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Biden Goals to Bolster U.S. Alliances in Europe, however Challenges Loom

Biden Aims to Bolster U.S. Alliances in Europe, but Challenges Loom

WASHINGTON – It shouldn’t be that difficult being an American leader visiting Europe for the first time since President Donald J. Trump.

But President Biden will face his own challenges as he leaves on Wednesday, especially as the United States faces a disruptive Russia and an emerging China as it seeks to reassemble and rally the shaken Western alliance after the coronavirus pandemic.

Mr. Biden, who will be coming to a series of summits backed by a successful vaccination program and a recovering economy, will spend the next week making sure America is back and ready to face the West again in a, as he calls it, leading an existential collision between democracies and autocracies.

The agenda includes meetings in the UK with leaders from the Group of 7 Nations, followed by visits to NATO and the European Union. On the last day of Mr Biden, he will hold his first meeting as President with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin in Geneva.

Mr Biden’s overarching role is to convey the diplomatic serenity that eluded such gatherings during four years as Mr Trump destroyed longstanding relationships with close allies, threatened to withdraw from NATO, and hugged Mr Putin and other autocrats and admired her strength.

But the goodwill that Mr. Biden brings, simply by being not Mr. Trump papers, over persistent doubts about his durability, American reliability and the cost Europe is likely to pay. At 78, is Mr. Biden the last breath of an old-style internationalist foreign policy? Will Europe pay for a new Cold War with Russia? Will it be asked to sign up for a China Containment Policy? And will Mr. Biden deliver on the climate?

These questions will arise when he deals with disagreements over trade, new restrictions on investments and purchases in China, and his ever-evolving stance on a natural gas pipeline that will run directly from Russia to Europe, bypassing Ukraine.

Throughout this time, Mr. Biden will face European leaders who face the United States in a way it has not been since 1945, wondering where we are headed.

“You saw the state of the Republican Party,” said Barry Pavel, director of the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security at Atlantic Council. “You saw January 6th. You know you could have another president in 2024.”

White House officials say that stable American diplomacy has finally returned, but of course they can no longer offer guarantees after January 2025. European officials are following the angry political clashes in the United States and finding that Mr Trump has his party firmly under control, he is barely faltering.

Days before Mr Biden’s departure, Republicans in Congress opposed the establishment of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol Rebellion. Republican lawmakers applauds Mr Trump’s false claims that the 2020 elections were stolen. The Democrats are stalling in their efforts to pass sweeping laws to counter the Republican attacks on state suffrage.

Despite everything, Trump repeatedly points to a political comeback in four years.

“There is a concern about American politics,” said Ian Lesser, vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “Simple, what will happen in the midterm elections? Whether Trumpism will prove to be more permanent than Mr. Trump. What’s next in American politics? “

If the future of the United States is the long-term concern, dealing with a disruptive Russia is the immediate agenda. No part of the trip will be more expensive than a full-day meeting with Mr Putin.

Mr Biden called for the meeting – the first since Mr Trump accepted Putin’s denial of electoral interference at a summit in Helsinki, Finland three years ago – despite warnings from human rights activists that it would empower and encourage the Russian leader. Jake Sullivan, Mr Biden’s national security advisor, noted that American presidents met with their Soviet counterparts during the Cold War and then with their Russian successors. But on Monday he said Mr Biden would warn Mr Putin directly that without a change in behavior, there will be “answers”.

However, veterans of the Washington-Moscow battle say disrupting Putin is a true superpower.

“Putin doesn’t necessarily want a more stable or predictable relationship,” said Alexander Vershbow, who was ambassador to Russia under President George W. Bush. “The best case one can hope for is that the two leaders argue about many things but continue the dialogue.”

White House officials say the president has no intention of reshaping relations with Russia. After Mr Biden called Putin a “killer” earlier this year, he is clear about his adversary. They said: He regards Mr Putin as a die-hard mafia boss ordering beatings with the country’s nerve gas supplies than a national leader.

But Mr Biden is determined to guardrail the relationship and ensure some level of collaboration, starting with the future of their nuclear arsenals.

But there is a dawning awareness in Europe that while Putin values ​​his growing arsenal, Russia’s nuclear capabilities are a strategic holdover from an era of superpower conflict. In what Putin recently dubbed a new Cold War with the United States, the weapons of choice are cyber weapons, ransomware used by gangs operating out of Russian territory, and the ability to target neighbors like Ukraine by mass troops To shake the limit.

Mr Biden will adopt NATO and Article V of its charter, the section requiring every member of the alliance to view an armed attack on one as an armed attack on all. But it’s less clear what an armed attack is in the modern age: a cyberattack like the SolarWinds hacking that infiltrates corporate and government networks? The transfer of medium-range missiles and Russian troops to the border of Ukraine, which is not a NATO member?

Mr Biden’s staff say the key for him is to make it clear that he has seen Putin’s courage before and that it does not concern him.

“Joe Biden is not Donald Trump,” said Thomas E. Donilon, who was a national security adviser to President Barack Obama and whose wife and brother are important helpers to Mr. Biden. “You will not have this inexplicable reluctance of a US president to criticize a Russian president who runs a country that is actively hostile to the United States in so many areas. You won’t have that. “

However, when Mr Biden defines the current struggle as “a struggle between the benefits of 21st century democracies and autocracies,” he appears to be more concerned about China’s attractiveness as a trading partner and source of technology than Russia’s disruption. And while Europeans largely do not see China as the kind of growing technological, ideological, and military threat Washington is doing, that is an argument that Biden is starting to win.

