Tag: DIP

Biden and Xi clash over Taiwan in Bali but Cold War fears cool
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Biden, Xi meet for 3 hours before G20

Both leaders stress need to get ties back on track

Indonesia seeks partnerships on global economy at G20

Ukraine’s Zelenskiy to address G20 on Tuesday
NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Nov 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping engaged in blunt talks over Taiwan and North Korea on Monday in a three-hour meeting aimed at preventing strained U.S.-China ties from spilling into a new Cold War.

Amid simmering differences on human rights, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and support of domestic industry, the two leaders pledged more frequent communications. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Beijing for follow-up talks.

“We’re going to compete vigorously. But I’m not looking for conflict, I’m looking to manage this competition responsibly,” Biden said after his talks with Xi on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Indonesia.

Beijing has long said it would bring the self-governed island of Taiwan, which it views as an inalienable part of China, under its control and has not ruled out the use of force to do so. It has frequently accused the United States in recent years of encouraging Taiwan independence.

In a statement after their meeting, Xi called Taiwan the “first red line” that must not be crossed in U.S.-China relations, Chinese state media said.

Biden said he sought to assure Xi that U.S. policy on Taiwan, which has for decades been to support both Beijing’s ‘One China’ stance and Taiwan’s military, had not changed.

He said there was no need for a new Cold War, and that he did not think China was planning a hot one.

“I do not think there’s any imminent attempt on the part of China to invade Taiwan,” he told reporters.

On North Korea, Biden said it was hard to know whether Beijing had any influence over Pyongyang weapons testing. “Well, first of all, it’s difficult to say that I am certain that China can control North Korea,” he said.

Biden said he told Xi the United States would do what it needs to do to defend itself and allies South Korea and Japan, which could be “maybe more up in the face of China” though not directed against it.

“We would have to take certain actions that would be more defensive on our behalf… to send a clear message to North Korea. We are going to defend our allies, as well as American soil and American capacity,” he said.

Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said before the meeting that Biden would warn Xi about the possibility of enhanced U.S. military presence in the region, something Beijing is not keen to see.

Beijing had halted a series of formal dialogue channels with Washington, including on climate change and military-to-military talks, after U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi upset China by visiting Taiwan in August.

Biden and Xi agreed to allow senior officials to renew communication on climate, debt relief and other issues, the White House said after they spoke.

Xi’s statement after the talks included pointed warnings on Taiwan.

[1/7] U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a news conference following his meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, ahead of the G20 leaders’ summit, in Bali, Indonesia, November 14, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

“The Taiwan question is at the very core of China’s core interests, the bedrock of the political foundation of China-U.S. relations, and the first red line that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations,” Xi was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

“Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese and China’s internal affair,” Xi said, according to state media.

Taiwan’s democratically elected government rejects Beijing’s claims of sovereignty over it.

Taiwan’s presidential office said it welcomed Biden’s reaffirmation of U.S. policy. “This also once again fully demonstrates that the peace and stability of the Taiwan Strait is the common expectation of the international community,” it said.

SMILES AND HANDSHAKES

Before their talks, the two leaders smiled and shook hands warmly in front of their national flags at a hotel on Indonesia’s Bali island, a day before a Group of 20 (G20) summit set to be fraught with tension over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s just great to see you,” Biden told Xi, as he put an arm around him before their meeting.

Biden brought up a number of difficult topics with Xi, according to the White House, including raising U.S. objections to China’s “coercive and increasingly aggressive actions toward Taiwan,” Beijing’s “non-market economic practices,” and practices in “Xinjiang, Tibet, and Hong Kong, and human rights more broadly.”

Neither leader wore a mask to ward off COVID-19, although members of their delegations did.

U.S.-China relations have been roiled in recent years by growing tensions over issues ranging from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the South China Sea, trade practices, and U.S. restrictions on Chinese technology.

But U.S. officials said there have been quiet efforts by both Beijing and Washington over the past two months to repair relations.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told reporters in Bali earlier that the meeting aimed to stabilise the relationship and to create a “more certain atmosphere” for U.S. businesses.

She said Biden had been clear with China about national security concerns regarding restrictions on sensitive U.S. technologies and had raised concern about the reliability of Chinese supply chains for commodities.

G20 summit host President Joko Widodo of Indonesia said he hoped the gathering on Tuesday could “deliver concrete partnerships that can help the world in its economic recovery”.

However, one of the main topics at the G20 will be Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Xi and Putin have grown close in recent years, bound by their shared distrust of the West, and reaffirmed their partnership just days before Russia invaded Ukraine. But China has been careful not to provide any direct material support that could trigger Western sanctions against it.

Reporting by Nandita Bose, Stanley Widianto, Fransiska Nangoy, Leika Kihara, David Lawder and Simon Lewis in Nusa Dua, and Yew Lun Tian and Ryan Woo in Beijing; additional reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Kay Johnson and Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Angus MacSwan, Grant McCool, Heather Timmons and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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November 14, 2022
U.N. General Assembly calls for Russia to make reparations in Ukraine

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Nov 14 (Reuters) – The United Nations General Assembly on Monday called for Russia to be held accountable for its conduct in Ukraine, voting to approve a resolution recognizing that Russia must be responsible for making reparations to the country.

The resolution, supported by 94 of the assembly’s 193 members, said Russia, which invaded its neighbor in February, “must bear the legal consequences of all of its internationally wrongful acts, including making reparation for the injury, including any damage, caused by such acts.”

The resolution recommends that member states, in cooperation with Ukraine, create an international register to record evidence and claims against Russia.

General Assembly resolutions are nonbinding, but they carry political weight.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called the resolution an “important” one.

