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Stocks plunged and oil prices surged by more than $5 per barrel Thursday after President Vladimir Putin launched military action in Ukraine, prompting Washington and Europe to vow sanctions on Moscow that may roil the global economy.

Market benchmarks in Europe and Asia fell by as much as 4% as traders tried to figure out how large Putin’s incursion would be and the scale of Western retaliation. Wall Street futures retreated by an unusually wide daily margin of 2.5%.

Brent crude oil briefly jumped above $100 per barrel in London for the first time since 2014 on unease about possible disruption of supplies from Russia, the No. 3 producer. Benchmark U.S. crude briefly surpassed $98 per barrel. Prices of wheat and corn also jumped.

The ruble sank 7.5% against the dollar.

Financial markets are in a “flight to safety and may have to price in slower growth” due to high energy costs, Chris Turner and Francesco Pesole of ING said in a report.

In Brussels, the president of the European Commission said Thursday the 27-nation European Union planned “massive and targeted sanctions” on Russia.

“We will hold President Putin accountable,” Ursula von der Leyen said.

In early trading, the FTSE 100 in London fell 2.5% to 7,311.69 as Europe awakened to news of explosions in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, the major city of Kharkiv and other areas. The DAX in Frankfurt plunged 4% to 14,047.18 and the CAC in Paris lost 3.6% to 6,537.32.

The futures for Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average were off 2%.

That was on top of Wednesday’s 1.8% slide for the S&P 500 to an eight-month low after the Kremlin said rebels in eastern Ukraine had asked for military assistance. Moscow had sent soldiers to some rebel-held areas after recognizing them as independent.

Putin said Russia had to protect civilians in eastern Ukraine, a claim Washington had predicted he would make to justify an invasion.

President Joe Biden denounced the attack as “unprovoked and unjustified” and said Moscow would be held accountable, which many took to mean Washington and its allies would impose additional sanctions. Putin accused them of ignoring Russia’s demand to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO and to offer Moscow security guarantees.

Washington, Britain, Japan and the EU earlier imposed sanctions on Russian banks, officials and business leaders. Additional options include barring Russia from the global system for bank transactions.

Prices of benchmark U.S. and international oils hovered near $100 per barrel.

West Texas Intermediate soared $5.86 to $97.96 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 25 cents to $92.10 on Wednesday.

Brent crude advanced $5.57 to $99.62 per barrel in London after spiking above $100. It lost 20 cents to $94.05 the previous session.

In Asia, the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo fell 1.8% to 25,970.82 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 3.2% to 22,901.56. The Shanghai Composite Index shed 1.7% to 3,429.96.

Asian economies face lower risks than Europe does, but those that need imported oil might be hit by higher prices if Russian supplies are disrupted, forecasters say.

The Kospi in Seoul lost 2.6% to 2,648.80 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 fell 3% to 6,990.60.

India’s Sensex fell 3.4% to 55,283.65. New Zealand lost 3.3% and Southeast Asian markets also fell.

Investors already were uneasy about the possible impact of the Federal Reserve’s plans to try to cool inflation by withdrawing ultra-low interest rates and other stimulus that boosted share prices.

The dollar weakened to 114.68 yen from Wednesday’s 114.98 yen. The euro fell to $1.1243 from $1.1306.
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With a library here, a power station there, China is using aid and investment to increase its presence in Central America, posing a challenge to the United States’ 2-century-old diplomatic dominance in the region.

China’s interest is driven in part by its rivalry for diplomatic recognition with Taiwan, a self-governing island which has claimed to be the legitimate government of China since the communist victory on the mainland in 1949. But Beijing is also open about its ambition to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power.

Swayed by Beijing’s dollar diplomacy, three Central American countries — Panama, El Salvador and Nicaragua — have switched diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China since 2017. So too has the nearby Caribbean island nation of Dominican Republic.

Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala and Belize round out the nations of the isthmus connecting North and South America, a region first claimed as part of the U.S. sphere of influence with the enunciation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.

Luis G. Solis, interim director of the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University, told VOA Mandarin that the U.S. still enjoys an advantage in the region in terms of military, economic, trade, and cultural affairs.

“If these advantages are adequately handled through a proactive diplomacy and a solid developmental agenda, China’s space will be greatly diminished,” he said. “But this entails creativity, the investment of time and goodwill, and a permanent and productive dialogue on sensitive issues such as migrations, corruption and transnational organized crime.”

China’s most recent investment occurred in El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele thanked China for funding of the country’s new national library as construction began Feb. 6.

The $40 million cultural center, located in the capital city of San Salvador, resulted from Bukele’s visit to China in 2019, according to Evan Ellis, a senior associate at the Americas Program of CSIS. The president also secured $500 million for projects including a sports stadium, a new tourist pier, improvement of its water treatment facilities as well as backing for his Surf City project to turn the country’s Pacific coast into a beach vacation destination, according to the 2021 CSIS article, China and El Salvador: An Update.

Also in 2019, El Salvador signed on with China’s controversial Belt and Road Initiative, (BRI) a global infrastructure plan consisting of a “belt” of overland corridors and a maritime “road” of shipping lanes.

Bukele’s efforts came after El Salvador severed its ties with Taiwan in 2018 under his predecessor, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, who led the fight against a U.S.-backed regime during a civil war that lasted from 1979-92.

China’s buildup in Central America has grown since management of the Panama Canal transferred from the joint U.S.-Panamanian Panama Canal Commission to the Republic of Panama in 1999, according to an article by Daniel Runde, director of the Americas Program at CSIS.

In November 1999, the Panamanian government awarded the Hong-Kong based firm Hutchison-Whampoa concessions to operate ports on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of the canal, according to the website DialogoChino.

Since then, “Chinese companies have been heavily involved in infrastructure-related contracts in and around the canal, in Panama’s logistics, electricity, and construction sectors,” according to DialogoChino.