The British have been using the largest fleet of their warships in the Pacific since the Falklands War almost 40 years ago. The idea is to restore at least one visitor presence in a region that was once part of his empire with stations in Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand. At the same time, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has agreed to efforts by Washington – started by Mr Trump and accelerated by Mr Biden – to ensure Huawei, the Chinese telecommunications company, does not win new contracts to install 5G cellular networks in the UK.

Some in Europe are following suit, but Mr Biden’s advisors said they felt taken aback last year when the European Union announced an investment deal with China days before Mr Biden’s inauguration. It reflected fears that European companies would bear the brunt of the brunt if the continent were drawn into the US-China rivalry, starting with the luxury auto industry in Germany.

The future of the deal is unclear, but Biden is going the other way: last week he signed an executive order banning Americans from investing in Chinese companies affiliated with the country’s military or selling surveillance technology that is used to To suppress dissenting opinions or religious minorities inside and outside of China. But to be effective, the allies would have to join; So far, few have expressed enthusiasm for the effort.

Perhaps Biden’s commitment to tackling climate change can win over skeptics, even if he will wonder if he’s doing enough.

Four years ago, at Mr Trump’s first G7 meeting, six leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris Agreement while the United States declared it was “unable to join the consensus”.

Reversing that stance, Mr Biden promises to cut US emissions 50 to 52 percent below 2005 levels by the end of the decade, and writes in a pre-summit comment in the Washington Post that the United States will be back on Sitting at the table, countries “have the opportunity to make ambitious progress”.

However, world leaders said they continued to be suspicious of the United States’ willingness to pass serious laws to tackle its emissions and deliver on financial promises to poorer countries.

“They showed the right approach, not necessarily as much as they could,” said Graça Machel, Mozambique’s former Minister of Education and Culture.

The key to achieving ambitious climate targets is China, which emits more than the US, Europe and Japan combined. Peter Betts, the former UK and European Union lead climate negotiator, said the test for Mr Biden is whether he can lead the G7 in a successful print campaign.

China, he said, “cares what developing countries think”.

Lisa Friedman contributed the reporting.

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Colonial Pipeline paid $5M ransom someday after hack, CEO tells Senate

Colonial Pipeline paid $5M ransom one day after hack, CEO tells Senate

Joseph Blount, JR., President and Chief Executive Officer, Colonial Pipeline is sworn in as he attends a hearing to examine threats to critical infrastructure, focusing on examining the Colonial Pipeline cyber attack at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., June 8, 2021.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | Reuters

WASHINGTON — Colonial Pipeline’s CEO told a Senate committee on Tuesday the company paid the $5 million ransom one day after Russian-based cybercriminals hacked its IT network, crippling fuel deliveries up and down the East Coast.

Joseph Blount Jr. told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in prepared remarks that the company learned of the attack shortly before 5 a.m. on May 7, when an employee discovered a ransom note on a system in the IT network.

The note said hackers had “exfiltrated” material from the company’s shared internal drive, and it demanded approximately $5 million in exchange for the files.

The company was attacked by a ransomware program created by DarkSide, a cyber criminal group believed to operate out of Russia.

Blount said that shortly after discovering the ransom note, the employee notified a supervisor and the decision was made to immediately shut down the entire pipeline.

“At approximately 5:55 A.M. employees began the shutdown process,” Blount wrote. “By 6:10 A.M., they confirmed that all 5,500 miles of pipelines had been shut down.”

The decision to shut down the entire pipeline was driven by “the imperative to isolate and contain the attack to help ensure the malware did not spread to the Operational Technology network, which controls our pipeline operations, if it had not already.”

The shutdown caused major disruptions to gas delivery up and down the East Coast, as trucks struggled to restock gas stations, and long lines developed at pumps, especially in the Southeast. Airline operations also were disrupted.

Blount’s testimony revealed just how quickly the company decided to suspend operations, and it provided new details about the first few days after the attack.

The company believes attackers “exploited a legacy virtual private network profile that was not intended to be in use,” Blount told senators.

But he admitted that the account was not protected by multifactor authentication, which is currently the company standard in most of its operations. Blount said the password was complicated, though. “It was not a ‘Colonial 123’-type password.”

Blount also testified about the approximately $5 million in ransom that the company paid to the DarkSide hackers. He revealed that Colonial Pipeline paid the ransom one day after the attack.

“I made the decision that Colonial Pipeline would pay the ransom to have every tool available to us to swiftly get the pipeline back up and running,” Blount said in his opening statement. “It was one of the toughest decisions I have had to make in my life.”

“At the time, I kept this information close hold because we were concerned about operational security and minimizing publicity for the threat actor,” he said.

In response to a question about whether the company paid ransom to an entity under U.S. sanctions, Blount said the company checked the sanctions list maintained by the Office of Foreign Asset Control before making the payment.

The day before Blount testified, U.S. law enforcement officials announced that they were able to recover $2.3 million in bitcoin from the hacker group.

Blount also told senators that the company contacted the FBI within hours of discovering the attack.

This story will be updated throughout the Senate hearing.

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Wealthy Individuals Like Bezos, Musk, Buffett Prevented Earnings Tax

Rich Americans Like Bezos, Musk, Buffett Avoided Income Tax

Lawmakers like Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, have advocated the idea of ​​taxing a person’s net worth over $ 50 million at a two percent tax – including the value of stocks, houses, boats, and everything else a person has owns after all debts have been deducted. In an interview on Tuesday, Ms. Warren described the tax revelations as “deeply shocking” and said it reinforces the fact that lawmakers should think of wealth over income when writing tax policy.

“A 2 or 10 percent increase in income tax is not going to make any real difference to these multibillionaires,” Ms. Warren said. “The real action in America is in wealth, not income.”

