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NATO and Poland say deadly blast was likely unintentional
NATO and Poland say deadly blast was likely unintentional – CBS News
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Here’s how much more Thanksgiving dinner will cost you this year
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In early November, Hays Culbreth’s mother sent a poll to a few family members. She said she could only afford to make two sides for their group of 15 this Thanksgiving and asked them each to vote for their favorites.
Culbreth guesses green beans and macaroni and cheese will make the cut, but his favorite — sweet potato casserole with a brown sugar crust — will not.
“Talk about Thanksgiving being ruined,” joked Culbreth, 27, a financial planner from Knoxville, Tennessee.
Americans are bracing for a costly Thanksgiving this year, with double-digit percent increases in the price of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, canned pumpkin and other staples. The U.S. government estimates food prices will be up 9.5% to 10.5% this year; historically, they’ve risen only 2% annually.
Lower production and higher costs for labor, transportation and items are part of the reason; disease, rough weather and the war in Ukraine are also contributors.
“This really isn’t a shortage thing. This is tighter supplies with some pretty good reasons for it,” said David Anderson, a professor and agricultural economist at Texas A&M.
Wholesale turkey prices are at record highs after a difficult year for U.S. flocks. A particularly deadly strain of avian flu — first reported in February on an Indiana turkey farm — has wiped out 49 million turkeys and other poultry in 46 states this year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
As a result, U.S. turkey supplies per capita are at their lowest level since 1986, said Mark Jordan, the executive director of Jonesboro, Arkansas-based Leap Market Analytics. Jordan predicts the wholesale price of a frozen, 8-16 pound turkey hen — the type typically purchased for Thanksgiving — will hit $1.77 per pound in November, up 28% from the same month last year.
Still, there will be plenty of whole birds for Thanksgiving tables, Jordan said. Companies have been shifting a higher percentage of birds into the whole turkey market for the last few years to take advantage of the consistent holiday demand.
And not every producer was equally affected. Butterball — which supplies around one-third of Thanksgiving turkeys — said avian flu impacted only about 1% of its production because of security measures it put in place after the last big bout of flu in 2015.
But it could be harder for shoppers to find turkey breasts or other cuts, Jordan said. And higher ham prices are giving cooks fewer cheap alternatives, he said.
Avian flu also pushed egg prices into record territory, Anderson said. In the second week of November, a dozen Grade A eggs were selling for an average of $2.28, more than double the price from the prior year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Egg prices would have been higher even without the flu, Anderson said, because of the rising cost of the corn and soybean meal used for chicken feed. Ukraine is normally a major exporter of corn, and the loss of that supply has caused global prices to soar.
Pricier pumpkins
Add that to rising prices for canned pumpkin — a 30-ounce can is up 17% from last year, according to market researcher Datasembly — and it’s clear Thanksgiving dessert will be costlier too. Nestle-owned Libby — which produces 85% of the world’s canned pumpkin — said pumpkin harvests were in line with previous years, but it had to compensate for higher labor, transportation, fuel and energy costs.
Plan to fill up on sides? That will also cost you. A 16-ounce box of stuffing costs 14% more than last year, Datasemby said. And a 5-pound bag of Russet potatoes averaged $3.26 the second week of November, or 45.5% higher than a year ago.
Craig Carlson, the CEO of Chicago-based Carlson Produce Consulting, said frost and a wet spring severely stunted potato growth this year. Growers also raised prices to compensate for the higher cost of seeds, fertilizer, diesel fuel and machinery. Production costs are up as much as 35% for some growers this year, an increase they can’t always recoup, Carlson said.
Higher labor and food costs are also making it more expensive to order a prepared meal. Whole Foods is advertising a classic Thanksgiving feast for eight people for $179.99. That’s $40 more than the advertised price last year.
Good year to eat out
While eating out is typically more costly than dining at home, going to a restaurant could be a relative bargain this Thanksgiving compared with high grocery store prices.
Restaurant prices are also elevated, but they have risen at a slower pace. The cost of food at restaurants and other vendors is up 5.8%, compared to food from grocery stores or supermarkets, which shot up nearly 10% from November 2021 to August 2022, Wells Fargo analysts noted in a recent report.
Thanksgiving-specific food items — including eggs, flour and fruits and vegetables — purchased at stores are even more costly, having risen 14.9% over that time, according to the report, which was based on consumer price index data.
The good news? Not every item on holiday shopping lists is significantly more expensive. Cranberries had a good harvest and prices were up less than 5% between the end of September and the beginning of November, said Paul Mitchell, an agricultural economist and professor at the University of Wisconsin. Green beans cost just 2 cents more per pound in the second week of November, according to the USDA.
And many grocers are discounting turkeys and other holiday staples in the hope that shoppers will spend more freely on other items. Walmart is promising turkeys for less than $1 per pound and says ham, potatoes and stuffing will cost the same as they did last year. Kroger and Lidl have also cut prices, so shoppers can spend $5 or less per person on a meal for 10. Aldi is rolling back prices to 2019 levels.
But Hays Culbreth isn’t optimistic about his casserole. He’s not much of a chef, so he plans to pick up a couple of pumpkin pies at the grocery on the way to his family’s feast.
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Poland blast likely caused by Ukrainian missile
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Poland blast likely caused by Ukrainian missile – CBS News
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Poland, NATO say missile that killed two likely fired by Ukraine defending against Russian attack | CNN
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Bali, Indonesia
CNN
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The leaders of Poland and NATO said the missile that killed two people in Polish territory on Tuesday was likely fired by Ukrainian forces defending their country against a barrage of Russian strikes, and that the incident appeared to be an accident.
The blast occurred outside the village outside the rural eastern Polish village of Przewodow, about four miles (6.4 kilometers) west from the Ukrainian border on Tuesday afternoon, roughly the same time as Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month.
On Wednesday, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a press conference that there was a “high chance” it was an air defense missile from the Ukrainian side and likely had fallen in Poland in “an accident” while intercepting incoming Russian missiles.
“There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland. Most likely, it was a Russian-made S-300 rocket,” Duda said in a tweet earlier Wednesday.
Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, including the S-300 surface-to-air missile system, which Kyiv has deployed as part of its air defenses.
The incident in Poland, a NATO country, prompted ambassadors from the US-led military alliance to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels Wednesday.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg too said there was no indication the incident was the result of a deliberate attack by either side, and that Ukrainian forces were not to blame for defending their country from Russia’s assault.
