Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

Moscow locks down as Russian COVID-19 deaths surge to new highs

By Tom Balmforth and Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Russian capital brought in its strictest COVID-19 related lockdown measures in more than a year on Thursday as nationwide one-day pandemic deaths and infections hit new highs amid slow vaccination take-up across the world’s biggest country.

Moscow’s partial lockdown, in which only essential shops like pharmacies and supermarkets are allowed to remain open and schools and state kindergartens are shut, comes ahead of a week-long nationwide workplace shutdown from Oct. 30.

Like Moscow, some regions decided to kick off their partial lockdowns on Thursday or even earlier in an effort to cut infection numbers ahead of the nationwide initiative.

Moscow’s residents are allowed to leave their homes unlike a sweeping lockdown in summer 2020, but the new measures point to rising concern among officials over record numbers of deaths that the Kremlin has blamed on vaccine hesitancy.

Officials on Thursday reported an all-time high of 1,159 COVID-19 nationwide deaths in the past 24 hours, while the number of daily infections broke through the 40,000 barrier for the first time.

At the State Duma lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker, proposed requiring all lawmakers to get vaccinated and suggested that stragglers should have to work remotely.

“Imagine the consequences for the country if parliament stops working,” Volodin told the lower house. “Every day we’re seeing how our … colleagues are ending up in hospital beds,” he said.

His proposal was met by angry shouts from the parliament’s chamber with someone calling out: “What kind of PR is this?”

Many Russians have said they are reluctant to get vaccinated and have spurned the four vaccines Russia has registered, including the flagship Sputnik V vaccine.

Some people say they are hesitant due to mistrust of the authorities, while others cite concerns about the safety of vaccines.

As of Oct. 22, official data showed that 49.1 million Russians were fully vaccinated. The total population, excluding annexed Crimea, is officially estimated at around 144 million.

AD CAMPAIGN RELAUNCH?

The daily Kommersant newspaper reported on Thursday that the Kremlin planned to revamp the troubled public information campaign about the importance of getting vaccinated.

The new campaign would pay closer attention to Russia’s more than 80 regions and strike a less aggressive and negative tone than previously, the report said.

The existing campaign has often highlighted the risk of death for Russians who decline to get vaccinated rather than linking vaccination to the freedom to be exempt from lockdown-style restrictions, it said.

However, the Kremlin denied it planned to relaunch the ad campaign, but said the strategy was constantly being adjusted and that the campaign would be continued.

Many Russians have decided that now is an ideal time to fly off for a foreign beach holiday instead of hunkering down at home.

There were mixed feelings about the lockdown on the streets of Moscow on Thursday. Some residents like Lyubov Machekhina said they thought it would obviously help slow infections.

But others like Mikhail, a Muscovite who did not give his surname, voiced doubts that there would be any real impact without a larger chunk of the population being vaccinated.

“In my opinion, it will change nothing. Perhaps, it will slow down (the spread of cases) a bit, but in fact, without herd immunity – it’s nonsense. I don’t believe it will work.”

(Reporting by Tom Balmforth, Lev Sergeev, Anton Zverev, Gleb Stolyarov and Andrey Ostroukh; editing by Andrew Osborn)

Top U.S. general confirms ‘very concerning’ Chinese hypersonic weapons test

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top U.S. military officer, General Mark Milley, has provided the first official U.S. confirmation of a Chinese hypersonic weapons test that military experts say appears to show Beijing’s pursuit of an Earth-orbiting system designed to evade American missile defenses.

The Pentagon has been at pains to avoid direct confirmation of the Chinese test this summer, first reported by the Financial Times, even as President Joe Biden and other officials have expressed general concerns about Chinese hypersonic weapons development.

But Milley explicitly confirmed a test and said that it was “very close” to a Sputnik moment — referring Russia’s 1957 launch of the first man-made satellite, which put Moscow ahead in the Cold War-era space race.

“What we saw was a very significant event of a test of a hypersonic weapon system. And it is very concerning,” Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Bloomberg television, in an interview aired on Wednesday.

Nuclear arms experts say China’s weapons test appeared to be designed to evade U.S. defenses in two ways. First, hypersonics move at speeds of more than five times the speed of sound, or about 6,200 kph (3,853 mph), making them harder to detect and intercept.

Second, sources tell Reuters that the United States believes China’s test involved a weapon that first orbited the Earth. That’s something military experts say is a Cold War concept known as “fractional orbital bombardment.”

