PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND – The G-7 Summit begins Friday in Cornwall, England, where leaders of seven wealthy democracies are meeting with the goal of leading the global fight against the pandemic and to “build back better” toward a greener, more prosperous and equitable future. The summit is hosted by Britain and attended by leaders of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Representatives from the European Union also are attending, along with other guests – the heads of Australia, South Africa and South Korea. India’s prime minister is joining via video link.“This is a meeting that genuinely needs to happen,” said Prime Minister Boris Johnson, this year’s host as he opened the plenary session of leaders. “We need to make sure that we learn the lessons from the pandemic, we need to make sure that we don’t repeat some of the errors that we doubtless made in the course of the last 18 months or so.” Johnson said that he wants the G-7 to be “building back better, building back greener, building back fairer, and building back more equal and in a Leaders of the G7 pose for a group photo on overlooking the beach at the Carbis Bay Hotel in Carbis Bay, St. Ives, Cornwall, England, June 11, 2021.While past G-7 meetings were marked with lavish banquets, massive delegations and media entourages, this year’s sessions are severely restricted. Masks, daily COVID-19 testing and other health protocols are stark reminders the coronavirus crisis is far from over.   “The world will look to the G-7 to apply our shared values and diplomatic might, to the challenge of defeating the pandemic and leading a global recovery,” said Johnson.This year’s @G7 Summit will be all about how we #BuildBackBetterpic.twitter.com/2XpSbhB3VC— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) June 11, 2021The pandemic caused leaders to skip last year’s summit. The last time the G-7 met in-person was in Biarritz, France 2018.  G-7 pandemic plan Johnson said the G-7 will announce a plan to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries, including 100 million doses from Britain.Johnson’s announcement on Thursday came after U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier in the day that his administration is donating 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, half of the G-7 vaccine trove. 
Biden is eager to play his role in a successful G-7, to show the U.S. is back as a strong and dependable ally, after four years of unpredictability under Donald Trump. It’s the first official day of the G7 Summit here in the United Kingdom. I’m looking forward to reinforcing our commitment to multilateralism and working with our allies and partners to build a more fair and inclusive global economy.Let’s get to work.— President Biden (@POTUS) U.S. President Joe Biden and Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson attend a session during the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, Cornwall, Britain, June 11, 2021.The G-7 countries are close allies and major trading partners, with similar views on security and trade cooperation. Collectively the group accounts for about half of the global economy. The G-7 summit ends Sunday. Biden and first lady Jill Biden will continue their tour and attend the European Union Summit, the NATO Summit and his highly anticipated meeting Wednesday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
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The first match of soccer’s European championship gets underway Friday at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome, with Turkey taking on Italy.The 2020 UEFA European Football Championship was postponed for a year because of the coronavirus pandemic that brought many of the world’s activities to a halt.It is notable that Friday’s opening match will be played in Italy, the first country outside of Asia to get hit by the pandemic and the world’s first to impose a nationwide lockdown.Euro 2020 was suspended last March as countries worked to contain virus outbreaks that have killed more than 1 million Europeans, including 127,000 Italians.Organizers of the tournament, the Union of European Football Associations, hope to allay concerns that it is still unsafe for tens of thousands of fans to gather in stadiums across Europe by undertaking several safety measures. They include crowd limitations, staggered fan arrival times, social distancing and hand sanitizer.Fans attending the match in Rome are required to show documentation they have been vaccinated, tested negative in the 48 hours before the match, or previously have had the coronavirus.Euro 2020, the 16th UEFA championship, is scheduled through July 11. For the first time, matches will be played across Europe. The host cities are Rome, London, Saint Petersburg, Baku, Munich, Amsterdam, Bucharest, Budapest, Copenhagen, Glasgow and Seville. 
