Joe Biden warns of 'consequences' for Saudi Arabia after oil production cuts - Financial Times

Joe Biden warned that Saudi Arabia would face “consequences” for defying Washington by announcing large cuts to oil production last week as he vowed to re-evaluate the US relationship with Riyadh in talks with Congress next month.

“I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be consequences,” the US president told CNN in an interview on Tuesday night. “When the House and Senate get back [after the midterm elections] . . . there’s going to be some consequences.”

Last week Opec+, which is led by Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, and Russia, announced that it would cut its oil production targets by 2mn barrels a day, despite pressure from Washington not to go ahead with the move.

Saudi Arabia said the cartel took the decision because of market conditions amid fears of a global recession, and to preserve prices as the kingdom pushes ahead with highly ambitious plans to modernise the conservative nation. But the move infuriated the Biden administration as it prepares for midterm elections next month and as the world grapples with soaring energy inflation triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Biden’s vow to punish Saudi Arabia for the decision by the kingdom and other oil producers to slash oil production came as he downplayed the risk of a deep downturn in the US economy even as the IMF issued a gloomy global forecast in 2023.

“I don’t think there will be a recession,” Biden said of the US. “If it is, it’ll be a very slight recession. That is, we’ll move down slightly.”

Biden has come under increasing pressure from Democrats in Congress to take a much tougher line against Saudi Arabia after a move that many on Capitol Hill saw as a betrayal of the countries’ longstanding strategic and economic ties. Some have called for the possible halt of most arms sales to Riyadh, while others have championed legislation to take aim at oil cartels.

The president defended his decision to travel to Saudi Arabia in July, where he greeted Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump, saying the visit was not about “oil” but about demonstrating that the US was “not going to walk away from the Middle East”.

Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud sought to play down the rift, saying the US “is the primary strategic and security partner for Saudi Arabia”.

“I think that when politicians in America assess the relationship in its entirety, they will recognise its importance and the benefits it brings and they will continue to co-operate with Saudi Arabia. We are keen on this co-operation,” he told the Saudi-owned broadcaster Al-Arabiya in an interview on Tuesday night.

Biden also spoke at length about Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has escalated sharply in recent days with Moscow’s bombing campaign against several cities in response to an attack on the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.

Biden called Vladimir Putin a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly” and said he did not believe Russia would use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Last week, Biden said he feared the risk of “Armageddon” was at its highest since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.

The president also sought to explain what he meant last week when he referred to a possible “off-ramp” for Putin that would allow for de-escalation: “Clearly, he could leave, he could flat-out leave.”

Biden said he had no intention of meeting Putin at next month’s G20 summit in Indonesia, but might do so if he was approached about the release of Brittney Griner, the American basketball player jailed in Russia.

With midterm elections less than a month away, Biden also touted his domestic accomplishments. His low approval ratings have been a liability for Democratic lawmakers in tough Senate and House races.

“Look what I’ve gotten done. Name me a president in recent history who has gotten as much done as I have in the first two years. Not a joke,” Biden said.

He has also faced growing questions about his viability in terms of seeking a second term in the White House. “I believe I can beat Donald Trump again,” Biden said.

Additional reporting by Samer Al-Atrush in Dubai

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2022-10-12 02:34:00Z
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Crimea bridge attack arrests as fresh blasts heard - BBC

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By Robert Plummer

BBC News

Russia says it has detained eight people in connection with Saturday's explosion on a key bridge linking Russia to Crimea.

Its FSB security service said five of those held were Russians, while the others were Ukrainian and Armenian.

The FSB has accused the Ukrainian security services of being behind the attack on the bridge.

The news came as explosions were reported in the Ukrainian cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and Nikopol.

The BBC's Hugo Bachega in Kyiv said five explosions had been heard in Kherson, one of the largest cities under Russian occupation, while there were unconfirmed reports that the air defence system in the city had been activated.

He said it was not clear what had triggered the explosions.

The blast on the Crimea Bridge was a powerful symbolic blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who opened the bridge in 2018, four years after Russia's annexation of Crimea.

President Putin called it an "act of terrorism", saying Ukraine's intelligence forces had aimed to destroy a critically important piece of Russia's civil infrastructure.

• Who - or what - blew up the Crimean bridge?
• 'New wave of terror' calls for more sanctions

Russian forces retaliated on Monday with a wave of missile strikes across the country, including central Kyiv, killing 19 people.

