Russian President Vladimir Putin insists he has never met with U.S. President Donald Trump and wondered if the American media has “lost its senses.”

Putin was interviewed last week by NBC’s Megyn Kelly. Parts of their talk were broadcast Sunday night.

When asked if he had anything damaging on Trump, Putin called it “another load of nonsense.”

The president said hundreds of American business executives come to Moscow every year and that he rarely sees any of them, including Trump, who was a business magnate before entering politics.

Putin also denied any contacts with fired national security advisor Michael Flynn.

There is a widely-seen photograph of Flynn and Putin sitting at the same banquet table in Moscow in 2015 when the retired Army general was a Trump advisor.

Putin was at the dinner to give a speech. He told Kelly he barely spoke to Flynn and was only told later who Flynn was.

Trump fired Flynn for failing to disclose that he had met with Russian officials.

The Russian president again denied Kremlin interference in the U.S. election by hacking Democratic Party emails.

He said hackers can be anywhere and can skillfully shift the blame to Russia.

Putin said it makes no sense for Russia to interfere, because he says no matter who is president, the Russians know what to expect from a U.S. leader.
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After a militant attack on a nightlife district of London this weekend, British Prime Minister Theresa May will resume campaigning on Monday just three days before a national election which polls show is much

tighter than previously predicted.

May said Britain must be tougher in stamping out Islamist extremism after three knife-wielding assailants rammed a hired van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby, killing seven people and injuring 48.

After the third militant attack in Britain in less than three months, May said Thursday’s election would go ahead. But she said Britain had been far too tolerant of extremism.

“Violence can never be allowed to disrupt the democratic process,” May said outside her Downing Street office, where British flags flew at half-staff.

Islamic State on Sunday night claimed responsibility for the attack via the militant group’s agency Amaq.

“A detachment of Islamic State fighters executed yesterday’s London attack,” a statement posted on Amaq’s media page, monitored in Cairo, said.

London police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said. Police have not released the names of the attackers.

It was not immediately clear how the attack would impact the election. The campaign was suspended for several days last month when a suicide bomber killed 22 people at a concert by Ariana Grande in Manchester.

Grande gave an emotional performance on Sunday at a benefit gig in the city for the victims of the attack, singing with a choir of local schoolchildren, including some who had been at her show.

Before the London Bridge attack, May’s gamble on a June 8 snap election had been thrust into doubt after polls showed her Conservative Party’s lead had collapsed in recent weeks.

Shadow of attacks

While British pollsters all predict May will win the most seats in Thursday’s election, they have given an array of different numbers for how big her win will be, ranging from a landslide victory to a much more slender win without a majority.

Some polls indicate the election could be close, possibly throwing Britain into political deadlock just days before formal Brexit talks with the European Union are due to begin on June 19.

In a sign of how much her campaign has soured just five days before voting begins, May’s personal rating turned negative for the first time in one of ComRes’s polls since she won the top job in the turmoil following the June 23 Brexit referendum.

May called the snap election in a bid to strengthen her hand in negotiations on Britain’s exit from the European Union, to win more time to deal with the impact of the divorce and to strengthen her grip on the Conservative Party.

If she fails to beat handsomely the 12-seat majority her predecessor David Cameron won in 2015, her electoral gamble will have failed and her authority will be undermined both inside the Conservative Party and at talks with 27 other EU leaders.

May said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth.

Opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn criticized May, who was interior minister from 2010 to 2016, for cutting police numbers during her tenure in charge of the Interior Ministry.

“The mass murderers who brought terror to our streets in London and Manchester want our election to be halted. They want democracy halted,” Corbyn said in Carlisle, northern England.

“They want their violence to overwhelm our right to vote in a fair and peaceful election and to go about our lives freely.” “That is why it would be completely wrong to postpone next Thursday’s vote, or to suspend our campaigning any longer.”

When May stunned political opponents and financial markets by calling the snap election, her poll ratings indicated she could be on course to win a landslide majority on a par with the 1983 majority of 144 won by Margaret Thatcher.

