Day: October 17, 2023

The move is a step towards the possible resumption of nuclear testing and could indicate the start of a new nuclear arms race.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a visit that underscores China’s support for Moscow during its war in Ukraine as well as Russian backing for China’s bid to expand its economic and diplomatic influence abroad.

The two countries have forged an informal alliance against the United States and other democratic nations that is now complicated by the Israel-Hamas war. China has sought to balance its ties with Israel against its relations with Iran and Syria, two countries that are strongly backed by Russia and with which China has forged ties for economic reasons as well as to challenge Washington’s influence in the Middle East.

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Read More: China Just Brokered a Historic Truce Between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Can It Do Ukraine Next?

Putin’s plane was met by an honor guard as the Russian leader began his visit that is also a show of support for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s signature “Belt and Road” initiative to build infrastructure and expand China’s overseas influence.

In an interview to Chinese state media, Putin praised the massive but loosely linked BRI projects.

“Yes, we see that some people consider it an attempt by the People’s Republic of China to put someone under its thumb, but we see otherwise, we just see desire for cooperation,” he told state broadcaster CCTV, according to a transcript released by the Kremlin on Monday.

Putin will be among the highest profile guests at a gathering marking the 10th anniversary of Xi’s announcement of the BRI project, which has laden countries such as Zambia and Sri Lanka with heavy debt from contracts with Chinese companies to build roads, airports and other public works they could not otherwise afford. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres has praised the Chinese policy as bringing development to neglected areas.

Read More: Bye Bye BRI? Why 3 New Initiatives Will Shape the Next 10 Years of China’s Global Outreach

Asked by reporters Friday about his visit, Putin said it would encompass talks on Belt and Road-related projects, which he said Moscow wants to link with efforts by an economic alliance of former Soviet Union nations mostly located in Central Asia to “achieve common development goals.”

He also downplayed the impact of China’s economic influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and where it has worked to maintain political and military clout.

“We don’t have any contradictions here, on the contrary, there is a certain synergy,” Putin said.

Putin said he and Xi would also discuss growing economic ties between Moscow and Beijing in energy, high-tech and financial industries. China has also grown in importance as an export destination for Russia.

Read More: China Faces a Familiar Economic Downturn. But Its Crisis Is Worsened by the War in Ukraine

Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that from China’s view, “Russia is a safe neighbor that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that’s a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage and that’s also a source of military technologies, some of those that China doesn’t have.”

“For Russia, China is its lifeline, economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev told The Associated Press.

“It’s the major market for Russian commodities, it’s a country that provides its currency and payment system to settle Russia’s trade with the outside world — with China itself, but also with many other countries, and is also the major source of sophisticated technological imports, including dual-use goods that go into the Russian military machine.”

Read More: Is China Providing Russia With Military Support? It’s Hard to Tell, and That’s the Point

Gabuev said that while Moscow and Beijing will be unlikely to forge a full-fledged military alliance, their defense cooperation will grow.

“Both countries are self-sufficient in terms of security and they benefit from partnering, but neither really requires a security guarantee from the other. And they preach strategic autonomy,” he said.

“There will be no military alliance, but there will be closer military cooperation, more interoperability, more cooperation on projecting force together, including in places like the Arctic and more joint effort to develop a missile defense that makes the U.S. nuclear planning and planning of the U.S. and its allies in Asia and in Europe more complicated,” he added.

Read More: U.S. Is Not Ready for Growing Nuclear Threat From Russia and China, Report Says

The Chinese and Soviets were Cold War rivals for influence among left-leaning states, but China and Russia have since partnered in the economic, military and diplomatic spheres.

Just weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February, Putin met with Xi in Beijing and the sides signed an agreement pledging a “no-limits” relationship. Beijing’s attempts to present itself as a neutral peace broker in Russia’s war on Ukraine have been widely dismissed by the international community.

Xi visited Moscow in March as part of a flurry of exchanges between the countries. China has condemned international sanctions imposed on Russia, but hasn’t directly addressed an arrest warrant issued for Putin by the International Criminal Court on charges of alleged involvement in the abductions of thousands of children from Ukraine.

—Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

China-Chile relations have always been at the forefront of China’s relations with Latin American and Caribbean countries, Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Tuesday in Beijing, when meeting with Chile President Gabriel Boric.