“The reparations that Russia will have to pay for what it has done are now part of the international legal reality,” Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Kyiv’s Ambassador to the U.N. Sergiy Kyslytsya told the General Assembly before the vote that Russia has targeted everything from factories to residential buildings and hospitals.

“Ukraine will have the daunting task of rebuilding the country and recovering from this war, but that recovery will never be complete without a sense of justice for the victims of the Russian war. It is time to hold Russia accountable,” Kyslytsya said.

The United Nations headquarters building is pictured with a UN logo in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., March 1, 2022. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the General Assembly before the vote that the provisions of the resolution are “legally null and void” as he urged countries to vote against it.

“The West is trying to draw out and worsen the conflict and plans to use Russian money for it,” Nebenzia said.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, said on the Telegram messaging app that the “Anglo-Saxons are clearly trying to scrape together a legal basis for the illegal seizure of Russian assets.”

Fourteen countries voted against the resolution, including Russia, China and Iran, while 73 abstained, including Brazil, India and South Africa. Not all member states voted.

In March, 141 members of the General Assembly voted to denounce Russia’s invasion, and 143 in October voted to condemn Moscow’s attempted annexation of parts of Ukraine.

Zelenskiy on Saturday said Russian forces destroyed critical infrastructure in the strategic southern city of Kherson before fleeing. Moscow denies deliberately targeting civilians, although the invasion has reduced Ukrainian cities to rubble and killed or wounded thousands.

“It will take a broad international effort to support Ukraine’s recovery and reconstruction in order to build a safe and prosperous future for the Ukrainian people,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward told the assembly.

“But only one country, Russia, is responsible for the damage to Ukraine, and it is absolutely right, as this resolution sets out, that Russia pay for that damage.”

Reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Doina Chiacu in WASHINGTON; Additional reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; editing by Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 14, 2022
CIA boss talks nuclear weapons and prisoners with Putin’s spy chief
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Burns to warn Russia’s spy chief not to use nuclear weapons

Burns also due to raise issue of U.S. prisoners

Kremlin confirm a U.S.-Russia meeting took place in Turkey
LONDON/WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns was expected to caution President Vladimir Putin’s spy chief at talks on Monday about the consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, and to raise the issue of U.S. prisoners in Russia, a White House official said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed to Russian news agencies that a U.S.-Russia meeting had taken place in the Turkish capital Ankara but declined to give details about the participants or the subjects discussed.

The White House spokesperson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Burns was meeting Sergei Naryshkin, head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service.

It was the first known high-level, face-to-face U.S.-Russian contact since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

“He is not conducting negotiations of any kind. He is not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine,” the spokesperson said.

“He is conveying a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and the risks of escalation to strategic stability … He will also raise the cases of unjustly detained U.S. citizens.”

Burns is a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who was sent to Moscow in late 2021 by President Joe Biden to caution Putin about the troop build-up around Ukraine.

“We briefed Ukraine in advance on his trip. We firmly stick to our fundamental principle: nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” the spokesperson said.

Putin has repeatedly said Russia will defend its territory with all available means, including nuclear weapons, if attacked. He says the West has engaged in nuclear blackmail against Russia.

MANY OUTSTANDING ISSUES

The remarks raised particular concern in the West after Moscow declared in September that it had annexed four Ukrainian regions that its forces partly control.

The U.S.-Russian contact in Turkey was first reported by Russia’s Kommersant newspaper. The SVR did not respond to a request for comment.

Beyond the war, Russia and the United States have a host of outstanding issues to discuss, ranging from the extension of a nuclear arms reduction treaty and a Black Sea grain deal to a possible prisoner swap and the Syrian civil war.

U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, asked at a summit of the Group of 20 (G20) leading economies in Indonesia about the meeting in Turkey, said the United Nations was not involved.

Biden said this month he hoped Putin would be willing to discuss seriously a swap to secure the release of U.S. basketball star Brittney Griner, who has been sentenced to nine years in a Russian penal colony on drugs charges.

Former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, who holds American, British, Canadian and Irish passports, was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in a Russian jail after being convicted of spying, a charge he denied.

Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer jailed in the United States, has been mentioned as a person who could be swapped for Griner and Whelan in any prisoner exchange.

Reporting by Reuters; Additional reporting by Jonathan Spicer in Turkey; Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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November 14, 2022
King Charles asks UK parliament to allow brother and sister to act in his place

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LONDON, Nov 14 (Reuters) – King Charles asked the British parliament on Monday to amend the law to allow two more of his siblings to act on his behalf in his absence, adding them to a group which currently includes his disgraced brother Prince Andrew.

In a statement read out on his behalf in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, Charles, who on Monday turned 74, asked for the number of Counsellors of State to be increased to include his sister Princess Anne and youngest brother Prince Edward.

The Counsellors, who can act on behalf of the monarch in his absence to carry out all but his most key roles such as appointing a new prime minister, are selected from his spouse and the four adults next in line to the throne.

That currently means that in addition to Charles’s wife Camilla and his eldest son and heir Prince William, the grouping comprises the king’s younger son Prince Harry, younger brother Prince Andrew, and Andrew’s eldest daughter Princess Beatrice.

That has led to criticism from some commentators because neither Andrew nor Harry carry out official royal roles any more.

Andrew was stripped of most of his titles and removed from royal duties due to a scandal over his friendship with the late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender, and he later settled a U.S. lawsuit in which he was accused of sexual abuse.

Meanwhile, Harry stepped down from royal duties in 2020 and moved to California with his wife Meghan.

“To ensure continued efficiency of public business when I’m unavailable, such as while I’m undertaking official duties overseas, I confirm that I would be most content should parliament see fit for the number of people who may be called upon to act as Counsellors of State … to be increased to include my sister and brother,” the king’s statement said.

