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US hoping for G20 action on Ukraine  

Host Indonesia has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit later this year despite US-led efforts to isolate him…reports Asian Lite News

The United States believes Group of 20 talks in Bali can make progress related to the Ukraine crisis despite the participation of Russia, a senior official said Thursday.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive Thursday on the Indonesian resort island for talks of the club of major economies — with the State Department saying he will not meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

A senior US official expected that “virtually all the G20 countries” would agree on initiatives to address global food insecurity and energy volatility triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The official acknowledged that joint G20 statements would be impossible on Ukraine due to Russia’s participation.

“Whether or not the G20 as an entity endorses or doesn’t endorse something is less important than whether most if not all of the G20 countries put their weight behind something that we’re trying to do,” the official told reporters on a refuelling stop in Tokyo.

“You’ll see that we will have an ability as necessary to make clear Russia’s responsibility for some of the very problems that the G20 is going to be tackling,” he said.

Despite shunning Russia, Blinken will meet separately on Saturday with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to address high tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The official said not to expect a keenly awaited announcement on whether President Joe Biden will ease tariffs on China, which he said was an issue for the US Trade Representative’s office.

Blinken’s talks with Wang are among a series of recent engagements between the United States and China which included a meeting last month in Singapore between the two powers’ defence chiefs.

Host Indonesia has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit later this year despite US-led efforts to isolate him.

But in a compromise, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was also invited.

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Assets of network selling Iranian oil frozen

The sanctions target Iranian petrochemical firms and alleged front companies in China and the United Arab Emirates for Iran’s state-owned company and Triliance, a Hong Kong-based company already under US sanctions for its dealings with Iran…reports Asian Lite News

The US Treasury said it was freezing the assets of members of an international network for violating oil sanctions on Tehran by selling millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian petrochemical products to East Asia.

The sanctions target Iranian petrochemical firms and alleged front companies in China and the United Arab Emirates for Iran’s state-owned company and Triliance, a Hong Kong-based company already under US sanctions for its dealings with Iran.

Washington had earlier imposed sanctions on Iranian petrochemical producers in mid-June, as well as on Chinese and Indian brokers, expanding pressure amid a deadlock in negotiations on restoring a 2015 deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

“While the United States is committed to achieving an agreement with Iran that seeks a mutual return to compliance with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, we will continue to use all our authorities to enforce sanctions,” the Treasury said, referring to the nuclear deal.

Wednesday’s announcement came ahead of a highly anticipated visit next week by President Joe Biden to Israel and Saudi Arabia when efforts to contain the nuclear threat from Iran will be top of the agenda.

Sanctions were also imposed on China-based broker Jeff Gao and Indian national Mohammad Shaheed Ruknooddin Bhore for allegedly managing business for Triliance.

All of the targets’ property and interests in the United States will be frozen, and US-based people and companies are blocked from conducting business dealings with them.

Stalled nuclear talks

The US State Department announced it was imposing parallel sanctions on 15 individuals and firms based in Iran, the UAE, and east and southeast Asia for distributing Iranian oil and petrochemical products.

“The United States has been sincere and steadfast in pursuing a path of meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

“It is Iran that has, to-date, failed to demonstrate a similar commitment to that path.”

In April 2021, Biden’s administration kickstarted a new round of negotiations with Iran in Vienna with the aim of returning the United States to the nuclear deal, including through lifting sanctions on Iran.

But the ever-delicate dialogue has been stalled since March.

The 2015 agreement with world powers, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA, gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program to guarantee that Tehran could not develop a nuclear weapon — something it has always denied wanting to do.

But in 2018, then-president Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the accord and reimposed heavy economic sanctions that prompted Iran to begin rolling back on its own commitments.

Iran’s foreign minister said in June the “train has still not derailed” in negotiations aiming to restore the JCPOA, despite the US sanctions imposed that month on the Islamic republic.

‘US sanctions should be lifted’

The “oppressive” US sanctions against Iran should be lifted in such a way that all countries can easily invest in Iran while maintaining their long-term interests, Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), has said.

Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Xinhua news agency reported, citing Iran’s Nour News.

Iran will be committed to diplomacy until the realisation of its legal rights in nuclear talks, he was quoted as saying.

Al Thani’s visit to Tehran followed the recent indirect talks between Iran and the US in Doha over their differences on reviving the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Iran signed the JCPOA with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear program in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. However, former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement in May 2018 and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Iran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.

