Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

U.S., Russia hold nuclear talks in Geneva after summit push

By Stephanie Nebehay and Jonathan Landay

GENEVA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Senior U.S. and Russian officials on Wednesday restarted talks on easing tensions between the world’s largest nuclear weapons powers and agreed to reconvene in September after informal consultations, the State Department said.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman and Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov headed their delegations at the meeting at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva.

TASS news agency cited Ryabkov as saying he was satisfied with the consultations and that the United States showed readiness for a constructive dialogue at the talks.

Armed with mandates from their leaders, it was the first time in nearly a year that the sides had held so-called strategic stability talks amid frictions over a range of issues, including arms control.

U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose countries hold 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, agreed in June to launch a bilateral dialogue on strategic stability to “lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures”.

After informal consultations aimed at “determining topics for expert working groups” in the next round, the two sides agreed to reconvene in late September, State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement.

Calling the discussions “professional and substantive,” he said the U.S. side discussed its policy priorities, the current international security environment, “the prospects for new nuclear arms control” and the format for further talks.

The decision to meet again showed the sides understand the need to resolve arms control disputes, a senior State Department official said, that have seen an end to several Cold War-era treaties, including one that limited intermediate-range missiles.

“We know we have a responsibility as the largest nuclear weapons states to find a way to improve strategic stability to deal with a deteriorating arms control architecture,” the official briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

That includes dealing with threats posed by “new emerging technologies that can upset strategic stability,” the official said.

Such new threats could include artificial intelligence-controlled weapons, possible cyber attacks on existing nuclear weapons systems and more esoteric arms such as highly maneuverable aerial or submerged hypersonic weapons that can evade defenses.

Andrey Baklitskiy, senior research fellow at the Center for Advanced American Studies at Moscow State Institute of International Relations, told reporters in Geneva: “We are starting with a new U.S. administration, starting pretty much from scratch.

“It’s just meet and greet and try to establish some basic understandings,” he said.

Russia and the United States in February extended for five years the bilateral New START nuclear arms control treaty days before it was set to expire.

The treaty limits the numbers of strategic nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers that Russia and the United States can deploy.

The two sides had been expected to discuss which weapons systems and technologies are of greatest concern.

“For example, Russia still has concerns with U.S. modification of heavy bombers and launchers to launch ballistic missiles, and that’s been there for a while now,” Baklitskiy said.

The Biden administration has asserted that Russia has engaged unilaterally in low-yield nuclear testing, in violation of a nuclear testing moratorium, he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay. Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington; Editing by Peter Graff and Alistair Bell)

Senators reach deal on major points of U.S. infrastructure bill

By David Morgan and Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Senate negotiators have reached agreement on the major components of a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, clearing the way for a procedural vote on Wednesday to move toward formal debate and passage, lawmakers said.

The agreement, which follows months of talks between Senate Democrats and Republicans, is also backed by President Joe Biden and expected to gain strong support from lawmakers on both sides of the party aisle.

Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Senator Rob Portman, the two lead Senate negotiators, announced the agreement to reporters in the Capitol. Details on transit and broadband were still being finalized but lawmakers said legislative text would be completed soon.

“We do expect to move forward this evening. We’re excited to have a deal,” Sinema said. “We’ve got most of the text done, so we’ll be releasing it and then we’ll update it as we get those last pieces finalized.”

Sinema described Biden as “very excited” about the package.

Addressing a concern over funding among Republican lawmakers including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Portman said the package is “more than paid for” and added: “We look forward to moving ahead and having a healthy debate.”

The procedural vote would simply limit debate on whether the Senate should begin considering a bipartisan infrastructure investment bill, thought to be in the range of $1.2 trillion.

The bipartisan bill, which failed a similar vote last week when major issues remained unresolved, is a key component of Biden’s larger domestic policy agenda. Democrats plan to address the remainder with a sweeping $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that Republicans have vowed to oppose.

The bill will propose $550 billion in new spending, a Republican source said, down from $579 billion in a framework the negotiators sketched out several weeks ago.

It scraps previous plans to spend $20 billion to create an infrastructure financing authority, sources in both parties said. It had been intended to attract investment through private-public partnerships, but Republicans opposed Democratic demands designed to lift worker wages by attaching requirements that contractors pay prevailing wages, typically higher levels secured by unions.

Four other Republican negotiators joined Portman, including Senator Lisa Murkowski, who said the agreement showed Republicans and Democrats in the sharply divided U.S. Congress “can come together over really hard stuff to negotiate in good faith to broker an agreement.”