Following more strikes on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has urged countries to hit Russia with more sanctions in response to "a new wave of terror".

He called on the West to find new ways to apply political pressure to Russia and support Ukraine.

The calls came after he met the G7 group of nations for emergency virtual talks on Tuesday.

The bloc - which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and US - promised to continue providing "financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal" support to his country "for as long as it takes".

Nato also said it would stand with Ukraine for as long as necessary.

In another development, Polish pipeline operator Pern said it had detected a leak in one pipeline in the Druzhba system that carries oil from Russia to Europe.

The discovery follows leaks in the Nord Stream undersea gas pipelines that transport Russian gas to Europe, which have been widely blamed on sabotage.

Europe is facing a severe energy crisis in the aftermath of Moscow's invasion of Ukraine as it tries to wean itself off Russian gas and oil.

The continent has imposed tough sanctions on Russia in an effort to put economic pressure on the Kremlin.

Pern said that at this point, the causes of the leak were unknown. It was detected in a section of the pipe about 70km from the central Polish city of Plock.

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2022-10-12 07:12:05Z
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Zelenskyy asks G7 for air defences after new round of Russian strikes - Financial Times

Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the G7 countries to speed up supplies of air defence systems after another day of a Russian missile barrage struck civilian and infrastructure targets across Ukraine.

The Ukrainian president’s plea came during a video conference held by the G7 leaders, including US President Joe Biden. Zelenskyy told the group Russia “has fired more than 100 cruise missiles and dozens of various drones” over the past two days, many hitting cities that have been free of attacks for months.

“When Ukraine obtains enough modern and effective surface-to-air defence systems, the key element of Russian terror — missile attacks — will no longer work,” he said.

The second Russian fusillade appeared to be less intense than the nationwide bombings on Monday that left dozens of Ukrainian civilians dead in some of the country’s largest cities. Ukraine’s air force said on Tuesday that Russia had fired 28 cruise missiles and scores of kamikaze drones targeting critical infrastructure, 20 of which had been destroyed by Ukrainian air defences.

A government app that warns residents when Russian missiles have entered Ukrainian airspace showed all 24 of the country’s provinces on red alert.

The city of Zaporizhzhia in south-eastern Ukraine was struck by 12 rockets in the early hours of Tuesday morning, killing one person and damaging several residential buildings, businesses and a pipeline, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office.

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Andriy Sadoviy, the mayor of Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine, said strikes had knocked out power supplies for a second day. “There has been a rocket attack on a critical infrastructure facility in Lviv. Part of the city is again without electricity,” he said in a Telegram channel post.

A power station in the Vinnytsia region was hit by kamikaze drones, the electricity company DTEK reported, while there was also a drone attack on Khmelnytskyi in western Ukraine.

Two missiles were shot down by air defences in the Kyiv region, its governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on Telegram.

Pictures posted on social media showed people in Kyiv taking shelter in basements and in the capital’s cavernous metro system for a second day.

Ihor Klymenko, chief of Ukraine’s national police, speaking on state television, said updated reports had confirmed at least 19 people were killed and 108 injured in Monday’s missile and drone barrage. He added that 199 infrastructure sites had been damaged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the strikes were retaliation for an attack on Saturday that damaged a vital road and railway bridge connecting Russian-occupied Crimea with the Russian mainland.

Monday’s assaults on civilian targets were denounced by several western governments as war crimes.

In his remarks to the G7, Zelenskyy did not mention Putin by name, but he made clear that he believed no direct peace negotiations or agreements could be held as long as Putin was Russia’s leader.

“Talks can be either with another head of Russia — who will comply with the UN Charter, the basic principles of humanity and territorial integrity of Ukraine — or in a different configuration,” Zelenskyy said. “One person is blocking peace — and this person is in Moscow.”

Zaporizhzhia has suffered constant bombardment in recent weeks. On Tuesday it was hit with Russian S-300 surface-to-air missiles adjusted to be used against ground targets, said Ukraine’s state emergency service.

It said rescuers were searching for people trapped under debris and that repairs were being made to damaged infrastructure. It shared photographs on Telegram of first responders putting out a huge blaze that engulfed a commercial centre.

“Most of the rockets landed on the island of Khortytsia, where buildings were destroyed, windows were broken and rooftops were damaged . . . Also, a car dealership was damaged directly in the city,” said Tymoshenko of the Ukrainian president’s office.

