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Launching an economic pitch expected to anchor his fall presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is proposing sweeping new uses of the federal government’s regulatory and spending power to bolster U.S. manufacturing and technology firms.
Biden calls for a $400 billion, four-year increase in government purchasing of U.S.-based goods and services plus $300 billion in new research and development in U.S. technology concerns.
Among other policies expected to be announced Thursday, he proposes tightening current “Buy American” laws that are intended to benefit U.S. firms but can be easily circumvented by government agencies.  
An outline released by Biden’s campaign also touts his long-standing promises to strengthen workers’ collective bargaining rights and repeal Republican-backed tax breaks for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas.
“This will be the largest mobilization of public investments in procurement, infrastructure and (research and development) since World War II,” senior adviser Jake Sullivan told The Associated Press, with the campaign promising additionally that Biden would require that effort in domestic markets before negotiating any new international trade deals.
The former vice president will discuss the proposals Thursday at a metal works concern in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. It’s the first of a series of addresses Biden plans as he shifts his line of attack against President Donald Trump to the economy. It’s political turf the Republican incumbent once considered a clear advantage before the coronavirus pandemic curbed consumer activity and drove unemployment to near-Depression levels.
An opening emphasis on manufacturing and labor policy is no coincidence: Biden wants to capitalize on his union ties and deliver on oft-made claims he can win back working-class voters who fueled Trump’s upset win four years ago.
Biden will continue in coming weeks with an energy plan to combat the climate crisis and a third package on what the campaign has dubbed the “caring economy,” with a focus on making child care and elder care more affordable and less of an impediment to working-age Americans.
Campaign aides told reporters that all of Biden’s policies would target immediate recovery from the pandemic recession and address systemic inequalities Biden says are “laid bare” by the nation’s ongoing reckoning with racism.  
“What’s going on here, we need to build back, not just to where we were but build back better than we’ve ever been,” Biden told the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on Wednesday. “We’re going to take a monumental step forward for the prosperity, power, safety and dignity of all American workers.”
The Democrat’s agenda carries at least some rhetorical echoes of Trump’s “America First” philosophy, but the former vice president’s aides describe his approach as more coherent. They cast Trump’s imposition of tariffs and uneven trade negotiations with other nations as a slapdash isolationism compromised further by tax policies that enrich multinational corporations. The Biden campaign also pointed to an uptick in foreign procurement and continued outsourcing of jobs by U.S.-based corporations during Trump’s presidency.
Republicans nonetheless have made clear they will attack Biden on trade and the economy, framing the Democratic establishment figure as a tool of the far left on taxes and a willing participant in decades of trade policy that gutted American workers. Trump also has lampooned Biden as “weak on China.”
On trade, at least, it’s a similar line of attack Biden withstood from the Democratic primary runner-up, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and one that Trump used effectively against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Biden voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in the Senate in 1994, an anchor of Trump’s criticism and Sanders’ attacks before that. One of Trump’s signature achievements is an overhaul of NAFTA, which he accomplished with backing from many Democrats on Capitol Hill. Since the 1990s, including during two presidential campaigns, Biden has advocated tighter controls in future trade deals, and he’s promised to have organized labor and the environmental movement at the table.
The campaign’s outline ahead of Thursday emphasizes that Biden wants a resurgence in U.S. markets before engaging in new trade deals abroad. That includes joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership that Biden advocated when he served as President Barack Obama’s vice president. Trump opposed TPP as a 2016 candidate. China is not a TPP member.
Trump and Biden have called out China for unfair trade practices, but Biden accuses Trump of instigating a trade war with a commensurate economic power that the president “has no plan” to win.
Biden’s team insisted his approach falls within World Trade Organization rules, but aides also acknowledged that a Biden administration would try to modify an existing WTO deal, the Government Procurement Agreement, which effectively creates a shared open international market for participating governments to secure goods and services.
For now, Biden has not identified how he’d pay for the proposed new spending. Aides said he has identified revenue sources for all ongoing spending proposals but not for the one-time or short-term investments like the $700 billion in procurement and research. That raises the possibility that Biden could declare that spending to be deliberate deficit spending to stimulate the struggling economy. 