By 2017, Panama had shifted diplomatic relations from Taiwan to Beijing and five months later became the first country in the region to join BRI. Since then, China has invested in over 20 infrastructure projects in the country, including bridges, railways and power stations. As of January, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras are not BRI partners with China.

China’s state-back media Global Times published an opinion piece on December 13, 2021, by Pan Deng, executive director of the Latin American and Caribbean Region Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law. He suggested that the U.S. views Central American nations as “sources of cheap labor and low-end industrial raw materials, but also the dumping ground for outmoded American industries.”

The piece continued to say, “Previously, these countries had no other choices but to turn to the U.S. However, as China has developed rapidly in recent years, a reference model is being provided for how developing countries can develop from backward agricultural countries to industrialized ones while achieving long-term social stability.”

Analysts say that Beijing is using aid in various guises to persuade more Central American and Caribbean countries to establish formal relationships with the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Benjamin Gedan, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Latin American Program, told VOA Mandarin that Beijing has an economic agenda in Central America and the Caribbean, but the effort is driven largely by geopolitical considerations, “including its bitter rivalry with Taiwan and its desire for support in multilateral institutions.”

“Given the Chinese Communist Party’s intense focus on isolating Taiwan, it is likely to continue investing in Central America and the Caribbean. After all, Beijing likely sees these countries as relatively cheap to buy off, and it has enjoyed a string of diplomatic victories,” Gedan added.

Another goal for China’s efforts in the region is to expand the BRI to Central America, as a push to play a bigger role on the global stage.

In December 2021, Cuba became the latest country to join China’s Belt and Road initiative. Jamaica joined in 2019, as did six other island nations in the Caribbean, and Costa Rica joined in 2018.

China has also increased its investment in natural resources in Central America and the Caribbean Basin. According to the Congressional Research Service, in 2020, China’s imports from Latin America and Caribbean countries amounted to $165 billion, consisting primarily of natural resources, such as ores (35%), mineral fuels (12%) and copper (6%).

Rebecca Ray, a senior academic researcher at the Boston University Global Development Policy Center, told VOA Mandarin that she’s not surprised to see China’s interest in infrastructure cooperation with Central America and productive investments in the Caribbean.

She pointed out that the Central American region has suffered from weak economic growth for decades. It is also vulnerable to climate change, which is bringing more natural disasters to low-lying islands and coastal areas. As a result, according to Ray, these countries have a greater need for new inbound investment.

“At the same time, Western investors have not shown interest in starting new projects or being exposed to developing country economies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, any new potential source of investment will naturally be taken seriously,” she added.

Despite the need for infrastructure investment in Central America and the Caribbean, the biggest obstacle to maintaining economic growth may be poor governance, according to online magazine Dialogo.

“Partnership with China might bring in new foreign investments, but it only deepens governance challenges, given China’s disinterest in corruption, its lack of transparency, and its export of technologies that enable Central American governments to curtail civil liberties,” said Gedan.

Microsoft said in December 2021 that it believed Beijing-backed hackers were targeting organizations in both the private and public sectors in five Central American nations: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama.
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The use of wind to generate electricity for the United States was thrust forward Wednesday with the largest-ever offering by the federal government of offshore development rights.

Bidding for the 197,000 hectares of the New York Bight — an area of shallow waters between the coasts of Long Island (in New York state) and the state of New Jersey — attracted record-setting prices, according to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

“This auction today is a testament to how attractive the U.S. market is,” said Fred Zalcman, director of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance.

Europe is much further along than North America in developing lease areas for offshore wind farms.

There are two small offshore wind facilities in the United States off the coasts of the states of Rhode Island and Virginia. Two more commercial-scale projects were recently approved for development.

“We’re really just at the beginning of a process here. We hope to apply the lessons learned from Europe and take advantage of the cost savings achieved in Europe,” Zalcman told VOA.

Officials say turbines erected in the set of six leases that went up for bidding Wednesday, the first auction conducted during the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, could eventually provide power for nearly 2 million residences.

Wednesday’s top bids totaled more than $1.5 billion. The largest single lease area offered — totaling nearly 51,000 hectares and located about 50 kilometers off the New Jersey coast — had attracted a record-busting $410 million, with bidding to resume Thursday morning.

The previous auction was held in 2018 during the administration of former President Donald Trump. It was considered a success, with three leases off the coast of the state of Massachusetts bringing in a collective record-breaking $405 million for rights to develop 158,000 hectares south of Martha’s Vineyard, with a potential generating capacity of more than 4.1 gigawatts, enough to supply power to about 1.5 million homes.

Trump, a Republican, repeatedly expressed, at best, skepticism toward wind as a viable renewable source to supply America’s energy needs. He derided “windmills,” saying he had been told the noise from their blades “causes cancer” and “it’s like a graveyard for birds.”

Biden, a Democrat, has veered in a different direction, embracing wind as part of his clean energy ambitions and setting a goal of 30 gigawatts of capacity in the United States by the year 2030.

In his first week in office in 2021, Biden signed an executive order to expand opportunities for the offshore wind industry, predicting, according to the White House, the projects “will create good-paying union jobs” and “spawn new supply chains that stretch into America’s heartland.”

The area included in the ongoing auction, which began with 25 qualified bidders, was cut back by about one-fourth from what was initially proposed last year due to concerns about the potential impact on commercial fishing and military interests.

State and federal officials, according to Zalcman, have been addressing concerns of other ocean users, including recreational and commercial fishers, navigators and the shipping industry, and taking into consideration visual impacts to coastal communities, and concerns of environmental groups about migratory species, such as the North Atlantic right whale.