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On Thursday, before the opening Friday of the G-7 Summit in Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the group is set to donate a billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to low- and middle-income countries.Johnson’s announcement came after U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier in the day that his administration is donating 500 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine, half of the G-7 vaccine trove.”We’re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners,” Biden said.Britain will donate 100 million shots.“As a result of the success of the U.K.’s vaccine program, we are now in a position to share some of our surplus doses with those who need them,” Johnson said. “In doing so, we will take a massive step towards beating this pandemic for good.”The U.S. shots will begin shipment in August “as quickly as they roll off the manufacturing line,” Biden said in Cornwall on Thursday, adding that 200 million doses will be delivered by the end of this year and 300 million in the first half of 2022.Biden said the donation will be made with no strings attached.“Our vaccine donations don’t include pressure for favors or potential concessions. We’re doing this to save lives, to end this pandemic,” he said.Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, joined Biden for the announcement.“We are testing our vaccines response to newly arising variants,” Bourla said, noting that so far not a single variant has escaped the protection provided by the vaccine.With the pledge, the U.S. also aims to liberate itself from the uncomfortable reputation of being a vaccine hoarder.The move is a signal that the U.S. “isn’t as intensely parochial and inward focused,” said Leslie Vinjamuri, director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House. That has been a deep concern globally, said Vinjamuri, during former President Donald Trump’s administration as well as in the early months of the Biden administration, when Washington was not sharing doses despite a massive oversupply.COVAXThe doses, delivered by the U.S. through COVAX, the United Nations vaccine-sharing mechanism, are in addition to the 80 million already committed by the U.S. to be delivered by the end of June. In addition, the U.S. has given $2 billion to COVAX.The U.S. initially pledged an additional $2 billion for COVAX but is now redirecting the money to help pay for the 500 million donated doses, which has an estimated cost of $3.5 billion.Humanitarian organizations applauded the move.Tom Hart, acting CEO at The ONE Campaign, an organization that works to end poverty and preventable diseases, said in a statement, “This action sends an incredibly powerful message about America’s commitment to helping the world fight this pandemic and the immense power of U.S. global leadership.”However, it is unclear just how much G-7 countries can help. The member countries are at different stages of vaccinating their own populations. Japan and Canada, which have vaccination rates of under 10%, are not in a position to be as generous.Aside from donating vaccines, the G-7 is also under pressure to waive vaccine patents. The U.S. has supported waiving intellectual property rights on vaccines, the so-called TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization. The European Union, however, is pushing for a different proposal, compulsory licensing to scale up vaccine production.White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told VOA that the different approaches will not be a point of contention at the G-7.“I anticipate convergence, because we’re all converging around the idea that we need to boost vaccine supply in a number of ways,” said Sullivan.The Biden administration knows that Europe will likely hold firm on not supporting the waiver, said Vinjamuri of Chatham House, adding that getting all members of the WTO to agree on a waiver is a long and challenging process, and it’s simply easier to donate vaccines rather than allow countries to produce them without fear of being sued.White House press secretary Jen Psaki told VOA the U.S. will continue WTO negotiations but would not provide details on whether Biden will put his diplomatic weight behind it at the G-7.Biden-Johnson summitPrior to his vaccine announcement, Biden met Thursday with Johnson, with whom he has had disagreements in the past. Biden had once called Johnson a clone of Trump.The leaders agreed on a new Atlantic Charter, modeled on statement made by then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941 to promote democracy and free trade, that was instrumental in shaping the world order after World War II.The 2021 Atlantic Charter underscores that, with similar values and combined strength, the two countries will work together to face the enormous challenges facing the planet – from COVID and climate change to maintaining global security.Biden, who is of Irish descent, is also concerned that Brexit could undermine the Good Friday Agreement, the 1998 deal facilitated by the United States that brought peace to Northern Ireland, which is part of the U.K.Under the Brexit deal, Northern Ireland remains party to the EU’s single market, yet is no longer part of the union, which means a customs border must be implemented. The Biden administration wants to ensure that nothing in Brexit could endanger prospects for peace.Biden’s support for the Good Friday Agreement is “rock-solid,” Sullivan told VOA.“That agreement must be protected, and any steps that imperil or undermine it will not be welcomed by the United States,” said Sullivan. He would not say whether Johnson is undermining the agreement.Despite these tensions, Biden is very committed to anchoring the G-7 in the U.S.-U.K. partnership, said Vinjamuri. “Really using America’s deep and historic relationship with Britain to affirm the values of democracy, of liberalism, of freedom.”Johnson’s government has just concluded an integrated review of its foreign policy strategy, which included a reaffirmation of the special relationship between the two allies.  
