The fight to make the French language kinder to women took steps forward, and back, this week.
 
Warning that the well-being of France and its future are at stake, the government banned the use in schools of a method increasingly used by some French speakers to make the language more inclusive by feminizing some words.  
 
Specifically, the education minister’s decree targets what is arguably the most contested and politicized letter in the French language — “e.” Simply put, “e” is the language’s feminine letter, used in feminine nouns and their adjectives and, sometimes, when conjugating verbs.
 
But proponents of women’s rights are also increasingly adding “e” to words that normally wouldn’t have included that letter, in a conscious — and divisive — effort to make women more visible.
 
Take the generic French word for leaders — “dirigeants” — for example. For some, that masculine spelling suggests that they are generally men and makes women leaders invisible, because it lacks a feminine “e” toward the end. For proponents of inclusive writing, a more gender-equal spelling is “dirigeant·es,” inserting the extra “e,” preceded by a middle dot, to make clear that leaders can be of both sexes.  
 
Likewise, they might write “les élu·es” — instead of the generic masculine “élus” — for the holders of elected office, again to highlight that women are elected, too. Or they might use “les idiot·es,” instead of the usual generic masculine “les idiots,” to acknowledge that stupidity isn’t the exclusive preserve of men.  
 
Proponents and opponents sometimes split down political lines. France’s conservative Republicans party uses “ élus”; the left-wing France Unbowed tends toward ”élu · es.”
“It’s a fight to make women visible in the language,” said Laurence Rossignol, a Socialist senator who uses the feminizing extra “·e.”  
 
Speaking in a telephone interview, she said its opponents “are the same activists who were against marriage for people of the same sex, medically assisted reproduction, and longer abortion windows. … It’s the new banner under which reactionaries are gathering.”  
 
But for the government of centrist President Emmanuel Macron, the use of ”·e” threatens the very fabric of France. Speaking in a Senate debate on the issue on Thursday, a deputy education minister said inclusive writing “is a danger for our country” and will “sound the death knell for the use of French in the world.”  
 
By challenging traditional norms of French usage, inclusive writing makes the language harder to learn, penalizing pupils with learning difficulties, the minister, Nathalie Elimas, argued.
 
“It dislocates words, breaks them into two,” she said. “With the spread of inclusive writing, the English language — already quasi-hegemonic across the world — would certainly and perhaps forever defeat the French language.”  
 
Arguments over gender-inclusive language are raging elsewhere in Europe, too.
A fault-line among German speakers has been how to make nouns reflect both genders. The German word for athletes, for example, could be written as “Sportlerinnen” to show that it includes both men and women, as opposed to the more usual, generic masculine “Sportler.” For critics, the addition of the feminine “innen” at the end — sometimes with the help of an asterisk, capital letter or underscore — is plain ugly.  
 
Italy has seen sporadic debate over neutralizing gendered titles for public officials, or making them feminine when they normally would remain masculine, such as “ministra” instead of “ministro” for women Cabinet members. Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi prefers to be called “sindaca” rather than “sindaco.”  
 
Inclusive language has also been a long battle for feminists and, more recently, of LGTBQ+ groups in Spain, although there is no consensus on how to make progress. Politics also play into the issue there. Members of the far-right Vox party have insisted on sticking with the traditional “presidente” when referring to Spain’s four deputy prime ministers, all of them women, rather than opting for the more progressive “presidenta,” even though the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language has accepted usage of that feminine noun.
 
The French Education Ministry circular that banished the “·e” formula from schools did, however, accept other more inclusive changes in language that highlight women.
 
They include systematically feminizing job titles for women — like “présidente,” instead of “président,” or ambassadrice” rather than “ambassadeur” for women ambassadors. It also encouraged the simultaneous use of both masculine and feminine forms to emphasize that roles are filled by both sexes. So a job posting in a school, for example, should say that it will go to “le candidat ou la candidate” — man or woman — who is best qualified to fill it.
 
Raphael Haddad, the author of a French-language guide on inclusive writing, said that section of the ministry circular represented progress for the cause of women in French.
 
“It’s a huge step forward, disguised as a ban,” he said. “What’s happening to the France language is the same thing that happened in the United States, with ‘chairman’ replaced by ‘chairperson,’ (and) ‘’fireman’ by ‘firefighter.’”  
 
