Archives for May 2021

US officials in Mideast to reassure jittery allies over Iran

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Top Biden administration officials and U.S. senators crisscrossed the Middle East on Monday, seeking to assuage growing unease among Gulf Arab partners over America’s re-engagement with Iran and other policy shifts in the region.

The trips come as the U.S. and Iran, through intermediaries in Vienna, discuss a return to Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that former President Donald Trump abandoned three years ago. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf allies, excluded from Obama-era nuclear negotiations, have repeatedly pressed for a seat at the table, insisting that any return to the accord must address Iran’s ballistic missile program and support for regional proxies.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., a key Biden ally dispatched on overseas diplomatic missions, told reporters in the UAE’s capital of Abu Dhabi that he hoped to allay the sheikhdom’s “understandable and legitimate concerns” about the return to the landmark deal and to create “broader engagement” with Gulf partners.

Coons said “close consultation” with the UAE about the ongoing talks in Vienna was “important, expected and happening,” adding that he hopes the Emiratis “may not just be notified, but actually help.”

What that means remains unclear, as Gulf states now watch with resignation as negotiations gain traction in the Austrian capital. When asked to elaborate, Coons balked at the suggestion that the UAE’s input had acquired any greater significance in talks with Iran over the last five years.

“I did not in any way mean to suggest that there was some deal in the works where the Emiratis would be securing anything,” he said. “Vienna is the place where the United States government, the administration, is negotiating.”

Regional tensions are rising. To pressure the Biden administration to lift sanctions and come back into compliance with the deal, Iran has steadily violated the accord’s limitations on nuclear enrichment and stockpiles of enriched uranium. The long shadow war between Israel and Iran has intensified, with suspected Israeli attacks on Iranian ships in volatile Mideast waterways and at Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.

In a tour intended to boost “long-standing political, economic, cultural, and security ties,” several senior Biden administration officials are touring Arab capitals, with Brett McGurk from the National Security Council and Derek Chollet from the State Department, among others, stopping in Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Amman and Cairo this week.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. joined the flurry of diplomatic activity in the region this week, jetting to Oman, Qatar and Jordan for talks on a political solution to the war in Yemen. In an interview with The Associated Press from Amman, Murphy credited the influence of the Biden administration on recent steps in the region to defuse tensions, such as a Saudi cease-fire initiative floated to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels and secret talks between archenemies Iran and Saudi Arabia. Earlier this year, Biden announced the end of U.S. support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

However, Murphy warned, “so long as we’re still sanctioning the hell out of the Iranian economy … it’s going to be hard to push the Houthis to a cease-fire.”

Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers “is very important, perhaps critical to peace in Yemen,” he added, and without it, “the Iranians are going to see Yemen as an opportunity to make mischief against the United States and our allies.”

The visits follow the Biden administration’s decision to plow ahead with Trump-era arms sales to Gulf countries, including a $23 billion transfer of F-35 combat aircraft, Reaper drones and other advanced weapons to the UAE, despite objections from Democrats wary of states’ entanglement in the devastating war in Yemen, authoritarian policies and ties to China.

Coons, chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, helped introduce legislation last year designed to block the sale of fighters to the UAE. He said Monday that he discussed those concerns with Emirati officials during his two-day visit.

“In a number of robust conversations with senior (Emirati) leaders, I’ve been reassured I think appropriately,” Coons said, without elaborating. “But I need to return to Washington to hear from our administration … exactly how this is being resolved and addressed.”

The senator also has become known for his sharp criticism of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record and tactics in Yemen, where U.S.-backed Saudi coalition airstrikes have killed thousands of civilians. The Trump administration, which cultivated close ties to the powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, approved a nuclear cooperation deal to share technology with the kingdom for its nuclear power venture, including plans to build several civilian reactors.

The cooperation has sparked concerns among some U.S. senators skeptical of Saudi Arabia’s intentions.

Although Coons declined to share what he knew of the kingdom’s nuclear technology plans, he said the disastrous war in Yemen has “left us with concerns about our ability to trust the Saudis with technology that they acquire from us.”

