U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday announced a range of American commitments aimed at curbing global warming, as leaders from more than 100 countries gathered in Glasgow for the U.N. Climate Change Conference.

“The United States will be able to meet the ambitious target I set at the Leaders Summit on climate back in April, reducing U.S. emissions by 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030,” Biden said. “We will demonstrate to the world that the United States is not only back at the table, but hopefully leading by the power of our example. I know it hasn’t been the case, and that’s why my administration is working overtime to show that our climate commitment is action, not words.”

Those new goals include a set of new U.S. climate commitments that build on previous global agreements: the unveiling of plans for a $3 billion President’s Emergency Plan for Adaptation and Resilience to tackle climate awareness, financing and adaptation efforts, and a raft of domestically focused legislation that aims to shore up American infrastructure while also cutting greenhouse gas pollution by well over one gigaton in 2030. 

That legislation has occupied the U.S. Congress for months, with members of the legislative body negotiating fiercely throughout — but ultimately, failing to bring the matter to a vote before Biden left for the summit last week.  

The U.S. has previously faltered on its own climate commitments, with former President Donald Trump announcing in 2017 that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement. That took effect in November 2020, but Biden rejoined the deal on his first day in office.  

Biden’s critics note that some of his administration’s climate commitments are not as large as those promised by other developed nations.   

Biden also said, late Sunday, that he is “disappointed” that China and Russia have yet to come up with new commitments to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

“The disappointment relates to the fact that Russia and, and including not only Russia, but China, basically didn’t show up in terms of any commitments to deal with climate change,” Biden said.  “And there’s a reason why people should be disappointed in that. I found it disappointing myself.”  

China, the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming, announced last Thursday it has no new significant goals to reduce climate-changing emissions.

On Monday, China’s government announced that President Xi Jinping will only address the summit in the form of a written statement.  

This year’s summit builds on a legally binding agreement that 196 parties — including the U.S., Russia and China — signed six years ago in Paris. The international treaty commits those countries to embark on emissions cuts that aim to limit the planet’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.  

“We go into (the summit) with roughly 65% of the world’s economy in line with a 1.5 degree commitment, with still some significant outliers, one of those significant outliers being China, who will not be represented at the leader level at COP-26,” said U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Monday. “And who we do believe has an obligation to step up to greater ambition as we go forward

Administration officials have repeatedly described China as the U.S.’ biggest adversary and said the relationship between the two powers is a challenging one. But, Sullivan said, that should have no impact on this globally important issue.

“They are perfectly well capable of living up to their responsibilities,” he said. “It’s up to them to do so. And nothing about the nature of the relationship between the U.S. and China, structurally or otherwise, impedes or stands in the way of them doing their part.”

But, said analyst Sarang Shidore, director of studies at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, this may prove to be a stumbling block.  

“Expectations are low for COP-26 due to two reasons,” he said. ”One is that the U.S.-China tensions continue to be very sharp in the Biden period, and this is detracting from cooperation on climate change.”

And, he said, wealthy nations, while making large promises themselves, can’t do this on their own.   

“Countries are unable to get each other to raise ambition, and wealthy countries are playing a weak game on the sort of robust and urgent financing commitments that the Global South is due, not as charity, but as a right,” he said.  

The summit continues through Tuesday. 
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Barclays chief executive Jes Staley is leaving the bank after a dispute with British financial regulators over how he described his ties with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Staley will be replaced as CEO by Barclays’ head of global markets C.S. Venkatakrishnan, who on Monday pledged to continue his predecessor’s strategy.

Staley’s shock departure comes after Barclays was informed on Friday of the unpublished findings of a report by Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority into Staley’s characterization of his relationship with Epstein, who killed himself in jail in August 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges related to sex trafficking.

“In view of those conclusions, and Mr Staley’s intention to contest them, the Board and Mr Staley have agreed that he will step down from his role as Group Chief Executive and as a director of Barclays,” the bank said.

“It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr Epstein’s alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays’ support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019.” 

Barclays shares fell 2% following the announcement.

‘I thought I knew him well’

Staley dealt with Epstein during his long career at JPMorgan, where Epstein was a major private banking client until 2013.

A college dropout who styled himself as a brilliant financier, Epstein socialized in elite circles, including former and future U.S. presidents. In 2008, he was registered as a sex offender but continued to maintain ties with powerful players in business and finance.

The New York Times reported in 2019 that Epstein had referred “dozens” of wealthy clients to Staley. It also reported that Staley visited Epstein in prison when he was serving a sentence between 2008-09 for soliciting prostitution from a minor, while Bloomberg reported he visited Epstein’s private island in 2015.

Staley told reporters last February that his relationship with Epstein had “tapered off significantly” after he left JPMorgan in 2013, and that he had not seen the disgraced financier since taking over Barclays in 2015.

“I thought I knew him well, and I didn’t. I’m sure with hindsight of what we all know now, I deeply regret having had any relationship with Jeffrey Epstein,” he said at the time.

Epstein’s links with prominent men have come back to haunt some of them. Leon Black, the billionaire investor, stepped down from Apollo Global Management, the private equity firm he co-founded, earlier this year after an outside review found he had paid Epstein $158 million for tax and estate planning.

Britain’s Prince Andrew has quit royal duties over his associations with Epstein, andnMicrosoft co-founder Bill Gates has said it was a “huge mistake” to spend time with him.

The FCA and PRA said in a statement they could not comment further on the Epstein investigation, which was launched after JPMorgan provided the regulators with emails between Epstein and Staley from Staley’s time as head of JPMorgan’s private bank, the Financial Times reported last year.

Right strategy

Staley told staff in an internal memo seen by Reuters that he did not want his ‘personal response’ to the investigations to be a distraction.

“Although I will not be with you for the next chapter of Barclays’ story, know that I will be cheering your success from the sidelines,” he said.

Staley has 28 days to formally notify the FCA that he is contesting its findings, after which an independent committee inside the watchdog will uphold or reject its conclusions, a source familiar with the process told Reuters.

If upheld, the probe passes to an independent Upper Tribunal which again can back or reject the findings, the source said, a process that could take months.

Venkatakrishnan, who followed Staley to Barclays from JPMorgan and is known as Venkat, told staff on Monday the strategy put in place by his predecessor was “the right one,” according to a separate memo also seen by Reuters.

Venkat added that he would announce changes to the organization of the investment bank in the coming days, likely to mean filling his previous role and any other resulting vacancies, sources at the bank said.

Barclay’s share price has fallen 9% since Staley’s tenure began six years ago, a period not without controversy.

His greatest success, insiders and analysts said, was to fight off a campaign launched by activist investor Edward Bramson in 2018 to have Staley removed on the grounds that Barclays’ investment bank was underperforming and should be cut back.