The Iranian nuclear talks began in April 2021 in Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington.

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Blinken to meet Wang Yi in Bali

US officials hope the meeting could bring stability to the US-China ties as tensions over the Taiwan issue escalate between the two powers, according to the Washington Post…reports Asian Lite News

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will meet with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali this week, the State Department said on Tuesday.

Blinken will travel to Bali, Indonesia, and Bangkok, Thailand, from July 6-11. Bali hosts the G20 summit on July 7-8.

“In addition to attending G20-related engagements, the Secretary will hold a bilateral meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi. Among other bilateral engagements, Secretary Blinken will also meet with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on the margins of the G20,” the State Department said.

Blinken and Wang will discuss Ukraine, The Washington Post reported.

This comes amid reports that US President Joe Biden could lift the tariff on some Chinese imports in an effort to slow down the soaring rates of inflation.

The Biden administration is wrapping up a mandatory review of tariffs on Chinese imports, which were earlier imposed by former President Donald Trump. Biden has on several occasions postponed plans to cut tariffs due to policy disagreements among his own senior aides and Cabinet secretaries.

US officials hope the meeting could bring stability to the US-China ties as tensions over the Taiwan issue escalate between the two powers, according to the Washington Post.

“A key goal of the meeting will be to reinforce guardrails on the relationship so that our competition does not spill over into miscalculation or confrontation,” said one of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a meeting prior to its announcement. “I think there’s no substitute for face-to-face diplomacy, and now is the right time.”

The meeting would focus in part on the war in Ukraine, providing Blinken with a chance to relay US concerns about China’s deepening relationship with Moscow, the report added.

Beijing has urged an end to the fighting but has not participated in the sanctions imposed on Russia.

This year’s G20 Indonesia gathering represents a challenge for the West as they seek to advance a global agenda on food and energy security while isolating Russia. (ANI)

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Professor claims Covid leaked from American lab  

It is also unclear if Sachs believes Covid originated in the US or was borne out of a collaboration between American and Chinese scientists in Wuhan, the report said…reports Asian Lite News

Covid-19 virus leaked out of a laboratory in the US, rather than the infamous Wuhan lab in China, claimed US economist Jeffrey Sachs.

According to Sachs, who led a two-year probe into the pandemic’s origins, he was “pretty convinced” the virus was the result of ‘US lab biotechnology’, Daily Mail reported.

“I chaired a commission for the Lancet for two years on Covid. I’m pretty convinced it came out of US lab biotechnology — not out of nature — just to mention after two years of intensive work on this,” Sachs said during a global conference organised by Spanish globalisation think-tank Gate Centre.

“So it’s a blunder in my view — of biotech — not an accident or natural spillover.”

Even after two years of the pandemic, the origins of Covid-19 remain unclear. It has been a political and scientific debate with scientists and politicians globally contending that the coronavirus jumped into people from bats, or have been leaked from a laboratory.

Last month, World Health Organisation (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that the Covid lab leak theory needs “further investigations”. But then he privately confided to a senior European politician that the pandemic originated from China’s infamous Wuhan lab, a report said.

While admitting “we don’t know for sure”, Sachs, who was twice named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world said: “There’s enough evidence that it should be looked into and it’s not being investigated — not in the US, not anywhere.”

“I think for real reasons, they (US officials) don’t want to look under the rug too much,” he added.

It is also unclear if Sachs believes Covid originated in the US or was borne out of a collaboration between American and Chinese scientists in Wuhan, the report said.

Chinese government officials said that Sachs’ claim warranted a “thorough investigation”, the Daily Mail said.

“Given the heavy human and economic toll taken by the virus, don’t we owe it to the millions of lives lost to have a thorough investigation into US labs?” Hua Chunying, China’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, said in a tweet.

Meanwhile, critics have previously described Sachs as a President Xi “propagandist”, dismissing China’s genocide of Uighurs and publicly calling for US cooperation, the report said.

He is also the Chairman of the Lancet Covid-19 Commission, set up at the start of the pandemic to assist governments and scrutinise responses, which was shut down in September 2021 when it emerged the team had financial links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The celebrity economist had previously claimed that the pandemic was the result of experiments done between Chinese and American scientists, the report said.

