Pelosi’s Taiwan Tuesday
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Happening Today
POISONED? Anatoly Chubais, the man who talent-spotted Vladimir Putin and helped create Russia’s oligarch class though the country’s 1990s privatization program is in an undisclosed European hospital with a rare autoimmune disorder. Chubais’ hospital room was reportedly attended by officials in hazmat suits.
Chubais fled Russia when Putin invaded Ukraine in February, the most senior official to do so.
UKRAINE — FIRST GRAIN SHIPMENT LEAVES ODESA: Turkey and Ukraine have confirmed the long-awaited first shipment. The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni is carrying 26,000 tons of Ukrainian corn, according to a statement from Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry. The ministry added that 16 additional ships are waiting their turn to leave the port, with at least 10 ready to depart.
Grain tycoon killed: Ukrainian businessman Oleksiy Vadaturskyi and his wife, Raisa, were killed by a direct Russian shelling hit on their home in Mykolaiv.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS NANCY PELOSI? She’s in Singapore today, following consultations with the U.S. Indo Pacific command in Hawaii. Pelosi is advertising her Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan itinerary.
No word yet on Taiwan, though the U.S. is moving aircraft carriers closer to the island. And local reporters are planning for Pelosi’s arrival Tuesday night, local time.
U.N. — CHINA TAKES THE HELM: China took over the U.N. Security Council presidency this morning for the month of August.
NUCLEAR NON-PROLIFERATION: The Tenth Review Conference for the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons opens in New York City. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will represent the U.S. today — and meetings will continue without Blinken though most of August.
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” President Joe Biden said in a statement. More on the U.S. position. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is attending, amid what he calls “a profound sense of crisis,” saying that the global unity on nuclear disarmament is falling apart.
REBOUND: Biden is in quarantine after testing positive for Covid-19 — again.
GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS
BALKANS — SKIRMISHES AT SERBIA-KOSOVO BORDER; NATO READY TO INTERVENE: Ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo engaged in skirmishes with police and blocked roads, protesting new rules requiring them to use Kosovo license plates on their cars. The rules would have affected around 50,000 people and had been due to come into effect today. The Kosovo government has agreed to delay the rules if all protester roadblocks are removed.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić hyped up the situation in a nationally televised address and claimed Kosovo authorities have no right to implement the rules (though Serbia imposes a similar system on its side of the border). The NATO-led Kosovo Force peacekeeping mission issued a statement that it is “prepared to intervene if stability jeopardized.”
Notable: Russia can’t weigh in for Serbia this time. Russia’s military is tied up in Ukraine and blocked from European airspace.
GERMANY — COULD IT REALLY DEINDUSTRIALIZE? That’s the fear of the conservative premier of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer. With Germany recording its first trade deficit since 1991, he claims that the risk of a Russian gas shut-off will push energy-intensive industries either to move to lower-cost countries, or those with better access to gas, oil and renewable energy. “Our economic system is in danger of collapsing,” Kretschmer told Die Zeit.
RUSSIA — GAS SHIPMENTS TO LATVIA HALTED: Russian gas provider Gazprom on Saturday announced it was stopping deliveries to Latvia for an alleged breach of contract terms.
U.N. — PEACEKEEPERS OPEN FIRE IN D.R. CONGO: Peacekeepers opened fire “for unexplained reasons” during an incident in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo on the Uganda border on Sunday. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres was “saddened and dismayed” to learn of the shooting, per a U.N. statement. “The Secretary-General stresses in the strongest terms the need to establish accountability for these events,” the U.N. said.
CLIMATE — U.S. LEGISLATIVE DEAL GETS A COOL GLOBAL REACTION: Other governments have been here before. They’ll believe U.S. climate action when they see it.
By the numbers:Rich countries under-delivered on their climate finance promises. An OECD report released Friday found they fell short by almost $17 billion in the deadline year, corroborating last year’s estimates. Donor countries aren’t expected to meet the $100 billion target until 2023.
CONGRESS MEETS WORLD
PUSH FOR MORE PACIFIC EMBASSIES: A bipartisan group of senators is introducing legislation to establish three new embassies in the Pacific Islands region to strengthen America’s relationships there and counter China’s growing influence.
The “Pacific Islands Embassy Act” from Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.), first reported by my colleague Alex Ward, would establish new U.S. missions in Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tonga. The measure, co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), requires the secretary of State to inaugurate the missions no later than two years after the bill is signed into law.
The Fiji embassy is currently delegated to cover Kiribati and Tonga, while the Papua New Guinea embassy covers Vanuatu. “We must immediately establish a robust physical diplomatic presence in these strategic island nations,” Ossoff said in a statement, calling the lack of investment as “malpractice.”
REALITY CHECK: There are still 52 empty U.S. ambassador chairs including Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Tonga, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Timor Leste.
Ann Marie Yastishock is waiting for a hearing to go on to serve in Port Moresby and Marie Damour is likewise waiting for a hearing to serve in Suva.
The only Pacific Island nations actually served by U.S. ambassadors today are Marshall Islands (Ambassador Roxanne Cabral was confirmed during the Trump administration) and Samoa, which is served by Tom Udall, but from Wellington, New Zealand.
The lesson: The U.S. could do with more embassies. It could also do with filling up the embassies it already has.
WHERE’S THE AMBASSADOR TO COLOMBIA?Luis Gilberto Murillo takes up his post as Colombia’s ambassador in Washington on Saturday, becoming the first Afro-Colombian to hold the post. It’s a big year for Colombia, which pitches itself as America’s closest ally in Latin America: 2022 marks the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations with the U.S.
What a contrast between that engagement and Washington’s failure to nominate — let alone confirm — an ambassador to Bogotá.
The big question: How does the U.S. propose to outflank China’s global diplomatic and infrastructure investments, when the U.S. often doesn’t even nominate ambassadors to work with some of its top allies — and even when nominations are forthcoming, appointees languish for months waiting for Senate hearings?
GLOBETROTTERS
EMBASSY ROW: Kathleen FitzGibbon is nominated as ambassador to the Republic of Niger.
BRAIN FOOD
LONG READ — Macron is serious about the European Political Community“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.cer.eu/insights/macron-serious-about-european-political-community”,”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240000″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240001″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}”>Macron is serious about the European Political Community, by Charles Grant. The French president wants to formalize a family of nations larger and distinct from the tightly knit European Union.
BOOK — Normal Family“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/chrysta-bilton/normal-family/9780316536523/”,”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240002″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240003″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}”>Normal Family by Chrysta Bilton. The story of how Bilton learned about her 35 siblings, the result of her sperm donor father. h/t Jordana Zizmor“,”link”:{“target”:”NEW”,”attributes”:[],”url”:”https://www.instagram.com/p/CgS3N-ZL4W1/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y%3D”,”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240004″,”_type”:”33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df”},”_id”:”00000182-5b8a-d984-a5ae-7fefa2240005″,”_type”:”02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266″}”>h/t Jordana Zizmor
Thanks to editor Ben Pauker and producer Hannah Farrow.
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