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      Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed? | Kate Aronoff

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      OpinionCop26Is Joe Biden about to show up to Cop26 empty-handed?Kate AronoffThe tools at Biden’s disposal to limit dangerous global heating are enormous. If he wants it, he can do it – but does he want it? Thu 28 Oct 2021 09.24 EDTLast modified on Thu 28 Oct 2021 12.39 EDTAfter months of bullish rhetoric about the United States’ climate leadership, the US could still show up to COP 26 empty handed. That doesn’t have to be the case – whatever charismatic obstructionists like Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema have to say about it. The climate certainly isn’t waiting on them to change: the UN Emissions Gap Report released this week finds that the world is on track to warm by a catastrophic 2.7C degrees.The White House has pegged its Paris Agreement success on being able to pass an ambitious spending package, with plenty of money built in for key climate priorities. In recent weeks the administration pegged its audacious goal, of slashing emission by at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, to something called a Clean Electricity Payments Program (CEPP). That’s out. And even if the compromise $55bn a year of climate spending the White House promised on Thursday makes it through to legislation, carrots for green spending can only go so far. The US will still not have picked up critical sticks needed to go after the polluting industries driving up temperatures. The dirty dozen: meet America’s top climate villainsRead moreThey’re desperately needed. According to the UN-backed 2021 Production Gap Report, the world’s governments are on track to produce double the amount of fossil fuels than is consistent with capping warming at 1.5C degrees. In the US, oil and gas production are now on track to expand by 17 and 12%, respectively, by 2030.The United States showing up in good faith to Glasgow will require it to step on the third rail of both US and global climate politics: going after fossil fuels. Those words don’t appear in the Paris Agreement itself. But rapidly winding them down is essential to achieving its goals of limiting warming by “well below” 2C degrees, with an aspiration (repeated frequently by the Biden administration) to limit temperature rise to just 1.5C degrees.The Biden administration is also on track to approve more oil and gas drilling on federal lands than any president since George W Bush. Sadly, this is not the first time Democrats have let us down on climate action. It was just days after the Paris Agreement that the Obama administration quietly repealed the 40 year-old crude oil export ban as part of an omnibus, must-pass spending measure in 2015. In the four years after its passage crude oil exports expanded by 750%, allowing the US to eventually cross the threshold to becoming a net oil exporter in the winter of 2020. The same year the United States was the world’s third largest gas exporter.This trajectory is plainly out of step with a liveable planet. Indigenous leaders who converged in Washington under the banner of People v Fossil Fuels earlier this month were joined by 13 members of Congress recently in calling on the administration to use the full extent of its powers to start treating the climate crisis like the emergency it is, putting a stop to fossil fuel expansion. The tools at Biden’s disposal, as they note, are enormous.The EPA has the power to stringently regulate carbon dioxide and methane, which it’s expected to make steps toward soon. By declaring a national emergency, Biden could reinstate the crude oil export ban virtually overnight, stemming the flow of US fossil fuels being burned abroad to make a handful of executives here rich.Such a declaration would unlock the power to finally put the US on a wartime footing to rapidly deploy renewable energy and create millions of union jobs in the process, rather than relying only on piecemeal measures like tax credits. The Department of Energy could reject export permits under the Natural Gas Act. The Department of Interior could stop selling below-market rate leases to drill on public lands, activity that accounts for roughly a quarter of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions.There’s plenty of other low-hanging fruit, too: Biden could move to cancel the Line 3 pipeline, along with the Dakota Access Pipeline, Line 5 and the Mountain Valley Pass Pipeline. A recent analysis by Oil Change International, in fact, found that the White House has to prevent 1.6bn metric tonnes of emissions per year by rejecting those and another 20 fossil fuel projects. Existing laws like the Clean Water Act and National Environmental Policy Act grant the executive branch broad authority to do so. Internationally, the administration could join the UK and Italy at the G20 this week in pushing to phase-out coal and formally end overseas financing for all oil and gas projects through the US Export-Import Bank, as well. The State Department could drop its longstanding objections to concrete discussions of loss and damage financing and historical responsibility for rising temperatures at the UN climate talks in Glasgow.Joe Biden and members of his administration have frequently called climate change an “existential threat.” If the White House wanted to act like that’s true – and assert real US leadership at COP 26 – it could.
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic. She is the co-author of A Planet To Win: Why We Need A Green New Deal (Verso) and the co-editor of We Own The Future: Democratic Socialism, American Style (The New Press)
      TopicsCop26OpinionClimate crisisJoe BidenUS politicsUS foreign policyJoe ManchincommentReuse this content More