Bramson sold his stake earlier this year, and the bank’s recent results have seen the investment bank perform strongly.

Also in 2018, Britain’s financial regulators and Barclays fined Staley a combined $1.50 million after he tried to identify a whistleblower who sent letters criticizing a Barclays employee.
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G-20 leaders concluded their two-day summit in Rome on Sunday with an agreement to work to reach carbon neutrality ‘by around mid-century’ and pledged to end financing for coal plants abroad. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara as this report from Rome.
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Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced his resignation late Sunday following the heavy defeat of his governing Social Democratic Union in North Macedonia’s local elections.

“The responsibility for this outcome is mine and I’m resigning as prime minister and as leader of the Social Democratic Union,” Zaev said at a news conference at party headquarters.

Zaev came out against early national elections. Instead, he will support a Social Democrat-led government under a new leader.

Although official results were not yet in from the local elections, Zaev conceded defeat in the most important contest — the mayor’s race in the capital, Skopje, with incumbent Petre Shilegov losing to center-right challenger Danela Arsovska.

Candidates supported by the main opposition party, the center-right VMRO-DPMNE, appeared set to win at least half of the country’s 80 municipalities, with the Social Democrats set to win fewer than 20.

At the last municipal elections, in 2017, the Social Democrats won 57 contests and VMRO-DPMNE only five.

 
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A volcano on the Spanish island of La Palma that has been erupting for six weeks spewed greater quantities of ash from its main mouth Sunday, a day after producing its strongest earthquake to date.

Lava flows descending toward the Atlantic Ocean from a volcanic ridge have covered 970 hectares (2,400 acres) of land since the eruption began on Sept. 19, data from the European Union’s satellite monitoring service, showed. On the way down the slope, the molten rock has destroyed more than 2,000 buildings and forced the evacuation of over 7,000 people. 

But authorities in the Canary Islands, of which La Palma is part, have reported no injuries caused by contact with lava or from inhaling the toxic gases that often accompany the volcanic activity.

Experts said that predicting when the eruption will end is difficult because lava, ash and gases emerging to the surface are a reflection of complex geological activity happening deep down the earth and far from the reach of currently available technology.

The Canary Islands, in particular, “are closely connected to thermal anomalies that go all the way to the core of the earth,” said Cornell University geochemist Esteban Gazel, who has been collecting samples from the Cumbre Vieja volcano.

“It’s like a patient. You can monitor how it evolves but saying exactly when it will die is extremely difficult,” Gazel said. “It’s a process that is connected to so many other dimensions of the inside of the planet.”

Signs monitored by scientists —soil deformation, sulfur dioxide emissions and seismic activity— remained robust in Cumbre Vieja. The Spanish Geographic Institute, or IGN, said that a magnitude 5 quake in the early hours of Saturday was not just felt on La Palma, but also in La Gomera, a neighboring island on the western end of the Canary Islands archipelago.

IGN said the ash column towering above the volcano reached an altitude of 4.5 kilometers (15,000 feet) on Sunday before heavier wind scattered it. Many nearby towns and a telescope base further north that sits on a mountain at 2,400 meters above sea level (7,800 feet) were covered in a thick layer of ash.

The eruption has also turned the island into a tourist attraction, especially as many Spaniards prepared to mark All Saints Day, a Catholic festivity that honors the dead, on Monday.

Local authorities said some 10,000 visitors were expected over the long weekend and 90% of the accommodations on La Palma were fully booked. A shuttle bus service for tourists wanting a glimpse of the volcano was established to keep private cars off the main roads so emergency services could work undisturbed.
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Thousands of opposition supporters filled the street outside Georgia’s national parliament building Sunday to protest municipal election results that gave the country’s ruling party a near sweep. 

Candidates of the Georgian Dream party won 19 of the 20 municipal elections in runoff votes on Saturday, including the mayoral offices in the country’s five largest cities: Tbilisi, Kutaisi, Rustavi, Batumi and Poti. 

The opposition alleges fraud.

Nika Melia, the head of the main opposition party United National Movement and a mayoral candidate in Tbilisi, claimed that “the victories gained by the opposition in many municipalities were taken away…like they never happened.”

An election observer mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said the “voting and counting were overall assessed positively despite some procedural issues, particularly during counting.”

“The persistent practice of representatives of observer organizations acting as party supporters, at times interfering with the process, and groups of individuals potentially influencing voters outside some polling stations were of concern,” the OSCE observers said in a statement.

Melia told the protest crowd, which shut down the capital’s main avenue, that opposition leaders would be sent to other cities to marshal supporters to come to Tbilisi for a massive rally on Nov. 7. 

The Saturday runoff elections were held after no candidate in the cities won an absolute majority during the first round of nationwide municipal elections on Oct. 2.

The elections were overshadowed by the arrest of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, the founder of the United National Movement, on Oct. 1.

Saakashvili left Georgia in 2013; he was convicted in absentia of abuse of power and sentenced to six years in prison. He returned to Georgia from his home in Ukraine, hoping to boost the opposition in the first round of voting, but was arrested within a day and imprisoned. He called a hunger strike soon after his arrest.
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G-20 leaders meeting in Rome have agreed to work to reach carbon neutrality “by around mid-century” and pledged to end financing for coal plants abroad by the end of this year.

The final communique was issued Sunday at the end of a two-day summit, ahead of talks at a broader U.N. climate change summit, COP26, this week in Glasgow, Scotland.

Leaders in Rome addressed efforts to reach the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, in line with a global commitment made in 2015 at the Paris Climate Accord to keep global warming to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees. 

“We recognize that the impacts of climate change at 1.5°C are much lower than at 2°C. Keeping 1.5°C within reach will require meaningful and effective actions and commitment by all countries,” the communique said, according to Reuters.

The group of 19 countries and the European Union account for more than three-quarters of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Two dozen countries this month have joined a U.S.- and EU-led effort to slash methane emissions by 30% from 2020 levels by 2030.

Coal, though, is a bigger point of contention. G-20 members China and India have resisted attempts to produce a declaration on phasing out domestic coal consumption.

Climate financing, namely pledges from wealthy nations to provide $100 billion a year in climate financing to support developing countries’ efforts to reduce emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change, is another key concern. Indonesia, a large greenhouse gas emitter that will take over the G-20 presidency in December, is urging developed countries to fulfill their financing commitments both in Rome and in Glasgow.

Also on Sunday, the U.S. and EU announced an end to tariffs on EU steel imposed by the Trump administration, ending a dispute in which the EU imposed retaliatory tariffs on American products including whiskey and power boats.

