NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON: A “breakthrough understanding” to open India’s nuclear power sector to US firms reached during President Barack Obama’s visit to New Delhi last month could be finalized this year, Indian officials say.
The Jan. 25 announcement by Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi followed six weeks of intensive talks, but few details were released beyond a framework based on India’s acceptance of the principle that plant operators should bear primary liability in the event of a nuclear disaster.
Significant work remains on the fine print of a deal aimed at unlocking projects worth tens of billions of dollars that have been stuck the drawing board for years. India wants to nearly treble its installed nuclear capacity, which would make it the world’s second biggest market after China.
US officials say details of an insurance scheme to protect suppliers from crippling lawsuits need to be thrashed out and India still has to ratify a UN nuclear convention. Indian officials do not rule out completing the process this year.
“We are committed to moving ahead on all implementation issues at an early date,” said Syed Akbaruddin, chief spokesman at India’s Ministry of External Affairs. “There are no policy hurdles left.”
General Electric and Westinghouse, a unit of Japan’s Toshiba, were fully briefed on the meetings of a nuclear “contact group” that hammered out the nuclear compromise in London, say sources with direct knowledge of the talks.
Bringing them into the mix was crucial because the prospect of huge lawsuits, like those against Union Carbide over the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, has until now kept US and other foreign firms on the sidelines.
India and the United States signed a landmark agreement to cooperate on nuclear power back in 2008. Yet an expected bonanza never materialized because India later passed a law that would expose reactor makers to liability if there was an accident.
The liability issue has became a metaphor for the unrealized potential of the bilateral business relationship and a question mark against Modi’s “Make in India” mantra.
“NOT INCOMPATIBLE“
As the days counted down to Obama’s visit, Indian officials persuaded their US counterparts that their law was “not incompatible” with international standards that place the burden of liability on the operator, said one senior US official.
New Delhi also proposed setting up an insurance pool with a liability cap of 15 billion rupees ($244 million). The state-run Nuclear Power Corporation of India would pay premiums to cover its liability. Suppliers would take out separate insurance against their secondary liability — which could not exceed that of the operator — at a “fraction” of the cost.
India must still ratify the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage (CSC), which requires signatories to channel liability to the operator and offers access to relief funds.
“We would be looking at how quickly we can ratify the CSC — this is part of our assurance to the suppliers, along with the insurance pool,” said an Indian member of the contact group, set up by Obama and Modi at a Washington summit last year.
The US official said Washington expects the Indians to ratify with the IAEA in the near future, along with documentation “stating what their law intends” on the issue of liability, which should offer further reassurance to US firms.
A QUESTION OF DETAIL
The US industry would have preferred the issue to be settled by amending the liability law, something considered politically impossible for Modi to achieve at the moment.
“We want to see all the detail before we say: ‘Yes, it works for us’,” Westinghouse President and CEO Daniel Roderick, who joined Obama’s delegation, told Reuters.
That note of caution, however, masks the extent to which negotiators engaged with the industry to address fears that it could end up on the hook in a disaster on the scale of the 2011 reactor blasts at Tepco’s plant in Fukushima, Japan.
“For the first time, we had a comprehensive inventory of concerns,” said the Indian negotiator.
Westinghouse has been granted land in Modi’s home state of Gujarat to build six reactors, while GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy is eyeing a similar project in Andhra Pradesh. The liability roadblock has prevented commercial talks from starting on the projects, with a combined capacity of 10,000 megawatts.
India has 21 nuclear reactors with an installed capacity of 21,300 MW. It plans to launch construction of 40,000 MW of capacity in the next decade.
US-India nuclear “breakthrough” could be finalized within year
US-India nuclear “breakthrough” could be finalized within year
Indonesian president says he will safeguard sovereignty in South China Sea
- Indonesia's foreign ministry earlier stressed that Indonesia does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea despite signing a maritime deal with Beijing last weekend
JAKARTA: Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said he would “always safeguard our sovereignty” when asked about the issue of the South China Sea, adding partnerships are better than conflicts and that “we respect all powers.”
Prabowo’s comments, made while he was in Washington on Wednesday, came after his foreign ministry stressed that Indonesia does not recognize China’s claims over the South China Sea despite signing a maritime deal with Beijing last weekend.
Beijing has long clashed with Southeast Asian nations over the South China Sea, which it claims almost in its entirety, based on a “nine-dash line” on its maps that cuts into the exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several countries.
“We respect all powers, but we will always safeguard our sovereignty. But I choose to always find possibilities of a partnership,” said Prabowo, who has repeatedly said he will pursue a non-aligned foreign policy.