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Almost all of Italy’s political parties rallied behind Mario Draghi when he became prime minister — but the public seems to be falling for his biggest critic, the far-right leader Georgia Meloni.A straight-talking conservative who has embraced the fascist-era slogan of “God, Homeland and Family,”Meloni and her Brothers of Italy (FDI) are close to overtaking Matteo Salvini’s anti-immigration League as the most popular party in opinion polls.Her success — recent surveys put her party at around 20% — raises the prospect that the next elections will produce the most right-wing government in Italy’s postwar history, with FDI in the driving seat.The next general election is not due until 2023, and technocrat Draghi is still the country’s most popular politician, but Meloni has made no secret of her ambitions.”I am not afraid, in the sense of being ready to do what the Italians are asking me to do,” she told RAI television last month.No ‘cult of fascism’FDI has benefitted from being the only major party opposed to Draghi’s national unity government, which stretches from left to right of the political spectrum, including the League.”As the sole opposition party, you get more airtime and above all, you can say things that parties in the coalition cannot,” Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of the Teneo political consultancy, told AFP.Meloni, 44, has led criticism of coronavirus restrictions, which she sees as excessive, and has lambasted the government’s failure to stop migrants landing in Italy from North Africa.According to Piccoli, she is mostly picking up votes from the League, whose leader Salvini can no longer ride on anti-establishment sentiment since his party gained a place in the Cabinet.The FDI, which takes its name from the opening lines of the Italian national anthem, has surged past the populist Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party, and is a couple of points off the League.Meloni portrays herself as a champion of patriotism and traditional Christian values, which she sees endangered by “globalist” elites and the gay rights movement, and an enemy of political correctness.She is media-savvy and recently published a best-selling autobiography, I am Giorgia, in which she opens up on a series of personal traumas, including growing up without a father who left her mother before she was born.Meloni wrote that she “does not belong to the cult of fascism,” yet expressed sympathy for all the neo-Fascists who were killed in the political violence that wracked Italy in the 1970s.Her book — whose title nods to a Meloni speech that went viral after it was remixed into an unlikely dance anthem — has earned her huge publicity, also through controversy over her alleged fascist allegiances.In Rome, a leftist bookshop refused to stock it, while a Venice university professor caused an uproar by tweeting a picture of its front cover upside down — an apparent reference to the hanging of Benito Mussolini’s upside-down body after his death in 1945.’Bit of cleaning up’Meloni grew up in the left-wing working-class Roman neighborhood of Garbatella, and joined as a teen the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a now-defunct party founded by diehard Mussolini fans after World War II.She remains a polarizing figure, but according to Marco Tarchi, a political science professor from Florence university with a distant past in far-right politics, that is no obstacle to her popularity.People like “the radical nature of some of her positions, for example on immigration and the traditional family, and like the way in which she expresses them,” Tarchi told AFP.”She knows she cannot appeal to all Italians,” he said, but “she speaks quite clearly” to right-wing voters who he believes are in the majority.Tarchi added: “She’s a woman, moreover still relatively young, and in an age where feminism and youthfulness are dominant, this helps.”Meloni also has past government experience — she served as a minister under prime minister Silvio Berlusconi between 2008 and 2011.In Europe, she is allied with far right or nationalist forces such as Vox in Spain and Poland’s governing Law and Justice party and is a fan of former U.S. president Donald Trump.Despite intensive media speculation that Meloni could become Italy’s first female premier, experts urge caution.Piccoli warned that the FDI still needed “a bit of cleaning up” from its post-fascist roots, and warned she had no credible team behind her.  “In Italy, we have seen that political fortunes can turn very quickly,” he said.  
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The Keystone XL is dead after a 12-year attempt to build the oil pipeline, yet the fight over Canadian crude rages on as emboldened environmentalists target other projects and pressure President Joe Biden to intervene — all while oil imports from the north keep rising.Biden dealt the fatal blow to the partially built $9 billion Keystone XL in January when he revoked its border-crossing permit issued by former President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, sponsors TC Energy and the province of Alberta gave up and declared the line “terminated.”Activists and many scientists had warned that the pipeline would open a new spigot on Canada’s oil sands crude — and that burning the heavily polluting fuel would lock in climate change. As the fight escalated into a national debate over fossil fuels, Canadian crude exports to the U.S. steadily increased, driven largely by production from Alberta’s oil sands region.Even before the cancellation, environmentalists had turned their attention to other projects, including the proposal by energy delivery company Enbridge to expand and rebuild its Line 3 pipeline in Minnesota, the target of protests this week that led to the arrest of some 250 activists.”Don’t expect these fights to go away anytime soon,” said Daniel Raimi, a fellow at Resources for the Future, an energy and environmental think tank in Washington. “This is going to encourage environmental advocates to do more of the