“Together the United States and the European Union are ushering in a new era of transatlantic cooperation that’s going to benefit all of our people both now, and I believe, in the years to come,” Biden told reporters on the sidelines of the G-20 summit.

Global supply chain

Biden will hold a meeting at the summit’s sidelines to address the global supply chain crisis.The group of 20 countries in the summit account for more than 80% of world GDP and 75% of global trade.

“The President will make announcements about what the United States itself will do, particularly in respect to stockpiles, to improving… the United States’ capacity to have modern and effective and capable and flexible stockpiles,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA aboard Air Force One en route to Rome, Thursday. “We are working towards agreement with the other participants on a set of principles and parameters around how we collectively manage and create resilient supply chains going forward.”

Addressing global commerce disruptions has been a key focus for the Biden administration, which is concerned that these bottlenecks will hamper post-pandemic economic recovery. To address the nation’s own supply chain issues, earlier this month the administration announced a plan to extend operations around the clock, seven days a week, at Los Angeles and Long Beach, two ports that account for 40% of sea freight entering the country.

“Whether it’s you’re talking about medical equipment or supplies of consumer goods or other products, it’s a challenge for the global economy,” said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Some of the concrete measures to alleviate global supply chain pressure points may need to be longer term, such as shortening supply chains and rethinking dependencies, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and the Americas program at Chatham House

“Those are not quick fixes,” she said. “But the G-20 is historically set up really to be dealing with short-term crises. So, I think that there will be considerable effort made to really discuss and come to terms with that.”

While global supply chain issues are a key concern for the leaders in Rome, Goodman said he doubts the meeting will result in tangible solutions.

“It’s a very difficult group – the G-20 to get consensus to do very specific things. And this may be one area in which it’s going to be particularly difficult,” he added.

President Xi Jinping of China, considered to be the “world’s factory,” is not attending the summit in person. In his virtual speech to G-20 leaders, Xi proposed holding an international forum on resilient and stable industrial and supply chains, and welcomed participation of G-20 members and relevant international organizations.

Some information in this report comes from the Associated Press and Reuters.

 
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U.S. President Joe Biden is meeting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Rome Sunday amid simmering tensions and strategic disagreements between Washington and Ankara.

A senior Biden administration official told reporters in Rome Saturday that the leaders would discuss a range of regional issues, including Syria and Afghanistan, and defense issues including Ankara’s acquisition of the Russian S-400 missile defense system and its request to purchase U.S. F-16 fighter jets.

The official said in the Sunday meeting Biden would warn Erdogan that the two countries will need to work to avoid crises such as Ankara’s recent threat to expel the U.S. and nine other countries’ ambassadors who pushed for the release of jailed philanthropist Osman Kavala.

“Precipitous action is not going to benefit the U.S.-Turkey partnership and alliance,” a senior administration official told reporters in Rome Saturday. “I’m not actually even sure we would have had the meeting if he [Erdogan] had gone ahead and expelled.”

In 2019, during former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, the Pentagon kicked Turkey out of the F-35 program because of its purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems. Now Ankara wants to buy 40 F-16 fighter jets made by U.S. company Lockheed Martin and nearly 80 modernization kits for its air force’s existing warplanes.

U.S. lawmakers have urged the Biden administration not to sell F-16s to Turkey, saying Ankara has “behaved like an adversary.”

“This meeting is important for President Biden to send some messages to Turkey about what is and is not acceptable behavior from a NATO ally,” said Rachel Ellehuus, deputy director of the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said Biden will convey his expectations for Turkey as a partner in a range of issues including security challenges following U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, its role in the Black Sea region and performance in NATO.

Bilateral relations between the two NATO allies have also been strained over human rights. As president, Biden has pledged to restore human rights and democracy as pillars of U.S. foreign policy. In August of last year, before taking office, then-Democratic presidential candidate Biden advocated for a new U.S. approach to the “autocrat” Erdogan. Ankara slammed the comment as “interventionist.”

Since then, the two leaders have taken a more pragmatic approach to maintaining a relationship. Biden is keen to avoid another escalating flashpoint in the region following the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, while Erdogan is embattled politically at home.

“The Turkish economy is faltering, he [Erdogan] is actually losing in popularity,” Ellehuus said. “Whether he’ll admit it or not, I think he needs to be perceived as having at least a cooperative relationship with President Biden.”

This is the second in-person discussion between the leaders under the Biden presidency, following a June meeting in Brussels, on the sidelines of the NATO summit. 

 
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Britain and France faced calls Saturday to sort out their post-Brexit spat over fishing rights in the English Channel, which threatens to escalate within days into a damaging French blockade of British boats and trucks.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned that the dispute is testing the U.K.’s international credibility, while each country accused the other of being in breach of the post-Brexit trade agreement that Britain’s government signed with the European Union before it left the bloc.

As the war of words intensified, Britain said it was “actively considering” launching legal action if France goes through with threats to bar U.K. fishing boats from its ports and slap strict checks on British catches.

“If there is a breach of the (Brexit) treaty or we think there is a breach of the treaty then we will do what is necessary to protect British interests,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson told British broadcasters in Rome, where he and Macron are both attending a Group of 20 summit.

At stake is fishing — a tiny industry economically that looms large symbolically for maritime nations like Britain and France. Britain’s exit from the economic rules of the 27-nation bloc at the start of this year means the U.K. now controls who fishes in its waters.

France claims some vessels have been denied permits to fish in waters where they have long sailed. Britain says it has granted 98% of applications from EU vessels, and now the dispute comes down to just a few dozen French boats with insufficient paperwork.

But France argues it’s a matter of principle and wants to defend its interests as the two longtime allies and rivals set out on a new, post-Brexit relationship.

The dispute escalated this week after French authorities accused a Scottish-registered scallop dredger of fishing without a license. The captain was detained in Le Havre and has been told to face a court hearing next year.

France has threatened to block British boats crossing the English Channel and tighten checks on boats and trucks from Tuesday if the licenses aren’t granted. France has also suggested it might restrict energy supplies to the Channel Islands — British Crown dependencies that lie off the coast of France and are heavily dependent on French electricity.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex appealed to the EU to back France in the dispute, saying the bloc should demonstrate to people in Europe that “leaving the Union is more damaging than remaining in it.”

U.K. Brexit Minister David Frost called Castex’s comments “troubling” and accused France of a pattern of threats “to our fishing industry, to energy supplies, and to future cooperation.”

He said if France acted on the threats it “would put the EU in breach of its obligations under our trade agreement,” and said Britain was “actively considering launching dispute settlement proceedings,” a formal legal process in the deal.

He urged France and the EU to “step back.”

Many EU politicians and officials regard Frost, who led negotiations on Britain’s divorce deal, as intrinsically hostile to the bloc.