Last month, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall alluded to his concerns about such a system, telling reporters about a weapon that would go into an orbit and then descend on a target.

“If you use that kind of an approach, you don’t have to use a traditional ICBM trajectory — which is directly from the point of launch to the point of impact,” he said.

“It’s a way to avoid defenses and missile warning systems.”

Fractional Orbital Bombardment would also be a way for China to avoid U.S. missile defenses in Alaska, which are designed to combat a limited number of weapons from a country like North Korea.

Jeffrey Lewis at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies summed up fractional orbital bombardment this way: “The simplest way to think about China’s orbital bombardment system is to imagine a space shuttle, put a nuclear weapon into the cargo bay, and forget about the landing gear.”

Lewis said the difference is that the Chinese re-entry system is a glider.

China’s foreign ministry denied a weapons test. It said it had carried out a routine test in July, but added: “It was not a missile, it was a space vehicle.”

U.S. defenses are not capable of combating a large-scale attack from China or Russia, which could overwhelm the system. But the open U.S. pursuit of more and more advanced missile defenses has led Moscow and Beijing to examine ways to defeat them, experts say, including hypersonics and, apparently, fractional orbital bombardment.

The United States and Russia have both tested hypersonic weapons.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Breakthrough infections can lead to long COVID; genes may explain critical illness in young, healthy adults

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a summary of some recent studies on COVID-19. They include research that warrants further study to corroborate the findings and that have yet to be certified by peer review.

Breakthrough infections can lead to long COVID

The persistent syndrome of COVID-19 after-effects known as long COVID can develop after “breakthrough” infections in vaccinated people, a new study shows. Researchers at Oxford University in the UK reviewed data on nearly 20,000 U.S. COVID-19 patients, half of whom had been vaccinated. Compared to unvaccinated patients, people who were fully vaccinated – and in particular those under age 60 – did have lower risks for death and serious complications such as lung failure, need for mechanical ventilation, ICU admission, life-threatening blood clots, seizures, and psychosis. “On the other hand,” the research team reported on medRxiv on Thursday ahead of peer review, “previous vaccination does not appear to protect against several previously documented outcomes of COVID-19 such as long COVID features, arrhythmia, joint pain, Type 2 diabetes, liver disease, sleep disorders, and mood and anxiety disorders.” The absence of protection from long COVID “is concerning given the high incidence and burden” of these lasting problems, they added.

Genes may explain critical COVID-19 in young, healthy adults

A gene that helps the coronavirus reproduce itself might contribute to life-threatening COVID-19 in young, otherwise healthy people, new findings suggest. French researchers studied 72 hospitalized COVID-19 patients under age 50, including 47 who were critically ill and 25 with non-critical illness, plus 22 healthy volunteers. None of the patients had any of the chronic conditions known to increase the risk for poor outcomes, such as heart disease or diabetes. Genetic analysis identified five genes that were significantly “upregulated,” or more active, in the patients with critical illness, of which the most frequent was a gene called ADAM9. As reported on Thursday in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers saw the same genetic pattern in a separate group of 154 COVID-19 patients, including 81 who were critically ill. Later, in lab experiments using human lung cells infected with the coronavirus, they found that blocking the activity of the ADAM9 gene made it harder for the virus to make copies of itself. More research is needed, they say, to confirm their findings and to determine whether it would be worthwhile to develop treatments to block ADAM9.

Pregnant women get sub-par benefit from first vaccine dose

Women who get the first dose of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine while pregnant or breastfeeding need the second dose to bring their protective benefit up to normal, according to a new study. Researchers compared immune responses to the mRNA vaccines from Moderna Inc or Pfizer Inc and partner BioNTech SE in 84 pregnant women, 31 breastfeeding women, and 16 similarly-aged nonpregnant, non-lactating women. After the first shot, everyone developed antibodies against the coronavirus. But antibody levels were lower in women who were pregnant or breastfeeding. Other features of the immune response also lagged in the pregnant and lactating women after the first dose but “caught up” to normal after the second shot. In a report published on Thursday in Science Translational Medicine, the researchers explained that in order for a mother’s body to nurture the fetus, “substantial immunological changes occur throughout pregnancy.” The new findings suggest that pregnancy alters the immune system’s response to the vaccine. Given that pregnant women are highly vulnerable to complications from COVID-19, “there is a critical need” for them to get the second dose on schedule, the researchers said.