“Partnerships are better than conflicts,” he told reporters.
Prabowo, who is on his first trip since taking office last month, met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing on the weekend. A maritime development deal signed by China and Indonesia said they had reached common understanding “on joint development in areas of overlapping claims.”
That wording sparked concern in Indonesia, with analysts saying it could be interpreted as a change in Jakarta’s long-held stance as a non-claimant state in the South China Sea, and risked compromising Indonesia’s sovereign rights to exploit resources in its EEZ.
Prabowo did not directly refer to the joint statement in his comments to reporters, but said he had discussed the South China Sea with US President Joe Biden in a meeting the day before.
Prabowo will also travel to Peru for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit and Brazil for the G20 summit.
Explosions kill 1 man outside Brazil’s Supreme Court and force justices to evacuate
- Local media reported that the blasts took place with 20 seconds between the first and the second explosions
SAO PAULO: Two explosions outside Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday killed a man and forced the justices and staff to evacuate the building in the capital of Brasilia.
The court said in a statement that two very strong blasts were heard at about 7:30 p.m. local time, shortly after Wednesday’s session finished. It added that all the justices and staff left the building safely after the incident.
Local firefighters confirmed that one man died at the scene, but did not identify him.
Celina Leão, the lieutenant governor of Brazil’s federal district, recommended that Congress be closed on Thursday to avoid new risks. She said police believe the man who died caused the explosions.
“It could have been a lone wolf, like others we’ve seen around the world,” Leão said in a news conference. “We are considering it as a suicide because there was only one victim. But investigations will show if that was indeed the case.”
Leão added only forensics will be able to identify the body, which remained outside the Supreme Court for two hours after the incident.
Local media reported that the blasts took place with 20 seconds between the first and the second explosions.
The incident took place in Brasilia’s Three Powers Plaza, an area where Brazil’s main government buildings, including the Supreme Court, Congress and presidential palace, are located.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was not in the neighboring presidential palace at the time of the blasts, said spokesman José Chrispiniano.
Police blocked all access to the area and the presidential security bureau was conducting a sweep of the grounds around the presidential palace.
Brazil’s federal police said it is investigating and did not provide a motive.
The Supreme Court in recent years has become a target for threats by far-right groups and supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro due to its crackdown on the spread of false information. In particular, Justice Alexandre de Moraes has been a focus for their ire.
Lula’s spokesman said the leftist leader is in a meeting at the presidential residence with federal police chief Andrei Rodrigues, and Supreme Court Justices de Moraes and Cristiano Zanin.
Earlier, another explosion was heard in the parking lot of Brazil’s Congress. Police said the blast apparently came out of a car, but no one was injured. Leão said authorities have already identified who is the owner of the car, but added the two incidents can only be linked after the investigations.
A diminished Biden heads to APEC summit in Peru, overshadowed by China’s Xi
- With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” says analyst
- President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display
LIMA, Peru: If things had gone differently last week, US President Joe Biden could have arrived at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru on Thursday projecting confidence and pledging his successor’s cooperation with eager Latin American partners. No longer.
Just as in 2016, the last time that Peru’s capital Lima hosted APEC, Donald Trump’s election victory has pulled the rug out from under a lame-duck Democrat at the high-profile summit attended by over a dozen world leaders.
The renewed prospect of Trump’s “America First” doctrine hampers Biden’s ability to reinforce the United States’ profile on his first presidential trip to South America, experts say, leaving China and its leader, Xi Jinping, to grab the limelight in America’s proverbial backyard.
President Xi’s first order of business in Peru is inaugurating a $1.3 billion megaport that will put China’s regional influence on stark display. Total investment is expected to top $3.5 billion over the next decade.
“This isn’t the way the US had hoped to participate in the summit,” said Margaret Myers, the director of the China and Latin America program at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. “All eyes are going to be on the port, what Xi says about it and how he articulates relations across the Pacific.”
With the US seemingly headed back toward isolationism under Trump, “China will be seen as the alternative,” Myers added.
Sitting 60 kilometers (37 miles) northeast of Lima, the Chancay megaport — once a serene fishing village — is perhaps the clearest sign of Latin America’s reorientation. The Chinese shipping and logistics giant Cosco holds a 60 percent stake in the project it developed with Peruvian partner, Volcan.
“With this port, we’re looking at the entire Pacific coast, from the United States and Canada all the way to Chile,” Peruvian Foreign Minister Elmer Schialer told The Associated Press in his office on Monday. “The shipping business is being transformed.”