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The European Commission called on the United States and other major COVID-19 vaccine producers Friday to export what they make, as the European Union does, rather than talk about waiving intellectual property (IP) rights to the shots.Commission head Ursula von der Leyen told a news conference on the sidelines of a summit of EU leaders that discussions about the waiver would not produce a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine in the short and medium term.”We should be open to lead this discussion. But when we lead this discussion, there needs to be a 360-degree view on it because we need vaccines now for the whole world,” she said.”The European Union is the only continental or democratic region of this world that is exporting at large scale,” von der Leyen said.She said about 50% of European-produced coronavirus vaccine is exported to almost 90 countries, including those in the World Health Organization-backed COVAX program, whose aim is to supply vaccines to mainly poor countries.”And we invite all those who engage in the debate of a waiver for IP rights also to join us to commit to be willing to export a large share of what is being produced in that region,” she said.Only higher production, removing export barriers and the sharing of already-ordered vaccines could immediately help fight the pandemic quickly, she said.”So what is necessary in the short term and the medium term: First of all, vaccine sharing. Secondly, export of vaccines that are being produced. And the third is investment in the increasing of the capacity to manufacture vaccines,” she said.Von der Leyen said the European Union had started its vaccine sharing mechanism, citing delivery of 615,000 doses to the Western Balkans as an example.
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The top diplomats from the United States, China and Russia urged strengthened global cooperation Friday, recognizing the need to tackle growing global challenges and an unprecedented pandemic but sparring over their different worldviews and who’s to blame for threats to multilateralism.The high-level U.N. Security Council meeting marked the first joint appearance, albeit virtually, by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov of Russia and Wang Yi of China. Wang chaired the session as this month’s council president.Despite major differences, especially on human rights and democracy, all three said they were ready to cooperate with all countries to address international challenges — from addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change to ending conflicts and helping people in need.Blinken said the post-World War II commitment by nations to work together to prevent conflict, alleviate suffering and defend human rights is in serious jeopardy,'' pointing to resurgent nationalism, rising repression and deepening rivalries.“Now, some question whether multilateral cooperation is still possible,'' he told the council.The United States believes it is not only possible, it is imperative.”Cooperation called vitalBlinken said no single country — no matter how powerful — can address the challenges alone'' and that's why the U.S. will work through multilateral institutions to stop COVID-19, tackle the climate crisis, stem the spread and use of nuclear weapons, deliver lifesaving humanitarian aid and manage conflicts.We will also work with any country on these issues — including those with whom we have serious differences,” he said. At the same time, we will continue to push back forcefully when we see countries undermine the international order, pretend that the rules we've all agreed to don't exist, or simply violate them at will.''Blinken called for all countries to meet their commitments under the U.N. Charter, treaties, Security Council resolutions, international humanitarian law, the World Trade Organization and other global organizations.The U.S. isn't seeking to uphold thisrules-based order to keep other nations down,” he said, pointing out that the international order the United States helped to create and defend has enabled the rise of some of our fiercest competitors.''Blinken stressed thathuman rights and dignity must stay at the core of the international order.”Governments that insist what they do within their own borders is their own business don’t have a blank check to enslave, torture, disappear, ethnically cleanse their people, or violate their human rights in any other way,'' he said. This was an apparent reference to China's treatment of the Uyghur minority, as well as other countries, including Myanmar's actions against Rohingya Muslims.Border, territorial questionsBlinken also said countries don't respect a founding U.N. principle of equality of all nations when theypurport to redraw the borders of another” country, threaten force to resolve territorial disputes, claim entitlement to a sphere of influence or target another country with disinformation, undermine elections and go after journalists or dissidents.While he didn’t name any countries, that appeared aimed especially at China’s actions in the South China Sea and Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine, its attempts to interfere in the U.S. presidential election and its arrest of opposition leader Alexei Navalny and journalists.China’s Wang and Russia’s Lavrov both stressed the importance of maintaining the United Nations as the center of multilateralism, which Blinken did not.FILE – Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivers a speech in Beijing, Feb. 22, 2021.Wang recalled the declaration adopted last September by world leaders commemorating the 75th anniversary of the United Nations that multilateralism is not an option but a necessity."He called the U.N.the banner of multilateralism” and said, We stand ready to work with all parties to bring multilateralism and the U.N. forward ... and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.''No 'bullying or hegemony'He said the more complex global issues are, the greater the need for cooperation on the basis of equality among all countries,not zero-sum games.””No country should expect others to lose,” the Chinese minister said. Rather, countries must work together to ensure that all come out as winners to achieve security and prosperity for all.''Wang also called forequity and justice, not bullying or hegemony,” stressing that international law must apply to all and there should be no room for exceptionalism or double standards.'' And he warned thatsplitting the world along ideological lines conflicts with the spirit of multilateralism and is a regression of history.”FILE – Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov attends a news conference in Moscow, April 16, 2021.Russia’s Lavrov was more specific in targeting the U.S. and other Western nations.He said the architecture of global governance created at the end of World War II is being sorely tested.''Unfortunately, not all of our partners are guided by the imperative of working honestly to establish genuine multilateral cooperation,” he said.Unable to advance their unilateral or bloc priorities within the U.N.,'' Lavrov said,leading Western countries are now trying to roll back the process of establishing a multipolar, polycentric world and trying to restrain the course of history.”Western rulesHe accused Western nations of developing their own rules, imposing them on everyone else, and taking actions circumventing the United Nations that he called harmful.''Lavrov pointed to U.S. President Joe Biden's call for a summit of democracies, warning thatcreating a new special-interest club on an openly ideologized basis could further exacerbate international tension and draw dividing lines in a world that needs a unifying agenda now more than ever.”He also pointed to the French-German Alliance for Multilateralism, saying it should be considered within the U.N., not outside it. And he said the West has established “narrow partnerships” on issues such as cyberspace, humanitarian law, freedom of information and democracy that are already discussed at the U.N. or its agencies.
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Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, and her ruling Scottish National Party (SNP) made early gains Friday as the first returns from the nation’s parliamentary election were reported. While full results are not expected until Saturday, and Sturgeon cautioned the results remained too close to call, at last count the SNP had won at least 32 seats in the 129-seat parliament, “devolved” from the British parliament in 1999. If the early trend continues, and the pro-independence party holds on to power, it could have an impact on all of Britain. If the SNP retains power, and there is a pro-independence majority, the party could seek to hold another referendum on independence by the end of 2023, setting up a potential legal showdown with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who says he will refuse any such vote. Speaking to supporters after she was reelected to her own seat, Sturgeon said she was cautious at this early stage but was “feeling extremely happy and extremely confident that we are on track in the SNP for a fourth consecutive election victory and to have the ability to form a government again.” Scotland has been part of Britain for 314 years. The last independence referendum failed 55% to 45%. But the movement saw a resurgence since Britain’s departure from the European Union, a move overwhelmingly opposed in Scotland. Sturgeon’s high marks for handling the COVID-19 pandemic and the unpopularity of Johnson’s Conservative British government bolstered support for the independence movement. The SNP needs to gain at least four more seats to win an overall majority of 65 but could rely on the backing of the pro-independence Green Party, which took five seats in 2016, to pursue a second referendum. Polls suggest, at this point, the results of a second referendum would be too tight to call. And, despite the early success, the parliamentary elections are also likely to be close, as polls indicated an increase in support for opposition pro-union parties in some areas. 
 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s ruling Conservatives appeared on course Friday to pull off a historic election victory against the country’s main opposition Labour Party, making deep inroads into Labour’s traditional heartlands in northern England after 48 million Britons voted Thursday for devolved, regional and town governments.   
 
Early results painted a gloomy electoral picture for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party — which lost a parliamentary by-election in the northern town of Hartlepool to the Conservatives for the first time in the constituency’s 57-year history.  
 
As ballots continued to be tallied in England, Scotland and Wales following so-called Super Thursday polls, there was little to cheer Labour supporters elsewhere.
 
The election results could have profound implications for the future of the United Kingdom, if Scottish nationalists win an overall majority in Scotland’s devolved Parliament, but the results north of the border won’t be fully known until Sunday. The leader of the Scottish National Party, Nicola Sturgeon, has said she would see a big win as a mandate to hold a second independence referendum.  Scotland rejected independence in a 2014 referendum.
 
The focus in the early tallying of votes Friday was on the results from across England. The coronavirus pandemic delayed some of last year’s scheduled contests for local governments, making this year’s voting the largest test of public opinion outside a general election in nearly half a century, analysts say.
 
Early results show Conservatives scoring wins across England’s northeast and Midlands, traditional Labour territory and known for years as the party’s Red Wall. In the 2019 parliamentary election Johnson’s Conservatives punched a hole in the wall, and the results so far from Super Thursday suggest that electoral accomplishment was no fluke or one-off success fueled by Brexit, favored many of Labour’s working-class northern supporters.
 
Conservatives were gleeful as the results started to trickle through Friday. Conservative lawmaker Robert Halfon noted his party had seized control of the council in Harlow in southern England “for only the second time in the history of our town.”People queue at the entrance of a polling station in London, May 6, 2021. Millions of people across Britain cast ballots Thursday, in local elections, the biggest set of votes since the 2019 general election.Starmer will likely come under mounting pressure from within his own fractious party if the pattern of Labour losses continues as the tallying unfolds in coming days. Analysts had warned before he vote that Super Thursday would amount to a huge test for Starmer, who has tried to shift the party back toward the political center. He has set as his key task attracting back lost Labour supporters, who deserted the party in droves when the leftist Jeremy Corbyn, who Starmer replaced, was leader.
 