Video: How Putin held Europe hostage over energy | FT Energy Source

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2022-10-11 18:37:19Z
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Putin taps 'General Armageddon' to reverse Ukraine battlefield failures - Financial Times

Vladimir Putin gave a clue this week about the mastermind behind Russia’s heaviest missile onslaught since the early days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In a television address lauding the operation and warning of more to come, the Russian president said Monday’s strikes on cities across Ukraine — launched in retaliation for the attack on the Kerch bridge linking Russia to the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea — were ordered “at the defence ministry’s suggestion”.

The remark pointed to Sergei Surovikin, a hardline general named as commander of Moscow’s invasion forces two days earlier.

In appointing a man who has earned nicknames such as “the fierce one” and “General Armageddon”, Putin has signalled he will react to Russia’s battlefield failures by intensifying the war, analysts say.

“Surovikin is like Marshal Zhukov”, commander of the Soviet Union’s Red Army in the second world war, said Ruslan Pukhov, director of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies, a Moscow defence think-tank.

“He’s a tough guy who knows how to run a war. He’s a real beast, not some dumb vodka-drinking guy or a pseudointellectual. He’s a real fighter who isn’t scared to tell the higher-ups the truth.”

Formerly head of Russia’s air force, Surovikin took command as Moscow’s faltering seven-month campaign reached its lowest ebb.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has reclaimed territory from Russian occupation despite Putin’s decision to unilaterally annex four regions in the south-east — putting Moscow in the humiliating position of losing land it had claimed as part of Russia days before.

Surovikin, right, Russian president Vladimir Putin, left, and then-prime minister Dmitry Medvedev at a 2017 ceremony in Moscow for personnel who fought in Syria © Kirill Kudryavtsev/POOL/AFP/Getty Images

The Kremlin has since sanctioned a wave of public criticism of the armed forces as the military’s problems with manpower, munitions and logistics, as well as a deeply unpopular mobilisation drive, become too glaring to ignore.

“Russian military problems are not the kind that can be resolved by appointing a different commander,” said Michael Kofman, military analyst and director in the Russia Studies Program at CNA, a US defence think-tank. “But if you look at [Surovikin’s] performance since the summer [when he commanded Russian troops on the southern front], Russian forces in the south have fared the least worst.”

Surovikin, 56, is notorious for his campaigns in Syria, where he served two stints as commander of Russian forces supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime. Human Rights Watch named him among officials who “may bear command responsibility” for attacks on civilians, alleging in a 2020 report that he had ordered attacks on homes, schools and hospitals. In line with those tactics, Russian missiles on Monday and Tuesday hit civilian infrastructure, including a playground in Kyiv, despite continuing claims by Moscow that only military sites were targeted.

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Ukrainian officials have claimed Surovikin’s appointment and the recent air strikes are part of an intimidation campaign.

“Every escalation, they bring in more dangerous people. This guy was known as the Butcher of Syria. They brought in a bad guy to scare us. But we won’t be scared,” said Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK. “They finally understood they can’t do anything on the ground . . . So they brought in an air forces guy to try. To me, this means Putin is really frustrated, really desperate.”

Surovikin’s appointment may also appease Russian hardliners who have called for strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, say analysts.

He has had a reputation for ruthlessness since a 1991 coup attempt by Soviet hardliners, when he led an army unit sent to quell pro-democracy protests. The putsch failed and Surovikin was jailed for six months after troops under his command killed three unarmed demonstrators. But the charges against him were dropped and he was released and promoted.

Surovikin’s subsequent career was marked by brutality and lawbreaking gone unpunished, according to Ilya Venyavkin, a historian who has written about the general. “He’s someone who is ready to fulfil orders no matter what happens and never admits any mistakes,” he said. “And they will say he did everything right and so he’ll be even more cruel next time.”

In 1995, Surovikin was arrested for arms trafficking and given a suspended sentence that was later overturned. In 2004, a subordinate in his unit accused him of beating him up, while another killed himself after Surovikin criticised him. During Russia’s bloody campaign in Chechnya in the mid-2000s, Surovikin vowed to kill three Chechens for every soldier he lost. Memorial, Russia’s oldest human rights organisation, accused his unit of war crimes, including torture, forced disappearances and at least one murder.