“Our preliminary analysis suggests that the incident was likely caused by the Ukrainian air defense missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks,” Stoltenberg said. “But let me be clear, this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility, as it continues its illegal war against Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg also said there were no signs that Russia was planning to attack NATO countries, in comments that appeared to be intended to defuse escalating tensions.
News of the incident overnight led to a flurry of activity thousands of miles away in Indonesia, where US President Joe Biden convened an emergency meeting with some world leaders to discuss the matter on the sidelines of the G20 summit.
A joint statement following the emergency meeting at the G20 was deliberately ambiguous when it came to the incident, putting far more focus on the dozens of strikes that happened in the hours before the missile crossed into Poland.
Duda and Stoltenberg’s comments tally with those of two officials briefed on initial US assessments, who told CNN it appeared the missile was Russian-made and originated in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military told the US and allies that it attempted to intercept a Russian missile in that timeframe and near the location of the Poland missile strike, a US official told CNN. It’s not clear that this air defense missile is the same missile that struck Poland, but this information has informed the ongoing US assessment of the strike.
The National Security Council said that the US has “full confidence” in the Polish investigation into the blast and that the “party ultimately responsible” for the incident is Russia for its ongoing invasion.
Investigations at the site where the missile landed will continue to be a joint operation with the US, Polish President Duda said Wednesday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for Ukrainian experts to be allowed to the site.
Zelensky said Wednesday he did not believe that the missile was launched by his forces, and called for Ukrainian experts to play a part in the investigation. “I have no doubt that it was not our missile,” he told reporters in Kyiv.
Earlier Wednesday, a Zelensky adviser said the incident was a result of Russia’s aggression but did not explicitly deny reports that the missile could have been launched by the Ukrainian side.
“Russia has turned the eastern part of the European continent into an unpredictable battlefield. Intent, means of execution, risks, escalation – it is all coming from Russia alone,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in a statement to CNN.
A spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force said on national television Wednesday that the military would “do everything” to facilitate the Polish investigation.
Earlier, Biden said that preliminary information suggested it was unlikely the missile that landed in Poland was fired from Russia, after consulting with allies at the G20 Summit in Bali.
“I don’t want to say that [it was fired from Russia] until we completely investigate,” Biden went on. “It’s unlikely in the minds of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia. But we’ll see.”
Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russia doesn’t have “any relation” with the missile incident in Poland, and that some leaders have made statements without understanding “what actually happened.”
“The Poles had every opportunity to immediately report that they were talking about the wreckage of the S-300 air defense system missile. And, accordingly, all experts would have understood that this could not be a missile that had any relation with the Russian Armed Forces,” Peskov said during a regular call with journalists.
“We have witnessed another hysterical frenzied Russophobic reaction, which was not based on any real evidence. High-ranking leaders of different countries made statements without any idea about what actually happened.”
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNN that NATO allies must “keep a cool head” in light of the incident.
“I think we really have to keep a cool head, knowing there might be a spillover effect, especially to those countries that are very close [to Ukraine],” Kallas told CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour in an interview Wednesday.
The incident comes after Russia unleashed a barrage of 85 missiles on Ukraine Tuesday, predominantly targeting energy infrastructure. The bombardment caused city blackouts and knocked out power to 10 million people nationwide. Power has since been restored to eight million consumers, Zelensky later confirmed.
Ukrainians across the country were expected to face further scheduled and unscheduled power cuts Wednesday.
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As Xi reemerges, Europe again falls prey to China’s divide-and-rule tactics
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BALI, Indonesia — Every European leader at this week’s G20 summit in Bali wanted a one-on-one meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Not everyone got one.
The Europeans’ desire to meet Xi was driven by the fact that this week was the first opportunity to meet the Chinese leader at a major diplomatic jamboree since the lockdowns of early 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic started in China and spread to the world.
The Europeans always had to accept that they were going to be fighting for the crumbs in terms of the timetable. U.S. President Joe Biden spent three and a half hours with Xi, while France’s President Emmanuel Macron had to be content with (a still perfectly respectable) 43 minutes.
China conspicuously revived its long-established tactic of courting specific EU countries and their national interests, something it has often used to destabilize Brussels. (When Brussels threatened an all-out trade war in 2013 over China undercutting the EU market in solar panels and telecoms equipment, China expertly shattered EU unity by threatening retaliatory action against French and Spanish wine, playing Paris and Madrid against EU trade officials.)
Once again in Bali, China took the canny nation-to-nation approach, meeting Macron, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the Netherlands’ Mark Rutte, while avoiding European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel. A meeting with Michel, at least, had been widely expected in diplomatic circles.
China bristles at the EU designation that it is a “systemic rival” to Brussels, and instead decided to leverage its influence with individual European countries.
Take the meeting with Rutte. The Chinese leader’s main interest was that the Netherlands, home to chipmaker ASML, a company that makes key equipment for microchip manufacturing, should not join any EU-U.S. trade coalition seeking to box China out of new technologies.
“It is hoped that the Netherlands would enhance Europe’s commitment to openness and cooperation,” Xi noted in a readout of the Dutch meeting. Translation: Don’t make trade trouble over microchips.
With Sánchez, Xi played up the importance of China as a motor for tourism in Spain, a sector where Madrid is particularly interested in high-rolling visitors from Asia. “The two sides need to make good preparations for the China-Spain Year of Culture and Tourism to build greater popular support for China-Spain friendship,” Xi said.
Similarly, the Xinhua state news agency quoted Macron saying he wanted more cooperation on business, specifically in the aviation and civil nuclear energy sectors. The Chinese account of the Xi-Meloni meeting was that Beijing would import more “high-quality” goods — presumably of the luxury and gourmet variety — and would cooperate in manufacturing, energy and aerospace.
Macron cozies up to Xi
In a sign that Xi’s diplomatic strategy was paying dividends, Macron took a non-confrontational approach to Xi, even massaging the Chinese leader’s ego.
The Chinese embassy to Paris promoted a video by TikTok’s domestic Chinese equivalent Douyin, in which Macron passed his best wishes to China after Xi secured a norm-breaking new mandate. (Xi was appointed for a third term as Communist Party general secretary in a highly choreographed party congress.)
Macron also hailed Xi as a “sincere” figure who should “play the role of a mediator over the next few months” in stopping further Russian aggression against Ukraine — even though Beijing has shown no sign of being a good fit for such a role since the war broke out in February.
Ignoring China’s deadly Himalayan tensions with India, escalating tension with Taiwan or military adventurism in the South China Sea, Macron declared: “China calls for peace … [There is] a deep and I know sincere attachment to … the U.N. charter.”
