STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT. Foreign Ministry Director Santo Darmosumarto said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would visit Indonesia on Jun. 5 to 7, among other things, to strengthen economic partnership between the two countries in their post-pandemic recovery efforts.
He also said that they plan to talk more about global and regional issues such as AUKUS, defense, security, and G20 partnerships. Santo said Indonesia will be the first bilateral visit for Albanese since being sworn in as Australia’s 31st prime minister.
The United States and Taiwan have launched talks aimed at deepening their trade ties as Washington vies to bolster its influence in the region to counter China. Like that effort, the discussions with Taiwan will not involve tariffs or market access — items that would require congressional approval, officials said.
In a statement, the U.S. Trade Representative said that “both sides will work at pace to develop an ambitious road map for negotiations for reaching agreements with high-standard commitments and economically meaningful outcomes”. Taiwan’s lead trade negotiator John Deng said the talks would “open up more room for economic cooperation”.
China, which considers Taiwan as part of its country, objected to the U.S.-Taiwan 21st Century Trade Initiative as it had political elements and was not in accordance with the internationally recognized One China agreement.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian to the national news agency Xinhua said the U.S. should apply the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence, and seek solutions for mutual benefit. “China will not interfere in the domestic affairs or bilateral relations of other countries, unless the relations are intended to hinder and harm China,” Zhao said.
Last month’s long-awaited summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and eight Southeast Asian leaders in Washington has put China on alert. Despite the former’s underwhelming
By the time Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s ten-day tour of the Pacific is over in early June, he will have met with leaders from all ten Pacific island countries that have diplomatic relations with China. This tour is the second of its kind since 2006 (his predecessor Li Zhaoxing visited the region that year). It follows a meeting of Pacific foreign ministers with China last year. But what does China want from the region and why is it showing such strong interest in the Pacific?
China seeks two main things from the region – one diplomatic and one strategic. Diplomatically, it needs the voting support of Pacific islands at the United Nations. These countries, most of which are small, have an equal vote at the UN. Their support – on issues such as Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, South and East China Seas and human rights – matters to China.
Congress has tried and failed for decades to pass a law to protect Americans’ data privacy. A bipartisan draft bill released today by key Congressional leaders suggests lawmakers are finally close to making it happen. If it becomes law, the “American Data Privacy and Protection Act,” as the bill is called, would provide a national standard on what data companies can gather from individuals and how they can use it.
The bill released Friday includes agreement between Republicans and Democrats — for the first time — on two areas that have blocked previous efforts: whether a federal privacy law can preempt state laws and whether individuals should have the right to sue companies that illegally share their data or use it in ways the law prohibits.
Liozanys Comeja credits her survival to her teacup chihuahua, Mia. Originally from Venezuela, Comeja moved to Colombia five years ago, but decided to leave her new life behind this month due to the rising cost of living. She crossed the Darien Gap, a notorious stretch of jungle between Colombia and Panama, with Mia tucked in her backpack, eventually making her way across eight countries. Now, Comeja is hoping the dog will help her make it through the grueling final leg of their journey.
Comeja has joined about 11,000 others who on Monday will leave Tapachula, a sweltering city on the Mexico-Guatemala border, and head north for the United States. It will depart as leaders from across the hemisphere gather in Los Angeles for the Summit of the Americas. “Whenever I get discouraged, Mia calms me down,” Comeja said. When they arrive at the US border, Comeja plans to cross the Rio Grande on foot.
Some 6,000 people, including many from Venezuela and Central America, have begun walking from the southern tip of Mexico north as part of a caravan. Migration is among the top issues on the agenda at the Summit of the Americas. The caravan may be one of the largest in recent years. On Monday, the group began its 1,270 mile (2,000 km) journey to the US from the Mexican city of Tapachula, near the country’s border with Guatemala.
In just over a month, more than 45,000 Americans have submitted applications to resettle Ukrainians displaced by the war in their homeland as part of the largest U.S. private sponsorship program for refugees in decades, according to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data shared with CBS News.
As of Wednesday, just over 6,500 Ukrainians had arrived in the U.S. under the Uniting for Ukraine program, which began on April 25, the DHS figures show. U.S. immigration officials have also authorized the travel of 27,000 additional Ukrainians identified by American sponsors.