A group of residents of the New Jersey summer colony of Long Beach last month sued BOEM over the New York Bight leasing plans, contending the massive wind farm would permanently mar their beautiful view from the beach, hurt the area’s tourism economy and harm property values.

Bob Stern, the president of Save Long Beach Island, told VOA on Wednesday that the organization “is not opposed to offshore wind energy but believes that the federal government’s process of selecting ocean areas for turbine placement is flawed.”

Stern explained that the group’s lawsuit challenges the federal government agency’s selection of “wind energy areas” for offshore wind turbines which “should have been preceded and supported by a structured regional environmental impact statement process with full disclosure of impacts and public input.”

The Sierra Club is terming the New York Bight auction a historic major stride forward for clean energy.

“This lease sale is the first to include stipulations setting out responsibilities for project developers to report on their engagement with stakeholders to minimize conflicting uses, negotiation of project labor agreements, and the development of offshore wind-related manufacturing and supply chain services,” said Allison Considine, a senior campaign representative of the national environmental organization.

A preeminent concern is ensuring that these projects are done responsibly, said Zalcman of the New York Offshore Wind Alliance, of which the Sierra Club is a member.

How developers configure the wind farms will be subject to another rigorous round of environmental review before they are able to erect the huge structures.
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The Biden administration announced on Tuesday actions taken by the federal government and private industry that it says will bolster the supply chain of rare earths and other critical minerals used in technologies from household appliances and electronics to defense systems. They say these steps will reduce the nation’s dependence on China, a major producer of these elements. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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Taking a cue from demonstrations that paralyzed Canada’s capital city for weeks, U.S. truckers on Wednesday plan to embark on a 2,500-mile (4,000-km) cross-country drive toward Washington D.C. to protest coronavirus restrictions.

Organizers of the “People’s Convoy” say they want to “jumpstart the economy” and reopen the country. Their 11-day trek will approach the Beltway around the U.S. capital on March 5 “but will not be going into D.C. proper,” according to a statement.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday it had approved 400 D.C. National Guard troops to “provide support at designated traffic posts, provide command and control, and cover sustainment requirements” from Feb. 26 through March 7.

About 50 large tactical vehicles were also approved to be placed at traffic posts.

Brian Brase, a truck driver who is one of the organizers, said regardless of where the trucks stop “we’re not going anywhere” until the group’s demands are met. Those demands include an end to COVID-19 vaccine and mask requirements.

Most U.S. states are already easing some restrictions. In California, where the convoy begins, universal mask requirements were lifted last week while masks for vaccinated people are required only in high-risk areas such as public transit, schools and healthcare settings.

Another convoy was expected to leave Scranton, Pennsylvania – President Joe Biden’s hometown – on Wednesday morning and arrive on the 495 Beltway (highway) in Washington sometime during the afternoon.

Organizer Bob Bolus told WJLA news, an ABC affiliate in Washington, that his convoy has no intention to break laws or block traffic, but warned this could happen if their demands regarding pandemic mandates and the cost of fuel are not meant.

“They are not going to intimidate us and they are not going to threaten us. We’re the power, not them,” he said.

In Canada, pandemic-related protests choked streets in the capital Ottawa for more than three weeks and blocked the busiest land crossing between Canada and the United States – the Ambassador Bridge connecting Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario – for six days.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to end the protests, and Canadian police restored a sense of normalcy in Ottawa over the weekend.

“We plan to stay a while and hope they don’t escalate it the way Trudeau did with his disgusting government overreach,” Brase said from Adelanto, California, where the convoy will begin, about 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Los Angeles.

Brase said he expected thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, would participate. Organizers bill the convoy as nonpartisan, trucker-led, and supported by a wide range of ethnic minorities and religious faiths.

Economic growth in the United States – as in other countries – was brought to a juddering halt by the imposition of lockdowns in 2020 to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The economy has boomed since the federal government pumped in trillions of dollars in relief, growing 5.7% in 2021, the strongest since 1984 albeit from a low ebb in 2020, the Commerce Department reported in January.

Meanwhile, unemployment stands at 4%, close to the 3.5% rate of February 2020, just before the pandemic took hold, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But headwinds related to strained supply chains and inflation remain.

“It is now time to reopen the country,” the protest organizers said in a statement.

Among other demands, the protesters want an immediate end to the state of emergency in California – the most populous U.S. state with one of the world’s largest economies -that Governor Gavin Newsom has extended.

Nationwide, new COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations due to the coronavirus have plummeted from all-time highs hit a month ago, though nearly 2,000 people per day are still dying from the disease and the number of total deaths is closing in on 1 million since the pandemic began. 
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The Biden administration announced actions taken by the federal government and private industry that it says will bolster the supply chain for rare earths and other critical minerals used in technologies from household appliances and electronics to defense systems. They say these steps will reduce the nation’s dependence on China, a major producer of these elements. 

“China controls most of the global market in these minerals,” President Joe Biden said Tuesday from the White House. “We can’t build a future that’s made in America if we ourselves are dependent on China for the materials that power the products of today and tomorrow.”   

The steps include a $35 million contract to MP Materials to process heavy rare earth elements at the company’s Mountain Pass, California, production site — the first processing and separation facility of its kind in the United States.   

In 2020, the government awarded $9.6 million to the company, which owns the only American rare earths mine. The $35 million announcement Tuesday will complement the $700 million that MP Materials will invest by 2024 to create an American rare earth magnetics supply, said company CEO James Litinsky, who spoke virtually at the White House event.   

Last June, following an executive order from Biden, the administration released a report on the supply chain, concluding an over-reliance on China for critical minerals. Currently, China controls 87% of the global permanent magnet market, as well as 55% of rare earths mining capacity and 85% of its refining. 

What Beijing is holding right now is critical, said Phoebe Moon, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Irvine, focusing on global supply chains and economic statecraft. 

