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Japan and Korea are more than spectators in the Biden-Xi contest of wills

President Biden and China’s President Xi Jinping are playing a dangerous game of chicken over the island province of Taiwan, and one or the other will be able to declare a victory and claim ever greater power and prestige, at least over Asia.

That’s the sum total takeaway from more than two hours of palaver over the phone between Biden and Xi, during which neither resolved anything. At stake is the simple fact that Taiwan, 100 miles off China’s east coast, is an independent state governed by its own rules, and China refuses to accept Taiwan’s right to live by its laws free from the clutches of China’s growing military power all around its periphery.

Also at stake is Washington’s commitment to defend Taiwan, as reiterated by Biden during his visits to America’s Northeast Asian allies, Korea and Japan, in May. Reiterated, but not proven. Biden can talk the talk, but he’s loath to walk the walk, or at least to express frankly House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) right to go to Taiwan any damn time she pleases.

Interestingly, while yakking in a phone call that anyone can imagine between frenemies in business or love, war or peace, neither Biden nor Xi mentioned the P word — P for Pelosi. She must be enjoying her own game of keeping everyone on edge, wondering if she’ll really follow through on her plan when Xi and everyone in Beijing are issuing threats about all the bad things that will happen if she does.

Let’s say Pelosi does make the trip. Then we’ll really learn whether Xi and his people are all bluff and bluster and whether Biden has the guts to stand up against them.

It’s hard to believe that Xi would order shots fired to deter Pelosi from making such a visit. He’s not going to waylay the plane that’s carrying her there, forcing it to land on Chinese soil and then holding her hostage until Biden makes a groveling apology and begs for her return, is he?

Nor, honestly, is China going to lob artillery fire into Taiwan while she’s there or blockade Taiwan ports or try to capture Taiwanese ships, holding them and their crews as spoils of war.

Oh, no? Then what will the Chinese think of to show they’re not just blowing smoke rings with all that rhetoric? This time, what might the Chinese have in mind? Actually, in the game of dare and double-dare, playing chicken like two hot-rodders crashing toward each other, challenging to see which one veers away first, Biden might just as well take the risk.

Go ahead, stop begging Pelosi not to go, as we believe he and his aides have been doing, privately, out of the glare of publicity. Go ahead, give her air cover and send a flotilla led by the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan into the Taiwan Straits that China has been claiming, just as it claims the entire South China Sea.

Let’s see what China is prepared to do in the face of such an affront, and let’s be ready to stand up militarily against China’s threats, even an attack on American or allied or friendly ships and planes.

That’s because, sooner or later — if not this time, then the next time or the time after — Washington has to defy China’s claims and charges and settle the matter of who’s got the rights to what in the region. If Pelosi is willing to take her chances, so should Biden be.

At stake is not just Taiwan but American power and prestige throughout Asia. None will be watching this drama more closely than millions of people in Japan and Korea.

The Japanese may feel they have the greatest stake since they ruled Taiwan for half a century after defeating China in the Sino-Japanese war in 1895. Unlike in Korea, which they made a protectorate in 1905 and then a colony in 1910, the Japanese got along quite well in Taiwan. They’re still close culturally and commercially.

If China were to go to war for Taiwan, Japan would have the perfect pretext for doing away with Article 9 of its “no war” constitution, adopted in 1947 during the American military occupation, declaring that Japan would never wage war again overseas. The conservatives who rule Japan would love to get away from these strictures, under which they also could do away with the policy that Japan can invest no more than 1 percent of its gross domestic product, expected to exceed $5 trillion this year, in its euphemistically named Self-Defense Forces. Military spending would probably double to 2 percent of GDP.

Korea looks upon war for Taiwan a little differently. South Korea counts on China as its biggest trading partner and also sees China as applying pressure on North Korea’s Kim Jong Un not to stage more nuclear tests or make good on his threats to “annihilate” the South.