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      Trump response to Capitol attack can’t be ‘swept under rug’, White House says – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      Texas Republicans pass voting maps that entrench power of whites

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Today so far

      4.47pm EDT
      16:47

      Progressives voice optimism about reaching deal after meeting with Biden

      3.33pm EDT
      15:33

      Mayorkas tests positive for coronavirus

      2.29pm EDT
      14:29

      ‘Crime scene do not enter’ tape outside home linked to Deripaska, after raid

      2.07pm EDT
      14:07

      Trump’s response to Capitol attack cannot be ‘swept under the rug,’ Psaki says

      12.31pm EDT
      12:31

      Interim summary

      Live feed

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      Texas Republicans pass voting maps that entrench power of whites

      Sam Levine

      Texas Republicans are on the verge of enacting new voting maps that would entrench the state’s Republican and white majority even as its non-white population grows rapidly.
      Texas Republicans approved the congressional plan on Monday evening, sending it to Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to sign the measure.
      The Texas maps offer perhaps the most brazen effort in the USs so far this year to draw new district lines to benefit one political party, a practice called gerrymandering. The proposed congressional map would blunt growing Democratic strength in the Texas suburbs. Texas Republicans already have a 23-13 seat advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and the new maps would double the number of safe GOP congressional seats in the state from 11 to 22, according to the Washington Post.
      Democrats would have 12 safe seats, up from eight. There would be just one competitive congressional district in the state, down from 12.
      Read more:

      5.14pm EDT
      17:14

      The Supreme Court has declined to stop a vaccine requirement for health workers in Maine.
      Justice Stephen Breyer declined to hear an emergency appeal to block a vaccine requirement announced by Maine governor Janet Mills. The policy requires health workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19 by 29 October or risk losing their jobs.
      According to the state’s dashboard tracking vaccinations among health workers, between 84 and 92% of workers are vaccinated in various settings so far.
      This is the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with a statewide vaccine mandate.

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is expected to hold Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to comply with the panel’s subpoenas. The expected committee vote comes one day after Donald Trump filed a lawsuit seeking to block certain White House documents from the subpoenas by claiming executive privilege, which is considered a dubious legal argument given that he is no longer president.
      The White House said Trump’s response to the insurrection cannot be “swept under the rug”. “Our view, and I think the view of the vast majority of Americans, is that former President Trump abused the office of the presidency and attempted to subvert a peaceful transfer of power,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about Trump’s lawsuit. “The former president’s actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy that we don’t feel can be swept under the rug.”
      FBI agents raided a Washington home linked to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned by the treasury department in 2018.
      Progressive lawmakers voiced optimism about reaching a deal on the reconciliation package after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House this afternoon. The president is now meeting with a group of centrist Democratic lawmakers to continue the negotiations over the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill. Democrats are still working to reach an agreement on the top-line cost of the reconciliation package, and House progressives are holding up the passage of the infrastructure bill until a deal is struck.

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.47pm EDT
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      Progressives voice optimism about reaching deal after meeting with Biden

      Progressive lawmakers expressed optimism about reaching a deal on the reconciliation package after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House this afternoon.
      Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the group had a “really good, productive meeting” with Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and treasury secretary Janet Yellen.
      “And I think we all feel still even more optimistic about getting to an agreement on a really transformational bill,” Jayapal told reporters after the meeting.
      Jayapal said she was confident that “a majority” of progressive priorities would be included in the final bill, and she thanked Biden for his engagement in the negotiations.
      When asked if they agreed to a top-line cost of the bill, Jayapal said that Biden has consistently pushed for a price tag between $1.9tn and $2.2tn, after moderates like Joe Manchin indicated they would not support a $3.5tn package.
      “It’s not the number that we want,” Jayapal said. “But at the end of the day, the idea that we can do these programs, a multitude of programs and actually get them going so that they deliver immediate transformational benefits to people is what we’re focused on.”

