Published: 10:04 pm, Sun. May. 22nd, 2022 Updated: 9:04 pm
Biden welcomes new Australian PM to Indo-Pacific club
TOKYO (AP) — President Joe Biden opened his last day in Asia on Tuesday by holding talks with a trio of Indo-Pacific leaders that includes Australia’s new prime minister on his first full day on the job and India’s Narendra Modi, with whom differences persist over how to respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Biden, Modi and Japan’s Fumio Kishida launched the Quad summit by welcoming Australia’s Anthony Albanese to the club and expressing awe at his determination to join the informal security coalition by rushing to Tokyo immediately after being sworn in on Monday.
“I don’t know how you’re doing it,” Biden told Albanese. The U.S. president joked that it would be OK if the new premier happened to fall sleep during the meeting.
Turning serious, Biden said the leaders were “navigating through a dark hour in our shared history” because of Russia’s war on Ukraine. He added that it was ”more than just a European issue, it’s a global issue.”
Kishida, too, took note of Russia’s aggression and added: “We cannot let the same thing happen in the Indo-Pacific region.”
If Roe falls, some fear repercussions for reproductive care
If the Supreme Court follows through on overturning Roe v. Wade, abortion likely will be banned or greatly restricted in about half the U.S. states. But experts and advocates fear repercussions could reach even further, affecting care for women who miscarry, couples seeking fertility treatments and access to some forms of contraception.
Many conservatives insist they are only interested in curtailing abortion, and legislation passed so far often has exceptions for other reproductive care. But rumblings from some in the GOP have experts concerned, and laws banning abortion could also have unintended side effects.
“The rhetoric has been really increasing over the last several years,” said Mara Gandal-Powers, the director of birth control access at the National Women’s Law Center. “There’s definitely a domino effect which I think people are really starting to wake up to and see this is how far it could go.”
If Roe is overturned, as suggested by a leaked draft opinion, states will set their own abortion laws, and conservative lawmakers are already passing a steady stream of deeply restrictive regulations. Oklahoma lawmakers, for example, passed legislation Thursday banning abortion at conception, the strictest in the nation.
Although that bill has some exceptions, it signals a direction that is deeply worrisome for many doctors.
After 3 months of war, life in Russia has profoundly changed
When Vladimir Putin announced the invasion of Ukraine, war seemed far away from Russian territory. Yet within days the conflict came home — not with cruise missiles and mortars but in the form of unprecedented and unexpectedly extensive volleys of sanctions by Western governments and economic punishment by corporations.
Three months after the Feb. 24 invasion, many ordinary Russians are reeling from those blows to their livelihoods and emotions. Moscow’s vast shopping malls have turned into eerie expanses of shuttered storefronts once occupied by Western retailers.
McDonald’s — whose opening in Russia in 1990 was a cultural phenomenon, a shiny modern convenience coming to a dreary country ground down by limited choices — pulled out of Russia entirely in response to its invasion of Ukraine. IKEA, the epitome of affordable modern comforts, suspended operations. Tens of thousands of once-secure jobs are now suddenly in question in a very short time.
Major industrial players including oil giants BP and Shell and automaker Renault walked away, despite their huge investments in Russia. Shell has estimated it will lose about $5 billion by trying to unload its Russian assets.
While the multinationals were leaving, thousands of Russians who had the economic means to do so were also fleeing, frightened by harsh new government moves connected to the war that they saw as a plunge into full totalitarianism. Some young men may have also fled in fear that the Kremlin would impose a mandatory draft to feed its war machine.
Pentagon says more high-tech weapons going to Ukraine
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 50 defense leaders from around the world met Monday and agreed to send more advanced weapons to Ukraine, including a Harpoon launcher and missiles to protect its coast, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters.
And Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that “low-level” discussion is underway on how the U.S. may need to adjust its training of Ukrainian forces and on whether some U.S. troops should be based in Ukraine.
The U.S. withdrew its few troops in Ukraine before the war and has no plans to send in combat forces. Milley’s comments left open the possibility troops could return for embassy security or another non-combat role.
The U.S. embassy in Kyiv has partially reopened and is staffing up again, and there have been questions about whether the U.S. will send a Marine security force back in to help protect the embassy or if other options should be considered.
Asked if U.S. special operations forces may go into Ukraine, which officials have insisted they are not doing yet, Milley said that “any reintroduction of U.S. forces into Ukraine would require a presidential decision. So we’re a ways away from anything like that.”
EXPLAINER: What’s the 4-nation Quad, where did it come from?
TOKYO (AP) — Leaders of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India gathered in Tokyo on Tuesday for a summit of the “Quad.” What is the group, where did it come from and why do diplomats keep coming up with strange names for various partnerships?
Formally the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, the Quad began as a loose partnership after the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, when the four countries joined together to provide humanitarian and disaster assistance to the affected region. It was formalized by former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2007, but then fell dormant for nearly a decade, particularly amid Australian concerns that its participation in the group would irritate China.
