Laurie van der Burg, Oil Change International Global Public Finance Manager, said:

“The EU has just fallen into another dangerous fossil fuel dependency trap. Spending $250 billion a year on U.S. energy purchases, mostly oil and gas, is not just a bad deal for energy security, affordability, the climate and communities, it is also completely unnecessary. Even as it moves away from Russian LNG, the EU’s current gas supply contracts are sufficient to meet declining demand under the EU’s own Fitfor55 climate policies package.

“Increasing Europe’s imports of U.S. LNG is a disaster for our climate. Our recent analysis of five planned U.S. LNG projects finds that every one would worsen the climate crisis, and that further investment in U.S. LNG is incompatible with a liveable climate.

“Over 70,000 people signed a petition asking the EU to not just end reliance on Russian gas, but also break free from U.S. gas and double down on a fair and green future instead. Instead of pouring billions into an untrustworthy regime and investing in energy products that poison communities’ air and water and risks the habitability of our climate, the EU should use that money on renewables, energy efficiency programs, and paying the climate finance it owes to the Global South.”

Enrico Donda, Campaigner at Food and Water Action Europe, said:

"As part of yesterday’s EU-U.S. trade deal, the EU has pledged $750 billion, over three years, to, among other things, increase energy imports—even though gas demand is actually falling across Europe and this move contradicts its own climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

“While the deal is presented as a way to enhance energy security and reduce reliance on Russian fossil fuels, it effectively locks Europe into decades of continued gas dependency. At a time when we should be ramping up renewables, improving energy efficiency, and cutting gas use, the EU is instead pouring billions into fossil fuel infrastructure that risks becoming stranded assets. This feels like a concession to fossil fuel interests and short-term politics. What we truly need is to phase out fossil gas now.”

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Cambodia threatened Monday to ban imports of Thai fruit and vegetables within 24 hours as a border dispute deepened after bilateral talks at the weekend failed to breach the impasse between the Southeast Asian neighbors.

On Sunday, Cambodia formally requested the International Court of Justice, or ICJ, resolve claims over four areas of the disputed 800-kilometer (500-mile) Thai-Cambodia border. Thailand reiterated Monday that it rejects the compulsory jurisdiction of the court.

The developments pointed to prolonged tensions over a territorial spat that stirs nationalist passions on both sides. Thai forces shot dead a Cambodian soldier on May 28 after they said Cambodian forces dug a trench on the Thai side of the border.

(Heng Sinith/AP)

The two governments held talks in Phnom Penh on Saturday and Sunday under the aegis of a Joint Border Commission. Another round of talks was set for September.

The Thai Foreign Ministry said Monday that it “expressed deep disappointment regarding Cambodia’s continued refusal to address bilateral disputes” over the four border areas that Cambodia wants the ICJ to rule on.

Thailand, which hosts hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant laborers, has irked Cambodia by imposing restrictions on opening hours at border crossings since last month’s border clash. Cambodia has responded by closing one crossing point, cutting Thai internet services and stopping broadcasts of Thai movies and TV.

In parliament on Monday, former prime minister Hun Sen upped the ante, saying the Thai military has 24 hours to reopen the border from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. or Cambodia would close all crossing points from Tuesday to prevent Thailand from exporting vegetables and fruits.

Hun Sen, who is Senate president, said that the current border conflict will not be easily resolved. He called on Cambodian students and workers to return from Thailand.

Prime Minister Hun Manet ordered Cambodian authorities to facilitate the return of workers to Cambodia and help transport them to their hometowns.

The border dispute has historical roots and the two sides differ over which maps to use in demarcating territory. The last time there was a serious and bloody flare-up in tensions was between 2008 and 2011, over a disputed 11th century temple at Preah Vihear. The ICJ has granted sovereignty over the temple to Cambodia.

Cambodia is now calling for The Hague-based court to rule on the demarcation of the border at four other spots: three ancient Khmer temples - Ta Moan Thom, Ta Moan Toch and Ta Krabei - and at an area near to where the May 28 shootout happened where the borders of Cambodia, Thailand and Laos meet.

Thailand reiterated Monday that it doesn’t want the court to intervene.

“Thailand is of the view that recourse to a third party may not always be conducive to the preservation of amicable relations among States, particularly in sensitive matters involving complex historical, territorial, or political dimensions,” it said in response to Cambodia’s ICJ filing.

Edited by Mat Pennington.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Khmer.

These establishments serve all kinds of seafood, but shrimp is the main attraction. You can order them steamed, fried, or blackened, on top of a salad or sandwiched in a po’boy, or swimming in gravy and grits. Or you can dive into the local delicacy: lowcountry boil, a melange of shrimp, sausage, corn, and potatoes, spiced and steamed and served in a succulent heap best eaten with two hands and a huge appetite.

Shrimp are abundant in the ocean off Georgia’s coast, because the same network of creeks and rivers that houses the docks and restaurants serves as an ideal nursery for baby shrimp. And for a long time, those shrimp fed not just hungry diners but a thriving industry of boats to catch them, docks to serve the boats, and packing houses to process and distribute the shrimp – and all the people those businesses employ.

But that’s not the case anymore.

“The shrimp industry in Georgia is…really declining,” said Marc Frischer, a professor at the University of Georgia’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography. “We’re actually at risk of losing it.”

Fewer than 200 shrimp boats are working on Georgia’s coast these days, Frischer said, down from around 1,500 in the early 2000s. Shrimpers in other south Atlantic states and the Gulf of Mexico are facing similar declines.

The main culprit, scientists, shrimpers, and the International Trade Commission agree, is foreign imports: farm-raised shrimp from Asia and South America have flooded the market in huge quantities, cratering prices and making it impossible for the local industry to compete.

Around the same time that foreign competition skyrocketed, U.S. shrimpers started noticing another problem: a mysterious new shrimp disease. Scientists have only recently cracked that case, a condition known as black gill, and they say it’s linked to climate change: new environmental conditions have helped give rise to a new disease, a pattern that’s likely to repeat as the climate keeps warming. 

The decades-long effort to understand black gill offers some lessons for the scientific community as more climate-driven diseases emerge, even as the still-rising ocean temperatures help black gill spread into a second species of Georgia shrimp.

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In the Georgia legislature this year, coastal Republican Jesse Petrea decided to take on the issue of foreign competition with a bill requiring restaurants to disclose the origin of their shrimp – because even on the shrimp-rich coast, many are serving imports. 

“You got pictures of shrimp boats on the wall, and you’re serving Indian shrimp,” Petrea said. “Somewhat consumer fraud in my opinion.”

To back up Petrea’s bill, SeaD Consulting, a Gulf-based firm that specializes in seafood mislabeling, performed genetic testing on the shrimp at 44 Savannah restaurants. The company found that 34 were actually serving foreign shrimp.

“Some people would say, ‘Well, but they’re cheap.’ They are, but at what cost?” Petrea said of the imported alternative. “I’ll pay a little more for domestic shrimp, and we all should recognize we have to pay a little more.”

American waters simply don’t have enough shrimp or shrimpers to replace foreign imports completely, Petrea said, but he hopes clearer labeling can help domestic shrimp take over a little more of the market to keep local shrimpers in business. The bill didn’t pass this year, but he said he plans to bring it back next year. Alabama passed a similar law last year, and Louisiana and Mississippi already have shrimp labeling requirements.

But shrimpers’ problems also go beyond what shrimp restaurants choose to buy.

“There’s a lot of packing houses closing down,” said Charlie Phillips, who owns a seafood packing operation and a dockside restaurant in Townsend, Georgia. 

And packers often control the docks. “A lot of the shrimpers are losing dock access. They don’t have a place to unload,” Phillips said.

Phillips doesn’t handle shrimp anymore, because just like shrimp boats, packing houses struggle to compete with cheaper imports. 

Many in the industry are hoping that the Trump administration’s new tariffs will help by driving up the price of imported shrimp. But Phillips, who also sits on the South Atlantic Fishery Management Council, is skeptical.

“It’s still going to be cheaper than domestic,” he said of the imported shrimp. “For the most part, the customers are going to pay the price.”

On top of the financial challenges, shrimpers have faced a medical mystery for decades. 

Shrimpers started reporting dark discoloration in shrimp gills in the 90s. The condition came to be known as black gill and was soon prevalent from the Gulf to the Chesapeake Bay. The disease’s rise coincided with a sharp decline in shrimp catch numbers in Georgia in the 2000s and 2010s, raising concerns that the two were linked.

Now, Frischer with UGA said, he and his fellow researchers know what causes black gill and much more about its impact on Georgia shrimp. 

The condition is caused by a type of microorganism commonly found in water known as a ciliate. The ciliate attaches itself to the gills, and the shrimp’s natural immune response produces melanin. Once there’s a high enough concentration of the melanin, the shrimp’s gills take on a darkened appearance to the naked eye. Affected shrimp are still safe for humans to eat, but their respiration rates and endurance are affected and they become more vulnerable to predators. 

The particular ciliate that causes this disease has probably always been there, Frischer said, but it’s never caused a problem before – in fact, it had never been identified by scientists before he and his team did so. But climate change has shifted ocean conditions. Disease, he explained, arises when just the right conditions overlap among a host, a pathogen, and the environment – in this case, shrimp, the ciliate that causes black gill, and the ocean off the southeastern U.S. coast.

“All of these things can exist, but as our environment changes, we create that intersection that creates the disease,” Frischer explained. And he said that will keep happening as the climate continues changing. “What’s happened in the shrimp here, black gill, we’re going to see a lot more stories like that in many, many more species.”

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The good news is that Georgia’s shrimp population seems to be doing all right, despite black gill. If shrimp manage to shelter from predators, it turns out they can recover because the condition is isolated to their gills. The gills are part of the shell that the shrimp periodically shed and regrow, so when they molt they can rid themselves of black gill. While the overall shrimp catch has dropped, that’s more likely because there are so many fewer boats because of the economic forces that Petrea and Phillips described. The amount of shrimp each boat brings in has remained steady  – though Frischer said there isn’t great data from before the disease emerged. And as warmer water pushes the annual emergence of black gill earlier, it does appear to be hurting the summer stock of brown shrimp, one of two main species of shrimp caught by Georgia shrimpers.