Coronavirus found to infect fat cells

Obesity is a known risk factor for more severe COVID-19. One likely reason may be that the virus can infect fat cells, researchers have discovered. In lab experiments and in autopsies of patients who died of COVID-19, they found the virus infects two types of cells found in fat tissue: mature fat cells, called adipocytes, and immune cells called macrophages. “Infection of fat cells led to a marked inflammatory response, consistent with the type of immune response that is seen in severe cases of COVID-19,” said Dr. Catherine Blish of Stanford University School of Medicine, whose team reported the findings on bioRxiv on Wednesday ahead of peer review. “These data suggest that infection of fat tissue and its associated inflammatory response may be one of the reasons why obese individuals do so poorly when infected with SARS-CoV-2,” she said.

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Investors on board as U.S. oil majors dismiss wind and solar projects

By Sabrina Valle and Ross Kerber

HOUSTON/BOSTON (Reuters) -Top U.S. oil firms are doubling down on drilling, deepening a divide with European rivals on the outlook for renewables, and winning support from big investors who do not expect the stateside companies to invest in wind and solar.

Among a dozen U.S. fund managers contacted by Reuters from companies overseeing about $7 trillion in assets, most said they prefer oil firms to generate returns from businesses they know best and give shareholders cash to make their own renewable bets.

With oil and gas prices jumping this year, the U.S. oil majors mostly have delivered higher returns and achieved better earnings multiples and dividend yields than rivals, cementing shareholder enthusiasm.

“At the end of the day, you don’t invest in a company because they promise nice things,” said Adams Funds head Mark Stoeckle, who favors U.S. producers and whose funds do not currently own Royal Dutch Shell Plc, TotalEnergies or BP Plc.

Michael Liss, senior portfolio manager of the American Century Value Fund, said it owns more of the U.S. majors than European partly because the American companies spend a lesser share of capital on things like renewable power and alternative fuels at a time when oil demand remains strong.

“We think their pace is going to be more realistic” in the adoption of new energy sources, Liss said.

The split strategies – returns or a faster energy transition – highlight differing investor and government pressures. They also show the difficulties of crafting a global plan to reduce fossil fuel use, the central topic of the coming United Nations COP26 climate change conference.

NO TREE PLANTINGS

Top U.S. oil firms Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips reject a direct role in wind and solar and have put less of their outlays into energy transition plans compared with the Europeans. Most expect to increase oil production.

U.S. producers say they share concerns about climate change. They are pledging to produce the same barrels of oil with lower greenhouse gas emissions than before. They are also trying to make burying carbon in depleted oilfields commercially viable, as well as developing new cleaner fuels like hydrogen and biofuels from algae.

But as Chevron CEO Michael Wirth recently said, U.S. companies prefer to generate profits for shareholders “and let them plant trees.”

“There are some who believe we should do what the European companies are doing,” Wirth told reporters last month after giving an update on the company’s energy transition plans. “But I would say that’s not the majority of the shareholders that I hear from.”

Europe’s energy crisis – with natural gas and electricity prices soaring – partially reflects an underinvestment in fossil fuels, Exxon Senior Vice President Neil A. Chapman said at a conference this month.

U.S. and European governments differ on how they want oil companies to cut emissions. Where U.S. lawmakers favor increased spending on carbon capture and storage, German and British governments have passed laws requiring sharp reductions in greenhouse gases.

A Dutch court in May ordered Royal Dutch Shell to cut its carbon emissions 45% by 2030, a decision that would hasten its exit from fossil fuels. Shell and BP have shed U.S. shale holdings as part of their shift, while TotalEnergies has pledged 20% of its capital spending on electricity and renewables.

Shawn Reynolds, a VanEck fund manager, said current high oil prices lend support to the U.S. majors’ strategy and illustrate the danger of decarbonizing production without lowering carbon fuel demand. “There is this slow awakening that an energy transition isn’t going to happen overnight,” he said. Oil companies that expand into low-margin renewables will miss oil and gas profits, he said.

LIMITS TO GREEN INVESTING

Money flowing in to oil stocks runs contrary to a broader embrace of climate-aware funds. U.S. equity funds ranked as “sustainable” by Morningstar, meaning they largely avoid or underweight fossil fuel stocks, took in $25.7 billion this year through Sept. 30, equal to more than half the inflows into U.S. equity funds without an explicit focus on sustainability.

The total return of the XOP ETF, which tracks oil and gas stocks, was 92% for the year as of Tuesday afternoon, compared with a 22% total return of a representative ESG fund, the Vanguard FTSE Social Index Fund. The total return of the S&P 500 index was 23% over the same period.