Xi told the Chilean leader, who is in China to attend the Belt and Road Forum, that he attaches great importance to the development of China-Chile relations, state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) said.

Xi praised the country for being the first South American country to establish diplomatic relations with China, and among the first Latin American country to join the Belt and Road initiative, CCTV reported.

“China-Chile cooperation in various fields has promoted the development and revitalization of both countries and brought substantial benefits to our people,” Xi added.

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Asian stocks rose in cautious trade on Tuesday, with investors choosing to focus on corporate earnings prospects and the resilience of the U.S. economy ahead of tensions in the Middle East.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) advanced 0.4%. Tokyo’s Nikkei (.N225) rose 1%.

Overnight the S&P 500 (.SPX) had climbed 1%, while oil prices and the U.S. dollar had fallen.

A host of “favorable” signs from the strength of the U.S. consumer, economic growth, and interest rates supporting bank profits, gave reasons for hope, said Kerry Craig, a global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Quarterly results from Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Bank of America (BAC.N) are due on Tuesday, with Morgan Stanley (MS.N), pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), Tesla (TSLA.O) and Netflix (NFLX.O) due later in the week.

A recent shift in tone from Federal Reserve officials – hinting that interest rate hikes might be over – has also cheered investors and bond markets lately.

Benchmark 10-year Treasury yields are about 15 basis points off 16-year highs, though they crept higher in Asia trade Tuesday to 4.7331%.

Investors are also trying to assess risks that a wider conflict breaks out in the Middle East which remains a “very fluid situation”, Craig said.

U.S. President Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday as the country prepares to escalate an offensive against Hamas militants that has set off a humanitarian crisis in Gaza and raised fears of a broader conflict with Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Minister said Israel would not be allowed to act in Gaza without consequences, warning of “preemptive action” by the “resistance front” in the coming hours.

Israel’s shekel weakened beyond 4-to-the-dollar for the first time since 2015 on Monday, as it bears some of the brunt of worry and uncertainty about the Gaza situation.

In currency markets the Australian dollar ticked up a little to $0.6354 as minutes from the most recent central bank meeting struck a surprisingly hawkish tone, while the U.S. dollar steadied elsewhere.

A slowdown in New Zealand inflation to a two-year low dented bets on any further interest rate hikes and the kiwi , which slipped 0.4% to $0.5906.

The euro traded at $1.0549 and the yen hovered just short of the 150-per-dollar mark at 149.53.

China’s property sector, meanwhile, edged toward deeper trouble with Tuesday marking the end of a 30-day grace period on a late payment from developer Country Garden (2007.HK). If investors don’t receive the coupon payment, all of Country Garden’s offshore debts will be deemed in default.

The property sector (.HSMPI) was flat while the Hang Seng (.HSI) rose 0.8% on Tuesday. A mainland real estate index (.CSI931775) fell 0.6%.

Gold edged away from Friday’s three-week high and was last at $1,915 an ounce. Brent crude futures had dropped more than $1 a barrel on Monday on hopes for an agreement that the U.S. will ease sanctions on Venezuelan oil.

Brent futures were last down 23 cents or 0.25% to $89.43 a barrel. Bitcoin had leapt on Monday before giving up gains after BlackRock denied a report that it had won approval for a bitcoin exchange traded fund.

It was last at $28,353 after trading as high as $29.900 on Monday.

(NewsNation) — Some Israel attack survivors say they waited many hours for police or the military to arrive after Hamas swarmed their communities, slaughtering civilians. Amir Tibon and his family woke up to the sound of Hamas at their home. They were saved after waiting for 10 hours — not by military or police, but by his own father.

Tibon’s father, a retired major general of the Israeli Defense Forces, saved his son’s family and dozens of others as Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel. Tibon told NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas that the bravery of people like his dad saved so many lives that day.

“The courage and bravery of specific individuals, some of them were policemen, some of them were soldiers, and some of them, like my father, who came from Tel Aviv to our area to join the fight, were civilians. This is what saved lives that morning,” Tibon told Vargas. “It was the courage of individuals who decided to go out and fight.”

Tibon, a correspondent for Haaretz, insists it wasn’t just his father taking action. He says many people risked their lives to rescue others.

