Day: June 16, 2024

By Crispian Balmer

BARI, Italy (Reuters) -Since taking office in 2022, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has proved a pragmatic partner on major international issues, assuaging fears she would be a dogmatic conservative unwilling to compromise.

But at the Group of Seven summit that she hosted in southern Italy this week, Meloni showed she had some red lines dear to her nationalist camp that she was ready to fight for, especially issues relating to the family and reproduction rights.

In the build-up to the June 13-15 summit, attention had been firmly focused on securing a deal on a multibillion-dollar loan for Ukraine, using frozen Russian assets, and creating ways to level the playing field in trade with China.

Broad consensus was found on both issues and hailed as proof of Western unity in the face of global challenges.

Then, out of the blue, diplomats revealed that Italy had demanded the removal of specific reference to “safe and legal abortion” from the final G7 statement and also wanted to water down language on vaccination funding.

Despite being isolated, Meloni largely got her way on both issues, using Italy’s position as rotating president of the wealthy nation club to lead the negotiations where it wanted, diplomats who followed the discussions told Reuters.

“Meloni is against abortion and always has been, so that was her red line and honestly we pushed early on. But when the presidency said ‘no’ that was that,” said a European diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Like many arch-conservative groups in Europe and the United States, Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party is opposed to abortions and calls for the promotion of traditional family values.

“She has thrown a bit of red meat to her supporters,” said Daniele Albertazzi, politics professor at Britain’s Surrey University and an expert in political populism.

“She wants to stress that she is not on the same page as some progressive leaders on these sort of issues because this is part of her identity and it has been diluted since she became prime minister,” he added.

FRENCH REGRET

French President Emmanuel Macron, a centrist who has clashed with Meloni in the past over social concerns, including migration, told reporters at the summit that he regretted the fact there was no longer specific reference to “abortion”.

Meloni shrugged off the dispute, arguing on Saturday that this week’s statement made it clear that the G7 continued to support the aims of its Hiroshima declaration, which backed access to abortion, meaning it was redundant to repeat the previous text.

“I sincerely believe that the controversy was totally contrived,” she told reporters, adding that she had no intention of outlawing abortion in Italy.

However, signalling that there had been genuine discomfort over Italy’s position, a senior U.S. official said President Joe Biden had objected to an initial draft that removed reference to abortion and made no mention of Hiroshima.

A senior White House official later said Biden fully supported the final wording of the 2024 communique. “He felt strongly about the language that made it through,” he said.

Pope Francis, an outspoken opponent of abortion, was a guest at the G7 summit and Italy’s Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida, who is Meloni’s brother-in-law, said this week it would not have been appropriate to talk about pregnancy terminations in the statement given his presence at the meeting.

A European diplomat, who declined to be named, said that during discussions on whether or not to use the word, an Italian counterpart had told fellow negotiators: “the pope will never accept it”. They then corrected themselves to say: “Oh, I mean, my prime minister will never accept it”, the diplomat said.

Italian officials did not immediately comment on this.

While Meloni’s objection to abortion has long been known, the move to water down the language on vaccinations came as more of a surprise.

Italy removed a line included in the 2023 communique which called for “investment in global health through vaccine manufacturing capacity worldwide”. This year, there was just a reference to “regional vaccines manufacturing initiatives”.

Vaccine scepticism has embedded itself in conservative camps both in the United States and Europe.

While Meloni herself did not endorse no-vax campaigners during the COVID pandemic, her party opposed many of the tough COVID regulations imposed at the time, which required Italians to be vaccinated in order to go to work, use public transport, or enter shops and restaurants.

“She’s not anti-vax, but she’s partially anti-vax,” said one of the European diplomats who followed the negotiations.

Meloni’s office declined to comment.

U.Today – One of the most experienced traders among cryptocurrency enthusiasts, Peter Brandt, has shared an interesting video on his personal X account. That video is a highlight of the most recent BTC Prague event, where Jack Mallers, CEO of Strike, discussed the importance of understanding the proof-of-work concept and the idea of the decentralized P2P network Satoshi Nakamoto was trying to build.

An in-depth discussion of proof of work (PoW), a crucial component of the Bitcoin network, was provided by Jack Mallers. He outlined the ways in which proof of work (PoW) guards against double-spending, guarantees consensus and secures the network. In order to validate transactions and add them to the blockchain, this mechanism requires miners to solve difficult mathematical operations.

Mallers discussed the original Bitcoin concept proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto as well. He emphasized how the decentralized peer-to-peer network’s architecture minimizes the need for a central authority, increasing transparency and lowering the possibility of fraud.

What distinguishes Bitcoin from other traditional financial systems is its decentralized nature. In the realm of cryptocurrencies, the ideas that Mallers discusses are actively shaping present and future procedures rather than just being historical anecdotes.

Anyone working in the industry, from developers to traders, needs to understand these ideas. Peter Brandt’s sharing of this video doubles down on how important these core ideas are even now. Brandt’s support implies that even if you are a seasoned market player, having a firm grasp of the fundamental ideas behind Bitcoin is extremely important.