Macron also told reporters he planned to visit China early next year. That looks like a riposte to the visit by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who visited China earlier this month. Scholz reportedly rejected Paris’ suggestion for a joint Macron-Scholz visit and decided to go alone with a delegation of big businesses.
“Macron needed this air-time with Xi enormously as he couldn’t be seen to be left out by China when the Americans and the Germans have dominated the headlines,” a Western diplomat said.
While Macron claimed that Xi agreed with him on a “call for respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” China’s own readout made no such mention, saying only: “China stands for a ceasefire, cessation of the conflict and peace talks.”
Brussels boxed out
In stark contrast to the French, Spanish, Dutch and Italian leaders, the Brussels-based EU chiefs didn’t get a look-in.
In a show of Beijing’s continually negative view of the European Union, Xi decided not to go ahead with what POLITICO understood to be a near-certain plan for Michel, the one representing all 27 countries, to meet Xi.
That event, had it been allowed to take place, would have been significant in showcasing the possibility for the bloc’s smaller economies to also make their voice heard, since Xi would otherwise be busy dealing with the bigger players.
Xi’s change of heart over a meeting with Michel came shortly after the EU Council president’s prerecorded speech at a Shanghai trade expo was dropped. According to Reuters, he tried to call out Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine in the speech, a message that was deemed too sensitive to Chinese ears.
Commission President von der Leyen, meanwhile, busied herself not with plans to line up a meeting with Xi, but on a joint show with Biden to focus on infrastructure financing for developing countries in order to rival China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
In a thinly veiled criticism of China’s approach to the new Silk Road, von der Leyen said: “The [West’s] Partnership Global for Infrastructure and Investment is an important geostrategic initiative in era of strategic competition.
“Together with leading democracies we offer values-driven, high-standard, and transparent infrastructure partnerships for low- and middle-income countries,” she said.
Her tone, though, proved to be a minority among European leaders during the G20 engagement with China.
“There’s no common message from the EU on China,” according to another EU diplomat in Bali. “But then there never was one.”
To the relief of European diplomats, at least Xi did not handle their bosses in the same way he treated Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
“Everything we discuss has been leaked to the paper; that’s not appropriate,” Xi told Trudeau through an interpreter in a clip recorded by Canadian media.
“That’s not … the way the conversation was conducted. If there is sincerity on your part …” Xi said, before Trudeau interrupted him, defending his country’s interest in working “constructively” with Beijing.
Xi took his turn to interrupt. “Let’s create the conditions first,” Xi said.
Go and stand in the corner, Justin.
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Stuart Lau
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NATO chief says Poland blast likely caused by Ukrainian missile — but not Ukraine’s fault
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Members of the police searching the fields near the village of Przewodow in Poland on November 16, 2022. Two people were killed on Tuesday in an explosion at a farm near the village in south-eastern Poland that lies about six kilometers inside the country’s border with Ukraine.
Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
NATO said there was no indication that the missile strike that hit a Polish border village on Tuesday night was deliberate, saying that Russia was ultimately to blame as it continues to bombard Ukraine with missiles.
The military alliance’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the missile incident took place “as Russia launched a massive wave of rocket attacks across Ukraine.”
While the investigation was ongoing into the incident, he said, “there was no indication this was the result of a deliberate attack” and no indication it was a result of “offensive military actions against NATO.”
Preliminary analysis, as previously reported, suggests the incident was caused by a Ukrainian air defense missile fired to intercept a Russian missile.
“Let me be clear, this is not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears the ultimate responsibility as it continues its war against Ukraine,” he said.
The comments come after the alliance’s North Atlantic Council held an emergency meeting following the missile strike that hit Poland on Tuesday night, killing two civilians.
Early Wednesday morning, The Associated Press reported, citing three unnamed U.S. officials, that preliminary assessments indicated “the missile that struck Poland had been fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.”
Other media agencies, including NBC News, cited similar details on Wednesday; Reuters reported a NATO source as saying President Joe Biden had told the G-7 and NATO partners that the strike was caused by “a Ukrainian air defense missile,” while The Wall Street Journal cited two senior Western officials briefed on the preliminary U.S. assessments as saying the missile was from a Ukrainian air defense system.
Those assessments came after Biden said Tuesday that it was “unlikely” the missile was fired from Russia, citing the trajectory of the rocket. President Andrzej Duda of Poland said Wednesday that there was no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland.
“There are many indications that it was an air defense missile, which unfortunately fell on Polish territory,” Duda said.
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Kyiv says Poland strike a ‘very sensitive issue’ after reports say Ukrainian forces fired the missile
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky makes a surprise visit to Kherson on November 14, 2022 in Kherson, Ukraine.
Paula Bronstein | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Ukraine’s defense ministry responded cautiously to reports suggesting its own armed forces fired a missile that hit Poland, killing two people, saying the issue was “very sensitive” as more details emerge about the incident.
Early Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported, citing three unnamed U.S. officials, that preliminary assessments indicated “the missile that struck Poland had been fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian missile.”
Other media agencies cited similar details on Wednesday with Reuters reporting a NATO source saying President Joe Biden had told the G-7 and NATO partners that the strike was caused by “a Ukrainian air defense missile,” while the Wall Street Journal cited two senior Western officials briefed on the preliminary U.S. assessments as saying the missile was from a Ukrainian air-defense system.
Ukraine’s ministry was cautious about that initial assessment as investigations continued and NATO prepared to meet in an emergency session in Brussels on Wednesday.
Late Tuesday, U.S. President Joe Biden said it’s “unlikely” the missile that killed two people in Poland was fired from Russia, citing the trajectory of the rocket. President Andrzej Duda of Poland said Tuesday night that his government didn’t yet conclusively know who fired a missile that struck Polish territory.
Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, told CNBC that Kyiv welcomed a thorough investigation of the incident, but said the issue was “very sensitive.”
“It is too early to give any definitive answers and it’s very dangerous to jump to any conclusions,” Sak said Wednesday morning.
“I would like to just stress once again that right now, the president of Poland has said that there are no conclusive evidence of what exactly has happened. [U.S. President] Joe Biden, when he was making his comment, he was also cautious because everybody understands that this is a very sensitive issue,” he said.
“Before any conclusions are made, an investigation must be done. So, that is where we stand,” he said.
Police run a check point outside the scene in Przewodow, Poland, where authorities in Warsaw say a Russian-made missile struck its territory, killing two civilians.