He added: “Iran is not the only concerning player.”

US and UK reject reports of imminent prisoner deal with Iran

LONDON (AP) — The U.S. and the U.K. dismissed reports coming out of Iran that they are thrashing out a prisoner exchange deal with Tehran that could see the imminent release of a British-Iranian woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, and four Americans, among others.

Iran was a key topic of discussions Monday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his host in London, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab. Their meeting took place a day before the first face-to-face meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven leading industrial nations in two years, largely due to the coronavirus pandemic. Iran, Ukraine, China, Russia, climate change and COVD-19 are expected to dominate the talks.

Blinken’s visit to London, his first since being appointed by President Joe Biden, comes amid mounting speculation of a prisoner swap deal with Iran. Such exchanges are not uncommon and were a feature of the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran and the world’s leading powers. Biden has indicated he is looking to restart nuclear talks with Tehran after his predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018.

“The reports coming out of Tehran are not accurate,” Blinken said at a press briefing after their meeting, adding that he had “no higher priority” than bringing all detained Americans home.

“More broadly on this, we have to take a stand against the arbitrary detention of citizens for political purposes,” he said.

Raab also dismissed the prospects of an imminent breakthrough amid reports in Iran that Britain would pay a 400 million-pound ($550 million) debt to secure Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s release. He insisted that the British government was working “very intensively” on the release of detained British citizens in Iran.

“I would say it’s incumbent on Iran unconditionally to release those who are held arbitrarily and in our view unlawfully,” Raab said.

In Britain, there’s particular interest in the well-being of Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who was last week sentenced to an additional year in prison on charges of spreading “propaganda against the system.”

The two diplomats discussed an array of subjects, such as sanctions on Russian citizens, climate change and Biden’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan later this year, a process that began in earnest over the weekend. Russia and its aggressive actions toward Ukraine were also on the agenda, with Blinken set to travel to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Wednesday.

Biden is also set to take a new approach with regard to North Korea following a policy review completed last week. Blinken, who met in London with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts earlier Monday, said the new approach will be “practical and calibrated” and urged the leadership in Pyongyang to “take the opportunity to engage diplomatically.”

On Tuesday, the top diplomats from the full G-7 — Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the U.S. — will meet along with their foreign minister colleagues from selected other countries, including Australia, India and South Africa.

Ahead of the gathering, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas warned that “authoritarian states” around the world are “trying to play us against each other” and that breaches of international law have become commonplace.

“It is important that we hold our values of democracy, state of law, human rights and a global order based on rules against them, united and credibly,” he said.

Britain’s Foreign Office said the G-7 ministers will invest $15 billion in development finance over the next two years to help women in developing countries access jobs, build resilient businesses and recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

They are also expected to pledge to get 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10 in poorer nations by 2026.

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Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.

EPA rule to phase out gases used in refrigerators, coolants

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first Biden administration rule aimed at combating climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to phase down production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

The proposed rule follows through on a law Congress passed in December authorizing a 15-year phaseout of HFCs. The new rule is intended to decrease U.S. production and use of the gases by 85% over the next 15 years, part of a global phaseout intended to slow climate change.

HFCs are considered a major driver of global warming and are being targeted worldwide. President Joe Biden has pledged to embrace a 2016 global agreement to reduce them.

“With this proposal, EPA is taking another significant step under President Biden’s ambitious agenda to address the climate crisis,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement Monday. “By phasing down HFCs, which can be hundreds to thousands of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the planet, EPA is taking a major action to help keep global temperature rise in check.”

The phasedown of HFCs is widely supported by the business community, Regan said, and “will help promote American leadership in innovation and manufacturing of new climate-safe products. Put simply, this action is good for our planet and our economy.”

A huge pandemic relief and spending bill passed by Congress in December, and signed by former President Donald Trump, directs EPA to sharply reduce production and use of HFCs. The measure won wide support in both parties and was hailed as the most significant climate change law in at least a decade.

