News About Life

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is to meet US President Joe Biden in Geneva, says hundreds of Americans arrested after Capitol Hill insurrection have been subjected to "persecution for political opinions." Russian President Putin speaks to NBC News journalist Keir Simmons, in an interview aired on June 14, 2021, two days before the Russian leader is to meet US President Biden in Geneva. (AP) Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is to meet US President Joe Biden in Geneva, has suggested that the hundreds of people arrested for rioting at the Capitol Hill are being subjected to "persecution for political opinions." Putin is likely to come under strong criticism from Biden at their meeting in Geneva for moves against his political opponents in Russia, particularly the imprisonment of opposition leader Alexey Navalny, the detention of thousands of demonstrators protesting his arrest, and the outlawing of Navalny's organisations as "extremist." ...

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...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he expected his summit this week with US President Joe Biden to help establish dialogue between the two countries and to restore personal contacts, the Interfax news agency reported on Sunday. Biden will meet Putin on June 16 in Geneva for a summit amid strained bilateral relations on a wide array of issues. "To restore our personal contacts, relations, to establish direct dialogue, to create really functioning mechanisms in those areas that represent mutual interests...," Interfax quoted Putin as saying in an excerpt from an interview with state television to be aired later.

A vial of AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is seen at a vaccination center in Westfield Stratford City shopping center, amid the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in London, Britain, February 18, 2021. (REUTERS/Henry Nicholls) Europe's drug regulator on Friday advised against using AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine in people with a history of a rare bleeding condition and said it was looking into heart inflammation cases after inoculation with all coronavirus shots. The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) safety committee in its evaluation said that capillary leak syndrome must be added as a new side effect to labelling on AstraZeneca's vaccine, Reuters reported. It is a condition in which blood leaks from the smallest of vessels into muscles and body cavities and is characterized by swelling and a drop in blood pressure. The regulator first began looking into these cases in April and the recommendation adds to AstraZeneca's woes after its vaccine has been dogge...

A meeting of finance ministers from across the G7 nations ahead of the G7 leaders' summit, at Lancaster House in London, Britain June 4, 2021. Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/Pool via REUTERS G7 leaders will agree to expand global Covid vaccine manufacturing to provide at least one billion doses to the world through sharing and financing schemes, Britain said Thursday. The announcement came after the United States said it would donate 500 million jabs to 92 poor and lower-middle-income nations. The UK, which is hosting the big powers' gathering in southwest England, added it would donate at least 100 million surplus doses within the next year, including five million beginning in the coming weeks. The commitments follow growing calls for richer countries to step up their efforts to share Covid-19 shots with less developed nations, with charities warning the current situation is leading to "vaccine apartheid". Britain, which has orders for more than 400 million doses, has faced...

In this June 6, 2021, file photo, Naftali Bennett, Israeli parliament member from the Yamina party, gives a statement at the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in Jerusalem. (AP) The new Israeli government set to end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure as prime minister signed its final coalition agreements on Friday, pointedly including term limits. The coalition of parties from far-right to left is expected to focus mostly on economic and social issues rather than risk exposing internal rifts by trying to address major diplomatic issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, will be succeeded on Sunday by a coalition that includes for the first time a party from Israel’s Arab minority, Reuters reported. Under a power-sharing agreement, Naftali Bennett, of the ultra-nationalist Yamina (Rightwards) party, will serve as prime minister for two years. Bennett on Friday said the coalition “brings to an end two and a half years of political cris...

French President Emmanuel Macron said the country's counter-terrorism operation in West Africa would come to an end and be incorporated into a broader international mission. French President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he speaks during a press conference ahead of the G7 Summit, at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris, on June 10, 2021. (AFP) French President Emmanuel Macron has announced a major drawdown of France's military presence in the Sahel, where forces have been battling militant insurgents for nearly a decade. At a news conference on Thursday, Macron said the existing Barkhane operation would end, with France's presence becoming part of the so-called Takuba international task force in which "hundreds" of French soldiers would form the "backbone". France currently has 5,100 troops in the arid and volatile Sahel region, which stretches across Africa under the Sahara desert and spans half a dozen countries. "The time has come: Our commitme...