The agreement includes $110 billion for roads, $65 billion to expand broadband access and $47 billion for environmental resiliency, the lawmakers said.

Earlier, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said a procedural vote on a bipartisan bill was possible as soon as Wednesday night.

“Senators continue to make good progress,” Democrat Schumer said in a speech on the Senate floor.

Before the announcement, Murkowski told reporters: “I think that there is a strong, solid number of folks on both sides of the aisle that want to get on to an infrastructure package.”

Democrats hope to pass this month or early next month whatever measure is agreed upon in the bipartisan negotiations.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Susan Cornwell, additional reporting by David Shepardson and Richard Cowan; editing by Scott Malone, Jonathan Oatis, Diane Craft and David Gregorio)

Pentagon chief to nudge ties with Vietnam as human rights concerns linger

By Idrees Ali

HANOI (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will on Thursday look to nudge forward security ties with Vietnam that have been slowly deepening as both countries watch China’s activities in the South China Sea with growing alarm.

Despite growing military relations, more than four decades after the Vietnam War ended in 1975, President Joe Biden’s administration has said there are limits to the relationship until Hanoi makes progress on human rights.

Vietnam has emerged as the most vocal opponent of China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea and has received U.S. military hardware, including coastguard cutters.

“(Vietnam) wants to know that the U.S. is going to remain engaged militarily, it’s going to continue its presence in the South China Sea,” said Greg Poling, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Lieutenant General Vu Chien Thang, director of the Defense Ministry’s Foreign Relations Department, said on Tuesday the two sides would discuss the coronavirus and measures to “enhance maritime law enforcement capability.”

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they would also sign a “memorandum of understanding” for Harvard and Texas Tech University to create a database that would help Vietnamese search for those missing from the war.

On Sunday, the United States shipped 3 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine to Vietnam, raising the amount given by the United States, via the global COVAX vaccine scheme, to 5 million doses.

Austin will meet his counterpart along with Vietnam’s president and prime minister.

Poling said there was a limit to how fast and far the Vietnamese were comfortable with deepening ties.

Experts say there are lingering concerns in Vietnam about Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact in 2017.

“That really left a lot of countries standing at the altar for lack of a better way to put it, and especially Vietnam,” Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, said.

There are also limits to how far the United States is willing to deepen relations.

As important as Vietnam is in countering China, the United States has said it needs to improve its human rights record.

Vietnam has undergone sweeping economic reforms and social change in recent decades, but the ruling Communist Party retains a tight grip over media and tolerates little dissent.

In Singapore on Tuesday, Austin said the United States would always lead with its values.

“We will discuss those values with our friends and allies everywhere we go and we don’t make any bones about that,” Austin said.

This month, Marc Knapper, Biden’s nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to Vietnam vowed to boost security ties but said they could only reach their full potential if Hanoi made significant progress on human rights.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Cleanup ongoing at Lyondell Texas plant after chemical leak kills two, injures 30

By Liz Hampton

(Reuters) -Cleanup was ongoing on Wednesday morning after a chemical leak killed two workers and injured 30 others at a LyondellBasell Industries plant in La Porte, Texas, the company said.

The incident occurred on Tuesday evening at the facility’s acetyls unit, releasing roughly 100,000 pounds (45,000 kg) of a mixture that included acetic acid. An “all clear” was issued early Wednesday morning and air monitoring did not indicate actionable levels, Lyondell said in a statement.

The company said 24 of the 30 individuals taken to local hospitals have been released. The two individuals who died in the incident were contractors.

The incident marks one of the worst chemical disasters in the United States since a series of explosions at a TPC Group plant in Port Neches, Texas, in November, 2019. Although there were no fatalities and only three injuries, 60,000 people within a four-mile radius were told to evacuate the day before the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday.

An investigation into the cause of the leak was underway, and local and federal agencies, including the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Chemical Safety Board, and Environmental Protection Agency, had all been notified, Lyondell said.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton in Denver and Erwin Seba in Houston editing by Jonathan Oatis, Diane Craft and Marguerita Choy)

COVID still devastating in the Americas, health agency says

BRASILIA (Reuters) -COVID-19 continues to inflict a devastating toll on the Americas, with Argentina, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Paraguay among the countries with the world’s highest weekly death rates, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) said on Wednesday.

Cases have more than doubled in the United States over the past week, mainly among unvaccinated people, PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in a briefing.

The more transmissible Delta variant of coronavirus has been detected in 20 of the 35 countries in the Americas already, she said.