Although she praised some of Mr. Biden’s proposals, such as increasing taxes on investment income and targeting “real” corporate profits, Ms. Warren said she would like a more ambitious White House.

“I want the Biden government to enforce property taxes,” said Ms. Warren.

Mr Biden and his advisors found the idea of ​​a wealth tax impracticable. Instead, the president wants an additional $ 80 billion over 10 years to bolster the Internal Revenue Service so it is better equipped to prosecute tax fraud. And he has proposed doubling the tax on capital gains – the proceeds from the sale of an asset like a stock or a boat – for anyone who makes more than $ 1 million.

“We know more needs to be done to ensure that companies with the highest incomes pay more of their fair share,” said Ms. Psaki.

At a New York Times DealBook event in February Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen said a wealth tax “is something that has very difficult implementation problems.” She suggested that other tax changes that would increase taxes on wealth carried over upon death could have a similar effect. In March, however, Ms. Yellen suggested being open to a wealth tax.

“Well, we haven’t decided that yet,” Ms. Yellen told ABC News before pointing out other tax ideas that would affect the rich as well.

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James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes throughout 2020 election

James Murdoch spent $100 million to fund political causes during 2020 election

James Murdoch, co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox Inc.

Christophe Morin | Bloomberg | Getty Images

James Murdoch, one of billionaire media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s sons, quietly invested $100 million into his nonprofit foundation, which then used a large chunk of the money to fund political groups during the 2020 election cycle.

CNBC found the enormous contribution from James Murdoch and his spouse, Kathryn Murdoch, after reviewing the 501c3 group’s 990 tax return from 2019, which the foundation provided. The Murdochs launched the foundation, called Quadrivium, in 2014.

The $100 million donation marks the couple’s largest known contribution to their foundation or any political effort. It came as James and Kathryn Murdoch were building their own political operation. They have largely backed nonpartisan and Democratic-leaning causes. Kathryn Murdoch has previously criticized former President Donald Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Murdoch family, headed by Rupert Murdoch, is worth over $22 billion, according to Forbes. The family controls Fox Corp. and News Corp. James’ brother Lachlan Murdoch is the CEO of Fox, which has multiple assets including the conservative Fox News cable network.

It was previously known that James and Kathryn Murdoch backed President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign. But it was unknown until now just how much they were spending behind the scenes to impact the election. Combined with the millions they gave to campaigns and political action committees, the $100 million donation would make the couple one of the top donors in the last election cycle.

The 2019 tax document shows that of the $100 million given to the foundation, over $25 million went toward grants, including for several political causes. The $25 million also represents the most the Murdoch couple has spent through their foundation on political causes such as fighting climate change and helping people vote.

Yet, according to a person close to the family, that $25 million two years ago was only part of massive Murdoch investments through the 2020 election cycle. This person declined to be named in order to speak freely about the situation.

Since 2019, Quadrivium directed over $43 million to climate-related groups. Over $38 million, including $14 million in Quadrivium donations and $24 million in individual contributions from the couple, went toward election organizations, including those dedicated to protecting voting rights.

The Murdoch couple also donated over $20 million to both Biden’s campaign, groups supporting him and opposing Trump, and organizations dedicated to disrupting online threats and extremism. They also donated to groups dedicated to getting out the vote during the Georgia Senate runoff elections in January. Democrats won both of those seats.

A spokeswoman for James and Kathryn Murdoch declined to comment.

According to the 2019 tax document, the Quadrivium foundation had more than $100 million on hand going into 2020, just as the primary and caucus season was beginning.

The Murdochs’ $100 million donation came the same year James was the CEO of 21s Century Fox before Disney bought the bulk of the company for $71 billion. He was also on the board of the family-owned News Corp. at the time.

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The $100 million contribution to the foundation came in the form of Disney stock, and it was made the same day that the Fox-Disney deal was completed. James Murdoch made a reported $2.1 billion from the transaction.

Murdoch would later step down from the News Corp. board citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions.” News Corp. includes The New York Post and Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Both newspapers have conservative opinion sections.

The Murdochs’ foundation in 2019 donated to several organizations it had supported in the past, although nonprofits received significantly more funds that year than other groups. Quadrivium supports issue-based groups that fight against climate change and try to improve access to voting.

The Murdochs’ support for voting rights groups comes as Republicans in states such as Georgia and Texas are passing laws that critics say restrict people ability to vote. James Murdoch was one of hundreds of executives and corporations that signed a public statement opposing “any discriminatory legislation or measures that restrict or prevent any eligible voter from having an equal and fair opportunity to cast a ballot.”

Democracy Works Inc., a nonprofit that promotes itself as having tools to help people register to vote, received $2.5 million from the Murdoch-run foundation.

The education fund for Represent.Us, which claims to be nonpartisan and says it works to “pass powerful state and local laws that fix our broken elections and stop political bribery,” saw $2 million from the Murdochs in 2019. The group includes a cultural council of celebrities, including J.J. Abrams, Michael Douglas and Jennifer Lawrence. The Represent.Us fund, according to its website, “made grants to Represent.Us to support public education activities and dedicated cross-partisan outreach activities.”

The Brennan Center for Justice, which also calls itself nonpartisan, saw $1 million from the Murdochs two years ago. The Brennan Center has become a resource for voters and reporters to keep up on various bills that the organization deems restrictive. The group’s website notes that state legislatures have introduced over 380 bills in 48 states that are considered restrictive.

As for fighting climate change, Kathryn Murdoch has been a trustee at the Environmental Defense Fund for years. That organization saw $11 million in 2019 from Quadrivium.