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China denies ‘Moon takeover’ plans claimed by US

He also said that by 2035 Beijing might finish construction of its own Moon station and start experiments a year later…reports Asian Lite News

China has rejected claims by the US space chief that Beijing might be contemplating a “takeover” of the Moon as part of its military space program, and accused Washington of seeking to turn space into a “warfighting domain”.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson told German newspaper Bild in an interview that the world must “must be very concerned” about China potentially “landing on the moon and saying, ‘it’s ours now and you stay out'”.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian responded to the accusations on Monday, saying that this was “not the first time that the head of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration has ignored the facts and spoken irresponsibly about China”.

“The US side has constantly constructed a smear campaign against China’s normal and reasonable outer space endeavours, and China firmly opposes such irresponsible remarks,” he added, claiming that China has always stood against weaponisation and promoted a shared future of humanity in outer space, RT reported.

When asked to clarify what military purposes China could be pursuing in space, Nelson said that Chinese astronauts are learning how to destroy other countries’ satellites, and claimed that the competition for the south pole of the Moon would be especially intense.

He also said that by 2035 Beijing might finish construction of its own Moon station and start experiments a year later.

Xi’s visit to Russia

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied media reports suggesting that Chinese President Xi Jinping refused to visit Russia.

“This is not true. This is completely untrue. The fact is that certain Covid restrictions in China continue, and this is absolutely normal, and this should be treated with understanding,” RT quoted Peskov as saying.

“And as all these relaxations of these restrictions allow, of course, all visits will be carried out,” he said.

Earlier, the media reported that the Chinese President refused to visit Moscow in response to the invitation from his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

As reported, the Russian leader invited Xi during a telephone call on June 15.

Peskov said that the country’s Ministry of Defence has its own plans in connection with the launch of the process of Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

“Such options are being worked out not in the Kremlin, but in the Ministry. We have already said many times that there are relevant plans there and work is being done to ensure our security,” Peskov said.

Thus, he answered the question whether the Kremlin is considering the option of placing a NATO base on the border with Russia and how Moscow can respond in this regard.

At the same time, Peskov added that Putin had already assessed the entry of Finland and Sweden into NATO.

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US, allies seek to counter Chinese challenge  

Over the past year, China has shown increasing interest in the region, where it seeks to expand its Naval influence in support of long-standing business interests, especially in fishing, experts have told VOA…reports Asian Lite News

Partners in the Blue Pacific, established late last month by the US, Australia and three other allies, is seen by analysts — and by Beijing — as the latest in a series of moves to counter China’s drive to expand its diplomatic and military reach in the South Pacific, a report said.

The group announced itself in a joint statement on June 24, saying it came together in response to growing pressure on the rules-based free and open international order Japan, New Zealand and Britain round out the membership, VOA reported.

Australia and the US have gone on heightened alert over the past year because of China’s effort to expand its influence in the South Pacific, where more than a dozen small and mainly impoverished countries rely on aid and trade from larger nations.

Over the past year, China has shown increasing interest in the region, where it seeks to expand its Naval influence in support of long-standing business interests, especially in fishing, experts have told VOA.

Beijing signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands in April and reached 52 bilateral economic-focused “cooperation outcomes” after its foreign minister visited 17 of the region’s small archipelagic countries in May and June.

“The South Pacific is being rediscovered,” said Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales in Australia, referring to the impact of Chinese activity, VOA reported. “Now the US, Australia, New Zealand and Japan are moving into higher gear.”

Washington has exerted influence in the South Pacific for decades through compacts, a type of alliance with countries that were once under US rule. Australia, close to the South Pacific geographically, sees strong relations with the island nations as key to its security, according to a Lowy Institute commentary.

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US slams Iran over new demands in N-talks

Special envoy Robert Malley says that Iran has made alarming progress on enriching uranium and is hampering talks on a revived nuclear deal by making a series of unrelated demands…reports Asian Lite News

Iran has repeatedly introduced, over the recent weeks and months, extraneous demands that go beyond the confines of the nuclear deal struck in 2015, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Tuesday, saying that the new demands suggest a lack of seriousness on Tehran’s behalf.

Indirect talks between Tehran and Washington aimed at breaking an impasse over how to salvage Iran’s 2015 nuclear pact ended in Doha, Qatar, last week without the hoped-for progress. Price said there was not another round of planned talks with Iran at the moment.