The change will require parliament to amend the terms of the Regency Act.

Reporting by Michael Holden
Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 14, 2022
Analysis: Sanctions fail to halt North Korea’s accelerating weapons programs

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WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – Economic sanctions, the primary means the United States has used for years to try to exert pressure on North Korea, have abjectly failed to halt its nuclear and missile programs or to bring the reclusive northeast Asian state back to the negotiating table.

Instead, North Korea’s ballistic missile program has become stronger and it has carried out a record-breaking testing regime of multiple types of weapons this year – including of intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland. Expectations are that it may soon end a self-imposed five-year moratorium on nuclear bomb testing.

Now, U.S. policy makers and their predecessors can do little more than pick through the wreckage and seek to determine what went wrong, and who might be to blame.

“We’ve had a policy failure. It’s a generational policy failure,” said Joseph DeThomas, a former U.S. diplomat who worked on North Korea and Iran sanctions and served in the administrations of Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“An entire generation of people worked on this. It’s failed … so alright, now we have to go to the next step, figure out what we do about it.”

Biden administration officials concede that sanctions have failed to stop North Korea’s weapons programs – but they maintain they have at least been effective in slowing North Korea’s nuclear program.

“I would disagree with the idea that sanctions have failed. Sanctions have failed to stop their programs – that’s absolutely true,” a senior administration official told Reuters. “But I think that if the sanctions didn’t exist, (North Korea) would be much, much further along, and much more of a threat to its neighbors to the region and to the world.”

The State Department, U.S. Treasury and White House’s National Security Council did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Former officials and experts say sanctions were never imposed robustly enough for long enough and blame faltering U.S. overtures to North Korea as well as pressures like Russia’s war in Ukraine and U.S-China tensions over Taiwan for making them ineffective and easy for North Korea to circumvent.

North Korea has long been forbidden to conduct nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches by the U.N. Security Council.

The Security Council has imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 to choke off funding for it nuclear and ballistic missile programs. They now include exports bans coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capping imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.

However U.N. experts regularly report that North Korea is evading sanctions and continuing to develop its programs.

Russia and China backed toughened sanctions after North Korea’s last nuclear test in 2017, but it is not clear what U.N action – if any – they might agree to if Pyongyang conducts another nuclear test.

CHINESE AND RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

The senior Biden administration official told Reuters Washington believes China and Russia have leverage to persuade North Korea not to resume nuclear bomb testing. But the Biden administration has accused China and Russia of enabling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Anthony Ruggiero, who headed North Korea sanctions efforts under former President Donald Trump, said they were only pursued vigorously enough from the last year of the Obama administration to early in Trump’s second year. They then dropped off in the ultimately vain hope of progress in summit negotiations between Trump and Kim.

Some critics like sanctions expert Joshua Stanton fault both the Trump and Biden administrations for failing to exert maximum pressure to stop China allowing North Korea’s sanctions evasion. They point to the powerful option of imposing sanctions on big Chinese banks that have facilitated this.

“The sanctions we don’t enforce don’t work, and we haven’t been enforcing them since mid-2018,” Stanton said, noting that history had shown a correlation between stronger enforcement and North Korea willingness to engage diplomatically.

“The Biden administration’s most significant failure is its failure to prosecute or penalize the Chinese banks we know are laundering Kim Jong Un’s money,” he said.

Some experts like DeThomas argue that taking what some call the “nuclear option” of going after Chinese banks could exclude huge Chinese institutions from the international financial system and have catastrophic consequences not just for the Chinese, but for the U.S. and global economies – something Stanton considers unfounded.

“Going full bore against the Chinese over North Korea is always a possibility, but it’s a high-risk option,” said DeThomas, arguing that such a measure should be reserved for an even more pressing scenario, such as deterring any move by China to all-out support for Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“You want them to be thinking about that. And you can’t fire that gun twice,” he said. “And even if you sanctioned the Chinese banks, you wouldn’t get the North Koreans to change.”

Some U.S. academic experts argue that Washington should recognize North Korea for what it is – a nuclear power that is never going to disarm – and use sanctions relief to incentivize better behavior.

“I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told a conference in Ottawa this week.

“I do think we can buy things other than disarmament with our economic leverage,” Jeffrey Lewis, a non-proliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told a conference in Ottawa this week.

The senior Biden administration official said maintaining sanctions was not just punitive, but about the international community showing it is united.

He rejected the idea that Washington should recognize North Korea as a nuclear-armed state.

“There is an extraordinarily strong global consensus … that the DPRK should not, and must not, be a nuclear nation,” he said. “No country is calling for this … the consequences of changing policy, I think would be profoundly negative.”

Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Michelle Nichols
Editing by Alistair Bell

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 4, 2022
EXCLUSIVE G7 coalition has agreed to set fixed price for Russian oil -sources

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WASHINGTON/LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – The Group of Seven rich nations and Australia have agreed to set a fixed price when they finalize a price cap on Russian oil later this month, rather than adopting a floating rate, sources said on Thursday.

U.S. officials and G7 countries have been in intense negotiations in recent weeks over the unprecedented plan to put a price cap on sea-borne oil shipments, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 5 – to ensure EU and U.S. sanctions aimed at limiting Moscow’s ability to fund its invasion of Ukraine do not throttle the global oil market.

“The Coalition has agreed the price cap will be a fixed price that will be reviewed regularly rather than a discount to an index,” said a coalition source, who was not authorized to speak publicly. “This will increase market stability and simplify compliance to minimize the burden on market participants.”

The initial price itself has not been set, but should be in coming weeks, multiple sources said. Coalition partners agreed to regularly review the fixed price and revise it as needed, the source said, without disclosing further details.

Pegging the price as a discount to some index would have resulted in too much volatility and potential price swings, the source added.