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Biden Administration Strikes to Unkink Provide Chain Bottlenecks

Biden Administration Moves to Unkink Supply Chain Bottlenecks

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Tuesday planned to issue a swath of actions and recommendations meant to address supply chain disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic and decrease reliance on other countries for crucial goods by increasing domestic production capacity.

In a call on Monday evening detailing the plan to reporters, White House officials said the administration had created a task force that would “tackle near-term bottlenecks” in construction, transportation, semiconductor production and agriculture.

The officials also outlined steps that had been taken to address an executive order from President Biden that required a review of critical supply chains in four product areas where the United States relies on imports: semiconductors, high-capacity batteries, pharmaceuticals and their active ingredients, and critical minerals and strategic materials, like rare earths.

“This is about making sure the United States can meet every challenge we face in the new era,” Mr. Biden said in February, when he signed the order.

The review has been governmentwide, the officials said: Cabinet members were ordered to provide reports to the White House within 100 days. The move was intended to address concerns about supply chain resiliency and long-term competition with China.

The Department of Health and Human Services, for instance, will use $60 million from the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill to develop technologies to increase domestic production of active ingredients in key pharmaceuticals. The Interior Department will work to identify sites where critical minerals could be produced in the United States. And several agencies will work on creating supply chains for new technologies that will reduce reliance on imports of key materials.

The Biden administration also signaled that it was prepared to use trade policy to bolster domestic supplies of key minerals and components. As part of that effort, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it would establish a so-called strike force that could propose actions against overseas companies deemed to be engaged in unfair trade practices.

The Commerce Department will evaluate whether to investigate the global trade of neodymium magnets under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The Trump administration wielded that law to impose tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, after concluding that domestic production of those materials was essential for national security.

As part of his plans to address climate change, Mr. Biden wants Americans to drive millions of new electric vehicles and get more of their energy from renewable sources like wind and solar power. But experts have long pointed out that the shift to cleaner energy will require vast supplies of critical minerals, many of which are currently produced and processed overseas.

Most of the world’s lithium, a key ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles, is mined in Australia, China, Chile and Argentina. China dominates global production of rare earth minerals such as neodymium, used to make magnets in wind turbines. It has also largely cornered the market in lithium-ion batteries, accounting for 77 percent of the world’s capacity for producing battery cells and 80 percent of its raw-material refining, according to BloombergNEF, an energy research group.

The United States lags far behind other countries in manufacturing many clean energy technologies, leaving it heavily reliant on imports.

The Biden administration has vowed to bring back more of that manufacturing and mining, but progress has been slow. In the United States, companies are racing to unlock lithium supplies in states like Nevada and North Dakota, though those efforts face opposition because of their environmental effects. The country also has only one mine that produces rare earth minerals, in Mountain Pass, Calif.

As part of its announcement on Tuesday, the Biden administration said it would work to identify new domestic sites where such critical minerals could be mined with environmental safeguards, asking Congress to increase funding for a mapping program at the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Energy Department announced that it would offer loans for companies that could sustainably refine, process and recycle rare earths and other materials used in electric vehicles. The agency on Tuesday will also release a plan to develop a domestic supply chain for lithium-ion batteries.

The Energy Department has $17.7 billion in authority to issue loans under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which Congress created in 2007 and used in 2010 to support the electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla in its early days. In its announcement, the agency said it would seek to offer loans to manufacturers of advanced battery technology that established factories in the United States. It also announced a new policy in which future funding of new clean-energy technologies would require recipients to “substantially manufacture those products in the United States.”

Semiconductors — a key component in cars and electronic devices — were also another key research area for officials, though they did not describe immediate plans to increase production. A global semiconductor shortage has forced several American auto plants to close or scale back production and sent the administration scrambling to appeal to allies like Taiwan for emergency supplies. Instead, the 100-day review report said Congress should support a $50 billion investment in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research.

The findings are partly a push for the president’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan, which could fund some of the research and job training to bring American workers up to speed on producing advanced technologies like semiconductors.

The effort comes as the Senate is poised to pass a huge industrial policy bill to counter China’s rising influence, a rare bipartisan development as lawmakers suddenly embrace an enormous investment in semiconductor manufacturing, artificial intelligence research, robotics, quantum computing and a range of other technologies.

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U.S. recovers $2.3M in bitcoin paid

U.S. recovers $2.3M in bitcoin paid

A sign warns consumers on the avaliability of gasoline at a RaceTrac gas station on May 11, 2021, in Smyrna, Georgia.

Elijah Nouvelage | AFP | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – U.S. law enforcement officials said Monday they were able to recover $2.3 million in bitcoin paid to a criminal cybergroup involved in the crippling ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline.

“Today we turned the tables on DarkSide,” Lisa Monaco, Department of Justice deputy attorney general, said during a press briefing, adding that the money was seized via a court order.

Alongside Monaco, FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate explained that agents were able to identify a virtual currency wallet that the DarkSide hackers used to collect payment from Colonial Pipeline.

“Using law enforcement authority, victim funds were seized from that wallet, preventing Dark Side actors from using them,” Abbate said.

The FBI declined to say precisely how it accessed the bitcoin wallet, citing the need to protect tradecraft.

But Elvis Chan, assistant special agent in charge, told reporters that even foreign-based cybercriminals like DarkSide typically use American infrastructure at some point in the course of a crime. When they do, it gives the FBI a legal window to recover the funds.

DarkSide operates as a “ransomware as a service” business model, which means its hackers develop and market ransomware hacking tools, and sell them to other criminal “affiliates” who then carry out attacks.

It is still unclear who DarkSide’s affiliates were in the Colonial Pipeline attack.

