Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping shake hands after speaking to the media at The Grand Kremlin Palace, in Moscow, Russia, March 21, 2023 (Sputnik photo by Mikhail Tereshchenko via AP).
Deeper and more entrenched divisions over Russia's war in Ukraine risk derailing progress on issues such as food security, debt distress and global cooperation on climate change when the world's most powerful nations meet this weekend in New Delhi.
The hardened stance on the war has prevented agreement on even a single communique at the 20 or so ministerial meetings of the G20 during India's presidency this year, leaving it to the leaders to find a way around, if possible.
But China will be represented by Premier Li Qiang, not President Xi Jinping, while Russia has confirmed President Vladimir Putin's absence, suggesting that neither nation is likely to join any consensus.
That means the two-day summit from September 9 will be dominated by the West and its allies. The G20 leaders who will attend include U.S. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman and Japan's Fumio Kishida.
A failed summit would expose the limits of cooperation between Western and non-Western powers, and prompt countries to double down on the groups they are more comfortable with, analysts said.
To tackle global threats "breaking off into Western and non-Western blocs isn't what you want," said Michael Kugelman, the director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington.
Failing to forge a consensus will also hurt the diplomatic credentials of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is using the presidency to bolster New Delhi's position as economic powerhouse and a leader of the global south.
"If the leaders' summit is a flop, New Delhi and especially Modi will have suffered a major diplomatic, and political, setback," Kugelman said.
India, which has not condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine, will have to either convince the bloc to agree to a joint statement - the so-called Leaders Declaration - or allow its presidency to be the first to end without such a communique since 2008.
"The positions have hardened since the Bali Summit," a senior Indian government official told Reuters, referring to the 2022 summit held in Indonesia. "Russia and China have toughened their position since then, a consensus would be very hard."
LAST MINUTE
In Bali, Indonesian President Joko Widodo clinched a last minute joint statement from the bloc. India is hoping that the leaders can again work something out at the last minute, another government official said.
The Bali Leaders' Declaration said "most members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine and stressed it is causing immense human suffering and exacerbating existing fragilities in the global economy."
It also said that "there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions."
Another Indian official said that in Bali, "Russia and China were more flexible." But as the war completes 18 months, countries "are not agreeing even to the language used in the Bali Declaration".
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who will come in place of Putin, have already drawn battlelines.
Trudeau, while confirming that he will travel to India for the meeting in a call with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that he was disappointed that the Ukrainian president was not invited.
"As you know, we will be speaking up strongly for you, and we will continue to make sure that the world is standing with Ukraine," Trudeau said in the call with Zelenskiy.
Lavrov said last week Russia will block the final declaration of the G20 summit unless it reflects Moscow's position on Kyiv and other crises. Diplomats said any acceptance of Moscow's stance was highly improbable, and the summit would most likely end up issuing a non-binding or partial communique.
CHINA PUSHING BRICS?
Last month, the BRICS group of nations, where China is the heavyweight, added half a dozen more countries to the bloc in a push to reshuffle a world order it sees as outdated.
"Xi’s absence may be Beijing’s attempt to put a nail in the G20’s coffin, only weeks after expanding the BRICS organization which is more aligned with China’s world view," said David Boling, director at consulting firm Eurasia Group.
India is a member of BRICS, along with Russia, China, Brazil and South Africa, and had some concerns about the bloc's expansion earlier. But at the summit in Johannesburg last month, it joined a consensus on the criteria for new entrants.
In its G20 presidency, India has sought to relegate the differences over Ukraine to the background and pushed for resolution on climate change, debt for vulnerable countries, rules around cryptocurrencies and multilateral bank reforms.
New Delhi has also attempted to break an impasse over a deal that allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, but Russia is unlikely to budge from its opposition to the plan, Indian officials said.
Over the year, there has been little progress on debt restructuring talks and a minimum global corporate tax, but India has been able to gain support from the U.S. and the IMF for over-arching global regulations on cryptocurrencies.
A G20 committee under former Indian bureaucrat N.K. Singh and economist Larry Summers, a former U.S. treasury secretary, has also proposed increasing lending by multilateral banks to developing countries. The proposal has not been agreed on yet.
Climate change goals had also divided developed and developing countries in July meetings of the group and officials said the positions are not likely to change at the summit.