But since then, May’s lead has been eroded, meaning she might no longer score the thumping victory over socialist Corbyn she had hoped for ahead of Brexit negotiations.
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Ariana Grande returned to the city to pay tribute with an energetic, all-star concert featuring Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Liam Gallagher two weeks after a suicide bombing killed 22 of her fans and injured dozens of others in Manchester, England.

Grande was emotional and teary-eyed throughout the One Love Manchester concert Sunday, which the British Red Cross said raised more than 10 million pounds ($13 million) for the We Love Manchester Emergency Fund, created for those affected by the attack at Grande’s May 22 show.  

She closed the three-hour-plus event with a cover of “Over the Rainbow,” crying onstage at the song’s end as the audience cheered her on.

“Manchester, I love you with all of my heart,” Grande said before the performance, and just after singing “One Last Time” with Miley Cyrus, Pharrell and more of the show’s performers standing behind her in solidarity.

Gallagher, formerly of Oasis, earned loud cheers from the audience as he emerged in his home town in surprise form. He sang and offered encouraging words to the crowd, who held inspirational signs in their hands.

One of the most powerful moments was when the Parrs Wood High School Choir performed Grande’s “My Everything” with the singer. The 23-year-old pop star held the young lead performer’s hand, both with tears in their eyes, as the rest of the singers joined in.

Perry also left a mark with her resilient performance: She sang a stripped down version of her hit, “Part of Me.” Backed by two singers and a guitarist, she delivered the song wearing all white, singing, “Throw your sticks and your stones, throw your bombs and your blows, but you’re not gonna break my soul.”

“I encourage you to choose love even when it’s difficult. Let no one take that away from you,” she said.

Bieber shared similar words onstage, even coming close to crying when he spoke about God and those who died at Grande’s show.

“[God] loves you and he’s here for you. I wanna take this moment to honor the people that were lost, that were taken,” he said. “To the families, we love you so much. … Everybody say, ‘We honor you, and we love you.’”

Coldplay were also a crowd favorite, performing well-known songs like “Viva La Vida” and “Fix You.”

Grande performed throughout the show, singing her hits from “Side to Side” to “Break Free.” She even collaborated with others onstage: She sang Fergie’s verse on the Black Eyed Peas hit, “Where Is the Love” along with the group; she performed a duet with Cyrus; and she sang her debut song, “The Way,” with rapper Mac Miller.

Cyrus said she was “so honored to be at this incredible event” and performed “Happy” alongside Pharrell, who also sang “Get Lucky.”

“I don’t feel or smell or hear or see any fear in this building. All we feel here tonight is love, resilience, positivity,” Williams said.

Take That, who are from Manchester, followed with fun energy that the crowd danced to.

“Our thoughts are with everyone who has been affected by this,” singer Gary Barlow said. “We want everyone to stand strong.”

Robbie Williams also performed, changing some of his lyrics of “Strong” to honor the Manchester victims.

“Manchester we’re strong … we’re still singing our song,” he sang with the audience of 50,000.

The Manchester concert came the day after attackers targeted the heart of London, killing seven people. Authorities have said the attack started with a van plowing into pedestrians and then involved three men using large knives to attack people in bars and restaurants at a nearby market.

The One Love Manchester concert aired across the globe. Other performers included Little Mix, Niall Horan, Imogen Heap and Victoria Monet.
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London police said early Sunday that six people and their three attackers died in the latest terror incident in Britain.

A large delivery van drove into pedestrians at high speed on London Bridge late Saturday evening, then drove to Borough Market where three men left the van and stabbed several people.

The police said the three attackers were shot dead by armed officers within eight minutes of the first call to emergency services. The police said that the canisters the attackers wore, making them look like suicide bombers, were fake.

The London Ambulance Service said via Twitter that it took 48 people to five hospitals across the city.

Authorities declared the incident a terrorist attack. The delivery van used was apparently rented from a do-it-yourself building chain store.