But it’s purely luck of the draw that black gill has turned out to be survivable. As climate change fosters the emergence of more new pathogens, Frischer said, some will prove harmless but some will decimate species and ecosystems. There’s no real predicting which will be which. And Frischer said there’s a bigger lesson here about the scientific response to new diseases. 

Black gill first appeared in the 90s, research began in earnest in 2013, and scientists only now have it figured out. That’s decades from outbreak to understanding, and it’s too slow, Frischer said, especially when a new climate-linked disease like this could just as easily wipe out a species as not. He compared black gill response to COVID-19 research, which built on decades of scientific understanding of viruses in general, coronaviruses specifically, vaccines, mRNA, and a host of other areas that provided a scientific baseline so researchers could quickly produce vaccines.

“We really need that basic research to deal with problems in something close to real time, not decades,” he said. “We don’t have decades.”

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline Georgia’s beloved shrimp industry grapples with disease and foreign imports on May 13, 2025.

This content originally appeared on Grist and was authored by Emily Jones.

Soybeans – which feed the production of China’s 435-million-strong pig industry – remains America’s top agricultural export, selling more than 27 million metric tons or over half of the $24.6 billion in total U.S. agricultural products Beijing imported in 2024.

The steep tariff hikes on agricultural products like soybeans and corn, both major components of hog feed, will drive up the cost of breeding livestock and translate into higher food prices for ordinary consumers for China – the world’s largest producer and consumer of pork, industry insiders said.

On April 11, China announced 125% tariffs on U.S. imports, in retaliation to U.S. President Donald Trump’s increase of duties on Chinese imports to 145%. With this, the total tariff on U.S. soybean imports rose to 135%, after adding in the 10% duty China imposed on certain U.S. agricultural products in March.

At an estimated 125% tariff hike, the CIF – cost, insurance, and freight – price of U.S. soybean imports will rise to $1,026 per metric ton, nearly double that of Brazilian soybeans at about $580 per metric ton, prompting China to increase its soybean shipments from Brazil, said the derivatives marketplace operator, CME Group.

(China Stringer Network via Reuters)

Ever since the world’s two largest economies engaged in an earlier trade war in 2018 during Donald Trump’s first term as U.S. president, China has been turning to countries like Brazil to meet its demand for farm goods. It has also made a push for more self-sufficiency, reducing its reliance on imports of U.S. agricultural products.

Today, China has significantly increased its reliance on Brazil, the world’s top soybean producer, importing 72.5 million metric tons of Brazilian soybeans in 2024, up from 19 million metric tons in 2010. In comparison, U.S. soybean imports stood at 27.2 million metric tons in 2024, largely unchanged from its 2010 levels.

China is now making a similar push to import more of the protein- and oil-rich seeds from Brazil to meet the demand of its hog industry, but hog farmers believe this won’t be enough to stem the impact of high tariffs on U.S. agricultural imports.

“For soybeans and corn, they (the government) can import from wherever they want. We ordinary people have no choice,” said Sun Jun, a hog farmer in China’s southwestern province of Sichuan.

To be sure, the composition of soybeans and corn is high in feed for livestock, including pigs, poultry, and cattle.

Sun estimates that an animal feed weighing 100 kilograms (220.5 pounds) would typically contain around 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of corn and wheat, and 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of soybean meal, a by-product of oil extraction from soybean seeds.

“Once the price rises, it will directly push up the breeding cost,” said Sun.

Sun now buys about 3 metric tons of hog feed every month, which costs about 14,000 yuan (US$1,915) per month, he said.

That’s already a one-third increase from an estimated 10,500 yuan (US$1,436) in cost he would have incurred for the same amount of hog feed a week earlier, based on the price of 3.46 yuan (49 U.S. cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds), as listed by Chengdu Development and Reform Committee then.

(Florence Lo/Reuters)

The impact of rising feed costs will be felt by ordinary consumers through higher food and meat prices, said industry insiders.

“The breeding costs of the livestock industry are already very high … The price of meat (as a result) has been rising for more than half a month and is bound to increase,” Lu, a resident of Linyi, Shandong, told RFA.

Lu, like some of the other industry insiders RFA interviewed for this story, provided only her first name for safety reasons.

“The tariff increase will ultimately be borne by consumers,” she added.

From a macro perspective, China remains highly dependent on agricultural product imports, said Li Qiang, who previously worked at the Agricultural Product Pricing Bureau.

“25% of the food needed by mainlanders depends on imports, and mainly comes from the United States, mainly wheat and soybeans,” added Li, who is a resident of Qingdao prefecture-level city in Shandong province.

Shandong, which is a key player in China’s hog breeding industry, has seen the construction of multi-story pig farms that are at the center of the country’s efforts to ramp up domestic production to cut its reliance on pork imports.

But China’s food and catering sector, which imports much of its pork and beef from the U.S., will not be spared the effects of the tariff hikes, say industry insiders.

Since the start of April, the price of high-end steaks has increased by 30% to 50%, said Geng, the head of a restaurant in Wuhan city in Hubei province.

His company purchases beef from Inner Mongolia, but high-quality steaks still need to be imported from the United States, Australia, and New Zealand, said Geng.

“If tariffs are added, the price will be even more expensive,” he added.

Edited by Tenzin Pema and Mat Pennington

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

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The post Trump announces “Liberation Day” tariffs on imports, opponents blast it as “Recession Day” – April 2, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.

This content originally appeared on KPFA - The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays and was authored by KPFA.

Vietnam’s trade surplus with the U.S. rose to a record US$123 billion last year, figures released in February showed. Vietnam had the fourth-largest surplus with the U.S. in 2024, behind only China, the European Union and Mexico, all of which are now facing tariffs on their exports to America, imposed by the Trump administration.

“The prime minister emphasized that the Vietnamese government always pays attention to creating favorable conditions for the activities of U.S. businesses and investors in Vietnam, affirming that Vietnam wishes to build a balanced, stable, harmonious and sustainable economic-trade-investment cooperation relationship with the U.S.,” Vietnam’s government said, reporting on a meeting between the prime minister and U.S. Ambassador Marc Knapper in Hanoi on Thursday.

Chinh asked Knapper for U.S. help in creating “favorable conditions for Vietnam to import high-tech equipment from the U.S.,” and said Vietnam was “actively reviewing import tariffs on goods from the United States, encouraging increased imports of key US products that Vietnam needs, especially agricultural products, liquefied gas and high-tech products.”

The prime minister’s comments build on those he made at the beginning of March during a meeting with U.S. business leaders in Hanoi. He told representatives of about 40 companies that Vietnam was considering imports of U.S. aircraft, arms and medicines, among other goods.

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Vietnam and the U.S. raised bilateral relations to the highest level of Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in September 2023. As part of the agreement, the U.S. committed to investing US$2 million to build up Vietnam’s semiconductor industry.

Knapper on Thursday reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to training chip industry workers and said Washington was also interested in helping Hanoi access essential minerals and develop its nuclear power industry, according to the Vietnam government. The U.S. embassy did not comment on the meeting.

While cutting its trade surplus with the U.S. may help Vietnam avoid duties on its exports like those faced by China, which has been hit with 20% tariffs, it has not escaped entirely. On Wednesday, the Trump administration imposed 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from all countries. The U.S. is Vietnam’s third-biggest export market for steel.

Edited by Taejun Kang.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Mike Firn for RFA.

But residents say the warning isn’t likely to have any impact as corruption is rife amongst officials who are tasked with weeding the goods out at the border.

On Oct. 9, the Lao Ministry of Industry and Commerce issued a notice prohibiting the import and sale of food products that are not registered with the Ministry of Health’s Food and Drug Administration, beginning Jan. 1, 2025.

The notice requires importers to display FDA registration numbers and other relevant information in Lao on the labels of their products.

The reason appears to be to protect consumers against dangerous or questionable products.

“This [ban] can’t be enforced because it’s difficult in Laos,” said one resident who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke to RFA on condition of anonymity due to security concerns. “Everything can be imported if you deal with the right inspection official. If something is restricted, you just pay a little money - that’s how it is with the officials.”

Border officials, like other civil servants in Laos, earn a paltry salary, and many turn to graft to supplement their income and support their families.

Another resident noted that goods are regularly brought into the country from China, Vietnam and Thailand by smugglers who pay bribes to border checkpoint officials to look the other way.

“It can’t be done - they can’t restrict it at the border,” said the resident, who also declined to be named. “A lot of smuggled goods come in. These days it’s mostly Vietnamese, Chinese and Thai products coming into Laos.”

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But the sources RFA spoke with said they agreed with the premise of the ban, as a wide variety of food supplement products are being sold throughout the country with no clear label of origin.

“Some could be fake products that cause side effects when consumed, so the government should strictly inspect importing companies and thoroughly investigate the source [of the products],” a third resident said. “If they can enforce it, that would be good. Things like cosmetics can be very dangerous, and food supplements too.”

‘Many products slip through’

An official with knowledge of the situation told RFA that the notice was intended to inform all import-export companies, wholesalers, retailers and domestic producers that they need to accurately label their goods, as part of a bid to build consumer confidence in Laos.

“Many food supplement products use exaggerated advertising claims and may contain chemical additives that could cause cancer or other side effects, which Lao authorities haven’t fully investigated,” said the official.

He acknowledged that “many products slip through” the border and authorities have little data on what impacts they have had on the people who consume them.

“If we find such products now, we will seize and detain them, and destroy them according to the law,” he said.

The official provided no details on the volume of goods believed to be smuggled into the country or why smuggling is rampant at the border.

According to the notice announcing the ban, labels detailing a product’s registration number and other relevant information in Lao must be affixed at the factory of the product’s origin, and will be required beginning Aug. 1, 2025.

During the transition period, importers, exporters, wholesalers, retailers and domestic producers can affix the information to their products with printed stickers.

Translated by RFA Lao. Edited by Joshua Lipes and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA Lao.

The decision was made after “rounds of talks” between Beijing and Tokyo over the impact of discharging the waste water into the Pacific Ocean, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday.

“Following the implementation of monitoring activities, including participation in long-term international monitoring within the framework of the International Atomic Energy Agency and independent sampling by participating countries, we will begin to adjust relevant measures based on scientific evidence and gradually resume imports of Japanese seafood that meet the standards,” the ministry said. 