Passive investors have become the largest holders of top oil companies. Those firms mostly cannot sell oil stocks to signal displeasure, and instead must channel their climate concerns through talks with companies and proxy votes.

BlackRock Inc and Vanguard, the two largest passive investment firms with some $17 trillion in assets between them, backed dissident directors at Exxon, and supported calls at Chevron’s and ConocoPhillips’ annual meetings to cut carbon emissions from customers’ use of their products. Neither company would comment on specific energy companies, nor would influential state pension funds in California and New York.

Among the 25 largest actively managed U.S. mutual funds, American Funds products were nearly the only holders of top U.S. and European oil firms, according to data from Morningstar Direct.

A spokesperson for American Funds parent Capital Group declined to comment. A Capital equity analyst, Craig Beacock, said in July that higher oil prices could create challenges for oil firms’ clean energy approaches.

STAYING INVESTED

Harvard University, Rockefeller Brothers and other U.S. institutions have joined a movement led by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to cut exposure to fossil fuel stocks. A recent tally by activists found institutions with a collective $39.2 trillion of assets have committed to some form of fossil fuel divestment.

Investors contacted by Reuters said they were not ready to follow. Better to stay invested and press companies to explain how they can help limit global temperature increases, said Bruce Duguid, head of stewardship for EOS, an arm of Federated Hermes.

Iancu Daramus, senior sustainability analyst at investor Legal & General Investment Management, said companies generally should cut production and pay out dividends. He doubts emerging market growth will keep oil and gas demand high long-term.

Yet too many oil executives figure they can outlast the others as the world shifts to other fuel sources. Few CEOs want to make steep production cuts, he said.

“Every (oil) company we speak to tends to say they’ll be the last ones standing,” said Daramus.

(Reporting by Sabrina Valle in Houston and Ross Kerber in BostonEditing by Gary McWilliams and Matthew Lewis)

U.S. embassy in Moscow dwindling to “caretaker presence,” U.S. official says

By Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department is getting to the point of being able to maintain only a “caretaker presence” in Russia in the face of a deep downturn in diplomatic relations between Washington and Moscow, a senior department official said on Wednesday.

Russia and the United States withdrew their ambassadors in April after the incoming Biden administration issued sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats over actions including the SolarWinds cyber attack and election interference.

Those ambassadors returned in June, but the staff at the embassy in Moscow – the last operational U.S. mission in the country after consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were shuttered – has shrunk to 120 from about 1,200 in early 2017, the State Department official told reporters at a briefing.

Staff were struggling to issue visas, putting a drag on business ties between the two countries, and were unable to repair elevators or entrance gates, creating safety concerns, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We’re going to confront the situation… sometime next year where it’s just difficult for us to continue with anything other than a caretaker presence at the embassy,” the official said.

Russia and the United States continue to engage in talks over nuclear threat reduction and climate change, but relations remain strained by issues like the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe and President Vladimir Putin’s suppression of his domestic opponents.

The United States was forced to lay off nearly 200 locally employed staff after Russia banned the embassy from employing non-Americans, and a visa-for-visa arrangement has prevented Washington from bringing U.S. citizens into Russia.

Russia has just over 400 diplomats in the United States, including its delegation to the United Nations in New York, the State Department official said.

U.S. officials continue to negotiate with their Russian counterparts to stabilize the “downward spiral” in relations, the official added.

(Reporting by Simon Lewis and Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

U.S. companies to keep prices high as supply chain headaches persist

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The largest U.S. manufacturers including General Motors, General Electric, 3M and Boeing face logistics headaches and higher costs due to global supply bottlenecks that are likely to persist into next year but agreed the hit to profits can be mitigated by charging higher prices for their goods.

Companies across the globe sounded the alarm on supply issues months ago that have pushed prices higher on raw materials from chemicals to steel.

In earnings reports this week investors got a closer look at how companies are managing.

“It starts with really strong price,” said GM Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra in a call with reporters. “We were able to do very well (with) full-size trucks and full-size SUVs. We just can’t build enough of those vehicles.”

GM is also looking to wring efficiencies from its supply chain and she said the chip shortage is likely to improve in the second half of 2022.

Larry Culp, the chief executive of General Electric Co, a maker of jet engines and wind turbines, told investors keeping up with fits and starts in the global supply chain was akin to playing a carnival game that aims to keep players on their toes.