Starmer was already facing a backlash Friday from left-wing luminaries in his party for the disappointing early results. They say he has failed to connect with traditional working-class Labour voters, coming across as a “metropolitan technocrat” out of touch with their everyday concerns. Before entering politics Starmer was the country’s director of public prosecutions.  
 
Low personal ratings and rebellious lawmakers have bedeviled Starmer’s leadership.
 
“He’s now got about a year to demonstrate that he can turn things around,” said one senior Labour lawmaker, “otherwise the party will increasingly start to look for someone else.”
 
Some commentators suggest Starmer will be replaced before the next election.
 
“While talk of an imminent leadership challenge currently belongs on the fringes of the Labour Party, the possibility that he could be replaced before the next general election is a matter of open discussion on the Opposition benches,” according to newspaper columnist Gordon Rayner.  
 
Jim McMahon, the party’s transport spokesman and a Starmer loyalist, placed the blame for Labour’s losses on Brexit, telling The Daily Telegraph newspaper that the election was “always going to be difficult.” He said Labour had failed to persuade traditional party voters who fled Labour over its opposition to Brexit to return to the fold.  
 
“This was a Brexit aftershock,” McMahon said.   
 
The Conservative candidate who won the Hartlepool contest, Jill Mortimer, said her victory wasn’t just due to Brexit, though.  
 
“Labour has taken people for granted too long. People have had enough and now through this result, the people have spoken and made it clear — it is time for change,” she said.  
 
It is only the third time since the 1960s that a governing party has won a parliamentary by-election. Hartlepool was one of Britain’s strongest Brexit-supporting constituencies, with 70% to leave in 2016.
 
A senior Labour official said, “Keir has said he will take responsibility for these results — and he will take responsibility for fixing it and changing the Labour Party for the better.”  
 
However, a backbench Labour lawmaker told local media, “Not all of our shadow cabinet are as proactive as they should be. They’re not as combative as they should be. It can’t just be down to Keir to show that the Labour Party has changed.”
 
Johnson had just as much to prove as Starmer in the election. He has faced weeks of sleaze allegations relating to the awarding of government contracts and refurbishment of his residence at 10 Downing Street, but despite that appeared to be riding high in approval ratings, thanks largely to the country’s successful vaccine rollout.
 
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On a visit to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reassured leaders there that the United States will support Kyiv against what he termed “reckless and aggressive” Russian actions but stopped short of announcing increased military aid. VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports.
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Britain sent two warships to the English Channel on Thursday amid a dispute with France about fishing rights. French fishermen say they are being illegally prevented from fishing the waters around the British island of Jersey. Henry Ridgwell reports from London.
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Facebook has taken down a network of hundreds of fake accounts and pages targeting people in Ukraine and linked to individuals previously sanctioned by the United States for efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, the company said Thursday.Facebook said the network managed a long-running deceptive campaign across multiple social media platforms and other websites, posing as independent news outlets and promoting favorable content about Ukrainian politicians, including activity that was likely for hire. The company said it started its probe after a tip from the FBI.Facebook attributed the activity to individuals and entities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, including politician Andriy Derkach, a pro-Russian lawmaker who was blacklisted by the U.S. government in September over accusations he tried to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election won by President Joe Biden. Facebook said it removed Derkach’s accounts in October 2020.Derkach told Reuters he would comment on Facebook’s investigation on Friday. Facebook also attributed the network to political consultants associated with Ukrainian politicians Oleh Kulinich and Volodymyr Groysman, Ukraine’s former prime minister. Kulinich did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Groysman could not immediately be reached for comment.Facebook said that as well as promoting these politicians, the network also pushed positive material about actors across the political spectrum, likely as a paid service. It said the activity it investigated began around 2015, was solely focused on Ukraine, and posted anti-Russia content.”You can really think of these operators as would-be influence mercenaries, renting out inauthentic online support in Ukrainian political circles,” Ben Nimmo, Facebook’s global influence operations threat intelligence lead, said on a call with reporters.Facebook’s investigation team said Ukraine, which has been among the top sources of “coordinated inauthentic behavior” that it removes from the site, is home to an increasing number of influence operations selling services.Facebook said it removed 363 pages, which were followed by about 2.37 million accounts, and 477 accounts from this network for violating its rules. The network also spent about $496,000 in Facebook and Instagram ads, Facebook said.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the world’s economic powers Thursday not to shy away from serious investments in combating climate change.
 
Merkel hosted the 2021 Petersburg Climate Dialogue, an online conference designed to drive international action on global warming and encourage nations and their leaders to focus on the U.N. Climate Change Conference later this year in Glasgow, Scotland.
 
In her comments, Merkel said she realized the COVID-19 pandemic has “torn insane budget holes” for the world’s industrialized countries. But she said they should not compensate for that by spending less on development aid and climate protection.
 
Johnson echoed that theme, saying the world’s wealthiest nations must meet their commitments to a $100 billion fund meant to help developing nations deal with climate change. He said it is up to wealthy countries to take action, as it is the developing world that feels the worst effects from the warming climate.  
 
Johnson said he will use the meeting with the leading industrial nations hosted by Britain next month to promote the U.N.-backed climate goals.  
 
All G-7 countries have now set targets for reducing their greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero emissions — taking out as much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as are put in — by 2050 at the latest.   
 