“Japan has made it clear that it will continue to conduct ongoing marine environment and marine ecological impact assessments in order to substantially fulfill its obligations under international law and to use its utmost efforts to avoid adverse impacts on human health and the environment,” it added. 

China has imposed a blanket ban on imports of Japanese seafood since the beginning of the treated water discharge in August last year, calling the water “nuclear-contaminated.” Japan has insisted the water is safe.

Chinese trade statistics show that no fishery products, except aquarium fish, have been imported from Japan since September last year, forcing restaurants in China to get their ingredients elsewhere.

Some other countries also restricted seafood imports from Japan after it began  releasing the treated water from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, badly damaged by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, but most have since lifted those curbs. 

Japan started the gradual release of treated radioactive wastewater into the Pacific Ocean despite regional and domestic concerns, with plans to eventually pump more than a million metric tons of it into the sea.

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The release came 12 years after a nuclear meltdown at the plant following its battering by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. According to authorities, the water used to cool the nuclear reactors and additional groundwater and rainwater seeping into the reactor buildings has reached near-full storage capacity.

The water was processed through an advanced liquid processing system to remove most contaminants, except for relatively nontoxic tritium, before being released into the Pacific.

At that time, the International Atomic Energy Agency said the planned discharge of wastewater met international safety standards and would have a “negligible” radiological impact on people and the environment.

The Japanese government said no abnormalities had been detected in the monitoring of seawater around the plant, including the concentration levels of tritium, since the discharge began. 

Edited by Mike Firn.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Taejun Kang for RFA.

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As U.S. parents struggled to find baby formula during a nationwide shortage in May of 2022, the Biden administration frantically sought ways to restock empty store shelves. Among the options was lifting steep tariffs on formula imported from other countries.

But as White House lawyers drafted a proclamation to remove the import tax, one federal agency resisted: the Office of the United States Trade Representative.

With supplies of baby formula falling precipitously across the country after a major production plant shut down, staffers from the USTR repeatedly argued against lifting the tariff on imports, citing, in part, a concern that it would raise “lots of questions from domestic dairy producers,” according to documents obtained by ProPublica. Cow’s milk is a primary ingredient for most baby formula, and the dairy industry has long supported protections for U.S. manufacturers.

“Situation at retail appears to be a combination of transportation/shipping and panic buying by consumers, not an issue of inadequate domestic production,” wrote Julie Callahan, an official with the USTR, in a May 11 email to an official with the National Security Council, which was helping coordinate the administration’s response.

The next day, she told colleagues, “I tried to convey to NSC in very strong terms yesterday that removing tariffs from infant formula will not result in increased access to infant formula for U.S. consumers.”

The White House never released the proclamation, and the tariffs stayed in place for 10 more weeks, until Congress suspended them temporarily on July 21.

That delay was too long, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.

“Such action should have happened more quickly,” the report said, a finding that raises questions about the assessment from the president’s chief trade advisers. A panel of experts found “suspending tariffs was helpful for bringing product into the United States during the shortage.”

In fact, the report recommended Congress create a “trigger rule” to automatically suspend import taxes again if the market is substantially disrupted. “Quick removal may be important to providing rapid response in the future,” said Katheryn Russ, a member of the expert panel that produced the report and an economics professor at the University of California, Davis.

It’s unclear why the White House did not issue its proclamation; it did not answer our written questions about the subject.

A spokesperson for the USTR, however, defended the administration’s response, saying in a statement that it “was committed to using all tools, including trade tools, to address the formula shortage and ensure American families were able to access infant formula.” Officials were in close contact with Congress, which ultimately voted to remove tariffs with the administration’s support, it said.

“To be clear, any implication that USTR stood in the way of addressing the crisis is completely false,” the statement said.

This year, ProPublica detailed how the U.S. government has repeatedly used its diplomatic and political power to advance the interests of formula manufacturers overseas, thwarting public health measures around the globe that posed financial threats to the companies’ business. But the documents from the height of the U.S. formula shortage show some of the same trade officials — at the USTR in particular — flexed that muscle to protect the formula industry and its allies at home, even during a national emergency that put children at risk.

The crisis escalated quickly in early 2022, after Abbott stopped formula production at its Sturgis, Michigan, plant, which had been making 20% of the formula sold in the U.S. Four infants had fallen ill or died after drinking formula made there, and federal inspectors later found bacterial contamination and lax safety protocols at the plant. By April, nearly a third of the normally available formula products were out of stock. By late May, that number was 70%.

The shortage caused widespread panic. Many infants who had to switch formula brands because of it developed symptoms such as fussiness, spitting up or diarrhea, and nearly half of parents in one survey said they’d resorted to at least one unsafe feeding practice, such as watering down formula.

Jennifer Smilowitz, a researcher at the University of California who studied the impact of the shortage, called those findings “alarming.”

“Parents were not offered many safe alternatives,” she said.

The U.S. struggled to replace the lost production with foreign imports in part because of strict regulations on nutrition and safety as well as high tariffs that rise at greater volumes.

The new report said those “extremely high trade barriers” leave the U.S. formula market “almost completely closed to imports” — a condition that endangers supply when a major domestic producer encounters trouble. The U.S. normally produces 98% of the baby formula that consumers here use.

To encourage more imports in 2022, the Biden administration — which was also flying in formula from Europe — readied a plan for tariff relief, records show.

“My understanding is that there is a trade proclamation that would temporarily suspend tariffs on baby formula imports,” an administration lawyer wrote in a May 15 email thread. The White House Counsel at the time, Stuart Delery, wrote five minutes later: “We were instructed to prepare a proclamation to be ready for tomorrow, which we have done.”

When Callahan, the USTR official, responded, her concern focused on the companies that would be affected by the measure. The biggest dairy industry groups, she said, should be given “a heads-up right before any press release goes out, so that they don’t feel blindsided.”

Trade officials were also unhappy with the Department of Health and Human Services, which, according to the records, appeared to be criticizing the formula tariffs in conversations with congressional leaders.

“We are hearing from the Speaker’s office that HHS is blaming a 17 percent tariff on formula as the reason for the shortage,” wrote USTR official Allison Smith to colleagues on May 16. “Obviously, that’s a problem.”

She added: “Definitely want to push back on messaging coming from HHS and generally fill the information void.”

Later that day, USTR staff circulated draft talking points saying the administration was “pursuing all avenues” to increase the availability of formula and that domestic companies had ramped up production. The document did not mention cutting tariffs as an option and suggested officials dodge questions on the topic.

“If asked on tariff reductions,” it instructed, say: “We are hoping that this additional action taken by the Biden Administration will result in easing of the current supply shortages.”

Callahan, Delery and Smith did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the Department of Health and Human Services.

As Congress began to consider acting, dairy and formula trade groups weighed in.

The National Milk Producers Federation signaled a willingness to embrace “time limited flexibility for imports during this specific crisis,” according to a USTR email, which quoted a message the dairy group had sent Capitol Hill. But the group warned: “We wouldn’t support a permanent or long term” lowering of tariffs.

That position appeared to align with the Infant Nutrition Council of America, a formula trade group, which dramatically ramped up its lobbying at the time, records show. “INCA members did not oppose the temporary lifting of tariffs during the 2022 shortage,” the group said in a statement.

Abbott said it also supported suspending import taxes “during times of shortage, so long as those products are held to the same stringent quality and testing standards as products manufactured in U.S. facilities.” In a statement, the company said that “no sealed, distributed product from our facilities have tested positive for the presence of Cronobacter sakazakii,” referring to the type of bacteria that made the four infants ill.

The bill to lift tariffs for imported baby formula was enacted in July 2022. Under the legislation, the exemptions would expire at the end of the year.

“The legislation’s time-limited nature was to make sure that the United States doesn’t create a permanent dependence on formula produced in foreign facilities,” Shawna Morris, an executive vice president for the National Milk Producers Federation, said in a statement.

The new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that formula’s availability remains at risk. Among the reasons: concentrated production among a handful of companies and a lack of understanding by federal officials and formula makers of both the risks the U.S. formula supply faces and the investment needed to prevent such disruptions.

The analysis urged federal officials to cut red tape during emergencies, develop risk management plans to address supply threats better and encourage the modernization of U.S. formula plants.

The report also advised studying removing formula tariffs or lowering them for U.S. manufacturers with plants in other countries. Russ, the panel member, said policymakers need more information on what would happen if trade barriers such as tariffs were removed long term. The U.S. industry might relocate overseas as a result, for instance, which she said might make it harder to address supply chain disruptions.

The panel said it intended its recommendations to help “ensure that the United States is better positioned to respond to any future shortage.”

The Infant Nutrition Council said its members are reviewing the report and will work with federal officials to ensure there’s an adequate supply of safe formula.

A bipartisan group of senators introduced legislation to eliminate the taxes on some foreign formula permanently last year, but it has not progressed. The National Milk Producers Federation opposed the bill, saying, “Congress should focus its efforts instead on better supporting the American companies, workers, and farmers who supply nearly all of this country’s formula and formula ingredient needs.”

The dairy group told ProPublica that it would also fight a proposal to create a “trigger rule,” as the report recommended, that automatically lifts tariffs in a crisis, saying, “Congress has shown it can act swiftly when needed.”

This content originally appeared on ProPublica and was authored by by Heather Vogell.

Russians began voting on the first day of a three-day presidential election that President Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win, extending his rule by six more years after any serious opponents were barred from running against him amid a brutal crackdown on dissent and the independent media.

The vote, which is not expected to be free and fair, is also the first major election to take place in Russia since Putin launched his full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in February 2022.

Putin, 71, who has been president or prime minister for nearly 25 years, is running against three low-profile politicians -- Liberal Democratic Party leader Leonid Slutsky, State Duma Deputy Speaker Vladislav Davankov of the New People party, and State Duma lawmaker Nikolai Kharitonov of the Communist Party -- whose policy positions are hardly distinguishable from Putin’s.

Boris Nadezhdin, a 60-year-old anti-war politician, was rejected last month by the Russian Central Election Commission (TsIK) because of what it called invalid support signatures on his application to be registered as a candidate. He appealed, but the TsIk’s decision was upheld by Russia's Supreme Court.

"Would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin on his landslide victory in the elections starting today," European Council President Charles Michel wrote in a sarcastic post on X, formerly Twitter. "No opposition. No freedom. No choice."