Peruvian Economy Minister José Arista said in June during a visit to China that the country’s neighbors — Brazil, Colombia, Chile — are “making constant trips to and from to see how they can modify their supply chain to use this port,” which will cut shipping time to Beijing by 10 days.
China’s trade with the region ballooned 35-fold from 2000 to 2022, reaching nearly $500 billion, according to data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most of the region’s exports came from South America and were concentrated in five products: soybeans, copper and iron ore, oil and copper cathodes.
At the same time, China’s diplomatic engagement in the region has become more effective, with Xi visiting 11 Latin American countries since becoming president, according to Xinhua, China’s main state news agency. Brazil, host of the G20 summit, and Peru will bestow the rare honor of a full state visit to Xi this month, but not to Biden.
The misguided notion that Latin America must choose between its two largest trading partners is “a strategic defeat” for the US, said Eric Farnsworth, vice president at the Washington-based Council of the Americas.
“The idea that China is somehow a better partner is increasingly being heard around the region and I think Xi wants to solidify that and amplify that,” Farnsworth said.
Roughly a decade after China poured billions of dollars into building power plants, roads, airports and other infrastructure that saddled some developing countries with unserviceable debt, few expect Beijing to direct more massive loans to Latin America through its Belt and Road Initiative. But deeper cooperation on other infrastructure is possible, particularly renewable energy and telecommunications, said the Boston University Bulletin.
The US has appealed to Latin American governments to reject telecoms investment, particularly opposing Huawei, the Chinese tech giant that it argues could open the door to Chinese government spying. Similarly, US officials have raised concerns over the Chancay port’s possible dual-use by Beijing’s navy in the Pacific — a prospect dismissed by Chinese officials.
China “is working to exploit insecurity in our hemisphere,” said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Southern Command headquarters in Florida this week, adding that the Asian giant is leveraging the need for investment in the Americas to advance its “malign agenda.”
Despite its objections to Chinese influence, the US hasn’t shown the ability or willingness to build infrastructure like Chancay’s megaport, experts note.
Even when the US government has worked to ensure competitive bidding in Latin American massive public works projects, American companies have refrained from participating, said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America Program.
A Kamala Harris administration wouldn’t have changed that, but a Democratic victory would have enabled Biden to speak in Lima with authority about US collaboration to come, such as building regional supply chains, Gedan said.
In sharp contrast to Biden’s alliance-building approach, Trump has vowed to protect American interests and promised more of the same unilateralist action the world saw in his first term when he staked out a combative stance against foreign competitors and deepened the US trade war with China.
In 2022, Biden launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to help integrate the economies of the region and enable the US to counterbalance China. But last year, on the campaign trail, Trump said he would kill the trade pact if he were to win the 2024 election and return to the White House — in the same way, he pulled the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership immediately after taking office in 2017.
In the years since, US clout in South America has diminished while China’s has grown, said Farnsworth, recalling how the last time Lima hosted APEC in 2016, the shock of Trump’s victory sucked the energy out of then-President Barack Obama’s delegation.
Peru’s top diplomat insists that the US hasn’t ceded its dominant voice guiding discussions about trade at gatherings such as APEC — and doubted that it will, even under Trump.
“I’m not sure that Trump will go against these types of multilateral contexts just because he is worried about the American people,” Schialer said. “He knows that the US is too important for the world. We have to sit down and have a nice dialogue and see how we can face these challenges together.”
Biden will hold talks Saturday with Xi on the sidelines of APEC, according to the US president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The White House has been working for months to arrange a final meeting between Xi and Biden before the Democrat leaves office in January.
Meantime, in the wake of Trump’s win and China’s port opening in Peru, analysts expect the hard-nosed competition between the US and China to overshadow APEC.
“The Chinese love the idea of outmaneuvering the US in its near-abroad,” Gedan said. “Xi will luxuriate in this dynamic of being able to arrive with a big delegation, (...) to inaugurate this transformational port and suck all the air out of the room when his American counterpart is very weak politically. That is significant to China.”
Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures
- On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and shame”
PARIS: Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a controversial gala organized by far-right figures in support of Israel. The event, intended to raise funds for the Israeli military, included Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich among its invited guests.
The demonstrations came on the eve of a high-stakes soccer match at France’s national stadium against the Israeli national team, overshadowed by tensions around the wars in the Middle East. Authorities in Paris announced that more than 4,000 police officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for the game.
Smotrich, a vocal advocate of Israeli settlements, had been expected to attend Wednesday’s gala, dubbed “Israel is Forever,” which was planned by an association of the same name. The group’s stated goal is to “mobilize French-speaking Zionist forces.”