Besides targeting HFCs, the so-called American Innovation and Manufacturing, or AIM Act also promotes technologies to capture and store carbon dioxide produced by power and manufacturing plants and calls for reductions in diesel emissions by buses and other vehicles.

Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, praised the EPA rule and said the United States was joining the rest of the world in reducing use of HFCs, helping to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

“Passing the AIM Act was a momentous climate achievement that will help save our planet, and today we are one step closer to its benefits being a reality,” Carper said in a statement.

Carper and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., pushed for the HFC proposal, which they said would give U.S. companies the regulatory certainty needed to produce “next-generation” coolants as an alternative to HFCs. Both men represent states that are home to chemical companies that produce the alternative refrigerants.

The HFC provision was supported by an unusual coalition that included major environmental and business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers, American Chemistry Council and the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute, which represents companies that make residential and commercial air conditioners, water heaters and commercial refrigeration equipment.

The industry has long been moving to use of alternative refrigerants and was pushing for a federal standard to avoid a patchwork of state laws and regulations.

EPA’s proposal “will sharply reduce a sizable source of greenhouse gas emissions while creating new manufacturing jobs and growing our nation’s share of the global market for air-conditioning and refrigeration products,” American Chemistry Council president Chris Jahn said in a statement. The council represents major companies including Honeywell, Chemours and Arkema.

Those companies and others have developed effective alternatives to HFCs for air conditioning and refrigeration, the group said.

David Doniger, a senior climate and clean-energy official with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the EPA rule will deliver “enormous public health and climate benefits to all Americans.”

Replacing HFCs with safer, commercially available alternatives “is a critical and totally doable first step to head off the worst of the climate crisis … that will save industry money in the bargain,” Doniger said.

EPA estimates the proposed rule would save nearly $284 billion over the next three decades and prevent the equivalent of 187 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, roughly equal to annual greenhouse gas emissions from one out of every seven vehicles registered in the United States.

Biden issued an executive order in January that embraces the 2016 Kigali Amendment to the 1987 Montreal Protocol on ozone pollution. The amendment calls for the U.S. and other large industrialized countries to reduce HFCs by 85% by 2036. Biden’s order directs the State Department to prepare documents for submission of the amendment to the Senate for formal ratification.

Asian shares mixed after strong earnings, data lift Wall St

Asian shares were mixed after strong corporate earnings and economic data lifted stocks on Wall Street.

Hong Kong and Sydney advanced while Seoul declined. Tokyo and Shanghai were closed for holidays.

On Monday, a strong dose of positive earnings reports and economic data that showed the U.S. economy is growing pushed the S&P 500 up 0.3%. U.S. futures were lower on Tuesday.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.4% to 28,475.47 and the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3% to 7,048.70. In Seoul, the Kospi lost 0.4% to 3,116.61. Shares rose in Jakarta but fell in Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

On Monday, shares of clothing retailer Gap Inc. and flooring manufacturer Mohawk Industries both gained more than 7%. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index came in at 60.7, well above the 50-point mark that indicates manufacturing activity is expanding.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the economic outlook has “clearly brightened” in the United States, but the recovery remains too uneven.

Health care and energy companies helped push stocks higher Monday, with the S&P 500 closing at 4,192.66.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7% to 34,113.23. The tech-heavy Nasdaq shed an early gain, falling 0.5% to 13,895.12.

Smaller companies, had a good showing. The Russell 2000 index picked up 0.5% to 2,277.45.

Stocks have been grinding higher on expectations of an economic recovery and strong company profits this year as large-scale coronavirus vaccination programs help people return to jobs and normal behaviors after more than a year of restrictions. Massive support from the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve, and increasingly positive economic data, have also helped put investors in a buying mood, keeping stock indexes near their all-time highs.

More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported their results so far this earnings season, which show profit growth of 54% so far, according to FactSet.

This will be another busy week for earnings reports, with Merck, Pepsi, Colgate-Palmolive and CVS among the companies reporting their latest quarterly results. Investors will also get April’s jobs report on Friday.