The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, denounced the attack and said he and British Prime Minister Theresa May would take part in an emergency meeting of the government’s crisis group. Campaigning ahead of Thursday’s parliamentary election in Britain has been suspended in the wake of the attack.

“We don’t yet know the full details,” the mayor said, “but this was a deliberate and cowardly attack on innocent Londoners and visitors.

“I condemn it in the strong possible terms,” Khan added. “There is no justification whatsoever for such barbaric acts.”

Third attack since March

The Saturday night carnage on London Bridge and in the nearby Borough Market neighborhood was the third terrorist attack in Britain since March, following a similar assault on pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and a suicide-bomb explosion less than two weeks ago in Manchester that killed dozens of people and wounded more than 100.

London police at first suspected another stabbing attack in south London might have been linked to the Borough Market and London Bridge attacks. A later statement, however, confirmed there were two separate terrorist incidents, and the stabbing in the Vauxhall neighborhood was unrelated.

US offers help

The White House said late Saturday that President Donald Trump offered America’s “full support” in investigating the “brutal terror attacks” in London during a telephone call with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

The U.S. State Department said it “condemns the cowardly attacks targeting innocent civilians in London.” The statement continued, “We understand UK police are currently treating these as terrorist incidents. The United States stands ready to provide any assistance authorities in the United Kingdom may request.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was in close contact with British authorities. 

“At this time,” an official statement said, “we have no information to indicate a specific, credible terror threat in the United States” as a result of the London attack.

In Washington, Trump sent a message of support and help to Britain, but he also tweeted that the attacks emphasized the correctness of his strict policies on immigration. Other users of social media, both in the U.S. and in Britain, criticized Trump.

Initial chaos

Few details of what occurred were confirmed officially in the chaotic first hours.

It was after 10 p.m. in London when the first alarms sounded about a wild driver steering his vehicle deliberately into pedestrians on London Bridge, and most of the accounts that followed for several hours came from multiple sources on the ground — witnesses, bystanders and journalists.

Most witnesses said they saw a white van heading toward Borough Market veer off the roadway at high speed, probably in excess of 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), and drive into pedestrians; about five to eight people who had been walking across the bridge were hit and thrown to the pavement.

Several witnesses had said it appeared that the attackers had escaped after knocking over the pedestrians. Other witnesses said they saw at least two people who had been stabbed in a restaurant close to Borough Market.

London Bridge crosses the River Thames between central London and the South London neighborhood known as Borough Market, which lies several hundred meters from the bridge itself.

Saturday’s incident came less than two weeks after the terror attack in Manchester, England, killed 23 people following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande. The pop star was scheduled to return to Manchester Sunday to perform a benefit concert for victims of the suicide attack and their families.

VOA’s Luis Ramirez, Jamie Dettmer and Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.

IN PHOTOS: Van Hits Pedestrians on London Bridge

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American hackers could have planted false evidence that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying by NBC News Saturday.

U.S. intelligence officials have said Russia tried to interfere in the U.S. election by hacking the Democratic Party to sway the vote in favor of Donald Trump, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.

In an interview with NBC News’ Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly, a preview of which was released to media, Putin said hackers in the United States could have made it look like Russia was behind the hack for political reasons.

“Hackers can be anywhere. They can be in Russia, in Asia … even in America, Latin America,” Putin said. “They can even be hackers, by the way, in the United States, who very skillfully and professionally, shifted the blame, as we say, on to Russia.

“Can you imagine something like that? In the midst of a political battle. By some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information, so they released it, citing Russia. Could you imagine something like that? I can.”

Speaking at Russia’s flagship St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday, Putin said the hacking accusations were no more than “harmful gossip” and any evidence cited by U.S. intelligence could easily have been faked. 
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An unmarked van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge, striking a number of people. There also were reports of stabbings nearby.
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Maltese voters went to the polls a year early Saturday in a snap election called by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat following an official investigation into allegations his wife owned a company related to the Panama Papers scandal.

Surveys showed Labour Party’s Muscat was likely to win a second, five-year term. But polls indicated one-fifth of voters were undecided, giving the National Force made up of the Nationalist Party and newly formed Democratic Party a slight chance.

