding 652 migrants packed into six trailers stopped at a military checkpoint near the border.
Some of the 16 people taken to hospitals with heat-related illnesses remained hospitalized Tuesday in critical condition.
Those taken to the hospital were hot to the touch and dehydrated, and no water was found in the trailer, said Fire Chief Charles Hood.
“They were suffering from heat stroke and exhaustion,” Hood said. “It was a refrigerated tractor-trailer, but there was no visible working AC unit on that rig.”
Temperatures in San Antonio on Monday approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).
Big rigs emerged as a popular smuggling method in the early 1990s amid a surge in U.S. border enforcement in San Diego and El Paso, Texas.
Before that, people paid small fees to get across a largely unguarded border. As crossing became much more difficult after the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S., migrants were led through more perilous terrain and had to pay thousands of dollars.
Some advocates drew a link to the Biden administration’s border policies. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy director at the American Immigration Council, wrote that he had been dreading such a tragedy for months.
“With the border shut as tightly as it is today for migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, people have been pushed into more and more dangerous routes,” he wrote on Twitter.
Migrants — largely from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — have been expelled more than 2 million times under the pandemic-era rule in effect since March 2020 that denies a chance to seek asylum. The Biden administration planned to end the policy, but a federal judge in Louisiana blocked the move in May.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 557 deaths on the Southwest border in the 12 months ending Sept. 30, more than double the 247 deaths reported in the previous year and the highest since it began keeping track in 1998. Most were related to heat exposure.