On the economic front, a report on U.S. manufacturing activity in April came in below economists’ expectations, but still was strong for the month. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index came in at 60.7 for April, compared with the 65.0 reading that was expected. However that figure is still well above the 50-point mark that indicates expanding manufacturing activity.

A report on U.S. construction spending showed similar results, making gains but still falling short of economists’ forecasts. Spending on construction projects rose just 0.2% in March, the Commerce Department said Monday, significantly less than the 1.7% jump economists had expected.

The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note slipped to 1.60% from 1.65% late Friday.

U.S. benchmark crude oil gained 5 cents to $64.54 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 91 cents on Monday to $64.49 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, picked up 5 cents to $67.61 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 109.23 Japanese yen from 109.09 yen late Monday. The euro slipped to $1.2046 from $1.2066.

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AP Business writers Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.

A decision on suspended Trump Facebook account this week

Former President Donald Trump will find out this week whether he gets to return to Facebook in a decision likely to stir up strong feelings no matter which way it goes.

The social network’s quasi-independent Oversight Board says it will announce its ruling Wednesday on a case concerning the former president.

Trump’s account was suspended for inciting violence that led to the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riots. After years of treating Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric with a light touch, Facebook and Instagram silenced his accounts on Jan. 7, saying at the time he’d be suspended “at least” through the end of his presidency.

Though Trump posted often to Facebook — and his campaign was especially skillful at using the social network’s advertising tools to reach potential voters — his platform of choice was always Twitter. But Twitter banned him permanently, without an oversight board to kick the final decision to.

While not always as high-profile as Twitter, Trump’s Facebook posts were widely shared, as were those of his those of his conservative supporters such as Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino, who continue to amass millions of views and comments. On Twitter, meanwhile, Fox News host Tucker Carlson appears to be stepping into the conservative provocateur-in-chief role in the vacuum left by Trump.

“If they reinstate him, Facebook will claim this proves the Board’s independence. If they don’t, Facebook will say its judgment to exclude Trump was vindicated. Heads they win, tails we lose. Journalists should know better than to take this window dressing seriously,” said Laurence Tribe, professor at Harvard Law School and member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, a group critical of Facebook and its panel.

Facebook created the oversight panel to rule on thorny content on its platforms in response to widespread criticism about its inability to respond swiftly and effectively to misinformation, hate speech and nefarious influence campaigns. Its decisions so far have weighed on the side of free expression vs. restricting content.

In its first rulings, the panel overturned four out of five decisions by the social network to take down questionable content. It ordered Facebook to restore posts by users that the company said broke standards on adult nudity, hate speech, or dangerous individuals.

This included a Myanmar user’s Burmese-language Facebook post about Muslims that included two widely shared photos of a dead Syrian toddler was offensive but did not rise to the level of hate speech, it ruled.

But none of the rulings have the same gravity as this week’s decision on Trump. The board was to announce its decision last month but that was delayed, it said, because it needed to process more than 9,000 public comments.

The board’s 20 members, which will eventually grow to 40, include a former prime minister of Denmark, the former editor-in-chief of the Guardian newspaper, along with legal scholars, human rights experts and journalists.

The first four board members were directly chosen by Facebook. Those four then worked with Facebook to select additional members. Facebook pays each board members a salary.

The board’s independence has been questioned by critics who say it’s a Facebook public relations campaign intended to draw attention away from deeper problems of hate and misinformation that still flourish on its platforms.

“The Oversight Board is designed to distract journalists and policy makers from the massive harm being done every day by Facebook,” said Roger McNamee, an early investor in Facebook. “To view the board as legitimate, one must accept that a group structured to review a handful of cases a year is enough to supervise a platform that is undermining democracy around the world, amplifies denial in a pandemic, allegedly engages in price fixing in digital advertising, amplifies hate speech, and shares tens of millions of harmful messages every day.”

Facebook regularly takes down thousands of posts and accounts, and about 150,000 of those cases have appealed to the oversight board since it launched in October 2020. The board has said it is prioritizing the review of cases that have the potential to affect users around the world.

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AP Technology Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this story.

Archives for May 2021

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