Cuba is seeing higher COVID infection and death rates than at any other point in the pandemic there, she said, adding that more than 7,000 minors and nearly 400 pregnant women have tested positive there in the last week.

Over the last week there were over 1.26 million COVID-19 cases and nearly 29,000 deaths reported in the Americas.

Infection hotspots have been reported in Argentine provinces bordering Bolivia and Chile, and in Colombia’s Amazon region.

“As COVID continues to circulate, too many places have relaxed the public health and social measures that have proven effective against this virus,” Etienne said.

So far, only 16.6% of the population of Latin America and the Caribbean has been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, as countries in the regions have yet to access the vaccines needed to keep their people safe, she said.

“The good news is that vaccines work against the variants, including Delta, in terms of preventing severe disease and death. The bad news is that we do not have yet enough vaccines to stop community transmission,” Etienne said.

(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Blip or bad moon rising? Fed meets amid COVID-19 surge, inflation jitters

By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve will conclude its latest policy meeting on Wednesday weighing the risks of a COVID-19 resurgence in the United States and a potentially slower economic recovery against a developing inflation threat that had been its main focus.

Fed officials are expected to continue their debate over when to wean the economy from the measures put in place more than a year ago to fight the pandemic’s economic aftershock, and in particular to discuss when to reduce the $120 billion in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities the U.S. central bank is buying each month to hold down long-term interest rates.

But that discussion, begun in earnest just six weeks ago when U.S. cases of COVID-19 were falling under the influence of vaccinations, has been complicated by the rapid spread of the more infectious Delta variant of the virus, the renewal of crisis conditions in some hospitals, and reinstated mask mandates in some cities.

Though focused mostly on the 40% of the adult U.S. population that remains unvaccinated, the current outbreak nevertheless raises fresh tensions for the Fed over whether planning to fend off inflation should be the top concern at a time when the health crisis may yet curb an otherwise ebullient recovery.

“Sadly, (Fed Chair Jerome) Powell will have to acknowledge the downside risks that are beginning to emerge,” Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, wrote ahead of the Fed’s two-day policy meeting this week. “The question mark is how spread of the Delta variant affects the return to work and whether it dampens some of the demand for services” that had begun to lead the recovery and pull millions of sidelined people back into jobs.

The economy still is 6.8 million jobs short of where it was before the pandemic’s onset in early 2020, and Powell has said the country remains “a ways off” from the progress he wants to see before changing any of the Fed’s efforts at encouraging job growth. Powell will hold a news conference following the 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) release of the Fed’s latest policy statement.

INFECTIONS AND INFLATION

The Fed remains in full crisis-fighting mode more than 16 months into a national state of emergency, continuing to hold its benchmark overnight interest rate near zero and buying bonds at a pace some policymakers have begun to question openly as too aggressive. Inflation is taking off, they note, and housing prices have hit record highs thanks in part to the relatively low interest rates on home mortgages.

To avoid bigger problems down the road the Fed should pull back “sooner rather than later,” Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan said after the June 15-16 policy meeting. St. Louis Fed President James Bullard has voiced similar sentiments – only to see Missouri’s second-biggest city reimpose an indoor mask mandate amid a rapid coronavirus outbreak in the state.

Nationally, daily infections have risen about fourfold since the Fed met in June, making what had seemed a straightforward process – a turn from fighting recession to managing the rising prices and other risks of a strong recovery – into a more nuanced debate over how to continue planning for the pandemic’s end while also acknowledging its persistence.

A new Reuters poll showed 160 of 202 economists, or about 80%, said the spread of new coronavirus variants was the biggest risk to the recovery.

The latest surge in cases has not shown up clearly yet in the economic data. Consumer confidence remains high and people are still boarding planes and heading to restaurants.

Still, Bank of America analysts recently drew a cautionary tale from Michigan, where a wave of infections in February appeared to dent hiring and consumer spending.

“So far we have seen little evidence of the Delta variant significantly affecting economic activity or spending on services,” those analysts wrote. But “we have good reason to be concerned about the current outbreak and what it means.”

TAPER TALK CONTINUES

Amid those risks, there’s also no guarantee that inflation will fade on a timetable within the Fed’s comfort zone – possibly leaving the central caught between slower growth and rising prices, the worst of both worlds.

A new Fed framework ostensibly allows inflation to run above the central bank’s formal 2% target to give the economy more room to generate jobs.

That approach, however, was designed after a decade of low inflation, and on an expectation the chief challenge would be raising the weak pace of price increases. Yet as of May, with the world economy beset by supply-chain problems and other challenges tied to the economic reopening, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure was nearly twice the target rate.