Macron, who is scheduled to meet Johnson on Sunday on the sidelines of the G-20 summit, defended France’s position and said the fishing dispute could hurt Britain’s reputation worldwide.

“Make no mistake, it is not just for the Europeans but all of their partners,” Macron told the Financial Times. “Because when you spend years negotiating a treaty and then a few months later you do the opposite of what was decided on the aspects that suit you the least, it is not a big sign of your credibility.”

Macron said he was sure that Britain has “good will” to solve the dispute. “We need to respect each other and respect the word that has been given,” he said.

Johnson said the fishing issue was a distraction from fighting climate change — top of the G-20 leaders’ agenda at their meeting, which comes before a U.N. climate conference in Scotland next week.

“I am looking at what is going on at the moment and I think that we need to sort it out. But that is quite frankly small beer, trivial, by comparison with the threat to humanity that we face,” Johnson added.

Jean-Marc Puissesseau, president and chairman of the northern French ports of Calais and Boulogne-sur-Mer, said the spat was “ridiculous” and urged both sides to resolve it.

He told BBC radio that the dispute was over just 40 boats — “a drop in the ocean” — and that there would be “terrible” consequences if France carried out its threat of blocking British trawlers from French ports.

“If no agreement can be found, it will be a drama, it will be a disaster in your country because the trucks will not cross,” he said. 

 
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The G-20 heads of state from the world’s major economies will discuss climate change Sunday on day two of their meeting in Rome.

Saturday, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi welcomed the heads of state, including U.S. President Joe Biden, to the Italian capital, where they discussed issues of mutual concern, including the pandemic recovery.

The G-20 leaders supported a sweeping global tax deal agreed to by 136 finance ministers earlier this month, including a minimum 15% global corporate tax rate for companies with annual revenues of more than $870 million. It still needs to be implemented within each member country’s legal framework.

On COVID-19, G-20 health and finance ministers announced the formation of a new panel to improve future pandemic preparedness, proposed by the United States and Indonesia, but did not specify funding for it.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson met on the sidelines with Biden and said they support Biden’s pledge to return the United States to full compliance with the Iran nuclear deal, so long as Tehran does the same. Talks are scheduled for November.

This year’s meeting is the the first face-to-face G-20 meeting in two years. Notably absent were Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who joined virtually, citing pandemic concerns at home.

“Despite the G-20 decisions, not all countries that need them can have access to vaccines,” Putin said. “This happens partly because of dishonest competition, protectionism and because some states, especially those of the G-20, are not ready for mutual recognition of vaccines and vaccination certificates.”

Activists marched Saturday through the streets of Rome protesting the lack of action by G-20 leaders in tackling climate change, before the leaders move on the United Nations climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

 
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Parts of the planet that were once thought to be permanently frozen are starting to thaw – posing problems for countries like Russia where permafrost covers vast areas of its territory. The thaw is threatening Russia’s oil economy as Oleksandr Yanevskyy tells us in this report narrated by Amy Katz.
Camera: Oleksandr Yanevskyy
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A fireworks show that has nothing to do with the Fourth of July and everything to do with the cosmos is poised to be visible across the northern United States and Europe just in time for Halloween.

On Thursday, the sun launched what is called an “X-class solar flare” that was strong enough to spark a high-frequency radio blackout across parts of South America. The energy from that flare is trailed by a cluster of solar plasma and other material called a coronal mass ejection, or CME for short. That’s heading toward Earth, prompting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue a warning about a potentially strong geomagnetic storm.

It might sound like something from a science fiction movie. But really, it just means that a good chunk of the northern part of the country may get treated to a light show this weekend called the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights.

Geomagnetic storms as big as what might be coming can produce displays of the lights that can be seen at latitudes as low as Pennsylvania, Oregon and Iowa. It could also cause voltage irregularities on high-latitude power grids as the loss of radio contact on the sunlit side of the planet. 

 
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Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi made stops in Belgrade, Serbia, and Tirana, Albania, this week, seeking to further the Chinese government’s “17+1” effort to promote trade and investment between Beijing and the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

While Wang was received cordially in both countries, Serbia and Albania have taken somewhat different approaches to economic cooperation with Beijing through China’s Belt and Road initiative, which has funded infrastructure projects throughout the developing world.

A stop in Greece on Wednesday and a scheduled stop in Italy on Saturday served as bookends to Wang’s visit to the Balkans. The trip is widely seen as China’s attempt to shore up economic ties in the region, which has traditionally looked more toward the European Union for development assistance.

Friendship ‘made of steel’

In Serbia, officials presented Wang with a building permit for a stretch of railway from Novi Sad to Subotica, part of a larger project to modernize the railroad between Belgrade and Budapest, Hungary. The move reflects Serbia’s relative openness to Chinese investment in the country.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić reiterated that Belgrade supports the “one China” policy, which considers Taiwan part of China. Wang, in turn, said Beijing respects the territorial integrity of Serbia, a signal that Beijing will continue to refuse to recognize the independence of Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008.

Wang said the friendship between the two countries was “made of steel” and added, “Serbia is a country that has its own principles and that Beijing is proud to have such a friend.”

Vučić said that Serbia and China are implementing joint projects worth 8 billion euros ($9.3 billion) and trade between the two countries has tripled.

Large Chinese presence

According to Bojan Stanić, the assistant director for analytics at the Serbian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, in addition to 1.5 billion euros ($1.73 billion) in direct foreign investment from China in the past five years, more than 20,000 people in Serbia work in Chinese-owned companies. Additionally, more than half of the suppliers of the Smederevo Ironworks, which is owned by the Chinese HBIS Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, are Serbian companies.

Serbia and China have had a strategic partnership agreement since 2009 and a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement since 2016. The latter involves more high-level meetings between both country’s officials, and more extensive personnel exchanges. China is the dominant lender for road construction in Serbia. Beijing is also the owner of the Bor mining complex and the Linglong tire factory, which is under construction.

Extensive Chinese ownership of businesses in Serbia has raised concerns about compliance with environmental protection and working condition regulations in factories.

Relationship unclear

Other concerns arise from the difficulty in understanding the relationship between Chinese firms and the Chinese Communist Party’s security services.

Igor Novaković, research director at the Center for International and Security Affairs Centre – ISAC Fund, said it is not always clear where a company’s commercial interest ends and the CCP’s political interests begin.

“I do not claim that companies operating in Serbia are dangerous in themselves, but when there is a connection between politics and business, then there is a danger of using business decisions in favor of the political interests of the country from which investments come,” Novaković said.

