Biden announced the new timetable after his visit to a vaccination site in Alexandria, Virginia, moving up his original deadline of May 1 by nearly two weeks…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden announced Tuesday that all American adults will be eligible for Covid-19 vaccine by April 19.
Biden announced the new timetable after his visit to a vaccination site in Alexandria, Virginia, moving up his original deadline of May 1 by nearly two weeks, the Xinhua news agency reported.
Biden said that 150 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine have been administered within his first 75 days in office, in line with a stated goal of 200 million shots by his 100th day in office.
He urged Americans to continue to practice pandemic safety measures, saying the country is not “at the finish line yet” and may experience more “disease and misery” before July 4.
A few weeks ago, Biden called on states, tribes and territories to make all US adults eligible for vaccination no later than May 1.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. (Photo by Ahmad Halabisaz/Xinhua/IANS)
“We will not talk directly or indirectly with the US in Vienna,” said deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi…reports Asian Lite News
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Jpl2oOrzsE
Iran will not engage in negotiations with the US at the meeting in Vienna next week where the 2015 nuclear deal will be discussed, a top official said here on Sunday.
“We will not talk directly or indirectly with the US in Vienna,” deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, denying American reports that indirect negotiations would take place between the two.
The remaining parties of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal are to hold a fresh round of discussions on a possible US return to the agreement that aims prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons in return for sanctions relief.
The US pulled out in 2018 and trading restrictions reimposed by Washington have prevented Tehran from reaping significant economic benefits.
In return, Iran started scaling back its compliance last year by overstepping key limits related to uranium, the fuel for civilian nuclear power stations but which can be enriched to make warheads.
“Iran’s policy in this regard is clear and simple: the US must return to the Vienna nuclear agreement, fulfil the deal in accordance with the treaty and lift sanctions against Iran,” Araghchi told state television.
As soon as this happens, Iran will return to complying with the deal’s agreements, said Araghchi, who heads the Iranian delegation.
He also said Tehran would only hold purely technical talks on a US return to the deal and the parties would then pass on the details to the US.
“How they do that, whether they will be successful or not, all that is their business and not ours,” the Minister added.
The two leaders likely to discuss climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, issues related to China and North Korea and cooperation toward a free and open Indo-Pacific region on April 16…reports Asian Lite News
Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will hold face-to-face talks with US President Joe Biden in Washington on April 16, the Tokyo government said on Friday.
Suga will become the first foreign leader to meet Biden in person after he took office on January 20, dpa news agency quoted Japanese government spokesman Katsunobu Kato as saying at a briefing here.
It shows “the strong ties of the Japan-US alliance and America’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region”, Kato said.
The two leaders are expected to discuss climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, issues related to China and North Korea and cooperation toward a free and open Indo-Pacific region, he said.
The two leaders’ summit meeting will take place amid heightened tensions as China’s activities in East China and South China seas.
Chinese coastguard vessels frequently approach a group of uninhabited islets in the East China Sea, a source of diplomatic tension between Beijing and Tokyo.
The Japanese-administered Senkaku Islands are also claimed by China and Taiwan, where they are called Diaoyu and Tiaoyutai respectively.
The meeting was originally planned in the first half of this month and it has been pushed back to April 16, Kato said.
In the US’ policy towards Russia, there is increased pressure in all fields and tougher rhetoric is nothing new,said Lavrov…reports Asian Lite News
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Moscow-Washington ties were at their lowest point due to increased confrontation, and he hopes that “common sense and prudence” will eventually prevail.
In the US’ policy towards Russia, there is increased pressure in all fields and tougher rhetoric is nothing new, Xinhua news agency quoted Lavrov as saying in an interview with a local TV program on Thursday.
He stressed that there is few chance for serious dialogue between Russia and the US, if Washington continues to blame Moscow for the consequences of its own reckless policy.