same.”Bill McKibben, an author who was arrested outside the White House while protesting the Keystone XL in 2011, said its defeat provides a template to kill other pipelines, including Line 3 and the Dakota Access pipeline from North Dakota’s Bakken oil field.Describing Keystone XL as “a carbon bomb,” McKibben said Line 3 is the same size and “carries the same stuff. How on earth could anyone with a straight face say Line 3 passes the climate test?”Enbridge said the cancellation of Keystone XL will not affect its projects, describing them as “designed to meet current energy demand safely and in ways that better protect the environment.”A second TC Energy pipeline network, known simply as Keystone, has been delivering crude from Canada’s oil sands region since 2010. The company says the line that runs from Alberta to Illinois, Oklahoma and the Gulf Coast has moved more than 3 billion barrels of oil.Canada is by far the biggest foreign crude supplier to the U.S., which imported about 3.5 million barrels a day from its neighbor in 2020 — 61% of all U.S. oil imports.The flow dropped slightly during the coronavirus pandemic but has largely rebounded. Import volumes have almost doubled since the Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said Thursday that it expects no immediate effect on production from Keystone XL’s cancellation, but the group predicted more oil would be moved to the U.S. by rail.A series of fiery accidents occurred in the U.S. and Canada after rail shipments of crude increased during an oil boom on the Northern Plains, including a 2013 incident in which 47 people were killed after a runaway train derailed in the Quebec town of Lac-Megantic.The dispute over Keystone XL and other lines raised diplomatic tensions between the two countries, but Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau adopted a conciliatory tone with Biden, who canceled the pipeline on his first day in the White House.Canada uses much less oil than it produces, making it a huge exporter, and 98% of those exports go to the U.S., according to the Natural Resources Canada.Trudeau raised Keystone XL as a top priority with Biden while acknowledging that the president had promised in his campaign to cancel the line.Both leaders have taken heat at home over Keystone, with Republicans slamming Biden for shutting it down while construction was under way, costing hundreds of jobs. The project was meant to expand oil exports for Canada, which has the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and provincial officials in Alberta wanted Trudeau to do more to save it.The White House declined to comment on the cancellation. Spokesperson Vedant Patel declined to say if Biden plans to address increased crude exports from Canada or intervene in other pipeline disputes.His action on Keystone “signals at least some appetite to get involved,” but pipelines that have operated for years would be tougher targets, Raimi said.Winona LaDuke, executive director of the Indigenous-based environmental group Honor the Earth, called on Biden to withdraw an Army Corps of Engineers permit for Line 3 and to order a new study.”He could stop the project,” she said. “Don’t ask us to be nice to Enbridge. They’re all over our land. They’re hurting us.”The Biden administration has been “disturbingly quiet” on Line 3 and the Dakota Access line, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. He urged the administration to declare both unacceptable.Fiercely opposed by Native Americans, the Dakota Access pipeline was the impetus for protests that were quashed by law enforcement. The Biden administration has not sought to stop the line, and it’s still in court after a judge revoked its permit but allowed oil to keep flowing.Alberta sank more than $1 billion into Keystone XL last year to kick-start construction. Officials in the province are considering a trade action against the U.S. to seek compensation.Keystone XL’s price tag ballooned as the project languished, increasing from $5.4 billion to $9 billion.Another question: What to do with pipe already in place at the U.S.-Canada border and other infrastructure along its route.Jane Kleeb, a pipeline opponent in Nebraska, said state regulators should revoke the permit they approved for a route through the state. Otherwise, she said, TC Energy might try to sell the easements to another company.Until the state acts, farmers and ranchers will continue to face TC Energy attorneys in court, “protecting their property from an eminent domain land grab by a foreign corporation,” she said. 
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Two passengers on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19.Cruise operator Royal Caribbean said Thursday the two guests on the Celebrity Millennium ship tested positive during required end-of-cruise testing.Royal Caribbean said the two passengers who shared a room are asymptomatic, in isolation and are being monitored by a medical team.”We are conducting contact tracing, expediting testing for all close contacts and closely monitoring the situation,” Royal Caribbean said in a statement.The cruise operator said the “comprehensive protocols” that the Celebrity Millennium had observed had exceeded “CDC guidelines to protect the health and safety of our guests.”Celebrity Millennium set sail Saturday from St. Maarten and has made several stops around the Caribbean.Royal Caribbean said its crew was fully vaccinated. Passengers were required to show proof of vaccination and negative results from a COVID test conducted within 72 hours of departure. Children too young for vaccination also were required to have negative COVID test results.
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On Thursday, the eve of the G-7 summit in Cornwall, England, U.S. President Joe Biden formally announced what had been disclosed a day earlier — that his administration would donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to 92 low- and middle-income countries. Here’s the latest from White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara, who is traveling with the president.