The coalition worried that a floating price pegged below the Brent international benchmark might enable Russian President Vladimir Putin to game the mechanism by reducing supply, a second source with knowledge of the discussions said.

Putin could benefit from a floating price system because the price for his country’s oil would also rise if Brent spiked due to a cut in oil from Russia, one of the world’s largest petroleum producers. The downside of the agreed fixed price system is that it will require more meetings of the coalition and bureaucracy to review it regularly, the source said.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other G7 officials argue the price cap, set to begin Dec. 5 on crude and Feb. 5 on oil products, will squeeze funding to Russia without cutting supply to consumers. Russia has said it will refuse to ship oil to countries that set price caps.

Shipping services are eager to see more details about the G7 plan which is due to take effect in a month.

A steady price cap could enable insurers to more confidently roll over contracts and initiate new ones without fear that the price could be adjusted by the countries buying Russian oil, which could have potentially exposed insurers to sanctions.

No immediate comment was available from Treasury or the embassies of coalition members, which include the G7 rich nations, the European Union and Australia.

Separately, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the United States and its allies had agreed on further details on which sales of Russian oil will face the price cap.

Each load of seaborne Russian oil will only be subject to the price cap when first sold to a buyer on land, the countries determined. Reuters could not immediately verify the report which cited people familiar with the matter.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Timothy Gardner in Washington and Noah Browning in London; editing by Heather Timmons and Matthew Lewis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 4, 2022
Biden vows to ‘free Iran’ in West Coast campaign speech

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OCEANSIDE, Calif., Nov 3 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday vowed to “free” Iran, and said that demonstrators working against the country’s government would soon succeed in freeing themselves.

“Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon,” Biden said during a wide-ranging campaign speech in California, as dozens of demonstrators gathered outside holding banners supporting Iranian protesters.

Biden did not expand on his remarks or specify what additional actions he would take during the remarks at MiraCosta College near San Diego.

The White House’s National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign fundraising event for U.S. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) in San Diego, California, U.S., November 3, 2022. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Seven weeks of demonstrations in Iran were ignited by the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran’s morality police.

The protests triggered by Amini’s death on Sept. 16 have shown the defiance of many young Iranians in challenging the clerical leadership, overcoming fear that has stifled dissent in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. read more

The United States on Wednesday said it will try to remove Iran from the 45-member U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) over the government’s denial of women’s rights and brutal crackdown on protests. read more

Iran is just starting a four-year term on the commission, which meets annually every March and aims to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt, writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Stephen Coates

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 4, 2022
Putin says West sows nonsense about history

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LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin on Friday said the West had hammered historical nonsense into the heads of millions of people, including about the real course of World War Two and the Soviet Union’s role in the victory over Nazi Germany.

Without citing evidence, Putin repeated a claim that Poland has not abandoned dreams of taking over parts of Ukraine.

Poland has repeatedly denied such Russian claims, and says such statements are disinformation spread by Moscow in an attempt to sow discord between Warsaw and Kyiv.

Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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November 4, 2022
Supermom In Training: 8 Nutritious Halloween-themed snacks and meals to offset the sugar rush

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For kids, the true essence of Halloween isn’t really about the pumpkins and the spookiness of it all – it’s about the sugar!! Undoubtedly, your kids are going to have their fair share of treats for Halloween, so prepare one of these 8 nutritious Halloween-themed snacks and meals to offset the sugar rush.

Fearsome veggies and dip- make them festive by serving vegetable slices in hollowed out peppers, and carving little pumpkin faces in them.

A frightful fruit platter. Ghost bananas, mummified strawberries, apple monsters and pumpkin clementines.

A cauldron of dip. Make hot bean dip or pizza dip. Turn slices of cheese into ghosts and add black olive spiders for fun effects.

DEVILled eggs. They’re filling, healthy, and devilishly delicious.

Monster sliders. Use pickles, olives and cheese to turn ordinary little burgers into frightening monsters.

Mummy-wrapped sausages. Get some protein into those kiddos!

Mini pizza webs. Make extras because these will disappear quickly.

Spooky spaghetti. Turn a round plate of spaghetti into a hideous monster face.

A full-time work-from-home mom, Jennifer Cox (our “Supermom in Training”) loves dabbling in healthy cooking, craft projects, family outings, and more, sharing with readers everything she knows about being an (almost) superhero mommy.

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October 31, 2022
Liberal U.S. lawmakers withdraw Ukraine letter after blowback

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WASHINGTON, Oct 25 (Reuters) – A group of liberal U.S. Democrats withdrew a letter to the White House urging a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, the group’s chairperson, Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal, said on Tuesday, after blowback from within their own party.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said in a statement. She added: “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.” read more

The letter signed by 30 caucus members became public on Monday, leaving some other Democrats feeling blindsided just two weeks before Nov. 8 mid-term elections that will determine which political party controls Congress. And it appeared just as Republicans face concerns that their party might cut back military and humanitarian aid that has helped Ukraine since Russia invaded in February.

Several members of the Progressive Caucus issued statements expressing support for Ukraine, noting that they had joined other Democrats in voting for billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine.

Some said they had signed the letter months earlier and that things had changed. “Timing in diplomacy is everything. I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then. I wouldn’t sign it today,” Representative Sara Jacobs said on Twitter.

Representative Jamie Raskin, who also signed, said in a statement he was glad to learn it had been withdrawn and noted “its unfortunate timing and other flaws.”

Ukraine’s troops have been waging a successful counteroffensive, with forces advancing into Russian-occupied Kherson province and threatening a major defeat for Moscow.