Omar Marques | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Tuesday night’s incident came after Ukraine suffered a wave of missile strikes by Russia with one Ukrainian official saying over 90 missiles were fired at the country. The attacks knocked out energy infrastructure across Ukraine, reportedly leaving 7 million people without power.
For its part, Ukraine blamed Russia for the missile that hit Poland last night, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reportedly telling his Polish counterpart that it was “a rocket launched from the territory of the Russian Federation.” Russia said it had not fired the missile and called it a “deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation.”
Ukrainian defense official Yuriy Sak told CNBC that Ukraine’s international allies should have responded to Kyiv’s repeated requests for them to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
NATO refused to do that early in the war, fearing it would be dragged into a direct conflict with nuclear power Russia.
“What we want to stress is that if there was no invasion of Ukraine, yesterday would not have happened. If the Ukrainian sky would have been closed at our request by our allies, this would not have happened,” Sak said, echoing comments by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak who said Wednesday morning that “none of this would be happening if it wasn’t for the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
Sak said it was crucial that the missile incident didn’t distract from Ukraine’s defense needs.
“It is very important that we don’t shift the focus now and that we continue to discuss the options for further closing the Ukrainian sky, providing Ukraine with efficient air defense systems, because what needs to happen is that we need to all collectively make sure that such tragic incidents as yesterday do not happen again,” he said.
World leaders hold an emergency meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion on Polish territory. Shown are U.S. President Joe Biden (C), U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Japan Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President Charles Michel, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Netherlands’ Prime Minister Mark Rutte and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
Ludovic Marin | AFP | Getty Images
As a flurry of urgent and high-level diplomatic talks are taking place among NATO members on Wednesday, defense analysts suggested that, whether Russia fired the missile or not, it bears a lot responsibility for the attack.
“Russia is to some degree culpable regardless, because it’s firing missiles on civilian infrastructure targets, and firing them dangerously close to NATO territory and the Ukrainian-Polish border, and Ukraine needs to defend itself,” Samuel Ramani, a geopolitical analyst and associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute defense think tank, told CNBC Wednesday.
“But it may not be that Russia intentionally targeted Poland, and it could be Ukraine doing it. So right now, I think we need an investigation to figure out what’s really happening.”
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G20 leaders’ declaration condemns Russia’s war ‘in strongest terms’ | CNN
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Bali, Indonesia
CNN
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Russia’s international isolation grew Wednesday, as world leaders issued a joint declaration condemning its war in Ukraine that has killed thousands of people and roiled the global economy.
The Group of 20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, concluded Wednesday with a leaders’ statement that “deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine and demands its complete and unconditional withdrawal from the territory of Ukraine.”
Speaking after the closing of the summit, Indonesian President and G20 host Joko Widodo told a news conference that “world leaders agreed on the content of the declaration, namely condemnation to the war in Ukraine” which violates its territorial integrity. However, some of the language used in the declaration pointed to disagreement among members on issues around Ukraine.
“This war has caused massive public suffering, and also jeopardizing the global economy that is still vulnerable from the pandemic, which also caused risks for food and energy crises, as well as financial crisis. The G20 discussed the impact of war to the global economy,” he said.
The 17-page document is a major victory for the United States and its allies who have pushed to end the summit with a strong condemnation of Russia, though it also acknowledged a rift among member states.
“Most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy,” it said. “There were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions.”
Jokowi said the G20 members’ stance on the war in Ukraine was the “most debated” paragraph.
“Until late midnight yesterday we discussed about this, and at the end the Bali leaders’ declaration was agreed unanimously in consensus,” Jokowi said.
“We agreed that the war has negative impact to the global economy, and the global economic recovery will also not be achieved without any peace.”
The statement came hours after Poland said a “Russian-made missile” had landed in a village near its border with Ukraine, killing two people.
It remains unclear who fired that missile. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces have used Russian-made munitions during the conflict, with Ukraine deploying Russian-made missiles as part of their air defense system. But whatever the outcome of the investigation into the deadly strike, the incident underscored the dangers of miscalculation in a brutal war that has stretched on for nearly nine months, and which risks escalating further and dragging major powers into it.
Waking up to the news, US President Joe Biden and leaders from the G7 and NATO convened an emergency meeting in Bali to discuss the explosion.
The passing of the joint declaration would have required the buy-in from leaders that share close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin – most notably Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who declared a “no-limits” friendship between their countries weeks before the invasion, and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
While India is seen to have distanced itself from Russia, whether there has been any shift of position from China is less clear. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has called for a ceasefire and agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in a flurry of bilateral meetings with Western leaders on the sidelines of the G20, but he has given no public indication of any commitment to persuade his “close friend” Vladimir Putin to end the war.
Since Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine in February, Beijing has refused to label the military aggression as an “invasion” or “war,” and has amplified Russian propaganda blaming the conflict on NATO and the US while decrying sanctions.
When discussing Ukraine with leaders from the US, France and other nations, Xi invariably stuck to terms such as “the Ukraine crisis” or “the Ukraine issue” and avoided the word “war,” according to Chinese readouts.
In those meetings, Xi reiterated China’s call for a ceasefire through dialogue, and, according to readouts from his interlocutors, agreed to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine – but those remarks are not included in China’s account of the talks.
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi later told Chinese state media that Xi had reiterated China’s position in his meeting with Biden that “nuclear weapons cannot be used and a nuclear war cannot be fought.”
In a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov Tuesday, Wang praised Russia for holding the same position. “China noticed that Russia has recently reaffirmed the established position that ‘a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,’ which shows Russia’s rational and responsible attitude,” Wang was quoted as saying by state news agency Xinhua.
Wang is one of the few – if not only – foreign officials to have sat down for a formal meeting with Lavrov, who has faced isolation and condemnation at a summit where he stood in for Putin.
On Tuesday, Lavrov sat through the opening of the summit listening to world leaders condemn Russia’s brutal invasion. Indonesian President and G20 host Widodo told world leaders “we must end the war.” “If the war does not end, it will be difficult for the world to move forward,” he said.
Xi, meanwhile, made no mention of Ukraine in his opening remarks. Instead, the Chinese leader made a thinly veiled criticism of the US – without mentioning it by name – for “drawing ideological lines” and “promoting group politics and bloc confrontation.”
Compared with the ambiguous stance of China, observers have noted a more obvious shift from India – and the greater role New Delhi is willing to play in engaging all sides.
On Tuesday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for leaders to “find a way to return to the path of ceasefire and diplomacy in Ukraine” in his opening remarks at the summit.
