G7 LEADERS WANT PRICE CAP ON RUSSIAN OIL

The Group of Seven (G7) leader on Tuesday agreed to develop a price cap mechanism for Russian oil, aiming to cut Kremlin’s avenues of funding the war on Ukraine.

US officials said that US and its allies have understood that Putin is not making less but more money via crude oil since the war broke out and sanctions have not been fully effective in stopping Russia’s oil exports.

The decision also comes as the Biden administration’s ratings plummet due to rising energy prices and inflation. “The goal here is to starve Russia, starve Putin of his main source of cash and force down the price of Russian oil to help blunt the impact of Putin’s war at the pump,” an official told CNN.

The announcement will shake markets and Russia could still sell its oil through back channels but it will not be able to rake in the heavy profits.

The plan behind the oil price cap mechanism is consumer or buyer nations will set a low price for Russian oil and Moscow will have to accept since they need the revenue.

There are fears of retaliation from Russia as it could retaliate by further cutting energy supplies to Europe.

The National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan also said sorting out ‘immensely complex logistical and technical aspects’ is also a tough objective.

The question of unity among consumer countries also remains. Also if this were to be implemented then existing sanctions against Moscow will be tweaked, according to European Council president Charles Michel.

G7 leaders have tasked ministers to urgently focus on ‘developing, consulting with third countries and the private sector in an effort to develop a price cap around oil’, an official told news agency AFP.

The official announcement is expected to come in the final communique later as a three-day G7 summit in the Bavarian Alps gradually draws to an end.

It was also reported that the United States led the push for an oil price cap at the meeting of the club of rich nations – which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

The West imposed several sanctions on Russia in response to Putin’s aggression on Ukraine but the targeting of its oil industry is a major step as it signals an attack on Russia’s core industry.

51 MIGRANTS DIE AFTER TRAILER ABANDONED IN SAN ANTONIO HEAT

Desperate families of migrants from Mexico and Central America frantically sought word of their loved ones as authorities began the grim task Tuesday of identifying 51 people who died after being abandoned in a tractor-trailer without air conditioning in the sweltering Texas heat.

It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico.

The driver of the truck and two other people were arrested, U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas told The Associated Press.

He said the truck had passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint northeast of Laredo, Texas, on Interstate 35. He did not know if migrants were inside the truck when it cleared the checkpoint.

Investigators traced the truck’s registration to a residence in San Antonio and detained two men from Mexico for possession of weapons, according to criminal complaints filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. The complaints did not make any specific allegations related to the deaths.

The bodies were discovered Monday afternoon on the outskirts of San Antonio when a city worker heard a cry for help from the truck parked on a lonely back road and found the gruesome scene inside, police Chief William McManus said. Hours later, body bags lay spread on the ground.

More than a dozen people — their bodies hot to the touch — were taken to hospitals, including four children. Most of the dead were males, he said.

The death count was the highest ever from a smuggling attempt in the United States, according to Craig Larrabee, acting special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio.

President Joe Biden called the deaths “horrifying and heartbreaking.”

G7 HITS OUT AT CHINA OVER ‘MARKET-DISTORTING’ PRACTICES, URGES IT TO PRESS RUSSIA TO STOP WAR

G7 leaders on Tuesday condemned China’s “non-transparent and market-distorting” international trade practices in an end-ofsummit statement that hit out directly at Beijing for the first time. In their closing statement, the G7 leaders signalled that they would seek to extricate themselves from economic dependence on China. They also urged China to uphold the principle of peaceful settlement of disputes by pressing Russia to stop its invasion of Ukraine. China should pressure Russia to withdraw troops from Ukraine immediately and without conditions, the G7 said, pointing to an International Court of Justice ruling that Moscow suspend its operation.

SRI LANKA ENDS FUEL DUOPOLY TO OPEN OIL MARKET TO FOREIGN COS

Colombo : Sri Lanka will allow companies from oil-producing countries to import and sell fuel, the power and energy minister said on Tuesday, ending a duopoly as it tries to overcome a shortage of petrol and diesel that is exacerbating an economic crisis. The state-run Ceylon Petroleum Corporation controls 80% of the fuel market and Lanka IOC, a unit of Indian Oil Corporation, the rest.