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China and Russia’s combined military spending exceeds that of the United States when adjusted for purchasing power, which has allowed China to shorten capability gaps in its quest to become the top superpower by midcentury, the top U.S. military officer said Thursday.”Combined, the Russian and Chinese budgets exceed our budgets if all the cards are put on the table,” Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He called China’s increased spending trend “disturbing.”Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, left, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, arrive for a Senate Armed Services budget hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 10, 2021.China and Russia are the U.S. military’s two biggest competitors. Defense secretaries from Jim Mattis to Lloyd Austin have identified China as the “pacing challenge” for the U.S. military.Senator Jim Inhofe, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, wrote in a FILE – Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., attends a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee markup at the Capitol in Washington, May 26, 2021.”It is our obligation to defend this nation, and this proposed budget does not do so,” added Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi. Other senators, including Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, pointed to funding gaps between what was requested by several military leaders for Pacific defense and what was in the administration’s current budget request.Milley and Austin said the defense budget, which amounts to $715 billion, required the department to make tough choices, but it was a means to provide the U.S. with “an adequate defense.””We’re going after the capabilities that can match the operational concepts that we’re putting into play and allow us to be not only competitive but actually dominant in this competition,” Austin said.Senator Tim Kaine, a Democrat from Virginia, defended the budget, telling his Republican colleagues that while the Biden budget is $6 billion smaller than the proposed Trump administration budget for this year, Trump’s military budgets actually ended up being lower as he repeatedly took money out of the Pentagon budget for “nonmilitary emergencies” such as building a wall along the southern U.S. border.’Accidental conflict’With the U.S. focus on the growing Chinese threat, Senator Angus King of Maine said Thursday that “one of the most serious risks” was an “accidental conflict with China.” The registered independent pointed to tensions over Taiwan and in the South China Sea, saying the U.S. needed an effective communication line to prevent such a conflict.”There needs to be a direct line of communication between the military and also between government officials as well,” Austin agreed.”I’m concerned about something that could happen that could spark a crisis [with China], and I think we need the ability to be able to talk with both our allies and partners, but also our adversaries or potential adversaries,” he said.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is set to meet with U.S. President Joe Biden Monday on the sidelines of the upcoming NATO summit for discussions seen as pivotal given the strained relations between the two nations. From Istanbul, Dorian Jones has this preview.Produced by: Rob Raffaele 
 
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Emma Coronel Aispuro, the wife of notorious Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, has pleaded guilty to charges she helped her husband run the Sinaloa cartel. 
 
Coronel Aispuro, 31, pleaded guilty to three federal charges Thursday in a federal court in Washington.  
 
The charges include conspiring to distribute heroin, cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine over years, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and engaging in transactions with a foreign drug trafficker. 
 
Coronel Aispuro was arrested at Dulles International Airport outside Washington in February and has been held in custody since. 
 
Her arrest was a surprise as no moves were made against her for two years despite her being implicated during her husband’s trial in 2019.  FILE – In this courtroom sketch, Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, foreground right, reads a statement through an interpreter during his sentencing in federal court, July 17, 2019, in New York. 
Guzman’s cartel operated ruthlessly for 25 years, smuggling tons of drugs into the U.S. while using extreme violence against anyone who got in the way.  
 
He was found guilty of 10 charges and sentenced to life plus 30 years. He is being held in Colorado’s Supermax prison. 
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German health officials Thursday introduced that nation’s version of the digital COVID-19 vaccination pass, a smart phone app that will allow fully vaccinated Germans a simple way to prove their status.
 
Speaking to reporters in Berlin, German Health Minister Jens Spahn said Germans who have been fully vaccinated can use the app, known as the CovPass, on their smart phones to give them access to restaurants, museums or other venues that require proof of vaccination.  
 
The health minister said people who get vaccinated will receive a letter or emailed certificates to upload to the app, and people who already have been vaccinated will get theirs retroactively. He said it will take time get them all out, but he said certificates and the app should be available to everyone in Germany who is fully vaccinated by the end of June.EU Parliament Approves Digital COVID-19 Travel Certificate App will allow EU citizens with vaccinations to move among member states  
Spahn said the yellow paper WHO-issued vaccination certificates will still be honored as well. But he said the idea is to use an app that is compatible with similar apps to those being introduced elsewhere in Europe.“The goal is that this digital vaccination certificate can be read in Helsinki, Amsterdam or on Mallorca and with that, we as the European Union are setting a standard, which across countries so far does not exist in the world,” he said.
 
The European Parliament Wednesday approved a measure establishing a digital COVID-19 certificate allowing travel throughout the bloc for those who are fully vaccinated.
 
Meanwhile, the country’s Koch Institute for disease control (RKI) reported Thursday that 47 percent, or 39.1 million people in Germany, have had at least one shot and that 23.9 percent – or 19.9 million people of the country’s 83 million residents are fully vaccinated.
 
The RKI reports that as of Wednesday, almost 1.3 million people received an inoculation against the coronavirus making it the second highest number of injections given in one day since the country started its campaign.