The first polling station opened in Russia's Far East. As the day progresses, voters will cast their ballots at nearly 100,000 polling stations across the country’s 11 time zones, as well as in regions of Ukraine that Moscow illegally annexed.

By around 10 a.m. Moscow time, TsIK said 2.89 percent of the 110 million eligible voters had already cast their ballots. That figure includes those who cast early ballots, TsIK Chairwoman Ella Pamfilova said.

Some people trying to vote online reported problems, but officials said those being told they were in an electronic queue "just need to wait a little or return to voting later."

There were reports that public sector employees were being urged to vote early on March 15, a directive Stanislav Andreychuk, the co-chairman of the Golos voters' rights movement, said was aimed at having workers vote "under the watchful eyes of their bosses."

Ukraine and Western governments have condemned Russia for holding the vote in those Ukrainian regions, calling it illegal.

Results are expected to be announced on March 18.

The outcome, with Putin’s foes in jail, exile, or dead, is not in doubt. In a survey conducted by VTsIOM in early March, 75 percent of the citizens intending to vote said they would cast their ballot for Putin, a former KGB foreign intelligence officer.

The ruthless crackdown that has crippled independent media and human rights groups began before the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched, but it has been ratcheted up since. Almost exactly one month before the polls opened, Putin's most vocal critic, opposition politician Aleksei Navalny, died in an isolated Arctic prison amid suspicious circumstances as he served sentences seen as politically motivated.

Many observers say Putin warded off even the faintest of challengers to ensure a large margin of victory that he can point to as evidence that Russians back the war in Ukraine and his handling of it.

Most say they have no expectation that the election will be free and fair, with the possibility for independent monitoring very limited. Nadezhdin said he would recruit observers, but it was unclear whether he would be successful given that only registered candidates or state-backed advisory bodies can assign observers to polling stations.

“Who in the world thinks that it will be a real election?" Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Moscow, said in an interview with Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL, ahead of the vote.

McFaul, speaking in Russian, added that he's convinced that the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden and other democracies in the world will say that the election did not offer a fair choice, but doubted they will decline to recognize Putin as Russia's legitimate president.

“I believe that is the right action to take, but I expect that President Biden is not going to say that [Putin] is not a Russian president. And all the other leaders won't do that either because they want to leave some kind of contact with Putin,” he said.

Before his death, Navalny had hoped to use the vote to demonstrate the public's discontent with both the war and Putin's iron-fisted rule. He called on voters to cast their ballots at 12 p.m. on March 17, naming the action Noon Against Putin.

Viral images of long lines forming at this time would indicate the size of the opposition and undermine the landslide result the Kremlin is expected to concoct. The strategy was endorsed by Navalny not long before his death and his widow, Yulia Navalnaya, has promoted it.

“We need to use election day to show that we exist and there are many of us, we are actual, living, real people and we are against Putin.... What to do next is up to you. You can vote for any candidate except Putin. You could ruin your ballot,” Navalnaya said.

How well this strategy will work remains unclear. Moscow’s top law enforcement office warned voters in the Russian capital on March 14 against heeding calls to take part in the action, saying participants face legal punishment.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Todd Prince, Current Time, and AP

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

A Russian metals tycoon's assets in a company that produces a key component in making steel have reportedly been nationalized days after President Vladimir Putin criticized his management of his company.

Yury Antipov, 69, the owner of Russia’s largest ferroalloy company, was also questioned by investigators in Chelyabinsk, the Urals industrial city where his company is based, and released on February 26, according to local media.

Earlier in the day, the government seized his shares in Kompaniya Etalon, a holding company for three metals plants that reportedly produce as much as 90 percent of Russia’s ferroalloy, a resource critical for steelmaking.

Russia’s Prosecutor-General Office filed a lawsuit on February 5 to seize Etalon, claiming the underlying Soviet-era metals assets were illegally privatized in the 1990s. It also said the strategic company was partially owned by entities in “unfriendly” countries.

While campaigning for a presidential vote next month, Putin criticized Antipov on February 16 without naming him during a visit to Chelyabinsk, whose working-class residents are typical of the president’s electoral base.

Putin told the regional governor that the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant, the largest of Etalon’s five metals factories, had failed to reduce dangerous emissions as agreed in 2019 and the asset would be taken over even though the court had yet to hear the case on privatization.

“I think that all the property should be transferred to state ownership and part of the plant -- [where there is ecologically] harmful production -- should be moved outside the city limits,” Putin told Governor Aleksei Teksler.

In a closed hearing, a Chelyabinsk court approved the transfer of Etalon’s assets to the state, a move potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Antipov ranked 170 on Forbes 2021 list of richest Russians with a net worth of $700 million.

The nationalization of a domestic company owned by a Russian citizen is the latest in a series of about two dozen by the state since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Prosecutors have based their cases on illegal privatization, foreign ownership, criminal activity, or a combination of the three. A rare-metals producer whose owner had been critical of the war effort was among the other assets seized. l

The seizures contradict Putin’s repeated promises in the nearly quarter century he has been in power that he would not review the controversial 1990s privatizations. In return, businessmen were expected to be loyal to the Kremlin and stay out of politics, experts say.

That unofficial social contract had more or less functioned up until the war. Now businessmen are also expected to contribute to the war effort and support the national economy amid sweeping Western sanctions, experts say.

The current trend of state seizures has spooked Russian entrepreneurs and raised questions about whether that social contract is still valid.

U.S. Ties

Antipov began his business career in the 1990s selling nails, fertilizer, dried meats, and other goods. In 1996 he and his business partner plowed their profits into the purchase of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and subsequently purchased four more metals plants in the ensuing years.

The plants sold some of their output in the United States, where the firm had a trading company.

Antipov received full control of the metals holding in 2020 when he split with his business partner. That year he put 25 percent of the company each in the names of his wife and two eldest sons, Sergei and Aleksei Antipov, according to Russian business registration records.

In 2022, the metal assets were transferred to the Etalon holding company, whose ownership was hidden. Ferroalloy prices surged in 2022 as the war triggered a spike in commodity prices.

A hit piece published by The Moscow Post in December -- six weeks before prosecutors launched the privatization case -- claimed Antipov paid himself a dividend of more than $300 million from 2021-2023 using a structure that avoids capital gains taxes. RFE/RL could not confirm that claim. The Moscow Post is a Russian-language online tabloid that regularly publishes compromising and scandalous stories.

According to public records, Antipov’s two sons own homes in the United States and may be U.S. citizens. Sergei Antipov founded the trading company around the year 2000 in the U.S. state of Indiana. If he and his brother together still own 50 percent of the company, prosecutors could potentially have grounds for seizure.

Russia has changed some laws regulating the purchase of large stakes in strategic assets since its invasion of Ukraine.

One is a 2008 law that requires foreign entities to receive state permission to buy large stakes in strategic assets. An exception had been made for foreign entities controlled by Russian citizens.

Under the change, a Russian citizen with dual citizenship or a residence permit in another country may be considered a “foreign” owner and must receive permission to own an asset.

Nationalization is among the punishments for failure to do so. Thus, if Antipov’s two sons are U.S. citizens or if they have U.S. residency permits, their combined 50 percent stake in the company could be seized.

This already happened to a Russian businessman from St. Petersburg. His business was determined to be strategic and seized after he received foreign residency.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

U.S. President Joe Biden has called for the House of Representatives to quickly pass a bill that would provide billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, challenging Republicans lawmakers to take a stand against Russian President Vladimir Putin and vote in favor of the spending package.

Biden urged immediate passage of the bill in comments at the White House on February 13 after House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) sharply criticized the $95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and other countries, casting serious doubts on its future just hours after it passed the Senate.

"I urge speaker Johnson to bring it to the floor immediately, immediately," Biden said, adding that it is "critical" for Ukraine.

Johnson said in a statement late on February 12 that the bill was “silent on the most pressing issue facing our country" -- border security provisions that Republicans had insisted be included in the bill, casting doubt on its chances of passing the House.

Biden didn't mention border security in his comments from the White House but reminded Republicans that the United States "stands up for freedom" and stands strong for its allies.

"We never bow down to anyone, certainly not to Vladimir Putin, so let's get on with this," Biden said. "We can't walk away now. That's what Putin is betting on."

Biden, a Democrat, warned Republicans in the House who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountable that "history is watching" and a failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment "will never be forgotten."

He also criticized recent comments by former President Donald Trump about NATO as "dangerous" and "shockingly un-American."

Biden reiterated Trump's claim that he told NATO allies that if they didn't spent enough on defense, he would encourage Russians to "do whatever the hell they want."

"Can you imagine a former president of the United States saying that?" Biden asked. "No other president in our history has ever bowed down to a Russian dictator. Let me say this as clearly as I can. I never will," he added.

He accused Trump, the current front-runner in the race to become the Republican party's presidential nominee, of looking at NATO as if it were a "burden" and failing to see an alliance that "protects America and the world." To Trump it is a "protection racket," and he doesn’t understand that NATO is built on the fundamental principles of freedom, security and national sovereignty, he said.

The U.S. president also stressed that the bill also provides funding for other U.S. national-security priorities in the Middle East, where the U.S. military has launched numerous attacks against militias backed by Iran, and money to help defend Israel in its fight against Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU.

It also provides funding to support U.S. national-security goals in Asia, Biden said, saying this is the "responsibility of a great nation."

In Kyiv, Ihor Zhovkva, deputy director of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, told RFE/RL that the bill's passage by the Senate was "a very serious signal," and a "strong decision" was expected from the House of Representatives.

The bill passed the Senate by a vote of 70-29, and Zhovkva said the approval of 70 senators will make it difficult to find reasons for not voting for the bill.

"We have every reason to hope that the corresponding strong decision will be approved in the House of Representatives," Zhovkva noted.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

In an essay published on January 30, William Burns, who also served as ambassador to Russia and in top State Department positions, urged U.S. lawmakers to pass a new package of weapons and equipment for Ukraine, calling it a "relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry."

"Putin's war has already been a failure for Russia on many levels," Burns wrote in the journal Foreign Affairs.

"His original goal of seizing Kyiv and subjugating Ukraine proved foolish and illusory. His military has suffered immense damage. At least 315,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded, two-thirds of Russia's prewar tank inventory has been destroyed, and Putin's vaunted decades-long military modernization program has been hollowed out."

