Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks

Update US President Joe Biden (R) and China’s President Xi Jinping (L) meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on November 14, 2022. President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping spoke on the phone on April 2, 2024. in a new bid to manage tensions between the United States and China, with top US officials to head shortly to Beijing, officials said. (AFP/File Photo)
US President Joe Biden (R) and China’s President Xi Jinping (L) meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Nusa Dua on the Indonesian resort island of Bali on November 14, 2022. President Joe Biden and Xi Jinping spoke on the phone on April 2, 2024. in a new bid to manage tensions between the United States and China, with top US officials to head shortly to Beijing, officials said. (AFP/File Photo)
Short Url
Updated 02 April 2024
Follow

Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks

Biden and Xi discuss Taiwan, AI and fentanyl in a push to return to regular leader talks
  • The call, described by the White House as “candid and constructive,” was the leaders’ first conversation since their November summit in California

WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Taiwan, artificial intelligence and security issues Tuesday in a call meant to demonstrate a return to regular leader-to-leader dialogue between the two powers.
The call, described by the White House as “candid and constructive,” was the leaders’ first conversation since their November summit in California produced renewed ties between the two nations’ militaries and a promise of enhanced cooperation on stemming the flow of deadly fentanyl and its precursors from China.
The call also kicks off several weeks of high-level engagements between the two countries, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen set to travel to China on Thursday and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to follow in the weeks ahead.
Biden has pressed for sustained interactions at all levels of government, believing it is key to keeping competition between the two massive economies and nuclear-armed powers from escalating to direct conflict. While in-person summits take place perhaps once a year, officials said, both Washington and Beijing recognize the value of more frequent engagements between the leaders.
Xi told Biden that the two countries should adhere to the bottom line of “no clash, no confrontation” as one of the principles for this year.
“We should prioritize stability, not provoke troubles, not cross lines but maintain the overall stability of China-US relations,” Xi said, according to China Central Television, the state broadcaster.
The two leaders discussed Taiwan ahead of next month’s inauguration of Lai Ching-te, the island’s president-elect, who has vowed to safeguard its de-facto independence from China and further align it with other democracies. Biden reaffirmed the United States’ longstanding “One China” policy and reiterated that the US opposes any coercive means to bring Taiwan under Beijing’s control. China considers Taiwan a domestic matter and has vigorously protested US support for the island.
Taiwan remains the “first red line not to be crossed,” Xi told Biden, and emphasized that Beijing will not tolerate separatist activities by Taiwan’s independence forces as well as “exterior indulgence and support,” which alluded to Washington’s support for the island.
Biden also raised concerns about China’s operations in the South China Sea, including efforts last month to impede the Philippines, which the US is treaty-obligated to defend, from resupplying its forces on the disputed Second Thomas Shoal.
Next week, Biden will host Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at the White House for a joint summit where China’s influence in the region was set to be top of the agenda.
Biden, in the call with Xi, pressed China to do more to meet its commitments to halt the flow of illegal narcotics and to schedule additional precursor chemicals to prevent their export. The pledge was made at the leaders’ summit held in Woodside, California, last year on the margins of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting.
At the November summit, Biden and Xi also agreed that their governments would hold formal talks on the promises and risks of advanced artificial intelligence, which are set to take place in the coming weeks. The pair touched on the issue on Tuesday just two weeks after China and the US joined more than 120 other nations in backing a resolution at the United Nations calling for global safeguards around the emerging technology.
Biden, in the call, reinforced warnings to Xi against interfering in the 2024 elections in the US as well as against continued malicious cyberattacks against critical American infrastructure, according to a senior US administration official who previewed the call on the condition of anonymity.
He also raised concerns about human rights in China, including Hong Kong’s new restrictive national security law and its treatment of minority groups, and he raised the plight of Americans detained in or barred from leaving China.
The Democratic president also pressed China over its defense relationship with Russia, which is seeking to rebuild its industrial base as it presses forward with its invasion of Ukraine. And he called on Beijing to wield its influence over North Korea to rein in the isolated and erratic nuclear power.
As the leaders of the world’s two largest economies, Biden also raised concerns with Xi over China’s “unfair economic practices,” the official said, and reasserted that the US would take steps to preserve its security and economic interests, including by continuing to limit the transfer of some advanced technology to China.
Xi complained that the US has taken more measures to suppress China’s economy, trade and technology in the past several months and that the list of sanctioned Chinese companies has become ever longer, which is “not derisking but creating risks,” according to the broadcaster.
The call came ahead of Yellen’s visit to Guangzhou and Beijing for a week of bilateral meetings on the subject with finance leaders from the world’s second largest economy — including Vice Premier He Lifeng, Chinese Central Bank Gov. Pan Gongsheng, former Vice Premier Liu He, American businesses and local leaders.
An advisory for the upcoming trip states that Yellen “will advocate for American workers and businesses to ensure they are treated fairly, including by pressing Chinese counterparts on unfair trade practices.”
It follows Xi’s meeting in Beijing with US business leaders last week, when he emphasized the mutually beneficial economic ties between the two countries and urged people-to-people exchange to maintain the relationship.
Xi told the Americans that the two countries have stayed communicative and “made progress” on issues such as trade, anti-narcotics and climate change since he met with Biden in November. Last week’s high-profile meeting was seen as Beijing’s effort to stabilize bilateral relations.
Ahead of her trip to China, Yellen last week said that Beijing is flooding the market with green energy that “distorts global prices.” She said she intends to share her beliefs with her counterparts that Beijing’s increased production of solar energy, electric vehicles and lithium-ion batteries poses risks to productivity and growth to the global economy.
US lawmakers’ renewed angst over Chinese ownership of the popular social media app TikTok has generated new legislation that would ban TikTok if its China-based owner ByteDance doesn’t sell its stakes in the platform within six months of the bill’s enactment.
As chair of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US, which reviews foreign ownership of firms in the US, Yellen has ample leeway to determine how the company could remain operating in the US
Meanwhile, China’s leaders have set a goal of 5 percent economic growth this year despite a slowdown exacerbated by troubles in the property sector and the lingering effects of strict anti-virus measures during the COVID-19 pandemic that disrupted travel, logistics, manufacturing and other industries.
China is the dominant player in batteries for electric vehicles and has a rapidly expanding auto industry that could challenge the world’s established carmakers as it goes global.
The US last year outlined plans to limit EV buyers from claiming tax credits if they purchase cars containing battery materials from China and other countries that are considered hostile to the United States. Separately, the Department of Commerce launched an investigation into the potential national security risks posed by Chinese car exports to the US.