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The top of the world got a sunrise special Thursday — a “ring of fire” solar eclipse.  This so-called annular eclipse began at the Canadian province of Ontario, then swept across Greenland, the North Pole and finally Siberia, as the moon passed directly in front of the sun.An annular eclipse occurs when a new moon is around its farthest point from us and appearing smaller, and so it doesn’t completely blot out the sun when it’s dead center.  The upper portions of North America, Europe and Asia enjoyed a partial eclipse, at least where the skies were clear. At those locations, the moon appeared to take a bite out of the sun. The moon is seen blotting out 81 percent of the sun during a solar eclipse in Washington, D.C., Monday, Aug. 21, 2017. (Photo by Diaa Bekheet)It was the first eclipse of the sun visible from North America since August 2017, when a dramatic total solar eclipse crisscrossed the U.S. The next one is coming up in 2024.A total lunar eclipse graced the skies two weeks ago.
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The anti-corruption group of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is pledging to continue its work after a Russian court outlawed Navalny-affiliated organizations and labeled them “extremist.”“We will continue to fight corruption!” Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation posted Thursday on Twitter.The ruling Wednesday by the Moscow court prevents people linked to the Navalny-affiliated groups from seeking public office, including seats in parliament. Russia has a parliamentary election in September.Prosecutors accused Navalny and his associates of trying to destabilize Russia.The U.S. State Department condemned the ruling Wednesday.“We urge Russia to cease the abuse of “extremism” designations to target nonviolent organizations, end its repression of Mr. Navalny and his supporters, and honor its international obligations to respect and ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms,” spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement. “The Russian people, like all people, have the right to speak freely, form peaceful associations to common ends, exercise religious freedom, and have their voices heard through free and fair elections.”Nalvany, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fiercest critic, is serving a 2 1/2-year prison sentence for parole violations stemming from a 2014 embezzlement conviction he maintained was politically motivated.Nalvany was arrested in January in Russia after spending five months in Germany recovering from a nerve agent poisoning, he accuses the Kremlin of committing. Russia has denied the allegation.U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said she expects President Joe Biden to speak with Putin about Navalny’s poisoning and other human rights issues when they meet next week in Geneva. 
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Pope Francis has refused to accept the resignation of a German cardinal who requested to step down as archbishop of Munich and Freising over the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases.Cardinal Reinhard Marx offered to resign earlier this month, maintaining he must share the church’s responsibility for decades of sex abuse by clerics.But in a letter published Thursday, Francis rejected Marx’s resignation. The pope acknowledged reform was needed and said Marx must stay on to “shepherd my sheep.”The 67-year-old Marx is part of a small group of cardinals who advise the pope on various issues. He has not been linked to any investigative reports, but the prelate said all members of the hierarchy had some responsibility for the church’s failures. A report about the handling of sex abuse cases in Marx’s archdiocese is due to be released this summer.Marx wrote in his resignation letter that probes in the last decade indicated there had been “a lot of personal failures and administrative mistakes but also institutional or ‘systemic’ failure.”The church launched an investigation into abuse allegations at the German archdiocese in Cologne after a report released in March uncovered hundreds of victims there.“I agree with you that this is a catastrophe. The sad history of sexual abuse and the way the church approached it until recently,” Francis said.Earlier this month, the pope criminalized priests’ sexual abuse of adults in the most comprehensive changes to church law in nearly four decades.As a result, the law now says adults can also be exploited by priests who abuse their authority and that laypeople who hold positions in the church can be punished for comparable sex crimes, as well as for abusing minors.
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Leftist Peruvian presidential candidate Pedro Castillo is claiming victory in Peru’s national election, but his conservative rival, Keiko Fujimori, is suggesting hundreds of thousands of ballots cast in this week’s runoff election may have been fraudulently cast.Fujimori called on the country’s National Jury of Elections to throw out 200,000 votes cast in Sunday’s runoff between her and Castillo, and review another 300,000 votes, despite failing to provide any evidence to back up her claims.    “It’s not about my candidacy, but about respecting the vote of millions of Peruvians who want their vote to be respected and for this process to be transparent and clean,” Fujimori told reporters Wednesday in Lima.Castillo holds a very narrow lead over Fujimori, 50.2 % to 49.9 %, or just over 74,000 votes, with nearly all ballots counted.Fujimori, a former congresswoman, was imprisoned as part of a corruption investigation. She is the daughter of Alberto Fujimori, a former president serving a 25-year sentence for corruption and the killing of 25 people. She has promised economic benefits to families with victims of COVID-19. Castillo was a schoolteacher in the country’s third-poorest district before entering politics. He has said that he is committed to rewriting the constitution, which was approved during the rule of Fujimori’s father. 