According to the Ministert, Western countries feel “a threat to their dominance” and are therefore inventing new rules on which they think the world order should be based, ones that contradict those outlined in the UN charter.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
Lavrov’s remarks came a day after Russian Ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov told a joint meeting of the Federation Council, upper house of Parliament, that bilateral ties were in the midst of a deep crisis, which has grown partly due to the reluctance of the American President Joe Biden’s administration to solve problems with Moscow.
Antonov returned to Moscow on March 22 after he was recalled following Biden’s comments that Russia will “pay a price” for its alleged interference in the 2020 American election.
Washington is destroying the foundations of Russia-US interactions as the incumbent administration has continued to “unwind the sanctions spiral under false pretexts”, he told lawmakers.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
The diplomat believes that Washington will not change its stance substantially and the “systemic containment” of Russia will remain a priority.
A US intelligence report released on March 21 day directly accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering a wide-ranging influence operation to interfere in the election, intending to hurt Biden’s campaign.
In the ABC News interview, Biden also agreed with the interviewer’s claim that Putin was “a killer”.
Up to 1.1 million single adults are expected through September, along with around 828,000 families and more than 200,000 unaccompanied children…reports Asian Lite News
The US is expected to encounter about 2 million migrants at the southern border by the end of the 2021 fiscal year, a record high since 2010, local media reports said.
Up to 1.1 million single adults are expected through September, along with around 828,000 families and more than 200,000 unaccompanied children, according to internal government estimates reviewed and published by CNN on Thursday.
Border Patrol encounters are expected to continue to rise month-by-month, according to the projections, which can vary, Xinhua news agency quoted the CNN report as saying.
US Border Patrol encounters are also expected to be largely made up of single adults, who are being turned away at the southern border as soon as they are encountered under a public health order, and as a result, might also account for repeat crossers, the report added.
Customs and Border Protection officials project that some 159,000 to 184,000 unaccompanied migrant children could arrive at the southwest border in fiscal year 2021, according to a Reuters report on Wednesday.
Deputy Chief of the Border Patrol Raul Ortiz told reporters on Tuesday that the agency expects to encounter more than 1 million migrants this fiscal year, which began on October 1, 2020.
The last time Border Patrol apprehensions surpassed 1 million was in fiscal year 2006, according to data from Customs and Border Protection.
Border Patrol arrests also climbed during the 2019 border crisis, but fell short of 900,000.
Biden described the plan as “a once-in-a-generation investment in America” and compared its scoped to the space race of the 1950s and 1960s when the US confronted the Soviet Union…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden has unveiled an ambitious $2 trillion plan to overhaul the nation’s deteriorating infrastructure and create jobs while putting the country on its way to “win the global competition with China”.
Outlining it in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, he called the plan “a once-in-a-generation investment in America” and compared its scoped to the space race of the 1950s and 1960s when the US confronted the Soviet Union and won the race to the moon.
The first phase of it, called the ‘Jobs Plan’, aims to modernise transportation infrastructure — the roads, bridges and airports, he said.
Although couched as an infrastructure initiative, this plan has a much wider ambition.
It ranges from spurring scientific and industrial research to incentivising adoption of electric vehicles and from boosting domestic manufacturing to building affordable housing.
“It grows the economy in key ways. It puts people to work to repair and upgrade what we badly need. It makes it easier and more efficient to move goods, to get to work, and to make us more competitive around the world,” the President said about its basic agenda.
It is to be financed through an increase in corporate taxes from 21 per cent to 28 per cent and hiking taxes on those making more than $400,000 a year.
Biden acknowledged that the US was one of the major economies where public investment in research and development as a share of GDP has declined constantly over the last 25 years.
“We’ve fallen back. The rest of the world is closing in and closing in fast.”
Through decades of neglect and underinvestment, the roads, rails and local train systems in many places are crumbling, and many of the airports are outmoded and wouldn’t compare to the most modern ones in Indian metro cities.
The US electrical grid has catastrophically failed in several places, most recently in Texas last month with power outags over several days.
Biden’s plan, if successful, would inject the needed capital and give the political impetus to modernising the infrastructure as the US creeps up from under the Covid-19 devastation.