The group was resurrected in 2017, reflecting changing attitudes in the region toward China’s growing influence. Both the Trump and Biden administrations saw the Quad as key to a pivot toward placing more focus on the Indo-Pacific region, particularly as a counterweight to China’s assertive actions. The Quad leaders held their first formal summit in 2021 and met again virtually in March.
IS IT AN “ASIAN NATO”?
Southern Baptists face push for public list of sex abusers
A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the first time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and other church personnel known to be abusers.
The creation of an “Offender Information System” was one of the key recommendations in a report released Sunday by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the SBC’s Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for an investigation by outsiders.
The proposed database is expected to be one of several recommendations presented to thousands of delegates attending this year’s national meeting, scheduled for June 14-15 in Anaheim, California.
“Those recommendations will be open to questions, debate and comments on the meeting floor,” said SBC President Ed Litton.
He expressed hope that the shocking findings in the Guidepost report will bring “lasting change” to the SBC, America’s largest Protestant denomination. It has been losing membership steadily in recent years, while being wracked by internal divisions over race and gender roles.
Asian shares mostly lower as inflation worries cloud outlook
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares were mostly lower on Tuesday as worries over inflation tempered optimism over President Joe Biden’s remark that he was considering reducing U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports.
Benchmarks fell in Tokyo, Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong but rose slightly in Sydney. Oil prices and U.S. futures were lower.
Biden, who announced a new economic and trade initiative with the region while on a visit to Japan, confirmed to reporters that he planned to discuss the issue of punitive tariffs imposed on China during former President Donald Trump’s administration with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen once he returns to Washington.
“I’m talking with the secretary when I get home. We are considering it,” Biden said.
The comments raised optimism over the potential for an easing of tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, but not all were convinced.
South Asia’s intense heat wave a ‘sign of things to come’
NEW DELHI (AP) — The devastating heat wave that has baked India and Pakistan in recent months was made more likely by climate change and is a glimpse of the region’s future, international scientists said in a study released Monday.
The World Weather Attribution group analyzed historical weather data that suggested early, long heat waves that impact a massive geographical area are rare, once-a-century events. But the current level of global warming, caused by human-caused climate change, has made those heat waves 30 times more likely.
If global heating increases to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) more than pre-industrial levels, then heat waves like this could occur twice in a century and up to once every five years, said Arpita Mondal, a climate scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai, who was part of the study.
“This is a sign of things to come,” Mondal said.
The results are conservative: An analysis published last week by the United Kingdom’s Meteorological Office said the heat wave was probably made 100 times more likely by climate change, with such scorching temperatures likely to reoccur every three years.
Surgeon: Johnny Depp’s severed finger story has flaws
FALLS CHURCH, Va. (AP) — A hand surgeon testified Monday that Johnny Depp could not have lost the tip of his middle finger the way he told jurors it happened in his civil lawsuit against ex-wife Amber Heard.
The finger injury, which occurred in a March 2015 fight in Australia between Depp and Heard, has been one of several key points of dispute in the lawsuit. Depp says he was injured when Heard threw a vodka bottle at him. Heard has said she never saw specifically how it happened, but that it occurred on a night when an enraged Depp sexually assaulted her with a liquor bottle.
Depp is suing Heard for libel in Fairfax County Circuit Court over a December 2018 op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post describing herself as “a public figure representing domestic abuse.” His lawyers say he was defamed by the article even though it never mentioned his name.
Depp has denied he ever struck Heard, and says she was the abuser in the relationship. Heard has testified about more than a dozen separate instances of physical abuse she says she suffered at Depp’s hands.
In testimony Monday, surgeon Richard Moore testified about the severed finger as jurors saw gruesome photos of the injury. He said that Depp described that his palm was down on a bar when it was struck by the bottle.
MLB suspends Yanks’ Donaldson for 1 game for ‘Jackie’ remark
NEW YORK (AP) — Major League Baseball suspended Josh Donaldson for one game Monday after the New York Yankees slugger made multiple references to Jackie Robinson while talking to White Sox star Tim Anderson during the weekend.
Donaldson also was fined an undisclosed amount for his actions Saturday at Yankee Stadium. The punishment was announced by Michael Hill, the senior vice president of on-field operations for MLB.
Donaldson has elected to appeal the penalty. Shortly before the suspension was announced, the Yankees said Donaldson had been put on the COVID-19 injured list.
“MLB has completed the process of speaking to the individuals involved in this incident. There is no dispute over what was said on the field. Regardless of Mr. Donaldson’s intent, the comment he directed toward Mr. Anderson was disrespectful and in poor judgment, particularly when viewed in the context of their prior interactions,” Hill said in a statement.
“In addition, Mr. Donaldson’s remark was a contributing factor in a bench-clearing incident between the teams, and warrants discipline,” he said.
Read the entire paper in PDF format
Read the entire paper in PDF format