      4.24pm EDT
      16:24

      Joe Biden’s first meeting with congressional Democrats has now ended after about two hours, according to the White House.
      The president’s first meeting was with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Vice-president Kamala Harris and Treasury secretary Janet Yellen attended as well.
      Biden will now meet with some of the centrist Democrats in Congress to continue discussions about the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.

      Updated
      at 4.35pm EDT

      4.04pm EDT
      16:04

      Gloria Oladipo

      In an attempt to recruit more officers, US Capitol police chief Thomas Manger is using the 6 January insurrection as a reason for why more people should join the force.
      As seen in a promotional video titled The US Capitol Police: A Call to Service, Manger describes how the attack, which many have cited as a failure on the part of Capitol law enforcement, made him want to once again join the force.

      U.S. Capitol Police
      (@CapitolPolice)
      One of our top priorities is to hire more officers to protect Congress and the U.S. Capitol: pic.twitter.com/xbKBOhmNpz

      October 19, 2021

      “I wanted to be a police officer again. I wanted to be there to help. We are looking for really good men and women who have that spirit for public service, who want to serve their country,” said Manger in the video.
      Following the insurrection, officers testified during a House committee about the events of 6 January, describing being swarmed and attacked by rioters as well as the trauma they dealt with.

      Updated
      at 4.35pm EDT

      3.33pm EDT
      15:33

      Mayorkas tests positive for coronavirus

      Gloria Oladipo

      US Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has tested positive for Covid-19, according to DHS spokesperson Marsha Espinosa.
      “Secretary Mayorkas tested positive this morning for the Covid-19 virus after taking a test as part of routine pre-travel protocols. Secretary Mayorkas is experiencing only mild congestion; he is fully vaccinated and will isolate and work at home per CDC protocols and medical advice. Contact tracing is underway,” said Espinosa in a statement to CNN.
      Mayorkas will no longer be participating in a planned trip to Colombia with secretary of state Antony Blinken and will be working from home, reports CNN.

      Updated
      at 4.44pm EDT

      3.19pm EDT
      15:19

      Gloria Oladipo

      An FBI spokesperson has said that the agency is conducting law enforcement activity in a New York City building in connection with an investigation into Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch whose Washington, DC home was raided today, according to ABC news.
      Stay tuned as more information emerges.

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Gloria Oladipo

      House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland discussed the best strategy for Democrats to pass the Biden administration’s $3.5tn spending package, arguing that lawmakers should fund fewer programs for longer, reports Politico.
      “My own view is that we ought to do fewer things better. We ought to make sure that which [programs] we include in the bill will have a real impact,” said Hoyer.
      Hoyer added that he wants “sense of permanency to those policies” that make it in the final version of the financial bill.
      Democrats are still working to get the megabill passed before a self-imposed deadline of 31 October but face opposition from key moderates such as Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Lawmakers including House speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have supported the idea of funding fewer programs, but contention remains around which programs will get cut, including threats to key climate change legislation.
      Hoyer added that Democrats are still aiming towards passing the social spending package and the infrastructure bill by the Halloween deadline and that “if [Congress] make significant progress that’ll also be success towards those ends.”

      2.53pm EDT
      14:53

      Gloria Oladipo

      Five people with the climate activist group Sunrise Movement will begin participating in a hunger strike in front of the White House tomorrow at 9am to demand that Congress pass the climate initiatives in the Biden administration’s $3.5tn spending package, a key part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, reports the New Republic.
      “We’re here to highlight how dire this moment is,” said Kidus Girma, 26, who is participating in the strike. “A couple hundred people in a two-part building in D.C. are deciding the scope of what climate justice can look like—and not just climate justice, but a lot of critical programs that before this pandemic folks did not think were possible.”
      Protestors decided to strike after news broke from the New York Times on Friday that Democrats were considering getting rid of the Clean Energy Payment Program, an initiative that would award utilities who increase their use of renewable energy, because of holdout from Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and other centrists.
      The hunger strike is apart of a longer week of actions targeting key Democrats who have not supported the legislation. Yesterday, Sunrise activists previously protested outside of Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona’s Phoenix office. Protestors have also previously protested by Manchin’s yatch.
      Protestors are asking people to participate in the hunger strike on Thursday, followed by a nationwide strike from school–coined Fridays for Future–that will result in a break in fasting.