Trump blocked from imposing sweeping federal funding freeze

Trump blocked from imposing sweeping federal funding freeze
Updated 55 min 53 sec ago
Follow

Trump blocked from imposing sweeping federal funding freeze

Trump blocked from imposing sweeping federal funding freeze
  • The memo said the freeze was necessary while the administration reviewed grants and loans to ensure they are aligned with Trump’s executive orders, including ones ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs

A US judge on Tuesday extended an order blocking President Donald Trump’s administration from instituting a sweeping freeze on trillions of dollars in federal funding by pausing grants, loans and other financial support. US District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington wrote that while some funds had become unfrozen since she first temporarily blocked the administration’s spending pause, there remained a risk the administration might again try to shut off funding.
The judge, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, said for those reasons she agreed with groups representing nonprofits and small business that a preliminary injunction was necessary to block a further funding freeze.
“The injunctive relief that defendants fought so hard to deny is the only thing in this case holding potentially catastrophic harm at bay,” the judge wrote.
Those groups sued after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget on January 27 issued a memo directing federal agencies to temporarily pause spending on federal financial assistance programs. Trump began his second term as president on January 20.
The memo said the freeze was necessary while the administration reviewed grants and loans to ensure they are aligned with Trump’s executive orders, including ones ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and directing a pause on spending on projects seeking to combat climate change.
The OMB later withdrew that memo after it became the subject of two lawsuits, one before AliKhan by groups including the National Council of Nonprofits and another before a judge in Rhode Island by Democratic state attorneys general.
But the plaintiffs argued that the memo’s withdrawal did not mean the end of the policy itself.
They pointed to a post on social media platform X by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shortly after the memo was withdrawn saying: “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.”
AliKhan on Tuesday cited that social media post as a reason for why the case was not moot, as the judge barred the administration from implementing or reinstating under a different name the funding pause announced in the OMB memo.
The judge said the freeze was “ill-conceived from the beginning,” saying the administration either wanted to abruptly pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending overnight or have each federal agency review every single grant and loan for compliance in less than 24 hours.
AliKhan said the administration lacked any “clear statutory hook for this broad assertion of power,” and that its actions were “irrational, imprudent, and precipitated a nationwide crisis.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Skye Perryman, whose liberal-leaning group Democracy Forward represented the plaintiffs, hailed the ruling halting “the Trump administration’s lawless attempt to harm everyday Americans in service of a political goal.”