“I’m not sure we’re yet at a place where we would say that things are stable,” Culp told investors on an earnings call on Tuesday. “It really is akin to playing a whack-a-mole.”

General Electric also expects supply constraints to persist through the rest of the year and in 2022, hurting profit in its healthcare business. Boeing Co also complained of a “severely weakened supply chain.”

The pandemic has crippled many companies’ ability to send and receive the parts and supplies needed to make a wide range of products, creating shortages, reducing inventories and hammering profits.

On Wednesday, Harley-Davidson said it increased surcharge pricing in the United States to offset higher raw material costs. The motorcycle maker expects these costs to remain high and is exploring higher surcharge costs globally.

Harley-Davidson said the inventory shortage is also squeezing its international market share.

McDonald’s Corp also said it had to raise prices in the United States.

Industrial giant 3M Co cut its full-year earnings outlook on Tuesday and said it would increase product prices to combat inflationary and supply chain pressures.

The company, which makes a long list of building and construction products, said it was facing higher costs related to polypropylene, ethylene, resins and labor. It added that the global semiconductor crunch would continue to weigh on its automotive and electronics end-markets.

On Tuesday, Lockheed Martin Corp dramatically lowered its sales expectations for this year, saying the pandemic has hobbled the top U.S. defense contractor’s supply chain. Its shares fell more than 11% on Tuesday.

Lockheed’s chief financial officer said the problem worsened for them over the last two months, as the maker of the F-35 fighter jet lowered its 2021 revenue expectations by 2.5% to $67 billion and said next year’s revenue could fall to $66 billion.

(Reporting by Reuters staff; Writing by Bernard Orr; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

India says it is concerned about China’s new border law

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday that it was concerned about a new law passed by China last week to strengthen border protection amid a protracted military standoff between the two Asian giants along a contested Himalayan frontier.

On Saturday, China passed a dedicated law specifying how it governs and guards its 22,000-km (14,000-mile) land border shared with 14 neighboring countries, including Russia, nuclear-capable North Korea, and India.

“China’s unilateral decision to bring about a legislation which can have implication on our existing bilateral arrangements on border management as well as on the boundary question is of concern to us,” foreign ministry spokesman Arindam Bagchi said in a statement.

The 3,500-km-long border between India and China remains un-demarcated, and the nuclear-armed neighbors have overlapping claims to large areas of territory along the frontier. The two countries fought a border war in 1962.

Thousands of Indian and Chinese troops also remain amassed along a remote Himalayan border in the Ladakh region, where the two militaries have been locked in a high-altitude face-off since last year, despite more than a dozen rounds of talks.

“We also expect that China will avoid undertaking action under the pretext of this law which could unilaterally alter the situation in the India-China border areas,” Bagchi said.

(Reporting by Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Sandra Maler)

U.S. demand for oil surges, depleting tanks in Oklahoma

By Stephanie Kelly

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Crude oil tanks at the Cushing, Oklahoma storage and delivery hub for U.S. crude futures are more depleted than they have been in the last three years, and prices of further dated oil contracts suggest they will stay lower for months.

U.S. demand for crude among refiners making gasoline and diesel has surged as the economy has recovered from the worst of the pandemic. Demand across the globe means other countries have looked to the United States for crude barrels, also boosting draws out of Cushing.

Analysts expect the draw on inventories to continue in the short-term, which could further boost U.S. crude prices <CLc1> that have already climbed by about 25% in the last two months. The discount on U.S. crude futures to the international Brent benchmark should stay narrow.

“Storage at Cushing alone has the potential to really rally the market to the moon,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.

Cushing stockpiles have dropped to 27.3 million barrels, the lowest since October 2018, the Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday, or about half of where inventories were at this time a year ago.

Inventories have fallen because of a ramp-up in U.S. demand, which has encouraged domestic refiners to keep crude at home to provide fuel such as gasoline and distillates to U.S. consumers, said Reid I’Anson, senior commodity analyst at Kpler.

In addition, U.S. production has been slow to recover from declines seen in 2020. At the end of 2019, the nation was producing roughly 13 million barrels of oil per day (bpd), but in recent weeks has been less than 11.5 million bpd. At the same time, product supplied by refineries – a proxy for demand – is about just 1% below pre-pandemic peaks.

As a result, the spread between U.S. crude and Brent, has collapsed. The spread narrowed to roughly $1.09 a barrel this week from $4.47 earlier this month, which had been about the widest spread since May 2020.

