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The war in Ukraine and Chinese aggression towards Taiwan will dominate G7 discussions this week, but the host, Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, is expected to carve out time to push for a pledge on nuclear weapons when leaders meet in Hiroshima, the first place on Earth targeted by an atomic bomb.
The leaders began to arrive on Thursday, before an expected visit on Saturday to the city’s Peace Memorial Museum, which contains exhibits showing the scale of the tragedy that unfolded after the US dropped a nuclear bomb on the morning of 6 August 1945, killing 140,000 people by the end of the year.
Kishida, Joe Biden, Rishi Sunak and other G7 leaders are expected to see displays including a simulation that reproduces the wave of destruction that followed the bombing, with the human cost represented by mundane items such as ripped school uniforms, the blackened contents of a bento lunchbox, and a tricycle whose three-year-old owner would die within 24 hours.
The need to reference the dangers of nuclear weapons has intensified since Barack Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Hiroshima in 2016. Vladimir Putin has refused to publicly rule out the use of tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, while North Korea continues to develop more sophisticated missiles theoretically capable of delivering nuclear warheads to the US mainland.
What has Kishida said in the run-up to the summit? He spoke of his desire for “a world without nuclear weapons”, although campaigners point to the failure by Japan – part of the US nuclear umbrella – to sign a 2021 UN treaty banning the possession and use of nuclear weapons. “I believe the first step toward any nuclear disarmament effort is to provide a first-hand experience of the consequences of the atomic bombing and to firmly convey the reality,” Kishida said of the planned group visit to the peace museum.
Biden ‘confident’ of reaching deal with McCarthy to avoid US debt default
Joe Biden and the Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, said yesterday they thought a deal to avoid a US debt default was in reach.
Speaking at the White House, Biden said: “I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget, that America will not default. We’re going to come together because there’s no alternative way to do the right thing for the country. We have to move on.”
On Tuesday, Biden and McCarthy met for an hour at the White House, a meeting the president called productive. Biden, who has faced some criticism for his handling of the issue, is due to travel to the G7 summit in Japan but has cut the trip short to pursue a debt ceiling deal. Plans to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia were postponed.
A failure to honour US debts could have catastrophic effects on the US and world economies. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has indicated that without agreement default could come as early as 1 June.
Republicans want sharp spending cuts. Democrats say Republicans should agree to a “clean” debt bill, the sort they repeatedly passed under Donald Trump. But Biden also seemed ready to make compromises, including some work requirements on federal programs, though not on healthcare.
What has Biden said in response to the criticism? The president said: “I’ll be in constant contact with my team while I’m at the G7 and be in close touch with speaker McCarthy and other leaders as well. What I have done in anticipation that we won’t get it all done till I get back is, I’ve cut my trip short in order to be [here] for the final negotiations and sign the deal with the majority leader.”
What has McCarthy said? Speaking to CNBC, he said: “I think at the end of the day we do not have a debt default. The thing I’m confident about is now we have a structure to find a way to come to a conclusion. The timeline is very tight. But we’re going to make sure we’re in the room and get this done.”
Nike may have misclassified workers and could face more than $530m in tax fines
Nike may have misclassified thousands of temporary office workers and faces potential tax fines of more than $530m, according to documents obtained by the Guardian.
The sporting goods company employs more than 79,000 people worldwide and, like many large corporations, relies on an army of independent contractors to do much of the work, including business consulting, T-shirt graphics, photography and event planning.
According to independent reports compiled for the company and given to the Guardian, Nike management’s handling of independent contractors has left it open to potentially huge fines from tax authorities and the possibility of class-action lawsuits.
The US, UK and other countries have strict rules about the use of independent contractors, meant to protect workers’ rights and ensure fair tax collection. The Biden administration last year indicated it intends to crack down on companies that infringe them.
Where does the $530m figure come from? A July 2022 review of Nike’s independent contractors in the US, UK, the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the company faces a “misclassification risk” of more than $530m. The report, compiled by People2.0, a workforce services specialist, looked at 3,670 entities – independent contractors, law firms, individuals and others – in the US who had been paid more than $7.2bn over three years. It found that a quarter of those contractors may have been incorrectly classified.
What has Nike said? The company did not return calls and emails for comment.
In other news …
Jack Teixeira, the US air national guard member charged with being behind the Pentagon leaks of highly classified military documents, was warned repeatedly over his mishandling of classified material, according to a court filing. Justice department lawyers made the disclosure in court papers that urged Teixeira be kept behind bars while he awaits trial.