The draft of the joint declaration also includes a sentence: “Today’s era must not be of war.” The language echos what Modi told Putin in September, on the sidelines of a regional summit in Uzbekistan.
“If the Indian language was used in the text, that means Western leaders are listening to India as a major stakeholder in the region, because India is a country that is close to both the West and Russia,” said Happymon Jacob, associate professor of diplomacy and disarmament at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.
“And we are seeing India disassociating itself from Russia in many ways.”
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CBS Evening News, November 15, 2022
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CBS Evening News, November 15, 2022 – CBS News
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Trump offers a dark vision voters have already rejected as he launches his 2024 campaign | CNN Politics
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It’s American carnage, round three.
Ex-President Donald Trump on Tuesday dragged Americans back into his dystopian worldview of a failing nation scarred by crime-ridden cities turned into “cesspools of blood,” and swamped by immigrants. He added a scary new twist at a time of global tensions, claiming the country was on the verge of tumbling into nuclear war.
Launching his bid for a third consecutive Republican presidential nomination, Trump conversely painted his own turbulent single term, which ended in his attempt to destroy democracy and a mismanaged pandemic, as a “golden age” of prosperity and American global dominance.
The new Trump – for the 2024 campaign – is the same as the old Trump.
He pounded out a message of American decline, highlighted raging inflation and slammed President Joe Biden as aged, weak, and disrespected by US enemies, while highlighting his own chummy ties with global dictators, like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who seek to weaken American power.
When the 76-year-old former property tycoon, reality star and commander in chief promised a new “quest to save our country,” he encapsulated the challenges that his new campaign poses for his own party and the rest of the United States.
To begin with, in the gold-leafed ballroom of his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump steered clear of the election denialism that helped doom multiple Republican nominees in the midterm elections and that has inspired skepticism of his viability among GOP lawmakers in Washington.
But as usual, his self-discipline didn’t hold, as he descended further into his personal obsessions the longer he went on, portraying himself as a “victim,” raising new suspicion about the US election system and slamming ongoing criminal probes against him as politicized and deeply unfair. The speech lacked the riotous nature and energy of his campaign rallies. But Trump’s material was a familiar rhetorical cocktail of grievance certain to enthuse his base supporters.
However, it may have come across to many of the swing voters in the states that he lost in 2020 as authoritarian demagoguery. Many of those voters deserted Republicans yet again last week, as the party failed to win back the Senate and as it still waits to confirm it will win only a slim majority in the House. Many GOP lawmakers squarely blame the lack of a red wave on Trump – for foisting extreme, election-denying candidates on the party in key states. That’s why there is increasing interest in potential alternative candidates like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who roared to reelection last week, and has recently proved, unlike Trump, that he can build a broad coalition with Trump-style policies but without the chaos epitomized by the 45th president.
And yet by launching his campaign so early – before the 2022 election is even finalized – the ex-president is seeking to freeze the GOP field. And there is so far no evidence that his devoted supporters will desert him.
What could be the opening acts of a new election clash between Trump and Biden unfolded over multiple time zones. As Trump was speaking, the current president – who confounded historic expectations of a midterm election drubbing – was at another beach resort, in Bali, Indonesia.
Biden spent the moments leading up to Trump’s speech huddled with other world leaders seeking a united response to a possibly alarming escalation in the war in Ukraine after an explosion on the territory of NATO ally Poland. There was some irony to the fact that Biden was leading the same Western alliance at a moment of peril that Trump frequently had undermined while in office. (Biden said after a day of rising global tensions that first indications were that the missile that fell onto a Polish farm, killing two people, did not originate in Russia.)
Epitomizing the gulf between a president’s duties and the frivolity of the campaign trail, Biden, when asked if he had a comment on Trump’s launch, replied: “No, not really.”
Trump referred briefly to the FBI search of his home at Mar-a-Lago for his hoard of highly classified documents and subpoenas sent to his family members. It was a reminder that his campaign raises the extraordinary scenario of a candidate for president running for a new term while facing multiple criminal investigations and the possibility of indictment by the Justice Department. Trump, who has not been charged with a crime, is being investigated over the classified documents, the run-up to the US Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021, and in Georgia over his attempt to steal Biden’s win in the crucial swing state in 2020.
Trump has already claimed that he is being persecuted because Biden wants to stop him from becoming president again – an accusation likely to be embraced by his millions of supporters. Thus, the clash between his campaign and various investigations into his conduct promises to inflict even more damage on political and legal institutions that he kept under continuous assault as president.
One thing noticeably missing from Trump’s speech was acknowledgment of his unprecedented attempt to interrupt 250 years of peaceful transfers of power between presidents. But the Capitol insurrection is an indelible stain that is sure to haunt his campaign. CNN has exclusively reported that top DOJ officials have considered whether a special counsel would be needed during the Trump campaign to avoid potential political conflicts of interest.
Trump is trying to pull off a historic feat accomplished by only one previous president – Grover Cleveland, who became the only commander in chief to serve nonconsecutive terms after he won a return to the White House in 1892.
A Trump victory in 2024 would represent a stunning rebound given that he is the only president to have been impeached twice – once for trying to coerce Ukraine into investigating Biden, and secondly for inciting the mob attack on the Capitol, one of the most flagrant assaults ever on US democracy.
A return to the Oval Office for Trump would stun the world. His record of disdaining US allies and coddling dictators such as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un fractured decades of US foreign policy and made the United States – long a force for stability in the world – into one of its most erratic powers.
Trump left office in disgrace in 2021, after the assault on the Capitol, not even bothering to attend the inauguration of his successor and insisting ever since that the election was corrupt – despite no evidence and against the findings of multiple courts and his own Justice Department.
Ever since, the ex-president has made his lies about the 2020 election the centerpiece of a political movement that still has millions of followers – as was seen with the primary victories of some of his handpicked candidates in this year’s midterm elections.
But many Trump-backed candidates failed to win competitive general elections. And Trump’s 2024 campaign will test whether there are Republicans who, while they may be drawn in by Trump’s bulldozing style and populist, nationalist instincts, will tire of the drama and chaos that surround him. It will also pose a question of whether a new generation of Republicans, who have tapped into his political base and the “America first” principles of Trumpism – like DeSantis, for example – are ready to challenge the movement’s still wildly popular founder.
Trump was already rejected by a broad general election audience once – he lost by more than 7 million votes in 2020. The same pattern appeared to exert itself as the GOP fell short of expectations in the midterms, which ironically will give Trump-aligned lawmakers strong leverage in what’s likely to be a narrow House Republican majority.
