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Every weekend, Asia Pacific Daily will provide you with a run-down of the latest hot news.
This week, the following hot news you should know:
Top 1 | Senate eyes taking up bipartisan infrastructure deal as soon as July 19
A bipartisan infrastructure agreement could be brought up on the Senate floor as soon as the week of July 19, a source confirmed to The Hill.
The bipartisan group of negotiators is still working to turn their $1.2-trillion, eight-year framework into legislation. But the source said that the Senate "could move to" the bipartisan deal as soon as the week of July 19 "as part of the two track strategy to move both the budget resolution and [bipartisan] bill through the Senate in the upcoming work period."
The Senate is in the middle of the two-week July 4 recess, though senators have been holding a flurry of calls both amongst themselves and with the White House as they try to lock down text of the bipartisan agreement that a core group of Senate negotiators and President Biden announced at the White House late last month.
Top 2 | Japan considers ban on all Olympic spectators, weighs extending curbs
Japan is considering banning all spectators from the Olympic Games, several sources told Reuters on Wednesday, as officials weigh extending novel coronavirus restrictions to contain infections just over two weeks before the Games begin.
Medical experts have said for weeks that having no spectators at the Olympics would be the least risky option amid widespread public concern about the risk the Games will fuel new surges of infections.
Organisers have already banned overseas spectators and set a cap on domestic spectators at 50% of capacity, up to 10,000 people, to contain a lingering coronavirus outbreak.
Top 3 | Bodies of plane crash victims found in Russia’s Far East
Rescuers have found the bodies of 19 victims a day after a plane crash in a remote area in Russia’s Far East, the authorities said.
An Antonov An-26 carrying 28 people crashed Tuesday near its destination town of Palana in the region of Kamchatka, apparently as it came in for a landing in bad weather. The plane was en route from the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky to Palana on Tuesday morning when it missed a scheduled communication and disappeared from radar.
Wreckage was found Tuesday evening on a coastal cliffside and in the sea, and the search and rescue operation was suspended until Wednesday morning after night fell, as the crash site was difficult to access in the dark.
Top 4 | Elsa weakens to a tropical storm as it takes aim at Florida
Elsa weakened to a tropical storm as it threatened Florida’s northern Gulf Coast on Wednesday after raking past the Tampa Bay region with gusty winds and heavy rain.
The storm was moving northward, almost parallel to the west coast of the state, according to forecasters.
Gov. Ron DeSantis said forecasts called for the cyclone to come ashore sometime between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. A tropical storm warning was in effect for a long stretch of coastline, from Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay to the Steinhatchee River.
Top 5 | UK housing boom may derail post-Brexit trade dreams
History suggests Britain's house price surge could threaten hopes of post-Brexit export-powered growth, if finance minister Rishi Sunak uses the housing market to fuel the economy like his predecessors did.
Stoked by his tax break on property purchases and a pandemic-driven rush for larger houses as more people work from home, house prices are rising at the fastest annual rate - at 13.4% in June - since 2004, lender Nationwide says.
The housing market holds totemic importance in Britain as a driver of wealth. Adjusted for inflation, house prices in Britain have grown since 1980 by more than in almost any other advanced economy, according to the Bank of England.
Top 6 | Oil Surges to Six-Year High as OPEC+ in Crisis Mode
Oil jumped to the highest in more than six years after a bitter fight between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates plunged OPEC+ into crisis and blocked a supply increase.
West Texas Intermediate crude advanced to $76.98 a barrel, the highest since November 2014, as the breakdown in cartel talks left the market without the extra supplies for next month it had been counting on.
What happens next will determine whether the standoff could escalate into a conflict as destructive as last year’s price war.
Top 7 | Australia’s largest city Sydney locks down for third week
Sydney’s two-week lockdown has been extended for another week due to the vulnerability of an Australia population largely unvaccinated against COVID-19, officials said on Wednesday.
“The situation we’re in now is largely because we haven’t been able to get the vaccine that we need,” New South Wales state Health Minister Brad Hazzard said.
The decision to extend the lockdown through July 16 was made on health advice, state Premier Gladys Berejiklian said.
Top 8 | New Zealand experiences hottest June on record despite polar blast
New Zealand has experienced its hottest June since records began more than 110 years ago, according to official climate data.
Despite a polar blast that swept up the country last week, figures from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research’s (NIWA) show the average temperature for June was 2C warmer than usual, with twenty-four locations around the country hitting their own record highs.
That makes this June New Zealand’s warmest since NIWA’s seven station temperature series began in 1909.
Top 9 | Ever Given container ship under way for departure from Suez Canal
The container ship that blocked the Suez Canal in March left the position it had been anchored in for more than three months on Wednesday to depart the waterway after the owner and insurers reached a compensation settlement with the canal authority.
A Reuters witness on board a tug boat saw the Ever Given container ship start to move north in the Great Bitter Lake, which separates two sections of the canal and where it has been moored with its Indian crew since being refloated on March 29.
The vessel, one of the world's largest container ships, had become wedged diagonally across the southernmost, single-lane stretch of the canal for six days, disrupting global trade.
Top 10 | Report Says Blackwater Founder Had $10Bn Plan to Develop Weapons, Create Private Army in Ukraine
Blackwater founder Erik Prince planned on hiring a private army of Ukrainian combat veterans and purchasing factories that make military aviation parts back in 2020, Time magazine reported.
Prince, who re-branded his US-based defense contracting company as Academi, allegedly planned on creating a "vertically integrated aviation defense consortium" in Ukraine that could bring in an estimated $10 billion, the report said on Wednesday, citing interviews with close associates and confidential documents. He hoped the factories could make engines for fighter jets and helicopters, according to the report. Prince also envisioned the consortium competing with top industry figures like Boeing and Airbus, the report added.
At the same time, the Ukrainian authorities were reportedly suspicious of the fact that Prince relied in his deals on politicians Andrei Derkach and Andrei Artemenko, against whom a criminal investigation is being conducted in the United States and who were suspected of being tied to alleged Russian interference in the US election — which has been dismissed by Moscow as lacking any evidence.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