Despite his notoriety, Surovikin has shown a capacity for inspiring his men, said Pukhov, of the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies. “He’s been through everything, including two stints in prison, and even that didn’t break him. That means he can inspire the troops and has a reputation across the whole armed forces.”

The general’s reputation has helped win over some of the army’s fiercest critics, including Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov and Evgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russian mercenary group Wagner.

Kadyrov said he was “100 per cent satisfied” with the conduct of the war after Monday’s strikes, while Prigozhin called Surovikin “legendary” and said his revanchist image was something for all of Russia to aspire to.

Russian forces at an undisclosed location in Ukraine. The military’s problems with manpower, munitions and logistics have become too glaring to ignore © Russian Defense Ministry/AP

“Surovikin didn’t have time to get all of his ammunition into his tank in August 1991,” Prigozhin posted on social media app Telegram at the weekend. “If he had, we’d be living in a totally different country, one 10 times more powerful.”

The praise from hardliners suggests Surovikin shares their demand for the mobilisation of Russia’s reserves as “cannon fodder”, said Kirill Rogov, a visiting fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna.

Putin’s decision backfired at home, with more people fleeing to Kazakhstan to escape the draft than have been conscripted into the army. But calling up an extra 200,000 men allows Russia to fight on without worrying about high casualties, Rogov said.

“In the last few months, they had to be careful about how many men they lost, because the contract soldiers would just rip up their contracts and run away,” said Rogov. “Now they can stop caring about . . . high losses.”

Surovikin’s appointment “fits into the traditional mythology: you have useless commanders who lead the Russian army to defeat and you need some fierce warrior who can turn the war around, sort out supplies and use a strong hand to restore order”, said Venyavkin, the historian.

Putin appears to have decided that “the Soviet Union collapsed because they didn’t have people ready to use extreme force”, he added. “So now if we have a geopolitical threat defined only by Putin and the people in power, they are ready to use any force they deem appropriate to defend against it.”

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2022-10-11 16:33:09Z
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Biden to 're-evaluate' Saudi relations after Opec cuts, White House says - Financial Times

US president Joe Biden is re-evaluating America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia after the Opec+ decision last week to cut oil production, a top White House adviser said on Tuesday, as tensions between Washington and Riyadh continue to rise.

“I think the president’s been very clear that this is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to be willing to revisit, and certainly in light of the Opec decision, I think that’s where he is,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s senior communications adviser, told CNN on Tuesday.

Kirby’s comments come after senior Democrats on Capitol Hill have been calling on the White House and Congress to take a much tougher stance on Saudi Arabia in light of the production cuts, which were announced just four weeks before the US midterm elections, threatening a new surge in oil prices.

Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate foreign relations committee, called for a freeze in co-operation with Saudi Arabia, possibly including a halt to weapons sales to the kingdom.

“I will not greenlight any co-operation with Riyadh until the kingdom reassesses its position with respect to the war in Ukraine. Enough is enough,” Menendez said.

Other lawmakers, including top Democrats on the Senate judiciary committee, are calling on Congress to approve “Nopec” legislation, which would empower the Department of Justice to bring price-fixing cases against oil cartels, stripping them of sovereign immunity.

Kirby said Biden was “willing to work with Congress” on punitive steps against Saudi Arabia and that those talks would start immediately.

“I don’t think this is anything that’s going to have to wait, or should wait, quite frankly, for much longer,” he added.

Biden had already vowed to recalibrate the US-Saudi relationship early in his White House term after promising to make Riyadh a “pariah” during the 2020 presidential campaign amid anger at the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

But after petrol prices rose sharply this year, driven by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, US officials sought to patch up ties with Saudi Arabia. In July, Biden visited the kingdom, greeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with a fist bump.

Last week’s production cuts were seen as a major blow to the relationship in Washington, however. Biden branded them “shortsighted” as soon as they were announced, while Janet Yellen, the US Treasury secretary, told the FT they were “unhelpful and unwise” in an interview ahead of this week’s IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Washington.

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2022-10-11 14:55:45Z
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Madeleine McCann suspect charged with several sexual offences by German prosecutors - Sky News

The prime suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007 has been charged in Germany with several sexual offences allegedly committed in Portugal.

Christian B allegedly committed the offences between 2000 and 2017, German prosecutors said.

The prosecutor's office said the charges do not relate to the McCann case.