Ukraine has agreed on terms of minerals deal with US: senior official

Ukraine has agreed on terms of minerals deal with US: senior official
Updated 25 February 2025
Follow

Ukraine has agreed on terms of minerals deal with US: senior official

Ukraine has agreed on terms of minerals deal with US: senior official
  • Ukraine and US could sign the deal as early as Friday
  • Washington had cut clauses that would have been unfavorable to Kyiv

KYIV: Ukraine has agreed on the terms of a minerals deal with the United States and could sign it as early as Friday on a trip to Washington by President Volodymyr Zelensky, a senior Ukrainian official said.
US President Donald Trump had demanded that Ukraine give access to its rare earth minerals to compensate for the billions of dollars worth of wartime aid it received under Joe Biden.
The deal would see the United States jointly develop Ukraine’s mineral wealth, with revenues going to a newly created fund that would be “joint for Ukraine and America,” a senior Ukrainian source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“Now government officials are working on the details... As of now, we are considering a visit to Washington for Friday to sign the agreement,” the source added.
Ukraine had asked for security guarantees from the US as part of any agreement.
The source said the draft of the deal includes a reference to “security,” but does not explicitly set out the United States’s role.
“There is a general clause that says America will invest in a stable and prosperous sovereign Ukraine, that it works for a lasting peace, and that America supports efforts to guarantee security.”
The source also said Washington had cut clauses that would have been unfavorable to Ukraine, including that it provide “$500 billion” worth of resources.


Arctic ‘doomsday’ seed vault gets more than 14,000 new samples

A guard stands watch outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (REUTERS)
A guard stands watch outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (REUTERS)
Updated 25 February 2025
Follow

Arctic ‘doomsday’ seed vault gets more than 14,000 new samples

A guard stands watch outside the Global Seed Vault before the opening ceremony in Longyearbyen February 26, 2008. (REUTERS)
  • The new contributions include a sample of 15 species from Sudan, consisting of several varieties of sorghum — a plant that is significant both for the country’s food security and its cultural heritage, the Crop Trust said

COPENHAGEN: A “doomsday” vault storing food crop seeds from around the world in man-made caves on a remote Norwegian Arctic island will receive more than 14,000 new samples on Tuesday, a custodian of the facility said.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, set deep inside a mountain to withstand disasters from nuclear war to global warming, was launched in 2008 as a backup for the world’s gene banks that store the genetic code for thousands of plant species.
Protected by permafrost, the vault has received samples from across the world and played a leading role between 2015 and 2019 in rebuilding seed collections damaged during the war in Syria. “The seeds deposited this week represent not just biodiversity, but also the knowledge, culture and resilience of the communities that steward them,” Executive Director Stefan Schmitz of the Crop Trust said in a statement.
The new contributions include a sample of 15 species from Sudan, consisting of several varieties of sorghum — a plant that is significant both for the country’s food security and its cultural heritage, the Crop Trust said.
The war between the Rapid Support Forces and the army which broke out in April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced 12 million, while plunging half of Sudan into hunger and several locations into famine.
“In Sudan ... these seeds represent hope,” the director of Sudan’s Agricultural Plant Genetic Resources Conservation and Research Centre said in a statement.
A total of 14,022 new samples will be deposited at 1430 GMT, including seeds of Nordic tree species from Sweden and rice from Thailand, the Crop Trust said.

 


French fugitive ‘The Fly’ is extradited to France after his arrest in Romania

French fugitive ‘The Fly’ is extradited to France after his arrest in Romania
Updated 25 February 2025
Follow

French fugitive ‘The Fly’ is extradited to France after his arrest in Romania

French fugitive ‘The Fly’ is extradited to France after his arrest in Romania
  • High-profile search for Mohamed Amra began last May, when armed assailants ambushed a prison convoy in Normandy, killing two guards and seriously wounding three others
  • Emmanuel Macron hailed his capture a ‘formidable success’ and praised European colleagues who had ended the long cross-border hunt

BUCHAREST, Romania: A notorious French fugitive who staged a deadly escape that killed two guards last year was extradited Tuesday from Romania to France, days after his arrest in Bucharest ended a nine-month international manhunt.
Mohamed Amra, nicknamed “The Fly,” was arrested near a shopping center in Bucharest on Saturday after being identified by Romanian police, despite having dyed his hair red, possibly to evade detection. The Bucharest Court of Appeal approved his extradition request on Sunday.
An official at Romania’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the legal case was still ongoing, confirmed to The Associated Press that Amra was handed over to French authorities for extradition Tuesday at an airport near Bucharest — where he arrived in handcuffs, flanked by armed police officers.
Upon arrival in France, he was taken to the main Paris courthouse, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. He will be ordered to carry out the sentence he escaped last year, for burglary, and also face charges in other cases, including murder, attempted murder and escaping from custody.
The high-profile search for Amra began last May, when armed assailants ambushed a prison convoy in Normandy, killing two guards and seriously wounding three others in the process of aiding his escape.
Amra fled after being sentenced for burglary in the Normandy town of Evreux. He was also under investigation for an attempted organized homicide and a kidnapping that resulted in death, French prosecutors said.
The international police organization Interpol issued a notice for his arrest, while French investigators alerted counterparts in other countries after they suspected Amra had left France.
After his arrest on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron hailed his capture a “formidable success” and praised European colleagues who had ended the long cross-border hunt.
Paris Prosecutor Laure Beccuau has said that Amra had connections with Marseille’s organized crime syndicates and was suspected of heading a drug trafficking network.
As of Monday night, 25 people had been detained in multiple countries suspected of some role in his escape or the aftermath, the Paris prosecutor said.