[1/2] Ukrainian soldiers drive a captured Russian tank after re-fitting it for use in battle, in Kupiansk region of Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, October 15, 2022. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

‘BLANK CHECK’

The letter drew immediate pushback, including from within the Progressive Caucus. “Russia doesn’t acknowledge diplomacy, only strength. If we want Ukraine to continue as a free and democratic country that it is, we must support their fight,” Democratic Representative Ruben Gallego, a caucus member, said in a written comment.

Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, told Punchbowl News in an interview this month that there would be no “blank check” for Ukraine if Republicans take over. That fed speculation that Republicans might stop aid to Kyiv, although many members of the party said that was not their intention.

In her statement withdrawing the letter, Jayapal said that, because of the timing, the letter was being conflated as being equivalent to McCarthy’s remark.

“Nothing could be further from the truth. Every war ends with diplomacy, and this one will too after Ukrainian victory. The letter sent yesterday, although restating that basic principle, has been conflated with GOP opposition to support for the Ukrainians’ just defense of their national sovereignty. As such, it is a distraction at this time and we withdraw the letter,” Jayapal’s statement said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said both Democrats and Republicans support continued assistance for Ukraine and he did not think the letter would put U.S. support into question.

“In recent days, we’ve heard from Democrats, we’ve heard from Republicans, that they understand the need to continue to stand with Ukraine, to stand for the principles that are at play here,” he told a news briefing.

Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Cynthia Osterman

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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October 25, 2022
Iran will not remain indifferent if proven Russia using its drones in Ukraine – official

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DUBAI, Oct 24 (Reuters) – Iran will not remain indifferent if it is proven that its drones are being used by Russia in the Ukraine war, the Iranian foreign minister said on Monday, amid allegations the Islamic Republic has supplied drones to Moscow to attack Ukraine.

“If it is proven to us that Iranian drones are being used in the Ukraine war against people, we should not remain indifferent,” state media cited Hossein Amirabdollahian as saying.

However, Amirabdollahian said defence cooperation between Tehran and Moscow will continue.

Britain, France and Germany on Friday called for a United Nations probe of accusations Russia has used Iranian-origin drones to attack Ukraine, allegedly violating a U.N. Security Council resolution.

Citing diplomats and officials, Reuters reported last week that in addition to more drones, Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles.

Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Alex Richardson and Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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October 25, 2022
Saudi Arabia ‘maturer guys’ in spat with U.S., energy minister says
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OPEC+ oil output cut led to U.S., Saudi spat

Saudi Arabia and U.S. “solid allies” – minister

Big Wall St turnout at flagship Saudi investment summit
RIYADH, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia decided to be the “maturer guys” in a spat with the United States over oil supplies, the kingdom’s energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Tuesday.

The decision by the OPEC+ oil producer group led by Saudi Arabia this month to cut oil output targets unleashed a war of words between the White House and Riyadh ahead of the kingdom’s Future Investment Initiative (FII) forum, which drew top U.S. business executives.

The two traditional allies’ relationship had already been strained by the Joe Biden administration’s stance on the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the Yemen war, as well as Riyadh’s growing ties with China and Russia.

When asked at the FII forum how the energy relationship with the United States could be put back on track after the cuts and with the Dec. 5 deadline for the expected price-cap on Russian oil, the Saudi energy minister said: “I think we as Saudi Arabia decided to be the maturer guys and let the dice fall”.

“We keep hearing you ‘are with us or against us’, is there any room for ‘we are with the people of Saudi Arabia’?”

Saudi Investment Minister Khalid al-Falih said earlier that Riyadh and Washington will get over their “unwarranted” spat, highlighting long-standing corporate and institutional ties.

“If you look at the relationship with the people side, the corporate side, the education system, you look at our institutions working together we are very close and we will get over this recent spat that I think was unwarranted,” he said.

While noting that Saudi Arabia and the United States were “solid allies” in the long term, he highlighted the kingdom was “very strong” with Asian partners including China, which is the biggest importer of Saudi hydrocarbons.

The OPEC+ cut has raised concerns in Washington about the possibility of higher gasoline prices ahead of the November U.S. midterm elections, with the Democrats trying to retain their control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Biden pledged that “there will be consequences” for U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia after the OPEC+ move.

Princess Reema bint Bandar Al Saud, the kingdom’s ambassador to Washington, said in a CNN interview that Saudi Arabia was not siding with Russia and engages with “everybody across the board”.

[1/3] Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al-Saud speaks at the Future Investment Initiative conference, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, October 25, 2022. REUTERS/ Ahmed Yosri

“And by the way, it’s okay to disagree. We’ve disagreed in the past, and we’ve agreed in the past, but the important thing is recognizing the value of this relationship,” she said.

She added that “a lot of people talk about reforming or reviewing the relationship” and said that was “a positive thing” as Saudi Arabia “is not the kingdom it was five years ago.”

FULL ATTENDENCE AT FII

Like previous years, the FII three-day forum that opened on Tuesday saw a big turnout from Wall Street, as well as other industries with strategic interests in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter.

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, speaking at the gathering, voiced confidence that Saudi Arabia and the United States would safeguard their 75-year-old alliance.

“I can’t imagine any allies agreeing on everything and not having problems – they’ll work it through,” Dimon said. “I’m comfortable that folks on both sides are working through and that these countries will remain allies going forward, and hopefully help the world develop and grow properly.”

The FII is a showcase for the Saudi crown prince’s Vision 2030 development plan to wean the economy off oil by creating new industries that also generate jobs for millions of Saudis, and to lure foreign capital and talent.

No Biden administration officials were visible at the forum on Tuesday. Jared Kushner, a former senior aide to then-President Donald Trump who enjoyed good ties with Prince Mohammed, was featured as a front-row speaker.

The Saudi government invested $2 billion with a firm incorporated by Kushner after Trump left office.