“We are using more hydro energy. We are using more climate and environmentally friendly energy sources,” Moon told VOA. “And the list of rare earth materials that the Biden administration announced that they will be targeting on this issue really has that in its heart.” 

Rare earths 

Rare earths are 17 minerals that are not rare, just difficult and costly to mine and process cleanly. The U.S. is the second-biggest miner of rare earths, after China, according to the latest government data.  Other top miners include Myanmar, Australia, Madagascar, India, Russia, Thailand, Vietnam and Brazil.   

The administration’s goal is to become reasonably self-sufficient for some key essential industries such as auto and network equipment for national security and competitiveness, said Jen-Yi Chen, associate professor of operations and supply chain management at Cleveland State University. 

“By ‘reasonably,’ I mean not 100% ending our dependence on the Chinese, since it would be too costly and not sustainable, as we are not that resource-rich and thus need to prioritize and focus on the real essentials,” Chen told VOA. “By and large, in the near future, we may still need the Chinese inputs and capacity to keep prices low for the nonessentials but should not compromise much on the essentials.”    

Chen said ramping up domestic production, despite its environmental costs, still makes sense. 

“In case of a shutdown in operations, the time to recover will be much shorter than going to partners, especially during the pandemic,” Chen added. It may also motivate better environmental oversight as “they are now right in our backyard.” 

Chinese pressure 

Earlier this week Beijing announced sanctions aimed to restrict access to rare earth minerals to Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, two companies that provide maintenance services to Taiwan’s missile defense systems. Beijing considers Taiwan its breakaway province. 

  Last month, legislators introduced a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that could prohibit defense contractors from procuring rare earths from China by 2026 and force the Pentagon to create a strategic reserve of those minerals by 2025.  

“The Chinese Communist Party has a chokehold on global rare earth element supplies, which are used in everything from batteries to fighter jets. Ending America’s dependence on the CCP for extraction and processing of these elements is critical to winning the strategic competition against China and protecting our national security,” said Republican Senator Tom Cotton, one of the bill’s sponsors.  

Moon said recognizing the importance of critical minerals supply chains is a great start, but there must also be fundamental, cooperative efforts to keep geopolitics stable. 

“The problems we face today cannot be solved by ourselves in many cases, and these efforts to reshore and ally-shore will create an echo chamber and undermine our efforts to understand each other, creating peace in a more fundamental way,” she said, referring to efforts to move production domestically or to friendly countries.  

Also at the White House event on Tuesday, Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables announced it is setting up a facility to test the commercial viability to extract lithium from geothermal brines at Imperial County, California, an area that contains some of the largest deposits of lithium in the world. 

Other steps the White House announced include partnerships with Ford and Volvo for the collection and recycling of end-of-life lithium-ion batteries, a $140 million pilot project to recover rare earth elements and critical minerals from mine waste, and a $3 billion investment in refining and recycling battery materials. 

 
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Ghana’s rapid urbanization is producing more waste while fueling a boom in luxury housing that the average Ghanaian cannot afford. One entrepreneur may have the answer to both problems – producing inexpensive houses made from recycled plastic. Senanu Tord reports from Ghana’s capital, Accra.
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A German newspaper and other media on Sunday said a leak of data from Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, reveals details of the accounts of more than 30,000 clients — some of them unsavory — and points to possible failures of due diligence in checks on many customers.

Credit Suisse said in a statement that it “strongly rejects the allegations and insinuations about the bank’s purported business practices.”

The German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it received the data anonymously through a secure digital mailbox over a year ago. It said it’s unclear whether the source was an individual or a group, and the newspaper didn’t make any payment or promises. 

The newspaper said it evaluated the data, which ranged from the 1940s until well into the last decade, along with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and dozens of media partners including The New York Times and The Guardian. 

It said the data points to the bank having accepted “corrupt autocrats, suspected war criminals and human traffickers, drug dealers and other criminals” as customers.

Credit Suisse said the allegations are “predominantly historical” and that “the accounts of these matters are based on partial, inaccurate, or selective information taken out of context, resulting in tendentious interpretations of the bank’s business conduct.”

The bank said it had reviewed a large number of accounts potentially associated with the allegations, and about 90% of them “are today closed or were in the process of closure prior to receipt of the press inquiries, of which over 60% were closed before 2015.”

As for accounts that remain active, the bank said it is “comfortable that appropriate due diligence, reviews and other control related steps were taken in line with our current framework.” The bank also said the law prevents it from commenting on “potential client relationships.”

Switzerland has sought in recent years to shed its image as a haven for tax evasion, money laundering and the embezzlement of government funds, practices carried out through the misuse of its banking secrecy policies. But those laws still draw criticism.

The Sueddeutsche Zeitung published an excerpt from a statement by the source of the leak.

“I believe that Swiss banking secrecy laws are immoral,” it said. “The pretext of protecting financial privacy is merely a fig leaf covering the shameful role of Swiss banks as collaborators of tax evaders.”
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Ethiopia began producing electricity on Sunday from its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), a multi-billion-dollar hydropower plant on the River Nile that neighbors Sudan and Egypt have worried will cause water shortages downstream.

After flicking a digital switch to turn on the turbines in the first phase of the project, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sought to assure those nations that his country did not wish to harm their interests.

“Ethiopia’s main interest is to bring light to 60% of the population who is suffering in darkness, to save the labor of our mothers who are carrying wood on their backs in order to get energy,” Abiy said.

Abiy’s government says the project is key to its economic development, but Egypt and Sudan depend on the waters of the Nile and have worried it will affect them.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry accused Ethiopia of further violation of a preliminary deal signed between the three nations in 2015, prohibiting any of the parties from taking unilateral actions in the use of the river’s water.

The first violations of the initial agreement related to the filling of the dam, the ministry said in a statement on Sunday.

There was no immediate comment from Sudan.

