President Joe Biden’s remarks on Monday about the U.S. “commitment” to defend Taiwan militarily if the island is attacked by China appears to represent a more aggressive approach than previous presidents have taken.
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While Biden said that the U.S. policy of so-called “strategic ambiguity” on Taiwan had not changed, his comments are his strongest warning yet to China that the U.S. would defend Taiwan if it’s attacked.
Biden may feel emboldened to take a harder line against China following the strategic failures of the Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine, where Russian forces could not seize the capital city of Kyiv during the first…
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has warned that Western countries supplying weapons to Ukraine could lead to World War III.
In a letter to United Nations Secretary General António Guterres released on Monday, Lukashenko warned that international efforts to bolster Ukraine’s security could lead to the conflict in that country expanding into another world war, according to Belarusian state media outlet Belta.
Lukashenko said Belarus “calls on the countries of the world to unite and prevent the regional conflict in Europe from escalating into a full-scale world war!”
Several world powers, including the United States, have recently supplied billions of dollars in aid, including weapons, to Ukraine, following Russia’s widely condemned invasion. But leaders have walked a thin line between supporting Ukraine and avoiding direct engagement with Russia in an effort not to escalate the conflict, specifically with regard to nuclear weapons.
As the Belarusian leader warned against the international community selling weapons to Ukraine, he accepted nuclear-capable missiles from Russia, an indication of just how close the two countries remain.
As most European countries condemned Russia’s invasion and supported Ukraine, Belarus has emerged as the Kremlin’s closest ally in the invasion. Lukashenko has remained relatively quiet about the war, offering only thinly veiled criticisms that the conflict is dragging on too long—a stark contrast from other European leaders who have wholeheartedly backed Ukraine.
In an English translation of his letter released on Monday, Lukashenko listed ways he said that the international community could help avoid escalating the conflict: “refrain from arms supplies, from information warfare and any provocations, from inflating hate speech in the media, from promoting racism and discrimination on the grounds of national, cultural, linguistic and religious affiliation, from legalizing and sending mercenaries.” He added, “We must jointly resist restrictive trade measures.”
He continued to advise that the United Nations play only a peacekeeping role throughout the conflict. Lukashenko also attacked Western leaders for their handling of Russia, appearing to cast blame on them for the invasion.
“The reluctance of Western countries to work to strengthen unified and indivisible security, their disrespect for legitimate interests and ignoring the concerns of other partners, primarily Russia, resulted first in trade, economic and information wars, and then provoked a heated conflict on the territory of Ukraine,” he wrote.
The Belarusian president’s letter came after the United States recently sent aid to Ukraine.
Among a Ukrainian aid package announced in April, the U.S. sent weapons including 72 155mm Howitzers, 144,000 artillery rounds, 72 tactical vehicles used to tow the Howitzers and more than 121 “Phoenix Ghost Tactical” drones. The U.S. Senate also passed a $40 billion bipartisan package last week.
Lukashenko’s letter was not the first time Russia and its allies have invoked World War III. In late April, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned there is a “serious” risk of a global conflict, accusing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization of engaging in a proxy conflict with Russia. He said sending weapons to Ukraine “adds fuel to the fire,” a similar argument to the one used by Lukashenko.
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Guterres’ spokesman Stéphane Dujarric de la Rivière confirmed to Newsweek he received the letter but declined to comment on its contents.
Chickens await vaccination against bird flu at the settlement Peredovoi 100 km (62 miles) from the Russia’s southern city of Stavropol, March 11, 2006.
Geese and swans are some of the main factors in spreading Eurasian H5 Highly PathogenicAvian Influenza(HPAI) a new study has found, as North America suffers from one of the worst bird flu outbreaks ever observed on the continent.
Researchers from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University realized that in order to understand how avian influenza spread, scientists would need to take a deeper lock into how the flu spread through individual species.
While historically, ducks have been considered the main spreaders of avian influenza, the new study…
A bald eagle perched in a tree in Sitka National Historical Park is lethargic and drooping. Sitka resident Larry Pouliot called the Alaska Raptor Center about the bird, which died a couple of hours later of highly pathogenic avian influenza. (Photo by Larry Pouliot/Courtesy of Alaska Beacon)
When Larry Pouliot went on a morning walk in Sitka National Historical Park on May 9, he spotted a lethargic, unresponsive bald eagle perched in a tree, its eyes bloodshot and its neck drooping.