Korea is wary of any moves under which Japan might increase its military power. Sure, it’s all well and good for Japan to defend South Korea against North Korea, but then what if the Japanese took a notion to maintain military forces in the South, as in the days before the Japanese surrender at the end of World War II in 1945?

South Korea, however, does not want China taking over Taiwan, with which it has close commercial relations. Chinese aggression toward Taiwan might expand into war on the Korean peninsula, with China on North Korea’s side as in the Korean War.

For all these reasons, Japan and Korea see the contest between Washington and Beijing over Taiwan as a test case of American power and intentions in the region. It’s a struggle from which Biden cannot back down — even if he really hates the idea of having to act strongly, decisively, if Pelosi goes there.

Donald Kirk has been a journalist for more than 60 years, focusing much of his career on conflict in Asia and the Middle East, including as a correspondent for the Washington Star and Chicago Tribune. He currently is a freelance correspondent covering North and South Korea. He is the author of several books about Asian affairs.

Source: TEST FEED1

Manchin will talk to Sinema about supporting climate, tax deal

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) says he will talk to fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) about supporting a broad tax reform and climate bill he’s negotiated with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would reduce carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030.  

Sinema has kept silent about whether she will support the deal, which needs the votes of all 50 members of the Senate Democratic caucus to pass.  

The Arizona senator last year expressed opposition to closing the carried interest tax loophole for asset managers, something that Manchin insisted be part of the deal.  

Manchin said he didn’t keep Sinema in the loop during his talks with Schumer because he didn’t know if a deal was possible, but he said he plans to speak with her Monday afternoon, when the Senate is scheduled to vote on a judicial nominee to Virginia’s eastern district court. 

“I’m sure we’ll get a chance to speak today because she usually comes in [on Monday] and we’ll speak on the floor,” he told reporters.  

Manchin said last week that he was “adamant” about keeping a proposal to close the carried interest loophole, which lets money managers pay a capital gains tax rate on the income they earn from profitable investments.  

Sinema’s staff says the senator is reviewing the legislation.

Manchin indicated that he would likely vote to protect the budget reconciliation package from amendments that would alter it significantly, arguing that he and Schumer have struck the right balance after months of difficult negotiations.  

“I’m just saying we have a good balanced piece of legislation. It’s taken me eight months to get here. We’ve listened to everybody along the way,” he said when asked whether he would vote for amendments to change the bill, which would raise $739 billion in new revenue and reduce the deficit by more than $300 billion.  

Manchin said he kept his conversations with Schumer close to the vest.

“I haven’t had any conversations with anybody during the process because I wasn’t ever sure that we would get to a finale,” he acknowledged. “I never thought that could happen. I wasn’t sure.”

He said “I never quit” on the talks, but he “didn’t want to put people in the situation where their anticipations and hopes would go up and back down again.” 

“It really unfolded last Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” he added.

Manchin pushed back at Republican claims that the bill would cause Americans across income brackets to pay slightly more in taxes.  

An analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, for example, shows people earning between $50,000 and $75,000 would see their taxes increase by 0.8 percent in 2023.

Bloomberg reported Sunday the bill would increase a lapsed tax on crude and imported petroleum products to 16.4 cents per barrel.  

“We have to agree to disagree. My Republican colleagues are my friends and I’ve worked with them tremendously and I’ll continue to work with them in any way, shape or form,” he said. “But these are things we have all talked about in bipartisan groups. How can we start paying down our debt and take our finances seriously?” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Meijer: ‘Democrats’ fingerprints will be on the weapon’ for supporting election-denying opponent

Rep. Peter Meijer (R-Mich.) on Monday took a swipe at Democrats for supporting his election-denying primary opponent, asserting that their “fingerprints will be on the weapon” if his Republican challenger ultimately wins the race.

“If successful, Republican voters will be blamed if any of these candidates are ultimately elected, but there is no doubt Democrats’ fingerprints will be on the weapon,” Meijer wrote in a lengthy essay posted online. “We should never forget it.”