Having recognised the competition with China that has made massive investments in building its infrastructure and its scientific and industrial capabilities and extending its reach abroad, Biden made Beijing the backdrop to his endeavour.
His plan, he said, “will grow the economy, make us more competitive around the world, promote our national security interests, and put us in a position to win the global competition with China in the upcoming years”.
“It’s going to boost America’s innovative edge in markets where global leadership is up for grabs a” markets like battery technology, biotechnology, computer chips, clean energy, the competition with China in particular.”
The American Jobs Plan is the largest American jobs investment since World War II.
Globally he framed it as a race between democracies and autocracies.
“That’s what competition between America and China and the rest of the world is all about. It’s a basic question: Can democracies still deliver for their people? Can they get a majority?
“I believe we can. I believe we must,” the President noted.
But democracy is what stands in the way of his plan as he is buffeted by the left and right.
He will need the backing of at least 10 Republican Senators to get the 60 votes needed in the evenly divided Senate to get the plan approved while keeping his base intact.
The main sticking point is his proposal to raise taxes.
Appealing to them, he said that the Republicans “know China and other countries are eating our lunch. So there’s no reason why it can’t be bipartisan again”.
Former President Donald Trump had promised a massive infrastructure plan during the 2016 election campaign but was so distracted by his less pressing obsessions that he never got around to seriously pursuing it before Covid-19 hit the world.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said he was unlikely to back Biden’s infrastructure plan.
“It’s called infrastructure, but inside the Trojan horse it’s going to be more borrowed money, and massive tax increases on all the productive parts of our economy.”
A way around the Republican Senate roadblock would be for the infrastructure legislation to be treated as an amendment to the budget, which would need only 51 votes. And that’s what Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer are preparing for.
The American Jobs Plan is a once-in-a-generation investment in America. It will: ✅Modernize 20,000 miles of highways, roads, and main streets ✅Repair 10,000 bridges desperately in need of upgrades ✅Replace 100% of our nation’s lead pipes and service lines
But Biden will also face opposition from his Democratic Party’s left.
Indian-American Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal called for a “bolder” and more comprehensive plan that would tackle climate change more aggressively.
“It makes little sense to narrow his previous ambition on infrastructure or compromise with the physical realities of climate change,” she said.
House of Representatives member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists group, had proposed a $10 trillion plan.
She compared Biden’s plan to the $1.9 trillion Covid-19 relief passed by Congress earlier this month and tweeted that the President new proposal “is not nearly enough. The important context here is that it’s $2.25 trillion spread out over 10 years”
US authorities directed “voluntary departure” of non-emergency government employees and their families on February 14…reports Asian Lite News
The US has advised its citizens not to go to Myanmar and raised its travel advisory for the country to level 4 amid a deteriorating situation.
In an advisory on Tuesday, the US Department of State said it had ordered all non-emergency government employees and their family members to leave the South-East Asian country “due to Covid-19 as well as areas of civil unrest and armed violence”, DPA news agency reported.
The department had authorized the “voluntary departure” of non-emergency government employees and their families on February 14.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Burma due to COVID-19,” the advisory said.
“The Burmese military has detained and deposed elected government officials. Protests and demonstrations against military rule have occurred and are expected to continue.”
Death toll in Myanmar’s anti-coup protests tops 500
The advisory also listed areas in the country subject to “heightened civil unrest” and “armed violence” in different degrees and warned that the US government has “limited ability to provide emergency services” to citizens in certain areas.
At least 500 pro-democracy protesters have been killed since Myanmar’s February 1 military coup, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.
The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) puts the nationwide death toll at 510, after another 14 people lost their lives at the hands of security forces on Monday.
Myanmar’s military seized control of the country after an election which Aung San Suu Kyi’s ruling party won by a landslide.
Myanmar joins warring countries such as Somalia and Syria in the level 4 category.