FII organisers said this year’s edition attracted 7,000 delegates compared with 4,000 last year.

After its inaugural launch in 2017, the forum was marred by a Western boycott over Khashoggi’s killing by Saudi agents. It recovered the next year, attracting leaders and businesses with strategic interests in Saudi Arabia, after which the pandemic hit the world.

Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi, Hadeel Al Sayegh and Rachna Uppal in Riyadh and Nadine Awadalla, Maha El Dahan and Yousef Saba in Dubai; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous and Michael Geory; Editing by Louise Heavens, Mark Potter, Vinay Dwivedi, William Maclean

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October 25, 2022
As UK’s Truss fights for job, new finance minister says she made mistakes
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Truss sacked finance minister on Friday

New chancellor Hunt warns of tough decisions

‘I’ve listened, I get it’, Truss says

BoE’s Bailey says agrees with Hunt on need to fix finances

Some Conservative lawmakers say Truss will be ousted
LONDON, Oct 15 (Reuters) – Britain’s new finance minister Jeremy Hunt said on Saturday some taxes would go up and tough spending decisions were needed, saying Prime Minister Liz Truss had made mistakes as she battles to keep her job just over a month into her term.

In an attempt to appease financial markets that have been in turmoil for three weeks, Truss fired Kwasi Kwarteng as her chancellor of the exchequer on Friday and scrapped parts of their controversial economic package.

With opinion poll ratings dire for both the ruling Conservative Party and the prime minister personally, and many of her own lawmakers asking, not if, but how Truss should be removed, Truss is relying on Hunt to help salvage her premiership less than 40 days after taking office.

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In an article for the Sun newspaper published late on Saturday, Truss admitted the plans had gone “further and faster than the markets were expecting”.

“I’ve listened, I get it,” she wrote. “We cannot pave the way to a low-tax, high-growth economy without maintaining the confidence of the markets in our commitment to sound money.”

She said Hunt would lay out at the end of the month the plan to get national debt down “over the medium term”.

But, the speculation about her future shows no sign of diminishing, with Sunday’s newspapers rife with stories that allies of Rishi Sunak, another former finance minister who she beat to become leader last month, were plotting to force her out within weeks.

On a tour of TV and radio studios, Hunt gave a blunt assessment of the situation the country faced, saying Truss and Kwarteng had made mistakes and further changes to her plans were possible.

“We will have some very difficult decisions ahead,” he said.”The thing that people want, the markets want, the country needs now, is stability.”

The Sunday Times said Hunt would rip up more of Truss’s original package by delaying a planned cut to the basic rate of income tax as part of a desperate bid to balance the books.

According to the newspaper, Britain’s independent fiscal watchdog had said in a draft forecast there could be a 72 billion pound ($80 billion) black hole in public finances by 2027/28, worse than economists had forecast.

Truss had won the leadership contest to replace Boris Johnson on a platform of big tax cuts to stimulate growth, which Kwarteng duly announced last month. But the absence of any details of how the cuts would be funded sent the markets into meltdown.

She has already ditched plans to cut tax for high earners, and said a levy on business would increase, abandoning her proposal to keep it at current levels. But a slump in bond prices after her news conference on Friday still suggested she had not gone far enough.

‘MEETING OF MINDS’

Kwarteng’s Sept. 23 fiscal statement prompted a backlash in financial markets that was so ferocious the Bank of England (BoE) had to intervene to prevent pension funds being caught up in the chaos as borrowing costs surged.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss attends a news conference in London, Britain, October 14, 2022. Daniel Leal/Pool via REUTERS

BoE Governor Andrew Bailey said he had spoken to Hunt and they had agreed on the need to repair the public finances.

“There was a very clear and immediate meeting of minds between us about the importance of fiscal sustainability and the importance of taking measures to do that,” Bailey said in Washington on Saturday. “Of course, there was an important measure taken yesterday.”

He also warned that inflation pressures might require a bigger interest rate rise than previously thought due to the government’s huge energy subsidies for homes and businesses, and its tax cut plans.

Hunt is due to announce the government’s medium-term budget plans on Oct. 31, in what will be a key test of its ability to show it can restore its economic policy credibility.

He cautioned spending would not rise by as much as people would like and all government departments were going to have to find more efficiencies than they were planning.

“Some taxes will not be cut as quickly as people want, and some taxes will go up. So it’s going to be difficult,” he said. He met Treasury officials on Saturday and will hold talks with Truss on Sunday to go through the plans.

‘MISTAKES MADE’

Hunt, an experienced minister and viewed by many in his party as a safe pair of hands, said he agreed with Truss’s fundamental strategy of kickstarting economic growth, but he added that their approach had not worked.

“There were some mistakes made in the last few weeks. That’s why I’m sitting here. It was a mistake to cut the top rate of tax at a period when we’re asking everyone to make sacrifices,” he said.

It was also a mistake, Hunt said, to “fly blind” and produce the tax plans without allowing the independent fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, to check the figures.

The fact that Hunt is Britain’s fourth finance minister in four months is testament to a political crisis that has gripped Britain since Johnson was ousted following a series of scandals.

Hunt said Truss should be judged at an election and on her performance over the next 18 months – not the last 18 days.

However, she might not get that chance. During the leadership contest, Truss won support from less than a third of Conservative lawmakers and has appointed her backers since taking office – alienating those who supported her rivals.

The appointment of Hunt, who ran to be leader himself and then backed Sunak, has been seen as a sign of her reaching out, but the move did little to placate some of her party critics.

“It’s over for her,” one Conservative lawmaker told Reuters after Friday’s events.