After days of growing criticism of the event, Smotrich’s office confirmed Wednesday that the minister would not travel to Paris to participate.
But the invitation to Smotrich drew sharp criticism from local associations, unions and left-wing political parties, prompting two protests in the French capital. The minister, a hard-line settler leader, has been accused of inflaming tensions in the West Bank and drew international condemnations this week by saying he hopes the election of Donald Trump will clear the way for Israeli annexation of the West Bank — a step that would extinguish Palestinian statehood dreams.
The French Foreign Ministry called Smotrich’s remarks “contrary to international law” and counterproductive to efforts to reduce regional tensions.
“France reiterates its commitment to the implementation of the two-state solution, with Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, which is the only prospect for a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
Critics also pointed at Nili Kupfer-Naouri, president of the “Israel is Forever” association, who sparked outrage in 2023, after the Israel-Hamas war started, when she tweeted that “no civilian in Gaza was innocent.”
On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and shame.”
“Imagine if an association were hosting a gala for Hezbollah or Hamas — there’s no way the police would allow that,” said Melkir Saib, a 30-year-old protester. “The situation is just unfair.”
The march was largely peaceful, but some demonstrators broke windows at a McDonald’s along the route.
A separate group, including Jewish leftist organizations opposed to racism and antisemitism, gathered near the Arc de Triomphe chanting slogans against the gala and Smotrich.
French authorities defended the event, with Paris police chief Laurent Nunez stating that the gala posed “no major threat to public order.”
The protests came days after tensions flared in Paris and Amsterdam related to the conflicts in the Mideast. A massive “Free Palestine” banner was displayed during a Paris Saint-Germain Champions League match against Atletico Madrid, while violence broke out in Amsterdam last week targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club.
Catholic bishops urged to boldly share church teachings — even unpopular ones
- Bishop Robert Barron: ‘And we shouldn’t be cowed by the celebrities and so on in the culture who are preaching something that’s deeply problematic.’
The prelates acknowledged theirs is often a countercultural view.
“We have been too apologetic for too long,” said Bishop Robert Barron, a media-savvy cleric who leads the Winona-Rochester diocese in Minnesota. “And we shouldn’t be cowed by the celebrities and so on in the culture who are preaching something that’s deeply problematic.”
The remarks came during the bishops’ annual fall meeting and a presentation on a Vatican declaration released in April. “Dignitas Infinita,” or “Infinite Dignity,” clarifies church teaching that promotes the dignity of all people and the protection of life from its earliest stages through death.
“The goal is to apply the lessons of ‘Dignitas Infinita’ to our American society,” said Barron, who praised the declaration for its “distinctively Catholic voice” – one that is not Democratic or Republican, liberal or conservative.
The 20 pages of “Infinite Dignity” were five years in the making and single out a range of harms, including forced migration and sexual abuse. In it, the Vatican labels gender-affirming surgery and surrogacy as violations of human dignity, comparing them to abortion and euthanasia.
Pope Francis has reached out to LGBTQ+ people throughout his papacy, and the document was a disappointing setback, if not unexpected, for transgender people and supporters of their rights. It comes during an election year in the United States where there has been a conservative backlash to transgender rights.
Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane, Washington, spoke to the meeting about how Catholic schools can be a vehicle for educating young people about Catholic sexual ethics.
“We want our students to see the church’s teaching on sexuality as an expression of this deeper understanding of the human person, and not simply just a set of rules that stand in opposition to our popular culture,” Daly said.
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, who is finishing a term as chair of the USCCB committee on pro-life activities, expressed gratitude to the Vatican and called the declaration “incredibly timely.”
“Sadly, many states continue to enshrine abortion in their state constitutions,” he told the gathering, referencing recent state ballot initiatives. “We know we still have so much work to do.”
“Our work is not only to change laws, but to change hearts, to change minds,” Burbidge added.
Throughout their meeting, the US bishops have reaffirmed their anti-abortion commitments, even in the face of losses at the ballot box.
Voters supported 7 out of 10 abortion rights state ballot measures this election. Even in Florida, where the abortion rights amendment failed, 57 percent of voters supported the measure, just shy of the 60 percent it needed to pass.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City earlier told the gathering during an evangelization discussion that the success of abortion rights ballot initiatives should be “a wake-up call for us.” He said more pointed language is needed to help people accept church teaching on life issues.
In his opening address, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, laid out a vision of proclaiming church teaching, even when it’s not popular or convenient.
“We never back-pedal or renounce the clear teaching of the Gospel. We proclaim it in and out of season,” said Broglio. “We must insist on the dignity of the human person from womb to tomb, be unstinting in our commitment.”
