Month: February 2022

After years of deteriorating relations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is inviting his Israeli counterpart to visit. The invitation signals a rapprochement that observers say is driven by powerful mutual interests, including concerns over Iran’s nuclear program and the future of oil and gas imports from Russia and Iran. For VOA, Dorian Jones reports from Istanbul. …

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U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the optimal resolution to the Russia-Ukraine crisis is a diplomatic one and that he expects to consult with his counterparts from France, Germany and Britain in the coming days. “As you all know, we have been engaged in a two-track strategy where we have, on the one hand, been pursuing diplomacy — by far the preferable course, the responsible course — but at the same time building up strong deterrence to dissuade Russia from taking aggressive action,” Blinken told reporters traveling with him to Australia for a meeting of the so-called Quad countries. …

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CANBERRA — The foreign ministers of Australia and Lithuania agreed Wednesday to step up cooperation on strategic challenges, in particular pressures from China. Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis and his Australian counterpart Marise Payne met Wednesday at Parliament House.  Australian exporters have lost tens of billions of dollars to official and unofficial Chinese trade barriers covering coal, wine, beef, crayfish and barley that have coincided with deteriorating relations with Beijing.  Lithuania, a country of 2.8 million in the Baltic region, more recently drew Beijing’s ire after breaking with diplomatic custom by agreeing that Taiwan’s office in its capital Vilnius would …

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French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday there is an opportunity for further negotiations to de-escalate the crisis on the Ukraine-Russian border, after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Kyiv.  “Our desire for the following weeks and months is for the situation to stabilize and for us to be able to re-engage through new mechanisms of guarantees, a sustainable de-escalation,” Macron said Tuesday. “In this context, the calm that you demonstrate, the reflection from all participating parties, both in words and in actions, are indispensable,” Macron told Zelenskiy at a press conference following the talks. Warships Meanwhile, the …

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U.S. President Joe Biden has threatened to block the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline if Russia invades Ukraine.   The undersea pipeline directly links Russian gas to Europe via Germany and is complete but not yet operating. It has become a major target as Western governments try to deter a Russian attack on its neighbor.   In the past, it has been a source of tension between the U.S., which opposed the project, and Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said all options were on the table but avoided mentioning Nord Stream 2 specifically at a news conference with Biden in …

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The Spanish company in charge of a truck that exploded and killed 13 people last month en route to an internationally-run gold mine in Ghana violated storage and transport laws and has been fined $6 million, the lands ministry said on Tuesday. The truck was transporting explosives for Madrid-based Maxam Corp to the Chirano gold mine, run by Toronto-based Kinross Gold Corporation, when it collided with a motorbike, caught fire and exploded, leveling a roadside village and injuring at least 100 people. Maxam, in its first statement since the January 21 disaster, denied responsibility, blaming a local contractor. Ghana’s Ministry …

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Mali’s interim prime minister has accused France of using its military mission there against Islamist militants to divide the African country. Speaking to diplomats late Monday, Interim Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga said Mali would always be grateful to French soldiers who died in the fight against Islamist militants. But he added that the French mission to help Mali was aiding the terrorists. He said the French people, some who have children who have died in Mali, don’t know that it was their government that cut Mali in two. “France created a sanctuary for terrorists to regroup and reorganize for …

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President Joe Biden says he and Germany’s new chancellor are in lockstep over the perilous situation in Ukraine, where the specter of an imminent Russian invasion haunts all of Europe. The two leaders held their first in-person meeting on Monday. VOA’s Anita Powell reports from the White House. …

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Paris — Plastic has infiltrated all parts of the ocean and is now found “in the smallest plankton up to the largest whale” wildlife group WWF said on Tuesday, calling for urgent efforts to create an international treaty on plastics. Tiny fragments of plastic have reached even the most remote and seemingly pristine regions of the planet: it peppers Arctic sea ice and has been found inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean, the Mariana Trench. There is no international agreement in place to address the problem, although delegates meeting in Nairobi for a United Nations environment meeting …

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Millions of people around the world enjoy a daily cup of coffee; however, their daily caffeine fix could be under threat because climate change is killing coffee plants, putting farmers’ livelihoods at risk. Inside the vast, steamy greenhouses at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the leafy suburbs of west London, Aaron Davis leads the research into coffee. “Arabica coffee, our preferred coffee, provides us with about 60% of the coffee that we drink globally. It’s a delicious coffee, it’s the one we love to drink. The other species is robusta coffee, which provides us with the other 40% …

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