Meanwhile, special envoy Robert Malley said that Iran has made alarming progress on enriching uranium and is hampering talks on a revived nuclear deal by making a series of unrelated demands.

Negotiations in Vienna aimed at salvaging the collapsed 2015 agreement have been stalled since March, and talks in Qatar last week to break the impasse ended in failure.

Tehran had “added demands that I think anyone looking at this would view as having nothing to do with the nuclear deal, things that they’ve wanted in the past,” Malley said.

“The discussion that really needs to take place right now is not so much between us and Iran, although we’re prepared to have that. It’s between Iran and itself. They need to come to a conclusion about whether they are now prepared to come back into compliance with the deal.”

Iran ramped up enrichment of uranium after the US pulled out of the deal in 2018, and Malley said it was now much closer to having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.

“We are of course alarmed, as are our partners, about the progress they’ve made in the enrichment field,” he said.

The window to revive the deal was closing, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned on Tuesday. “If we want to conclude an agreement, decisions are needed now. This is still possible, but the political space … may narrow soon,” he said.

On a visit to Paris, new Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said Iran was “violating the agreement and continues to develop its nuclear program.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said he would make every effort to make Tehran see reason and return to the negotiating table.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said on Twitter after speaking with the EU’s top diplomat Josep Borrell, “Agreement is possible only based on mutual understanding & interests. We remain ready to negotiate a strong & durable agreement. US must decide if it wants a deal or insists on sticking to its unilateral demands.”

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said there was currently not another round of talks on the book with Iran, adding that Tehran has repeatedly introduced, over the recent weeks and months, extraneous demands that go beyond the confines of the nuclear deal struck in 2015.

“To introduce anything that goes beyond the narrow confines of the JCPOA suggests a lack of seriousness, suggests a lack of commitment. And that, unfortunately, is what the team saw once again in Doha,” Price told reporters.

Under the nuclear pact, Tehran limited its uranium enrichment program, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons, though Iran says it seeks only civilian atomic energy.

Then-US President Donald Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, calling it too soft on Iran, and reimposed harsh U.S. sanctions, spurring Tehran to breach nuclear limits in the pact.

Now Tehran is much closer to having enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb, Malley said, though they do not appear to have resumed their weaponization program. “But we are of course alarmed, as are our partners, about the progress they’ve made in the enrichment field,” Malley said.

Iran has enough highly enriched uranium on hand to make a bomb and could do so in a matter of weeks, he said.

Malley said Americans were also working a parallel track to secure the release of Americans detained in Iran. Siamak Namazi, who was detained in 2015 and is the longest-held Iranian American prisoner, made a plea for help in a New York Times piece on Sunday headlined: “I’m an American, Why Have I Been Left to Rot as a Hostage of Iran?”

“We hope that regardless of what happens with the nuclear talks, we’ll be able to resolve this issue because it weighs in our minds every single day,” Malley said.

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Euro slumps to 20-year low against US dollar

Even the Australian dollar failed to gain traction despite the country’s first back-to-back 50 basis point interest rate hike in recent memory overnight, which also cemented the fastest run up in rates there since 1994…reports Asian Lite News

The Euro slumped to a two-decade low on Tuesday as the latest surge in European gas prices added to worries about a recession, while there was no stopping the dollar as U.S. Treasury yields staged a rebound.

Swathes of currencies were under pressure. The euro’s 0.8% early drop took it to its weakest since the end of 2002, Japan’s yen was near 24-year lows again, while Norway’s crown slumped 1% as its gas workers went on strike.

MUFG’s head of global markets research, Derek Halpenny, said the risks of Europe backsliding into a recession looked to be growing after another big 17% jump in natural gas prices in both Europe and in Britain.

Concerns about how the European Central Bank will react were also gnawing at sentiment after German Bundesbank chief Joachim Nagel had hit out at the ECB’s plans to try and shield highly indebted countries from sharp rises in borrowing rates.

“It will continue to be very difficult for EUR to rally in any meaningful way with the energy picture worsening and risks to economic growth increasing notably,” said MUFG’s Halpenny.

Even the Australian dollar failed to gain traction despite the country’s first back-to-back 50 basis point interest rate hike in recent memory overnight, which also cemented the fastest run up in rates there since 1994.

The Aussie ticked 0.09% lower to $0.6820, after trading as high as $0.6895 earlier in the day.