($1 = 0.8953 pounds)

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Reporting by Michael Holden, Alistair Smout and William Schomberg
Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Helen Popper, Ros Russell and Diane Craft

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October 15, 2022
China says it reserves right to use force over Taiwan

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BEIJING, Oct 15 (Reuters) – China reserves the right to use force over Taiwan as a last resort in compelling circumstances, though peaceful reunification is its first choice, a Communist Party spokesman said on Saturday.

Reunification of China and Taiwan meets the interests of all, including Taiwan compatriots, Sun Yeli told a news conference in Beijing.

President Xi Jinping is poised to win a third five-year term as general secretary of the ruling party, the most powerful job in the country, at the congress to be held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing for a week starting on Sunday.

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Reporting by Yew Lun Tian, Writing by Martin Quin Pollard

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October 15, 2022
Elon Musk says SpaceX will keep funding Starlink in Ukraine despite losing money

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Oct 15 (Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Saturday his rocket company SpaceX would continue to fund its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds,” a day after he said it could no longer afford to do so.

Musk tweeted: “the hell with it … even though starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding ukraine govt for free”.

Musk said on Friday that SpaceX could not indefinitely fund Starlink in Ukraine. The service has helped civilians and military stay online during the war with Russia.

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Although it was not immediately clear whether Musk’s change of mind was genuine, he later appeared to indicate it was. When a Twitter user told Musk “No good deed goes unpunished”, he replied “Even so, we should still do good deeds”.

The billionaire has been in online fights with Ukrainian officials over a peace plan he put forward which Ukraine says is too generous to Russia.

He had made his Friday remarks about funding after a media report that SpaceX had asked the Pentagon to pay for the donations of Starlink.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment. The Pentagon declined to comment.

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Reporting by David Ljunggren, Matt Spetalnick and Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Sandra Maler

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October 15, 2022
Gunmen kill 11 at Russian army base in new blow to Moscow’s Ukraine campaign
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Ukraine official: religious dispute led to base shootings

Fighting rages in eastern Ukraine, southern Kherson region

Ukrainian forces damage administration building in Donetsk
KYIV, Oct 16 (Reuters) – Russia has opened a criminal investigation after gunmen shot dead 11 people at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border, authorities said on Sunday, as fighting raged in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russia’s RIA news agency, citing the defence ministry, said two gunmen opened fire with small arms during a firearms training exercise on Saturday, targeting personnel who had volunteered to fight in Ukraine. RIA said the gunmen, who it referred to as “terrorists,” were shot dead.

The incident in the southwestern Belgorod region was the latest blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. It came a week after a blast damaged a bridge linking mainland Russia to Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

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Russia’s defence ministry said the attackers were from a former Soviet republic, without elaborating. A senior Ukrainian official, Oleksiy Arestovych, said the two men were from the mainly Muslim Central Asian republic of Tajikistan and had opened fire on the others after an argument over religion.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the comments by Arestovych, a prominent commentator on the war, or independently verify casualty numbers and other details.

“As a result of the incident at a shooting range in Belgorod region, 11 people died from gunshot wounds and another 15 were injured,” Russia’s Investigative Committee said, announcing the criminal investigation. It gave no other details.

Some Russian independent media outlets reported that the number of casualties was higher than the official figures.

The governor of Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said no local residents were among those killed or wounded.

Two witnesses later told Reuters they had seen Russian air defence systems repelling air strikes in Belgorod.

Putin said on Friday Russia should be finished calling up reservists in two weeks, promising an end to a divisive mobilisation in which hundreds of thousands of men have been summoned to fight in Ukraine and many have fled the country.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a strong Putin ally, said last week that his troops would deploy with Russian forces near the Ukrainian border, citing what he said were threats from Ukraine and the West.

The Belarusian defence ministry in Minsk on Sunday said just under 9,000 Russian troops would be stationed in Belarus as part of a “regional grouping” of forces to protect its borders.

RUSSIAN SHELLING

Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions on several fronts on Sunday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said, with the targets including towns in Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions. Russian forces were trying to advance on Bakhmut in Donetsk region and in and around Avdiivka.

Intense fighting is taking place around Bakhmut as well as the town of Soledar, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday in his nightly video address.

FILE PHOTO – An instructor trains Russian newly-mobilised reservists at a shooting range in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Donetsk region, Russian-controlled Ukraine, October 10, 2022. REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

“The key hot spots in Donbas are Soledar and Bakhmut,” Zelenskiy said. “Very heavy fighting is going on there.”

Bakhmut has been the next target of Russia’s armed forces in their slow move through the Donetsk region since taking the key industrial towns of Lysychansk and Sievierodonetsk in June and July. Soledar is located just north of Bakhmut.

Fighting has been particularly intense this weekend in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, and the strategically important Kherson province in the south, three of the four provinces Putin proclaimed as part of Russia last month.

Shelling by Ukrainian forces damaged the administration building in the city Donetsk, capital of the Donetsk region, the head of its Russian-backed administration said on Sunday.

“It was a direct hit, the building is seriously damaged. It is a miracle nobody was killed,” said Alexei Kulemzin, surveying the wreckage, adding that all city services were still working.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the attack on Donetsk city, which was annexed by Russian-backed separatists in 2014 along with swathes of the eastern Donbas region.

Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday its forces had repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, inflicting what it described as significant losses.

Russia also said it was continuing air strikes on military and energy targets in Ukraine, using long-range precision-guided weapons.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the battlefield reports.

In the city of Mykolaiv, residents queued on Sunday – as they do every day – to fill water bottles at a distribution point after supplies were severed by fighting early in the war.

“This is not war, this is a war crime. War is when soldiers fight with each other, but when civilians are being fought, it’s a war crime,” said Vadym Antonyuk, a 51-year-old sales manager, as he stood in line.

A spokeswoman for Ukraine’s Southern Military Command said Russian forces were suffering severe shortages of equipment including ammunition as a result of the damage inflicted last weekend on the Crimea Bridge.