If that trend continues “they would have to say at some point ‘we do have to remove accommodation’ … and they could not wait for maximum employment” before raising interest rates, as their current policy pledges to do, said Bill English, a Yale School of Management professor and former head of the Fed’s monetary affairs division.

For that reason alone, Fed planning over how to reduce its bond-buying program is expected to continue. The central bank wants the monthly purchases to end before considering an interest rate increase, and the process of tapering them could take perhaps a year to complete – a lengthy runway if inflation persists and rate increases become more urgent.

Officials have also promised ample advance notice before actually making any change, adding more months to the timetable.

So far, officials are not foreclosing any option. Market analysts say they expect the Fed to clarify its plans for ending the bond-buying in the fall, and perhaps begin reducing purchases early next year.

That presumes U.S. hiring continues, and that travel, dining out, and other close-contact social activities also recover.

In an update to its World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday raised its forecast for U.S. growth in 2021 to a torrid 7%. But in a related blog, Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, cautioned central banks not to be distracted into “prematurely tightening policies” by a rise in inflation that was expected to fade on its own.

“The recovery is not assured until the pandemic is beaten back globally,” she wrote.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)

Isolated Myanmar calls for international help as COVID cases surge

(Reuters) -Myanmar’s military ruler is looking for greater cooperation with the international community to contain the coronavirus, state media reported on Wednesday, as the Southeast Asian country struggles with a surging wave of infections.

Senior General Min Aung Hlaing called in a speech for more cooperation on prevention, control and treatment of COVID-19, including with fellow members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and “friendly countries,” the Global New Light of Myanmar reported.

Myanmar has been in chaos since the military ousted an elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, with regular protests and fighting between the army and newly formed militias. Various countries including the United States and Britain have imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military rulers over the coup and the repression of pro-democracy protests in which hundreds have been killed.

The junta leader said vaccinations needed to be increased, through both donated doses and by developing domestic production, aided by Russia, the newspaper said, adding Myanmar would seek the release of funds from an ASEAN COVID-19 fund.

Myanmar recently received two million more Chinese vaccines, but it was believed to have only vaccinated about 3.2% of its population, according to a Reuters tracker. A drive to vaccinate some 40,000 inmates in densely packed prisons, which have seen major virus outbreaks recently, started on Wednesday, state-run MRTV reported.

The military has appeared wary of outside help in past disasters, forcing Myanmar’s people to help each other, though a previous junta did allow in aid via ASEAN after a devastating cyclone in 2008.

There have been desperate efforts by people to find oxygen in many parts of the country. The Myanmar Now news portal, citing witnesses, reported that at least eight people died in a Yangon hospital at the weekend after a piped oxygen system failed.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report and the North Okkalapa General Hospital and a health ministry spokeswoman could not immediately be reached for comment.

Infections in Myanmar have surged since June, with 4,980 cases and 365 deaths reported on Wednesday, according to health ministry data cited in media. Medics and funeral services put the toll much higher.

Last week, prisoners in Yangon staged a protest over what activists said was a major COVID-19 outbreak in the colonial-era Insein jail, where many pro-democracy protesters are being held.

Vaccinations began at Insein and a prison in the capital Naypyitaw on Wednesday and would be extended to inmates countrywide, MRTV reported, citing the prisons department.

Efforts to tackle the outbreak have been further hampered by some of the worst flooding in years in eastern Myanmar.

Despite Min Aung Hlaing agreeing to an ASEAN peace plan reached in April, the military has shown little sign of following through on it and has instead reiterated its own, entirely different plan to restore order and democracy.

The military justified its coup by accusing Suu Kyi’s party of manipulating votes in a November general election to secure a landslide victory. The electoral commission at the time and outside observers rejected the complaints.

But in a further sign of the junta’s tightening grip on power, the military-appointed election commission this week officially annulled the November results, saying the vote was not in line with the constitution and electoral laws, and was not “free and fair,” MRTV reported.

(Reporting by Reuters StaffWriting by Ed Davies and John Geddie; Editing by Robert Birsel and Nick Macfie)

Residents flee as winds fan massive wildfire in southern Turkey

ANKARA (Reuters) – A massive forest fire in southern Turkey spread to the town of Manavgat as the flames were fanned by strong winds on Wednesday, according to the local mayor, and TV footage showed residents running for their cars as streets were engulfed in smoke.

Footage showed plumes of black smoke rising from the forest around Manavgat, 75 km (45 miles) east of the resort city of Antalya, and Mayor Sukru Sozen said flames had spread as far as the town center, where many buildings were being evacuated.