      Updated
      at 2.53pm EDT

      2.29pm EDT
      14:29

      ‘Crime scene do not enter’ tape outside home linked to Deripaska, after raid

      Joanna Walters

      In further developments in the story of Russian metals billionaire Oleg Deripaska, FBI agents have raided a mansion in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Washington, DC, that is linked to him.
      Deripaska has ties to the Kremlin and Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former election campaign manager who served time for fraud and was pardoned by the former president. More

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      Colin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complications

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      Colin PowellColin Powell, former US secretary of state, dies at 84 of Covid complicationsPowell helped to build case for 2003 invasion of IraqJoe Biden hails ‘a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity’02:36Ed Pilkington in New York@edpilkingtonMon 18 Oct 2021 17.53 EDTFirst published on Mon 18 Oct 2021 08.17 EDTColin Powell, the former US secretary of state who played a pivotal role in attempting to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, has died from complications from Covid-19 aged 84, it was announced on Monday.Washington mourns death of Colin Powell as first tributes come in – liveRead morePowell, a retired four-star general who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, had been treated for Covid at Walter Reed national medical center in Bethesda, Maryland, where he died. He was fully vaccinated against coronavirus but had a compromised immune system having been treated for blood cancer.Announcing his death, his family said they had lost a “remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American”.Powell was America’s first Black secretary of state, serving in that role under George W Bush from 2001 to 2005. He rose to the heights of military and diplomatic service from relatively disadvantaged beginnings, having been born in New York City to Jamaican parents and raised in the South Bronx where he was educated through public schools before he entered the army via a college officer training program.A statement from Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, said they were “deeply saddened by the passing of our dear friend and a patriot of unmatched honor and dignity” and referred to Powell having “repeatedly broken racial barriers [and] blazing a trail for others”.Biden further said of Powell: “Over our many years working together – even in disagreement – Colin was always someone who gave you his best and treated you with respect. Colin embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat … having fought in wars, he understood better than anyone that military might alone was not enough to maintain our peace and prosperity … Colin led with his personal commitment to the democratic values that make our country strong.”Kamala Harris, the first female and first Black and south Asian US vice-president, said Powell was “an incredible American” who “served with dignity and grace” and she praised Powell as a trailblazing inspiration in “what he did and how he did it”.He rose to occupy the top military position in the US government as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff between 1989 and 1993. In that role he presided over military crises including the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the first Gulf war in 1990-91.But it was in the buildup to the contentious invasion of Iraq in 2003 that Powell became a household name. He was the face of the Bush administration’s aggressive attempt to get the world community to back the invasion, based on false claims of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction.In February 2003, as secretary of state, Powell appeared before the UN security council and made categoric claims that the then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and was developing nuclear weapons. He said his intelligence was based in part on accounts of unidentified Iraqi defectors.The invasion went ahead without UN authorisation. The following year the CIA’s own Iraq Study Group released a report that concluded that Hussein had destroyed the last of the country’s weapons of mass destruction a decade previously.Powell stepped down as secretary of state in November 2004, following Bush’s re-election. He later insisted to reporters that he had tried to warn