Scientists say faster cuts are needed to prevent warming that leads to increased drought, rising sea levels and other potentially disastrous effects.
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The Netflix series “Zero,” which premiered globally last month, is the first Italian TV production to feature a predominantly Black cast, a bright spot in an otherwise bleak Italian television landscape where the persistent use of racist language and imagery is sparking new protests.  
Even as “Zero” creates a breakthrough in Italian TV history, on private networks, comedy teams are asserting their right to use racial slurs and make slanty-eye gestures as satire. The main state broadcaster RAI is under fire for attempting to censor an Italian rapper’s remarks highlighting homophobia in a right-wing political party. And under outside pressure, RAI is advising against — but not outright banning — the use of blackface in variety skits.  
With cultural tensions heightened, the protagonists of “Zero” hope the series — which focuses on second-generation Black Italians and is based on a novel by the son of Angolan immigrants — will help accelerate public acceptance that Italy has become a multicultural nation.  
“I always say that Italy is a country tied to traditions, more than racist,” said Antonio Dikele Distefano, who co-wrote the series and whose six novels, including the one on which “Zero” was based, focus on the lives of the children of immigrants to Italy.  
“I am convinced that through these things — writing novels, the possibility of making a series — things can change,” he said.
“Zero” is a radical departure because it provides role models for young Black Italians who have not seen themselves reflected in the culture, and because it creates a window to changes in Italian society that swaths of the majority population have not acknowledged.  
Activists fighting racism in Italian television underline the fact that it was developed by Netflix, based in the United States and with a commitment to spend $100 million to improve diversity, and not by Italian public or private television.  
“As a Black Italian, I never saw myself represented in Italian television. Or rather, I saw examples of how Black women were hyper-sexualized,” said Sara Lemlem, an activist and journalist who is part of a group of second-generation Italians protesting racist tropes on Italian TV. “There was never a Black woman in a role of an everyday woman: a Black student, a Black nurse, a Black teacher. I never saw myself represented in the country in which I was born and raised.”
“Zero,” which premiered on April 21, landed immediately among the top 10 shows streaming on Netflix in Italy.  
Perhaps even more telling of its impact: The lead actor, Giuseppe Dave Seke, was mobbed not even a week later by Italian schoolchildren clamoring for autographs as he gave an interview in the Milan neighborhood where the series is set. Seke, a 25-year-old who grew up in Padova to parents from Congo, is not a household name in Italy. “Zero” was his first foray into acting.
“If you ask these children who is in front of them, they will never tell you: the first Black Italian actor. They will tell you, ‘a superhero,’ or they will tell you, ‘Dave’,” Dikele Distefano said, watching the scene in awe.  
In the series, Zero is the nickname of a Black Italian pizza bike deliveryman who discovers he has a superpower that allows him to become invisible. He uses it to help his friends in a mixed-race Milan neighborhood.  
It’s a direct play on the notion of invisibility that was behind the Black Lives Matter protests that erupted in Italian squares last summer following George Floyd’s murder in the United States. Black Italians rallied for changes in the country’s citizenship law and to be recognized as part of a society where they too often feel marginalized.  
“When a young person doesn’t feel seen, he feels a bit invisible,” Seke said. “Hopefully this series can help those people who felt like me or like Antonio. … There can be many people who have not found someone similar to themselves, and live still with this distress.”
The protest movement has shifted from targeting Italian fashion, where racist gaffes have highlighted the lack of Black creative workers, to Italian television, where a movement dubbing itself CambieRAI held protests last month demanding that Italian state and private TV stop using racist language and blackface in skits.  
CambieRAI plays upon the name of Italian state TV, RAI, and the Italian language command “you will change.” The movement, bringing together second-generation Italians from a range of associations, also wants RAI — which is funded by mandatory annual fees on anyone owning a TV in Italy — to set up an advisory council on diversity and inclusion.
Last week RAI last responded to an earlier request by other, longer-established groups asking that it stop broadcasting shows using blackface, citing skits where performers darkened their skin to impersonate singers like Beyonce or Ghali, an Italian rapper of Tunisian descent.  
“We said we were sorry, and we made a formal commitment to inform all of our editors to ask that they don’t use blackface anymore,” Giovanni Parapini, RAI’s director for social causes, told The Associated Press. He said that was as far as they could go due to editorial freedom.  
The associations said they viewed the commitment as positive, even if it fell short of a sought-for ban, since RAI at least recognized that the use of blackface was a problem.
Parapini, however, said the public network did not accept the criticism of the CambieRAI group “because that would mean that RAI in all these years did nothing for integration.”
He noted that the network had never been called out by regulators and listed programming that included minorities, from a Gambia-born sportscaster known as Idris in the 1990s to plans for a televised festival in July featuring second-generation Italians.  
Dikele Distefano said for him the goal is not to banish racist language, calling it “a lost battle.” He sees his art as an agent for change.  
He is working on a film now where he aims to have a 70% second-generation Italian cast and crew. “Zero” has already helped create positions in the industry for a Black hairstylist, a Black screenwriter and a director of Arab and Italian origin, he noted.
“The battle is to live in a place where we all have the same opportunity, where there are more writers who are Black, Asian, South American, where there is the possibility to tell the stories from the point of view of those who live it,” he said. 
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European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday the European Union (EU) is willing to discuss a proposal to waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines, one day after U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration indicated it would support it.
 
In a virtual speech, the head of the EU executive branch said the EU is “ready to discuss any proposals that addresses the crisis in an effective and pragmatic manner.”  
 
In a statement Wednesday, United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the decision, saying “The administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines.”
 
Waiving vaccine patents was among Biden’s campaign promises, and he had been under pressure to follow through.  
 
In her speech, Von der Leyen said the pandemic was a global health crisis “and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”
 
The European Union, Britain, Switzerland and some other European countries — many of them home to large pharmaceutical companies — have opposed the waiver. They argue it would undermine incentives for companies that have produced vaccines in record time to do so in a future pandemic.  
 
South Africa and India made the initial vaccine waiver proposal at the World Trade Organization in October, gathering support from many developing countries that say it is a vital step to make vaccines more widely available.
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Ukraine for meetings Thursday with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “This will be an important opportunity to discuss continued Russian aggression and to underscore the need for maintaining both the pace of and focus on reforms with our Ukrainian partners,” Blinken tweeted after arriving in Kyiv. Late last month, senior U.S. and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea.  Blinken is expected to restate that the United States will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, and to call for its return to Ukraine.  He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas. The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.”  Blinken will likely underscore the importance of U.S. economic support for Ukraine.     “Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department. 
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A jury in Rome on Wednesday convicted two American friends in the 2019 slaying of a police officer in a tragic unraveling of a small-time drug deal gone bad, sentencing them to life in prison. The jury deliberated more than 12 hours before delivering the verdicts against Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, handing them Italy’s stiffest sentence. Elder and Natale-Hjorth were indicted on charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause. They were found guilty of all counts.  The slain officer’s widow, who held a photo of her dead husband while waiting for the verdict, sobbed and hugged his brother, Paolo. The defendants were led immediately out of the courtroom after the verdicts had been read. As Elder was being walked out, his father, Ethan Elder, called out, “Finnegan, I love you.” Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a knife that he brought with him on his trip to Europe from California and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide the knife in their hotel room.  The July 26, 2019, killing of the officer from the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy. Cerciello Rega, 35, was mourned as a national hero. His widow, brother and partner were in the courtroom as the jury went into deliberations.  The two Californians were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury, which consisted of the presiding judge, Marina Finiti, a second judge and six civilian jurors. “I’m stressed,” Elder said to one of his lawyers. Just before the brief court appearance, Elder took a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it. He also turned to his co-defendant, Natale-Hjorth, and held out the crucifix toward him through a glass partition, motioning heavenward.  Elder was joined in the courtroom by his parents. He and his father crossed their fingers toward each other for good luck after the jury went to deliberate. Natale-Hjorth was greeted by his Italian uncle, who lives in Italy.Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, center, is escorted by police officers during the trial for the slaying of an Italian plainclothes police officer, in Rome, May 5, 2021.Cerciello Rega had recently returned from a honeymoon when he was assigned, along with a plainclothes police partner, officer Andrea Varriale, to follow up on a reported extortion attempt.  Prosecution’s case Prosecutors contend the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their failed attempt to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it. Both defendants contended they acted in self-defense.  During the trial, which began on Feb. 26, 2020, the Americans told the court they thought that Cerciello Rega and Varriale were thugs or mobsters out to assault them on a dark deserted street. The officers wore casual summer clothes and not uniforms, and the defendants insisted the officers never showed police badges.  Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder, even without materially doing the slaying. Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta has demanded life imprisonment for both defendants.  Varriale, who suffered a back injury in a scuffle with Natale-Hjorth while his partner was grappling with Elder, testified that the officers did identify themselves as Carabinieri. At the time of the slaying, Elder was 19 and traveling through Europe without his family, while Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was spending the summer vacation with his Italian grandparents, who live near Rome. Former schoolmates from the San Francisco Bay area, the two had met up in Rome for what was supposed to be couple of days of sightseeing and nights out.  Prosecutors alleged that Elder thrust a 7-inch (18-centimeter) military-style attack knife repeatedly into Cerciello Rega, who bled profusely, like a “fountain,” Varriale had testified, and died shortly after in hospital.  Elder told the court that during the scuffle, the heavyset Cerciello Rega was on top of him on the ground, and Elder feared that he was being strangled. Elder said he pulled out the knife and stabbed him to avoid being killed, and when the officer didn’t immediately let him go, he stabbed again. After the stabbing, the Americans ran to their hotel room, where, according to Natale-Hjorth, Elder cleaned the knife and then asked him to hide it. Natale-Hjorth testified that he hid the knife behind a ceiling panel in their room, where police discovered it hours later. The drug deal The defendants had told the court that several hours before the stabbing, they attempted to buy cocaine in the Trastevere district. With the intervention of a go-between, they paid a dealer, but instead of cocaine, they received an aspirinlike tablet.  Before Natale-Hjorth could confront the dealer, a separate Carabinieri patrol in the neighborhood intervened, and all scattered. The Americans snatched the go-between’s knapsack in reprisal and used a cellphone inside to set up a meeting with the goal of exchanging the bag and the phone for the cash they had lost in the bad drug deal.  Meanwhile, Cerciello Rega, wearing a T-shirt and long shorts, and Varriale, in a polo shirt and jeans, headed out to follow up on what was described as a small-scale extortion attempt. They didn’t carry their service pistols.  From practically its start, the trial largely boiled down to the word of Varriale against that of the young American visitors. The victim’s widow, Rosa Maria Esilio, would sit in the front row, often clutching a photo of her husband. Photos of the newlyweds, with Cerciello Rega in his dress uniform after their wedding, were widely displayed in Italian media after the slaying. As the trial neared its end, one of Elder’s defense lawyers, Renato Borzone, argued in court that deep-set psychiatric problems, including a constant fear of being attacked, figured in the fatal stabbing. Borzone told the court his client saw a world filled with enemies due to psychiatric problems and that something “short-circuited” when Elder was confronted by the officer. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to arrive in Kyiv, Ukraine, where on Thursday he’s scheduled to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba.
 