"His war in Ukraine is quietly corroding his power at home," he said.

Live Briefing: Russia's Invasion Of Ukraine

RFE/RL's Live Briefing gives you all of the latest developments on Russia's full-scale invasion, Kyiv's counteroffensive, Western military aid, global reaction, and the plight of civilians. For all of RFE/RL's coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.

Burns' remarks come as Russia's mass invasion of Ukraine nears its second anniversary, with no end in sight to the conflict.

Putin, who is expected to be resoundingly reelected in a March presidential vote, has framed the "special military operation" -- the Kremlin's euphemism for the war -- as a fundamental fight for Russia's historical identity.

The Russian economy has been put on a war footing, hundreds of thousands of people have been mobilized, and many more Russians have fled the country, either to avoid military service or out of protest of internal repression.

"One thing I have learned is that it is always a mistake to underestimate his [Putin's] fixation on controlling Ukraine and its choices," Burns wrote.

"Without that control, he believes it is impossible for Russia to be a great power or for him to be a great Russian leader. That tragic and brutish fixation has already brought shame to Russia and exposed its weaknesses, from its one-dimensional economy to its inflated military prowess to its corrupt political system."

Ukraine, meanwhile, has struggled to hold its battlefield positions after a failed counteroffensive last year. Western and Ukrainian officials had had high hopes for the effort, in part due to NATO training and powerful new Western weaponry.

Both Russia and Ukraine are now dug in to established positions across the 1,200-kilometer front line as winter blankets the country. Some experts fear that Russia will retrench and replenish its forces, and be in a position to launch its own offensive as early as this summer.

Domestically, Ukraine's leadership is facing growing impatience with the status of the war.

News reports this week said that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is considering pushing out the country's top military officer, General Valeriy Zaluzhniy, a popular figure seen as a possible political rival to Zelenskiy.

"This year is likely to be a tough one on the battlefield in Ukraine, a test of staying power whose consequences will go well beyond the country's heroic struggle to sustain its freedom and independence," Burns said.

Putin "continues to bet that time is on his side, that he can grind down Ukraine and wear down its Western supporters," he added.

Western aid to Ukraine has buoyed its fight against Russia, but enthusiasm for that has waned in Washington and other Western capitals.

In the United States -- the biggest single supplier of arms and equipment to Ukraine -- Republican lawmakers have balked at authorizing President Joe Biden's new $61 billion aid package, insisting it should be tied to a broader reform of U.S. immigration laws.

Burns argued that the U.S. funds were being well-spent by Ukraine, which is wearing down Russia.

"The key to success lies in preserving Western aid for Ukraine," he wrote.

"At less than 5 percent of the U.S. defense budget, it is a relatively modest investment with significant geopolitical returns for the United States and notable returns for American industry," Burns wrote.

"Keeping the arms...offers a chance to ensure a long-term win for Ukraine and a strategic loss for Russia; Ukraine could safeguard its sovereignty and rebuild, while Russia would be left to deal with the enduring costs of Putin’s folly," he added.

The Kremlin had not responded to Burns' essay as of January 31.

This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

Photograph Source: قناة التغيير – CC BY 3.0

No sooner does the U.S. government actually fix something, than our true rulers, corporate oligarchs, rush in to undo it. Such was the case in early January, when pharmaceutical mega-corporations swore to combat medicine imports from Canada. The FDA had just approved such imports by the state of Florida, and in case you’ve been living under a rock this century, just about anybody’s drug prices, including Canada’s, are lots cheaper than American ones. That’s why desperate patients flock north or online to buy inexpensive Canadian medicines. Now, per the FDA, Florida’s program to import drugs from our northern neighbor is a go. Needless to say, Big Pharma is furious.

The FDA approved the Sunshine State’s program January 5. It is, according to the New York Times that day, “a major policy shift for the United States…Individuals in the United States are allowed to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies, but states have long wanted to be able to purchase medicines in bulk for their Medicaid programs, government clinics and prisons from Canadian wholesalers.” So the FDA’s move will massively help cut government social welfare spending. Conservatives should love that. Progressives, one assumes, are already on board.

“Florida has estimated that it could save up to $150 million in its first year,” the Times reports. How fitting that the first state to request to purchase these imports is deep red Florida with a notoriously far-right governor and legislature – fitting in that such people routinely bemoan government spending on social services. Well, now Florida is doing something about this fiscal problem. Hopefully other states, red and blue, will follow suit with FDA approval.

The Times quotes a Health Canada spokeswoman that “bulk importation will not provide an effective solution to the problem of high drug prices in the U.S.” Maybe not, but it’s better than nothing. Anything that gives patients and taxpayer-funded entities like Medicaid a work-around to extortionist pharmaceutical prices is welcome. What Americans pay for life-saving chemo and insulin is a global scandal. So the fact that at least eight other states have similar programs and await an FDA okay is good news. Expect the monstrous corporate pharmaceutical helmsmen to pull out the stops to sabotage these simple, fair, common-sense programs.

Insulin’s discoverer wanted it to be very affordable or free. Not in his wildest nightmares could Frederick Banting have dreamt back in 1921 that in a nation where diabetes is an epidemic, patients would have to pay nearly $100 per vial lasting 28 days. And that’s EVERY 28 days. That’s because Big Pharma wants insanely exorbitant profits. They get them by bankrupting desperate diabetics or cancer patients, who can either shell out their last cent for chemo or die. Lots of diabetics ration their insulin, which harms their health. Lots of cancer victims choose death, rather than medically driving their families to the poorhouse. It would be interesting to see stats on how many do, that is, how many Americans the pharmaceutical profit motive executes each year. Anecdotal evidence indicates it’s a lot.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical lobby will doubtless sue to block Florida’s plan. It has done so over similar efforts in the past. Its main argument is “drug safety.” Safety of drug profits is more like it. I mean, when even Florida governor Ron DeSantis – who attacked COVID-19 vaccines over safety – sues the FDA for delaying cheap drug imports, you know you’re dealing with ruthless pharma extortionists and their pliant government bureaucrats. Because no one would call DeSantis a bleeding heart. But that doesn’t move the FDA: it kept Florida waiting three years before finally approving its program and rejected New Hampshire’s application to import cheap medicines last year. No doubt the conspirators to keep drug prices sky-high applauded.

But people like drug importation. A 2019 poll “found that nearly 80 percent of respondents favored importation from licensed Canadian pharmacies,” the Times notes. Probably similar numbers of Americans would favor importing, in toto, the Canadian health care system as well, aka single payer. People don’t seem too keen on our private-equity-owned system of medicine. Extravagant costs, little care for patient convenience and drugs and hospitalizations that only billionaires can afford have something to do with that.

Not surprisingly, the chief congressional advocate for importing medicines is Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. “More than two decades ago [Sanders] led a caravan of women across the U.S.-Canada border to purchase breast cancer medication,” according to Common Dreams January 6. In the House, he pushed laws for more medicine imports, to no avail. “Sanders traveled across the Canadian border again in 2019 with Type 1 diabetes patients looking to buy insulin.” And of course, Sanders made history as the most outspoken U.S. presidential candidate to back Medicare4All and to promise to sign it into law if he won. Biden, you may recall, vowed that he would veto M4A, if it came across his desk. I guess Americans collapsing and dying doesn’t concern Joe “Lunch Bucket” Biden too much.

Sanders also on December 7 addressed considering price as a factor in breaking patent monopolies on some drugs. This is a white house proposal, which Sanders called “a step in the right direction.” There’s a lot to be said for breaking these patents. “The American people are sick and tired of seeing hundreds of billions of their tax dollars going to the research and development of new treatments and cures only to end up paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.” Sanders then demanded the Biden team to REQUIRE affordable prices for new prescription medicines developed with taxpayer dollars. Think covid vaccines. Taxpayers financed Moderna’s research to the tune of $10 billion, only to see the company start jacking up its vaccine’s prices. In September, Moderna set the list price between $120 and $130 per dose.

The White House “should also move to substantially lower the price of the prostate cancer drug Xtandi by allowing companies to manufacture generic versions…” Sanders said. “This is a drug that was invented with taxpayer dollars by scientists at UCLA and can be purchased in Canada for one-fifth the U.S. price.” And there you have American pharmaceutical medicine in a nutshell: one hand out for government cash, the other deep in the public’s pockets filching every last dime for overpriced treatments that other nations provide for a pittance. This is not a medical system – it’s a racket.

The post Big Pharma Embattled Over Cheap Drug Imports, Patents appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Eve Ottenberg.

Goods made by Camel Group Co., Ltd., a battery maker, and Chenguang Biotech Group Co., Ltd., a spice maker, can no longer be legally imported into the United States as of Wednesday, with the two firms being added to the Entity List in accordance with the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, according to a DHS statement.

The statement says the listings bring the number of firms on the UFLPA’s Entity List to 24. The 2021 UFLPA bans the import of goods made using Uyghur forced labor – with all imports coming from the Xinjiang region assumed to involve slave labor – but the Entity List explicitly bans imports from firms found to have used such labor.

“We will continue to work with all of our partners to keep goods made with forced labor from Xinjiang out of U.S. commerce while facilitating the flow of legitimate trade,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is quoted as saying in the statement, which was released Tuesday and also refers to the “ongoing genocide” of Uyghurs.

“Today’s enforcement actions demonstrate the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to holding organizations accountable for their egregious human rights abuses and forced labor practices.”

Since UFLPA came into effect, U.S. customs officials have inspected imports worth some $1.64 billion across thousands of shipments, the statement adds, due to suspicions about links to forced labor.

China’s foreign ministry said in its own statement that the claims of forced labor and genocide against Uyghurs were fabrications.

Beijing denies a genocide is occuring in Xinjiang and instead says that Uyghurs are being educated in “vocational education and training centers” meant to help them better fit into Han Chinese society.

“The allegation of ‘forced labor’ in Xinjiang is nothing but an enormous lie propagated by anti-China elements to smear China,” the foreign ministry said. “It is the very opposite of the fact that the labor rights of people of all ethnic backgrounds in Xinjiang are effectively protected.”

“The move to blacklist Chinese entities and going after more Chinese companies is aimed at undermining Xinjiang’s prosperity and stability and containing China’s development,” it said, vowing “to firmly safeguard Chinese companies’ lawful rights and interests.”