Bush of the consequences of invading Iraq, but had supported the president when the decision to proceed was taken.In a statement on Monday, Bush called Powell “a great public servant. He was such a favorite of presidents that he earned the Presidential Medal of Freedom – twice. He was highly respected at home and abroad.”Dick Cheney, Bush’s vice-president who was a leading hawk on Iraq, simply said that working with Powell during the first Gulf war had shown him “Powell’s dedication to the United States and his commitment to the brave and selfless men and women who serve our country in uniform. Colin was a trailblazer and role model for so many.”Tony Blair, who as British prime minister also backed the Iraq invasion, called Powell a “towering figure in American military and political leadership over many years. He inspired loyalty and respect … his life stands as a testament not only to dedicated public service but also a strong belief in willingness to work across partisan division in the interests of his country.”01:45After his time in government Powell remained a hugely influential commentator on US politics and public life. He grew increasingly disillusioned by the Republican party’s rightward drift.In 2008, despite party rivalries, he endorsed Barack Obama for president and later became one of Donald Trump’s leading critics.On Monday, Obama said Powell “never denied the role that race played in his own life and in our society more broadly. But he also refused to accept that race would limit his dreams,” adding that he was “deeply appreciative” that Powell had endorsed him.Trump pushed a lie that Obama had not been born in the US and, at a time when conspiracy theorists were suggesting Obama was a Muslim, Powell spoke out and said: “The correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is?’”Powell voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020 and was scathing about Republicans who remained silent or actively embraced Trump’s lies. In January he said he was so disgusted by the insurrection of Trump supporters at the US Capitol that he no longer considered himself a Republican.Powell, a prostate cancer survivor, was undergoing treatment for multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells, when he contracted Covid-19. He was scheduled to receive his Covid booster last week when he first got sick. “He couldn’t go to his appointment,” Peggy Cifrino, his longtime chief of staff, told the Washington Post. “He thought he was just not feeling quite right, and he went to the hospital.”The FDA authorized boosters of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for the immune-compromised and others in September, but the regulatory agency has not yet officially authorized boosters from Moderna or Johnson & Johnson. FDA advisors recommended Moderna boosters for vulnerable groups on Thursday and Johnson & Johnson boosters for those above the age of 18 on Friday.This blood cancer makes it hard to fight infections, putting patients at increased risk for coronavirus, and less likely to respond to vaccines. Dr Derry Segev, a transplant surgeon and professor of surgery and epidemiology at Johns Hopkins, told the Guardian earlier this month that severely immune-compromised patients sometimes don’t respond to additional mRNA vaccines adequately.“About 50% of [transplant] patients have no detectable antibody after two doses, and the ones who do have very low levels of antibody. You add a third dose, you get another few percent ultimately back in – but still even after three doses, and we’ve published even after four doses, there are a lot of transplant patients who don’t have good antibody responses.”“There are extremely rare cases of deaths or hospitalizations among fully vaccinated individuals,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in a press briefing on Monday. But she emphasized that “an unvaccinated person has a more than 10 times greater risk of dying from Covid-19 compared to a fully vaccinated person”.Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s chief of staff, told CNN he also had Parkinson’s disease.Freshman progressive Democratic New York congressman Jamaal Bowman tweeted that Powell was an inspiration to him “as a Black man just trying to figure out the world”.Melody Schreiber contributed reportingTopicsColin PowellUS militaryUS foreign policyUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump-Taliban deal had 'psychological' effect on Afghan government says top US general – video