Ethiopia, the second most populous country on the continent, has the second biggest electricity deficit in Africa according to the World Bank, with about two thirds of the population of around 110 million lacking a connection to the grid.

The project will ultimately cost $5 billion when it is completed and become the biggest hydropower plant in Africa by generating 5,150 MW of electricity, some of which will be exported to neighboring nations, the government says.

The government has so far invested more than 100 billion Ethiopian birr ($1.98 billion) in the project, state-affiliated FANA broadcaster reported. It is located at a place called Guba in the western Benishangul-Gumuz region.
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Firefighters are struggling to put out a fire that broke out on Wednesday on a vessel carrying thousands of luxury cars, which is adrift off the coast of Portugal’s Azores islands, a port official said, adding it was unclear when they would succeed.

The Felicity Ace ship, carrying around 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and Bentleys, some electric with lithium-ion batteries, caught fire in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Wednesday. The 22 crew members on board were evacuated on the same day.

“The intervention [to put out the blaze] has to be done very slowly,” João Mendes Cabañas, captain of the nearest port in the Azorean island of Faial, told Reuters late on Saturday. “It will take a while.”

Lithium-ion batteries in the electric vehicles on board are “keeping the fire alive,” Cabañas said, adding that specialist equipment to extinguish it was on the way.

It was not clear whether the batteries sparked the fire.

Volkswagen, which owns the brands, did not confirm the total number of cars on board and said on Friday it was awaiting further information. Ship manager Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cabañas previously said that “everything was on fire about five meters above the water line” and the blaze was still far from the ship’s fuel tanks. It is getting closer, he said.

“The fire spread further down,” he said, explaining that teams could only tackle the fire from outside by cooling down the ship’s structure as it was too dangerous to go on board.

They also cannot use water because adding weight to the ship could make it more unstable, and traditional water extinguishers do not stop lithium-ion batteries from burning, Cabañas said.

The Panama-flagged ship will be towed to a country in Europe or to the Bahamas but it is unclear when that will happen.
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UNICEF announced Sunday an emergency cash support effort for all public education teachers in Afghanistan for January and February, saying the move will allow continued access to education for all school-age girls and boys.

The European Union-funded payment, amounting to the equivalent of $100 a month per teacher, will benefit an estimated 194,000 male and female teachers across the country who have not been paid for six months.

UNICEF said in a statement that the agency and partners have taken the initiative in recognition of the “crucial role” these teachers in Afghanistan are playing in the education of around 8.8 million enrolled in public schools.

“Following months of uncertainty and hardship for many teachers, we are pleased to extend emergency support to public school teachers in Afghanistan who have spared no effort to keep children learning,” said Mohamed Ayoya, UNICEF’s country representative

Ayoya said UNICEF would need an additional $250 million to be able to continue supporting public school teachers and called on donors to help the agency fund the initiative.

Since militarily taking over the country in mid-August, the Taliban have allowed women to resume work in health and education, and opened private and public universities to female education, while secondary school girls are also back in school in about a dozen of the 34 Afghan provinces.

The new Islamist rulers have pledged to allow all girls to return to school by late March, blaming delays on financial constraints and the time it takes to ensure that female students resume classes in accordance with Islamic Sharia law.

Relief agencies say humanitarian needs have skyrocketed in war-torn Afghanistan since the Taliban took power last year and U.S.-led international forces withdrew from the country.

The United States and other Western nations have halted nonhumanitarian funding to Afghanistan, amounting to 40% of the country’s gross domestic product, and blocked the Taliban’s access to billions of dollars in Afghan central bank reserves, mostly held in the United States.

The restrictions have pushed the fragile Afghan economy to the brink of collapse, worsening the humanitarian crisis stemming from years of war and natural calamities.

The United Nations is warning that nearly 23 million people — about 55% of the poverty-stricken country’s population — face extreme hunger, with nearly 9 million a step away from famine.

Tomas West, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan, while speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, said Washington was also playing its role in ensuring Afghan girls return to schools next month.

“We have before the World Bank a proposal to extend roughly $180 million in support of teacher stipends and in support of books and in support of refurbishment of buildings and so forth,” he said.

“But what do we need to see from the Taliban? We need to see them deliver on stated commitments to open and enroll women and girls in education countrywide… after Nowruz [the first day of Afghan new year] on March 20th,” West stressed.

No country has yet recognized the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan. Before considering the legitimacy issue, the global community wants the Islamist group to install an inclusive government in Kabul representing all Afghan ethnic groups, ensure women’s rights to education and work, and prevent terrorist groups from using Afghan soil for attacks against other countries
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A major initiative to strengthen and cement America’s ties with Asia and counterbalance China’s expanding influence lacks robust trade incentives that are viewed as politically perilous in the United States, where protectionist sentiment runs high, experts told VOA.

The United States needs to intensify its focus on the Indo-Pacific region because of the “mounting challenges” posed by the rise of China, according to a strategy document released by the Biden administration last week.

“The PRC [People’s Republic of China] is combining its economic, diplomatic, military and technological might as it pursues a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific and seeks to become the world’s most influential power,” the strategy document said.

That description of China largely mirrors the view taken by the former Trump administration, which often took a bluntly adversarial stance toward Beijing. Beyond rhetoric, however, Biden’s strategy seeks to shore up regional alliances and partnerships that many see as critical to U.S. strategy in Asia.

It responds to the desire of many countries in the region for the United States to play a galvanizing role in addressing common challenges such as public health, climate change and anti-corruption, Ryan Hass, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA.

“It is a welcome departure from the America-first mindset during the Trump era,” Hass said.

No economic framework, leadership

The new strategy calls for advancing freedom and openness, building collective defense capacity within and beyond the region, and building regional resilience. It also embraces what the administration calls “promoting shared prosperity.”