Russian drones that were used over the weekend to strike targets in Ukraine did not pose any military threat to Romania’s territory, the country’s Ministry of Defense announced on Monday.
The statement comes after Oleg Nikolenko, a representative of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry, claimed on Facebook that several Russian drones had fallen and detonated on the territory of Romania.
“During a massive attack by Russia in the area of the Izmail port, Russian ‘shaheds’ fell and detonated on the territory of Romania tonight,” Nikolenko wrote, citing sources within the Ukrainian Border Guard.
Nikolenko provided an unverified picture purported to depict the event and said that the alleged incident proved that “Russian missile terror” threatens not only Ukraine, but also neighboring NATO member states. To counter this, he insisted that Kiev’s Western backers should provide Ukraine with additional modern anti-missile and anti-aircraft defense systems, as well as aviation.
Romania’s Defense Ministry, however, said that it “firmly denies the information circulating in the public space with regard to a so-called situation [that] occurred during the night of 3-4 September, when Russian drones would have fallen on Romania’s national territory.”
While the ministry said it condemned the attacks on Ukraine, it stressed that “at no time did the means of attack employed by the Russian Federation pose direct military threats to our national territory or Romania’s territorial waters.”
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Sunday that its forces had successfully conducted a drone strike on an oil depot and facilities used to refuel Ukrainian military vehicles in the port of Reni, on the left bank of the Danube River.
“The objective of the strike was achieved. All designated targets have been hit,” the ministry said in a statement, noting that the Russian military had also destroyed two Ukrainian ammunition depots and one drone command center in the southeastern region of Dnepropetrovsk and a Kiev-controlled part of the Kherson region.
Meteri Luar Negeri RI, Retno Marsudi saat membuka rapat ASEAN Coordinating Council di Sekretariat ASEAN, Jakarta pada Senin, 4 September 2023/Ist
Menteri Luar Negeri Indonesia Retno Marsudi mengatakan bahwa ASEAN harus siap mengambil keputusan dan tidak membiarkan perbedaan menghalangi negara-negara anggotanya untuk melangkah maju.
“Kita harus siap mengambil keputusan yang berani dan kita tidak boleh membiarkan perbedaan menghalangi kita untuk maju,” kata Menlu Retno dalam pembukaan Pertemuan ke-34 Dewan Koordinasi ASEAN (34th ACC) di Jakarta, Senin.
Dewan Koordinasi ASEAN (ACC) bertanggung jawab mengawasi pengembangan dan pelaksanaan dokumen seperti yang ditugaskan oleh pemimpin Perhimpunan Bangsa-Bangsa Asia Tenggara (ASEAN).
Dokumen tersebut harus meminta masukan dan persetujuan lintas pilar dari tiga Dewan Komunitas ASEAN, yaitu Dewan Masyarakat Politik Keamanan ASEAN (APSC), Dewan Masyarakat Ekonomi ASEAN (AEC), dan Dewan Masyarakat Sosial Budaya ASEAN (ASCC) sebelum diserahkan pada pemimpin ASEAN untuk disahkan dalam KTT ASEAN.
KTT ke-43 ASEAN yang diketuai oleh Indonesia mengambil tema “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth”. Tema tersebut bermakna bahwa Indonesia ingin ASEAN menjadi relevan dan penting serta menjadi pusat pertumbuhan ekonomi.
Selanjutnya, Menlu Retno mengatakan bahwa sangat penting bagi ACC untuk bisa merekomendasikan langkah-langkah terbaik yang harus diputuskan oleh para pemimpin ASEAN.
“Dalam KTT ini kita akan mengambil banyak keputusan penting yang akan menentukan masa depan ASEAN sebagai sebuah komunitas dan institusi,” ujar Retno.
Hal tersebut mencakup langkah untuk mempercepat proses pengambilan keputusan dalam krisis dan situasi darurat serta langkah untuk memperkuat kapasitas ASEAN dalam menanggapi tantangan yang muncul di kawasan.
Menlu Retno menambahkan bahwa ASEAN sedang berada di persimpangan jalan, dan kredibilitas serta relevansi ASEAN sedang dipertaruhkan.