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Lisa Monaco announces the recovery of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from the Colonial Pipeline Co. ransomware attacks as she speaks during a news conference with FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate and Acting U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California Stephanie Hinds at the Justice Department in Washington, June 7, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Last month DarkSide launched a sweeping ransomware assault on Colonial Pipeline. The cyberattack forced the company to shut down approximately 5,500 miles of American fuel pipeline, leading to a disruption of nearly half of the East Coast fuel supply and causing gasoline shortages in the Southeast.

Ransomware attacks involve malware that encrypts files on a device or network that results in the system becoming inoperable. Criminals behind these types of cyberattacks typically demand a ransom in exchange for the release of data.

Colonial Pipeline paid nearly $5 million ransom to the hackers, one source familiar with the situation confirmed to CNBC. It was not immediately clear when the transaction took place.

The FBI has previously warned victims of ransomware attacks that paying a ransom could encourage further malicious activity.

The government has stopped short of moving to ban ransomware payments altogether, out of concern that it would have little impact on whether or not companies pay ransoms and simply discourage them from reporting attacks.

The public announcement was part of a broader effort to counter the private sector’s longstanding reluctance to publicly report cyberattacks and involve the government in its responses.

“The message here today is that [if you report the attack], we will bring all of our tools to bear to go after these criminal networks,” Monaco said.

Officials stressed the advantages to be gained by companies that report cyber breaches quickly to the FBI.

“Victim reporting not only can give us the information we need to have an immediate real-world impact on the actors … it can also prevent future harm from occurring,” Abbate said.

“The private sector also has an equally important role to play and we must continue to take cyber threats seriously and invest accordingly to harden our defenses,” Colonial Pipeline CEO Joseph Blount said in a statement Monday evening.

“As our investigation into this event continues, Colonial will continue its transparency in sharing intelligence and learnings with the FBI and other federal agencies,” he said.

After the attack by DarkSide, President Joe Biden told reporters that the U.S. did not currently have intelligence linking the group’s ransomware attack to the Russian government. Although, the assault is believed to have originated from a criminal organization in Russia. 

“So far there is no evidence from our intelligence people that Russia is involved although there is evidence that the actor’s ransomware is in Russia, they have some responsibility to deal with this,” Biden said on May 10. He added that he would discuss the situation with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two leaders are slated to meet in Geneva on June 16.

The Kremlin has denied that it launched cyberattacks against the United States.

“The President’s message will be that responsible states do not harbor ransomware criminals, and responsible countries must take decisive action against these ransomware networks,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in advance of the summit.

The Biden administration is also putting pressure on the private sector to shore up its defenses against ransomware.

“All organizations must recognize that no company is safe from being targeted by ransomware, regardless of size or location,” wrote Anne Neuberger, deputy national security advisor for cyber and emerging technology, in a June 2 memo.

“To understand your risk, business executives should immediately convene their leadership teams to discuss the ransomware threat and review corporate security posture and business continuity plans to ensure you have the ability to continue or quickly restore operations,” she added.

At the same time, the White House is grappling with how to modernize cybersecurity protocols and banking laws to respond to cryptocurrency and its growing role in financial crimes, from ransomware to corruption.

The prevalence of cryptocurrency in crimes like ransomware attacks has also drawn the attention of lawmakers on Capitol Hill. 

“We have a lot of cash requirements in our country, but we haven’t figured out, in the country or in the world, how to trace cryptocurrency,” Missouri GOP Sen. Roy Blunt said Sunday on the NBC program “Meet the Press.”

“You can’t trace the ransomware — the ransom payment of choice now. And we’ve got to do a better job here,” he added.

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Kamala Harris dio un mensaje claro en Guatemala: ‘no vengan’

Kamala Harris dio un mensaje claro en Guatemala: ‘no vengan’

GUATEMALA CITY – During her first trip abroad as Vice President, Kamala Harris said the United States would support investigations into corruption and human trafficking in Guatemala. He also gave a clear and frank message to undocumented migrants waiting to reach the United States: “Don’t come.”

Harris issued the warning during an early but crucial test trip for a Vice President tasked with the difficult challenge of ending a cycle of migration from Central America by investing in a region plagued by corruption, violence and poverty.

While President Biden campaigned for a promise to relax some of the Donald Trump administration’s border restrictions by allowing migrants to seek asylum at the U.S. border, Harris reinforced the government’s message that those crossing the border into the United States cross, be turned away and that, rather, they should find legal channels or protection closer to their countries of origin.

He did not shy away from harshness when speaking about corruption with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei, who has been criticized for persecuting officials who fight corruption and for setting a political agenda.

“We will try to eradicate corruption wherever it exists,” Harris said, adding that the government will support a special prosecutor. “That was one of our top priorities in terms of focus that we set here after the President asked me to bring up this issue of focus on this region.”

Harris, whose presidential claims have been clarified, was chosen by President Biden to invest in Central America to deter the most vulnerable from embarking on the dangerous journey north. During the early months of his tenure, Biden was criticized by Republicans and some moderate Democrats for the increase in unaccompanied minors crossing the US-Mexico border.

The Vice President’s top aides have tried to distance her role from the border management minefield, saying it is focused on working with overseas governments to boost Central America’s economy and create more opportunity for those who now believe theirs best option is to go to the states .united.

Harris announced new measures in this effort on Monday. The Biden government will deploy national security officers to Guatemala’s northern and southern borders to train local officials, a tactic similar to previous governments’ tactics to deter migration. The US State Department and Justice Department will also set up a task force to investigate corruption cases with ties to Guatemala and the United States and to train Guatemalan prosecutors.