The Panama Papers scandal, which detailed offshore companies and other financial data of the rich and powerful, exposed Malta’s energy minister and Muscat’s chief of staff as having acquired a company in Panama.

Muscat called new elections and ordered a magisterial inquiry midway through Malta’s first-ever stint at the presidency of the European Council after allegations surfaced in April that his wife also owned a company in Panama. The Muscats deny the allegations.

Setting up an offshore company is not illegal or evidence of illegal conduct, but shell companies can be used to avoid taxes or launder money.

After the publication of the Panama Papers last year, Muscat was criticized for retaining Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri, whose names figured in the document dump. They acknowledged that they acquired the companies but deny wrongdoing.

Since then, two other magisterial inquiries have been opened after money laundering and kickback allegations were made against Schembri by opposition Nationalist leader Simon Busuttil. Schembri denies any wrongdoing.

None of the investigations had finished before Saturday’s vote.

During the campaign, Busuttil, Muscat’s prime challenger, charged that accusations of corruption had hurt Malta’s financial services industry and would continue to damage the island’s reputation.
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For three years after Russia annexed Crimea, Washington officials quietly cautioned major U.S. firms about attending the annual St. Petersburg forum, where investors mingle with President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants.

This year, the first forum since Donald Trump became U.S. president, such cautions were not issued, according to four people familiar with preparations for U.S. companies to attend.

Washington’s policy toward Russia is essentially unchanged under Trump, with the United States committed to maintaining sanctions on Moscow unless it complies with international demands about Ukraine.

Change in tone

But its approach this year to the St. Petersburg event — often described as Russia’s version of the Davos forum in Switzerland — reveals a change in tone, according to some people who follow U.S.-Russia trade relations.

Daniel Russell, the head of the U.S.-Russia business council, when asked if U.S. companies were feeling less pressure from the administration to stay away, said: “I think that’s right.

“Some of the companies, particularly in 2015, received calls from the U.S. government not to attend and I think that attitude has certainly changed,” he said.

The change in tone fits with promises Trump made during his election campaign to pursue friendlier ties with Russia.

Any sign of warming toward the Kremlin is highly sensitive for the White House, since Congress and the FBI are conducting inquiries into whether members of the Trump team had improper contacts with Russian officials before Trump’s inauguration.

Trump has denied doing anything wrong.

Asked about contacts with companies planning to attend the forum, a State Department spokesperson said: “We have an open dialogue with the business community, and ultimately companies are free to make their own decisions, in line with applicable laws and regulations.”

The forum in St Petersburg was in its second day Friday and there were signs of a more substantial U.S. presence than in previous years since the March 2014 annexation of Crimea.

US ambassador attends

U.S. ambassador to Russia John Tefft was at the forum, though he did not have a speaking slot. No U.S. ambassador attended in 2014, 2015 or 2016.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said his attendance was a routine part of his ambassadorial duties.

Major U.S. companies who sent senior executives, including oil major Exxon, Boeing, Chevron and JPMorgan, were represented at a similar level to last year, but several delegates at the forum said they estimated the U.S. presence to be numerically bigger than in previous years.

“We see a much larger number of people from the U.S., Canada,” said Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, a state body that works with foreign investors.

“There is a better understanding (among foreign investors) that sanctions really did not work, the Russian economy continues to grow, Russia represents an attractive market and people should work with Russia,” he told Reuters.

Russian economy growing

Several U.S. delegates said that, politics aside, they were drawn to the forum by the fact the Russian economy had returned to growth after a slowdown.

The forum is a prestige project for Putin, a native of St. Petersburg. Foreign executives typically use their presence to signal to the Kremlin their enthusiasm for investing in Russia.

In 2014, when the Ukraine crisis first started, U.S. Cabinet officials including Secretary of State John Kerry made personal calls to chief executives of U.S. firms asking them not to attend, said a former U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The next year, senior U.S. officials below Cabinet level were charged with persuading American executives not to attend, and in 2016, U.S. officials brought up the issue in a low-level manner, the former official said.