And even if he secures the nomination again, it’s an open question whether he’ll be able to recreate his 2016 winning coalition after alienating moderate and suburban voters or whether a combination of motivated base voters and previously disaffected Republicans returning to the fold will be able to make up the difference.
Trump’s first term between 2017 and 2021 was one of the most tumultuous periods in American political history.
He shattered the traditions and restraints of his office, subjecting political institutions – designed by the Founders to guard against exactly his brand of autocratic egotism – to their ultimate test.
The 45th president’s reputation was also stained by his negligent denial and mismanagement of a once-in-100-years pandemic. He skipped over his failed leadership in the emergency during his speech on Tuesday night.
Trump’s flouting of science and public health guidelines came back to haunt him as he contracted Covid-19 in the fall of 2020. He survived a serious bout with the help of experimental drugs before theatrically ripping off his mask in a White House photo op when he returned from the hospital.
One important aspect of his pandemic strategy was a success, however. An early White House bet to invest big in vaccine development by private firms and scientists, under the title of Operation Warp Speed, put the US in better position than many other industrialized nations.
The coronavirus destroyed the roaring economy Trump had hoped to ride to reelection, leaving as his most important achievement the shaping of a conservative Supreme Court majority, which has already dramatically altered American society with its overturning of Roe v. Wade and could last a generation.
But history will most remember him for his two impeachments, both following abuses of power designed to manipulate the free and fair elections that are at the root of America’s democratic system in order to prolong his tenure in office.
The House select committee investigating the insurrection has uncovered damning evidence in Trump’s inner circle about his behavior in the run-up to January 6 and during the insurrection. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, for instance, testified that chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump thought Vice President Mike Pence deserved the calls for him to be hanged by insurrectionists. There was also evidence of Trump’s vicious pressure on local officials and election workers in states such as Georgia.
Yet there remain questions about whether the committee will be able to hold accountable a man who has always dodged responsibility in a wild and whirling life in business, reality television and politics.
Even if the committee advises the Justice Department that prosecuting Trump is merited, it’s unknown whether the evidence it has collected would be sufficient to secure a conviction. And Attorney General Merrick Garland would be faced with a massive dilemma given the extraordinary implications of bringing criminal charges against an active presidential candidate.
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Biden says it’s ‘unlikely’ the missile that hit Poland was fired from Russia
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President Joe Biden of the United States arrives at the formal welcome ceremony to mark the beginning of the G20 Summit on November 15, 2022 in Nusa Dua, Indonesia.
Leon Neal | Pool | via Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden said it is unlikely that the missile that hit Poland and killed two people was fired from Russia, but the United States and allies unanimously agreed to support the country’s investigation.
“I’m going to make sure we figure out exactly what happened,” Biden said.
Early Wednesday morning, Polish officials said a “Russian-made missile” landed on its soil, killing two people. It would mark the first time since Russia’s war in Ukraine began in February of this year that a Russian projectile hit NATO territory.
“There is preliminary information that contests that,” Biden said when asked if the missile was fired from Russia. “I don’t want to say until we completely investigate. It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we’ll see.”
Biden didn’t address whether the missile could have been fired by Russia from Ukraine or elsewhere.
Biden was speaking in Bali, Indonesia where he is attending the Group of 20 summit, a meeting of the world’s largest economies.
Biden has repeatedly said any attack on NATO soil will be considered an attack on all of the alliance members. He spoke with Polish President Andrzej Duda after the explosion offering his full support, according to the White House. He spokes with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in a separate call, the White House said.
Before speaking to reporters, Biden convened a meeting of “like-minded leaders” on the situation. Participants included G-7 members and allies: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Spainish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio and European Council President Charles Michel.
“We’re going to collectively determine our next step as we investigate and proceed,” Biden said. “There was total unanimity among folks at the table.”
Biden said the group also discussed Russia’s recent missile attacks in Ukraine, saying the country’s aggression has been “unconscionable.”
“The moment when the world came together at the G-20 to urge de-escalation, Russia continues to escalate in Ukraine,” Biden said. “While we were meeting there were scores and scores of missile attacks in western Ukraine. We support Ukraine fully in this moment; we have since the start of the conflict.”
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Emergency NATO meeting called after missiles land in Poland
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How U.S. could react to missiles entering Poland
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Poland holds emergency security meeting after reports of fatal explosion, as Russian missiles bombard nearby Ukraine | CNN
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CNN
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Poland convened an emergency meeting of national security officials on Tuesday, after Polish media reported projectiles killed two people near the border with Ukraine on Tuesday.
It is unclear where the projectiles came from, but they landed in the NATO member’s territory roughly the same time as Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month.
Polish media showed an image of a deep impact and upturned farm vehicle at the site, near the town of Przewodow, around four miles west from the Ukrainian border.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has convened the Committee of the Council of Ministers for National Security and Defense Affairs, a government spokesman said.
A Polish official told CNN that nothing was confirmed yet and the investigation into the incident was continuing.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has denied targeting the border, and called the reports by Polish media “a deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation,” according to a short statement late Tuesday.
“The statements of the Polish media and officials about the alleged fall of ‘Russian’ missiles in the area of the settlement of Przewodow is a deliberate provocation in order to escalate the situation,” it said, adding that “there were no strikes made on targets near the Ukrainian-Polish state border.”
It added that the photos of wreckage published by the Polish media “from the scene in the village of Przewodow have nothing to do with Russian weapons.”
Nevertheless, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky blamed Russia, describing the fatal explosion as a “significant escalation” in Moscow’s invasion.
Little is publicly known about the origin of the projectiles.
A NATO official told CNN that it was still waiting to learn more about what happened and are waiting on details from Warsaw.
NATO allies responded with concern to the reports. Some were were circumspect in their statements, neither speculating or confirming the origin of the projectile.
A senior White House official says they do not have confirmation of any rocket or missile strike in Poland, but that US officials are currently working to try and figure out exactly what has happened.
State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel echoed that the US cannot confirm the reports of missiles hitting Polish territory and killing two.
“We have seen these reports out of Poland and are working with the Polish government and our NATO partners to gather more information,” Patel said at a press briefing. “We can’t confirm the reports or any of the details at this time”
A UK Foreign Office spokesperson said they were “investigating these reports and liaising closely with Allies.”
Baltic NATO states were more strident in their statements, stressing readiness to defend NATO territory.
Estonia called the news “most concerning,” according to a Twitter post from the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Estonia is ready to defend every inch of NATO territory,” it added.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has said he was concerned by the news, and that “Lithuania stands in strong solidarity with Poland.”