The number of applications and case approvals indicate the Uniting for Ukraine program could quickly become the largest official private refugee sponsorship initiative in U.S. history, eclipsing a program shut down in the 1990s that allowed U.S. groups to finance the resettlement of 16,000 refugees over six years.
Tropical Storm Alex, which became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season Sunday, headed toward Bermuda after killing three people in Cuba and causing flooding in parts of Florida. Alex reached tropical storm force after strengthening off Florida’s east coast early Sunday. The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Alex had maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and was centered about 325 miles west of Bermuda on Sunday evening.
A small group of senators at the center of bipartisan gun safety talks will meet Monday as they race to clinch a deal with mass shootings across the country continuing unabated and the fate of enhanced background checks up in the air.
The quartet of Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), John Cornyn (R-Texas), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is focused on a package that would reform background checks and state red flag laws, enhance school safety and provide new mental health programs.
Nine years after Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) struck an agreement to expand background checks that most Republicans rejected on the Senate floor, the current bipartisan group is focused on significant yet more modest reforms that can win 60 votes in the chamber.
President Joe Biden ordered emergency measures Monday to boost crucial supplies to U.S. solar manufacturers and declared a two-year tariff exemption on solar panels from Southeast Asia as he attempted to jumpstart progress toward his climate change-fighting goals.
His invoking of the Defense Production Act and his other executive actions come amid complaints by industry groups that the solar sector is being slowed by supply chain problems due to a Commerce Department inquiry into possible trade violations involving Chinese products. Word of the White House’s actions caused solar energy companies to gain ground on Wall Street.
The Commerce Department announced in March that it was scrutinizing imports of solar panels from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, concerned that products from those countries are skirting U.S. anti-dumping rules that limit imports from China.
Senate negotiators have sketched the outlines of a bill to address gun violence and respond to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas, but they haven’t yet nailed down the crucial details that will determine whether the legislation can get 60 votes to pass.
There’s rough consensus among a group of Democratic and Republican senators that the legislation should encourage states to set up red flag laws to remove guns from dangerous people, strengthen the national criminal background check system and provide money for mental health treatment.
There’s also bipartisan discussion about encouraging safe storage of firearms and further regulating people who sell large numbers of weapons without obtaining a Federal Firearms License, which would require them to conduct background checks for all sales.
Average long-term U.S. mortgage rates jumped back up ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting where it’s expected to announce another big increase to its main borrowing rate. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac reported Thursday that the 30-year rate jumped to 5.23% this week from 5.09% last week. A year ago at this time, the average rate was 2.96%. Until April, the average rate hadn’t exceeded 5% in more than a decade. The brisk jump in rates, along with a sharp increase in home prices, has been pushing potential homebuyers out of the market.
The Biden administration floated draft regulations on Thursday that would set standards for federally financed EV charging stations as officials aim to spur a large national buildout. The big picture: The minimum standards aim to ensure chargers are reliable and have similar payment systems, charging speeds, pricing and other consistent features.
Driving the news: The proposed rules build on February guidance that encouraged EV chargers to be positioned a maximum of 50 miles apart along designated alternate fuel corridors, per the Department of Transportation.
What to watch: President Biden has set a goal of a national network of 500,000 public charging stations in place by 2030, and the bipartisan infrastructure law provides over $5 billion for the effort.
A senior U.S. official says the State Department is “on the right track” to open its first embassy in Maldives “very quickly” at a time of increased geopolitical competition with China. More than 1½ years after the embassy was first announced, U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to soon nominate the first American ambassador to the Maldives.
“I feel confident that we will be notifying the Congress soon (regarding) opening a (diplomatic) presence there,” Donald Lu, assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, told U.S. lawmakers during a House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
The two met on the fringes of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. A senior defense official described the meeting as professional and focused. Wei requested the meeting earlier in the week. The meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes but lasted a little less than an hour. The two men discussed global and regional security issues and the bilateral defense relationship between the United States and China. They spent most of the meeting discussing Taiwan.
On the global and regional security issues, the two discussed North Korea and the challenges in Northeast Asia. They also discussed the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “Secretary Austin reiterated the point he made when they spoke on the phone that we were watching the situation very carefully and strongly discouraged China from providing material support to Russia for its war in Ukraine,” the official said (Red/many sources).