The account of those conversations was confirmed by a second former official who served in the administration of former U.S. President Barack Obama.

The guidance in later years was not necessarily to stay away, but that executives who did attend should keep their presence low-key, said several other people familiar with the discussions.

Ian Colebourne, who is CEO for Deloitte in the Commonwealth of Independent States and sits on the U.S.-Russia business council, said he was aware of officials giving guidance to executives in previous years, but added: “I haven’t heard anything this year.”

Two other sources familiar with the preparations for U.S. companies to attend also said there had been no guidance before this year’s forum, in contrast to previous years.

Green light?

The lack of contact from the U.S. government this year is being interpreted among business executives as meaning: “You can go,” said one of the two sources.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce did not receive any guidance from the administration about whether or not to participate in the event, a source with the Chamber said.

Still, some companies that did attend exercised caution, keeping a low profile.

The head of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil, Darren Woods, did not join the table of panelists at the main oil session of the forum. It was chaired by the head of Kremlin oil major Rosneft, Igor Sechin, who is on the U.S. sanctions list.

Like his predecessor as Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson, now Trump’s Secretary of State, Woods made only brief remarks from the floor in a discussion about the energy industry.

Among other U.S. companies at the forum, JPMorgan Chase & Co., sent Daniel Pinto, Chief Executive Officer of its corporate and investment business, while Boeing sent Bertrand-Marc Allen, president of its international arm.

U.S. oil major Chevron sent its vice president for business development, Jay Pryor. He was also at the forum last year. A company representative did not reply to questions about any guidance from the administration.

“Let’s say the seniority of some of the teams is more senior this year, certainly compared to some prior years and that’s a positive sign,” Deloitte’s Colebourne said of the U.S corporate presence.

Robert Dudley, chief executive of BP, a British company with substantial business in the United States, said his impression was that this year there were more representatives of U.S. companies at the forum than previously.

“That would suggest they are not feeling that kind of pressure,” to curb their presence, he said.
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For the Italian government, it seemed like a recipe for success: create an official “Made in Italy” logo to defend the country’s finest food exports from an army of foreign impersonators.

On supermarket shelves worldwide, a star-shaped logo would mark out real Italian cheeses, hams, pasta and sparkling wines from those that only look or sound Italian, such as Parmesan made in New Zealand or Prosecco bottled in Brazil.

But Rome has discovered that even the simplest recipe can go wrong. Instead of unifying Italy’s food industry against a common enemy that is bagging billions of euros in sales, the government’s proposal for a Made in Italy certification quickly created bitter divisions.

A row has erupted over what it means to be truly Italian — should every single raw ingredient be made in Italy, for example — and now the project could be ditched altogether for lack of an industry consensus, according to two industry ministry sources who declined to be named as talks with food firms are ongoing.

“For now there is no final decision on whether to go ahead with the Made in Italy sign, we are studying it, we are doing technical checks,” said one of the sources, an industry ministry official who is working on the project.

“We will launch it only if it fully meets the requests of producers,” he said, adding that the food industry was split into several groups with conflicting views on the project.

The ministry announced the project at the end of last year, and began consultations with food producers in March, in response to industry complaints that foreign-made foods masquerading as Italian produce were costing the country billions of euros in lost export sales.

A logo guaranteeing Italian origin would enable exporters to grab some of the roughly 60 billion euros ($67 billion) in annual global sales generated by foreign imitations, according to Italy’s food producers’ lobby, Federalimentare.

Marketing experts agree. Brand Finance, a global consultancy that compiles an index of the world’s most valuable brands, estimates it could add up to 5 percent to the enterprise value of small- and medium-sized Italian food companies.

“Domestic companies would surely gain from such a logo given that Italy has a high reputation in the food sector and many of them are not well known outside the country,” said Massimo Pizzo, Italy managing director for Brand Finance.

