WAGNER CLAIMS BAKHMUT CAPTURED, KYIV SAYS FIGHTING ONGOING

Moscow Agencies

RUSSIA’s private army Wagner claimed on Saturday the total control of the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, the epicentre of fighting, as Kyiv said the battle was continuing but admitted the situation was “critical”.

Bakhmut, a salt mining town that once had a population of 70,000 people, has been the scene of the longest and bloodiest battle in Moscow’s more than year-long Ukraine offensive.

The fall to Russia of Bakhmut, where both Moscow and Kyiv are believed to have suffered huge losses, would have high symbolic value.

If confirmed, Bakhmut’s loss would allow Moscow to bring home a victory after a series of humiliating defeats.

It would also come before a major counteroffensive that Kyiv has been preparing for months.

US recession fears loom large over G7 summit

JAPAN AGENCIES

The announcement by Wagner came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky took part in the G7 summit in Japan.

The mercenary group’s boss Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed the city had fallen to his mercenaries in a video posted on

Telegram, in which fighters held Russian flags on the backdrop of ruins.

“Today on May 20, around midday, Bakhmut was taken in its entirety,” Prigozhin said in the video, adding that Wagner fighters would search the cap- tured city before handing it over to the official Russian army.

“By May 25 we will completely examine (Bakhmut), create the necessary lines of defence and hand it to the military,” Prigozhin said. “We ourselves will go into field camps.”

Artillery sound could be heard in the background of Prigozhin’s video.

Ukraine, which earlier this month claimed successes in and around Bakhmut, said the fighting for the city was ongoing.

“Heavy fighting in Bakhmut. The situation is critical,” deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar posted on Telegram.

She said Ukrainian troops were “holding the defence” in the city’s “Airplane area”.

“As of now, our defenders control certain industrial and infrastructure facilities in the area,” she said. It was not possible for AFP to verify either claims.

– ‘Bakhmut meat grinder’ –

White House, Republican team say no progress in debt ceiling talks

PROFIT REUTERS

The talks have hung over Biden’s meeting with world powers in Japan.

China to promote cooperation, boost common development with Kyrgyzstan

BEIJING

STAFF CORRESPONDENT

China is ready to work with Kyrgyzstan to faithfully implement the important consensus reached by the two heads of state, promote high-quality development of allround cooperation and boost the nations’ common development, Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Friday. Li made the remarks when meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov in Beijing. The two countries’ leaders have jointly announced the building of a China-Kyrgyzstan community with a shared future of good neighborliness and shared prosperity, Li noted. He called on the two sides to upgrade trade cooperation, promote the construction of interconnectivity such as the China-Central Asia transport corridor, foster new highlights of cooperation including green energy and crossborder e-commerce, and deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges on education, culture and tourism, among other areas. He also said that the two countries should continue enhancing security cooperation to ensure a stronger security barrier for their development and prosperity.

China is willing to work with Kyrgyzstan to implement the important outcomes of the China-Central Asia Summit, strengthen cooperation within the framework of the China-Central Asia mechanism and promote the greater development of China-Central Asia cooperation, Li added.

Noting that Kyrgyzstan-China relations are at their historical best, Japarov said the country is willing to deepen cooperation with China in political, economic and trade, people-to-people and other areas, strengthen coordination on international affairs, further advance bilateral ties, and join hands in responding to new challenges facing the world.

The U.S. president Joe Biden has arrived in Japan for the annual G7 summit and intends to cut his trip to Asia short and return to the U.S. on Sunday, since he has to continue negotiations with Congressional leaders on raising the country’s debt ceiling.

Debates over the debt ceiling have intensified over the past few weeks, putting the U.S. government under pressure to meet the deadline at the end of the month.

In a letter to Congressional leaders this Monday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned that the country could face a default on its debt obligations as early as June 1 if Congress fails to raise the borrowing cap. If that happens, the Department of the Treasury will likely be unable to fulfill all of the government’s obligations.

Since 2001, the U.S. federal government’s budget has run a deficit of nearly $1 trillion every year, according to the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, a part of the U.S. Department of the Treasury. However, starting from 2016, the growth in spending on Social Security, healthcare, and interest on the federal debt has exceeded the growth of federal revenue, resulting in a situation where the country spends significantly more money than it receives from taxes and other sources of income. To cover the shortfall, the government needs to borrow in order to sustain the payments that Congress has already approved.

A debt ceiling standoff

The U.S. government hit its $31.4 trillion borrowing limit in January 2023, amid a standoff between Republicans and Democrats on lifting the ceiling.