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The former U.S. police officer charged in the death of George Floyd told him to stop shouting and save his breath as he knelt on his neck and Floyd gasped for air, according to a newly released transcript of police body camera footage.   The death of Floyd, a Black man, in police custody on May 25 led to anti-racism protests and demonstrations against police brutality across the United States and around the world with protesters calling for racial equality and police reforms.   “Tell my kids I love them. I’m dead,” Floyd said during the nearly nine minutes that the officer knelt on him as he went lifeless.   Floyd pleaded for help as he was pinned to the ground, according to the transcript made public on Wednesday as part of a motion filed in the Minneapolis state court.   “I’m through, through. I’m claustrophobic. My stomach hurts. My neck hurts. Everything hurts. I need some water or something, please. Please? I can’t breathe officer,” he said.   “You’re going to kill me, man,” Floyd said.   This combination of photos provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota on June 3, 2020, shows Derek Chauvin, from left, J. Alexander Kueng, Thomas Lane and Tou Thao.Derek Chauvin, the officer who knelt on Floyd, replied: “Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk.”   Chauvin, who is white, was arrested on May 29, four days after Floyd’s death. He has pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter.   Three other former Minneapolis police officers, who are white, Black and Asian American, have been charged with aiding and abetting in the case.   At one point, one of those officers, Thomas Lane, suggested that Chauvin roll Floyd on his side, according to the transcript.   “No, he’s staying put where we got him,” Chauvin responded.   All four of the officers have been fired from the Minneapolis police department. None of them entered a plea during a brief hearing on June 29.   The transcript was made public as part of an effort by Lane’s lawyer to have charges that he aided and abetted Floyd’s murder thrown out by a judge, according to U.S. media. 
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Ivory Coast Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who was to be the ruling party’s candidate in October’s presidential election, died Wednesday less than a week after returning from France, where he had been staying for health reasons.“Fellow compatriots, Ivory Coast is mourning. It is with deep pain that I announce to you that Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly has left us,” President Alassane Ouattara’s spokesperson said during a national television appearance.Ouattara himself tweeted his own message, saying “my younger brother, my son, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who was, for 30 years, my closest partner. I salute the memory of a statesman of great loyalty, devotion and love for his country,” Ouattara said.Gon Coulibaly was 61. He died Wednesday, shortly after complaining during a Cabinet meeting that he wasn’t feeling well. He had undergone heart surgery in 2012.Gon Coulibaly had previously served as presidential secretary-general and agriculture minister.Ouattara handpicked Gon Coulibaly as the ruling RHDP candidate for the October election after declining to run for another term. It is unclear who will replace him.The only other major candidate at this time is 86-year-old former president Henri Konan Bedie. 
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Officials in Nigeria say domestic flights are now available for the first time since restrictions aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus began.Airports in the capital, Abuja, and its largest city, Lagos, reopened for flights Wednesday, with more airports resuming operations within a week.No date has been announced for international flights to resume.The resumption of domestic flights to lift Africa’s largest economy comes with some new protocols, including passengers getting their temperature checked and maintaining social distancing.Traveler Daniel Ogbolem welcomed the new safety measures put in place.  “The protocol is nice,” he said. “First of all you come, they will sanitize your luggage, you’ll wash your hands, you’ll go and clean up and join the queue, so it’s good.” He added, “the safe distance is cool, wearing of nose masks and everything is good.”Nigerian airport official Henrietta Yakubu is appealing to the public to follow the new protocols and procedures, saying the government is not trying to punish travelers or extend their time at the airport, but only to provide a safe environment.Nigeria has gradually relaxed restrictions in recent weeks, including allowing interstate travel.So far, Nigeria has confirmed more than 30,000 COVID-19 cases and 684 deaths. 
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The coronavirus outbreak has worsened the hunger crisis in the world’s poorest corners, and up to 12,000 people could die each day from hunger linked to the social and economic effects of the pandemic, the humanitarian group Oxfam warned Thursday.Its report said mass unemployment, disruption to food production and declining aid as a result of the pandemic could push an estimated 122 million people to the brink of starvation this year.”The knock-on impacts of COVID-19 are far more widespread than the virus itself, pushing millions of the world’s poorest people deeper into hunger and poverty,” said the group’s chief executive, Danny Sriskandarajah. “It is vital governments contain the spread of this deadly disease, but they must also prevent it killing as many — if not more — people from hunger.”The charity said that in some of the world’s worst hunger “hot spots,” including Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and South Sudan, the food crisis is worsening because of border and supply route closures or a huge drop in remittances as result of the pandemic. In middle-income countries like India, South Africa and Brazil, millions of people who had been “just about managing have been tipped over the edge.”Even in developed countries like Britain, the report said, up to 3.7 million adults sought charity food or used a food bank during the first weeks of lockdown restrictions.Oxfam cited the World Food Program in estimating that the number of people experiencing crisis-level hunger will rise to 270 million before the end of this year, a jump from 149 million in 2019.It said that women, and women-headed households, are more likely to go hungry because they make up a large proportion of hard-hit groups such as informal workers and also have borne the brunt of an increase in unpaid care work as a result of school closures and family illness. 