Meijer’s comments come after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) took out an ad in Michigan supporting Republican John Gibbs, the Trump-endorsed candidate who is facing off against Meijer in a primary on Tuesday.

Meijer is one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The ad backing Gibbs is part of a new strategy embraced by the DCCC in which the group props up election-denying candidates in primary races with hopes that the far-right candidates will be easier to beat in general elections.

The DCCC brought a $425,000 ad campaign for Gibbs, which paints the candidate as “too conservative” and too close to Trump — labels that supporters of the former president favor.

On the eve of his primary race, Meijer is speaking out against the strategy across the aisle.

“You would think that the Democrats would look at John Gibbs and see the embodiment of what they say they most fear. That as patriots they would use every tool at their disposal to defeat him and similar candidates that they’ve said are an existential threat,” Meijer wrote. “Instead they are funding Gibbs.”

The freshman Democrat accused Democrats of losing sight of where the moral line is in politics.

“The Democrats are justifying this political jiu-jitsu by making the argument that politics is a tough business. I don’t disagree. But that toughness is bound by certain moral limits: Those who participated in the attack on the Capitol, for example, clearly fall outside those limits,” Meijer wrote.

“But over the course of the midterms, Democrats seem to have forgotten just where those limits lie,” he added.

The congressman called out three of his Democratic colleagues — Reps. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Elaine Lauria (Va.) — for making statements tolerant of the DCCC’s strategy, which has extended to GOP primaries in other states, warning that the candidates being propped-up by Democrats could still win, despite being less electable.

“Conventional wisdom dictates that these extreme candidates are less electable than the normal Republicans Democrats targeted to defeat. But with a historically unpopular president in Joe Biden and inflation at 40-year highs, less-electable doesn’t mean un-electable,” Meijer wrote.

“As the January 6 Select Committee continues to warn about the ongoing threat to democracy, their own party dues are paying to help elect the same villains they rail against,” he added.

Source: TEST FEED1

How heat waves affect our physical and mental health

With temperatures climbing to record highs in many parts of the United States, medical and city officials alike are on high alert to prevent and mitigate the toll heat waves can have on our health.

Although many may think health risks of extreme heat stop at heat stroke and exhaustion, “those are actually pretty rare,” explains Aaron Bernstein, director of The Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital.

In an interview with Changing America, Bernstein even classified heightened attention paid to these risks as a disservice to the public. 

While heat exhaustion and heat stroke do happen, “really what’s much more important is that [heat] can make existing diseases flare,” Bernstein says. Because organs do not function as well as normal during periods of extreme heat, risks for individuals with chronic medical problems like diabetes, COPD, or heart disease spike during heat waves. 

Other vulnerable populations include older individuals — especially those over 80 — pregnant individuals, infants, outdoor workers, and those reliant on technology-dependent care, Bernstein added, as the threat of power outages often looms during intense heat. But, “heat can land you in a healthcare facility at any age,” Bernstein said. 

Urologist and pediatrician Gregory Tasian of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia says that the research going back to the 1970s shows that there is a higher prevalence of kidney stones in hotter areas – leading experts to dub the region the “stone belt.” A combination of high temperatures and high humidity increases risk of kidney stones.

While a heat wave may not cause a kidney stone on its own, it could contribute to the condition for people who were already at risk. When you consider periods of high temperatures, “you’re likely going to have more people who what I call tip over into the stones because they have other risk factors for it,” says Tasian. This includes people who have had a history of kidney stones or have a family history of stone disease. 

Heat can also affect those with certain mental health conditions. Commonly prescribed treatments for mental health disorders, including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can make patients sweat more, exacerbating the threat of dehydration. Heat waves have also been associated with increased rates of violent crime.