From left: US President Joe Biden, Carrie Johnson, Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson and First Lady Jill Biden walk outside Carbis Bay Hotel in Cornwall, Britain, June 10, 2021. (AP) The meeting came at the start of Biden's first foreign tour as president that includes NATO, the EU and talks with Russia's Vladimir Putin. President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson were all smiles during their first meeting, highlighting their nations' famed “special relationship” but doing so against a backdrop of differences both political and personal. Biden hopes to use his first overseas trip as president to reassure European allies that the United States had shed the transactional tendencies of Donald Trump’s term and is a reliable partner again. He and Johnson immediately struck a tone of conviviality as the news media watched. “I told the prime minister we have something in common. We both married way above our station,” Biden joked after a highly choreograp...

  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prepares to speak at a vigil outside the London Muslim Mosque organized after four members of a Canadian Muslim family were killed in what police describe as a hate-motivated attack in London, Ontario, Canada, June 8, 2021. Nathan Denette/Pool via REUTERS Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday denounced the killing of four Muslim family members, run down by the driver of a pick-up truck, as a hate-driven "terrorist attack.” The victims -- a husband and wife, their teenage daughter and the child's grandmother -- were killed Sunday when the truck mounted a curb and struck them in the city of London, in Canada's central Ontario province. London, a city of about 400,000 people located halfway between Detroit and Toronto, has a large Muslim community and at least three mosques. The couple's nine-year-old son, orphaned in what police said was a planned attack targeting a Muslim family, was recovering in hospital from seriou...

  US President Joe Biden departs Washington early Wednesday on the first foreign trip of his presidency, launching an intense series of summits with G7, European and NATO partners before a tense face-to-face with Russia's Vladimir Putin. Biden, 78, heads from the White House first to Britain ahead of a G7 summit in a Cornish seaside resort from Friday to Sunday. From there, in rapid succession, the veteran Democrat will visit Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle, fly to Brussels for summits with the NATO military alliance and European Union, then finish up in Geneva, where he meets Putin next Wednesday. With the world still crawling out from under the wreckage of Covid-19, Biden is casting his diplomatic marathon as a return to badly needed US leadership, AFP reported. But beyond the immediate challenges of boosting vaccine donations to poorer regions and reinvigorating post-pandemic economies, Biden's agenda features the even bigger task of shoring up a somewhat-tattered group...

Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny takes part in a rally to mark the 5th anniversary of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov's murder and to protest against proposed amendments to the country's constitution, in Moscow, Russia February 29, 2020. REUTERS/Shamil Zhumatov/File Photo A Russian court on Wednesday began considering a request to declare organisations linked to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny "extremist", a move that if approved would ban his allies from a parliamentary election later this year too. The case, the latest chapter in a long-running crackdown on President Vladimir Putin's fiercest domestic opponent, could deliver a final hammer blow to a vast political network that Navalny built up over years to try to challenge the veteran Russian leader's grip on power. The case is being brought by the office of Moscow's top prosecutor who has accused Navalny and his allies of trying to foment a revolution by seeking to destabilize the ...

  US Justice Department says it has recovered more than half of $4.4 million paid by Colonial Pipeline to Russia-based ransomware extortionists Darkside, who had forced shutdown of major US fuel network. Deputy US Attorney General Lisa Monaco announces the recovery of millions of dollars worth of cryptocurrency from the Colonial Pipeline Co. ransomware attacks, Justice Department in Washington, US, June 7, 2021. (Reuters) US Justice Department has recovered the majority of a multimillion-dollar ransom payment to hackers after a cyberattack that caused the operator of the nation's largest fuel pipeline to halt its operations last month, officials said. The operation to recover the cryptocurrency from the Russia-based hacker group is the first undertaken by a specialised ransomware task force created by the Biden administration Justice Department, and reflects what US officials say is an increasingly aggressive approach to deal with a ransomware threat that in the last month has targ...