But Hass and other observers say the Indo-Pacific strategy lacks a coherent trade framework that gives countries in the region a good economic reason to deepen relations with the U.S. They say Washington’s international economic agenda should match the leadership role the United States seeks for itself in the region.

Robert Daly, director of the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States, told VOA the strategy suffers from a fundamental contradiction in that it implies that the U.S. will engage in a high degree of global activism, following years of far more isolationist foreign policy under the Trump administration. At the same time, the Biden administration has not primed the American public to shift away from the Trumpian critique of globalization.

“They’ve put themselves in a box where they, for political reasons, seem to accept the Trump view that globalization is the playground of self-indulgent coastal American elites who don’t care about the heartland [of America],” Daly said. “What was needed was a better form of globalization that serves American interests — the Biden administration has chosen not to take that on.

Preceding Trump, the former Obama administration championed the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a massive trade agreement with 11 other countries designed to be the cornerstone of U.S. economic policy in the region. The Trump administration withdrew from the TPP in 2017, leaving the other members to sign a revised deal, called Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

With no public support for multilateral trade agreements, the Biden administration has said it has no plans to join the CPTPP and has made clear it intends to continue its predecessor’s protectionist trade policies.

The White House has not yet shared details of its Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a component of the larger Indo-Pacific Strategy. The framework, which they billed as a “multilateral partnership for the 21st century,” was scheduled for launch early this year.

“As we consult with the Indo-Pacific partners, Congress and other stakeholders, we will have more to share as the process is ongoing,” deputy White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told VOA on Thursday. “It’s underway.”

The administration said the framework would “promote and facilitate high-standards trade, govern the digital economy, improve supply-chain resiliency and security, catalyze investment in transparent, high-standards infrastructure, and build digital connectivity — doubling down on our economic ties to the region while contributing to broadly shared Indo-Pacific opportunity.”

But officials have acknowledged the framework will not include opening up American markets, the economic carrot that analysts say is missing from the strategy.

“Why would regional states agree to serious concessions on climate or labor standards if the United States is unwilling to discuss trade or investment liberalization?” asked Zack Cooper, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It appears that Washington is content to remain on the sidelines as Beijing integrates more deeply into the region’s economic order.”

In a briefing to reporters this month, a senior administration official acknowledged that regional countries want more but are “very realistic” about the constraints and challenges that shape the Biden trade policy.

Build Back Better World

Some analysts see the potential for incentives beyond market access.

“The promise of this [Indo-Pacific] initiative is that it will offer some other things that aren’t market access,” said Matthew Goodman, senior vice president for economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Goodman told VOA those may include improving international trade regulations or investing in infrastructure as promised in the Build Back Better World initiative.

Biden launched his Build Back Better World plan (B3W) during the June 2021 Group of Seven summit, with the goal of creating “a values-driven, high-standard and transparent infrastructure partnership” to help finance projects in developing countries.

U.S. officials led by Daleep Singh, the deputy national security adviser for international economics, have scouted several countries in Latin America and Africa to identify potential infrastructure projects, particularly those that focus on climate, health, digital technology and gender equality.

“There’s been enormous enthusiasm in every country we visited, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Ghana, Senegal, DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo], parts of the Middle East, Indonesia, Thailand, and other parts of the world,” Singh told VOA Friday.

B3W has been framed as an alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s international development program that has financed infrastructure projects in Asia, Africa and Latin America and has made inroads in Europe. China’s BRI investments have been criticized by outside groups for not assessing environmental and social impacts, lacking financial transparency and leaving some governments struggling to pay for costly infrastructure.

“The reason there’s so much enthusiasm is that countries do want a choice,” Singh said. “For a long time. China has been the only game in town for many of these countries, and in many cases, they have buyers regret.”

Last year the administration promised to include details of some initial projects during the formal launch of the initiative, originally scheduled for early 2022.

“We will have more details to come in the coming months on how to continue to implement this initiative, and the projects the U.S. government is investing in with allies and partners,” Jean-Pierre said to VOA Thursday. “This is something that the president is committed to.”

Allies and partners

Biden’s Indo-Pacific strategy promises steps to deepen America’s existing treaty alliances with Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines and Thailand. It also aims to strengthen relationships with regional partners such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Vietnam and the Pacific Islands.

Continuing Trump’s approach, the administration is putting strong emphasis on the Quad – a regional grouping among the U.S., India, Japan and Australia.

Much of the strategy rests on the presumption of what the other actors will do, according to Aparna Pande, director of the Hudson Institute’s Initiative on the Future of India and South Asia.

“Japan and South Korea should get along, ASEAN should remain central, India should play a bigger role,” she told VOA, pointing out that with India’s plummeting economic growth, New Delhi may not be able to accept that challenge.

The strategy also aims to strengthen deterrence of military threats, with Japan and South Korea to pursue denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Pyongyang has taken a series of provocative steps while ignoring Washington’s offer of talks without preconditions.

North Korea conducted 11 missile launches in January, a record in a single month, including a new type of “hypersonic missile” able to maneuver at high speed. It has also raised the possibility of restarting nuclear or intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

Military deals

While the Biden administration is not offering greater access to American markets, it has been handing out military deals.

Earlier this month, the administration approved a possible $100 million sale of equipment and services to Taiwan to “sustain, maintain and improve” its Patriot missile defense system.

The sale is in line with the Indo-Pacific Strategy goal of supporting Taipei’s self-defense capabilities in hopes of promoting peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. However, it has triggered an angry threat of retaliation from Beijing, which claims the democratically self-governed Taiwan as its breakaway province.

Earlier this month, the administration also approved the potential sale of F-15ID aircraft and related equipment to Indonesia in a deal valued at up to $13.9 billion, despite human rights concerns that have delayed previous arms sales to the country. The last arms deal made by Washington and Jakarta was in 2011.