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More days of high heat can also increase the rates of mental health emergencies in hospitals. Temperature spikes across the country are associated with a rise in emergency department visits for mental health reasons, according to study results presented by Amruta Nori-Sarma of Boston University in a briefing. Heat is an external stressor that can exacerbate not only physical conditions but also mental conditions.

Heat waves – and its toll on our mental and physical health – are only becoming more frequent and intense with climate change. 

 “A child born in 2020 in the United States will experience around 35 times more dangerous heat waves, like the one that spread across most of the country in the past week or so, than a child born in the United States in the 19th century,” Bernstein said. “[This is] because of climate change, because of our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Heat-related deaths often lag from the peak of heat waves, and could happen as much as 24 hours later, says professor of global health Kristie Ebi at the University of Washington. This makes it important to pay attention during the following days. 

“It’s a particular problem when temperatures do not fall as much as normal during the night,” says Ebi. “So paying attention, not just on day one. But on days two, three and four, because the accumulation of heat within the core of our bodies start affecting ourselves and our organs.” 

During the heat dome that hit the Pacific Northwest last year, there was a 69-fold increase in heat-related presentations in hospitals. Since then, local government officials in Seattle have rolled out a comprehensive heat action plan, according to Ebi, that’s been effective in informing people about oncoming heat waves and how to stay safe. However, there’s still a lot more planning that needs to be done in terms of providing services to make sure that hospitals and clinics can handle an increase in heat-related cases, Ebi added.

“Heat does not spare any part of our bodies,” Bernstein says. But understanding the combination of factors that increase a person’s vulnerability can help inform more targeted approaches to prevent hospitalizations and poor outcomes.

Part of the challenge of dealing with high temperatures is that there is no official definition of heat waves, and how a population as a whole handles higher temperatures may also depend on behavior and knowledge. Certain social factors like limited mobility, lack of access to air conditioning, and being socially isolated all need to be taken into account when identifying and protecting those most at risk, he stressed. 

“Those individuals who work in jobs that require you to be outside are going to be the most impacted and I think that certainly extends beyond kidney stones into the other effects of temperature on human health,” says Tasian. 

Being proactive and having resources in place to address the potential health consequences of heat waves before they strike is paramount. 

Taking heat alert warnings from the National Weather Service as an example, Bernstein explains, “those alerts are being given at temperatures well above when many, if not most, of the people who are vulnerable are already sick and getting hospitalized,” marking an opportunity for improvement.

Heat action plans at the local government level can include outreach to at-risk groups, Ebi tells Changing America. These include unhoused people, people with chronic conditions and pregnant people. For example, they can make sure people know where local cooling centers are to take shelter during periods of high heat.

Health systems can also leverage the information they have about at-risk patients to better enable successful heat plans, another action — deemed patient-centered climate resilience — underway by Bernstein and colleagues at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

When cities open cooling centers during heat waves, those who are socially isolated or people with limited mobility will likely not make the journey, again underscoring the importance of identifying at-risk members of the community beforehand. 

Both heat alerts and cooling centers are useful, but more can be done to help prevent avoidable deaths and poor outcomes reported when heat waves strike. As Nori-Sarma puts it, social ties are the best protection against adverse effects.

For example, health-outcomes-based heat warning systems tailored to a city’s geographic location offer a potential solution for some communities. This is already being tested by the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center.

Source: TEST FEED1

President Biden’s offshore drilling plan will make or break climate and environmental justice promises

You’ve heard the news and seen the reports: the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis are coming unless we transition from fossil fuels to clean energy as soon as possible. But for some of us, the climate crisis is already here and impacting our health, safety and communities. I am a retired Exxon-Mobil employee from Port Arthur, Texas — a city that has become a sacrifice zone for the profits of the oil and gas industry, where the United States government has permitted pipelines, liquified natural gas and petrochemical facilities and offshore drilling. Here, we have seen firsthand what happens when the government listens to the fossil fuel industry instead of people. The costs on our families and communities are mounting. It’s time for the status quo to change and for politicians to keep their word to us, starting by putting an end to new offshore drilling leases. 