“Every inch of NATO territory must be defended!” he added on social media.
Latvian Defense Minister Artis Pabriks afforded blame on Russia, even though there has been no confirmation from Polish authorities that Russian missiles landed on Polish territory.
“Condolences to our Polish brothers in arms. Criminal Russian regime fired missiles which target not only Ukrainian civilians but also landed on NATO territory in Poland. Latvia fully stands with Polish friends and condemns this crime,” Pabriks wrote.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a group of 30 North American and European nations. According to NATO, its purpose “is to guarantee the freedom and security of its members through political and military means.”
The alliance was created in 1949 in response to the start of the Cold War. Its original purpose was to protect the West from the threat posed by the Soviet Union. Since the end of the Cold War, many former Soviet nations have joined NATO, much to the annoyance of Putin.
The best-known aspect of the alliance is Article 5 of the treaty, which, if invoked, means “an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies.”
Article 5 has only ever been invoked once, in response to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
However, the alliance can take collective defense measures without invoking Article 5 – and has done this in the light of the Russian attack on Ukraine.
The State Department’s Patel repeatedly said on Tuesday he would not discuss hypotheticals when asked about NATO Articles 4 and 5, but said that intent “is something that would be of importance” in determining a response.
“As I said, we will determine what happened and we will determine appropriate next steps but like I said, this just happened within the past hour and so we are still taking the important time to figure out the exact facts,” he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long complained that NATO has, over time, expanded its borders by admitting Eastern European countries that were once part of the Soviet Union – meaning Russia now shares a land border with the world’s largest military alliance, thus reducing his geopolitical power in what was once Moscow’s sphere of influence.
As recently as February, he was demanding that NATO scaled back to the borders of 1997, before the Baltic nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the latter two of which border Russia, joined the alliance.
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Photos: Russia hits cities across Ukraine with wave of missiles
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Air raid sirens blared and explosions rang out in nearly a dozen major cities as Russia rained missiles across Ukraine on Tuesday, in what Kyiv said was the heaviest wave of missile attacks in nearly nine months of war.
A Ukrainian Air Force spokesman said Russia had launched about 100 missiles into Ukraine by early evening, more than on October 10, previously described as the largest number since the opening salvoes of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the main target of the missile flurry was energy infrastructure.
“It’s clear what the enemy wants. He will not achieve this,” he said in a video address circulated on the Telegram messaging app.
In the capital Kyiv, flames funnelled out of a five-storey apartment block, one of two residential buildings that authorities said had been hit. Residents later huddled by the smouldering ruins. Kyiv’s mayor said one person was confirmed dead and half the capital was without power.
Other attacks and explosions were reported in cities ranging from Lviv and Zhytomyr in the west to Kryvy Rih in the south and Kharkiv in the east. Regional officials reported that some of the attacks had knocked out electricity supplies.
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Russian missiles crossed into Poland, killing two, says U.S. official
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A senior U.S. intelligence official says Russian missiles crossed into NATO member Poland, killing two people.
Polish government spokesman Piotr Mueller did not immediately confirm the information, but said top leaders were holding an emergency meeting due to a “crisis situation.”
Polish media reported that two people died Tuesday afternoon after a projectile struck an area where grain was drying in Przewodów, a Polish village near the border with Ukraine.
This is a developing story.
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Ukrainian president addresses world leaders about Russian invasion during G20 summit
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Ukrainian president addresses world leaders about Russian invasion during G20 summit – CBS News
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Zelenskyy tells ‘G19’ leaders: Don’t ask Ukraine to compromise
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BALI, Indonesia — Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday called on G20 leaders not to offer his country any peace deal that would compromise its independence from Russia, amid recently renewed contact between Washington and Moscow over the future of the war.
Zelenskyy appeared at the Bali summit via videolink at the invitation of the Indonesian hosts, just days after Ukraine liberated Kherson from invading Russian forces — a feat he compared to the D-Day landing of allied troops in Normandy, a key turning point of World War II.
“For Ukraine, this liberation operation of our defense forces is reminiscent of many battles of the past, which became turning points in the wars of the past,” Zelenskyy said in his speech to world leaders, among them U.S. President Joe Biden — and, according to a Western diplomat, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. “It is like, for example, D-Day — the landing of the allies in Normandy.”
Pointedly addressing his comments to the “dear G19” — the leaders of the Group of 20, with a snub to Russia — Zelenskyy warned against making Ukraine weaker than it was before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February.
“I want this aggressive Russian war to end justly and on the basis of the U.N. Charter and international law,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, the content of which was leaked to POLITICO. “Ukraine should not be offered to conclude compromises with its conscience, sovereignty, territory and independence. We respect the rules and we are people of our word.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin was invited to the summit in Bali but last week decided not to attend, sending Lavrov instead.
In his speech on Tuesday, Zelenskyy rejected any negotiations like those Kyiv held with Moscow in previous years, after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014, before seizing, via proxies, territory in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.
“Apparently, one cannot trust Russia’s words, and there will be no Minsk 3, which Russia would violate immediately after signing,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the Minsk 1 and 2 agreements, signed in 2014 and 2015 and mediated by the leaders of France and Germany in the so-called Normandy Format, which were intended to bring an end to the war at that time.
Zelenskyy’s speech to the G20 came on the same day Chinese President Xi Jinping asked his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron to work toward negotiated peace for Ukraine.
According to the Chinese state media Xinhua, Xi “emphasized that China’s position on the Ukrainian crisis is clear and consistent, advocating ceasefire, cessation of war and peace talks. The international community should create conditions for this, and China will continue to play a constructive role in its own way.”
Nevertheless, Zelenskyy thanked countries including China for rejecting Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons.
Slamming the “crazy threats of nuclear weapons,” the Ukrainian president added: “There are and cannot be any excuses for nuclear blackmail. And I thank you, dear G19, for making this clear.”
Bill Burns, the head of the Central Intelligence Agency, met his Russian counterpart Sergei Naryshkin in Turkey on Monday and warned Moscow against using nuclear weapons, according to the White House.
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Stuart Lau
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Rishi Sunak to meet Xi Jinping as he strikes conciliatory tone on China
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BALI, Indonesia — Rishi Sunak will invite Xi Jinping to collaborate more closely on global challenges in the first meeting between a British prime minister and Chinese president in nearly five years.
Sunak and Xi will hold a bilateral meeting Wednesday on the margins of the G20 leaders’ summit in Bali.
Ahead of the meeting — confirmed only 24 hours before it was due to take place — Downing Street insisted it was “clear-eyed in how we approach our relationship with China.”