Other deals include AUKUS, the September trilateral security pact with Australia and the United Kingdom to provide Canberra with nuclear-powered submarines.

More deals are expected and sharper contours of the Indo-Pacific Strategy may take shape as Biden hosts ASEAN leaders in Washington in the coming months and travels to the region for summits later in the year.
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India and the United Arab Emirates signed an agreement Friday that the two countries expect will increase bilateral trade to $100 billion in five years.  It is the first of several free trade deals that New Delhi is racing to conclude this year to expand its pandemic-hit economy.  

Economists say it reflects a significant change from the past, when India, which has protected several sectors of its economy with high tariffs, was slow to conclude free trade pacts.   

The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement was signed during a virtual summit between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al Nahyan. 

“This is reflective of the new emerging world order, the post-COVID world, which will see new alignments and realignments in which we see the UAE and India as strong partners,” Indian Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal said after the pact was signed.  

The UAE is India’s third-largest export partner after the United States and China, with bilateral trade of about $60 billion.   

While the UAE hopes the pact will help make it a business hub, India says it will give it access to markets in Africa and West Asia and create more than a million jobs in labor-intensive sectors such as the auto industry.   

In 2019, worries about cheap imports from China led India to exit the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the world’s largest trade pact, which took effect this year among Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and 10 other Asian countries. That prevented India from gaining preferential access to fast-growing markets and led to concerns that one of the world’s major economies was turning more protectionist.  

Goyal said that India is no longer signing trade pacts to join a group but looking at agreements with nations that have values of democracy, transparency and mutual growth.

“We are talking not of closing India’s doors but actually opening India’s doors wider for greater international engagement,” he said.   

New Delhi hopes that the bilateral trade pacts that it is negotiating with countries such as Britain, Australia, the European Union and Israel will help it get greater market access.  

For many of those countries, building closer economic ties with New Delhi would help reduce their huge trade dependence on China, which they want to do amid unease about Beijing’s rise in several countries.    

After suffering a major contraction last year, India’s economy grew by about 9% last year, the fastest among major economies.  

“Exports have been buoyant since the beginning of last year when India started coming out of the economic downturn and the government is trying to see what more can be done to get additional market access. They really want to push forward and aim for greater exports,” Biswajit Dhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at Jawaharlal Nehru University told VOA.

India aims to close trade agreements with Australia and Britain by the end of this year to boost exports to $500 billion by 2023.  

Even before hammering out a more comprehensive deal, New Delhi hopes to clinch a limited trade pact, termed an “early harvest agreement,” with Australia next month. Both countries are members of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad along with the United States and Japan, formed with an eye on China.  

The grouping has also given an impetus to trade relations between the member countries, Australian Trade, Tourism, and Investment Minister Dan Tehan, said in New Delhi earlier this month during a visit to discuss the free trade pact.

“I think the Quad has just added to the strength of the relationship. My hope is within 30 days we will have an announcement [on an interim trade agreement] with India. Then we can start to build the economic cooperation within the Quad,” he said.  

British Secretary of State for International Trade Anne-Marie Trevelyan also visited India last month to start negotiations on a free trade agreement between the two countries.

While Britain hopes to double its exports to India by 2035 by tapping into its large middle class, New Delhi wants greater opportunities for Indians to study and work there.    

“The government has adopted a very interesting pathway for agreements with Britain and Australia. They are trying to do an early harvest agreement for sectors that are ready at this point to accept reciprocal market access as they are confident to face competition from imports,” said Dhar.

“This will lead to some forward movement in terms of working toward broader free trade agreements,” he added. 

Suhasini Sood contributed to this story.
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U.S. auto safety regulators have launched another investigation of Tesla, this time tied to complaints that its cars can come to a stop for no apparent reason.  

The government says it has 354 complaints from owners during the past nine months about “phantom braking” in Tesla Models 3 and Y. The probe covers an estimated 416,000 vehicles from the 2021 and 2022 model years.  

No crashes or injuries were reported. 

The vehicles are equipped with partially automated driver-assist features, such as adaptive cruise control and “Autopilot,” which allow them to automatically brake and steer within their lanes. 

Documents posted Thursday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration say the vehicles can unexpectedly brake at highway speeds.  

“Complainants report that the rapid deceleration can occur without warning, and often repeatedly during a single drive cycle,” the agency said. 

Many owners in the complaints say they feared a rear-end crash on a freeway. 

The probe is another enforcement effort by the agency that include Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” software. Despite their names, neither feature can legally drive the vehicles without people supervising. 

Messages were left Thursday seeking comment from Tesla. 

It’s the fourth formal investigation of the Texas automaker in the past three years, and NHTSA is supervising 15 Tesla recalls since January 2021. In addition, the agency has sent investigators to at least 33 crashes involving Teslas using driver-assist systems since 2016 in which 11 people were killed. 

In one of the complaints, a Tesla owner from Austin, Texas, reported that a Model Y on Autopilot brakes repeatedly for no reason on two-lane roads and freeways. 

“The phantom braking varies from a minor throttle response to decrease speed to full emergency braking that drastically reduces the speed at a rapid pace, resulting in unsafe driving conditions for occupants of my vehicle as well as those who might be following behind me,” the owner wrote in a complaint filed February 2. People who file complaints are not identified in NHTSA’s public database.  

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been fighting with U.S. and California government agencies for years, sparring with NHTSA and the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

Last week, NHTSA made Tesla recall nearly 579,000 vehicles in the U.S. because a “Boombox” function can play sounds over an external speaker and obscure audible warnings for pedestrians of an approaching vehicle. Musk, when asked on Twitter why the company agreed to the recall, responded: “The fun police made us do it (sigh).” 