Biden has nominated Rupa Ranga Puttagunta to be a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, which is a local court for Washington…reports Asian Lite News
US President Joe Biden has nominated an Indian American to be a judge in the local court system of the nation’s capital after having withdrawn another’s nomination made by his predecessor Donald Trump.
The White House announced on Tuesday that Biden was nominating Rupa Ranga Puttagunta to be a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, which is a local court for Washington.
Last month, he withdrew the nomination of Vijay Shankar to a higher local court, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, that Trump had made as one of a spate of last-minute appointments in January before his term was to end.
Shankar needed the Senate confirmation for his appointment, which he could not get with the Democrats getting control of it.
Puttagunta is now an administrative judge for the District of Columbia Rental Housing Commission dealing with landlord-tenant issues and rental housing regulations.
She had earlier represented the poor in criminal cases and worked with victims of domestic abuse, according to the White House.
Nominating judges who reflect America is a top priority. That’s why today I announced 11 nominees — the earliest any administration has announced this many judges in modern history. They represent the best of the legal profession and the diversity that makes our nation strong. pic.twitter.com/Zr7ywGpRLe
Meanwhile, Biden has appointed a Pakistani American, Zahid N. Quraishi, to be a federal judge.
He would become the nation’s first Muslim federal judge if confirmed by the Senate.
Another Muslim, Abid Qureshi, was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2016 to be a federal judge but the Senate did not act on his nomination before Trump took office and it lapsed.
The federal judgeship would be an elevation for Quraishi who is now a federal magistrate judge in New Jersey.
Magistrate judges are appointed by the federal judges to assist them on matters like first appearances by the accused in criminal cases and setting bail. Unlike federal judges, they are not nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate and, therefore, do not issue judgments or hear cases.
Quraishi is a former US Army captain who ad served in Iraq and has also worked as an assistant chief counsel in the Department of Homeland Security and as an assistant federal prosecutor.
Former US President Donald Trump(IANS)
The South Asian Bar Association welcomed their nominations, tweeting, “We are proud to see Judges Rupa Ranga Puttagunta and Zahid Quraishi on the list” of Biden’s judicial nominees.
The White House said that the nominations announced on Tuesday reflect Biden’s “intent to nominate highly-qualified candidates to federal courts that reflect his deeply-held conviction that the federal bench should reflect the full diversity of the American people — both in background and in professional experience.”
Biden, who has said that he would nominate an African America woman to the Supreme Court, named Ketanji Brown Jackson to be a judge on the Federal Appeals Circuit Court in Washington, which is considered the most important after the Supreme Court.
If she is confirmed, it would put her on a fast track to become the nation’s first African American woman on the Supreme Court if a vacancy occurs during Biden’s term.
Brown Jackson replaces Merrick Garland, who was Obama’s unsuccessful nominee for the Supreme Court and is now the attorney-general in the Biden administration.
Trump’s nomination of Shankar was not meant to be taken seriously as he had lost the election and was an attempt at asserting himself in the last days in office.
Latest announcements are additional steps in the Biden Administration’s work to advance equity for Asian American …reports Asian Lite News
The White House on Tuesday announced new actions including additional funding and a cross-agency initiative to curb the alarming rise in violence and discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Today’s announcements are additional steps in the Biden Administration’s work to advance equity for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities through a whole-of-government approach to racial justice,” the White House said, Xinhua news agency reported.
According to a White House fact sheet, President Joe Biden will “appoint a permanent Director to lead the Initiative in the coordination of policies across the federal government impacting Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander communities.”
As part of the initiative, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department reconvened its Hate Crimes Enforcement and Prevention Initiative with a focus on the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes in the country.
People take part in a rally against anti-Asian hate crimes in San Mateo, California, the United States, on Feb. 27, 2021. (Xinhua/Wu Xiaoling)
The FBI will also publish a new interactive page that documents hate crimes against the AAPI community and begin holding training events to educate agents on recognizing and reporting anti-Asian bias.