“Bisa atau tidaknya ASEAN maju atau tidak sepenuhnya bergantung pada kita," tegas Retno.
Ukrainian leaders are losing their conflict with Russia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia, told US radio show host Alex Jones.
"Ukraine is losing this war," the Republican congresswoman said in an interview on madmaxworld.tv on Sunday. She added that she was "probably the only member of Congress that will say that out loud."
Also, Taylor Greene criticized Washington’s sanctions policy which she said was prompting BRICS to strengthen their commercial ties which may make the grouping "tank our dollar," as BRICS member countries will switch to national currencies in their trade.
Following the results of the 15th BRICS summit held in Johannesburg on August 22-24, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates will officially join the bloc on January 1, 2024.
Ukraine Loses Nearly 600 Troops in Combat Over Past Day - MoD
The Russian armed forces have eliminated about 600 Ukrainian troops during the special military operation in the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday.
"Up to 250 Ukrainian troops were eliminated in combat in the Donetsk direction, in addition to two armored vehicles, three cars, a US-made M777 howitzer, a Polish-made Krab self-propelled howitzer, and a Msta-B and a D-20 howitzers," the ministry said.
Another 130 Ukrainian troops were eliminated in the Zaporizhzhia direction, over 125 in the South Donetsk direction, 50 near Krasnyi Lyman and 40 near Kupyansk, according to the ministry's estimate.
Ukraine also lost a MiG-29 fighter jet to the Russian air force near Bekarivka town in the Zaporizhzhia region, among other military hardware lost in combat over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Russian air defenses shot down 34 Ukrainian drones, five HIMARS missiles and a JDAM guided munition over the past day, the ministry also said.
The drought that gripped Minnesota in the summer of 2021 was one of the worst on record. Day after day a blazing sun shriveled leaves, dried up waterfalls and turned ponds to puddles.
In a state known for its 10,000 lakes, many people could do little except hope for rain.
But big farmers had another option. They cranked up their powerful irrigation wells, drenching their fields with so much water that they collectively pumped at least 6.1 billion gallons more groundwater than allowed under state permits. Nearly a third of the overuse happened on land affiliated with one company, R.D. Offutt Farms.
The water helped R.D. Offutt to achieve its objective of creating long, smooth potatoes that effortlessly sail through the slicers at frozen food processors so Americans could have one of their favorite foods: McDonald’s French fries.
It takes a lot of water to make a perfect fry.
By turning on the taps in the depths of drought, R.D. Offutt and other farmers in the state — where thousands of wells irrigate potatoes and other water-intensive crops like corn, soybeans and sugar beets — blew through limits designed to protect aquifers that supply drinking water to millions of people.
For some Minnesotans, it significantly worsened the drought’s effects. And it exposed how dependent much of the state has become on aquifers that are fragile and often poorly understood.
A bar chart showing Minnesota’s groundwater use for irrigation over time. The x-axis extends from 1988 to 2021. The bars show a general upward trend, peaking in the drought year of 2021 at above 150 billion gallons.
The increasing overuse of groundwater is a nationwide problem, a New York Times data investigation found, with big cities and industrial farms alike draining aquifers at alarming rates. The practice threatens not only drinking water supplies for millions of Americans but also the nation’s status as a leading exporter of food.
In Minnesota, watersheds started to dry as the heavy irrigation in 2021 lowered aquifer levels. Trout streams warmed when huge wells siphoned away the cooler underground water that normally fed the streams, scientists said, threatening fish populations. And in parts of Minnesota, people reported backyard wells drying up, sometimes leaving kitchen faucets to cough and sputter as though they were gasping.
Officials in Warren, Minn., partly surrounded by sugar beet fields, had to physically lower the pump at the town’s well by 63 feet in order to keep providing drinking water to more than 1,500 residents, including those in a hospital and nursing home. One older woman outside Warren said the only way she could get water after her own well went dry was to drive her riding mower to a neighbor’s house to fill water bottles. State officials wound up suspending four irrigation permits in the area.
In Backus, Minn., Mike Tauber, whose forested land abuts potato fields affiliated with R.D. Offutt, was shocked to find dried-up, exposed banks along a pond so big he had nicknamed it “Super Pond.” And in the northwestern part of the state, members of the White Earth Nation worried that farmers’ irrigation wells were draining culturally significant bodies of water.
