British leader to meet Trump on trade, NATO
British Prime Minister Theresa May said Sunday she plans to discuss free trade and the importance of the NATO military alliance when she becomes the first foreign leader to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington.
The White House’s invitation for May to meet with Trump on Friday was seen in Britain as affirmation that Trump values the vaunted “special relationship” between the United States and its longtime ally across the Atlantic.
She told BBC’s Andrew Marr that the Trump team is interested in discussing a new trade arrangement with Britain despite the “America first” theme of Trump’s inaugural address and his vow to evaluate every trade deal for its possible benefits to the United States.
Any national leader would do the same when deciding whether to sign a trade pact, May said.
Britain sees a future trade agreement with the United States as vital as the country prepares to leave the European Union. However, Britain’s desire for increased trade could clash with Trump’s protectionist stance.
May said she would also raise the value of the NATO military alliance during the meeting. She called it the “bulwark” of Europe’s defence system.
Some of the lucky ones were sipping hot tea near the fireplace in their mountain resort hotel, waiting for snowplows to arrive so they could finally go home, after a winter holiday made nerve-wracking by a day of ground-shaking earthquakes and heavy snowfall.
Suddenly, Vincenzo Forti and girlfriend Giorgia Galassi were knocked violently off a wicker sofa. A few other guests nearby tumbled off their chairs in the elegant yet rustic reception hall.
An avalanche of snow — and not a tremendously powerful earthquake as survivors first imagined — had just barrelled down the mountainside Wednesday evening, smashing into the Hotel Rigopiano and trapping more than 30 holidaymakers, including four children, and workers inside.
On Sunday evening, rescuers spotted a man’s body in the wreckage, raising to six the number of confirmed dead. Twenty-three others remained missing, with hopes dependent on whether anyone might have found survival in some air pocket searchers hadn’t yet reached.
While the nine people who were eventually rescued, In this undated photo released Sunday, rescuers work in the area of the avalanche-hit Rigopiano hotel, central Italy. After two days huddled in freezing cold, tons of snow surrounding them in the wreckage of the avalanche-demolished hotel, survivors greeted their rescuers Friday as “angels.” Among the 10 people pulled out alive was a plucky six-year-old who just wanted her favorite cookies. including all the children, remained hospitalized Sunday, some details of their harrowing survival accounts began emerging, through family, friends and rescuers who spoke with them at their bedside or by telephone.
Among the details: the seemingly endless isolation, since the snow absorbed any sound from the outside world.
“There were four of us, in front of the fireplace, drinking tea,” Galassi recalled.
Suddenly, “everything on top of us, and I didn’t understand anything anymore,” Galassi, a 22-year-old university student, told Radio Giulianova, a radio station her hometown of the Adriatic coastal town of Giulianova, where Forti, 25, owns a seaside pizzeria.
Cut off from the outside world, the couple heard no sound. But “we were convinced that someone would come, because it was impossible they wouldn’t be aware of us,” Galassi said. “We banged until I couldn’t anymore, we yelled.” CINCINNATI — There’s been little public word about what has happened to an American college student detained in North Korea, as a new administration takes over one year later amid deep U.S. concerns about the hostile country’s nuclear and missile development. North Korea announced last Jan. 22 it had detained Otto Warmbier, a 21-year-old University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, earlier that month for alleged anti-state crime. Warmbier, who had visited North Korea with a tour group, was sentenced in March to 15 years in prison at hard labour after a televised tearful public confession to trying to steal a propaganda banner.