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A new report finds 160 million children or nearly one child in ten is involved in child labor globally, an increase of 8.4 million since 2016.  AFILE – Children work with relatives to load a brick kiln for firing in Tobati, Paraguay, Sept. 4, 2020.The picture that emerges from this study varies by region.   The report finds child labor is continuing to decrease in Asia and the Pacific, as well as in Latin America and the Caribbean.  However, child labor has risen substantially in Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.    ILO Director General, Guy Ryder, says in Africa as a whole, 20 million more children are in child labor today than they were four years ago.  Of those, he says 16.6 million are in sub-Saharan Africa.      “So, if you look at that in percentage terms, it means that almost one in five African children are in child labor, one in four in the sub-Saharan sub region.  They are losing out on their education.  They are working at a young age.  They are working too many hours.  They often are working in hazardous occupations,” he said.     Executive Director of UNICEF Henrietta Fore expresses concern at the alarming rise in younger children who are toiling in child labor.  She says half of all children in child labor around the world are aged 5 to 11 years.    She says the COVID-19 pandemic is making this terrible situation even worse. “Faced with job losses and rising poverty, families are forced to make heartbreaking decisions.  We estimate that nine million more children could be pushed into child labor by the end of next year, a number that could rise as high as 46 million if social protection coverage falls victim to countries’ austerity measures,” she said.    To reverse the upward trend in child labor, the ILO and UNICEF are calling for adequate social protection for all, including universal child benefits and for quality education and increased spending in getting children back to school.   They say decent work for adults must be promoted so children do not have to be sent out to work to help support their families.  
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U.S. President Joe Biden meets Thursday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a European trip that includes high-level talks with other Western heads of state and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The world will be watching how Biden and Johnson will interact Thursday afternoon after past disagreements on policies, including Brexit, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, which the Obama-Biden administration opposed.      “The chemistry hasn’t been good. President Biden had called Boris Johnson a clone of Donald Trump,” said Dan Hamilton, the director of the Global Europe Program at the Wilson Center.   Biden, who is of Irish descent, is also concerned that Brexit could undermine the Good Friday U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Cornwall Airport Newquay, June 9, 2021.Biden kicked off his United Kingdom visit Wednesday with remarks to U.S. troops stationed at the Royal Air Force Mildenhall in Suffolk. The military base is used almost exclusively by American soldiers and home to the U.S. Air Force 100th Air Refueling Wing.   “Thank you. We owe you. We’re so damn proud of you,” said Biden, noting the sacrifices that service members and their families have made. ”You are the solid steel spine of the United States,” he said. ”You are not only warriors. You are diplomats and bridge builders.”      Biden spoke of his agenda at the G-7, NATO and European Union summits in the days ahead, as well as his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week.      “I will tell Putin what I will tell him,” Biden said. ”I am going to communicate that there are consequences for violating the sovereignty of democracies in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.”   The president underscored his belief that world democracies will not only endure but thrive.     “We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe,” said the president, saying that even though things are changing rapidly, democracies can still get together to reach a consensus to respond to autocrats.   First lady Jill Biden, speaking before the president, showed her appreciation for military members’ sacrifice. She has recently relaunched Joining Forces, a support facility for American troops.      G-7 summit goals   The president’s main agenda in the U.K. is to attend the G-7 summit, a meeting of the world’s seven most advanced democracies: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.   “Strengthening the alliance, making clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight. The G-7 is going to move,” Biden said of his goal for the summit to reporters as he boarded Air Force One.   Now Biden is under pressure to shore up a global pandemic recovery strategy with other G-7 leaders, including how to help vaccinate the world’s population. “I have one and I’ll be announcing it,” Biden said to VOA.   The White House said early Thursday that Biden would be announcing a U.S. program to buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to donate to 92 low- and lower middle-income countries and the African Union over the next year.  The U.S. plan calls for the donation of 200 million doses — enough to fully vaccinate 100 million people — by the end of this year, with the remainder sent overseas in the first half of 2022. The White House also said Biden would “call on the world’s democracies to do their part in contributing to the global supply of safe and effective vaccines.” The United States has vaccinated more than half of its adult population, but impoverished countries are trailing far behind that level of inoculations.  The United States has just joined Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries in reaffirming support to waive vaccine patents, the so-called TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told VOA negotiations on the waiver at the WTO are being pursued by United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, but Psaki would not provide details on whether Biden will put his diplomatic weight behind it at the G-7.   “The president has certainly spoken about his support on the waiver. He believes it’s an important component of addressing the global threat of COVID, and he will continue to play a constructive role,” Psaki said.    The G-7 leaders last met in August 2019 in Biarritz, France. That summit did not produce the usual communique because of disagreements between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders on key issues.  Sullivan told VOA aboard Air Force One en route to England that a communique is expected at the end of this G-7.     The three-day G-7 sessions commence on Friday, at the Carbis Bay Hotel & Estate and Tregenna Castle Resort, in St. Ives, Cornwall. The summit is expected to encounter extraordinary logistical challenges to meet COVID-19 health protocols.    