The cabinet decision came as the minister, Kanchana Wijesekera, headed to Qatar and a ministerial colleague was due to arrive in Russia on Sunday for talks on energy deals. Wijesekera hopes to find a long-term fuel supplier in Qatar, said a ministry official. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa tweeted that he met Russian envoy Yuri Materiy on Monday. Sri Lanka last month bought 90,000 tonnes of Russian oil. The cabinet also allowed bunkering companies registered with the government to import jet fuel so that flights are not disrupted. The government would also farm 250,000 hectares of unused land belonging to religious institutions, including temples, churches and mosques, to help avert a looming food shortage.

IRAN WILL PAY PRICE FOR CYBERATTACKS BY PROXIES HAMAS, HEZBOLLAH: ISRAEL

Israel on Tuesday sent out a stark warning to Iran that cyberattacks carried out by its proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas will not go unpunished and that the retaliation will be aimed directly at Tehran. “Our policy is. . . that if you mess with Israel, you will have to pay a price,” Israeli PM Naftali Bennett said during a Q&A session with Microsoft Corporate vice-president Michal Braverman Blumenstyk at the annual Cyber Week event here. Tehran is believed to have amassed cyber capabilities and, according to sources here, has shared those with its Shia allies Hezbollah and Hamas.

Bennett’s warning to Iran came shortly after the director general of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, Gaby Portnoy, said Iran, along with Hezbollah and Hamas, had become Israel’s dominant rival in the cyberspace. He said 1,500 attacks were halted in the last one year. The four-day conference was hosted by the Tel Aviv University and Blavatnik Inter-disciplinary Cyber Research Centre.

TALIBAN GRAND COUNCIL TO ASSESS PROGRESS

Hundreds of religious leaders and “people of influence” from around Afghanistan have been summoned to the capital to attend a three-day grand council in support of the country’s Taliban rule.

Officials are providing scant details of the men-only meeting starting on Wednesday, a week after an earthquake killed over 1,000 people and left tens of thousands homeless.

A Taliban source said thorny issues such as education of girls, which has divided opinion in the group, would be discussed.

JAN 6 HEARINGS: EX-AIDE PAINTS DEVASTATING PICTURE OF TRUMP

Cassidy Hutchinson, a key aide in Donald Trump’s White House, told the House committee investigating the violent January 6, 2021, insurrection on Tuesday that Mr. Trump was informed that people rallying on the mall that morning had weapons but he told officials to “let my people in” and march to the Capitol.

Mr. Trump demanded to be taken to Capitol after 1/6 rally, tried to grab steering wheel from Secret Service agent, she said.

Ms. Hutchinson quoted Mr. Trump as directing his staff, in profane terms, to take away the magnetometers that he thought would slow down supporters who had gathered in Washington. In videotaped testimony played before the committee, she recalled the former President saying words to the effect of: “I don’t f-in’ care that they have weapons.”

“They’re not here to hurt me... Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” Ms. Hutchinson testified.

Ms. Hutchison, a top aide to Mr. Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said that she was “scared, and nervous for what could happen” ahead of the riot after conversations with Mr. Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Meadows and others.

Mr. Meadows told Ms. Hutchinson that “things might get real real bad,” she said. Mr. Giuliani told her it was going to be “a great day” and “we’re going to the Capitol.” She described Mr. Meadows as unconcerned as security officials told him that people at Mr. Trump’s rally had weapons — including people wearing armour and carrying automatic weapons.

FRENCH PARLIAMENT ELECTS WOMAN AS ITS SPEAKER, FOR 1ST TIME

France’s lower house of parliament on Tuesday elected Yaël Braun-Pivet of President Macron’s centrist alliance as its new speaker. She is the first woman to hold the post. Braun-Pivet is a former Socialist who joined Macron’s party in 2016. Among the first issues the new National Assembly is expected to face is a proposal to inscribe the right to abortion in the constitution. The step was prompted by the US Supreme Court’s decision to strip women’s constitutional protections for abortion.