WORLD

The US will release 50 million barrels of crude from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve in concert with China, Japan, India and South Korea, the White House said in a statement -- an unprecedented, coordinated attempt by three of the world’s largest oil consumers to tame prices that could prompt a backlash by OPEC .

The decision to collectively discharge stockpiled crude after OPEC countries rebuffed calls to significantly boost production marks a diplomatic win for the US and a challenge to the grip that Saudi Arabia, Russia and other OPEC producers have on the market.

She's tasked with tacking the border migration crisis, she's entrusted with advancing voting rights and workers rights, she's assigned to bridge the nation's digital divide, and she has to stay on top of the Covid vaccination program while piloting and selling big ticket legislative items like the infrastructure bill.

Somewhere between all this, US vice-president Kamala Harris also has to keep an eye on the biggest geo-strategic crisis looming before America in generations: As the designated head of the US National Space Council, the challenge arising from China's stunning lead over US in hypersonic technological capability, acknowledged by leading American generals, has landed on her already full table.

A bipartisan group of 75 US lawmakers have urged US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai to work towards a framework deal during her talks in New Delhi to quickly reinstate India’s benefits under an American preferential trade programme that allows tariff-free entry for imports from selective countries.

But only if, they added, progress is made at the upcoming meeting of the Trade Policy Forum (TPF), the high platform for trade talks between the two sides, on the longstanding US demand for more access to Indian markets.

The White House announced on Monday that President Biden will "transfer power to the vice president for the brief period of time when he is under anaesthesia."

Kamala Harris, 57, will become the first woman president of the United States for a short while as the US president undergoes his annual physical test.

President Biden will be under anaesthesia for a colonoscopy. Harris will be working from the West Wing of the White House as Biden is checked by doctors at Walter Reed Medical Center.

President Joe Biden said he’s weighing a diplomatic boycott of the upcoming Winter Olympics in Beijing, meaning the U.S. would decline to send a delegation of government officials.

It’s “something we’re considering,” Biden said in response to a question during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday.