News of the World

[kyonides]

Afghanistan's last finance minister
now a DC Uber driver
ponders what went wrong

Until last summer, Khalid Payenda was Afghanistan's finance minister, overseeing a $6 billion budget — the lifeblood of a government fighting for its survival in a war that had long been at the center of U.S. foreign policy.

Now, seven months after Kabul had fallen to the Taliban, he was at the wheel of his Honda Accord, headed north on I-95 from his home in Woodbridge, Va., toward Washington, D.C. Payenda swiped at his phone and opened the Uber app, which offered his "quest" for the weekend. For now his success was measured in hundreds of dollars rather than billions.
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The job was his way of supporting his wife and four children after he burned through his family's savings from Afghanistan.
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Senior U.S. officials have largely moved on from the Afghanistan war, which began 20 years earlier with high-minded promises of democracy, human rights and women's rights and ended with an American president blaming Afghans, such as a Payenda, for the mess left behind.

"So what's happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country," President Joe Biden said as desperate Afghans rushed to the airport the day after Kabul fell, adding: "We gave them every tool they could need. . . . We gave them every chance to determine their own future. What we could not provide them was the will to fight for that future."

The question of what happened and who was at fault haunted Payenda. He blamed his fellow Afghans. "We didn't have the collective will to reform, to be serious," he said. He blamed the Americans for handing the country to the Taliban and betraying the enduring values that supposedly had animated their fight. He blamed himself.

US expels another Chinese phone carrier on security grounds

Washington has expelled another state-owned Chinese phone carrier from the U.S. market over national security concerns amid rising tension with Beijing.

The Federal Communications Commission revoked authorization for Pacific Networks Corp. to provide domestic and international service under an order issued Wednesday.

The U.S. government is reducing Chinese access to American markets and investment over possible spying and Beijing’s military development.

The FCC cited "significant national security and law enforcement risks" that Pacific Networks could monitor or disrupt U.S. communications. It said there were no steps that could eliminate those risks while the company operated in the United States.

President Joe Biden has extended efforts begun under his predecessor, Donald Trump, to limit access to U.S. technology, investment and markets for Chinese companies due to concern they are security risks or helping military development.

In October, a unit of China Telecom Ltd., one of China’s three main state-owned carriers, was expelled by the FCC from the U.S. market on similar grounds.

The FCC said in 2019 it planned to revoke licenses granted two decades earlier to China Telecom and another state-owned carrier, China Unicom Ltd. It rejected a license application by the third carrier, China Mobile Ltd.

The FCC also cited unspecified "conduct and representations" by Pacific Networks to regulators and Congress that "demonstrate a lack of trustworthiness and reliability."

Pacific Networks owns an American company, ComNet (USA) LLC, which provides international service, calling cards and global SIM cards, as well as network management, business phone systems and website services, according to a U.S. Senate report in 2020.

The companies ultimately are owned by the Chinese Cabinet’s main holding company, CITIC Group, which "may be able to access U.S. customer records," said the report by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

Zelensky Calls for Direct Talks With Putin
Says Ukrainians Must Vote on Terms of Peace Deal

Russia and Ukraine have held several rounds of talks by way of video conferencing, but so far without any significant breakthroughs. Zelensky said direct talks are now needed with his Russian counterpart “in any format” in order to understand the conditions for putting an end to hostilities.
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Zelensky said he’s ready to discuss the status of Russia-annexed Crimea and the breakaway separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk provided Ukraine receives security guarantees.
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Separately, Zelensky told Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne that any deal agreed with Russia would have to be put to a referendum in Ukraine.
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Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Tuesday that efforts to evacuate civilians from besieged towns and cities were focused on the city of Mariupol but did not announce any new agreement with Russia to allow safe passage for trapped residents.

Kremlin Reacts to Zelensky’s Idea of Ukrainian Referendum
on Any Compromises to Russia

Russia is pushing back on a proposal that Ukrainians would put the key terms of a Russia-Ukraine peace deal to a popular vote, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying on Tuesday that a referendum would hamstring the negotiations.
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“We’re convinced that putting [the terms] before the public at this moment can only undermine the negotiations that are already going a lot slower and are less substantial than we want them to be,” Peskov said, according to Russian state-backed media RT.
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The United Nations chief, meanwhile, has said his discussions with officials indicate “there is enough on the table to cease hostilities now” and seriously negotiate a Russia-Ukraine peace deal.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters on Tuesday that the war is “unwinnable,” and the only question is how many more lives will be lost and how many more cities like Mariupol will be destroyed before the conflict shifts away from the battlefield and onto the negotiating table.

Pfizer Recalling Some Blood Pressure Drug Products

With ‘Above Acceptable’ Levels of Cancer-Causing Impurity

Pfizer says that it’s voluntarily recalling some of its blood pressure drug products and two authorized cheaper generic versions of the drug because of elevated levels of a potentially cancer-causing impurity.

The pharmaceutical giant stated on March 21 that it’s recalling six lots of Accuretic (quinapril HCl/hydrochlorothiazide) tablets, one lot of quinapril and hydrochlorothiazide tablets, and four lots of quinapril HCl/ hydrochlorothiazide tablets that are used to treat the symptoms of high blood pressure.

Pfizer stated that the tablets, which were distributed nationwide to wholesalers and distributors in the United States and Puerto Rico from November 2019 to March, have been found to contain the presence of nitrosamines.

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), nitrosamines are common in water and foods, including cured and grilled meats, dairy products, and vegetables. While everyone is exposed to some level of nitrosamines, overexposure to the impurities for extended periods of time can lead to an increased risk of cancer.

Drugs that contain levels of nitrosamines that are above the acceptable daily intake limits are recommended by the FDA to be recalled.