Aurelia Butler

WEISSENHAUS, Germany (Reuters) -Group of Seven foreign ministers vowed on Saturday to reinforce Russia’s economic and political isolation, continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and tackle what Germany’s foreign minister described as a “wheat war” being waged by Moscow.After meeting in the Baltic Sea resort of Weissenhaus, senior diplomats from Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the European Union also pledged to continue their military and defence assistance for “as long as necessary”. They would also tackle what they called Russian misinformation aimed at blaming the West for food supply issues around the world due to economic sanctions on Moscow and urged China not to assist Moscow or justify Russia’s war, according to a joint statement.”Have we done enough to mitigate the consequences of this war? It is not our war. It’s a war by the president of Russia, but we have global responsibility,” Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told reporters.Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, a close ally of Vladimir Putin, dismissed the meeting, especially the group’s insistence that the integrity of Ukraine’s internationally recognised borders be recognised.”Let’s put it mildly: our country does not care at all about the G7 not recognising the new borders. What is important is the true will of the people living there,” he said in an online post. Russian forces control large parts of eastern Ukraine.Key to putting more pressure on Russia is to ban or phase out buying Russian oil with EU member states expected next week to reach an agreement on the issue even if it remains at this stage opposed by Hungary.The ministers said they would add further sanctions on Russian elites, including economic actors, central government institutions and the military, which enable Putin “to lead his war of choice.” The meeting, which the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Moldova attended, also spotlighted food security concerns and fears that the war could spill over into its smaller neighbour Moldova.”People will be dying in Africa and the Middle East and we are faced with an urgent question: how can people be fed around the world? People are asking themselves what will happen if we don’t have the grain we need that we used to get from Russia and Ukraine,” Baerbock said. She added that the G7 would work on finding logistical solutions to get vital commodities out of Ukraine storage before the next harvests.Attention now turns to Berlin as ministers meet later on Saturday with Sweden and Finland gearing up to apply for membership of the transatlantic alliance, drawing threats of retaliation from Moscow and objections from NATO member Turkey.”It is important that we have a consensus,” Canada’s Foreign Minister Melanie Joly told reporters.Putin calls the invasion a “special military operation” to disarm Ukraine and rid it of anti-Russian nationalism fomented by the West. Ukraine and its allies say Russia launched an unprovoked war.”More of the same,” EU Foreign Policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters. “The one thing that is missing is pushing for a diplomatic engagement to get a ceasefire. It is missing because Vladimir Putin has been saying to everybody that he doesn’t want to stop the war.” More

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba´s ailing economy has begun to recover in some sectors after two years of pandemic-induced contraction but soaring global prices for food and fuel require “audacious” measures to tame inflation, economy minister Alejandro Gil told Cuban lawmakers on Saturday.Gil said Cuba saw a 38% increase in exports in the first quarter, boosted by the rising price of nickel, a top mineral export. He said inflation had also slowed despite upward pressure on the price of imports.”We are beginning to see a clear and gradual recovery,” Gil said.But the price Cuba paid for imported goods jumped by nearly $700 million in the first quarter, outpacing the country´s modest gains in exports, a predicament Gil attributed to “imported inflation” driven by fast-rising prices for such products as fuel, corn for feeding livestock and wheat. U.S. sanctions and soaring food and fuel prices, in part due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have put Cuba´s tepid recovery at risk and threaten to worsen shortages already forcing citizens to line up for food, medicine and other basic goods. {nL2N2W20F1}Tourism, a top source of the foreign exchange necessary to pay for pricier imports, has also lagged well behind government targets, complicating recovery. Gil did not provide figures for overall gross domestic product nor did he address how first-quarter results contributed to meeting the government´s target of 4% growth in 2022.A major sticking point, Gil said, continues to be Cuba´s unofficial exchange rate, which has ballooned to five times the government rate of 24-1 in recent months, slashing buying power for the average Cuban.To combat this, Gil said Cuba will begin selling foreign currency at a rate between the official and black market rates, but limit those deals to certain state-run and private businesses in a bid to boost output of high-demand products.The economy minister said the more favorable exchange would underpin “production that will later be sold to the population in national currency.”Gil said citizens seeking to trade pesos for dollars would not be able to take part in the new exchange program, but that the cash-strapped government was working toward that goal.“These are bold, innovative measures. There are no magic … solutions that can solve all the problems at once,” Gil said. More