“We had a very honest conversation about an independent judiciary,” said Harris. “We had a conversation about the importance of a strong civil society.”

The Biden government also outlined a plan to invest $ 48 million in entrepreneurship programs, affordable housing and agricultural businesses in Guatemala as part of a four-year $ 4 billion investment plan in the region. Last month, Harris asked a dozen private companies, including Mastercard and Microsoft, to help develop the Central American economy.

The question arises, however, of how to ensure that such US aid programs go to those who need it most, not just the contractors appointed by the United States or Guatemalan officials.

In 2019, Guatemala designated a United Nations-backed anti-corruption body called Cicig, which worked with Guatemalan prosecutors on corruption cases but was condemned as politically motivated by the country’s conservatives.

Ricardo Zúñiga, President Biden’s special envoy for Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, described these independent anti-corruption commissions as “very successful efforts”. Harris’ team didn’t say, however, that they believed Guatemala needed an independent body to investigate corruption.

“The point is that there is no specific model,” said Zúñiga. “It’s about supporting the people within government or within the institutions – mainly the judicial authorities – who have the will and the ability to promote these cases.”

In his opening address, Harris stressed that he was encouraging potential migrants to stay closer to their homes while they apply for a permit to enter the United States and await a response. Days ago key staff announced they would be opening a new center in Guatemala where people can learn how to get asylum or refugee protection without leaving Central America instead of traveling to the border with the United States.

“Most people don’t want to leave the place where they grew up. To her grandmother. To the place where they pray. The place where their language and culture is spoken is familiar, ”said Harris. “And when they leave it usually has two reasons. Either they are fleeing danger or they simply cannot meet their basic needs.

In Chex Abajo, a mountain village 250 kilometers from Harriss Rede, Nicolás Ajanel Juárez said that despite the promises made by several US presidents, his community could not meet these needs.

The people of the indigenous corn farmers embody the difficult task facing the Vice President of the United States. Juarez, one of the local leaders, said many of the 600 residents were swept away by some hurricanes. The income from maize cultivation is no longer secure as the dry season is now longer due to climate change.

Many families here depend on remittances from their relatives from the United States. Those who benefit from a better lifestyle thanks to money from the north have larger houses made of concrete and steel marked with stars and American flags. The main street in the city is called Ohio because many migrants have found gardening jobs in the state.

“It would be better if the aid came directly rather than through the government, because that’s where it is lost,” said Juárez, who was at a nearby ceremony in honor of a community neighbor who was a United States and who died two years ago. “The politicians don’t know because they don’t come here to see the needs of the people with their own eyes.”

After meeting with Giammattei, Harris held a meeting with a group of women who had organized development programs for indigenous communities or training for those looking to acquire business skills.

She recognized the symbolic weight of being the first female vice president and that Guatemala is her first trip abroad in office. When a group of protesters with placards protested Harris’ visit near the entrance to the military airport, a number of families, many of them women, waited by another fence in hopes of glimpsing Air Force II, the landed in Guatemala.

“In that it could have an impact based on my gender and being the first, it’s wonderful,” said Harris. “You can be the first on something, but make sure you are not the last,” he added.

Pedro Pablo Solares collaborated with coverage from Guatemala City

Zolan Kanno-Youngs is the White House correspondent covering a range of national and international issues at Joe Biden’s White House, including national security and extremism. He joined the Times in 2019 as a national security correspondent. @KannoYoungs

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Russia threatens to depart Worldwide House Station program

Russia threatens to leave International Space Station program

Since last decade, NASA has turned repeatedly to Colorado companies to produce the technology it needs to not only send astronauts on new lunar missions but also to Mars and into the depths of space. Above, the International Space Station.

NASA | Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Russia’s space chief threatened Monday to withdraw from the International Space Station program if U.S. sanctions against Moscow’s space entities are “not lifted in the near future.”

“If the sanctions against Progress and TsNIIMash remain and are not lifted in the near future, the issue of Russia’s withdrawal from the ISS will be the responsibility of the American partners,” Roscosmos Director General Dmitry Rogozin said during a Russian parliament hearing on Monday, according to an NBC translation.

“Either we work together, in which case the sanctions are lifted immediately, or we will not work together and we will deploy our own station,” he added.

In December, the Trump administration labeled Russia’s JSC Rocket and Space Center Progress and JSC Central Research Institute of Machine Building, also known as TsNIIMash, as companies with alleged ties to the Russian military. The designation requires U.S. companies to obtain licenses before selling to these foreign firms.

The U.S. Department of Commerce also included under that designation Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, Moscow’s top spy agency, as well as 42 other Russian entities and 58 Chinese companies.

ISS Expedition 64 crew member, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryzhikov takes part in a training session at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Zvyozdny Gorodok [Star City], Moscow Region.

Anton Novoderezhkin | TASS | Getty Images

The U.S. Department of Treasury and NASA did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Launched in 1998, the ISS serves as the largest hub for scientific research and collaboration in orbit. The U.S., Russia, Canada and Japan alongside a dozen countries participating in the European Space Agency work in support of the ISS.

While Russia has previously signaled that it was considering a withdrawal from the program in order to develop a space station of its own, the ISS represents more than two decades of close collaboration between Washington and Moscow.

In a recent interview with CNN Business, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said that “it would not be good” if the Russians left the program.

“For decades, upwards now of 45 plus years [we’ve cooperated with] Russians in space, and I want that cooperation to continue,” he added.

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Offshore Wind Farms Present What Biden’s Local weather Plan Is Up Towards

Offshore Wind Farms Show What Biden’s Climate Plan Is Up Against

A constellation of 5,400 offshore wind turbines covers a growing part of Europe’s energy needs. The United States has exactly seven.