Last month, the Biden administration released their long-awaited five-year plan — a proposed schedule of oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. When running for office, Joe Biden made a promise that, if we elected him to the White House, he would end all new leasing on federal lands and waters — but this proposed plan tells a different story. By opening the door to new leases in the five-year plan, the Biden administration has decided to do the bidding of the fossil fuel industry instead of protecting the people who are going to pay the price.

For those of us who’ve spent our entire lives in endangered Gulf communities, there is a world of difference between a five-year plan from the Biden administration that includes new offshore leases and one that doesn’t. The former means devastating oil spills, rising sea levels and constant flooding, and a continued threat to our respiratory health. The latter brings hope for a livable future and a start to the clean energy transition that President Biden promised on the campaign trail. Even for those who don’t live in the Gulf, the difference between these two paths forward is staggering. An end to new offshore drilling would prevent 19 billion tons of carbon pollution from entering our atmosphere — which is the equivalent of taking every car in the United States off the road for 15 years. 

The fossil fuel industry already has over 9,000 leases they have yet to utilize, tap into, drill and explore. They claim that we need to sacrifice communities like my own in the name of energy prices and national security — all while these oil and gas executives rake in record breaking profits at the expense of American families. We should be asking ourselves — why would we offer more leases to an industry that already has thousands, especially when it has been proven that it won’t lower gas prices? It’s because this industry and their political allies will never get enough money or power. It’s abundantly clear that expanding fossil fuel infrastructure puts us on a direct path to climate catastrophe. I don’t know how many more summers with record-breaking heat, hurricanes and super storms we have to experience before our government understands that we cannot go on like this anymore. 

This week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.)  reached a deal on climate investments with the Inflation Reduction Act. In its current form, it would offer millions of acres off the Gulf for offshore drilling for decades to come, putting communities like mine in harm’s way. We no longer have the luxury of debating whether or not we should open up our oceans to more oil and gas drilling. If the Biden administration and our elected officials choose to dismiss the warning signs, ignore their own commitments and cave to the fossil fuel industry’s demands, they are all complicit in permitting a climate apocalypse. We can’t keep flying past these warning signs and flashing lights — we must understand that new drilling is a death sentence for the Gulf Coast and for our planet. If you think I am being alarmist, I invite you to come down to the Gulf Coast and see what the fossil fuel industry has done to our air, water and health — you can come see firsthand why we don’t want any new leases. 

We need a five-year plan with no new leases, we need bold climate investments to truly transition us away from fossil fuels, and we need to hold our elected officials accountable for turning their backs on our communities. There is no room for more fossil fuels if we want a livable future — if the Biden administration bows down to the fossil fuel industry, we have to rise up and push back.

John Beard Jr. is the founder, president, and executive director of the Port Arthur Community Action Network, serving the Port Arthur/Southeast Texas area as a community advocate. 

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Cornyn tests positive for COVID-19

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) announced on Monday that he has tested positive for COVID-19, which could further complicate the math of floor votes for Republicans and Democrats at the start of a busy week for the Senate.

“After dodging it for 2+ years I’ve tested positive for COVID-19,” Cornyn wrote on Twitter.

“I’m fully vaccinated and boosted, and doing fine,” he said. “While quarantining I’ll continue to fight Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin’s massive tax increase on working families remotely, consistent with CDC guidelines.”

Senate Democrats this week are hoping to pass their multibillion-dollar climate, tax and health care package announced by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Manchin (D-W.VA.) on Wednesday. Republicans are expected to unanimously oppose the measure, and the GOP has criticized the West Virginia Democrat for backing it.

The package, which the duo have framed as inflation-fighting legislation, invests $369 billion in energy and climate programs, allocates $64 billion to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies for two years and allows Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

The bill also raises new revenue by establishing a 15-percent minimum corporate tax for companies with profits exceeding $1 billion, providing funding for the Internal Revenue Service to enforce the nation’s tax law and closing the carried interest loophole for money managers.