The Department of Health and Human Services is providing nearly $50 million from the American Rescue Plan to assist AAPI survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
The Covid-19 Health Equity Task Force, founded in January, has also established a subcommittee on Structural Drivers of Health Inequity and Xenophobia, the White House said. This subcommittee will be specifically focused on combating the surge in anti-Asian bias during the coronavirus pandemic.
The National Endowment for the Humanities also launched a virtual library to expand resources and provide information on Asian-American history.
The US troops play a crucial role in the future of Afghanistan. They stand between peace & Terror Caliphate of Taliban. The Afghan issue has put President Biden in a quandary: If he withdraws the troops by May 1, as stipulated in the Doha agreement between the Trump administration, Taliban and the Afghan government, he would domestically fall into the Republican political trap. If he does not withdraw, not only will be expose American troops to protracted danger for perhaps years but also he may have to take the blame for any decision of an angered Taliban to attack US forces …. Reports Dr Badusha Ahmed Khan
US President Joe Biden must be asking himself one question: Will the Taliban in Afghanistan revive its attempt to convert the Islamic Republic into an Emirate with an Islamic leader and instil terror as a tool of governance once the American forces leave the battle-scarred region? He is not getting any clear answer.
The capacity of the Taliban to inflict terror is evident even now, when anywhere between 2500 and 3500 US troops are in Afghanistan and the US air force carries out support sorties to complement the Afghan military’s attacks on Taliban bases.
The Taliban issue has put President Biden in a quandary: If he withdraws the troops by May 1, as stipulated in the Doha agreement between the Trump administration, Taliban and the Afghan government, he would domestically fall into the Republican political trap. If he does not withdraw, not only will be expose American troops to protracted danger for perhaps years but also he may have to take the blame for any decision of an angered Taliban to attack US forces – something it has not done so far.
US troops in Afghanistan(IANS)
Biden’s White House press conference in March third week was marred by the American confusion over its Taliban policy. Biden was asked about the May 1 deadline for withdrawal of the US troops.
“If we leave, we’re going to do so in a safe and orderly way,” he said. But he quickly clarified: “It’s not my intention to stay there for a long time, the question is how and under what circumstance do we meet that agreement that was made by President Trump to leave…but we are not staying a long time.”
Does he envisage presence of American troops in the later part of 2021 and thereafter?
“I can’t picture that being the case.” But are the troops leaving by May 1? “We will leave. The question is when we leave.” So, the troops are ready to move by the deadline? “…just in terms of tactical reasons” there could be a delay, was his response.
While international defence policy experts write reams about the American presence or absence after May 1 in Afghanistan, President Biden is grappling with practical concerns than policy ones, those close to him confide.
His Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said in Kabul when asked if troop withdrawal is linked to end to Taliban-sponsored violence: “I won’t comment on that. But what I will say is that it’s obvious that the level of violence remains pretty high in the country.”
US Defence Secy visits Ghani(IANS)
General Richard Clark, commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, in a recent Senate testimony said: “It is clear the Taliban have not upheld what they said they would do and reduce the violence. While on the positive side they have not attacked U.S. forces, it is clear that they took a deliberate approach and increased their violence since the peace accords were signed.”
Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said of the May 1 deadline: “Running for the exits pell-mell by May 1 is dangerous. It is dangerous to our troops [and] I don’t want to leave a bunch of, you know, high-grade military equipment behind for whoever grabs it either.”
All these personages are saying what President wants to hear as he reviews the withdrawal issue: Logistics and logistics alone could delay withdrawal of US troops.
What precisely are the brass tacks issues that Biden is grappling with? First of all, the Emirate conversion issue.
No doubt the US joined Russia, China and Pakistan in the second half of March to oppose the restoration of an Islamic Emirate under the Taliban, but Biden knows that is the core issue. He has proposed an international peace conference in Istanbul, Turkey in April, 2021 with the Taliban and the Afghan government. This would be his administration’s initiative, essentially to differentiate it with the attempts made by the Trump administration. The Afghan government has accepted the invite, but the Taliban is yet to respond.