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alex Willemyns for RFA.

The first shipments of gasoline arrived in Laos last week following the signing of a memorandum of understanding in late May by the Vientiane Petroleum State Enterprise, managed by the Lao Ministry of National Security, SINOPEC Hong Kong and SINOLAO. 

Under the deal, Laos will import fuel from China for wholesale and retail distribution, according to the Laotian Times.

SINOPEC Hong Kong delivered the initial fuel consignments to the two Lao entities at the Boten international border crossing in Luang Namtha province on June 27. 

Gasoline prices in Laos have increased four times this year amid a serious economic slump characterized by high inflation, worsening public finances and the devaluation of the Lao currency, the kip.

But some consumers said they believe that the price of petrol will drop slightly or remain the same because the Chinese entered the deal to make a profit. 

“It’s businesses — not policy, not aid,” said a Lao entrepreneur who imports fuel, asking not to be identified to speak freely. “If the government imports more, it will reduce gas prices in Laos, and the price at the pumps will go down.”

The Lao government has turned to China for gasoline because it doesn’t have the foreign currency to buy it from Thailand, which accepts payments only in Thai baht or U.S. dollars, said a Lao intellectual who is familiar with the situation. 

China, however, accepts Lao kip or Chinese yuan as payment, or allows the Lao government to take out a loan with a high interest rate to pay for gasoline imports, ensnaring the country in a debt trap, he said.

Landlocked Lao does not have its own gasoline production company, but rather a business in Xiengkhouang province that refines imported crude oil from overseas.

Call to raise salaries

As rising prices, including that of gasoline, hit Laotians hard in their wallets, some officials are trying to mitigate the financial pain.

Also on June 27, Oudom Vongkaysone, a lawmaker from Borikhamxay province, urged the government to increase the salaries of both ordinary Lao workers and state employees.

He urged the government to increase the monthly minimum wage to 1.8 million-2 million kip (US$94-104).

During a meeting of the National Assembly, Vongkaysone said that if the government could not increase salaries, it should find other ways to lessen their financial hardship, such as issuing more bonuses, paying overtime or increasing pension amounts. 

Otherwise more state employees will quit their jobs and more workers will head to neighboring countries for better-paying jobs, he said.

He also called on the Lao government to rein in inflation and urged citizens to use the kip in financial transactions instead of foreign currency.

A Lao garment factory worker told Radio Free Asia that she cannot live on her 1.3 million kip monthly salary, and wants to see her pay raised to 2 million-3 million kip so she and her family can survive the country’s high inflation.

An official from the Lao Federation of Trade Unions who requested anonymity so as to speak freely told RFA that a decision to raise the minimum wage would take a long time to implement if adopted.

“The government has to conduct a survey of the price of goods in the market first to find out if it is necessary or not to raise the minimum wage,” he said.

Businesses opposed

Some Laotians have headed to Thailand and South Korea for jobs, where wages are higher than at home.

“The rate of exchange is high, 1 million Lao kip can’t buy much, and foods and essential things are more expensive than before,” said one Laotian. “Workers have gone to work in Thailand because the pay rate is higher over there.”

But entrepreneurs who own businesses in Laos are against raising the minimum wage, saying the move would threaten their survival. They would not be able to pay their workers 1.8 million-2 million kip per month if the lawmaker’s proposal is adopted, some of them said.

“Entrepreneurs don’t want to pay high salaries,” said one business owner.

A factory owner said his enterprise could not afford to pay higher salaries of about 1.6 million-1.8 million kip, but no more.

“It would be too much to pay,” he told RFA.

A garment factory owner in the capital Vientiane said she could not immediately raise salaries to 1.8 million kip or more because of high production costs and the kip’s devaluation, and that any future increases should be incrementally implemented over several months.

An official at the Ministry of Finance said the government’s ability to raise the monthly minimum wage depends on the state budget, and salaries cannot be increased if there is a deficit.

“We want to raise the salaries of state employees between 1.8 million and 2.5 million kip per month, but it depends on the state budget,” he said.

Translated by Sidney Khotpanya for RFA Lao. Edited by Roseanne Gerin and Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Lao.

Expressing solidarity with people in frontline communities where the fossil fuel industry has for decades polluted the air and water and exposed millions of people to public safety risks, nearly two dozen campaigners with Greenpeace Belgium on Saturday entered the liquefied natural gas terminal of energy infrastructure company Fluxys in Zeebrugge, to demand an end to European imports of LNG from the United States.

Ten people climbed the infrastructure and 12 people kayaked into the terminal, displaying signs that read "U.S. Gas Kills" and "Solidarity with the U.S. Gulf South."

The campaigners came from countries including Austria, France, and Germany and climbed onto platforms used for loading and unloading the tankers that transport LNG, which is gas that's been cooled and liquefied after fracking or drilling extraction process. They unfurled a large banner reading, "Gas kills."

"Greenpeace asks Fluxys and our authorities to abandon any new gas infrastructure that locks us into dependence on fossil gas," said Greenpeace Belgium on social media. "We demand a European exit from gas by 2035 in order to achieve our climate goals."

Although Europe's gas demand has not gone up, Greenpeace said, LNG imports from the U.S. to Europe surged by 140% in 2022, from 28.2 billions of cubic meters (bcm) in 2021 to 68.96 bcm last year.

Since 2018, imports have gone up 1,767%.

"Following the shock of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, gas operators like Fluxys quickly shifted their public messaging and lobbying from 'energy transition' to 'energy security' and cynically used the opportunity to frighten governments into massive, unneeded investment into and expansion of fossil gas imports and infrastructure," said Mathieu Soete, an energy expert with Greenpeace Belgium. "Under pressure from companies like Fluxys, many gas projects and terminals are emerging across Europe and the U.S., directly threatening the health of communities near production sites and the entire planet with disastrous environmental and climate impacts."

According to the group, in the past 12 months, 17 shipments of LNG—amounting to 1.150 million tonnes—have traveled from the U.S. Gulf Coast to the Fluxys terminal in Zeebrugge, including nine from Sabine Pass, Texas; five from Cameron, Louisiana; and three from Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana.

The lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions associated with those shipments would be 6.9 million tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent per year—the same amount emitted by 1.5 million fossil fueled cars.

Saturday's protest followed the publication of a Greenpeace International report titled Who Profits From War: How Gas Corporations Capitalize on War in Ukraine.

That analysis detailed how, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which pushed Europe to end its use of Russian oil and gas, "gas infrastructure operators, portfolio traders, and gas companies have declared that imported liquefied gas is the answer to the crisis and will remain so for decades to come."

"This LNG expansion threatens the health of communities living near these export terminals, extraction sites, and pipelines, while potentially pushing planet warming emissions past levels to meet global climate goals," the report states.

As Greenpeace advocates climbed the Fluxys infrastructure, the group posted on social media a call from U.S. activist and Gulf Coast resident John Beard, who described the high rates of cancer, other diseases, and pollution his community faces as a result of LNG extraction and exporting.

"It has come to my attention that you all are importing this fossil gas to Belgium and the Europe," said Beard. "And it's also been brought to my attention that you are not looking at due diligence issues of what importing this gas might do to communities like mine and others along the Gulf Coast."

The Greenpeace report published this month notes that nearly all European countries that are importing LNG have banned fracking on their own land due to research showing proximity to oil and gas extraction projects can cause cancer, poor birth outcomes, respiratory impacts such as asthma, and other health impacts.

"Our governments must not allow the gas lobby to influence our energy policies," said Soete. "We cannot lock ourselves into dependence on gas—all gas kills, whether Russian, American, or Norwegian. Policymakers must stop the fossil fuel expansion and build a wall between themselves and the fossil fuel lobby to accelerate the transition to decentralized, renewable, and clean energies and slash energy waste."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Julia Conley.

The move comes as more Western governments are clamping down on companies whose products and supply chains involve forced labor by the mostly Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the far western part of China.

At the Forced Labor Technical Expo at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, acting CBP commissioner Troy Miller launched a new website that tracks shipments blocked due to forced labor and said that 3,605 shipments worth $816 million had been blocked due to suspected forced labor across all of last year.

But he noted that the value of blocked shipments this year had already reached nearly two-thirds of last year’s figure, with some $496 million worth of imports across 1,910 shipments blocked before Feb. 26 thanks to the December 2021 Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act.

“That being said, shipments identified for further examination under UFLPA represent 0.01% of all shipments entering the U.S. since the implementation of the act,” he said. “Overall, this obviously a very small number of shipments subject to CBP’s enforcement actions.”

The agency’s job is a balance of stopping shipments linked to forced labor while also “swiftly” processing legitimate cargo, Miller said, adding that he wished to see the number of intercepted shipments go down as U.S. businesses learn they risk losing their shipments.

“As required by law, we continue to take enforcement action to inspect and detain goods when we receive credible allegations that goods are connected to Xinjiang,” he said, but “importers must take responsibility to know their supply chains and address the risk of forced labor.”

‘Orders come from the top’

The event also heard from victims of forced labor.

Nury Turkel, a Uyghur-American and chairman of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, told the event that he grew up alongside his parents in forced labor camps in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and that forced labor had been used by Chinese authorities “for as long as I remember.”

He emphasized that it was official government policy, and said he was dismayed by American companies that say it is hard to police supply chains.

“Papering over forced labor in your supply chains is no longer an option,” Turkel said. “Chinese companies’ use of Uyghur forced labor is not a matter of lax enforcement or government collusion with corrupt businesses. The fact is that the Xinjiang officials fill hundreds of camps with millions of people, and the orders come from the top.”

Such forced labor was enforced through the use of “torture, rape, forced sterilization, abortion and injection with unknown drugs,” he said, with authorities in Xinjiang openly promoting forced labor. 

Their ads, he said, promised that “workers have been trained with a semi-military style,” were “disciplined” and, in case a business was still not convinced, “come with a police minder to prevent any trouble.”

“The ads offer a guarantee that the workers will not be job-hopping,” Turkel said. “They will not be allowed to leave the job.”

Technological help

A number of companies at the event promoted technology they said would help businesses better identify forced labor in their supply chains, including SourceMap, which helps businesses track production sources from “end-to-end,” and Verité, which screens suppliers for signs of forced labor by focusing on the recruiters they use.