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan faces a budget deficit of 44 billion Afghanis ($501 million) this financial year, the country’s Taliban authorities said on Saturday without clarifying how the gap between expected revenues and planned spending will be met.Announcing the first annual national budget since the Taliban took over the war-torn country in August last year, Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said the government foresaw spending of 231.4 billion Afghanis and domestic revenue of 186.7 billion.”The revenues are collections from departments related to customs, ministries and mines,” spokesman for the Finance Ministry Ahmad Wali Haqmal said. Since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, successive Western-backed governments relied mostly on foreign aid. In August 2021, foreign forces withdrew from Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the government and a Taliban takeover.The world is yet to officially recognise the Taliban government. The country is dealing with rising security issues and an economic meltdown, while aid agencies figure out how to help 50 million Afghans without giving the Taliban direct access to funds. Hanafi said the budget for the current financial year, that runs to next February, had been approved by the council of ministries and confirmed by the Taliban’s supreme leader Haibatullah Akhunzada, and would use local funds only.Development works would take up 27.9 billion Afghanis, he said, but did not provide a breakdown of spending on areas such as defence.”We have paid attention to education, technical education, and higher education and our all focus is on how to pave the way education for everyone,” Hanafi said.Taliban authorities are yet to allow the restarting of older girls’ education across the country after committing to a start date earlier this year. ($1 = 87.7500 afghanis) More

German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said the G7 group of industrialised nations was urgently seeking alternative routes for the export of Ukrainian grain as Russia’s war against its western neighbour raised the risk of a global “hunger crisis”.Speaking at the conclusion of a three-day meeting of G7 foreign ministers in Germany, Baerbock said some 25mn tonnes of grain were stuck in Ukrainian ports that were being blockaded by Russian forces — “grain that the world urgently needs”.“Every tonne we can get out will help a bit to get to grips with this hunger crisis,” she said. “In the situation we’re in, every week counts.” Wheat prices have been soaring in recent weeks over supply concerns caused by the Ukraine war, as well as a number of droughts around the world. The US Department of Agriculture forecast that global supplies for the coming crop year would fall for the first time in four years.Worries about the supply situation deepened on Saturday when India announced it was banning wheat exports, a move that is likely to push up food prices and fuel hunger in poor countries that rely on imports of Indian grain. The government in New Delhi said the ban was designed to “manage the overall food security of the country”.The issue of food emerged as one of the key issues in the G7 ministers’ weekend deliberations. Their final communique said Russia’s war had “generated one of the most severe food and energy crises in recent history, which now threatens those most vulnerable across the globe”.It said the G7 was “determined to accelerate a co-ordinated multilateral response to preserve global food security and stand by our most vulnerable partners in this respect”. Baerbock said the easiest way to resolve the food crisis would be for Russia to stop its combat operations and allow grain out of Ukrainian ports, a move that would help to “normalise global food prices”. But she said Russian president Vladimir Putin showed no inclination to do that. Instead, western governments were looking at alternatives to the sea route. She said some 5-6mn tonnes of grain per month are normally exported via Ukraine’s ports and the G7 was “analysing different rail routes that will allow us to get the grain out as soon as possible”. So far, she said, the Ukrainians had succeeded in transporting only a “fraction” of their grain harvest by rail, via Romania. “But the bottleneck there is due to the fact that Ukraine has a different track gauge [to Romania],” she said. “That’s the same for other connections too, for example, with Poland — freight cars can’t just pass through.”She said the G7 ministers had also discussed using Baltic ports to export grain. “But you have to reach them first”. “There won’t be a perfect solution so long as the [Russian] bombardments are continuing,” she said. In their communique, the G7 ministers expressed “deep concern” at the worsening state of food insecurity and malnutrition across the world, which had been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian war in Ukraine. “Food prices and costs for humanitarian agencies to deliver assistance to those in greatest need are both rising, at a time when 45mn people are already one step away from famine,” it said. More