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The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new push to expand business ties between U.S. companies and Africa with a focus on clean energy, health, agribusiness and transportation infrastructure.
Dana Banks, the senior director for Africa at the White House National Security Council, said the administration planned to "re-imagine" and revive Prosper Africa. It's an initiative launched by former President Donald Trump in 2018. Banks said it would be the "centerpiece of U.S. economic and commercial engagement with Africa."
President Joe Biden, who requested nearly $80 million for the initiative in his budget proposal in May, aims to focus on women and equity with an expanded role for small- and medium-sized businesses.
But U.S. business executives say the United States is in danger of being overtaken by China and Europe, which are already investing and signing trade agreements across the continent.
South Korea says the leaders of North and South Korea have agreed to restore suspended communication channels and improve ties. The presidential office in Seoul said President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reached such an agreement during several rounds of exchanges of letters since April.
The Blue House says the two Koreas tested their communication channel on Tuesday morning. The development comes amid more than two years of a stalemate in U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at stripping North Korea of its nuclear weapons.
The Biden administration is throwing its support behind congressional legislation that would require companies to report major data breaches by hackers, including the ransomware attacks that are increasingly targeting U.S. critical infrastructure.
Members of Congress are advancing more than a dozen bills in response to a recent escalation in ransomware attacks while the administration is taking a whole-of-government approach to respond to see what it sees as a public safety, economic and national security threat.