Schumer and Manchin are aiming to pass the package under reconciliation, an arcane budget rule that avoids the Senate’s 60-vote threshold required for most bills. 

After the parliamentarian reviews the package to ensure it can move forward under reconciliation rules, the bill would need a simple majority to pass in the 50-50 Senate, where Vice President Harris casts any tie-breaking votes.

Democrats are also closely watching Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who has not yet announced a position on the reconciliation package.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the Senate majority whip, announced on Thursday he had tested positive for the virus and it is unclear when he will return to the Capitol.

Source: TEST FEED1

US sanctions companies for helping Iran ship oil to East Asia

The Biden administration on Monday slapped sanctions on companies based in the United Arab Emirates and China that the U.S. says are helping ship Iranian oil to East Asia.  

The Treasury Department said that the companies together were helping Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. sell tens of millions of dollars worth of Iranian petroleum and petrochemical products. Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industry Commercial Co. has been sanctioned by the U.S. since 2019. 

Treasury announced sanctions on four companies — one based in the UAE and three others based in Hong Kong. The State Department also sanctioned two shipping companies for transporting the oil from Iran to East Asia.  

The new sanctions come as the Biden administration continues to pursue a return to the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Those efforts seem to have stalled, but officials say they are still trying to convince Iran to return to the agreement.  

“The United States continues to pursue the path of diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to full implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” Brian Nelson, Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, said in a statement on Monday.  

“Until such time as Iran is ready to return to full implementation of its commitments, we will continue to enforce sanctions on the illicit sale of Iranian petroleum and petrochemicals,” Nelson said.  

During a trip to Israel last month, President Biden said that U.S. wouldn’t “wait forever” for Iran to return to the nuclear deal, without laying out a specific timeline. Former President Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 and Biden campaigned on reentering the accord, which he argues is the best means of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  

“They have an opportunity to accept, this agreement has been laid down. If they don’t, we have made it absolutely clear: We will not — let me say it again — we will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon,” Biden said during a press conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid in July.  

On Monday, Treasury designated UAE-based Blue Cactus Heavy Equipment and Machinery Spare Parts Trading L.L.C., as well as Hong Kong-based Farwell Canyon HK Limited, Shekufei International Trading Co., Limited, and PZNFR Trading Limited.  

The companies sanctioned by the State Department are Pioneer Ship management PTE LTD and Golden Warrior Shipping, Co. Ltd. 

The Biden administration announced a similar round of sanctions in early July.  

Source: TEST FEED1

UN hails first grain shipment out of Ukrainian agricultural corridor

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres hailed the first shipment of grain out of Ukraine on Monday as part of a trade corridor set up by Russia, Ukraine, Turkey and the U.N. as “an enormous collective achievement.”

The shipment left the port of Odesa bound for Lebanon and consisted of nearly 27,000 metric tons of corn as part of the U.N.’s Black Sea grain initiative. It was the first commercial shipment of any kind to leave Odesa since February 26, just two days after Russia launched its large-scale invasion of Ukraine, according to the U.N.

“What we have witnessed today in Odesa is an important starting point. It must be the first of many commercial ships bringing relief and stability to global food markets,” Guterres said outside the U.N. General Assembly hall in New York on Monday. “The Black Sea grain initiative allows for significant volumes of exports from three Ukrainian ports – Odesa, Chornomorsk and Yuzhny – together with the agreed facilitation of the unimpeded access of Russian food products and fertilizers to world markets. It will bring relief and stability to global food markets and help tackle the global food crisis.” 

“Ensuring that grain fertilizers and other food-related items are available at reasonable prices to developing countries is a humanitarian imperative,” Guterres added.

The agreement struck by Ukraine and Russia with help from the U.N. and Turkey is meant to alleviate a shortage of food in many developing countries and to help bring down global food prices that have risen almost 25 percent since last year as result of the ongoing fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.

The United Nations’ cereal price index is up 27.6 percent above its level in June 2021. International wheat prices reached a near-record level in May and are still nearly 50 percent higher than they were a year ago. 

Prices for cereals and bakery products in the U.S. are up 13.8 percent over the same period, with the Labor Department’s food-at-home index having risen 12.2 percent over the last 12 months. This is the largest 12-month increase since the period ending April 1979, according to the department.

The newly proven trade corridor out of Ukraine was agreed upon in July and resulted from a flurry of negotiations in Istanbul, although parties from Russia and Ukraine did not sign the agreement directly with each other as hostilities between the two countries remain high.

Just a day after signing the accord, Russia launched a missile strike on the port of Odesa where a military spokesperson for the country said it destroyed Harpoon anti-ship missiles supplied to Ukraine by the United States. Following the strike, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the strike had been confined to a military area of the port and a Kremlin official said that he expected it wouldn’t affect the trade deal.

The U.N.’s International Maritime Organization (IMO), which keeps in contact with ships in the Black Sea to address security issues, also welcomed the inaugural corn shipment out of Odesa.

“I am pleased to see the first departure. The immense work by the UN and the relevant parties has now come to fruition. IMO will continue to do everything to support safe and secure shipping and ensure the safety of seafarers,” IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim said in Monday statement.

IMO said that at the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “around 2,000 seafarers were stranded aboard 94 vessels in Ukrainian ports. Ten vessels subsequently safely departed the Sea of Azov and at the end of July, 84 merchant ships remained, with nearly 450 seafarers onboard.” 

“This number continues to steadily reduce. Many ships have employed local ship keepers to replace crew, and some ships have gone into cold lay-up, with no crew remaining onboard. In some situations, crew have chosen to remain onboard. This creates a complex and continually changing picture, made more complex by the challenges of communicating with ships in some locations,” the IMO said in a statement.

The UN’s Guterres said the World Food Program is planning to purchase “an initial 30,000 metric tons of wheat out of Ukraine on a UN chartered vessel” and that more details would be available in the coming days.

Source: TEST FEED1

Graham renews effort to block Georgia grand jury subpoena

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is renewing his legal effort to block a special grand jury subpoena for his testimony as part of an investigation into former President Trump’s efforts to pressure Georgia officials to overturn the 2020 election results.

Court filings submitted late Friday show Graham has tapped Trump’s former White House Counsel Don McGahn as part of his legal team in a federal lawsuit to quash the subpoena from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D).

Graham asked the federal district court in Georgia to hear the case on an expedited basis citing the subpoena’s Aug. 23 deadline. His lawyers argued the Constitution expressly shields federal lawmakers from being compelled to testify in such state court proceedings.

“A federal court would be ordering a U.S. Senator from a coequal branch of government to appear before a grand jury,” the filing reads. “And enforcement would pose an even larger problem: It would create a precedent that would allow other county officials in locales across the nation to impose similar burdens on federal officials, of whatever party, to the detriment of our federal government and the federalism that protects it from state and local interference. And to what end? There is no need for Senator Graham’s testimony, far less ‘extraordinary circumstances’ compelling it.”

Willis has demanded Graham’s testimony regarding phone calls he made to a pair of state officials following the 2020 election.

Graham had previously filed a lawsuit in South Carolina federal court but agreed to dismiss the case and re-file it in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

McGahn, his new attorney, served as White House counsel for Trump from the beginning of the administration in 2017 to fall 2018.

Graham’s lawyers argued the senator’s testimony would not be useful for Willis’s investigation, saying he took no part in any effort to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results.

In their filing, his legal team wrote that Graham “was specifically exercising his oversight responsibilities as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, including related to voting integrity and election-law issues.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Working Americans pay income taxes — why don’t billionaires?