Pope’s health crisis sparks prayers from thousands outside the Vatican

Pope’s health crisis sparks prayers  from thousands outside the Vatican
Updated 25 February 2025
Follow

Pope’s health crisis sparks prayers from thousands outside the Vatican

Pope’s health crisis sparks prayers  from thousands outside the Vatican
  • The Vatican’s Tuesday noon bulletin announced that Francis had approved decrees for five people for beatification and two for canonization
  • Pontiff meets at the hospital with No. 2 over candidates for sainthood, sets consistory

ROME: Pope Francis, hospitalized in critical condition with double pneumonia, was well enough to meet with the Vatican secretary of state and his deputy to approve new decrees for saints and call a formal meeting to set the dates for their canonization, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

The audience, which occurred on Monday, signaled that the machinery of the Vatican is still grinding on and looking ahead even with Francis hospitalized and doctors warning his prognosis is guarded.
The Vatican’s Tuesday noon bulletin announced that Francis had approved decrees for five people for beatification and two for canonization. The Vatican statement also said that during the audience with Cardinal Pietro Parolin and his deputy, Archbishop Edgar Pena Parra, Francis had “decided to convene a consistory about the future canonizations.”

FASTFACTS

• On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: ‘The pope slept well, all night.’

• On Monday evening, doctors said he remained in critical condition with double pneumonia but reported a ‘slight improvement’ in some laboratory results.

Such an audience and decision is par for the course when Francis is at the Vatican. He regularly approves decrees from the Vatican’s saint-making office. But the forward-looking sense of the future consistory was significant, given his illness.
On Tuesday morning, the Vatican’s typically brief morning update said: “The pope slept well, all night.”
On Monday evening, doctors said he remained in critical condition with double pneumonia but reported a “slight improvement” in some laboratory results.
In the most upbeat bulletin in days, the Vatican said Francis had resumed work from his hospital room, calling a parish in Gaza City that he has kept in touch with since the war there began.
After night fell, thousands of faithful gathered in a rain-soaked St. Peter’s Square for the first of a nightly ritual recitation of the Rosary. The prayer evoked the 2005 vigils when St. John Paul II was dying in the Apostolic Palace, but many of those on hand said they were praying for Francis’ recovery.
“We came to pray for the pope, that he may recover soon, for the great mission he’s sharing with his message of peace,” said Hatzumi Villanueva, from Peru, who praised Francis’ empathy for migrants.
Standing on the same stage where Francis usually presides, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said that ever since Francis had been hospitalized, a chorus of prayers for his recovery had swelled up from around the world.
“Starting this evening, we want to unite ourselves publicly to this prayer here, in his house,” Parolin said, praying that Francis “in this moment of illness and trial” would recover quickly.
The vigil was to continue Tuesday night, presided over by another senior Vatican official, Cardinal Antonio Tagle of the Philippines, who heads the office responsible for the Catholic Church in the developing world.
The Argentine pope, who had part of one lung removed as a young man, has been hospitalized since Feb. 14 at Rome’s Gemelli hospital and doctors have said his condition is touch-and-go, given his age, fragility and pre-existing lung disease before the pneumonia set in.
But in Monday’s update, they said he hadn’t had any more respiratory crises since Saturday, and the flow and concentration of supplemental oxygen has been slightly reduced. The slight kidney insufficiency detected on Sunday was not causing alarm at the moment, doctors said, while saying his prognosis remained guarded.
Francis’ right-wing critics have been spreading dire rumors about his condition, but his allies have cheered him on and expressed hope that he will pull through. Many noted that from the very night of his election as pope, Francis had asked for the prayers of ordinary faithful, a request he repeats daily.
“I’m a witness of everything he did for the church, with a great love of Jesus,” Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga told La Repubblica. “Humanly speaking, I don’t think it’s time for him to go to Paradise.”
Maradiaga, a founding member of Francis’ inner circle of cardinal advisers, said he himself had been near death with COVID-19, on high flows of oxygen like Francis. “I know the pope may be suffering and as a result I feel closer to him in prayer.”
At Gemelli on a rainy Tuesday morning, ordinary Romans and visitors alike were also praying for the pope and reflecting on the teachings he has imparted over nearly 12 years. Hoang Phuc Nguyen, who lives in Canada but was visiting Rome to participate in a Holy Year pilgrimage, took the time to come to Gemelli to say a special prayer for the pope at the statue of St. John Paul II outside the main entrance.
“We heard that he is in the hospital right now and we are very worried about his health,” Nguyen said. “He is our father and it is our responsibility to pray for him.”