“I realized he was not doing great,” said Pouliot, who got video footage and photos of the ailing bird.
He called the Alaska Raptor Center, a local bird rescue and rehabilitation facility. Within a couple of hours, Pouliot said, center responders who had been summoned to the…
Avian influenza killed more than 50 birds at Dominifarm Animal Sanctuary in Kuna after a sick goose infected the rest of the birds, writes reporter Andrew Baertlein of our Idaho Press news partner KTVB. “The goose looked completely alright,” Dominifarm Owner Dominique Delobbe said.
Dominifarm welcomed in the goose on Monday, May 9th. Within 48 hours, 13 birds died from an illness. Delobbe’s veterinarian contacted the Idaho State Department of Agriculture.
ISDA tested the remaining birds, finding avian flu – commonly known as the bird flu – in 5 birds; all birds on Dominifarm were then euthanized in response.
“It hit us really hard and really quickly. Our birds got sick so fast,” Dominifarm volunteer Sara Meyrovich said. “A lot of these…
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A record number of applicants sought permits for alligator hunting this year, though they had to wait an extra day to find out if they won a lottery for the permits.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said Thursday that 6,566 permits were issued from 19,358 applications submitted in a first round of permitting.
The commission was initially scheduled to announce the lottery winners on Wednesday but sent out a message to applicants saying, “We received a record number of applications this year — over 19,000 — and the lottery process is taking longer than expected.”
Millions in India and Pakistan have had to toil through the hottest spring on record, in conditions that scientists fear will soon regularly afflict billions across the globe.
A worker drinks water during a break from loading sacks of wheat on a freight train in Khanna, India on Thursday.Sajjad Hussain / AFP via Getty Images
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May 21, 2022, 1:30 AM PDT
ByAnisha Kukreja,Patrick GaleyandKaswar Klasra
NEW DELHI, India — Street vendor Rohan Mishra wakes before dawn to buy fresh vegetables from the bazaar and steels himself for another day hauling his cart under the punishing New Delhi sun.
Unable to afford time off during India’srecord-shattering heat wave, he endures headaches, dizzy spells and nosebleeds as he desperately tries to hawk his produce before it withers in the basket.
“Money has been difficult recently,” Mishra said. “This…
More than 10 million people remain under a heat advisory for Sunday across the Northeast as record temperatures could be seen from Washington, DC, to New Hampshire.
“If highs reach the mid to upper 90s, this will be record highs for the day and the month!” the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Bostonsaid Friday.
The National Weather Service has forecast Boston could see a high temperature of 96 degrees Sunday. The daily record high for the day is 93 degrees, while the monthly record for May is 97 degrees, set back on May 26, 1880.
The asteroid will zoom safely past Earth at 47,200 mph.
Asteroid 7335 (1989 JA), measuring four times as wide as the Empire State Building is high, will make a close approach to Earth on May 27, 2022.(Image credit: Getty)
An enormous asteroid four times the size of the Empire State Building will make a close approach toEarthon May 27, according to NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
Fear not: theasteroid, named 7335 (1989 JA), will soundly miss our planet by about 2.5 million miles (4 million kilometers) — or nearly 10 times the average distance between Earth andthe moon. Still, given the space rock’s enormous size (1.1. miles, or 1.8 km, in diameter) and relatively close proximity to Earth, NASA has classified the asteroid as “potentially hazardous,” meaning it could do enormous damage to…
World Health Organization reports 92 confirmed monkeypox cases and 28 suspected ones in 12 nations as the mysterious spread continues.
People usually recover within two to four weeks without needing to be hospitalised, but the disease is occasionally deadly [Pavlo Gonchar/SOPA Images/Getty Images]
Published On 22 May 202222 May 2022
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it expects to identify more cases ofmonkeypoxas it expands surveillance in countries where the disease is not typically found.
As of Saturday, 92 confirmed cases and 28 suspected cases of monkeypox were reported from 12 member states that are not endemic for the virus, the UN agency said, adding it will provide further guidance and recommendations in the coming days for countries on how to mitigatethe spread of monkeypox.
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