Trout fishermen worry that the Straight River is warming as irrigation wells pump out cooler groundwater that would normally feed the river
The Taubers’ forest abuts an irrigated potato field.
“I understand farmers have got to make a living, too, but at the same time they’ve got to take other human beings into consideration,” said Trevor Milbrett, of Eagle Bend, Minn., who sometimes drove his pregnant wife and toddler to his parent’s house for showers and supper that summer because nearby irrigation had left him with no water.
Potato farming is not the only big agricultural user of groundwater in Minnesota. The state is one of the nation’s top producers of corn, another heavily irrigated crop. But potato farming in particular shows how a host of seemingly unrelated factors — the demands of industrial French fry production, for example, or the fact that people will spend more money for fries with fewer unappetizing dark spots — can send water use soaring.
In a written statement, Warren Warmbold, vice president of R.D. Offutt Farms, said, “The story of 2021 was either going to be about water overages or food shortages.” Along with other farmers, he said, “we had to make difficult decisions around water use in order to save our crops and keep the food supply secure and affordable.”
Mr. Warmbold also said that, over the years, R.D. Offutt had used less water than its permits allocated 97 percent of the time. “We don’t take these decisions lightly,” he wrote.
The practice of irrigating mainly with groundwater, once concentrated in America’s arid West, is marching eastward across the country even as it declines in many Western states, where aquifers are drying up.
A map of the continental United States, showing where irrigated acres of land saw net increases or decreases between 1997 and 2017. Net decreases are concentrated in the west, and net increases in the Midwest and elsewhere.
Minnesota in the early 1960s had fewer than 50 permits for irrigation wells. By 2022, there were over 7,000 of them.
And, like many other states, Minnesota uses an honor system for reporting water use from wells like these. Farmers self-report their usage annually.
This year, Minnesota lawmakers moved to rein in irrigators by increasing fines for pumping too much water, but it’s unclear whether regulators will use the new tools. Officials said that in 2021, they were hesitant to fine farmers who were already struggling with crop loss.
What happened in Minnesota offers a warning to the rest of the country. Even in a state with a culture tied to watery abundance, groundwater overuse in some areas quickly had dire consequences. And it remains unclear whether the steps taken to prevent a repeat are strong enough.
“We have this really intensive groundwater use, expanding to aquifers we don’t yet understand very well, in places where domestic wells have never had to compete for groundwater,” said Ellen Considine, a hydrologist supervisor with the state’s Department of Natural Resources. As a result, she said, “we may not be leaving enough groundwater for future generations.”
Thirsty Farmland
To understand why big farms use so much water, consider potato aesthetics.
People don’t want French fries that just taste good, they want them to look good, too. And since the late 1960s, the United States Department of Agriculture has set voluntary grading standards for potatoes and French fries, essentially defining what gives them value.
One important variable is French fry coloring: Those with dark markings have little chance at being called “Grade A” fries.
For farmers, that means making sure potatoes don’t have lumps, which can cause uneven coloring. Growing potatoes in fluffy, sandy soil allows them to expand into smoother shapes.
The ideal: long, golden, uniform fries Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune, via Getty Images
R.D. Offutt employees in a potato field near Park Rapids, Minn.
In Minnesota, R.D. Offutt, which has its headquarters in North Dakota and is one of the largest potato growers in America, has planted crops on thousands of acres of land where a timber company once harvested wood from a lush pine forest. R.D. Offutt converted the land to farming to take advantage of the sandy, potato-friendly soil beneath the trees.
R.D. Offutt executives said they had put into place more efficient irrigation methods in recent years. And the company said it has partnered with scientists to develop new varieties of potatoes that aren’t as water-intensive.
In the summer of 2021, faced with the worst drought in decades, fields linked to R.D. Offutt were doused with water from more than 500 wells. R.D. Offutt supplies potatoes to companies that make fries for fast-food restaurants, including McDonald’s. It owns fields but also leases land to and from other farmers as part of its practice of rotating potatoes with other crops every few years.
In the drought year, about one-third of R.D. Offutt’s fields were planted with potatoes, executives said. But growing any crops in the sandy, porous soil requires significantly more water.
A potato plant on an R.D. Offutt farm near Park Rapids.