However, Federalimentare’s members could not agree on a definition of Italian-made. Some took a hard line, insisting products be made entirely in Italy from ingredients sourced at home, while others argued for a less stringent approach.

‘If we open the door’

The consortium of producers of Parmigiano Reggiano, the king of Italian cheeses, insists on rigid standards for everyone.

“If we open the door to products with foreign ingredients, we are not talking of real Made in Italy … this is not the kind of help we are looking for,” said Riccardo Deserti, chairman of the consortium.

Under the consortium’s rules, recognized across the European Union, cheese can only be marketed as Parmigiano Reggiano, or by its English name Parmesan, if it is made according to a precise method within a restricted area around the town of Parma.

The consortium of Prosecco wine producers takes a similar stance, rejecting the idea of being put in the same authenticity category as products made with foreign raw materials.

On the other hand, some firms believe traditional Italian production methods should be enough to qualify for the logo.

Barilla, the world’s biggest pasta maker, wants to carry the Made in Italy logo though 16 of its 30 plants are abroad, including in the United States and Russia.

“We are Italian, we pay taxes in Italy and we run our foreign plants following the rules of the Italian quality,” Paolo Barilla, vice chairman of the family-owned business, told a food conference in March. A Barilla spokesman declined to make any further comment for this story.

One of Italy’s most identifiable food brands, the high-end food chain Eataly, draws a finer line on the issue.

It recently opened its first store in Moscow where an embargo on some European food imports forced it to make some cheeses from local ingredients. It sells mozzarella and burrata made in Russia, but not Parmigiano.

Olive and oak

Italian food producers can at least agree on one thing: Foreign rivals are competing unfairly by marketing distinctly Italian products, using words and symbols that suggest an Italian origin but listing the real provenance in fine print.

They point the finger at goods such as New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra’s Perfect Italiano range of Parmesan and Mozzarella cheeses or Garibaldi Prosecco made in Brazil by the Garibaldi Winery Cooperative.

“I totally agree with the idea of a Made in Italy sign,” Eataly founder Oscar Farinetti told Reuters at the inauguration of the store, but did not say whether he sided with the Italian-made purists or the likes of Barilla.

Contacted by Reuters, a Fonterra spokesperson said the group markets the two cheeses using their Italian names and featuring the Italian flag because they were launched by Natale Italiano, an Italian who migrated to Australia in the 1920s.

“While the brand is proud of its heritage, its packaging is evolving away from featuring the Italian flag,” Fonterra said.

The group did not disclose the turnover of the Perfect Italiano products.

Garibaldi Winery did not respond to emailed requests for comment.

The Rome government had proposed a Made in Italy logo employing the symbols of the Italian republic: a star framed by olive and oak branches.

The project, however, was constrained by EU rules.

The government planned to include products if their last “significant transformation” happened in Italy, the ministry official said — meaning, for example, sausages produced in Italy using imported meat would qualify for the label while ham made in a foreign plant of an Italian producer would not.

This would bring the logo into line with the European Customs Code governing country-of-origin labeling, but the plan satisfied neither side in the food fight; the purists balked at the idea of foreign ingredients being allowed, while other firms argued the rules were too stringent.

Hence the impasse that threatens the project.

“Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t use a different standard from the one used in Europe,” said the source.
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Reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the landmark Paris climate agreement, leading scientific organizations say evidence clearly shows the world’s climate is changing and urgent measures must be taken to slow the warming of the planet.

The organizations say the scientific evidence is clear that human activity is behind the changing climate. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an independent scientific assessment body, warned that without additional efforts beyond those already in place, warming by the end of the century will lead to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts.

IPCC spokesman Jonathan Lynn said the scientific body finds that limiting climate change would require substantial and sustained reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which together with adaptation can limit climate change risks.

“In its analysis of decision-making to limit climate change and its effects, the IPCC noted that climate change is a problem of the commons, requiring collective action at the global scale,” he said. “Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual players advance their own interests independently. … It is not clear at this stage how the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will affect future emissions.”