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      The collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces can be traced to a 2020 agreement between the Taliban and the Trump administration that promised a complete US troop withdrawal, senior Pentagon officials have told Congress.
      Gen Frank McKenzie, the head of central command, told the House ‘the signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military’. He identified a troop reduction ordered by Joe Biden as the ‘second nail in the coffin’.

      Top US general says Afghan collapse can be traced to Trump-Taliban deal More

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      US Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley says

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      US militaryUS Afghanistan withdrawal a ‘logistical success but strategic failure’, Milley saysGeneral and other military leaders in heated cross-examinationMilley defends loyalty to country and rejects suggestion to quit Julian Borger in WashingtonTue 28 Sep 2021 14.44 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 Sep 2021 17.00 EDTThe withdrawal from Afghanistan and the evacuation of Kabul was “a logistical success but a strategic failure,” the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has told the Senate.Gen Mark Milley gave the stark assessment at an extraordinary hearing of the Senate armed services committee to examine the US departure, which also became a postmortem on the 20-year war that preceded it.Milley appeared alongside the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the head of US Central Command, Gen Kenneth ‘Frank’ McKenzie, in the most intense, heated cross-examination of the country’s military leadership in more than a decade.At one point, Milley was obliged to defend his loyalty to his country, in the face of allegations of insubordination in last weeks of the Trump administration, and to explain why he had not resigned in the course of the chaotic Afghan pullout.General defends himself over Trump and says his loyalty to nation is absoluteRead more“It is obvious the war in Afghanistan did not end on the terms we wanted,” Milley said, noting “the Taliban is now in power in Kabul.”“We must remember that the Taliban was and remains a terrorist organization and they still have not broken ties with al-Qaida,” he added. “I have no illusions who we are dealing with. It remains to be seen whether or not the Taliban can consolidate power, or if the country will further fracture into civil war.”It was a long and very difficult day in Congress for the Biden administration, which has been trying to move past the reputational damage caused by the sudden fall of Kabul last month and subsequent scramble to evacuate Americans and allies, which left tens of thousands of vulnerable Afghans behind.Milley, Austin and McKenzie all confirmed that when the Biden administration was considering its policy on Afghanistan in its first few months in office, they had believed a small US force of about 2,500 should remain.None could explain Joe Biden’s claim in an interview last month that he had not received any such advice.“No one said that to me that I can recall,” Biden told ABC News on 19 August.Milley adamantly rejected a suggestion by Republican senator Tom Cotton he should resign because that advice was rejected.“It would be an incredible act of political defiance for a commissioned officer to just resign because my advice is not taken,” he said, staring straight at Cotton. “This country doesn’t want generals figuring out what orders we’re going to accept and do or not. That’s not our job.”In his 19 August interview, Biden had said that US forces would stay until all American citizens had been evacuated. But when the last soldier left on a flight on 30 August, there were still believed to be more than a hundred Americans – most if not all dual nationals who had delayed their decision to leave until it was too late.Milley said it was the advice of the military leadership to stick to the end of August deadline to complete the departure, which the Taliban had accepted.If the US had stayed on into September to try to evacuate more people, he said: “We would have been at war with the Taliban again,” requiring an extra 20,000 troops to clear Kabul of Taliban fighters and retake Bagram air base near the capital, which the US had abandoned in July.Milley also had to defend himself against charges that he deliberately sought to undermine Donald Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief out of fear that the former president would launch a foreign war as a diversion to distract attention from his election loss in November.“My loyalty to this nation, its people and the constitution hasn’t changed and will never change,” Milley told the Senate armed services committee on Tuesday. “As long as I have a breath to give, my loyalty is absolute.”Milley was facing hostile Republicans, some of whom have demanded his resignation following revelations that he spoke twice to his Chinese counterpart, reassuring him that the US would not launch a surprise attack.Mark Milley, US general who stood up to Trump, founders over Kabul strikeRead moreThe revelations are contained in a new book, Peril, by the Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa.According to the book, Milley also ordered officers assigned to the Pentagon war room to let him know if Trump ordered a nuclear launch, despite the fact that the chairman of the joint chiefs is not in the chain of command.The general said his two calls with the Chinese army chief followed intelligence suggesting China was fearful of an attack, and were intended to defuse tensions.“I am certain President Trump did not intend to attack the Chinese,” Milley said, adding he had been directed by the defence secretary to convey that message to the Chinese.“My task at that time was to de-escalate,” he said. “My message again was consistent: stay calm, steady and de-escalate. We are not going to attack you.”He said the calls were closely coordinated with the defence secretary and other senior officials in the Trump administration, and that several senior Pentagon officials sat in on the calls.On the question of his actions on nuclear launch procedures, Milley said he had a responsibility to insert himself into those procedures in order to be able to perform his role to advise the president properly.“By law I am not in the chain of command and I know that,” he said. “However, by presidential directive, and [defence department] instruction, I am in the chain of communication to fulfil my legal statutory role as the president’s primary military adviser.”TopicsUS militaryAfghanistanSouth and Central AsiaUS foreign policyUS CongressUS politicsUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Abolish Trump-era ‘China Initiative’, academics urge, amid racial profiling criticism

