Biden-Xi meet: Goal is to resume military communications
US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday his goal during talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping this week is to resume normal communications between the two superpowers, including military-to-military contacts.
Speaking to reporters at the White House before departing for San Francisco, Mr Biden said he is trying to alter the US relationship with China for the better, after a period of strained ties.
Mr Biden and Mr Xi are to meet on Wednesday in the San Francisco area during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit. It will be only the second in-person meeting between the two leaders since Mr Biden took office in January 2021.
Asked how he would measure success at the talks with Mr Xi, Mr Biden said: “To get back on a normal course, corresponding and being able to pick up the phone and talk to one another in a crisis, and being able to make sure that our militaries still have contact with one another.”
Ukrainian troops have secured foothold in the south
Ukrainian forces have secured a foothold on the east bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff said on Tuesday.
Mr Andriy Yermak’s remarks were the first official acknowledgement that Ukrainian troops were established on the Dnipro’s east bank in Kherson region.
“Step by step, they are demilitarising Crimea. We have covered 70 per cent of the distance. And our counteroffensive is developing,” Mr Yermak said, in an address to the Hudson Institute think-tank in the United States.
Ex-speaker McCarthy accused of shoving GOP opponent
Tensions among Republicans flared on Tuesday following a run-in between former House speaker Kevin McCarthy and one of the eight members of his own party who voted last month to oust him.
Mr McCarthy bumped into Representative Tim Burchett, a hard-liner from Tennessee, as Republicans left a meeting. It was unclear if the collision - which occurred in a narrow hallway in the US Capitol’s basement - was accidental. But the exchange quickly turned heated as Mr McCarthy walked away.
Mr Burchett yelled to Mr McCarthy, asking why he elbowed him in the back and questioning whether he had any “guts.”
Braverman urges UK PM Sunak to ‘change course urgently’
Outspoken British lawmaker Suella Braverman launched a withering attack on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday, urging him to change course to avoid election defeat and slamming his record on immigration and anti-Semitism.
Ms Braverman, a favourite of the right-wing of the ruling Conservative party, fired the broadside in a three-page letter to Mr Sunak a day after he sacked her as interior minister.
Mr Sunak dismissed Ms Braverman in a reshuffle of his top team on Monday after she last week accused police of left-wing bias and said homelessness was a “lifestyle choice”.
Police identify ‘flower tattoo’ woman 31 years after murder
A woman found murdered 31 years ago in a river in Belgium has been identified over three decades later thanks to her flower tattoo and an international appeal, Interpol said on Tuesday.
The Lyon-based global police organisation said she was Rita Roberts from Cardiff in Wales, and British.
Roberts, found lying against a grate in the river Het Groot Schijn in Antwerp on June 3, 1992, had a tattoo of a black flower with green leaves and the inscription “R’Nick” on her right forearm.