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Russia failed on Wednesday to push a draft U.N. resolution through the U.N. Security Council that would have cut aid access from Turkey into northwest Syria, leaving the humanitarian operation and millions of needy Syrians in limbo as the mandate’s expiration approaches on Friday.Moscow’s text, which proposed closing one of two remaining crossing points to humanitarians and only renewing the remaining one for six months, failed to win enough support in the 15-nation Security Council. Only four council members (Russia, China, Vietnam and South Africa) supported the measure, while seven opposed it and four abstained.It was the second vote in as many days. On Tuesday, Russia and China vetoed a text put forward by Belgium and Germany that all other council members supported. That draft called for the reauthorization of two crossing points for one year.In a joint statement after the vote, Belgium and Germany, who hold the Syrian humanitarian file on the council, said they voted against the Russian measure because it did not meet the basic requirements requested by the United Nations and aid groups.“One thing remains clear: Millions of people are counting on the Security Council to allow for as much humanitarian access as possible,” they said in a statement. “This council has a responsibility to the Syrian people and the humanitarian aid workers who support them.”The U.N. has also asked for more humanitarian access in Syria, requesting that a third crossing point between northern Iraq and Syria, which Russia and China forced the council to close in January, be reopened.Moscow, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has argued that all aid should go through Damascus to other parts of the country.“This text was not to support Syrians, who are suffering from nine years of war and chemical attacks,” said Estonia’s Ambassador Sven Jürgenson, who voted against the resolution. “Instead, Russia tried with this draft to arm-twist the Security Council members into enhancing Moscow’s political and military objectives.”There is still time to reach a consensus before Friday, when the operation’s authorization will expire. Otherwise, the six-year-old cross-border operation could be closed.In addition to the effects of conflict and COVID-19, Syria is facing its worst financial crisis of its nine-year conflict. The currency is in free fall, commodity prices are skyrocketing and many Syrians are struggling to afford food.“Cross-border aid is needed now more than ever, as Syrians face the threat of COVID-19,” said Oxfam Syria Director Moutaz Adham after the vote. “All available avenues for delivering aid will be critical in helping the more than 11 million people in need of assistance across Syria.”
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There is growing speculation that Britain may be about to reverse course and ban the Chinese firm Huawei from its rollout of 5G mobile telecoms technology.  A move by the United States to ban U.S. companies from selling crucial microchips to Huawei appears to have changed the calculation in London. But as Henry Ridgwell reports from London, Beijing has warned Britain against what it calls ‘making China into an enemy.’Camera: Henry Ridgwell
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Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has retracted his decision to reimpose a coronavirus curfew and has urged people to stop attending anti-government rallies after a violent clash between protesters and police.The president said Wednesday that new measures could still include shortened hours for nightclubs and penalties for those not wearing masks.On Tuesday, Vucic said at a news conference he would implement a curfew Friday, “probably” to run from 6 p.m. until 5 a.m. on July 13. The president added that gatherings would be restricted to five people starting Wednesday, citing a rising number of coronavirus cases in the country and hospitals running at full capacity.Vucic’s backtracking Wednesday came after a protest by thousands Tuesday night outside the parliament building in Belgrade. Police fired tear gas and beat demonstrators, while protesters retaliated by throwing stones and bottles at officers, some chanting for the resignation of the president.The clash left 17 protesters and 43 police injured and 23 protesters arrested, according to police director Vladmir Rebic. More protests were reported Wednesday.Vucic said foreign secret services were behind the protests by “right-wing and pro-fascist demonstrators.” He did not name specific intelligence agencies and stood by the police’s handling of the protests.”We will never allow the destabilization of Serbia from within and abroad,” he said.The president’s critics have accused him of lifting previous lockdown measures to hold parliamentary elections on June 21, which Vucic’s Progressive Party won by a landslide — accusations the president has denied.Critics also blame Vucic for the swell in infection rates, as the government permitted sports matches, religious festivities, parties and private gatherings to resume after lifting state of emergency restrictions on May 6.As of Wednesday afternoon EDT, Serbia had 17,076 reported cases of the coronavirus infection and 341 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics.