Belgrade visit

Wang traveled from Belgrade to Tirana Thursday, ahead of Friday’s meetings with Albanian President Ilir Meta, Prime Minister Edi Rama, and Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs Olta Xhaçka.

In Belgrade, officials have historically been much more cautious with regard to Chinese investment and lending.

“The truth is that serious doubts have actually been raised about Chinese funding following the experiences in some African countries and in the Balkans as the time comes for debt refinancing, that is, debt repayment and liabilities that have placed the governments of these countries in great financial difficulties,” said Selami Xhepa, an economist and a member of the Assembly of the Republic of Albania.

“This has required some kind of renegotiation, or similar diplomacy, with the Chinese authorities,” he added. “I think market discipline is better than diplomatic negotiations.”

UN Security Council

Last year, Albania joined a group of nations, headed by the United States, that has shut out Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE from providing equipment essential to the rollout of 5G wireless service in the country.

Nevertheless, with Albania about to take a seat on the United Nations Security Council, of which China is a permanent member, experts saw Wang’s visit to the country as an important opportunity to cement ties between the two countries and open dialogue about issues important to Albania. Among those issues is China’s continued effort to block the recognition of Kosovo as an independent country, which Albania supports.

“China is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and it is necessary to talk about Kosovo, about Kosovo’s accession to the United Nations, where China is a very big obstacle,” said Besnik Mustafaj, a former foreign minister of Albania who now serves as president of the Council of Albanian Ambassadors. “It is time to say that there is no parallelism between Kosovo and Taiwan, that Albania recognizes only one China.”

Ilirian Agolli of VOA’s Albanian Service and VOA’s Serbian Service contributed to this report.
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The United States and European Union are expected this weekend to announce a deal to resolve a dispute over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs imposed in 2018 by former President Donald Trump, easing a major transatlantic trade irritant, six people familiar with the agreement said.

Three of the sources said the agreement, details of which were still being finalized, would allow EU countries to export duty free some 3.3 million tons of steel annually to the United States under a tariff-rate quota system.

“An agreement on steel has been reached and will be announced soon,” said one source familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity.

U.S. President Joe Biden has sought to mend fences with European allies following Trump’s presidency to more broadly confront China’s state-driven economic practices that led to Beijing building massive excess steelmaking capacity that has flooded global markets.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi raised the need to resolve trade issues during a meeting Friday with Biden as a G-20 leaders summit got underway in Rome, a source familiar with the meeting said.

The deal may ease record-high U.S. steel prices that have topped $1,900 a ton as the industry has struggled to keep up with a demand surge after COVID-19 pandemic-related shutdowns. This has contributed to rising price inflation for manufactured products in the United States including cars.

Steel volumes above the 3.3-million-ton quota would be subject to tariffs, but additional duty free-status would be extended for about 1 million tons of EU steel products that had previously won Commerce Department tariff exclusions, three sources said.

The agreement leaves intact Trump’s global tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum but on a practical basis exempts a substantial portion of Europe’s steel exports to the United States.

Europe exported about 5 million tons of steel annually to the United States prior to Trump’s imposition of the “Section 232” tariffs in March 2018 on national security grounds.

The Commerce Department, U.S. Trade Representative’s office and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai is scheduled to address American steel industry executives Tuesday in Washington. The industry and the United Steelworkers union have been pressing Biden’s administration to maintain the steel tariffs to protect a resurgence in new investment since 2018.

Industry officials also have said they were pushing for a requirement that any EU steel imported duty free be melted and poured in the trade bloc, a provision aimed at keeping Chinese steel from being minimally processed in Europe and exported to the United States.

The metals deal would allow officials about a month to implement it before a late-November deadline for a doubling of EU retaliatory tariffs on certain U.S. products, including motorcycles and whiskey.

Details were not immediately available on terms of the aluminum portion of the deal. An industry source said a resolution is expected to be included as part of an overall metals dispute agreement.

The United States allows imports of steel duty-from North American trade deal partners Mexico and Canada, with a mechanism that allows tariffs to be reimposed in the event of an unexpected “surge” in import volumes.
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Angela Merkel has completed her final trip as German chancellor to Greece, a country where she was not overly welcome in the past because of the strict austerity measures she backed to keep Greece’s economy afloat.

Sticks, stones, gas bombs and heated demonstrations gripped Greece on Merkel’s first visit to Athens in 2012.

But now, a decade later, the outgoing chancellor got an almost indifferent public reception, walking freely along streets bare of any public protest or threat for the European politician many people here had dubbed an enemy.

Resentment, though, was obvious, and President Katerina Sakellaropoulou tapped into the nation’s mood, bidding Merkel farewell with criticism of the austerity policies she advocated for Greece, recalling the tough times the two countries faced during Greek financial crisis. 

There were times of difficulty and tension, she told Merkel with a stern face. Greeks had to pay a heavy price. And, Sakellaropoulou said, there were many times when Greece, as a European nation, felt alone.

The decade-long financial crisis saw a quarter of the country’s economy wiped out and 1.2 million Greeks losing their jobs. 

Many Greeks expected Merkel to return to the country with an apology for the bitter policies she supported because Germany was the single largest contributor to a bailout scheme that helped keep the Greek economy from crashing.

She instead came with a strong dose of self-criticism.

“I knew that I was asking a lot of the people in Greece, Merkel said. But she cited the role that previous leftist governments played in making the implementation of those policies more difficult, adding to social upheaval at the time,” Merkel said.

The remarks scored few points with Greeks. 

Political analyst Panayiotis Lampsias explains the nation’s reaction to Merkel.

Of course, she played a pivotal role in keeping Greece in the EU, and that should not be underestimated, he said. But this self-criticism comes too late, and now years later and on her way out, Lampsias added, Merkel has the luxury of being able to make such remarks.

In Greece’s post-crisis era, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis reassured Merkel that the country would stick to fiscal discipline but not what he called, “blind austerity.”

Greece, he said, is no longer a source of crisis but a modern European state striving for a better future within the European Union.

Merkel’s vice chancellor, finance minister and likely successor Olaf Scholz accompanied her on the visit to Athens. He refrained from making any comment or offering any thoughts on whether Germany would ease up on its fiscal requirements, a concern nagging Greeks as Merkel departs the chancellorship.
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U.S. President Joe Biden will hold talks with European leaders over the Iran nuclear program Saturday afternoon, Rome time, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Italy, following Tehran’s announcement earlier this week that it is ready to resume negotiations before the end of November. 

Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel will seek an agreement on the path to resume negotiations for a return to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear agreement. The so-called E3+1 format will focus on “shared concerns about the state of Iran’s nuclear program,” the White House said.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA deal in 2018. Biden has said the United States will rejoin once Tehran returns to full compliance with the agreement’s restrictions on nuclear weapons development.