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The top U.S. envoy to Belarus told U.S. lawmakers Wednesday that the country’s dependence on Russia had significantly increased. The warning came as a U.S. Senate panel considered policy options in response to Belarus’ detention last month of opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich. VOA’s Congressional Correspondent Katherine Gypson has more from Capitol Hill.Producer: Katherine Gypson. Camera: Alexei Gorbachev.
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U.S. President Joe Biden meets Thursday with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a European trip that includes high-level talks with other Western heads of state and a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The world will be watching how Biden and Johnson will interact Thursday afternoon after past disagreements on policies, including Brexit, the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union, which the Obama-Biden administration opposed.      “The chemistry hasn’t been good. President Biden had called Boris Johnson a clone of Donald Trump,” said Dan Hamilton, the director of the Global Europe Program at the Wilson Center.   Biden, who is of Irish descent, is also concerned that Brexit could undermine the Good Friday U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden arrive at Cornwall Airport Newquay, June 9, 2021.Biden kicked off his United Kingdom visit Wednesday with remarks to U.S. troops stationed at the Royal Air Force Mildenhall in Suffolk. The military base is used almost exclusively by American soldiers and home to the U.S. Air Force 100th Air Refueling Wing.   “Thank you. We owe you. We’re so damn proud of you,” said Biden, noting the sacrifices that service members and their families have made. ”You are the solid steel spine of the United States,” he said. ”You are not only warriors. You are diplomats and bridge builders.”      Biden spoke of his agenda at the G-7, NATO and European Union summits in the days ahead, as well as his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week.      “I will tell Putin what I will tell him,” Biden said. ”I am going to communicate that there are consequences for violating the sovereignty of democracies in the United States, Europe and elsewhere.”   The president underscored his belief that world democracies will not only endure but thrive.     “We have to discredit those who believe that the age of democracy is over, as some of our fellow nations believe,” said the president, saying that even though things are changing rapidly, democracies can still get together to reach a consensus to respond to autocrats.   First lady Jill Biden, speaking before the president, showed her appreciation for military members’ sacrifice. She has recently relaunched Joining Forces, a support facility for American troops.      G-7 summit goals   The president’s main agenda in the U.K. is to attend the G-7 summit, a meeting of the world’s seven most advanced democracies: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.   “Strengthening the alliance, making clear to Putin and to China that Europe and the United States are tight. The G-7 is going to move,” Biden said of his goal for the summit to reporters as he boarded Air Force One.   Now Biden is under pressure to shore up a global pandemic recovery strategy with other G-7 leaders, including how to help vaccinate the world’s population. “I have one and I’ll be announcing it,” Biden said to VOA.   Later, The New York Times and The Washington Post, as well as other media, cited sources familiar with the issue who said that the United States will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to donate to 92 lower-income countries and the African Union over the next year. The U.S. has vaccinated more than half of its adult population, but impoverished countries are trailing far behind that level of inoculations.    The U.S. plan calls for the donation of 200 million doses — enough to fully vaccinate 100 million people — by the end of this year, with the remainder sent overseas in the first half of 2022, the sources said.  The United States has just joined Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries in reaffirming support to waive vaccine patents, the so-called TRIPS waiver at the World Trade Organization. White House press secretary Jen Psaki told VOA negotiations on the waiver at the WTO are being pursued by United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, but Psaki would not provide details on whether Biden will put his diplomatic weight behind it at the G-7.   “The president has certainly spoken about his support on the waiver. He believes it’s an important component of addressing the global threat of COVID, and he will continue to play a constructive role,” Psaki said.    The G-7 leaders last met in August 2019 in Biarritz, France. That summit did not produce the usual communique because of disagreements between then-U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders on key issues.  Sullivan told VOA aboard Air Force One en route to England that a communique is expected at the end of this G-7.     The three-day G-7 sessions commence on Friday, at the Carbis Bay Hotel & Estate and Tregenna Castle Resort, in St. Ives, Cornwall. The summit is expected to encounter extraordinary logistical challenges to meet COVID-19 health protocols.    
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