“Almost 75% (of Russian military supplies in southern Ukraine) came across that bridge,” Natalia Humeniuk told Ukrainian television, adding that strong winds had also now stopped ferries in the area.

“Now even the sea is on our side,” Humeniuk said.

Putin blamed Ukrainian security services for the bridge blast and last Monday, in retaliation, ordered the biggest aerial offensive against Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv, since the start of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.

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Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by David Ljunggren, Matt Spetalnick, Gareth Jones and James Oliphant; editing by Michael Perry, Tomasz Janowski, Will Dunham and Nick Macfie

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October 15, 2022
Germany’s Scholz calls for bigger European Union

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BERLIN, Oct 15 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday called for an expanded European Union, telling a gathering of European social democrats that it would then be able to better pull its weight in global affairs.

Since assuming office, Scholz has made European Union expansion to include the Balkans and others nations a major plank of his foreign policy. It has taken on more urgency since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which became a candidate for EU membership early this summer.

“An EU with 27, 30, 36 states, with then more than 500 million free and equal citizens, can bring its weight to bear even more strongly in the world,” Scholz said at the congress.

The EU currently has 27 members.

“I am committed to the enlargement of the EU. That the EU continues to grow eastward is a win-win for all of us,” he said.

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Reporting by Andreas Rinke; writing by Tom Sims, editing by William Maclean

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October 15, 2022
OPEC+ JMMC agrees oil output cuts of 2 mln bpd – sources

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LONDON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – OPEC+ key ministers, known as the joint ministerial monitoring committee, has agreed oil production cuts of 2 million barrels per day, three OPEC+ sources said.

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Reporting by OPEC Newsroom; editing by David Evans

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October 5, 2022
Turkey summons Swedish envoy over ‘insulting content’ about Erdogan on TV -Anadolu

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ISTANBUL, Oct 5 (Reuters) – NATO member Turkey summoned the Swedish ambassador over “insulting content” about President Tayyip Erdogan aired on Swedish public service television, Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu Agency said on Wednesday.

Sweden and Finland applied for membership in NATO earlier this year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. So far 28 of the current 30 member states’ parliaments have approved the application, but Turkey has raised objections.

Summoned to Turkey’s foreign ministry, Swedish Ambassador Staffan Herrstrom was told that the “impertinent and ugly expression and images” about Erdogan and Turkey were unacceptable, according to Anadolu.

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The move came as a Swedish delegation was expected in Ankara to discuss details about the extradition of people Turkey regards as terrorists, which Ankara says is a condition to approve Sweden and Finland’s bids to join NATO.

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson played down the importance of the satirical TV show over which Ankara protested, and said she did not think it would harm Sweden’s chances to join NATO.

“I think what is important for Turkey is, of course, that we live up to the agreement that we have made,” she told a news conference.

The weekly TV satire “Swedish News”, which routinely makes fun of Swedish and international politicians, mocked Erdogan over alleged human rights abuses and ended the segment by shouting, “Long live democracy!”

The comic news show has drawn criticism from foreign authorities in the past, with the Chinese embassy in Stockholm demanding an apology in 2018 for what it maintained was a racist portrayal of Chinese citizens.

Swedish public service television is tax-funded but operates independently in day-to-day operations.

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Reporting by Ali Kucukgocmen and Ece Toksabay in Istanbul, additional reporting by Anna Ringstrom and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Mark Heinrich

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October 5, 2022
Biden disappointed by ‘shortsighted’ OPEC+ cut, more SPR releases possible

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WASHINGTON, Oct 5 (Reuters) – President Joe Biden called on his administration and Congress to explore ways to boost U.S. energy production and reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices after the cartel’s “shortsighted” production cut, the White House said on Wednesday.

The Saudi Arabia-led OPEC+ cartel at a Vienna meeting on Wednesday ignored pleas from the White House to keep oil flowing and agreed to cut output by 2 million barrels per day, its deepest cuts in production since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.

The move drew a sharp response from Biden that underscores the growing rift between the United States and Saudi Arabia on energy policy.

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“The President is disappointed by the shortsighted decision by OPEC+ to cut production quotas while the global economy is dealing with the continued negative impact of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s invasion of Ukraine,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council Director Brian Deese said in a statement.

Biden warned that he will now continue to direct releases from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve “as necessary,” a shift from the White House’s previous comments that it would end the drawdown in the coming weeks.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration announced the largest sale ever from the reserve: 180 million barrels for six months beginning in May. Last month it extended that historic sale into November as only about 155 million barrels had been sold. It now aims to sell 165 million through November.

As a result, the amount of oil in the reserve has fallen to the lowest level since July 1984. It now holds about 416 million barrels of oil, well above what the United States is required by its membership in the International Energy Agency, at sites on the Texas and Louisiana coasts.

Rising oil and fuel prices are a risk to Biden’s fellow Democrats as they seek to keep control of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Biden also pledged to consult with Congress on additional tools to cut OPEC’s control over energy prices, a potential reference to a decades-long effort to open the cartel to antitrust lawsuits for orchestrating supply cuts.

The so-called NOPEC bill, which has brought up numerous times over the past 20 years but never enacted, easily passed a Senate committee in May.

The White House has previously expressed concerns about unintended consequences of the bill.

The White House is also worried about the cut cementing Saudi Arabia’s closer cooperation with Russia, also a member of OPEC+, as oil revenues fund Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine.

“Look it’s clear that OPEC Plus is aligning with Russia with today’s announcement,” White House spokesperson Karine-Jean Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday.

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Reporting by Susan Heavey and Jarrett Renshaw; editing by Tim Ahmann and David Gregorio

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October 5, 2022