“The fire has spread to the town center. It’s growing even more with the wind. It’s impossible for us to determine the size of the damage, there is damage in the villages too. We have not seen anything like this,” Sozen told broadcaster Haberturk.

Antalya Mayor Muhittin Bocek said the fire had started at four different points. He told Haberturk four neighborhoods had been evacuated but there were no reports of casualties yet.

Authorities could not immediately say what caused the fire.

Agriculture Minister Bekir Pakdemirli said authorities were battling the flames with a firefighting plane, 19 helicopters, 108 vehicles and some 400 personnel.

Turkey’s AFAD disaster agency said emergency teams from nearby provinces were also called into action, while authorities evacuated settlements near the forest.

Antalya, a popular destination for both foreign and local tourists, is known for its scorching summer heat. Bocek said the extreme heat and strong winds were fanning the fire as it swept through the pine forest.

The fire comes as Turkey battles with a series of disasters caused by extreme weather conditions in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, flash floods in the Black Sea provinces of Rize and Artvin damaged homes and property. The floods killed six people in Rize, according to AFAD.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Alex Richardson)

California urges power conservation in heat wave, prices soar

(Reuters) – U.S. power prices for Wednesday jumped as homes and businesses crank up air conditioners to escape another heat wave, prompting the California electric grid operator to urge conservation.

The United States has been beset by extreme weather events this year, including February’s freeze in Texas that knocked out power to millions and record heat in the Pacific Northwest this summer.

High temperatures were expected to reach 102 degrees Fahrenheit (39 degrees Celsius) on Friday in Portland, Oregon, where the normal high is just 80 degrees F (27 C) at this time of year, according to AccuWeather.

Meteorologists also forecast hotter-than-normal weather in Central California, which is used to temperatures over 100 F (38 C).

The California ISO, the grid operator for most of the state, issued a flex alert urging consumers to conserve electricity Wednesday evening to reduce strain on the grid and avoid outages when solar power stops working as the sun goes.

Last August, a heat wave forced California utilities to impose rotating blackouts that left over 400,000 customers without power for up to 2-1/2 hours when supplies ran short.

Next-day power prices for Wednesday more than doubled to $198 per megawatt hour at the Mid Columbia hub in Washington. In 2020, the hub averaged $26.

The California ISO forecast power demand would peak at 41,579 megawatts (MW) on Wednesday before easing to 41,483 MW on Thursday. That is below July 9th’s peak for the year of 43,193 MW and the all-time high of 50,270 MW in July 2006.

One megawatt can power about 200 homes in the summer.

The ISO has said it expects to have about 50,734 MW of supply available this summer, but some of that is solar, which is not available when the sun sets.

The ISO had 14,628 MW of solar capacity in June that produced a record 13,205 MW in May.

(Reporting by Scott DiSavino; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Thailand builds COVID-19 hospital in Bangkok airport amid surge in cases

By Juarawee Kittisilpa and Artorn Pookasook

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai volunteers on Wednesday turned a cargo warehouse at Bangkok’s Don Muang Airport into a 1,800-bed field hospital for COVID-19 patients with less severe symptoms, as the country deals with its biggest outbreak to date.

The Southeast Asian nation reported a daily record of 16,533 new cases, plus 133 new deaths on Wednesday, bringing the total accumulated cases to 543,361 and 4,397 deaths.

Workers drilled walls for toilet installations and set up beds and blankets.

“This is a level 1+ field hospital where it can receive a large number of patients, who have less severe symptoms,” Rienthong Nanna, director of Mongkutwattana Hospital, told Reuters.

“But if patients’ conditions deteriorate, they will be moved to our other field hospital called Pitak Rachan (Protect the King) Field Hospital,” he added.

Rienthong, a retired major-general and an ultra-royalist leader, said the field hospital was not up and running yet as more preparations were needed.

The number of infections will continue to climb and more field hospitals will be needed, he added.

Rienthong and volunteers held a small ceremony on the occasion of King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s 69th birthday to unofficially inaugurate their third field hospital named “Tai Rom Prabaramee,” which means “under the glory of His Majesty.”

The spike in COVID-19 cases in the capital has put pressure on the city’s health system and the government has faced public criticism over a slow rollout of vaccines.

Thailand aims to inoculate 50 million people by the end of the year, but so far only 5.6% of its more than 66 million population are fully vaccinated, while 19.2% have received at least one dose.

(Reporting by Juarawee Kittisilpa and Artorn Pookasook; Writing by Orathai Sriring; Editing by Mike Collett-White)