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      US universities Abolish Trump-era ‘China Initiative’, academics urge, amid racial profiling criticism Stanford University professors say the programme is fuelling racism and harming US competitiveness, rather than uncovering spies in universities Vincent Ni China affairs correspondentTue 14 Sep 2021 22.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 14 Sep 2021 22.02 EDTCalls are growing to abolish a controversial Trump-era initiative that looks for Chinese spies at US universities, which critics say has resulted in racial profiling and harmed technological competitiveness.In a letter sent to the Department of Justice, 177 faculty members across 40 departments at Stanford University asked the US government to cease operating the “China Initiative”. They argue the programme harms academic freedom by racially profiling and unfairly targeting Chinese academics.The letter follows the acquittal last week by a US federal judge of a researcher accused of concealing ties with China while receiving American taxpayer-funded grants. “We understand that concerns about Chinese government-sanctioned activities including intellectual property theft and economic espionage are important to address,” the Stanford academics wrote. “We believe, however, that the China Initiative has deviated significantly from its claimed mission: it is harming the United States’ research and technology competitiveness and it is fuelling biases that, in turn, raise concerns about racial profiling.”The Guardian view on anti-Chinese suspicion: target espionage, not ethnicities | EditorialRead moreOn Thursday, a federal judge in Tennessee acquitted Anming Hu, an ethnic Chinese nanotechnology expert at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, who had been accused of concealing his ties to Beijing while applying for research funding to work on a Nasa project. The judge said the US government hadn’t proven its case.“Given the lack of evidence that defendant was aware of such an expansive interpretation of Nasa’s China funding restriction, the court concludes that, even viewing all the evidence in the light most favourable to the government, no rational jury could conclude that defendant acted with a scheme to defraud Nasa,” US district judge Thomas Varlan wrote in a 52-page ruling.Responding to the decision, the Department of Justice said “we respect the court’s decision, although we are disappointed with the result”, according to US media. Hu’s attorney, Phil Lomonaco, said the academic was focused now on recovering his tenured position at the University of Tennessee.“Many universities should have learned from the experience that professor was forced to endure,” Lomonaco said. “The Department of Justice needs to take a step back and reassess their approach on investigating Chinese professors in the United States universities. They are not all spies.”‘There’s a better way’The high-profile trial came after a series of arrests of US-based researchers who had been accused of not properly disclosing their work in China in recent years. After a jury deadlock, Hu’s case ended in mistrial in June. An FBI agent admitted that he had “used false information to justify putting a team of agents to spy on Hu and his son for two years”, according to local news reports.Confronting hate against east Asians – a photo essayRead moreThe Trump-era China Initiative began in 2018. In justifying such an operation, Department of Justice said on its website: “The Department of Justice’s China Initiative reflects the strategic priority of countering Chinese national security threats and reinforces the president’s overall national security strategy.” It also publishes a list of successful prosecutions – with the latest one on 14 May.But critics say while it is necessary for the US to protect its national security, such a programme that targets an entire ethnic group would end up in discrimination against Asian Americans – in particular those who are of Chinese origin.On 30 July, 90 members of the US congress urged the Department of Justice to investigate what they called “the repeated, wrongful targeting of individuals of Asian descent for alleged espionage”, in a letter to attorney general Merrick Garland.Last week, Democratic congressman Ted Lieu demanded the Justice Department apologise to Hu. “You should stop discriminating against Asians. You should investigate your prosecutors for engaging in what looks like racial profiling. If Hu’s last name was Smith, you would not have brought this case,” he wrote.Hate crimes in US rise to highest level in 12 years, says FBI reportRead moreThe recent round of calls came in the wake of growing violence against Asians in the US. According to an FBI annual report last month, the number of reported crimes against people of Asian decent grew by 70% last year, totalling 274 cases.Margaret Lewis of Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, who has been calling on the US government to rethink its approach to research security, said: “I understand the need to be concerned about the Chinese government’s behaviour that incentivises violations of US law, but the US should first not engage in rhetoric that fuels xenophobia and racism.“It worries me that people with certain characteristics might fall under suspicion,” she said. “Let us not pretend there’s no concern about Beijing, but there’s a better way to do it. Getting rid of the name is the first step.”TopicsUS universitiesChinaDonald TrumpTrump administrationUS politicsUS foreign policyAsia PacificnewsReuse this content More