“We have had so many central banks hiking in these big increments that you are now getting talk of reverse currency wars,” said Rabobank FX strategist Jane Foley, referring to where central banks need to hike rates just to stop their currencies from falling.

“It could get concerning” for a number of currencies she added, especially if the U.S. Federal Reserve pushes ahead with large rate hikes in the coming months as expected.

The dollar’s strength, meanwhile, sent the yen back down toward a 24-year low. It was last at 135.79 per dollar.

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CDC links listeria outbreak to ice cream brand

Among those hospitalised, 10 people lived out of state and had visited Florida in the previous month, the agency said…reports Asian Lite News

US health officials have declared a new outbreak of listeria infections that led to one death and nearly two dozen hospitalisations across 10 states.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the infections are linked to a Florida-based ice cream brand named Big Olaf Creamery, the New York Times reported.

“As a result of this investigation, Big Olaf Creamery in Sarasota is voluntarily contacting retail locations to recommend against selling their ice cream products. Consumers who have Big Olaf Creamery brand ice cream at home should throw away any remaining product,” according to the CDC.

However, a full recall has not been issued, the report said.

Among those hospitalised, 10 people lived out of state and had visited Florida in the previous month, the agency said.

Further, over the last six months Big Olaf ice cream products are causing infections, which affected people less than a year old to 92 years, the CDC said. Five became ill during pregnancy, with one experiencing a foetal loss, the report said.

Listeria bacteria causes an illness that can be fatal. About 1,600 people contract listeriosis in the US each year from contaminated food.

Infections can cause flu-like symptoms, including fever, muscle aches, vomiting and diarrhoea, which generally begin roughly two weeks after ingesting food laced with the bacteria, though the onset can vary, the CDC said. Severe cases can take months to develop, the US Food and Drug Administration said.

Past listeria outbreaks have been connected to unpasteurised milks and ice cream, undercooked poultry, and raw vegetables, according to the FDA. Older adults, pregnant women and newborns, and people with compromised immune systems are particularly vulnerable to becoming ill.

About one in five people with listeriosis die, according to the CDC. The infection is especially dangerous during pregnancy, causing foetal loss in about 20 per cent of cases, the report said.

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Cops detain suspect in July 4 parade mass shooting

19 students killed in a massive gun shooting in Texas

The event was scheduled to include floats, marching bands, and community entertainment as part of the city’s Independence Day celebrations…reports Asian Lite News

The 22-year-old suspect of a mass shooting during a Fourth of July parade in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park has been “taken into custody without incident”, police said.

The police identified the suspect as Robert “Bobby” Crimo III, but gave no indication of the motive for the shooting that killed six and injured 24 others, reports Xinhua news agency.

Highland Park is an affluent neighbourhood 43 km north of Chicago.

The gunman, who was detained after a massive manhunt, used “a high-powered rifle”, and shot from a rooftop, Sergeant Christopher Covelli from the Lake County Major Crime Task Force said at the news briefing late Monday night.

The rifle has been recovered at the scene, he added.

Covelli called the crime “very random, very intentional”.

The gunman opened fire at the parade at around 10.15 a.m. on Monday, just a few minutes after it began, the BBC reported.

The event was scheduled to include floats, marching bands, and community entertainment as part of the city’s Independence Day celebrations.

Following the mass shooting, all events in Highland Park and the surrounding communities were cancelled.

Illinois Governor Jay Robert Pritzker warned that mass shootings were becoming an “American tradition”.

“There are going to be people who are going to say that today is not the day, that now is not the time to talk about guns. I’m telling you there is no better day and no better time then right here and right now,” the BBC quoted the Democratic Governor as saying.

Shocked at the violence, President Joe Biden vowed to keep fighting “the epidemic of gun violence” in the country.

“I’m not going to give up,” he said, speaking outside the White House.

Monday’s mass shooting came a week after Biden signed the first significant federal bill on gun safety in nearly 30 years.

The legislation seeks to expand background check for prospective gun buyers, prevents abusive boyfriends and partners from buying guns and seeks to encourage states to pass laws to allow authorities and relatives to deny gun possession to people who are a danger to themselves and others.

There have been more than 21,800 deaths from gun violence and 296 mass shootings across the country since the beginning of this year, according to the latest data from the Gun Violence Archive.

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