In an additional sign of high short-term demand for U.S. crude, the premium for U.S. crude delivered this December versus December 2022 reached a high this week of $12.48 per barrel, most since at least 2014, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

In the next three months, Rystad Energy expects refinery runs in the United States to increase by 500,000 to 600,000 barrels per day. This would outpace production gains of 300,000-400,000 bpd, and keep the spread between the two benchmarks narrow.

“Only if OPEC (the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) intervenes with more supply of crude or if COVID rears its ugly head again, curbing demand, this high volatility will come off,” said Mukesh Sahdev, senior vice president and head of downstream at Rystad Energy.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly; Editing by David Gregorio and Marguerita Choy)

Israel moves ahead with thousands of settler homes despite U.S. opposition

By Jeffrey Heller and Maayan Lubell

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -Israel moved forward on Wednesday with plans to build some 3,000 homes for Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank, defying the Biden administration’s strongest criticism to date of such projects.

A senior Palestinian official said the decision showed that Israel’s new government, led by far-right politician Naftali Bennett, was “no less extreme” than the administration of the veteran leader he replaced, Benjamin Netanyahu.

An Israeli defense official said a planning forum of Israel’s liaison office with the Palestinians gave preliminary approval for plans to build 1,344 housing units and its final go-ahead for projects to construct 1,800 homes.

It will be up to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, a centrist in Israel’s politically diverse government, to give the nod for construction permits to be issued, with further friction with Washington looming.

“This government is trying to balance between its good relations with the Biden administration and the various political constraints,” a senior Israeli official told Reuters.

The United States on Tuesday said it was “deeply concerned” about Israel’s plans to advance thousands of settlement units. It called such steps damaging to prospects for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and said it strongly opposes settlement expansion.

Washington desisted from such criticism when President Joe Biden’s Republican predecessor Donald Trump was in office.

A senior U.S. State department official said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had discussed the issue with Gantz on Tuesday. Their phone call was first reported by the Axios news website, which cited Israeli officials as saying the chief U.S. diplomat voiced U.S. opposition to the settlement plan.

The latest projects, as well as tenders published on Sunday for more than 1,300 settler homes, amounted to the first major test case over settlement policy with the Biden administration that took office in January.

“The behavior of the Israeli government under Bennett is no less extreme than what it had been under Netanyahu,” Bassam Al-Salhe, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters.

“The U.S. administration has words, and no deeds, to change the policy that had been put in place by Trump,” Salhe said.

There was no immediate comment from Washington on Wednesday.

TIGHTROPE

Walking a political and diplomatic tightrope, Bennett has been facing calls from settler leaders to step up construction. Such projects are likely to be welcomed by his ultranationalist constituents, who share his opposition to Palestinian statehood.

But along with the prospect of straining relations with Washington, Bennett could also alienate left-wing and Arab parties in a coalition governing with a razor-thin parliamentary majority, if they view settlement plans as too ambitious.

Most countries regard the settlements Israel has built in territory it captured in a 1967 Middle East war as illegal.

Israel disputes this and has settled some 440,000 Israelis in the West Bank, citing biblical, historical and political ties to the area, where 3 million Palestinians live.

Palestinians seek to create a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.

(Additional reporting by Dan Williams in Jerusalem, Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard Goller)

Russia tells Afghan neighbors to say no to U.S., NATO presence

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s top diplomat told Afghanistan’s neighbors on Wednesday to refuse to host U.S. or NATO military forces following their withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Kremlin is worried by the risk of Islamist militants spilling into Central Asia from Afghanistan and bristles at the idea of the West gaining a foothold in a region that used to be part of the Soviet Union.

“We … call on Afghanistan’s neighboring countries not to allow a military presence of U.S. and NATO forces which plan to move there after leaving Afghan territory,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.

The diplomat made the remarks in a speech by video link at a conference held in Tehran on Afghanistan attended by China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

Lavrov said it was important to curb and control migration flows from Afghanistan and that criminal and terrorist elements were already trying to enter Afghanistan’s neighbors disguised as refugees.

Moscow sees the ex-Soviet region as its southern defensive flank, but in June President Vladimir Putin offered Washington the use of Russian military bases in Central Asia, according to the Kommersant newspaper’s sources.

Russia operates its largest foreign military base in Tajikistan, which has a long border with Afghanistan, and has expanded its own troop and military hardware presence there since the Taliban takeover.

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Tom Balmforth; Editing by Andrew Osborn)