The prime minister’s spokesman said there was a need “for China and the U.K. to establish a frank and constructive relationship,” but stressed that “the challenges posed by China are systemic” and “long-term.”
The two leaders are likely to discuss the war in Ukraine, energy security and climate change among other issues, No. 10 said.
Theresa May was the last prime minister to meet Xi, during a visit to Beijing in January 2018, at a time when Downing Street was still referring to the “golden era” of relations supposedly ushered in by David Cameron and George Osborne.
U.K.-China relations have worsened in the wake of China’s crackdown on democratic freedoms in Hong Kong, the oppression of the Uyghur Muslim minority of Xinjiang province, and concerns about the security implications of allowing Chinese companies to build critical national infrastructure in the U.K.
News of the meeting comes after Sunak softened his language on China and suggested he was abandoning plans to declare the country a “threat” as part of a major review of British foreign policy.
In response to questioning from POLITICO during the trip, Sunak described China as “a systemic challenge” but stressed that dialogue with Beijing was essential to tackling global challenges such as climate change.
Speaking to Sky News Tuesday, the PM said: “I think our approach to China is one that is very similar to our allies, whether that’s America, Australia and Canada — all countries that I’m talking about exactly this issue with while we’re here at the G20 summit.”
Sunak’s spokesman said Tuesday that the prime minister would “obviously raise the human rights record with President Xi” at the meeting.
But he added: “Equally, none of the issues that we are discussing at the G20 — be it the global economy, Ukraine, climate change, global health — none of them can be addressed without coordinated action by the world’s major economies, and of course that includes China.”
Xi has already held bilateral talks with various leaders during the summit | Kevin Frayer/Getty Images Xi has already held bilateral talks with U.S. President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese among other leaders during the summit.
In addition to the talks with Xi, Sunak will also hold meetings with Biden, Albanese, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indonesian President Joko Widodo.
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader and co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, warned that the U.K. was “drifting into appeasement” with Xi.
“I am worried that the present prime minister, when he meets Xi Jinping, will be perceived as weak because it now looks like we’re drifting into appeasement with China, which is a disaster as it was in the 1930s and so it will be now,” he said. “They’re a threat to our values, they’re a threat to economic stability.”
Bob Seely, another Tory MP and member of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, added: “We need to talk to nations, especially those that may challenge our values and stability, but it is dangerous to normalize relations when they are not normal.”
But Alicia Kearns, chair of the Commons foreign affairs select committee and a member of the China Research Group, welcomed Sunak’s meeting with Xi. “It is important they meet to prevent miscalculations,” she said. “We cannot simply cut off China, we must work to create the space for dialogue, challenge and cooperation.”
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Eleni Courea
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Strike on Kyiv as Ukraine probes reports of Russian torture
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KYIV, Ukraine — Strikes hit residential buildings in the heart of Ukraine‘s capital Tuesday, authorities said. Further south, officials announced probes of alleged Russian abuses in the newly retaken city of Kherson, including torture sites and enforced disappearances and detentions.
Video published by a presidential aide showed a five-story, apparently residential building on fire in Kyiv. The city mayor said three residential buildings were struck and that air defense units shot down other missiles. Vitali Klitschko added on his Telegram social media channel that medics and rescuers are being scrambled to the sites of the attacks.
The strikes followed air raid sirens in the capital and break what had been a period of comparative calm since previous waves of drone and missile attacks several weeks ago.
The strikes also follow what have been days of euphoria in Ukraine sparked by the retaking of Kherson. The southern city, however, is without power and water and the head of the U.N. human rights office’s monitoring mission in Ukraine, Matilda Bogner, on Tuesday decried a “dire humanitarian situation” there.
Reports of abuses are also emerging in newly liberated Kherson areas now that Russian troops have gone.
Speaking from Kyiv, Bogner said her teams are looking to travel to Kherson to try to verify allegations of nearly 80 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention it has turned up in the area and “understand whether the scale is in fact larger than what we have documented already.”
The head of the National Police of Ukraine, Igor Klymenko, said authorities are to start investigating reports from Kherson residents that Russian forces set up at least three alleged torture sites in now-liberated parts of the wider Kherson region and that “our people may have been detained and tortured there.”
“Mine clearance is currently underway. After that, I think, today, investigative actions will begin,” he said on Ukrainian TV.
The retaking of Kherson was one of Ukraine’s biggest successes in the nearly 9-month-old Russian invasion and dealt another stinging blow to the Kremlin. But large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine remain under Russian control and fighting continues. Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday reported another civilian death, from Russian shelling, in eastern Ukraine — adding to the invasion’s heavy toll of many tens of thousands killed and wounded.
The reports of abuse came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday likened the recapture of the Kherson to the Allied landings in France on D-Day in World War II, saying both were watersheds on the road to eventual victory.
Speaking via video link to a Group of 20 summit in Indonesia, Zelenskyy said Kherson’s liberation from eight months of Russian occupation was “reminiscent of many battles in the past, which became turning points in the wars.”
“It’s like, for example, D-Day — the landing of the Allies in Normandy. It was not yet a final point in the fight against evil, but it already determined the entire further course of events. This is exactly what we are feeling now,” he said.
The liberation of Kherson — the only provincial capital that Moscow had seized — has sparked days of celebration in Ukraine and allowed families to be reunited for the first time in months. But as winter approaches, the city’s remaining 80,000 residents are without heat, water or electricity, and short on food and medicine.
Still, U.S. President Joe Biden called it a “significant victory” for Ukraine. Speaking on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, Biden added: “We’re going to continue to provide the capability for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves.”
In his address to the G-20, Zelenskyy called for the creation of a special tribunal to try Russian military and political figures for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, and the creation of an international mechanism to compensate Kyiv for wartime deaths and destruction.
Zelenskyy referred to the G-20 meeting as “the G-19 summit,” adhering to Kyiv’s line that Russia should be excluded from the grouping.
“Everywhere, when we liberate our land, we see one thing — Russia leaves behind torture chambers and mass burials. … How many mass graves are there in the territory that still remains under the control of Russia?” Zelenskyy pointedly asked.
Zelenskyy made a triumphant surprise visit on Monday to Kherson. He hailed the Russian retreat from the southern city as the “beginning of the end of the war,” but also acknowledged the heavy price Ukrainian soldiers are paying in their grinding effort to push back Russia’s invasion forces.
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Joanna Kozlowska in London, and Jamey Keaten in Geneva, contributed to this story.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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