Nowadays, unfortunately, the average user of digital assets may not be as deeply dedicated to the core fundamentals laid out by Satoshi himself, which may create issues in the future for the whole industry.

This article was originally published on U.Today

By Dave Graham and Sabine Siebold

BUERGENSTOCK, Switzerland (Reuters) -Western powers and their allies at a summit in Switzerland denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Sunday, but they failed to persuade major non-aligned states to join their final statement, and no country came forward to host a sequel.

Over 90 countries attended the two-day talks at a Swiss Alpine resort at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, billed as a “peace summit” even though Moscow was not invited.

Russia ridiculed the event from afar. A decision by China to stay away all but assured that the summit would fail to achieve Ukraine’s goal of persuading major countries from the “global South” to join in isolating Russia.

Brazil attended only as an “observer”. And in the end, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and South Africa all withheld their signatures from the summit communique, even though some contentious issues were omitted in the hope of drawing wider support.

Still, the conference provided Kyiv with a chance to showcase the support from Western allies that it says it needs to keep fighting against a far bigger enemy.

Leaders including U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron gathered at the mountaintop resort of Buergenstock. U.S. President Joe Biden, in Europe for other events last week, did not attend despite public invitations from Zelenskiy.

In the absence of a clear path to ending the war, Zelenskiy emphasised practical issues, such as securing food supplies and nuclear safety. Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest grain exporters, has thwarted a blockade of its Black Sea ports, and also wants to build consensus around safety at a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant.

“Today the world sees that real diplomacy is not just about words, it is about steps – steps that need to be taken to fix a situation,” Zelenskiy posted on X.

The frontlines in Ukraine have barely moved since the end of 2022, despite tens of thousands of dead on both sides in relentless trench warfare, the bloodiest fighting in Europe since World War Two.

In her closing remarks, Swiss President Viola Amherd warned that the “road ahead is long and challenging”.

Russia, as it has for weeks, mocked the gathering.

“None of the participants in the ‘peace forum’ knows what he is doing there and what his role is,” said Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and now deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council.

‘THINGS CAN’T GO ON LIKE THIS’

After initial Ukrainian successes that saw Kyiv repel an assault on the capital and recapture territory in the war’s first year, a major Ukrainian counter-offensive using donated Western tanks fizzled last year. Russian forces still hold a fifth of Ukraine and are again advancing, albeit slowly. No peace talks have been held for more than two years.

“We know that peace in Ukraine will not be achieved in one step, it will be a journey,” European Commission Chief Ursula von der Leyen said, calling for “patience and determination”.

“It was not a peace negotiation because (Russia’s President Vladimir) Putin is not serious about ending the war, he’s insisting on capitulation, he’s insisting on ceding Ukrainian territory – even territory that today is not occupied.”

The summit’s final declaration called for Ukraine’s control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant and its Azov Sea ports to be restored. But in line with the conference’s more modest stated aims, it omitted tougher issues of what a post-war settlement for Ukraine might look like, whether Ukraine could join the NATO alliance or how troop withdrawals from both sides might work.

“The more allies that can be found to say ‘Things can’t go on like this’, ‘This is too much’, ‘That’s overstepping the mark’, that also increases the moral pressure on the Russian Federation,” said Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer.

As Sunday’s talks turned towards issues of food security and nuclear power, some leaders left early.

No country came forward to host another such meeting, with notable silence from Saudi Arabia, mooted as a possible future venue. Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said the kingdom was ready to assist the peace process but a viable settlement would hinge on “difficult compromise.”

Since initial peace talks in the first months after the Feb. 2022 invasion, Ukraine has consistently demanded Russia withdraw from all its land, while Moscow has demanded recognition of its rule over territory its forces captured.

Last week, in remarks clearly aimed at the conference, Putin said Russia would not halt the war until Kyiv withdraws its forces fully from four provinces that Moscow only partially controls and claims to have annexed. Kyiv swiftly denounced that as a demand for surrender.

“Of course we…understand perfectly that a time will come when it will be necessary to talk to Russia,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. “But our position is very clear: We will not allow Russia to speak in the language of ultimatums like it is speaking now.”

Western leaders at the summit endorsed Kyiv’s refusal to negotiate under such terms.

“Confusing peace with subjugation would set a dangerous precedent for everyone,” said Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

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By Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -President Joe Biden slammed the U.S. Supreme Court as “out of kilter” at a glitzy fundraiser in Los Angeles on Saturday with former President Barack Obama and top Hollywood celebrities that has raised over $30 million.

Late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel began by showing a video montage contrasting Biden’s record with that of his predecessor and current Republican challenger Donald Trump. He drew cheers from the audience at a packed Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Hollywood celebrities George Clooney and Julia Roberts were among the guests.

Biden, a Democrat who has frequently denounced specific decisions but resisted a full-throated attack on the court itself, said on Saturday “the Supreme Court has never been as out of kilter as it is today.”

“The fact of the matter is that there has never been a court that is this far out of step,” Biden said. He noted that conservative Justice Clarence Thomas had said the court, which overturned the half-century-old federal right to abortion, should reconsider such things as in vitro fertilization and contraception.

Trump nominated three of the six conservatives who control the nine-member court. He and Biden are in a tight rematch race for the Nov. 5 election.