According to a State Department news release, Blinken will “underscore unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
 
“The United States is deeply concerned about Russia’s ongoing aggressive actions and rhetoric targeting Ukraine, including the increased Russian troop presence in occupied Crimea and around Ukraine’s borders,” the news release said.
 
It added that the U.S. “continues to monitor the situation closely.”
 
Late last month, senior American and European Union officials said roughly 150,000 Russian troops massed along the border of Ukraine and in Crimea.
 
Blinken is expected to restate that the U.S will not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. He was expected to call for its return to Ukraine.
 
He will also call on Russia to uphold its commitments under the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Since 2014, Russia has been supporting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern region of Donbas.
 
The State Department said Blinken will also encourage institutional reforms in Ukraine, which the State Department called “key to securing Ukraine’s democratic institutions, economic prosperity, and Euro-Atlantic future.”
 
Blinken will likely underscore the importance of American economic support for Ukraine.
 
“Since 2014, the United States has provided Ukraine more than $4.6 billion in total assistance, including security and non-security assistance,” according to the State Department.
 
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How politically realistic are the climate action goals that European governments are setting in lockstep with the United States?Some analysts are warning that the rich can afford the necessary changes, but the burdensome costs of a green transition for middle-class and poorer voters could trigger a backlash and prompt electoral reversals.Others worry European governments have still not fleshed out in practical terms how to meet their ambitious climate action and emissions reduction goals and that a failure to deliver solutions, as happened after the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, risks undermining an emerging public consensus about the danger of climate change and a recognition action is required.“If you create a deadline that is unrealistic, which we will not be able to actually achieve, you put it completely beyond the bounds of possibility — that doesn’t mean you can’t have a high bar, you should be aiming for a high bar — but it can’t be unrealistic,” Jamie Clarke, executive director of the British charity Climate Outreach, cautioned British lawmakers recently.Previous climate conferences have been followed by plummeting public interest in the environment after political leaders failed to live up to the expectations they set, he told a parliamentary panel.Clarke was testifying in the wake of last month’s U.S.-hosted virtual two-day climate change summit, which coincided with Earth Day. Dozens of leaders reiterated their pledges to tackle climate change, including China, which said it would phase out coal-powered electricity generation starting in 2025. President Joe Biden promised to cut U.S. emissions in half by the end of the decade.French President Emmanuel Macron listens to U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a Climate Summit video conference, at the Elysee Palace, in Paris, April, 22, 2021.Britain’s Boris Johnson said his country planned to achieve a 78 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2035, compared with 1990 levels, the most ambitious climate target announced by any country in the world.More spending on renewable energyBiden focused his comments on the contribution that innovation can make to help countries meet their climate goals.  He announced the United States would revive participation in an initiative among dozens of nations and investors to increase spending on renewable energy research, development and deployment.Biden acknowledged that the challenges of reducing planet-warming emissions would be met by “working people” but emphasized that as the world transitions to clean energy, “we must ensure workers who have thrived in yesterday’s and today’s industries have as bright a tomorrow in the new industries as well as in the places where they live.”Biden has been stressing the potential energy transition has to create new jobs.And experts say there has been an extraordinary reduction in the likely costs of tackling climate change. “Climate action is becoming more affordable across the board,” according to Gernot Wagner, a professor at New York University and co-author of the book “Climate Shock.”In a commentary this week for Project Syndicate, an online platform of opinion, Wagner says climate action is becoming less expensive.  He cites solar panels. “The costs of solar photovoltaic [PV) panels have plummeted by over 85 percent in under a decade, and by well over 99 percent since the first panels found their way onto people’s roofs in the early 1980s,” he says.FILE – A general view shows solar panels to produce renewable energy at the Urbasolar photovoltaic park in Gardanne, France, June 25, 2018.Climate action and political dilemmaNonetheless, for Western governments climate action poses a massive political dilemma.If they impose green tax hikes and the costly measures on transportation, home heating, power generation and lifestyles that scientists say are needed to lower emissions and to shift economies away from dependency on fossil fuels, governments risk prompting a backlash, largely from middle-class and lower-income workers, as well as pensioners who can ill afford to bear the expense.But if governments move too slowly, they risk strong reaction from climate activists and their supporters, who are often affluent.Reconciling those who demand fast-track climate-friendly measures and those who want to move slowly isn’t going to be easy — as France’s Yellow Vest protests in 2018 and 2019 made abundantly clear, say analysts.The European Union is negotiating on how to translate its planned 55 percent reduction in greenhouses gases into legislation that will work for all 27 member states, all of which have different economic and domestic political interests and different levels of energy development.European trade unions have welcomed EU climate goals but they warn that climate-action measures need to be implemented alongside an equally ambitious social transition plan to mitigate costs for ordinary families, according to Judith Kirton-Darling, deputy general secretary of IndustriALL Europe, an international trade union federation.Costly green transitionThe likely cost to living standards is undeniable. In Britain commentators are questioning how the government will transition towards climate-friendly home heating.Nearly a third of Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions is produced by residential central heating and Johnson’s government has announced plans to phase out the sale of natural gas boilers for newly-built homes by 2025 and for all homes by the mid-2030s.Eighty-five percent of British homes are heated by natural gas, which produced greenhouse cases, and transitioning to hydrogen boilers or more likely electric heat pumps will be costly. A natural gas fired home furnace costs around $1,400 but heat pumps are far more expensive, costing over $20,000. Who will bear the cost — the consumer or the government?Action on climate change involves “policies that will hit people in the pocket,” says economics commentator Jeremy Warner, a columnist for Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Tough choices loom, he says, and there will be costs to people’s pockets, and costs to established livelihoods made obsolete by the transition from one age to the next.“In their newfound enthusiasm for all things green, the politicians would be wise to bear this in mind and design mitigating policies accordingly,” he adds.  
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday stressed the importance of the transatlantic relationship, saying the United States will always be Europe’s most important partner. Speaking during a digital foreign relations conference, sponsored by her parliamentary coalition, Merkel said transatlantic cooperation is “back in business, if you want to put it that way,” referring to the election of U.S. President Joe Biden. Merkel conceded that relations with the Trump administration hadn’t been as good as they might have been. Relations between Merkel and President Donald Trump had been strained over issues such as Russia and funding for NATO. She added that “back in business” did not necessarily mean “business as usual,” as a lot has changed in recent years. But Merkel said it was clear to her during “difficult” years that “we can only find answers to common tasks and the questions of the future in closer cooperation.” Merkel said that while Germany had no interest in a world divided into camps as it was during the Cold War, it was good that the United States, Europe’s “most important ally,” stood alongside the continent in rivalries with China and Russia. The chancellor also said global issues such as trade and climate change cannot be solved without good relations with China as well.  Merkel said she also supported a bilateral trade agreement between the European Union and the United States. “We have trade agreements with so many of the world’s regions,” she said. “It would make a lot of sense to develop such a trade agreement here, similar to what we have done with Canada.” After 13 years in office, Merkel has announced she will not seek reelection in the national vote later this year. 
 