Michael Brooks, acting executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said it’s encouraging to see NHTSA’s enforcement actions “after years of turning the other way,” with Tesla. But he said the company keeps releasing software onto U.S. roads that isn’t tested to make sure it’s safe. 

“A piecemeal investigative approach to each problem that raises its head does not address the larger issue in Tesla’s safety culture — the company’s continued willingness to beta test its technology on the American public while misrepresenting the capabilities of its vehicles,” Brooks wrote in an email Thursday. 

Other recent recalls by Tesla were for “Full Self-Driving” equipped vehicles that were programmed to run stop signs at slow speeds, heating systems that don’t clear windshields quickly enough, seat belt chimes that don’t sound to warn drivers who aren’t buckled up, and to fix a feature that allows movies to play on touch screens while cars are being driven. Those issues were to be fixed with online software updates. 

In August, NHTSA announced a probe of Teslas on Autopilot failing to stop for emergency vehicles parked on roadways. That investigation covers a dozen crashes that killed one person and injured 17 others.  

Thursday’s investigation comes after Tesla recalled nearly 12,000 vehicles in October for a similar phantom braking problem. The company sent out an online software update to fix a glitch with its more sophisticated “Full Self-Driving” software. 

Tesla did a software update in late September that was intended to improve detection of emergency vehicle lights in low-light conditions. 

Selected Tesla drivers have been beta testing the “Full Self-Driving” software on public roads. NHTSA also has asked the company for information about the testing, including a Tesla requirement that testers not disclose information. 

 
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One of the key highlights of the 2022 Chicago Auto Show is the display of new, all-electric vehicles coming to dealer showrooms soon. VOA’s Kane Farabaugh has more from the McCormick Place Convention Center.

Camera: Kane Farabaugh, Mike Burke Produced by: Kane Farabaugh, Rob Raffaele
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Finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations began a two-day meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, amid a growing debt crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has seen many poorer countries build up large debts — and campaigners say it is undermining their ability to provide basic services like health care and education. In an interview with VOA, the secretary-general of the United Nations’ Conference on Trade and Development warned that creditor nations must take urgent action to avoid a “lost decade” in the developing world.
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Finance ministers from the Group of 20 industrialized nations will begin a two-day meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Thursday as many poorer nations deal with a growing debt crisis.

The coronavirus pandemic has seen many developing countries build up large debts, which debt-relief campaigners say undermines their ability to provide basic services such as health care and education.

In an interview with VOA, Rebeca Grynspan, secretary-general of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said that debt levels were already high before the pandemic but that the situation had worsened rapidly.

“You have them building up their debt, and their export earnings not being enough to pay for their debt load. So this situation is really dramatic already for many of these countries,” Grynspan said.

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka’s golden beaches and tropical jungles normally attract millions of tourists every year. The pandemic cut off that source of income while successive global lockdowns disrupted trade. Sovereign bond ratings have been downgraded, and economists fear it could be the next country to default.

The coronavirus pandemic has driven total global debt to its highest level in more than half a century, according to the World Bank. Lebanon, Suriname, Venezuela and Zambia have already defaulted on their sovereign debt.

Figures from the International Monetary Fund show Ethiopia, Tunisia, Argentina, El Salvador, Ghana, Republic of Congo, Tajikistan and Mozambique are also at high risk of being unable to pay their debts.

Eric LeCompte, executive director of the Jubilee USA Network, which campaigns for debt relief for poorer nations, said creditors must act now.

“The G-20 needs to offer speedy and deep debt relief and compel private creditors to match it. History teaches us that the longer we wait to address a debt crisis, the more difficult it becomes to solve the crisis,” he wrote in an email.

Growth slowdown

Many developing nations took out loans during the pandemic. They now face big repayments, estimated by the World Bank at $35 billion in 2022 — an increase of 45% from the previous year, with almost half of that owed to China. Meanwhile, economic growth forecasts have been cut. Last month, the International Monetary Fund said global growth is expected to slow to 4.4% in 2022, down from 5.9% last year.

“For the first time, the rate of growth of the developing countries is less than the rate of growth of the developed countries, so in terms of the sustainability of this debt burden, we have where we are in a very high-risk space,” Grynspan told VOA.

Debt relief

The G-20 has launched debt relief programs, including the Debt Service Suspension Initiative, which have frozen debt repayments during the pandemic.

“It is in the right direction, but it has two problems,” Grynspan said. “One is that it’s a suspension, so the countries will have to start paying in June this year while the crisis is not over. And, secondly, that the impact in terms of debt servicing with respect to the total debt servicing of the developing countries is very, very small.”

The G-20 also launched a debt reduction program in November 2020 known as the Common Framework. In the program, participating countries would agree to debt restructuring with bilateral creditors and the IMF and then aim to secure the same debt relief on private-sector loans. However, only three countries — Chad, Zambia and Ethiopia — have come forward for help. So far, none has received any debt relief.

Grynspan said many indebted nations are nervous about the consequences.

“Many countries don’t want to come in, because they will be punished by the markets,” she said. “And if they are punished by the markets, their access to a private bond and the possibility of going to the markets to finance themselves will be really hindered.”

IMF

In response to the pandemic, the IMF issued Special Drawing Rights — an emergency currency, effectively — worth $650 billion. Wealthy nations were the main recipients, however, drawing $400 billion from the fund.

LeCompte of the Jubilee USA Network said the G-20 should rectify the imbalance.

“The G-20 could affirm the direction of a pandemic response vehicle that could accept donations of Special Drawing Rights from wealthy countries. The IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust could fund long-term, affordable loans to developing countries,” he said.

The warnings of a debt crisis come as borrowing costs are rising sharply, with central banks ramping up interest rates to tackle inflation. Grynspan said creditor nations must take urgent action on debt relief. The alternative, she warned, is a “lost decade” for developing countries.
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