“Failure to meet the government’s obligations would cause irreparable harm to the U.S. economy, the livelihoods of all Americans and global financial stability,” Treasury Secretary and former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen wrote to Congress in January 2023.

“Indeed, in the past, even threats the U.S. government might fail to meet its obligations have caused real harm, including the only credit rating downgrade in the history of our nation in 2011.” Now, with the U.S. running up against the debt ceiling deadline, and negotiations between Congress and the White House remaining deadlocked, the issue of the debt ceiling has once again become a contentious topic. If the two sides can’t strike a deal to raise the country’s debt ceiling, millions of Americans will feel the impact. The White House states that throughout history, approaching the U.S. debt ceiling has proven to cause big disruptions in financial markets, adversely affecting households and businesses.

The threat of a U.S. default has always made Congress ultimately agree on a deal to raise the debt limit, according to Roger W. Ferguson Jr., an expert in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an independent and nonpartisan membership think tank based in New York. The letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, photographed Friday, January 13, 2023, notifying Congress that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on January 19, and will then resort to The letter from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California, photographed Friday, January 13, 2023, notifying Congress that the U.S. is projected to reach its debt limit on January 19, and will then resort to “extraordinary measures” to avoid default. /AP

A second meeting on Friday between White House and Republican congressional negotiators on raising the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling broke up with no progress cited by either side and no additional meeting set. That came at the end of a day of acrimonious talks that were broken off for several hours, with less than two weeks to go before June 1, when the Treasury Department warned that the federal government could be unable to pay all its debts. That would trigger a calamitous default.

While the White House acknowledged that “serious differences” remained with Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, President Joe Biden said he still believed a default could be avoided.

“I still believe we’ll be able to avoid a default and we’ll get something decent done,” Biden told reporters in Hiroshima, Japan, where he is attending a meeting of leaders of the Group of Seven rich nations.

Republicans have said they would not approve an increase in the federal government’s borrowing limit without agreement on sharp spending cuts.

“There continues to be real … differences between the parties on these issues,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters earlier, also in Hiroshima. The lead Republican in the talks said no progress had been made on Friday.

“We had a very, very candid discussion talking about where we are, talking about where things need to be,” Republican Representative Garret Graves told reporters following a second brief meeting in the Capitol with White House officials.

“This wasn’t a negotiation tonight,” Graves said, adding the timing of the next meeting was not set.

He echoed remarks by House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy that progress needed to be made on changing the “trajectory” of U.S. government deficit spending and rapidly rising debt.

“We have to spend less than the year before,” McCarthy said.

A second Republican negotiator, Representative Patrick McHenry, said he was not confident the two sides could meet McCarthy’s goal of reaching a deal this weekend, which could then be presented to Congress for passage in coming days.

Senior White House adviser Steve Ricchetti left the meeting room telling reporters that he was “not assessing” the talks.

A meeting earlier on Friday ended abruptly with McCarthy telling reporters there had not been any “movement” from the White House toward Republican demands. U.S. stocks closed the week on a soft note after news of the stalled negotiations.

Republicans are pushing for sharp spending cuts in exchange for the increase in the government’s self-imposed borrowing limit, a move needed regularly to cover costs of spending and tax cuts previously approved by lawmakers.

Republicans control the House of Representatives by a 222-213 margin, while Biden’s Democrats have a 51-49 Senate majority, making it difficult to thread the needle with a deal that will find enough votes to pass both chambers.

Democrats have been pushing to hold spending steady at this year’s levels, while Republicans want to return to 2022 levels. A plan passed by the House last month would cut a wide swath of government spending by 8% next year.

That plan does not specify what spending would be cut, but some Republicans have said they would shield military and veterans programs. Democrats say that would force average cuts of at least 22% on domestic programs like education and law enforcement, a figure top Republicans have not disputed.

Some Republicans have criticized Biden for taking the trip to Japan at a key point in the talks.

Biden and McCarthy spent most of the year in an impasse with the White House insisting on a “clean” increase in the debt ceiling without conditions. Republicans said they would only vote for a deal that cut spending.

How US helping Ukraine acquire F-16s shows that for military aid, ‘no’ can become ‘yes’

The US has once again buckled under pressure from European allies and Ukraine’s leaders and agreed to provide more sophisticated weapons to the war effort. This time it’s all about F-16 fighter jets.

Ukraine has long begged for the sophisticated fighter to give it a combat edge as it battles Russia’s invasion, now in its second year. And this new plan opens the door for several nations to supply the fourth-generation aircraft and for the US to help train the pilots. President Joe Biden laid out the agreement to world leaders meeting in Hiroshima, Japan, on Friday, according to US officials.

