After pandemic pause, G7 foreign ministers gather face-to-face
LONDON — Foreign ministers from the Group of Seven wealthy industrialized nations gathered Tuesday in London for their first face-to-face meeting in more than two years, with the issue of whether to challenge or coax a surging China high on the agenda.
Host nation Britain is keen to show that the rich countries’ club still has clout in a fast-changing world, and has warned that the increasingly aggressive stances of Russia, China and Iran pose a challenge to democratic societies and the international rule of law.
U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the meeting “demonstrates diplomacy is back.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken underscored the United States’ reembrace of its international allies since President Joe Biden replaced his “America-first” predecessor, Donald Trump.
Blinken said engaging with China “from a position of strength ... means actually working with allies and partners, not disparaging them.”
At the two-day meeting, top diplomats from the U.K., the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan also were to discuss the military coup in Myanmar, the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the Tigray crisis in Ethiopia and the precarious situation in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops and their NATO allies are winding down a two-decade deployment.
The U.K. Foreign Office said the group would also discuss “Russia’s ongoing malign activity,” including Moscow’s earlier troop buildup on the border with Ukraine and the imprisonment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny.
The ministers wore face masks and greeted one another with arm and elbow bumps as they arrived at Lancaster House in central London. Plastic screens between participants and on-site coronavirus tests were among measures intended to make the venue COVID-secure.
Wild weather in South: Much of the South faced more severe weather Tuesday that has killed at least three people, spawned tornadoes, damaged homes and uprooted trees this week from Mississippi to West Virginia.
Parts of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee, as well as corners of Arkansas and Georgia were at enhanced risk for the worst weather, according to the national Storm Prediction Center. That zone is home to more than 11 million people and includes Nashville, Tennessee; Birmingham, Alabama; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Jackson, Mississippi, forecasters said.
A Tennessee woman died when a tree fell on her home as storms moved through the state Tuesday, Weakley County Emergency Management Director Ray Wiggington told WKRN-TV. He said at least six mobile homes were damaged by the falling tree around 4 a.m.
Tuesday’s storms could include wind gusts of up to 70 mph and hail to the size of golf balls, forecasters said.
Le Pen acquitted: Marine Le Pen, the French far-right leader, was acquitted Tuesday in a criminal case involving graphic photographs of acts of violence by the Islamic State group that she posted on Twitter in 2015 after comparisons were drawn between the group and her party.
Le Pen, the head of the National Rally party, was acquitted by a court in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris. The charge against her — the dissemination of violent messages — carried a sentence of up to three years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, about $90,000, but prosecutors had only sought a fine of 5,000 euros.
Prosecutors opened their investigation in December 2015, shortly after Le Pen — furious over a televised interview in which a French journalist compared her party to the Islamic State group — posted three pictures on Twitter that showed killings carried out by the group. One showed the body of James Foley, a U.S. journalist who was kidnapped in Syria in 2012 and later beheaded by the group.
Italy police slaying trial: The pandemic was just bearing down on Italy when the trial began of two young American men, charged with the murder of an Italian police officer near their hotel while they were on vacation two years ago.
On Wednesday, after more than 14 months, defense lawyers will wrap up their arguments, and the two defendants, former schoolmates from California, can expect to learn their fates later in the week.
Finnegan Lee Elder, now 21, and Gabriel NataleHjorth, now 20, insisted they acted in self-defense. They say they thought they were being attacked when Carabiniere Vice Brigadier Mario Cerciello Rega and fellow officer Andrea Varriale approached them wearing plainclothes in the early hours of July 26, 2019.
The officers had been dispatched to follow up on a report of a small-scale extortion attempt, allegedly devised by the Americans in reprisal for a botched drug deal earlier in the night.
The case has largely come down to the testimony of Varriale, who insisted the officers identified themselves as police, against that of the young men, who according to their own accounts, had spent the evening drinking alcohol and trying in vain to buy cocaine. Neither officer brought his service pistol to the rendezvous.
Prosecutors alleged that Elder thrust a 7-inch military-style attack knife repeatedly into Cerciello Rega, who later died.
EU reviewing Chinese shot: The European Union’s drug regulator announced Tuesday that it has started a rolling review of China’s Sinovac coronavirus vaccine to assess its effectiveness and safety, a first step toward possible approval for use in the 27-nation bloc.
The European Medicines Agency said Tuesday that its decision to start the review is based on preliminary results from laboratory studies and clinical studies.
The EMA added that no application seeking marketing authorization for the Sinovac vaccine has been submitted yet. The agency also is conducting rolling reviews of three other vaccines: the one developed by German biotech company CureVac, the American-developed Novavax and Russia’s Sputnik V.
Pricey space wine: The wine is out of this world. The price is stratospheric.
Christie’s said Tuesday it is selling a bottle of French wine that spent more than a year in orbit aboard the International Space Station. The auction house thinks a wine connoisseur might pay as much as $1 million to own it.
The Petrus 2000 is one of 12 bottles sent into space in November 2019 by researchers exploring the potential for extraterrestrial agriculture. It returned 14 months later subtly altered, according to wine experts who sampled it at a tasting in France.