CBP Executive Assistant Commissioner AnnMarie Highsmith said forced labor in merchandise flowing into the United States impacts 28 million people worldwide, and that while technology might help identify it, companies still had to be proactive about trying to eliminate it.

“It is incumbent upon us as leaders in our international trade space and in our global supply chains to take affirmative actions,” Highsmith said, in order “to better trace merchandise through the supply chains.”

She said she was encouraged that blockages of shipments under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act since 2021 had caused some U.S. companies to move “operations out of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and into other areas of China, and other areas of other countries, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand.”

“We can safely say that we’ve done a lot of good. But we can do better, and we can do more,” she said, explaining CBP’s ultimate aim was to stop such shipments arriving in the United States at all. “Our goal is to normalize due diligence with regard to forced labor in supply chains.”

“I’m really sorry to tell you,” Highsmith added, “there’s no magic wand that will tell us instantly there’s forced labor in the merchandise; there’s no technology that’s going to replace due diligence.”

Edited by Malcolm Foster.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Alex Willemyns for RFA.

We look at the impact of the war in Ukraine on the continent of Africa with Adebayo Olukoshi, an international relations scholar based in Johannesburg, South Africa. African nations import much of their grain. With their significant dependency on Ukrainian wheat and fertilizer in the Global South, “there is a wish for much more investment in diplomacy” between Ukraine and Russia, says Olukoshi. He says many African nations have more amicable relations with Russia due to the Soviet Union’s support for anticolonial struggles before its dissolution.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

The Oct. 25-26 hearing in Britain’s High Court follows a suit brought by the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) — a rights watchdog with offices in the UK and  Ireland — and the Munich-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC), both groups said in a joint statement.

”Customs authorities are failing to live up to their obligations under international law to stop imports of products made in conditions so appalling and coercive they amount to crimes against humanity,” GLAN Legal Officer Siobhan Allen said on Oct. 19.

“The time has long [passed] for burying their heads in the sand: the evidence of what is happening in the Uyghur Region is so overwhelming, authorities must take action — now,” Allen added.

Forced labor in Xinjiang has been tied to the region’s cotton industry, China’s largest, which exports textiles and other products to international markets, including in the UK, GLAN and WUC said in their statement.

“For too long, the UK government has allowed the products of Uyghur forced labor to enter British markets,” said WUC UK Director Rahima Mahmut, speaking to RFA. “It is shameful that cotton picked using the modern slavery of my people, within a context of atrocity and genocide, continues to flood this country’s supply chains.

“The Government could take leadership and ban the products of Uyghur forced labor from entering Britain. Instead they have refused to implement legislation to tackle the crisis,” Mahmut added.

“This hearing is a historic opportunity for us to secure accountability on the UK government’s inaction, and to strengthen our calls for change.”

As many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and members of other Muslim ethnic groups are believed to have been held by China since 2017 in a network of internment camps where inmates have been subjected to forced labor, torture, and the rape and forced sterilization of female detainees.

China has described the camps as vocational training centers set up to prevent “religious extremism” and “terrorism” in the restive Xinjiang region, and says that the facilities are now closed.

The United States and nine Western parliaments have declared that the repression of predominantly Muslim groups in Xinjiang amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.

Written in English by Richard Finney.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alim Seytoff.

A Kazakh former internment camp inmate is suing the United Kingdom’s trade secretary for allowing imports of cotton he believes were obtained through forced labor in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region.

Erbakit Otarbay was arrested in Xinjiang in 2017 for watching illegal videos on Islam and installing the WhatsApp instant messaging service on his cell phone, amid a crackdown there by the Chinese government on Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. 

The next year, Otarbay was detained in an internment camp, where he was tortured and forced to work in an apparel factory, he said.

“There was an auto repair shop, a bakery, a sweet shop and a barber shop,” he told Radio Free Asia. “I told them I was not good at baking, and that I liked sewing.”

Otarbay joined a group of mostly women at the garment factory, who included not only Uyghurs, but also other ethnic minorities such as Kazakhs, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. He produced cloth loops for belt buckles.

After he was released in 2019, Otarbay wanted to call attention to the suffering of detainees and those being forced to work, he said.

“If you ever get out, go as far as you can to every country and call for our release and tell them what the Chinese government is doing to us,” he said.

As many as 1.8 million Uyghurs and other Muslims are believe to be held in network of internment camps that China has set up to prevent purported “religious extremism” and “terrorism.” Inmates have been subjected to torture, rape, forced sterilizations of female detainees and forced labor.

Beijing has insisted that the camps were vocational training facilities and that they are now closed. 

The United States and nine Western parliaments have declared that the repression of predominantly Muslim groups in Xinjiang amounts to genocide and crimes against humanity.

Call for import restrictions

In a pre-action letter to Trade Secretary Kemi Badenoch, Otarbay called on the U.K. government to address an “ongoing failure” to impose any restrictions on cotton imports from Xinjiang, the U.K’s Sky News reported on Oct. 9.

China is a major cotton producer, with most of it coming from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

The U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights issued a report at the end of August saying that China’s repression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in Xinjiang province “may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

But China has vowed to fight any U.N. action on human rights abuses against Uyghurs in Xinjiang cited in the OHCHR report. 

In December 2021, an independent tribunal in London found that China committed genocide against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, based on testimony from dozens of witnesses, including formerly jailed Uyghurs and legal and academic experts on China’s actions in the region. 

Otarbay also testified at the tribunal about his detention, saying that authorities confined him to a metal tiger chair, used to immobilize suspects during interrogations, for hours.

Otarbay emigrated from China’s Xinjiang to Kazakhstan with his family in 2014, but returned three years later. He was arrested and sent to a “re-education camp.” After a year, he was taken to another detention center where he was forced to work without pay in a clothes factory inside the facility, until he was released in May 2019.

“What I tell the U.K. government is ban all the goods from Xinjiang,” Otarbay told RFA. “They have to take measures. They should globally expose the genocide that China is committing.”

“They have to inspect all the imported goods from China, where they were manufactured, who made them and so on, and they should take actions to stop the forced labor,” he said. 

Though the U.K. government has measures in place to ensure that its companies are not complicit in alleged forced labor practices in Xinjiang or involved in the region’s supply chain, but critics say enforcement is lax.

“It is very disappointing that the British government have not taken a lead in this issue,” said Otarbay’s attorney, Paul Conrathe. But he said he is hopeful that the court will recognize that the government’s actions are “unlawful.”

14 days to respond

The trade secretary now has 14 days to respond, he said. Their next steps will depend on the reply.

Rahima Mahmut, U.K. director of the World Uyghur Congress, or the WUC, said the British government has not gone far enough to stop goods made with Uyghur forced labor from entering the U.K.

“Even though the U.K. government openly and loudly criticized China’s horrific treatment of the Uyghurs, so far it has not taken any meaningful actions in terms of ending Uyghur forced labor,” she told RFA. “It has not stopped the flow of products [made with forced labor] into [the UK].”

Otarbay is “the best plaintiff to pursue this case” against the U.K. trade secretary, and WUC is working closely with him, she added. 

To address concerns about Uyghur forced labor, the United States enacted the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in 2021, which assumes goods made in Xinjiang are produced with forced labor and thus banned under the U.S. 1930 Tariff Act. The law requires U.S. companies that import products from the region to prove that they have not been manufactured at any stage with Uyghur forced labor.

The European Union has proposed a total ban on all goods produced using forced labor at any stage of production, harvest or extraction, including clothing, cotton and commodities, irrespective of where they have been made.  

“It is very commendable that the American government has taken a lead in effectively banning imports that derive from Xinjiang, and also that the European Commission is looking at doing something similar,” Conrathe said. “This is a very important case dealing with one of the most appalling situations in terms of human rights abuses in the world today.”

Translated by Mamatjan Juma and Alim Seytoff. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.

The story was updated to say that the U.S. and some Western parliaments have determined that the abuses constitute genocide and crimes against humanity.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Adile Ablet for RFA Uyghur.

The first train departed China’s border city of Dandong on Monday morning and arrived at a quarantine facility near North Korea’s Sinuiju, an official from Sinuiju’s surrounding North Pyongan province told RFA’s Korean Service on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“Most of the cargo unloaded from the train’s 11 freight containers was food. However, there were also medicines like fever reducers, antibiotics and glucose,” said the source.

“The Central Committee [of the Korean Workers’ Party] shortened the quarantine period for all cargo from freight trains from seven to 20 days to only three or four days,” he said. “The number of quarantine workers increased from 20 to 50 to process through quarantine work of the cargo more quickly.” 

The shipments were badly needed. North Korea has been short on food and medicine since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020, when Beijing and Pyongyang shut down their border and suspended all trade. 

The closure has also been ruinous for the North Korean economy, as much of it depends on trade with China.

Though rail freight resumed in November 2021, it was again suspended after only a week due to a resurgence of the virus in China. In 2022, rail freight again resumed but only for a few months.

In May North Korea declared a national “maximum emergency” because of a major outbreak that started in April. It was the first time Pyongyang acknowledged that COVID-19 was spreading within its borders since the beginning of the pandemic, officially ending its claim that the country was completely “virus-free.” 

In August, Pyongyang declared “victory” over COVID-19 and lifted many of the emergency restrictions, but rail freight remained suspended.

The first shipments coming in from China will not be equitably distributed, the North Pyongan source said. The government usually gives priority to privileged residents of the capital Pyongyang, who enjoy a higher standard of living compared to their provincial counterparts.

 “According to the central government's instructions, basic foods such as sugar and cooking oil are to be first supplied to Pyongyang,” the source said.  “The medicines will be first supplied to military units and residents of the border areas.”

A source in Dandong confirmed to RFA Monday that workers moved the freight train, which had been sitting in Dandong Station since mid-August, onto the main track on Sunday and began loading it with cargo.

“I was mobilized as a freight forwarder and loaded cargo on the train … from yesterday afternoon through the night. The burlap bags that I loaded were sugar and boxes full of four-kilogram [8.8-lb] tanks of cooking oil,” the second source said.

“In relatively light boxes were fever reducer pills like ampicillin and such, and then in heavy boxes were things like glucose and intravenous drugs. There were so many antibiotic injections that they filled three to four freight cars,” he said.

The second source confirmed that the food was bound for Pyongyang and the medicine for military units and hospitals in the Sino-Korean border region, where symptoms suspected to be related to COVID-19 infection are said to be spreading.