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China has agreed to restart talks with worried Southeast Asian countries on a maritime code of conduct to restore its image abroad after COVID-19 and months of reminders that it’s the waterway’s most militarily powerful country. Beijing said July 1 in a consultation with Southeast Asian leaders that it would resume negotiations on a code, pending since 2002, that would help ships avoid mishaps and resolve any accidents in the vast, crowded South China Sea. China and its negotiation counterpart the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has shunned the topic so far this year. Both sides grappled instead with the COVID-19 outbreak, which cast wary eyes on China as the disease’s origin. Also in the first half of the year, China flew military planes at least eight times over a corner of the sea near Taiwan and sent survey ships to tracts of the waterway claimed by Malaysia and Vietnam. Last week it held South China Sea military exercises with an apparent focus on amphibious assaults. “I think that the reason why China is offering the talks is because it feels very confident that it’s in a position of strength and it can shape the direction or the trajectory of the discussions and its counterparts are not in a strong position, because of coronavirus (and) because they haven’t any assets in the seas,” said Stephen Nagy, a senior associate professor of politics and international studies at International Christian University in Tokyo. ASEAN members Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam claim parts of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. China and Taiwan claim nearly all of it. Rival claimants value the waterway for its fisheries, shipping lanes and fossil fuel reserves. After doing little on the code for years, China and ASEAN agreed in 2017 to work on it again. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang estimated in 2018 the code could be wrapped up by 2021, but last year Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said via state media that it could happen even sooner. The COVID-19 outbreak, which hit China in February before coursing into Southeast Asia, has blocked progress on a code year to date, analysts believe. The last talks took place in October. China’s recent military activities and previous land reclamation for artificial islands in the sea give it more bargaining power as well as tarnishing its image elsewhere in Asia, scholars believe. Southeast Asian claimants particularly resent China for adding an estimated 3,000 acres of landfill into the sea and using some newly created islets for military installations. Why China Is Sure to Match US Aircraft Carriers in Disputed Asian Sea Chinese officials want to show Washington, the rest of Asia and their own people they’re at least as resolute as the US Navy Officials in Beijing hope at the same time to shed the image that it spread COVID-19 into Southeast Asia, where Malaysia and the Philippines among other countries have fought caseloads instead of focusing on their maritime claims, analysts say. “All these events have worsened China’s international image, so I think it may make sense for China to ask ASEAN to restart the code of conduct negotiations as a way to restore its image in the region,” said Le Hong Hiep, a fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Coronavirus cases have topped 160,000 in Southeast Asia, with nearly 4,600 people dead. Chinese leaders probably expect the talks to go their way if moved online instead of in person to avoid any COVID-19 risk, Nagy said. Online talks make all comments formal, he said, sparing the informal sideline chats that Southeast Asian leaders hold when in person. China Uses Cabbage to Advance Disputed Asian Sea ClaimChinese navy just harvested crop it had grown using sand-based agricultural technology on tiny South China Sea islet The code of conduct represents a chance for rivals to cooperate as well as head off accidents. Filipino and Vietnamese fishing boats have sunk after run-ins with Chinese vessels over the past year. In 1974 and 1988, Vietnamese sailors died in clashes with the Chinese. But talks are expected to be tough, possibly leading to a deal without a clear geographic scope and lacking an enforcement mechanism, analysts believe. Either element could imply that no one country has a full sovereignty claim, a blow to governments facing nationalist populations at home. “It’s already 2020 and they still haven’t got to the meat of (the code) really,” said Jay Batongbacal, international maritime affairs professor at University of the Philippines. “We could end up with another very general document.” But he said the parties feel pressured to come up with some kind of code, eventually. “They have no choice but to keep on trying to negotiate this thing, it’s the only thing going between ASEAN and China and for either one to call it off completely would be seen as a failure,” Batongbacal said.