Deon Terblanche, head of the Atmospheric Research and Environment department at the World Meteorological Organization, said global warming will continue for as long as the world emits greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere

“Even a reduction in the emissions will not lead to a reduction in the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere because there is a cumulative effect and CO2 remains in the atmosphere for hundreds of years,” said Terblanche. “… The climate will continue to warm in any case.”

In a worst-case scenario, he warned the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement could result in an additional warming of the atmosphere of 0.3 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.
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The Trump administration is considering handing back two Russian diplomatic compounds along the U.S. East Coast after they were seized last year as punishment against the country, according to a report.

The compounds, one in coastal New York and the other along Maryland’s Eastern Shore, were believed by the Obama administration to have been used for intelligence purposes and were vacated on December 29 when former president Barack Obama sanctioned Russia for its alleged role in trying to sway the 2016 presidential election.

President Donald Trump is now deciding whether to return the two compounds to Moscow in exchange for certain concessions from Russia, according to reports in The Washington Post and Reuters.

According to several unnamed sources cited in the reports, Trump administration officials have spoken to Moscow about returning the compounds if Russia lifts a freeze on the construction of a U.S. consulate in St. Petersburg and stops harassing American diplomats in Russia.

The deal-making process is still in its early stages, though, and R.C. Hammond, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, told the Post that “the U.S. and Russia have reached no agreements.”

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Wednesday Russia may try to take back the property through legal action “if these steps are not somehow adjusted by the U.S. side.”

The next senior-level meeting between the two sides will come later in June, and the issue is expected to be prominent on the agenda.
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British police investigating the Manchester Arena attack cordoned off an area around a car significant to the investigation as they hunted Friday for clues about the suicide bomber’s movements.

Officers put a 100-meter (100-yard) cordon in place around a white Nissan Micra in southern Manchester. They want to piece together Salman Abedi’s preparations for the attack at the Ariana Grande concert that killed 22 people — and to learn whether others helped him.

“This is potentially a significant development in the investigation,” Detective Chief Superintendent Russ Jackson said. “We are very interested in anything people can tell us about the movements of this car, and who was in it, over the past months.”

Police were also interested in “who may have had access to the car or who may have gone to and from it.”

As a precaution, people were being evacuated from the nearby Ronald McDonald House, which offers accommodation for families with children who are being treated in the hospital. A local hospital remained working as usual and even managed to host a visit by Prince William, who met with children wounded in the attack.

The second-in-line to the throne later visited Manchester Cathedral, where he praised the grit of the city and those who responded to the attack.

“Manchester’s strength and togetherness is an example to the world,” he wrote in a book of condolence. “My thoughts are with all those affected.”

William also met with police officers, expressing his gratitude for the actions of those first on the scene of the blast. Among them was 47-year-old police constable Michael Buckley, who treated the wounded even as he frantically searched for his own child.

Buckley was off duty and waiting for his 15-year-old daughter Stephanie when the bomb exploded. He found himself in an arena’s foyer, which he described as a scene of “absolute devastation.”

“I knew my daughter was in there somewhere,” he said.

Even so, he tried to help others and kept trying to contact her in the confusion. She had suffered a concussion and some crush injuries.

“I eventually met her in a hotel in the early hours of the morning,” Buckley said. “She just ran to me and grabbed hold of me but I couldn’t hold her because I was covered in other people’s blood.”

In a city traumatized by the events of last week, police have released new security camera images of the Manchester bomber’s last moments, hoping to jog the memories of the public to see if someone might remember something.

Even those who knew Abedi struggled to explain his actions. His cousins, Isaac and Abz Forjani, expressed shock in a BBC interview.

“It’s not easy being connected to 22 lost, innocent lives,” Isaac Forjani said. “The fact that the person that did this is related to us by blood is something that’s going to stay with me for the rest of my life.”

The two brothers were arrested by police after the attack and released without charge.

Ten men, aged between 18 and 44, remain in custody on suspicion of terrorism offences in connection with the attack. Six others, including a 15-year-old boy, have been released without being charged.
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