It’s far past time that we stopped tolerating billionaires paying no taxes. Despite out-of-control growth in billionaire wealth over the last several years, many of the richest people in America still pay lower tax rates than many working Americans.

Trust in American institutions is lower than ever, and the American people are looking for lawmakers to show that they’re serious about un-rigging a system that gives special treatment to the wealthy. The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax, proposed by President Biden in his latest budget and now introduced as legislation by Reps. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) and Don Beyer (D-Va.) would do precisely that.

The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax would implement a 20 percent minimum tax on the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers, requiring households worth over $100 million to pay at least 20 percent in taxes on their full income, including realized and unrealized gains. If Congress is serious about ensuring the wealthiest Americans no longer avoid paying their fair share, this piece of legislation is a no-brainer.

Unlike those who work for a living, most wealthy individuals have their wealth contained in assets like stock or real estate and don’t need a salary. That means they are only taxed if they decide to sell their assets, at which point any capital gains would be recognized and taxed. But the ultra-wealthy don’t need to sell their assets to generate billions of dollars in untaxed income. Billionaires can take out special low-interest loans with their assets as collateral. That money works just like any kind of income, but it isn’t taxed like it. Since the loans are not considered income, billionaires can reap the growing value of their assets without ever triggering a tax bill.

Families can continue to avoid taxes forever by using this ‘buy, borrow, die’ strategy: holding onto their assets without selling, borrowing against them for income and using the loophole at inheritance that allows billionaires to pass on the increased value of their assets to heirs tax-free.

As a result, many ultra-billionaires end up paying a lower tax rate than average working and middle-class taxpayers. A series of leaks has shown us that the top 0.001 percent of wealthiest Americans pay somewhere around 17 percent of their income in taxes, while the average single worker earning $45,000 per year pays 21 percent and the average married couple with one child earning $200,000 per year pays 26 percent.

Sometimes their tax bills are flat-out zero. For several years, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and George Soros have avoided paying any federal income tax at all. 

We’re bombarded with news about how little the rich pay in taxes so often that it becomes less shocking over time, but there is no overstating the depth of this injustice. If you bought a candy bar at a gas station and paid five cents in sales tax, you paid more in taxes for that candy bar than the richest men in the world paid in income tax over entire years in which they were making billions of dollars. Something in our tax code is deeply, fundamentally broken.

Thankfully, at least some of our lawmakers are serious about fixing it. The Billionaires Minimum Income Tax is a simple solution to this problem of freeloading billionaires, and it would affect only the truly ultra-wealthy. 

This isn’t about punishing wealth; it’s about ensuring everyone is playing by the same set of rules. Ordinary Americans pay taxes on their income on every paycheck, and a 20 percent minimum tax is lower than the top tax rate for a single person earning $45,000 of income. The kind of billionaires that buy yachts that are like Russian nesting dolls with smaller yachts inside of supersized ones, or the ones that can buy up an entire Hawaiian island, can clearly afford to pay at least that much.

There’s a reason a moderate like Joe Biden is fighting for this change — it’s both good policy and good politics. Commonsense tax reform like the Billionaire Minimum Income Tax would make our tax code dramatically fairer, and in the context of a Senate that seems unwilling to spend without a corresponding pay-for, raising hundreds of billions of dollars from billionaires would allow the Biden administration to make record-breaking investments in public amenities and welfare programs. 

But that’s not all — it would also give the Democratic Party a major, popular policy win that proves they’re serious about standing up for working Americans, something the party desperately needs in a difficult midterm environment.

Taxes can be complicated, but this isn’t. Every billionaire should be paying taxes at the end of each year just like other Americans. It’s high past time that we ended this special carveout for a small number of elite Americans and made everyone, no matter their wealth, play by the same rules. 

Morris Pearl is a former managing director at Blackrock, Inc., the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires, and co-author of “Tax the Rich! How Lies, Loopholes, and Lobbyists Make the Rich Even Richer.”

Source: TEST FEED1