So far, however, the US has provided no details and said decisions on when, how many, and who will supply the F-16s will be made in the months ahead while the training is underway. Details on the training are equally elusive.

US officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss decisions not yet made public.

Still, with this decision, the Biden administration has made a sharp reversal, after refusing to approve any transfer of the aircraft or conduct training for more than a year due to worries that it could escalate tensions with Russia. US officials also have argued against the F-16 by saying that learning to fly and logistically support such an advanced aircraft.

While congratulating China on successfully hosting the China-Central Asia Summit, Japarov said it is believed that the mechanism is bound to become a major platform for international cooperation, contributing to regional and global peace and development.

Three takeaways from the China-Central Asia Summit

The China-Central Asia Summit concluded in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, on Friday.

During the summit, leaders of China and Central Asian countries signed and released the Xi’an Declaration of the China-Central Asia Summit and adopted a list of summit outcomes. Here are three takeaways from the summit. Building a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future

According to the declaration, both sides agreed that China maintains fruitful all-round cooperation with the five Central Asian countries, which serves the fundamental interests of the six countries and their peoples.

The six countries are determined to work together to rise to challenges and foster a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

Taking the summit as an opportunity, a mechanism for meetings among the heads of state of China and Central Asian countries has been officially established, with the two sides – China and Central Asian countries – taking turns to host the biennial summit. All parties will accelerate the building of the China-Central Asia mechanism, establish a ministerial meeting mechanism as soon as possible in key and priority areas of cooperation, and give full play to the role of their foreign ministries, it said.

Hailing the significance of jointly building the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in leading international cooperation, the six countries agreed to coordinate their respective development strategies with the BRI.

Closer cooperation

Recognizing the huge potential in cooperation between China and Central Asia, the six countries decided to comprehensively increase the scale of trade and expand cooperation in emerging fields such as digital trade and the green economy, according to the declaration.

All parties are willing to promote the cooperation and development of infrastructure and engineering construction, accelerate the connectivity of digital and green infrastructure, and jointly advance the sustainable development of cooperation in infrastructure and engineering construction, it said.

The six countries agreed to hold the forum on industrial and investment cooperation between China and the five Central Asian countries on a regular basis, upgrade the investment agreements between China and the Central Asian countries, and encourage the expansion of industrial cooperation to enhance the level of regional industrial development. They also vowed to speed up the construction of the cross-border railway that connects China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

In terms of green development, they agreed to accelerate the modernization and building of existing port facilities for implementing “green channel” fast clearance of agricultural and sideline products at all border ports between China and the Central Asian countries. All parties will take effective measures to raise the cross-border freight volume to build an all-round, complex, three-dimensional, low-carbon and sustainable transportation infrastructure system between China and Central Asia.

Central Asian leaders highlight BRI; vow more cooperation with China

XI’AN STAFF REPORT

Leaders from the Central Asian countries stressed the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and vowed support for the Xi’an Declaration during the China-Central Asia Summit on Friday in Xi’an, northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

They spoke highly of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s vision of building a community with a shared future for mankind, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative.

They would take the 10th anniversary of the BRI as an opportunity to advance regional connectivity, deepen pragmatic cooperation in various fields and build a closer China-Central Asia community with a shared future.

Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said that the synergy of the potential of the Central Asian countries with the enormous economic opportunities of China can lead bilateral partnerships onto a new, higher trajectory, and that comprehensive cooperation with China is a long-term stabilizing factor for Kazakhstan’s continuous progress.

In recent years, the BRI has promoted the building of modern transport infrastructure in many countries, he said. As a close neighbor and reliable partner of China, Kazakhstan will continue to take an active part in Belt and Road cooperation, he said.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said that the implementation of the BRI fits the national development strategies of the Central Asian countries and will bring huge economic benefits.

He hailed the importance of the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway project, calling it an important link of the BRI as the implementation of the strategic project will benefit transportation of the Central Asia region and connect about 4 billion people.

Noting that agriculture is the economic pillar of the Central Asian countries, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon said, “We are ready to cooperate with China in the field of agriculture to jointly address food security issues, introduce new agricultural cultivation and processing technologies, and attract investment.”

Greater connectivity in Central Asia is an important driving factor for reviving the Silk Road, he said, adding that the China-Central Asia partnership is increasingly important in view of the complex international environment.

Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov said that Central Asia and China have always had amity between their peoples, pragmatic cooperation and a good-neighborly friendship. The comprehensive potential of the five Central Asian countries and China, together with strong resource endowment, industrial foundation and technological reserve, opens up broad prospects for the economic development of both sides, he said.