With more than 14,000 miles of coastline, the country offers plenty of places to tear down turbines. But legal, environmental, and economic obstacles and even vanity stood in the way.

President Biden wants to catch up quickly – in fact, his goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions depend on it. Still, there are many problems, including a shortage of boats big enough to take the huge equipment out to sea, fishermen worried for livelihoods, and wealthy people feared that the turbines would take the unspoiled view of theirs Clouding villas by the water. There is even a centuries-old, politically explosive federal law known as the Jones Act that prevents wind farm developers from using American ports to launch foreign construction ships.

Offshore turbines are useful because the winds at sea are stronger and more steady than on land. The turbines can be placed so far that they are not visible from land, but still close enough to cities and suburbs that they do not require hundreds of kilometers of expensive transmission lines.

The Biden administration wants up to 2,000 turbines in the water in the next eight and a half years. Officials recently approved a project near Martha’s Vineyard that languished during the Trump administration and announced support for large wind farms off the California coast in May. The $ 2 trillion infrastructure plan proposed by Mr Biden in March would also increase incentives for renewables.

The cost of offshore wind turbines has fallen by around 80 percent over the past two decades to as low as $ 50 per megawatt hour. Although they are more expensive per unit of energy than onshore solar and wind parks, offshore turbines are often economically viable due to their lower transmission costs.

“Solar in the east is a little trickier than in the desert west,” said Robert M. Blue, chairman and CEO of Dominion Energy, a major utility working on a wind farm with nearly 200 turbines off the coast of Virginia. “We have set ourselves a net zero target for our company by 2050. This project is essential to achieve these goals. “

The slow pace of offshore wind development underscores the trade-offs between urgently tackling climate change and Mr Biden’s other goals of creating well-paying jobs and protecting local habitats. The United States could push through more projects if it were willing, for example, to remove the Jones Act’s protection for domestic shipbuilding, but that would undermine the president’s promises of employment.

These difficult questions cannot be solved simply by federal spending. As a result, it could be difficult or impossible for Mr Biden to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity sector by 2035 and achieve net zero emissions across the economy by 2050 as he would like.

“I think the clear fact that other places have jumped on us is important,” said Amanda Lefton, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the agency that rents federal waters to wind developers. “We won’t be able to build offshore wind power if we don’t have the right investments.”

Europe’s lead means it has built a thriving complex of turbine construction, shipbuilding and skilled labor. Therefore, the USA could be dependent on European components, suppliers and ships for years.

Installing huge offshore wind turbines – General Electric’s largest one is eight feet – is a difficult job. Ships with cranes that can lift more than a thousand tons transport large components out to sea. At their destination, legs are lowered into the water to raise the ships and make them stationary while they work. Few ships can handle the largest components, and that’s a big problem for the United States.

Lloyd Eley, a project manager, helped build nuclear submarines early in his career and has been with Dominion Energy for the past eight years. None of this prepared him properly to oversee the construction of two wind turbines off the Virginia coast.

Mr. Eley’s biggest problem was the Jones Act, which requires that ships sailing from a US port to any location within the country, including its waters, be manufactured and registered in the United States and owned by Americans and need to be occupied.

The largest ships built in the U.S. designed for offshore construction are roughly 185 feet long and can lift around 500 tons, according to a Government Accountability Office report released in December. This is far too small for the huge components that Mr. Eley’s team worked with.

So Dominion rented three European ships and operated them in the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia. One of them, the Vole au Vent from Luxembourg, is 140 meters long and can lift 1,654 tons.

Mr. Eley’s crew waited for weeks for the European ships to travel more than 800 miles each direction to the port. The installations took a year. In Europe it would be ready in a few weeks. “That was definitely a challenge,” he said.

The US shipping industry has not invested in the ships needed to transport large wind turbines because there have been so few projects here. The first five offshore turbines were installed near Block Island in 2016, with RI Dominion’s two turbines installed last year.

Had it not been for the Jones Act – it was passed after World War I to ensure the country had ships and crews that could be mobilized during war and emergencies – Dominion could have run European ships out of Virginia’s ports. The law is sacrosanct in Congress, and unions and other supporters argue that repealing it would cut thousands of jobs in shipyards and boats, and make the United States dependent on foreign companies.

Demand for large ships could increase significantly over the next decade as the US, Europe and China pursue ambitious offshore wind targets. According to Dominion, only eight ships worldwide can transport the largest turbine parts.

Dominion is spending $ 500 million on a ship built in Brownsville, Texas that can haul large wind turbines. Named after a sea monster from Greek mythology, Charybdis, the ship will be 144 meters long and lift 2,200 tons. It will be ready by the end of 2023. The company said the ship, which it will also rent to other developers, will have around 200 more turbines installed at low cost by 2026. Dominion spent $ 300 million on the first two but is hoping the others will cost $ 40 million apiece.

For the past 24 years, Tanger Island resident Tommy Eskridge has made a living catching clams and crabs off the coast of Virginia.

Among other things, he works where Dominion wants to place its turbines. Federal regulators have adjusted the distance between turbines to one nautical mile to create wider lanes for fishermen and other boats, but Mr Eskridge, 54, fears the turbines could harm his catch.

The area has produced up to 7,000 pounds of mussels a day, although Mr Eskridge said a typical day produced about half that amount. A pound can make 2 to 3 dollars, he said.

Mr Eskridge said the company and regulators had not done enough to show that installing turbines would not harm his catch. “We just don’t know what it’s going to do.”

Annie Hawkins, executive director of the Responsible Offshore Development Alliance, which includes hundreds of fishing groups and companies, fears the government will not study the proposals and plan appropriately.