“It’s not just one man. It’s true. My father did an extraordinary thing by coming down to the region and joining the fight. He’s over 60. He’s a retired military officer. He took his pistol. He came down there against all the advice and all the warnings of the authorities. But he was also there and joined the fight that was also taken by others,” Tibon said.

After waiting with his wife and young daughters for 10 hours to be rescued, Tibon feels the Israeli government failed his community.

“It’s true that the government and the military failed us. It’s also true that very brave people, my father being one of them, saved us. This is the complicated reality we’re seeing emerging out of this terrible massacre in our community and others along the border,” Tibon said.

In many border communities, Tibon explained, there are designated security coordinators who are civilians and not military figures. They are tasked with trying to keep an eye out for danger to keep communities safe. The security coordinator of Tibon’s kibbutz was one of his neighbors.

“He went out that morning to fight. He left behind his wife and three daughters, and he never came back. He died in battle, but that may have bought us time that he stood up to them. It was enough time for others to lock their doors, lock their windows, get into the safe rooms and wait,” Tibon said.

The morning of the attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, Tibon and his wife were sleeping when they jolted awake after hearing rocket fire. While hearing rocket fire is not unusual on their kibbutz, which sits on the border with Gaza, this attack struck them as something different.

Tibon heard voices and realized Hamas was just outside of their home. Hamas, which has been designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization since at least 1997, posted video showing them on Tibon’s front porch, infiltrating the kibbutz and firing shots from the front door of the home.

Tibon and his wife rushed to their safe room, which happens to be in their daughter’s bedroom. Courage was on display for those outside fighting Hamas, he says, but it was also inside several homes where children kept quiet for hours and trusted their parents to protect them the best way they could.

“My wife was very brave. She explained to the girls very early that morning, when we entered the room and we shut the door, shut the windows and it was all dark and soon electricity ran out … She just told them, ‘Girls, you have to be very, very quiet right now. There’s a dangerous situation outside. We’re waiting for soldiers to come and rescue us.’ At some point, we realized my father was coming down, so we started telling them their grandfather is going to come with the soldiers and save us,” Tibon said. “They listened to us. They put their faith in us and their parents in this very difficult time.”

Tibon and his wife spent 10 hours in the dark with no food, trying to keep their children quiet and entertained. They sometimes decided to softly sing to bring them comfort as Hamas yelled to each other outside. Uncertain if help would come, Tibon called his father, Noam, who grabbed his pistol and left Tel Aviv to help.

As Tibon’s family waited in fear, his father was urgently trying to make his way to his granddaughters and talking his way through several checkpoints. When he reached his loved ones, Tibon turned to his daughters and told them their grandpa was there for them.

“After it was all over and we met our neighbors and most of our community survived, we heard that many, many children were very brave on that day and stayed quiet for long hours in the dark with no food, with no electricity. It’s hard to explain the courage of these children. But I admire my own girls’ faith, and I admire so many other children in our community, who went through this terrible experience, listened to their parents, and did what had to be done in order to not draw the attention of the terrorists, to the fact that there were families inside these houses in these rooms,” Tibon said.

The attacks by Hamas have killed more than 1,400 Israelis. In Tibon’s kibbutz of Nahal Oz in southern Israel, he says the small agricultural community alone knows of 12 people who were killed and 10 who are missing out of the 500 people who live there. In another nearby community, he says more than 100 people were slaughtered.

“On the one hand, we say, you know, there was a miracle here (in Nahal Oz) and several very, very brave people like my own father, my own neighbor, contributed to it. But at the same time, this miracle came with a disaster,” Tibon said.

Tibon maintains that Israel’s top priority should be eliminating Hamas, but he believes the Israeli government should be held accountable at some point for their response.

“Right now, the most important thing for us is to defeat Hamas, to eradicate this organization. What they did is something that will never be forgotten. We should do everything in our power to make the threat of Hamas extinct,” Tibon said. “After we’re finished with that, I believe we will also have to demand accountability and responsibility from our own government, starting at the highest strengths with the prime minister. This is the biggest failure in the history of the state of Israel. But, first and more than anything else, we have to win this war.”

U.S. and Israeli officials say the attack on Israel was the most lethal assault against Jews since the Holocaust. Following a war declaration, Israel is now believed to be preparing for a possible ground offensive in Gaza to retaliate against Hamas.