US BOOSTS FORCES IN EUROPE AS NATO NAMES RUSSIA ‘MOST SIGNIFICANT AND DIRECT THREAT’

The Pentagon will further increase its presence in Europe in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, the Defense Department announced Wednesday.

US President Joe Biden pledged more American troops, warplanes and warships for Europe on Wednesday as Nato agreed the biggest strengthening of its deterrents since the Cold War in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A Nato communique called Russia the “most significant and direct threat to the allies’ security and stability”, a nod to the precipitous deterioration in relations with Russia — earlier classified as a “strategic partner” — since the invasion. Russia’s “war of aggression against Ukraine has shattered peace and gravely altered our security environment,” Nato said in a new Strategic Concept document, its first since 2010. Nato also agreed a package of support aimed at modernising Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era military.

The White House said Biden’s commitments mean the US will maintain a presence of 1,00,000 troops in Europe, up 20,000 from the levels before the Ukraine war began, for the “foreseeable future.”

Meanwhile, Turkey has lifted a veto on Finland & Sweden joining the NATO.  “Today, we have decided to invite Finland and Sweden to become members of Nato,. Ratification in allied parliaments is likely to take up to a year, but once it is done, Finland and Sweden will be covered by Nato's Article 5 collective defence clause, putting them under the US's protective nuclear umbrella. We will make sure we are able to protect all allies, including Finland and Sweden,” Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg said.

WHO CHIEF: US ABORTION RULING IS A SETBACK, WILL COST LIVES

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday criticised the US Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, calling the decision to no longer recognise a constitutional right to abortion “a setback” that would ultimately cost lives. He said that decades of scientific data prove that access to safe and legal abortion saves lives. “Restricting (abortion) drives women and girls toward unsafe abortions resulting in complications, even death,” he said. He said safe abortion should be understood as healthcare and warned that limiting its access would disproportionately hit women from the poorest and most marginalised sections. Tedros feared many other countries may take similar steps. “Global impact is a concern.”

PUTIN'S FRESH WARNING TO FINLAND, SWEDEN ON INSTALLING NATO INFRASTRUCTURE

Russia has "no problem" if Finland and Sweden join NATO, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

"We don't have problems with Sweden and Finland like we do with Ukraine," Putin told a news conference in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat.

"We don't have territorial differences," the Russian leader continued.

"There is nothing that could bother us about Sweden and Finland joining NATO. If Finland and Sweden wish to, they can join. That's up to them. They can join whatever they want."

However, "if military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there, we would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats for those territories where threats have arisen for us," Putin said.

The formal process for membership was launched at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday.

Putin nevertheless condemned NATO's "imperial ambitions", accusing the alliance of seeking to assert its "supremacy" through the Ukraine conflict.

"Ukraine and the well-being of Ukrainian people is not the aim of the collective West and NATO but a means to defend their own interests," Putin said.

"The NATO countries' leaders wish to... assert their supremacy, their imperial ambitions," he added.

The Atlantic alliance and "above all the United States have long needed an external enemy around which they can unite their allies," the Russian leader said.

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"Iran wasn't good for that. We've given them this opportunity... to gather the whole world around them."

KYIV: 144 UKRAINIAN SOLDIERS FREED IN PRISONER SWAP

Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that 144 of its soldiers, mostly former defenders of the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol, had been freed in a prisoner swap with Moscow. “This is the largest exchange since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion,” the main intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Telegram. “Of the 144 freed, 95 are Azovstal defenders. ” It did give details. But pro-Russian separatist leader Denis Pushilin said 144 soldiers from Russia and the Donetsk People’s Republic had “returned home”. The Ukrainian ministry statement said that 43 of the freed servicemen belonged to the Azov regiment, a former paramilitary unit that is now integrated into the Ukrainian army.

GOTABAYA CALLS PUTIN TO DISCUSS OIL PURCHASE

Colombo : Sri Lanka President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to explore options of purchasing oil from Moscow, as Colombo desperately looks to replenish its dwindling fuel stocks amid an unprecedented economic crisis. He will also visit the UAE in the near future to discuss fuel import from the oil-rich Gulf nation, minister of state for power and energy Mahindananda Aluthgamage said on Tuesday.

Rajapaksa on Monday had tweeted that he met Russian ambassador to Sri Lanka Yuri Materiy to discuss the country’s economic crisis. Last month, Sri Lanka had purchased 90,000 tonnes of oil from Russia. Sri Lanka’s power and energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera flew to Qatar on Monday to negotiate a long-term fuel supply deal with the Gulf nation.

