Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Away from Geneva, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the rise in threats against election officials:
One in three election officials feel unsafe in their jobs, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Brennan Center for Justice. One in five election workers said threats to their lives were a concern related to their job.
The meeting got off to a frosty start as Putin told Biden in front of a chaotic press pool jostling to put questions to the leaders that their two countries had 'a lot' of issues that required talks at the highest level. 'I think it's always better to meet face to face,' Biden said, adding that he hoped they could find 'predictable and rational ways to disagree'
After shaking hands for the cameras, the US president, Joe Biden, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, plunged into hours of face-to-face talks on Wednesday at a lush lakeside Swiss mansion. It was a highly anticipated summit at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries
The chief executive of Morgan Stanley has become the latest US banking boss to call for an end to remote working, telling his New York staff that anyone who feels safe going out to a restaurant should return to the office.
James Gorman admitted that the bank would take a different approach in countries such as India or the UK – where fewer than 25% of its 5,000 London staff have been going to work in person – due to stricter Covid restrictions.
For more than a year, people who have wanted to get within breathing distance of Vladimir Putin have performed a ritual, two-week quarantine in Russian hotels and sanatoriums to protect the 68-year-old president from falling ill with coronavirus.
Since March 2020, powerful business people, regional governors, his pilots and medical staff, volunteers at an economic conference, and even second world war veterans have shut themselves away to meet the Kremlin leader or even stand in his general vicinity.
Vladimir Putin has refused to give any guarantee that the opposition leader Alexei Navalny will get out of prison alive, saying nobody imprisoned in Russia should be given exclusive treatment.
In an extended and testy interview with NBC News before his Geneva summit with Joe Biden, the Russian president refused to use Navalny's name, leaving journalist Keir Simmons to say 'his name is Alexei Navalny'.
Analysts say event will be ‘boring’ as both sides attempt a reboot following catastrophic meeting between Trump and Putin in 2017
On the 24-hour Russian state news channel, Thursday began as any other might: with a segment about the ageing president of the United States battling back cicadas and then giving a “confused” speech about his upcoming summit in Geneva with Vladimir Putin.
“I’ll let [Putin] know what I want him to know,’” said Biden after a cutaway shot of him swatting his neck before boarding Air Force One this week.
Joe Biden said meeting with Vladimir Putin would be ‘critical’ and that he would offer to cooperate on areas of common interest if the Kremlin so choses. Biden warned that if Russia chose not to cooperate in areas like cybersecurity ‘then we will respond’. The US president also characterised Putin as ‘bright’, ‘tough’ and ‘a worthy adversary’. When questioned by reporters, Biden said the potential death of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny, now jailed in Russia, would be a tragedy and would hurt Russian relations with the rest of the world and with the United States. The two men are meeting in Geneva on 16 June for the first time as presidents
Communique will be first time alliance will have asserted it needs to respond to China’s growing power
Nato leaders are expected to agree that China presents a security risk at their annual summit in Brussels, the first time that the traditionally Russia-focused military alliance will have asserted it needs to respond to Beijing’s growing power.
Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, promised ahead of a meeting that will be attended by Joe Biden that China “will feature in the communique in a more robust way than we’ve ever seen before”.
Speaking at G7, president addresses autocracy and democracy, climate crisis and Donald Trump’s legacy
Joe Biden agreed on Sunday with Vladimir Putin’s latest assessment that US-Russia relations are at their lowest point in years but insisted that while the two countries may have fundamental disagreements, “we are not looking for conflict”.
The US president also addressed the issues of autocracy versus democracy, the climate crisis, future pandemics and problems caused by his predecessor Donald Trump, while holding a press conference to mark the end of the G7 summit in the English county of Cornwall.
Biden will speak to press alone after Geneva meeting
Trump caused outcry by accepting Putin denials at Helsinki
Joe Biden will give a solo news conference after his meeting next week with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, the White House has said.
Putin and Biden will meet in Geneva on Wednesday. The White House has said Biden will bring up ransomware attacks emanating from Russia, Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, the jailing of dissidents and other issues that have irritated the relationship.
Court has in effect liquidated the opposition politician’s movement by classifying it as ‘extremist’
A Russian court has outlawed opposition politician Alexei Navalny’s nationwide political organisation on the grounds it is “extremist”, in a landmark step forward for Vladimir Putin’s crackdown on political dissent.
The highly anticipated court decision in effect liquidates Navalny’s non-violent opposition movement and bars his allies from running for office for years, as the Kremlin seeks to erase the jailed opposition leader from Russian political life.
Newly released audio from a 2019 phone call between Rudy Giuliani, US diplomats and a senior adviser to Ukrainian President VolodymyrZelensky has added credence to the claims that Trump’s longtime adviser pressured the Ukrainians to help the former president politically.
In the call — which occurred prior to the infamous conversation between Trump and Zelensky that led to his first impeachment — Giuliani pushes the Ukrainians to publicly announce unfounded investigations into Joe Biden.