The Saturday talks will be a “study in contrast with the previous administration, since Iran was one of the areas of most profound divergence between the previous administration and the Europeans,” national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Rome Thursday.

“Here you’ll see Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, Prime Minister Johnson, and President Biden all singing from the same song sheet on this issue,” he said.

However, in his first in-person meeting with these NATO allies, Biden will also have to placate lingering resentment over the chaotic August U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which left them scrambling to get their troops and citizens out as the Taliban took over Kabul. Analysts say the allies are likely to press Biden for firm commitments of better coordination on Iran, which they did not believe was given on Afghanistan.

On Wednesday U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had ordered a full-scale review of the Afghan withdrawal. VOA asked Principal Deputy Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre aboard Air Force One en route to Rome, Thursday, whether the announcement Afghanistan review was timed ahead of Biden’s G-20 trip. 

“I wouldn’t connect the two,” she said. “I don’t have much more to share about that.”  

Fresh sanctions

On Friday, ahead of the G-20, the U.S. Treasury Department announced new sanctions against two senior members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and two affiliated companies for supplying lethal drones and related material to insurgent groups in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen and Ethiopia.

With these sanctions Biden is signaling that his administration still has leverage and tools to pressure Tehran, said Sanam Vakil, deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.

“Iran’s sponsorship of regional instability continues to be on Biden’s radar,” she said. 

Iran swiftly called the penalties “completely contradictory behavior.”

“A government that talks about an intention of returning to the nuclear deal but continues Trump’s policy of sanctions is sending the message that it really is not reliable,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in remarks published on the ministry’s website.

“Iran is upset but its options to hit back are limited,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, who predicts that the sanctions will not stop Iran from returning to the negotiation table.

“It can refuse to return to the talks in Vienna but then it will increase the chances that Washington can better mobilize the international opinion against Iran as the main spoiler that is preventing a breakthrough in the nuclear talks.”

Analysts say Tehran is trying to avoid a scenario where the U.S. and Europe convince Russia and China that Iran’s nuclear program is too close to possible weaponization.  

“It’s likely Iran will return in part because Europeans – whom Iran sees as weaker than U.S. – and Russia with whom Iran does various deals, want Iran back,” said James Jeffrey, chair of the Wilson Center’s Middle East Program.

Plan B

The United States and Israel have warned that they are exploring a Plan B if Tehran does not return in good faith to salvage JCPOA.

“Time is running short,” Blinken said at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid in Washington earlier this month. “We are prepared to turn to other options if Iran doesn’t change course, and these consultations with our allies and partners are part of it.”

However, analysts say the Biden administration is unlikely to use military options nor would it greenlight the Israelis to strike. Jeffrey said the U.S. is more likely to rely on a combination of new sanctions and tougher position on Iran’s aggression in the region, alongside strategic ambiguity on military response should the talks fail.

While the Iranians do not think the Biden team has a serious military Plan B, Tehran cannot allow the nuclear stalemate to go on forever, Vatanka said. 

“One way or another, both sides – the US and Iran – need to put the brakes on this cycle of escalation,” he said.

VOA’ Anita Powell contributed to this report.
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U.S. President Joe Biden met with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Friday, ahead of his meeting with G-20 leaders. Biden said the pope supported his receiving Holy Communion, while some U.S. bishops want to deny him the sacrament over his stance on abortion. With Anita Powell contributing, White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report from Rome.
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U.S. President Joe Biden launched his whirlwind European diplomatic tour on a conciliatory note, saying Friday that the rollout of a security deal between the United States, Britain and Australia that cut out longtime ally France was “clumsy.”

“What happened was, to use an English phrase – what we did was clumsy,” Biden said. “It was not done with a lot of grace,” he acknowledged, next to French President Emanuel Macron in Rome ahead of the G-20 summit. The two spoke to reporters following their meeting which was notably held at Villa Bonaparte, the French Embassy to the Vatican, instead of a neutral venue.

The Indo-Pacific AUKUS security deal provides Australia with U.S. nuclear-powered submarines.  But buying U.S. subs meant Canberra cancelled the $65 billion deal it previously made with Paris for traditional submarines.

The diplomatic fallout was swift: Paris temporarily recalled its ambassadors from Washington and Canberra, saying they were not consulted in advance of the AUKUS deal.

“I was under the impression that France had been informed long before that the deal was not coming through,” Biden said Friday. “Honest to God, I did not know that you had not been.”

This modest concession matters, said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and the Americas program at Chatham House. 

“It’s pretty clear that both Biden and Macron have a lot to lose and wish this relationship to work,” she said. “So, they are finding ways to signal that, including in this case an acknowledgment that stops short of an apology.”

Biden earlier committed to supporting France in their counterterrorism effort in the Sahel, where instability triggers waves of African migrants to aim for Europe.

“Clearly the U.S. made a tough call on how to deal with France in the run-up to this decision and, ultimately, the AUKUS partnership stands and France is outside of it,” Vinjamuri said.

Other key meetings 

Earlier Friday, Biden met with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, a potential key ally in transatlantic relations at a time when German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to leave office and Macron remains politically embattled at home.

They and other leaders will gather at the G-20 summit of the world’s wealthiest nations, hosted this year by Italy, which begins Saturday.

“Italy really is an anchor in southeastern Europe for the United States,” said Rachel Ellehuus, deputy director and senior fellow with the Europe, Russia, and Eurasia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. 

The White House said Biden thanked Draghi for Italy’s support following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including by temporarily housing more than 4,000 Afghans who were on route to the U.S. in August. The leaders discussed challenges to security in the Mediterranean region and reaffirmed the importance of NATO’s efforts to deter and defend against threats.

Biden is also expected to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the summit’s sidelines. Erdogan recently threatened to expel the U.S. and nine other Western ambassadors over their support of a jailed Turkish philanthropist over charges of espionage, terrorism and attempts to overthrow the government – allegations that Western observers have called absurd.

“This meeting is important for President Biden to send some messages to Turkey about what is and is not acceptable behavior from a NATO ally, what his expectations are for Turkey being a partner in everything from follow-on security challenges from Afghanistan to Turkey’s role in the Black Sea region and Turkey’s performance in NATO,” Ellehuus said.

Observers, journalists and international partners have repeatedly asked when Biden will meet one-on-one with the leader of the country the U.S. considers its main adversary: China. But Chinese President Xi Jinping will not attend the G-20 summit in person, nor the climate conference that will follow immediately after, in Glasgow. 

The White House has confirmed Biden and Xi will meet virtually before the year’s end.
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Pope Francis issued an urgent appeal Friday to world leaders ahead of the U.N. climate conference to take “radical decisions” to protect the environment and prioritize the common good rather than nationalistic interests.