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A former Russian journalist currently employed by the country’s space agency has been arrested and charged with state treason for passing secrets to the West — punishment, his supporters argue, for his past coverage of sensitive Russian military and political affairs.    Ivan Safronov, 30, spent much of the past decade was a military analyst and reporter for Kommersant and Vedomosti, two vaunted national newspapers that have seen their independence increasingly clipped and key staff shakeups amid a wider curtailing of media freedoms in Russia.  Video released by Russia’s Federal Security Service, FSB, showed the former journalist quickly being detained by agents as he approached his car outside his home in Moscow on Wednesday morning.  Ivan Safronov is escorted before a court hearing in Moscow, Russia, July 7, 2020.“Safronov, carrying out tasks for one of the NATO countries’ intelligence services, gathered and handed over to its representative state secrets and information about military-technical cooperation and about the defense and security of the Russian Federation,” said the agency in a statement Tuesday.  Safronov has denied the charges and says the arrest is tied to his journalist work.  He could be heard saying “I’m not guilty” to reporters as agents frog-marched him into a closed court hearing.  A judge later ruled he remain in pre-trial detention until September 6, pending an investigation.  Allegations of spying for NATO Safronov’s lawyer, Ivan Pavlov, says the FSB alleges Czech agents recruited Safronov in 2012 on behalf of the US, and that his client is accused of passing information about Russian military cooperation with a country in the Middle East and Africa to them in 2017.  “No evidence was presented on which those charges are based,” said Pavlov to journalists.  Yet Russian media attention has focused on publications that may have played a role in Safronov’s troubles.  In June 2019, the state launched court proceedings against Kommersant over allegedly disclosing state secrets.  The article in question was widely considered to be a piece co-authored by Safronov that said the Kremlin was preparing the sale of Russian SU-35 Sukhoi fighter jets to Egypt, a U.S. ally.  The piece caught the attention of U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who reacted by threatening Egypt with sanctions.  The deal never took place and the article has since been pulled from Kommersant’s online archives.  FILE – Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, meets with the speaker of the Federation Council, upper parliament chamber Valentina Matviyenko at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence, outside Moscow, Russia, June 26, 2017.Safronov also provoked the ire of authorities as one of the authors of a 2019 article asserting that Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of Russia’s Upper Chamber, was being pushed out of her position amid a Kremlin shakeup.    Kommersant’s management fired Safronov over the article amid the government pressure.  Kommersant’s entire political department quit over the decision.   Today, Matviyenko remains in her post.  Two months ago, Safronov left journalism for a job as a media advisor to Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s former Ambassador to NATO who currently heads Russia’s Space Agency, Roscosmos.   Roscosmos issued a statement insisting the arrest and nothing to do Safronov’s work at the agency.  Yet the Kremlin insisted Safronov’s journalistic work was not related to the charges.  ”As far as we know this is not linked to his prior journalistic activity in any way,” said spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Safronov had worked for a time in the so-called “presidential pool” covering the activities of Vladimir Putin.  Supporters detained Outraged Russian journalists picketed in support of Safronov outside of FSB headquarters in Moscow — with a number of people briefly detained.   FSB representatives justified the arrests by pointing to restrictions outlawing protests amid to the coronavirus outbreak.  Protesters also expressed anger at the detention of journalist Taisiya Bekbulatova, the editor of the online portal Kholod and a friend of Safronov’s, after police raided her apartment and took her in for questioning related to the case.  “When they imprison one journalist after another — it’s a bad sign, a bad sign for the country,” said Kommersant reporter Alexander Chernikh, in a video posted to Twitter from the back of a police van.   «Когда один за другим сажают журналистов — это очень плохой знак, очень плохой знак для всей нашей страны». Задержанный корреспондент “Ъ” Александр Черных о деле Ивана Сафронова. pic.twitter.com/VHMmzkNuOQ
— Коммерсантъ (@kommersant) Prominent Russian investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, cries as he leaves a Investigative Committee building in Moscow, Russia, June 11, 2019.While Safronov’s supporters are preparing to launch a similar public campaign, some note that treason charges make examining the evidence in trial all but impossible.   “It will be carried out with maximum secrecy,” wrote Medizona editor Sergei Smirnov FILE – Paul Whelan, a former U.S. marine who was arrested for alleged spying, listens to the verdict in a courtroom at the Moscow City Court in Moscow, Russia, June 15, 2020.Under Russian law, Safronov could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.  Safronov developed skills as a military analyst in the footsteps of his father,  Ivan Safronov Sr., who worked at Kommersant as a military analyst before his son.    
He died in 2007 after falling from a 5th story of his apartment under disputed circumstances.   At the time, he was investigating illicit sales of arms to Syria and Iran.  
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