The new audio demonstrates how Giuliani aggressively cajoled the Ukrainians to do Trump’s bidding. And it undermines Trump’s oft-repeated assertion that “there was no quid pro quo” where Zelensky could secure US government support if he did political favors for Trump.
The call was one of the opening salvos in the years-long quest by Trump and his allies to damage Biden and subvert the 2020 election process — by soliciting foreign meddling, lying about voter fraud, attempting to overturn the results, and inciting the deadly January 6 assault on the Capitol”.
A Republican representative in Oregon may be ousted from his seat after video footage was published Friday showing he let violent protesters into the state capitol late last year.
On 21 December, far-right rioters descended on the statehouse, attacking police officers and assaulting journalists as lawmakers inside were meeting to discuss how to respond to the Covid crisis. Many of the demonstrators would also be among the mob that attacked the US Capitol on 6 January.
Update: Rep. Mike Nearman "willing to have some consequences for what I did" but says OSP and Salem police also to blame for not keeping armed demonstrators out of the Capitol after Nearman opened a door for the demonstrators. https://t.co/zd68zviL5Z#orleg#orpol
In her resolution, Kotek said personnel who were authorized to be in the Oregon Capitol described the events on Dec. 21 as intense and stressful, terrifying and distressing.
‘Law enforcement officers were visibly injured and shaken due to the demonstrators’ action,’ Kotek added.
Analysis: Minsk and Moscow watching carefully to see if EU makes good on threat of targeted economic sanctions
A new wave of sanctions and restrictive measures on Belarus’s aviation industry, severing its direct links with much of Europe, looks set to increase the country’s reliance on Russia, yet Moscow, its remaining ally, appears wary.
Kremlin officials have offered only muted support over an incident that has been described as “air piracy” and an “act of state terrorism” by Alexander Lukashenko, a leader whom Vladimir Putin treats as a junior partner, and often with open disdain.
The chess grandmaster on speaking out against Vladimir Putin and why he cannot choose the best player ever
“I haven’t stopped my fight against the regime,” says Garry Kasparov, his words bristling with defiance and quiet rage. “I’m not lowering my voice. Putin is not just a Russian imperialist. He has a much bigger agenda. He is an existential threat to the free world.”
It would have been easy for the greatest chess player in history to stay quiet after fleeing Russia in 2013 amid a crackdown on prominent opposition figures. Kasparov, after all, is a successful businessman, an expert on artificial intelligence and cyber security, and has just launched a new website, Kasparovchess.com. But that has never been his style. Not now. Not ever.
Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since staging a 24-day hunger strike.
Navalny, who was fined 850,000 roubles (£8,200) in February for defaming a second world war veteran who backed a 'reset' of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms, has said the case against him was concocted to further damage his reputation among Russians.
In a courtroom speech, Navalny accused the government of turning 'Russians into slaves' and called Putin a 'naked king', a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on an embezzlement conviction from 2013.
He was arrested in January upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin – accusations Russian officials reject.
With Alexei Navalny in prison and his aides in exile or under house arrest, the opposition is on the verge of being driven underground
The future looked unspeakably grim for Alexei Navalny’s supporters before this week’s protests. Their charismatic leader was in prison and by his doctors’ accounts near death while the Kremlin was threatening to outlaw his entire movement. Sensing a looming apocalypse, one aide dubbed the protest: “The final battle between normal people and absolute evil.”
What followed was surprisingly normal: a core of tens of thousands of Navalny supporters rallied near the Kremlin, waving mobile phone torches and chanting “Putin is a thief!” The police stood back in Moscow (there was a violent crackdown in St Petersburg). For an evening, the crowd roved the streets of the capital at will.
Politicians from the UK, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania tricked by fake meetings with opposition figures
A series of senior European MPs have been approached in recent days by individuals who appear to be using deepfake filters to imitate Russian opposition figures during video calls.
Those tricked include Rihards Kols, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of Latvia’s parliament, as well as MPs from Estonia and Lithuania. Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the UK foreign affairs select committee, has also said he was targeted.
Kremlin critic’s team want showdown as Vladimir Putin delivers state of the nation address
Allies of Alexei Navalny have called on his supporters to stage mass protests on Wednesday in towns and cities all across Russia, amid a dire warning that the jailed Kremlin critic and opposition leader is now dangerously ill and could die “at any minute”.
Navalny’s team said the situation had got so desperate that there was no time to delay. They had previously said street protests would resume once they reached 500,000 signatures in support – with the current tally about 50,000 short.
Russian opposition politician ‘at risk of cardiac arrest’ after going on hunger strike in penal colony
Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny risks cardiac arrest at “any minute” as his health has rapidly deteriorated, doctors warned Saturday, urging immediate access to Russia’s most famous prisoner.
On 31 March, Vladimir Putin’s most prominent opponent went on hunger strike to demand proper medical treatment for back pain and numbness in his legs and hands.