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As its COVID-19 lockdown eases, Spain has resumed bullfights — and reignited a fiery political debate between right-wingers who defend the tradition and leftists who condemn it as animal cruelty. Jonathan Spier narrates this report from Alfonso Beato in Barcelona.Camera:  Alfonso Beato
 
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A journalist who disappeared last month in Mali’s northern city of Gao appeared in a video on Wednesday appealing to authorities to do everything they can to free him from Islamist militants holding him.
 
“I’m Olivier Dubois. I’m French. I’m a journalist. I was kidnapped in Gao on April 8 by the JNIM (al-Qaeda North Africa).
 
“I’m speaking to my family, my friends and the French authorities for them to do everything in their power to free me,” Dubois said in a 21-second video shared on social media.
 
French civilians have long been favored targets for kidnapping by criminal and Islamist groups in West Africa’s arid Sahel region, partly because of perceptions that the French government is prepared to pay ransoms to secure their release.
 
France has repeatedly denied paying ransoms for hostages.
 
“We confirm the disappearance in Mali of Mr. Olivier Dubois,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement, stopping short of describing it as a kidnapping.
 
The ministry said it was in contact with his family and carrying out technical checks on the authenticity of the video.
 
Malian authorities were not immediately available for comment.
 
Dubois is the first French national to be taken hostage by jihadist militants in Mali since French aid worker Sophie Petronin was freed in October last year. She had been abducted near Gao in late 2016.
 
Islamist militants have repeatedly declared French citizens in West Africa to be targets since a 2013 military intervention by France drove back al-Qaeda-linked groups that had seized cities and towns in northern Mali a year earlier.
 
Scores of Islamist insurgents were released in a prisoner swap deal that liberated Petronin, a senior Malian politician and two Italians.
 
The head of Reporters Without Borders said on Twitter that the media freedom organization had been aware of Dubois’s disappearance two days after he did not return to his hotel in Gao after lunch.
 
Christophe Deloire said Dubois worked for France’s Le Point magazine and Liberation newspaper.
 