“What they do is say, ‘Take what we’ve really never done here, let’s move all in, the opponents are damned,'” said Ms. Hawkins. “From a fisheries point of view, we know that there will be massive displacement. You can’t just go fishing elsewhere. “

Fishing groups refer to recent problems in Europe to justify their concerns. For example, Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind developer, has filed for an injunction to keep fishermen and their equipment out of an area of ​​the North Sea designed for new turbines while it is exploring the area.

Orsted said it tried to “work with fishermen” but asked for the contract because its job was made difficult by equipment that a fisherman had left in the area that he could not identify. “In order to conduct the survey work safely and only as a last resort, we had no choice but to secure the right to remove this device,” the company said in a statement.

When developers first applied for approval for Cape Wind, a project between Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, in 2001, opposition was fierce. Opponents included Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who died in 2009, and William I. Koch, an industrialist.

Nobody wanted the turbines to block the view of the coast from their resorts. They also argued that the project would block 16 historical sites, disrupt fishermen, and clog waterways used by humpback whales, pilot whales, and other whales.

After years of legal and political disputes, the developer of Cape Wind gave up in 2017. But long before that happened, Cape Wind’s problems terrified energy managers considering offshore wind.

Projects along the east coast are in similar struggles. Residents of the Hamptons, the affluent enclave, opposed two wind development areas and the federal government put the project on hold. On the New Jersey coast, some homeowners and businesses are opposed to offshore wind because they fear it could increase their electricity prices, disrupt whales and affect the area’s leech fisheries.

Energy managers want the Biden government to mediate such conflicts and expedite permit approval.

“It was artificial, incrementally slow because of some inefficiencies on the federal approval side,” said David Hardy, CEO of Orsted North America.

Renewable energy advocates said they were hopeful because the country added many wind turbines onshore – 66,000 in 41 states. They provided more than 8 percent of the country’s electricity last year.

Ms. Lefton, the federal water lease regulator, said future offshore projects would move faster as more people realized the dangers of climate change.

“We have a climate crisis ahead of us,” she said. “We have to switch to clean energy. I think that will be a great motivation. “

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Putin says foreigners can get vaccinated towards Covid in Russia

Putin says foreigners can get vaccinated against Covid in Russia

Russian President Vladimir Putin gives a speech during a plenary session of the International Economic Forum (SPIEF) in St. Petersburg on June 4, 2021.

DMITRY LOVETSKY | AFP | Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday called on the government to pave the way for foreign citizens to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in the country for an undisclosed fee.

Speaking during a plenary session at the annual International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg, Putin said: “The Russian pharmaceutical industry is ready to further boost the production of vaccines so that we not only fully meet our own needs.”

“We can also give foreign nationals the opportunity to come to Russia and get vaccinated here. I know that given the effectiveness of our vaccines, there is great demand,” he went on, according to a translation.

“In this regard, I would like to ask the government to analyze all aspects of this issue by the end of the month for a chance to get a vaccine on a commercial basis,” Putin said, without specifying the cost.

Russia has approved four Covid vaccines for home use. The most widely used Sputnik-V vaccine has so far been registered in 65 countries around the world, according to the Russian state fund.

The price of Sputnik V is less than $ 10 per shot, requiring two doses over a 21 day period.

Russia has been criticized for pursuing a strategy of selling or donating Covid vaccines overseas in order to expand its influence worldwide. Moscow denies that it is.

Putin’s comments come as pressure mounts on the world’s richest countries to do more to expand global access to Covid vaccines.

Equal access to vaccines is reported to be high on the agenda when the G-7 leaders meet in the UK next week.

The urgency and importance of surrendering certain intellectual property rights to Covid vaccines and treatments amid the pandemic has been underscored by WHO, health experts, civil society groups, trade unions, former world leaders, international medical charities, Nobel Prize winners and human rights organizations.

India and South Africa jointly submitted a proposal to the World Trade Organization in October last year calling for politicians to facilitate the production of Covid treatments on site and to press ahead with the global vaccination campaign.

Several months later, the proposal continues to be blocked by a small number of governments – including the EU, UK, Switzerland, Japan, Norway, Canada, Australia and Brazil.

Nord Stream 2

Regardless of this, Russia’s Putin said the first pipeline of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany had been completed. The second line is not ready yet.

The controversial 1,230-kilometer underwater pipeline is set to become one of the longest offshore gas pipelines in the world. It is supposed to deliver Russian gas to Germany directly under the Baltic Sea bypassing Ukraine.

Along with several European countries, the US is rejecting the pipeline, calling it a “bad deal” for European energy security. President Joe Biden is under pressure to do more to stop the near-completed project.

Putin is due to hold talks with Biden on June 16 in Geneva, Switzerland.

Whether the summit can make a big difference is questionable, especially given the poor diplomatic relations between the two nuclear powers.

Some U.S. lawmakers have criticized the Biden administration for giving the talks the go-ahead, pointing to the ongoing detention of opposition politician Alexei Navalny and the Kremlin’s support for Belarus after Russia’s neighbor took a commercial flight to Minsk last month had diverted.

At a press conference last month, White House press secretary Jen Psaki rejected proposals that the bilateral talks should be interpreted as a “reward” for Moscow.

“This is how diplomacy works,” she said. “We don’t only meet with people when we are in agreement. It is important to meet with leaders when we have a number of disagreements, as we do with the Russian leader.”

For its part, Russia said the two presidents will hold talks to discuss the current state of bilateral relations, strategic stability issues and current international issues such as the coronavirus pandemic and regional conflicts.

– CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.