A lake where White Earth members harvest wild rice.
It’s not just industrial farms that gulp groundwater. Cities, power plants, factories and golf courses do, too. (In 2021 in Minnesota, a company digging an oil pipeline also breached an aquifer, sending groundwater gushing.) But irrigation is consistently one of the biggest users, and the agricultural industry’s political might, along with farming’s revered place in the American self-image, means that unsustainable irrigation practices have expanded despite the risk to agriculture itself.
The phenomenon can be seen from the window of any airplane flying over America’s flatlands. Those circles of green on the land below are the work of immense “center pivot” irrigation sprinklers that often use groundwater, tapping wells that are sometimes hundreds of feet deep.
Minnesota tries to put the brakes on excessive groundwater use with permits that consider how wells affect the area around them. But the system isn’t perfect.
“Think of our water supply as a giant milkshake glass and each well is a straw in the glass,” said Robert Glennon, author of the book “Water Follies,” who has studied agriculture’s effect on groundwater. “What most states permit is a limitless number of straws in the glass.”
500 Gallons a Minute
Many of the wells linked to R.D. Offutt and those of other farmers tap the Pineland Sands Aquifer, which is huge but also delicate, partly because it is shallow in places. Extracting water from the shallow spots can sometimes affect surface water in the region, lowering the levels of rivers or other bodies of water.
“If you just take a little bit, it’s very sensitive,” said John Nieber, an agricultural engineering and hydrology professor at the University of Minnesota. Pumping out even relatively small amounts from aquifers can lower surface water if snowmelt and rain aren’t replenishing them quickly enough.
Early indications suggest the Pineland Sands Aquifer may have recovered from the setbacks in 2021, and R.D. Offutt says its studies show “imperceptible” changes in water levels in past years. Still, state officials said that straining an aquifer year after year can have wide-reaching effects, drying out wetlands and streams.
The fact that so many Minnesotans statewide were forced to scramble for groundwater after just one summer of intense drought highlights the fragility of aquifers even in parts of the country not usually thought of as water-stressed. This year parts of Minnesota are again experiencing a drought, prompting new complaints that irrigation is drying out residents’ wells.
Many of the state’s irrigation wells are concentrated in areas of sandy soil.
Dr. Nieber is partnering with the White Earth Nation to study irrigation’s effects on the Pineland Sands Aquifer. The southeast corner of the reservation sits atop the aquifer and is adjacent to dozens of wells operated by R.D. Offutt as well as other farmers, according to the tribe.
For years, White Earth members have complained about fertilizers and pesticides used by farmers. Among their concerns is that both the chemicals and the pumping for irrigation threaten tribal lakes and streams where White Earth members fish and harvest wild rice, which is culturally significant and an important revenue source.
Frustrated by what members see as an inadequate response by the state to address the effects of irrigated farming, this year the White Earth passed a measure that requires tribal officials to sign off on any new irrigation wells that farmers want to install within five miles of the reservation, a swath of territory where the White Earth says it has hunting and fishing rights.
The measure may invite legal challenges, leaders acknowledged, but is intended to send a message that more irrigation is not welcome. “We are pushing back,” said Jamie Konopacky, a White Earth attorney.
White Earth community members prayed for bountiful fish and rice.
Austin Tersteeg’s corn and soybean irrigation dried out neighbors’ wells.
During the summer drought in 2021, complaints about irrigation were filed with the Department of Natural Resources faster than inspectors could keep up with them. Many came from poorer families or older people with limited income, according to a review of the complaints and interviews with residents who filed them.
In Red Lake County, Allan Armstrong said he went without water for a month at his home. But Mr. Armstrong also faced another crisis: Nearby, his parents had also lost water in their well at a time when his father was receiving hospice care at home.
“He was panicking and flipping out and running out of water,” Mr. Armstrong said of his father.
His complaint to the state expressed the urgency. “We need water now!” Mr. Armstrong wrote.
About three miles from Mr. Armstrong’s home, a neighboring farm owned by the Tersteeg family had installed a new 500-gallon-a-minute well.
The Tersteegs were trying to keep their corn and soybeans from withering. Their water use was well within their annual permitted limit, but still enough to dry out Mr. Armstrong’s smaller well and also contribute to problems for three other families’ wells.
