Ukraine war overshadows G20 meet in Bali

STORY: The war in Ukraine and its impact on the global economy overshadowed a G20 meeting in Bali on Friday (July 8).Host Indonesia urged foreign ministers to help end the conflict whose repercussions, including rising energy and food prices, would hit poorer countries hardest.Top officials from the West and Japan insisted the meeting would not be "business as usual".Heckling greeted Russia's top diplomat Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as he arrived for the meeting. Lavrov accused the West of scuppering a chance to tackle global economic issues with "frenzied" criticism of the conflict."There is only rabid Russophobia, which they turn to instead of finding much-needed common ground on key issues on the global economy and finances, for which the G20 was created."Russia has maintained it has launched a "special military operation" to root out people it calls dangerous nationalists, but Ukraine and its Western backers say Moscow is engaged in an unjustified land grab.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on the sidelines that challenges from rising food and energy costs had been "dramatically exacerbated by Russian aggression against Ukraine."During the plenary meeting, he confronted Russia about blocking the export of Ukrainian grain and stealing it, a Western official said.Ukraine has struggled to export goods, with many of its ports blocked as war rages along its southern coast. It is the world's fourth-largest grain exporter.Ukraine's foreign minister addressed the meeting virtually, accusing Russia of playing "hunger games".
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