US troops in Afghanistan(IANS)
Biden’s idea seems to be to make his new administration control the Afghan peace process. In other words, get his stamp all over it. He wants to ensure that the Taliban and the Afghans form a joint government in Kabul. The Taliban is aware that it was not invited to the last such conference the US hosted in Bonn, Germany in 2001 to form an Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai after the Taliban was ousted following the 9/11 attacks. The same Taliban is key to the Istanbul conference today.
Biden’s experts are telling him the Taliban “is stronger now than at any point since 2001….with up to eighty-five thousand full-time fighters, it controls one-fifth of the country and continues to launch attacks”.
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has already issued a caution: “Analysts warn that violence could escalate dramatically in 2021 and that the peace process could collapse, increasing the likelihood of an expanded civil war, casualties, and activities by terrorist groups.”
The CFR, in its March, 2021 edition points out that “the group (Taliban) has withstood counterinsurgency operations from the world’s most powerful security alliance, the NATO, and three US administrations in a war that has killed more than 6,000 US troops and contractors and over 1,100 NATO troops…. some 46,000 civilians have died, and an estimated 73,000 Afghan troops and police officers have been killed since 2007”.
The Taliban’s own losses are said in the tens of thousands, but “the group is stronger now than at any point in the last 19 years….it has between 55,000 and 85,000 full-time fighters”.
US troops in Afghanistan.
Referring to the terrorist group’s geographical influence, the CFR says: “In early 2021, the Taliban controlled an estimated 19 per cent of districts, while the government controlled 33 per cent, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies Long War Journal, a U.S.-based publication that has covered the U.S. fight against al-Qaeda and other militant groups since 2007.”
A UN mission, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says Taliban violence has increased several times 2020 onwards and proves it by providing data that shows “8820 civilian deaths and injuries” occurred in 2020 alone. If anyone thinks the figure is high, it should be remembered that it is a 1,000 less than the 2019 figure.
The second headache for President Biden is the inability of the American troops to choke the financial resources of the Taliban. Opium poppy cultivation and narcotics are the Taliban’s primary source of revenue.
A UN report estimated “that it earned $400 million in 2018 from the illegal drug trade”. It gets additional revenue through taxes it levies “on commercial activities in its territories, such as farming and mining and other activities like “illicit mining, the extortion of local businesses, and donations from abroad”.
This, in spite of the fact that the Americans poured billions of dollars to stop the narcotics trade. It is estimated that the US spent $10 billion on anti-narcotics operations in the last decade or more. However, cultivation of opium poppy quadrupled in this period. What is worse, Afghanistan now has the dubious record of suppling “80 per cent of the world’s heroin”.
The Taliban have so effectively pulverised the Afghan military forces that reports from Kabul claim the government is finding it difficult to find new recruits for the army.
Since 2016, the Taliban have killed on an average 20-25 Afghan security forces every day. As the fatalities began to double two years later, the Afghans and the Americans jointly decided to keep the actual fatalities under wraps for fear of demoralising the Afghan forces. Afghanistan’s main army recruitment centre in Helmand gets not more than two or three applications a day. The government also began to face attrition in terms of desertions and failure to re-enlist – another fact it does not advertise.
President Biden has also to find out how the Afghans and the Taliban share power if things actually reach that stage of negotiations in Istanbul. There are other questions in his mind as well: “What will happen to Afghanistan’s democratic institutions and constitution? How women’s, LGBTQ+ individuals’, and religious minority groups’ rights will be protected?
Taliban representatives have said they would protect women’s rights under Sharia but have given few details on what doing so would look like in practice.”
Other questions include whether the Taliban forces will be “disarmed and reintegrated into society”, who will “lead the country’s army”.
The real question is whether for the Taliban the proposed peace has a narrow meaning: “Peace does not mean an end to the fighting, it means an end to the US occupation”, as a journalist put it. Once the Americans leave along with their troops, will the Taliban not only re-occupy the bases they were evicted from but also try to re-establish the Islamic emirate, handing over power to an orthodox cleric who abides by principles of terror than peace?