Francis delivered the “Thought for the Day” on the British Broadcasting Corp.’s morning radio program ahead of the Oct. 31-Nov. 13 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

In the message, Francis urged political leaders not to waste the opportunity created by the upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic to change course and chart a future based on a sense of shared responsibility for a common destiny.

“It means giving priority to the common good, and it calls for a change in perspective, a new outlook, in which the dignity of every human being, now and in the future, will guide our ways of thinking and acting,” Francis said. “The most important lesson we can take from these crises is our need to build together, so that there will no longer be any borders, barriers or political walls for us to hide behind.”

Francis has made caring for God’s Creation one of the hallmarks of his papacy. In 2015, ahead of the last U.N. climate conference in Paris, he penned the first-ever ecological encyclical, “Praised Be,” in which he denounced how the “perverse” profit-at-all-costs global economic model had exploited the poorest, ravaged Earth’s natural resources and turned the planet into an “immense pile of filth.”
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An 18-member group of nations, including the United States and United Kingdom, has expressed “deep concern” over what it calls the Russian government’s “intensifying harassment of independent journalists and media outlets” in the country.

In a statement issued on October 28 under the name of the Media Freedom Coalition, was also signed by Ukraine and North Macedonia, along with Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

The statement said that “media freedom is vital to the effective functioning of free and open societies and is essential to the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms.”

Russian authorities have been accused of increasingly cracking down on independent media outlets, civil society groups, rights activists, and others, using legislations on “undesirable” individuals or groups, as well as the so-called “foreign agents” law.

The 18-nation statement said Russian authorities continue in 2021 to “systematically detain journalists and subject them to harsh treatment while they reported on protests in support of imprisoned opposition figure Aleksei Navalny.”

READ ALSO: Navalny Dedicates His Sakharov Prize to World’s Corruption Fighters

It also said the office of student magazine Doxa was searched in April in relation to “spurious charges, and four editors were then subjected to severe restrictions on their freedom.”

Other cases cited by the group included a June 29 raid by Russian authorities on the apartments of staff members of investigative news website The Project (Proekt), a move made on the same day the site published an investigation into alleged corrupt practices by Russia’s interior minister.

The statement added that Russian occupation authorities in Crimea have held Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) freelance correspondent Vladyslav Yesypenko since March “and have reportedly tortured him in detention.”

“On July 15, Yesypenko was indicted on specious charges and faces up to 18 years’ imprisonment,” it said.

Yesypenko, a dual Russian-Ukrainian citizen who contributes to Crimea.Realities, was detained on suspicion of collecting information for Ukrainian intelligence. He had worked in Crimea for five years reporting on the social and environmental situation on the peninsula before being detained.

A court in Simferopol on July 15 formally charged him with possession and transport of explosives. He pleaded not guilty and faces up to 18 years in prison if convicted.

RFE/RL President Jamie Fly at the time described the case as the latest example of the Kremlin’s campaign to target independent media outlets and called it “a mockery of justice.”

The statement by the 18-nation group also said that on October 8, Russian authorities applied the “media foreign agent” label to the international investigative journalism project Bellingcat, known for its investigation of the poisoning of Navalny.

“In an unambiguous effort to suppress Russians’ access to independent reporting, the Russian government introduced onerous labeling requirements for so-called ‘media foreign agents’ last year.

“Since then, it has charged RFE/RL with more than 600 violations, resulting in fines totaling more than $4.4 million,” the statement said.

“It increasingly appears the Russian government intends to force RFE/RL to end its decades-long presence in Russia, just as it has already forced the closure of several other independent media outlets in recent years.”

In addition, it said, authorities have applied the media foreign agent label to independent Russian outlets operating within or near Russia’s borders. “While concerns related to freedom of expression and the safety of journalists in Russia have intensified, they are not new. We stand in solidarity with independent Russian journalists who assume personal risk in carrying out their professional activities, and we honor the memory of those reporters whose intrepid work has cost them their lives.”

The statement urged Russia to comply with its international human rights commitments and obligations and “to respect and ensure media freedom and safety of journalists.”
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The Belarusian interior ministry on Friday classified three of the country’s most popular opposition social media channels as extremist organizations, meaning that people can face up to seven years in prison for subscribing to them.

Social media channels such as Telegram messenger were widely used during mass street protests against President Alexander Lukashenko last year both to coordinate demonstrations and share footage of a violent police crackdown.

The NEXTA news outlet, run by a Belarusian exile in Poland, has three channels on Telegram, including NEXTA Live, which has nearly 1 million subscribers in a country of 9.5 million.

“The Ministry of Internal Affairs has made a decision to recognize a group of citizens carrying out extremist activities through the Telegram channels NEXTA, NEXTA-Live and LUXTA, an extremist organization and prohibiting its activities,” the ministry said in a statement.

Previously, anyone who reposted material from NEXTA risked a fine or detention for 30 days. But the new classification means subscribers could be prosecuted for participating in an extremist organization and be jailed for up to seven years.

“1.4 million more extremists appeared in Belarus today,” NEXTA wrote in a tweet. “Ministry of Internal Affairs recognized telegram channels NEXTA, NEXTA Live and LUXTA as ‘extremist formations’. This means that criminal cases can be opened against creators, administrators and subscribers in #Belarus.”

Protests erupted last year after a presidential election that Lukashenko’s opponents say was blatantly rigged to keep the veteran leader in power.

Tens of thousands of people were detained and human rights activists say more than 800 people are now in jail as political prisoners since the protests.

The authorities have recently taken reprisals against citizens who voice dissent online. Hundreds of people were detained and face prison terms for making disrespectful comments about a KGB officer who died in a shootout in Minsk last month.
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Efforts by Chinese diplomats to stop cultural events deemed critical of the government in Beijing have met with mixed results in Europe, succeeding in Germany but being rebuffed by a city government in Italy.

The incident in Germany concerned a new book, Xi Jinping — The Most Powerful Man in the World, by two veteran German journalists, Stern magazine’s China correspondent Adrian Geiges, and Die Welt newspaper publisher Stefan Aust.

Confucius Institutes at two German universities had planned online events on Oct. 27 to coordinate with the book’s launch. But the book’s publisher, Piper Verlag of Munich, said the events were canceled at short notice “due to Chinese pressure.”

The company accused Feng Haiyang, the Chinese consul general in Düsseldorf, of intervening personally to quash the event at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Duisburg and Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.

At Leibniz University in Hannover, the Tongji University in Shanghai — which jointly operates the Confucius Institute there — forced the cancellation of an event, according to the company. Neither the publisher nor the institute offered details on what triggered the cancellation.