If Trump is elected again, Biden said, he “is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees.”

“The idea that if he’s reelected he’s going to appoint two more who are flying flags upside down… I think it is one of the scariest parts,” Biden said.

He was referring to a recent controversy involving Justice Samuel Alito, who allowed flags associated with the movement to reverse Trump’s 2020 loss to Biden – including an upside-down American flag – to fly outside his homes in Virginia and New Jersey.

Democratic lawmakers, citing the flag displays, have said Alito should recuse himself from a case involving Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from prosecution on federal criminal charges relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 results.

Since Biden took office, the court’s conservative majority has also restricted affirmative action, gay rights, gun control and environmental regulation. It has blocked the president’s agenda on immigration, student loans, vaccine mandates and climate change.

Obama said “the power of the Supreme Court is determined by elections. What we’re seeing now is a byproduct of 2016” when Trump was elected. “Hopefully we have learned our lesson. Because these elections matter.”

Obama also invoked Trump’s felony convictions to applause from the crowd. Trump was convicted by a New York jury on May 30 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

‘LARGEST DEMOCRATIC FUNDRAISER’

The Biden campaign hoped the star-studded event would display strength and momentum despite Biden’s low approval ratings and concerns about the age of the president, who is 81.

“This will be one of the biggest fundraisers we’ve had,” said Ajay Jain Bhutoria, deputy finance chair at the Democratic National Committee. A Biden campaign spokeswoman said “$28 mln heading into President Biden’s LA fundraiser – and counting. This is the largest Democratic fundraiser in history.”

The Biden campaign outraised the $26 million a March fundraiser in New York City generated where comedian and TV host Stephen Colbert hosted Biden, Obama and former President Bill Clinton. The top-ticket package for the LA event costs $500,000, campaign officials said.

Other celebrities who took the stage at the Saturday event included Jack Black, Jason Bateman, Kathryn Hahn and Sheryl Lee Ralph.

In recent weeks, Mark Hamill of Star Wars fame made a White House briefing room appearance to praise the president, Robert De Niro showed up in lower Manhattan for a press conference at the Biden campaign’s behest and Steven Spielberg has been helping the Biden campaign with storytelling.

Actor Michael Douglas held a fundraiser for the president and artists Queen Latifah, Lenny Kravitz, Lizzo, James Taylor, Christina Aguilera and Barbra Streisand have all performed to help Biden raise money.

Biden campaign’s fundraising in April lagged Trump’s for the first time, after the former president ramped up his joint operation with the Republican National Committee and headlined high-dollar fundraisers.

Democrats still maintained an overall cash advantage over Trump and the Biden campaign continues to have a considerably larger war chest.

Biden and Trump are tied in national polls with less than five months to go before the election, while Trump has the edge in the battleground states that will decide the election, recent polls show. On economic issues like inflation, Trump scores higher with voters overall than Biden.

Democrats have long counted on the liberal Los Angeles area as a rich source of financial backing. Republicans often decry Democrats nationwide as funded by Hollywood elites and California liberals.

But the state’s donors bankroll presidential campaigns on both sides of the aisle. Biden and Trump have both raised more in the state for their reelection bids than anywhere else, according to fundraising disclosures filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Biden raised $24 million through April 30 in California, and Trump $11.7 million, according to the Federal Election Commission.

The president was largely unable to host high-dollar Hollywood fundraisers for much of 2023 because of industry strikes. But since they were resolved, Biden has headlined several fundraisers in the state, including one in December where top tickets approached $1 million.

By Rich McKay and Kanishka Singh

(Reuters) -An armed man shot and injured nine people, including two children, at a water-park near Detroit on Saturday evening before shooting himself after being cornered by police, authorities said.

Authorities called the incident random gunfire and said they cornered the suspect in a house nearby, where he died after shooting himself.

The local sheriff showed an image of a semiautomatic rifle from inside the house to which the unnamed suspect was tracked. A handgun was recovered from the scene of the shooting, officials added. The suspect was described as a 42-year-old man, while the motives for the shooting were not clear.

An 8-year-old boy was in critical condition after being shot in the head while his 4-year-old brother was also wounded but stable. Their mother was in critical condition, too, after being hurt in the abdomen and leg, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard told reporters.

The other six victims, all aged 30 or older, were in stable condition according to Bouchard.

The suspect had got out of a vehicle in front of Brooklands Plaza Splash Pad park in Rochester Hills, Michigan, about 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) and fired about 30 shots from a 9mm semiautomatic Glock, reloading several times, Bouchard said in a press conference.

Rochester Hills is about 30 miles (50 km) north of Detroit. The neighboring community Oxford Township, also in Oakland County, was the scene of a 2021 mass school shooting where student Ethan Crumbley, then 15, killed four students and wounded six other students and a teacher at Oxford High School.

“It’s a gut punch, obviously, for us here in Oakland County,” Bouchard said on Saturday. “We’ve gone through so many tragedies, you know. We’re not even fully comprehending what happened at Oxford.”

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on X, “I am heartbroken to learn about the shooting in Rochester Hills.”