On Wednesday, doctors and bankers were among hundreds who marched in Colombo to demand that the government resolve the fuel shortage or step down.

19 CONVICTED IN 2015 PARIS ATTACKS

A French court has found 19 men guilty of terrorism-related charges for the Islamic State terrorist attacks on the Bataclan theater, Paris cafes and France’s national stadium in 2015.

The deadliest peacetime attacks in French history killed 130 people.

Presiding judge Jean-Louis Peries was rendering the verdict on Wednesday in a courthouse surrounded by unprecedented security, wrapping up an exceptional, nine-month trial.

The chief suspect, Salah Abdeslam, was found guilty of murder and attempted murder in relation with a terrorist enterprise, among other charges.

BENNETT WON’T RUN IN NEXT POLLS; LAPID SET TO LEAD CARETAKER GOVT

Jerusalem : Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will not run in upcoming elections, his office said Wednesday, after he led a broad but fragile coalition government that came unraveled barely a year after taking office.

The government announced last week that it would dissolve the Knesset ahead of elections expected this fall, but the voting required for dissolution has been bogged down by disputes with the opposition. Bennett’s office said he has informed members of his right-wing Yamina party that he will not run in the next elections, expected in October or November. He will continue to serve as alternate prime minister in a caretaker government to be led by Yair Lapid, the architect of the coalition who is currently foreign minister.

AS TRUMP RAGED, AIDES SCRAMBLED TO KEEP HIM AWAY FROM CAPITOL

Washington : In her testimony to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Capitol assault, former aide Cassidy Hutchinson painted a picture of panicked White House officials bristling at the possibility of thenpresident Donald Trump’s joining what was to become a violent mob pushing its way into the Capitol, hunting for his vice-president Mike Pence, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other lawmakers who were certifying the win of Joe Biden over Trump.

The White House officials’ worries focused on the potential criminal charges Trump and others could face. “We’re going to get charged with every crime imaginable,” Hutchinson said White House counsellor Pat Cipollone told her if Trump were to go to the Capitol. The thenpresident dismissed concerns that some supporters gathered for his fiery speech outside the White House that day carried AR-15-style rifles, instead asking security to stop screening attendees with metal-detecting magnetometers so the crowd would look larger, she testified.

Trump denied the claim. “Her Fake story that I tried to grab the steering wheel of the White House Limousine in order to steer it to Capitol Building is ‘sick’ & fraudulent. ”

EU EXTENDS COVID CERTIFICATES BY ONE YEAR

European Unions countries approved on Tuesday extending the use of Covid certificates by one year until the end of June 2023 as cases of the deadly virus start to grow again ahead of the summer holiday season.

Aimed at facilitating travel across the 27-nation bloc during the pandemic, the certificates entered into force in July last year and have been a successful tool to help EU citizens move in the region in coronavirus times without restrictions such as quarantines. EU countries have issued nearly two billion certificates.

The document attests that a person has been vaccinated against coronavirus or that they have a recent negative test result or have recovered from the infection.

"PANDEMIC IS NOT OVER": WHO SAYS COVID CASES RISING IN 110 COUNTRIES

The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday said that the COVID-19 pandemic is changing but it is not over and warned that the cases are rising in 110 nations.

"This pandemic is changing but it's not over. Our ability to track the #COVID19 virus is under threat as reporting and genomic sequences are declining meaning it is becoming harder to track Omicron and analyse future emerging variants," Director-General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

He further added, "COVID19, driven by BA.4 and BA.5 in many places, cases are on the rise in 110 countries, causing overall global cases to increase by 20 per cent and deaths have risen in 3 of the 6 WHO regions even as the global figure remains relatively stable."

While briefing the media on COVID-19 and other global health issues, Ghebreyesus said that the WHO had called on all countries to vaccinate at least 70 per cent of their population.

He further said that in the past 18 months, more than 12 billion vaccines have been distributed globally.

"On the flip side, hundreds of millions of people, including tens of millions of health workers and older people in lower-income countries remain unvaccinated, which means they are more vulnerable to future waves of the virus," the WHO chief said.

"With only 58 countries hitting the 70 per cent target, some have said it's not possible for low-income countries to make it," he said.

Ghebreyesus gave the example of Rwanda where second dose vaccination rates are now above 65 per cent and still rising. The WHO chief underlined that it is important to keep the most at-risk groups up to date with vaccination.