The institutes, run by China’s education ministry, are seen by Beijing as a way to promote its culture. Many Western countries have become wary of the influence the institutes exert on campuses by subsidizing classes, travel and research.

Dozens of Confucius Institutes have been closed or are closing in Europe and Australia. At least 29 shuttered in the U.S. after the State Department in August 2020 designated the Confucius Institute U.S. Center as a “foreign mission” of the Chinese government.

In a statement, Piper Verlag quoted a Confucius Institute employee as saying that “One can no longer talk about Xi Jinping as a normal person, he should now be untouchable and unspeakable.”

Felicitas von Lovenberg, head of Piper Verlag, called the cancellation of the events “a worrying and disturbing signal.”

Aust of Die Welt said the incident confirmed the book’s basic thesis: “For the first time, a dictatorship is in the process of overtaking the West economically, and is now also trying to impose its values, which are against our freedom, internationally.”

The book presented China in a very differentiated way as it also talked about China’s success in overcoming poverty, co-author Geiges said. “Apparently, such balanced reports are no longer enough for Xi Jinping. Stories are no longer enough — he now wants a cult around his person internationally, just as he does in China itself.”

A spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Berlin said events at Confucius Institutes were planned to bring about better understanding between the two peoples, and they “should build on the basis of comprehensive communications between the partners.”

China supports the development of the institutes as “a platform to understand China comprehensively and objectively,” the embassy spokesperson added. “But we strongly object to any politicization of academic and cultural exchange.”

Both Confucius Institutes said in their respective statements that there were different views between the German and Chinese partners, making it impossible to carry on. The Institute for East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen had expressed interest in hosting the event, according to the university’s Confucius Institute.

German human rights activist David Missal told VOA Cantonese there has always been pressure from the Chinese side when it comes to critical events, but the tactics were rarely exposed. He took it as a positive development that these incidents are coming to light.

“I think this is the only way to fight this kind of influence in a democracy — you have to make these things public, make them transparent, and then there will be political responses to these incidents,” Missal said.

Reinhard Bütikofer, a German member of the European Parliament who is critical of China, said the next German federal government must draw clear lines about its China policy. “Chinese censorship at German universities? Does not work at all. These so-called ‘Confucius’ institutes, which are in fact CCP aides, have no future,” he tweeted.

Earlier this month, the Chinese Embassy in Rome attempted to stop a critical art show, but failed.

A museum in Brescia, an Italian city about 100 kilometers east of Milan, will continue with its plans to open a solo exhibition of the work of Australia-based Chinese exiled activist Badiucao. Scheduled to run from Nov. 13-Feb. 13, the exhibition is entitled “China is [not] near.” It will feature the artist’s work criticizing issues such as China’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its crackdowns in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.

The Chinese Embassy in Rome sent the Brescia city council a message on Oct. 21, contending that Badiucao’s works twisted facts, spread false information, would mislead the Italian people’s understanding of China while seriously damaging Chinese people’s feelings, and jeopardize friendly relations between China and Italy, according to Italy’s ANSA news agency.

Brescia Mayor Emilio Del Bono told the Il Foglio newspaper the show will not be canceled, adding, “I think it is important to show that you can stay friends while criticizing some things.”

Badiucao told VOA Mandarin via phone on live TV that he was not surprised by the embassy’s position. “I am very excited that the city government and the museum stood strongly with me. I can say very confidently that my exhibition will not be canceled. I will not amend my exhibits or commit any self-censorship.”

VOA Cantonese asked the Chinese Embassy in Rome for comments but received no response.

This story originated in VOA’s Cantonese Service.
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It is only a matter of time before China’s plan to replace the United States as the world’s preeminent military becomes reality, a top U.S. general warned, calling on the Washington and its allies to speed efforts to counter Beijing’s bid for dominance.

General John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Washington’s second-most-senior military officer, called the rapid rise of the Chinese military “stunning.”

“The pace they’re moving and the trajectory that they’re on will surpass Russia and the United States if we don’t do something to change it,” he told the Defense Writers Group on Thursday, responding to a question from VOA.

“We have to do something,” he added.

The warning from Hyten, who is set to retire next month, comes a day after the top U.S. military officer publicly confirmed that China tested a hypersonic weapon system in July, sending a glider around the world at five times the speed of sound.

General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bloomberg Television on Wednesday the Chinese test was “very concerning.”

“I don’t know if it’s quite a Sputnik moment, but I think it’s very close to that,” Milley added, referring to Russia’s launch of the world’s first artificial satellite in the 1950s. The feat sparked the space race that dominated the next several decades.

Like Milley, Hyten refused to share details of the Chinese hypersonic test, saying the information remained classified.

But he did acknowledge that simply by conducting such a test, China was sending a message.

“All the hypersonic weapons they’re building, all of the nuclear weapons they’re building, are not meant for their own population,” Hyten said of China. “It is meant for the United States of America, and we have to assume that, and we have to plan for that.”

Hyten expressed confidence that for now, America’s own hypersonic program is more advanced, though he raised concerns that even that could be changing.

“In the last five years, maybe longer, the United States has done nine hypersonic tests,” Hyten told reporters. “The Chinese have done hundreds.”

“Single digits versus hundreds is not a good place,” he said.

Hyten also repeated concerns he first voiced as commander of U.S. Strategic Command, that the U.S. capability to defend against hypersonic weapons, from China and Russia, needs work.

“The most important thing about defending yourself against hypersonics is not the weapon. It is not building your own hypersonics. It’s building a sensor that can see hypersonics,” he said. “Right now, we don’t have the sensors.”

Hyten said one way to boost visibility would be for the U.S. to work with allies to create an integrated network of ground-based and space-based systems to track the high-speed weapons.

But building such a capability will take time, and Hyten warned its development could get bogged down by the Pentagon’s growing bureaucracy, which he said continues to slow critical programs, despite recent efforts to boost efficiency.

Hyten said another way to counter hypersonic weapons would be to turn to lasers, which travel at the speed of light.

“We’ve finally reached the point in technology in lasers that it has reached the maturity that it can actually be lethal on incoming missile threats,” Hyten said. “We need to invest in that.”

Russia

Despite concerns about China’s rapidly progressing military prowess, Hyten said that for the moment, Russia remains the biggest existential threat to the U.S.

“Russia is still the most imminent threat, simply because they have 1,500 deployed nuclear weapons, plus or minus, and China’s got roughly 20% of that,” the general said in response to a question from VOA. “So, you have to worry about Russia in the near term.”

“They already have operational hypersonic capabilities with nuclear weapons on it,” Hyten said of Russia. “And they continue to experiment with hypersonics, but not nearly at the pace of China, not anywhere close to the pace of China.” 
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