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A helicopter flies above the US Capitol during the dress rehearsal ahead of US President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration in Washington, US, January 18, 2021. Rod Lamkey/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo Five months after the attack on the US Capitol, the Biden administration on Tuesday will unveil new steps to combat the "elevated threat" posed by domestic terrorism, but will not - for now - seek legislation to battle home-grown threats. Instead, in a national strategy to be publicly unveiled by US Attorney General Merrick Garland, the administration is seeking increased information sharing, additional resources to identify and prosecute threats, and new deterrents to prevent Americans from joining dangerous groups, Reuters reported. The new approach comes after the administration conducted a sweeping assessment earlier this year of domestic terrorism that labeled white supremacists and militia groups as top national security threats. The issue took on new urgency after the Jan....

The Chinese flag is raised in front of the China Pavilion during a flag raising ceremony at the Shanghai World Expo site in Shanghai April 30, 2010. (Reuters) China's mission to the European Union urged NATO on Tuesday to stop exaggerating the "China threat theory" after the group's leaders warned that the country presents "systemic challenges". NATO leaders on Monday had taken a forceful stance towards Beijing in a communique at United States President Joe Biden's first summit with the alliance. "China's stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order and to areas relevant to alliance security," NATO leaders had said. The new US president has urged his fellow NATO leaders to stand up to China's authoritarianism and growing military might, a change of focus for an alliance created to defend Europe from the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The NATO statement "slandered...

Turkey is a US ally and a NATO member, but under President Erdogan’s assertive foreign policy, Ankara has shown the capacity to go its own way if necessary. American and Turkish leaders, Joe Biden and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, will meet on June 14 at the NATO summit amid a backdrop of serious disagreements on various issues, ranging from Ankara’s purchase of Russian S-400s to Washington’s ongoing support of the YPG, the Syrian wing of the PKK, a terror group in northern Syria. There are also other issues like Biden’s recent acceptance of the 1915 incidents concerning armed fighting between Armenians and Turks during WWI as a genocide, and Washington’s previous criticism of Turkey’s assertive eastern Mediterranean policy. Despite those differences, Turkey and the US continue to have close commercial relations and across Central Asia and the Caucasus, both countries have similar political stances. Ankara, like Washington, has been also opposing Russian intervention in both the Ukrainian and ...

Flags of NATO member countries flutter at alliance headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, February 28, 2020. REUTERS/Francois Lenoir/File Photo NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday there is no new Cold War with China but the western allies will have to adapt to the challenge of Beijing's rise. "We're not entering a new Cold War and China is not our adversary, not our enemy," Stoltenberg told reporters after a NATO leaders' summit. "But we need to address together, as the alliance, the challenges that the rise of China poses to our security." NATO leaders are expected on Monday to brand China as a security risk to the Western alliance for the first time, a day after the Group of Seven issued a statement on human rights and Taiwan that Beijing said slandered its reputation. G7 leaders, meeting in Britain over the weekend, scolded China over human rights in its Xinjiang region, called for Hong Kong to keep a high degree of autonomy and demanded a...

French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he speaks during a news conference ahead of the G7 Summit, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, June 10, 2021. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol/Pool French President Emmanuel Macron and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday discussed the need to work together on tackling problems in Syria and Libya, Macron's office said. Macron and Erdogan met at the NATO summit in Brussels. US President Joe Biden will also meet with Erdogan on the sidelines of the summit. Biden has known Erdogan for years but their relationship has frequently been contentious. Biden, during his campaign, drew ire from Turkish officials after he described Erdogan as an “autocrat." In April, Biden infuriated Ankara by declaring that the Ottoman-era mass killing and deportations of Armenians was “genocide" — a term that US presidents have avoided using. The two leaders were expected to discuss Syria and Iran as well as what role Turkey can play on Afgh...

Leaders of the world’s largest economies unveiled an infrastructure plan Saturday for the developing world to compete with China’s global initiatives. (AP) Leaders of the world’s largest economies unveiled an infrastructure plan Saturday for the developing world to compete with China’s global initiatives, but they were searching for a consensus on how to forcefully to call out Beijing over human rights abuses. Citing China for its forced labor practices is part of President Joe Biden’s campaign to persuade fellow democratic leaders to present a more unified front to compete economically with Beijing. But while they agreed to work toward competing against China, there was less unity on how adversarial a public position the group should take. Canada, the United Kingdom and France largely endorsed Biden’s position, while Germany, Italy and the European Union showed more hesitancy during Saturday’s first session of the Group of Seven summit, according to two senior Biden administration off...