“In consultation with the news organizations that employed him, we decided not to announce that he had been taken hostage so as not to hinder a rapid possible outcome,” Deloire said. “We are asking Malian and French authorities to do everything possible to obtain his release.” 
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A jury in Rome on Wednesday began deliberating the fates of two young American men who are charged with killing an Italian police officer near the hotel where they were staying while on summer vacation in 2019. Finnegan Lee Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale-Hjorth, 20, were indicated on charges of homicide, attempted extortion, assault, resisting a public official and carrying an attack-style knife without just cause. Judge Marina Finiti indicated the verdicts could come later Wednesday or on Thursday. Prosecutors alleged that Elder stabbed Vice Bridgadier Mario Cerciello Rega 11 times with a knife he brought with him on his trip to Europe from California and that Natale-Hjorth helped him hide the knife in their hotel room. The July 26, 2019 slaying of the officer from the storied Carabinieri paramilitary police corps shocked Italy. Cerciello Rega, 35, was mourned as a national hero. The two Californians on trial were allowed out of steel-barred defendant cages inside the courtroom to sit with their lawyers before the case went to the jury, which consists of presiding judge Finiti, a second judge and six civilian jurors. “I’m stressed,” Elder said to one of his lawyers. At another point during Wednesday’s brief court hearing, Elder took a crucifix he wears on a chain around his neck and kissed it. Cerciello Rega had recently returned from a honeymoon when he was assigned along with a plainclothes police partner, officer Andrea Varriale, to follow up on a reported extortion attempt. Prosecutors contend the young Americans concocted a plot involving a stolen bag and cellphone after their attempt to buy cocaine with 80 euros ($96) in Rome’s Trastevere nightlife district didn’t pan out. Natale-Hjorth and Elder testified they had paid for the cocaine but didn’t receive it. Both defendants contended they acted in self-defense. During the trial, which began on Feb. 26, 2020, the Americans told the court they thought that Cerciello Rega and Varriale were thugs or mobsters out to assault them on a dark, deserted street. The officers wore casual summer clothes and not uniforms, and the defendants insisted the officers never showed police badges. Under Italian law, an accomplice in an alleged murder can also be charged with murder even without materially doing the slaying. Varriale, who suffered a back injury in a scuffle with Natale-Hjorth while his partner was grappling with Elder, testified that the officers did identify themselves as Carabinieri. Prosecutor Maria Sabina Calabretta has asked the court to convict both defendants and to mete out Italy’s stiffest punishment, life imprisonment. At the time of the slaying, Elder was 19 and traveling through Europe without his family, while Natale-Hjorth, then 18, was spending summer vacation with his Italian grandparents, who live near Rome. Former classmates from the San Francisco Bay area, the two had met up in Rome for what was supposed to be couple of days of sightseeing and nights out. 
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Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy democracies turn their attention to issues of global interest including coronavirus vaccines, climate change and education for girls on Wednesday as they close three days of talks in London. “I think COVAX and the ability to fund it, get vaccines to the most vulnerable countries, what we do about the surplus domestic supply, all of those issues again, really good opportunity with the G-7, together with our Indo-Pacific partners, to talk all of that through and come up with positive answers,” British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Tuesday. With Britain hosting the ministerial talks, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose office highlighted the importance of global access to COVID-19 vaccines. “The Prime Minister and Secretary Blinken agreed that the global roll out of vaccines will be key to defeating the coronavirus pandemic. They underlined the importance of G-7 work in this area, including efforts to increase international manufacturing capability,” a Downing Street spokesman said.Trilateral meeting with Japan and South Korea on the sidelines of the G7 foreign ministers meeting in London, May 5, 2021.Tuesday’s G-7 meetings included a focus on China. A senior U.S. State Department official told reporters there was broad agreement among the ministers, “both the fact that we all want China to be an integral member of the international order, but to do that, it has to play by the rules of that international order.” The official cited concern about China’s human rights record and its “threatening and aggressive behavior in the South China Sea and other areas around its border.” Blinken also said Tuesday the G-7 nations want to end the 10-year civil war in Syria. “My @G7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria and support to the reauthorization of the U.N. cross-border aid mechanism,” Blinken tweeted.My @G7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria and support to the reauthorization of the UN cross-border aid mechanism. We’ll continue working to advance all aspects of UNSCR 2254 and end the suffering of Syrians.— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) May 4, 2021He said the group would work to advance all parts of a 2015 U.N. Security Council resolution that calls for a cease-fire in Syria, along with a Syrian-led political process with a new constitution and elections. The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain.       In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks.          After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other senior government officials.          State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”
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Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G-7) industrialized nations are meeting in London this week, with climate change, Russia and China among the challenges topping the agenda. It is the first face-to-face G-7 meeting in two years, after the coronavirus pandemic forced the Pittsburgh 2020 foreign ministers’ meeting to be held via video link. Russia was ejected from what was then the G-8 in 2014, after its forceful annexation of Crimea.  U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday condemned Moscow’s recent deployment of troops on Ukraine’s border. “We are focused very much on Russia’s actions and what course it chooses to take,” Blinken told reporters in London. “President Biden has been very clear for a long time, including before he was president, that if Russia chooses to act recklessly or aggressively, we’ll respond. But we are not looking to escalate. We would prefer to have a more stable, more predictable relationship.” FILE – Chinese staffers adjust U.S. and Chinese flags before a session of negotiations between U.S. and Chinese trade representatives, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, in Beijing, China, Feb. 14, 2019.China challenge The secretary of state also addressed the challenge posed by China. “It is not our purpose to try to contain China or to hold China down,” said Blinken. “What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue, not just of our own citizens but of people around the world, including, by the way, China.”  Chinese state media accused the United States on Tuesday of “deliberately hyping up the so-called ‘China threat”’ and attempting to “sow discord between China and the world.” But the G-7 is simply upholding the principles enshrined at its foundation in 1975, said analyst John Kirton of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto. Its aim was “to protect within its own members, and promote globally, the values of open democracy and individual liberty. They were very much threatened by an expanding Russia above all in 1975. And they’re still threatened by Russia today, but also China and other authoritarian regimes,” said Kirton.  Britain, which is hosting the meeting, as it holds the rotating presidency of the G-7, also invited foreign ministers from Australia, India, South Africa and South Korea to the talks, a demonstration of London’s focus on the Indo-Pacific region, Kirton said. “What we are seeing is the birth of a broader democratic family. And if they’re willing to put their countries’ names on paper alongside the democratic seven, the G-7 itself, that will be an even more powerful signal,” he noted. FILE – U.S. soldiers load onto a U.S. military plane as they leave Afghanistan, at the U.S. base in Bagram, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, July 14, 2011.Global conflicts   G-7 foreign ministers also discussed a coordinated response to the military coup in Myanmar and the violent crackdown on pro-democracy protests.   The U.S. and NATO pullout from Afghanistan, which began this month, was also on the agenda. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab denied reports U.S. allies felt ignored by Washington regarding the decision to withdraw. “We’ve had very good consultation on this, and we continue that,” Raab told reporters Monday. “We certainly see the priority is protecting our troops in the period between now and September, making sure that we preserve the ability to deal with counterterrorism, that the gains that were hard-won in Afghanistan are not lost, and also ultimately promoting dialogue and a peace process that benefits all Afghans and leaves Afghanistan as stable as possible, as inclusive as possible.”   The European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell updated delegates on negotiations with Iran over the future of the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Biden administration is considering rejoining.  “I had the opportunity to talk with my colleagues about the situation of the negotiations of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the nuclear deal with Iran, sharing with Secretary of State Blinken the situation of these negotiations, which are difficult but going on, and from Friday, we’ll start a new round of these negotiations,” Borrell said Tuesday. A patient collapses as she is rushed on a cycle rickshaw outside a Gurudwara (Sikh Temple), which provides free oxygen to patients amid COVID-19 surge in Ghaziabad, India.Pandemic response G-7 foreign ministers also discussed the coronavirus pandemic and issued a statement calling for the recovery to focus on women’s employment and girls’ education. The ministers pledged to invest $15 billion in the next two years to help women in developing countries find jobs, build sustainable businesses and weather the “devastating” economic effects of COVID-19.   “They will also sign up to new global targets to get 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10 in low and lower middle-income countries by 2026,” the statement said.   Campaigners are calling on the G-7 to ensure that poorer countries get access to coronavirus vaccines. The United Nations says close to 90% of all vaccines administered worldwide have gone to richer nations. The response to the pandemic will be a focus when Britain hosts the G-7 leaders’ summit in June, set to be Joe Biden’s first overseas visit as U.S. president. 