Madeleine was on holiday with her family in Praia da Luz in the Algarve region of Portugal in 2007 when she went missing from their holiday apartment.

Investigators believe the 45-year-old convicted sex offender killed Madeleine after abducting her. He has denied any involvement in the case, and was identified as a suspect by Portuguese officials in June 2020.

He is behind bars in Germany for raping a woman in the same area of the Algarve region of Portugal where Madeleine went missing in 2007.

Prosecutors say the sexual offence charges include three counts of aggravated rape and two counts of sexual abuse of children. They say he filmed the rapes.

Image: Madeleine McCann

The charges include:

• Raping and beating a 70 to 80-year-old woman at her holiday flat in Portugal at an unspecified time between December 2000 and April 2006
• Beating and forcing a girl aged over 14 to perform a sex act sometime between December 2000 and April 2006 at his house in Praia da Luz
• Raping a 20-year-old woman from Ireland and performing a sex act on her at a flat in Praia da Rocha in Portugal on 16 June 2004
• Exposing himself to a 10-year-old German girl at a beach in Salema in the district of Faro in Portugal on 7 April 2007
• Exposing himself to an 11-year-old Portuguese girl at a playground in Bartolomeu de Messines in Portugal on 11 June 2017

The investigation into Madeleine's disappearance is continuing irrespective of the charges brought, prosecutors said.

The Federal Criminal Police Office and the prosecutor's office in Braunschweig issued a new request to the public for assistance with the McCann case.

Earlier this year, on the 15th anniversary of Madeleine's disappearance, her parents said it is "essential" to learn the truth of what happened to their daughter.

On the same day, the Metropolitan Police, which continues to treat the case as a missing persons inquiry, said it is "committed" to finding the truth.

In July 2013 Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into Madeleine's disappearance.

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2022-10-11 14:48:50Z
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Donegal explosion: This tiny Irish hamlet, proudly associated with the sound of music, has been left with a 'terrible silence' - Sky News

Creeslough's welcome sign, picked out in gold lettering on a black background, proudly announces that the village is the "home of Bridie Gallagher, the Girl from Donegal", a popular entertainer in the '50s and '60s known as Ireland's first international pop star. 

But in the last 24 hours, this village of just 400 people, in the northwest of Ireland, has become known around the world for a far more tragic and unwelcome reason.

When the Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin arrived here this evening, he appeared visibly struck by the eerie, penetrating silence of the scene around the wrecked petrol station.

Yes, dozens of journalists and emergency workers filled the street, but they were muted. Sombre. Unusually at events of this magnitude, there have been very few bystanders at the cordon.

"There's a terrible silence," Mr Martin told reporters. It reflected, he said, the enormity of what has happened here, a "deep sadness".

Read more: Teenage girl among 10 people killed in Ireland petrol station blast is named

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2:09

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin also pledged support to help the community get through the tragedy

A man who is no stranger to bereavement - he and his wife Mary have lost two children - even he seemed to struggle to find the right words when asked for a message to the grieving families.

"They've lost someone very dear to them", he said before pausing, perhaps remembering something from his personal experience. "That individual life, to each family, means so much. They must be given time and space to grieve, and to come through this."

A couple of birds chirped, and a few boots crunched over the broken glass, but it barely seemed to puncture the gloomy silence. The few locals that came to take a look weren't much in the mood to talk. One woman seemed relieved to hear the death toll was "only" ten people. She had feared it would rise much more dramatically.

Across the road, Siobhan Carr and her tireless staff at The Coffee Pod doled out hot drinks, vegetable soup, hearty ham and cheese sandwiches and delicate cupcakes to exhausted emergency workers and volunteers, all free of charge.

Image: The Coffee Pod gave out drinks to emergency services workers

Image: Pic: North West Newspix

They refused point-blank to take payment from the media, sheepish at the Donegal generosity being extended to them.

It's hard to imagine how exactly the village recovers from this. It's thought, police told us, that all the dead and injured are from the locality. Almost every family here will know someone dead or injured.

Ireland's Deputy Prime Minister Leo Varadkar reflected on a "freak accident that has left many empty chairs at dinner tables. It is just too hard to fathom".

It would be hard to fathom in a large village, harder still in a village of just a few hundred.

A tiny Irish hamlet proudly associated with the sound of music, its famous starlet. Now left mute.

A devastating explosion, followed by a terrible silence.

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2022-10-10 16:58:39Z
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