Back in business

North Korean trading companies have been preparing in anticipation trade would restart, a trade related source in the western coastal province of South Hwanghae, who declined to be named, told RFA.

“After the authorities declared victory in the war against COVID-19 on Aug. 10, the provincial trade bureaus rushed to prepare for imports and exports, hoping that trade would resume with China soon,” the source said. 

The trade agencies were having a hard time staying afloat with the border closed, the third source said. Many sectors in North Korean society need to generate income or procure raw materials through trade with China to function normally.

“The provincial trade bureau of South Hwanghae is being pressed by the provincial party committee to address repairs for asphalt roads in each region in the province, “said the third source. The Provincial Fisheries Management Bureau also agreed with their Chinese business partners to export raw and dried seaweed in return for fishing materials, including nets, in return.” 

“Even though all the trade negotiations are finished, the Provincial Fisheries Management Bureau is sitting on their hands and waiting because trade with China hasn't officially resumed,” he said. “The provinces have not traded at all for three years. The province can import and export much-needed goods through trains and ships only when there is an order to resume trade with China.”

Employees of the trading companies have had to sacrifice during the border closure, according to the third source.

“The Provincial Trade Bureau used to be the envy of all the other bureaus,” he said. “It has been a long time since the trading bureau stopped distributing food to its employees, because they haven’t been trading for three years.

“Other institutions in the province are waiting for trade with China to resume to purchase necessary supplies. Members of the trade bureau, however, are more eager to see trade begin because their livelihood is more dependent on trade,” said the source.

In the northeastern province of North Hamgyong, trade with China was of paramount importance to the economy due to the geographical location, an official there told RFA on condition of anonymity for security reasons.  

“North Hamgyong province is the only region which borders both China and Russia. Due to these geographical conditions, North Hamgyong province was more active in trade compared to other provinces. But now everything is blocked,” the second source said.

Although shipments from China have resumed, it remains unclear when rail trade with Russia will restart.

Seoul-based NK News reported Sept. 9 that North Korea and Russia agreed to resume cross-border shipments in September. The U.S. government has said that Russia is “in the process” of buying ammunition from North Korea for use in the war in Ukraine.

Voice of America reported that the South Korean Ministry of Unification assessed that freight service between Dandong and Sinuiju restarted on Monday, with a ministry spokesperson saying it was not certain how long the rails would be open or what kinds of goods would flow into North Korea.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin confirmed during a press conference that the two countries had agreed to resume freight transport “according to border-related treaties and through friendly consultation," but North Korean state media did not immediately confirm that rail freight had resumed.

Translated by Claire Shinyoung Oh Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hyemin Son for RFA Korean.

This week U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is in Nigeria, where he warned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is leading to a growing hunger crisis in Africa. A new report by Human Rights Watch finds the Russian invasion of Ukraine has worsened food insecurity, particularly for African countries that were already experiencing a hunger crisis. Russia and Ukraine are leading exporters of wheat and other grains, while countries such as Cameroon, Nigeria and Uganda are among the largest importers. With climate change and trade stalled by the coronavirus pandemic, “all these changes within the availability of food has sent the food prices to new levels,” says Lena Simet, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch. Advocates are calling on exporting countries such as the United States and Canada to “open their markets, to not introduce export restrictions, and provide essential grains at an affordable price to humanitarian organizations,” she adds.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Cargo freighter, Columbia River. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

Many people were struck by the 1.4 percent drop in GDP in the first quarter, with some reports suggesting this was the beginning of a recession. This is not the real story of the first quarter GDP, instead it looks like growth is continuing at a healthy rate. To understand this point, it is important to recognize how imports are counted in GDP, since the increase in imports subtracted 2.53 percentage points from GDP growth in the quarter.[1]

Imagine that the sum of consumption spending, investment, and government spending increased at 2.7 percent annual rate in the quarter (which they did). Now suppose that we offloaded $60 billion of goods from boats sitting offshore, increasing our imports by this amount. On an annual basis, this additional $60 billion in imports would be $240 billion, or roughly 1.0 percent of GDP. This would reduce GDP by this amount, even though our purchases for consumption, investment, and the government had not changed.

Okay, that story is not exactly right. The goods that we offloaded from the ships are now sitting in warehouses at the ports or on their way to the retail outlets where they will eventually be sold. This increase in inventories would raise GDP by an amount equal to the growth in imports, offsetting the drag that imports otherwise would have been on growth. However, inventories were actually a drag on growth in the quarter, subtracting 0.84 percentage points from GDP.

These two facts can be reconciled by looking at the actual amount that inventories increased in the first quarter. The report showed that inventories increased at a $158.7 billion annual rate. (Non-farm inventories rose at an even more rapid $185.3 billion annual rate. Farm inventories shrank at a $35.8 billion rate, continuing a pattern that has been going on for sixteen years, but that is another story.)

This is an extremely fast pace of inventory accumulation. By comparison, in the years of 2016-2018, three normal years of economic growth, inventory accumulation averaged $45 billion. The reason inventories were a negative factor in growth in the first quarter, in spite of this extraordinary rate of accumulation, is that inventories grew at an even more rapid $193.2 billion annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2021. That rise added 5.32 percentage points to the fourth quarter’s growth.

So how do we think about first quarter growth? It probably makes the most sense to focus on the measure of final demand to domestic purchasers, which rose at a very healthy 2.6 percent annual rate. This is measuring the growth in consumption, fixed investment, and government expenditures. If we want the fullest picture, we can combine the fourth quarter’s 6.9 percent growth rate with the first quarter’s 1.4 percent decline to get a 2.8 percent average growth rate for the last two quarters.

In addition to recognizing that the economy is still growing at very healthy pace, inventories have been largely rebuilt, in spite of supply chain problems. Real non-farm inventories at the end of the first quarter were just 0.1 percent below their pre-pandemic levels. (Farm inventories are now at just 53.0 percent of their level of 16 years ago.) This is a very positive sign, in that it should be mean that the prices of many items that rose sharply in the last year will be leveling off, and quite likely coming down.

In short, rather than being a bad report with a drop in GDP, this report is overwhelming good news. It shows that the main components of final demand, consumption, investment, and government expenditures, are growing at a healthy pace. And, it shows that inventories have been largely rebuilt, meaning that supply chain problems are being alleviated. Inflation is of course a problem, but this rise in inventories is exactly what we want to see if inflation is to be slowed.

Notes.

[1] A drop in exports subtracted another 0.68 percentage points. This is likely also due to supply chain issues, as exporters can’t arrange for shipping containers.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press blog.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Dean Baker.

On Earth Day, we look at how the war in Ukraine gives the United States a new chance to break free of emissions-heavy steel production. Russia and Ukraine supplied over 60% of the pig iron the U.S. imported last year to make steel, some of it produced at the Azovstal Iron and Steel Works plant in Mariupol where thousands of civilians and soldiers are now blockaded. We speak to Justin Mikulka and Zack Exley, with New Consensus, a think tank working on detailed plans, such as the Green New Deal, for governments to transition to clean energy to address the climate crisis and renew their economy. They argue in a new report for The Intercept that the U.S. must transition to using green hydrogen to produce sponge iron to replace dirty pig iron. As corporate profits have gone up, “there isn’t any real incentive for the U.S. steel industry to change their business model, and that’s why we argue that we need government policies,” says Mikulka. “We’ve got a real opportunity here to start building clean industries that can make the stuff that we need without changing the composition of the atmosphere,” says Exley, one of the leaders of the 2016 Bernie Sanders presidential campaign and co-founder of Justice Democrats.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

Food prices skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic when the Sino-Korean border was shut down and all trade was suspended for about two years, starting in January 2020. As supplies dwindled, sugar, cooking oil and other ingredients became unaffordable luxuries to many North Korean families.

Poor harvests in North Korea in both 2020 and 2021 added market pressure by creating shortages of staples like rice and corn.

Ahead of the Day of the Sun, a holiday celebrating the life of leader Kim Jong Un’s late grandfather, national founder Kim Il Sung, North Korean authorities began importing more ingredients for cakes and sweets, but residents outside the capital Pyongyang are not seeing much benefit.

Though freight trains laden with cooking oil are now rolling in from China, North Koreans are not seeing a price drop, a resident of the northwestern province of North Pyongan told RFA’s Korean Service Tuesday on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

“In early April, the news spread that the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train was importing 20 cargo compartments of sugar, flour and cooking oil almost every other day, raising hopes that the cooking oil prices would fall soon,” he said.

“However, the price of 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of cooking oil is still equivalent to 5 kg (11 lbs.) of rice. Residents are wondering where all the imported cooking oil is going. They are complaining that they don't know when they will be able to add oil to their dishes,” the source said.

The current price of cooking oil is 22,000 won per kg ($7.43 per lb.) at the marketplace in Sinuiju, a border city that lies across the Yalu River from China’s Dandong, the source said.

Locally produced cooking oil costs 25,000 won per kg. In 2019, before the pandemic, cooking oil cost 13,000 to 15,000 won per kg.

In contrast, prices for flour are falling as supplies increasingly come in via maritime trade through Sinuiju and are distributed to local markets as far away as South Pyongan province, north of Pyongyang. At the height of the pandemic, flour cost as much as 30,000 won per kilogram, but now it costs 11,000 to 12,000 won per kilogram.

In the city of Pyongsong in South Pyongan, food factories received orders to increase production of sweets, instant noodles and bread, a resident there told RFA on condition of anonymity to speak freely.

“Raw materials such as flour, sugar, and cooking oil are imported on the Dandong-Sinuiju weekly freight train,” the second source said.

“On the occasion of Kim Il Sung's birthday, authorities ordered the import of food materials from China by increasing the frequency of freight trains. They ordered gifts of sweets and food to distribute to high-ranking officials, national contributors and Pyongyang citizens,” he said.

Residents of the capital Pyongyang live lives of privilege, with more access to luxuries than people living in the provinces.

“Food products from the Dandong-Sinuiju freight train are not released to the market,” the second source said.

“After the cargo is disinfected at the Uiju food-quarantine facilities, it is only supplied to food production plants in Pyongyang and other food production companies under the party and the military. The price of food products in the marketplace is not going down,” he said.

Translated by Claire Lee. Written in English by Eugene Whong.

This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Hyemin Son.