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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the Group of 7 industrialized nations have vowed to end the 10-year civil war in Syria. My @G7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria,” Blinken tweeted as he and other G-7 members attended their first in-person meetings in two years. My U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is greeted on arrival by Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab at the start of the G-7 foreign ministers meeting in London, Britain, May 4, 2021. (Ben Stansall/Pool via Reuters)Blinken met with Raab on Monday and said regarding China the goal is not to “try to contain China or to hold China down.” “What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world including, by the way, China,” Blinken told reporters.  Raab said the United States and Britain are also looking for constructive ways to work with China “in a sensible and positive manner” on issues including climate change when possible.    U.S. President Joe Biden has identified competition with China as his administration’s greatest foreign policy challenge. In his first speech to Congress last week, he pledged to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific and boost U.S. technological development.     Last month, Blinken said the United States was concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.   Elsewhere in the region, the United States said it is ready to engage diplomatically with North Korea to achieve the ultimate goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, following the completion of a months-long U.S. policy review on North Korea.    “What we have now is a policy that calls for a calibrated practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with North Korea, to try to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies and our deployed forces,” Blinken said Monday.     Raab said Britain and the United States “share the strategic paradigm,” and both countries will support each other’s efforts.    On Friday, the Biden administration announced it completed the review of North Korean policy, expressing openness to talks with the reclusive communist nation. Biden is also expected to appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights issues.    North Korea lashed out at the United States and its allies on Sunday in a series of statements, saying recent comments from Washington are proof of a hostile policy.  North Korea Slams Biden’s New Approach to DiplomacyUS policy remains ‘hostile,’ North says A statement by Kwon Jong Gun, head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North America Department, warns that Pyongyang would seek “corresponding measures” and that if Washington tries to approach relations with Pyongyang through “outdated and old-school policies” from the perspective of the Cold War, it will face an increasingly unaffordable crisis in the near future.    “I hope that North Korea will take the opportunity to engage diplomatically and to see if there are ways to move forward toward the objective of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so, we will look to see not only what North Korea says but what it actually does in the coming days and months,” the top U.S. diplomat added.    Blinken’s remarks followed his separate meetings with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, where the foreign ministers pledged U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.  The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain.          In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks.      After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other senior government officials.      State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.”Chris Hannas   contributed to this report. 
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Foreign ministers representing the Group of 7 industrialized nations have a busy day of meetings Tuesday in London discussing a range of world issues, including relations with China and Russia, the coup in Myanmar, the Syrian conflict, and the situation in Afghanistan. Britain’s foreign office said in Tuesday’s sessions Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb “will lead discussions on pressing geopolitical issues that threaten to undermine democracy, freedoms and human rights.” Raab said the talks are “an opportunity to bring together open, democratic societies and demonstrate unity at a time when it is much needed to tackle shared challenges and rising threats.” He is expected to urge G-7 members to sanction individuals and entities connected to Myanmar’s military junta, to support arms embargoes and to boost humanitarian aid to the people of Myanmar. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Raab on Monday and said regarding China the goal is not to “try to contain China or to hold China down.” “What we are trying to do is to uphold the international rules-based order that our countries have invested so much in over so many decades to the benefit, I would argue not just of our own citizens, but of people around the world including, by the way, China,” Blinken told reporters.US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, walks with Dominic Raab, Britain’s Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs into Downing Street ahead of a press conference at No 9 Downing Street in London, May 3, 2021.Raab said the United States and Britain are also looking for constructive ways to work with China “in a sensible and positive manner” on issues including climate change when possible.   U.S. President Joe Biden has identified competition with China as his administration’s greatest foreign policy challenge. In his first speech to Congress last week, he pledged to maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Indo-Pacific and boost U.S. technological development.     Last month, Blinken said the United States was concerned about China’s aggressive actions against Taiwan and warned it would be a “serious mistake” for anyone to try to change the status quo in the western Pacific by force.   Elsewhere in the region, the United States said it is ready to engage diplomatically with North Korea to achieve the ultimate goal of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, following the completion of a months-long U.S. policy review on North Korea.  “What we have now is a policy that calls for a calibrated practical approach that is open to and will explore diplomacy with North Korea, to try to make practical progress that increases the security of the United States, our allies and our deployed forces,” Blinken said Monday.     Raab said Britain and the United States “share the strategic paradigm,” and both countries will support each other’s efforts.  On Friday, the Biden administration announced it completed the review of North Korean policy, expressing openness to talks with the reclusive communist nation. Biden is also expected to appoint a special envoy for North Korean human rights issues.  North Korea lashed out at the United States and its allies on Sunday in a series of statements, saying recent comments from Washington are proof of a hostile policy.    A statement by Kwon Jong Gun, head of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s North America Department, warns that Pyongyang would seek “corresponding measures” and that if Washington tries to approach relations with Pyongyang through “outdated and old-school policies” from the perspective of the Cold War, it will face an increasingly unaffordable crisis in the near future.    “I hope that North Korea will take the opportunity to engage diplomatically and to see if there are ways to move forward toward the objective of complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And so, we will look to see not only what North Korea says but what it actually does in the coming days and months,” the top U.S. diplomat added.  Blinken’s remarks followed his separate meetings with Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong, where the foreign ministers pledged U.S.-Japan-ROK trilateral cooperation toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.  The G-7 ministerial talks are laying the foundation for a summit of leaders from those countries in June, also in Britain.    In addition to Britain and the United States, the G-7 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Australia, India, South Africa, South Korea and Brunei are also taking part in this week’s talks.       After the G-7 meetings, Blinken is scheduled to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other senior government officials.    State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a statement that Blinken will “reaffirm unwavering U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression.” 
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With COVID-19 restrictions easing as new infections decrease in Italy, the Vatican has reopened the majestic doors of its art-filled museums this week to the public. The relaxation of restrictions in place since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy last year has brought good news to the museums and to art lovers who are now able to return after a two-month lockdown.But the museums will not be seeing the crowds of the past for some time.For now, all access to the museums will strictly require booking a specific time slot.  Limited numbers will be allowed in for all time slots available and all those who enter the museums will have their temperature checked at the entrance. All staff working at the Vatican Museums have been vaccinated. A maximum number of 400 visitors will be allowed into the museums every 30 minutes so as to maintain social distancing. Masks are mandatory both inside and in the Vatican gardens.Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums, is enthusiastic about the re-opening and eager to welcome visitors back to enjoy the masterpieces that have found a home here. She said that museums are a way to nourish people’s souls.She said this is the time to come to the Vatican Museums, because they are totally safe to visit and without that flow of people that existed in previous years.Gianni Crea, the museum “clavigero”, shows keys to the Vatican Museums following its reopening after weeks of closure, as COVID-19 restrictions ease, at the Vatican, May 3, 2021.With limited foreign travel still and few tourists in the Eternal City, it is mainly Italians at this time who are booking to visit.Antonio, a Rome resident, said he has been wanting to come for a long time and so immediately seized the opportunity. He added that he is delighted and looks forward to the visit.During the closures caused by the pandemic, the only way to see the works in the museums was through free virtual online tours on the museums’ website.  During the closure, staff used the opportunity to carry out maintenance work and improve both its digital services and security.As Italy this year marks 700 years of the death of its famous 14-th century poet, the museums are featuring a special exhibit on Dante Alighieri titled “Dante in the Vatican Museums.”Pre-pandemic, close to an estimated seven million visitors a year visit the Vatican Museums with their magnificent frescoed ceiling of “The Last Judgement” by Renaissance artist Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, its passageway and galleries and the Vatican Gardens. 
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