Westpac has banned customers from transferring funds to the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, in a move aimed at reducing losses from scams. The Australian big four bank said today it was blocking a number of cryptocurrency exchanges as part of a trial.
Republicans successfully sidestepped an effort to force them into a vote to expel George Santos, the New York representative, from Congress, which could have narrowed their already slim four-seat majority. The House voted along party lines, 221-204, to refer a resolution to expel the congressman to the House ethics committee.
Montana has became the first US state to ban TikTok after the governor signed legislation prohibiting mobile application stores from offering the app within the state by next year. The move is among the most dramatic in a series of US escalations against TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.
Stat of the day: top five US executives hoard $9bn tax-free for retirement as workers face limits
The top five executives at the US’s largest companies have amassed close to $9bn in tax-free retirement saving accounts while many of their employees have struggled to set aside any funds for retirement, according to a report released today. The report, A Tale of Two Retirements, from the Institute for Policy Studies and Jobs With Justice, found the top five executives at S&P 500 firms held a combined $8.9bn in special tax-deferred accounts at the end of 2021. Income taxes will be due on this compensation when they withdraw the funds, but in the meantime they benefit from the tax-free compounding of investment returns. These “top hat” plans allow unlimited tax-deferred retirement while ordinary workers face strict limits on their 401(k) retirement plan contributions.
Don’t miss this: the best childcare in the world? Maybe so, but new parents in Iceland are holding out for better
In a bright, bunting-filled community hall in central Reykjavik, 30 parents are attending a council-funded playgroup. Half of them are fathers – not unusual in a country considered to have one of the best childcare policies in the world. As well as six months’ leave for both parents at 80% of pay – with six weeks extra to share between them – childcare is heavily subsidised by the government. Yet parents and policymakers are pushing for more. Iceland spends 1.7% of its gross domestic product on early childhood education and care – more than double that of most other countries. That leaves Icelandic families spending only about 5% of their income on childcare. Despite this, parents at the Thursday playgroup, run by an organisation called Memmm, are pushing for more change. Parents explain why.
… or this: the fall of Rudy Giuliani, once the toast of New York, continues unabated
From “America’s mayor” to a human punchline, Rudy Giuliani’s descent continues unabated, writes Lloyd Green. On Monday, news broke of the septuagenarian being slammed with a $10m sexual harassment and unpaid wages lawsuit brought by Noelle Dunphy, 43, a former aide. The mighty have fallen. Once Giuliani was the toast of town. As a federal prosecutor he sent a congressman to jail, locked up mobsters and indicted white-collar criminals. As mayor, he made the streets feel safe again. Love him or hate him, crime precipitously dropped on his watch. In the days and months following 9/11, he projected strength, confidence and reassurance. He had braced himself for a calamity; he just didn’t know its source or when it would happen. He was steady when crunch time arrived. These days, Giuliani and the words “defendant” and “buffoon” stand adjacent.
Climate check: world likely to breach 1.5C climate threshold by 2027, scientists warn
The world is almost certain to experience new record temperatures in the next five years and temperatures are likely to rise by more than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, scientists have warned. The breaching of the crucial 1.5C threshold, which scientists have said could have dire consequences, should be only temporary, according to research from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). However, it would represent a marked acceleration of human impacts on the global climate system and send the world into “uncharted territory”, the UN agency warned. Countries have pledged, under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to try to hold global temperatures to no higher than 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, after scientific advice that heating beyond that level would unleash a cascade of increasingly catastrophic and potentially irreversible impacts.
Last Thing: blues singer gets high school diploma decades after being expelled for his hair
The US blues musician Otis Taylor, whose critically revered song Ten Million Slaves has been featured on major films and television shows, has at the age of 74 received his diploma from the high school that expelled him decades ago because of his hairstyle. Taylor was studying at Manual high school in Denver in 1966 when he drew unwanted attention from administrators because of his long hair and was kicked out. Since then, laws have been passed that prohibit discrimination against students over their hairstyle. More recently, Denver’s public school district “wanted to right [the] wrong” inflicted on the music star as a teenager, according to a CBS report. Officials invited him to a ceremony this week in which they presented him with an honorary diploma symbolizing the one he would have received if the modern rules were in effect at the time he was a student at Manual.
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