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European leaders and other American allies say President Joe Biden has done much in his first 100 days in the White House to start rebuilding confidence in U.S. leadership. But while agreeing with his key foreign policy goals, including confronting the global rise of authoritarianism, they are still taking the measure of the Biden administration — as are America’s foes, say analysts and diplomats.They say the 78-year-old Biden has already shown how a switch in the Oval Office can prompt significant political change with a promise of more to come, not only in the United States but across the globe. Observers in Europe and Asia praise the U.S. leader for his emphasis on multilateral cooperation and the need for a coordinated global effort to tackle climate change. The fresh emphasis on the importance of alliances is a sharp break with Biden’s immediate predecessor, Donald Trump, they note.By Weighing In on Long-running Serbia-Kosovo Dispute, Biden Signals Interest in EuropeUS president has weighed in on long-running dispute between Serbia and Kosovo with letters urging two countries’ leaders to normalize relations based on ‘mutual recognition’Biden has “reset the global agenda by strengthening international cooperation, shifting away from a unilateral approach to leverage the strength of allies and global institutions to see tangible outcomes,” says Siddharth Tiwari, chief representative for Asia at the Bank for International Settlements. He was speaking during an online discussion hosted by Britain’s Financial Times and the Japanese business newspaper Nihon Keizai Shimbun. In Europe, too, high marks are being given to Biden with some commentators suggesting that despite his age, Biden may turn into a transformative leader. “Politics throws up two sorts of leader,” according to influential British newspaper columnist Philip Stephens. “There are those forever reaching for an umbrella and others, far fewer in number, who set out to change the weather.” He says, “The task of rediscovering the power of agency has fallen to the 78-year-old who has moved into the White House.” Stephens and others highlight the steps Biden is taking at home to reassert the power of government and to try to heal what Trump critics said was America’s “uncivil” political war with an economic expansion plan that has drawn comparisons with Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s. A $1.9 trillion economic stimulus measure has already been passed by Congress and the White House is advocating for a massive infrastructure and education package that may help to calm the socioeconomic anxieties of white working-class voters who fled the Democratic Party and backed the populist Trump. The economyMany analysts say America’s economic performance will be crucial if the U.S. is to restore its global leadership. “Unless the U.S. economy recovers, then I think the U.S. diplomacy won’t be able to recover from the Trump era,” according to Richard McGregor of Australia’s Lowy Institute research institution. Economic recovery may help Biden to repair some of America’s divisions, according to Georg Löfflmann, an academic at Britain’s University of Warwick. But he notes: “President Joe Biden faces an immense task to bring together a deeply divided nation that remains at odds over key issues from immigration to combating climate change and the enduring legacy of slavery and racism in the United States.”Domestic success will beget greater foreign policy success, observers acknowledge. The two are linked. “In his first 100 days, U.S. President Joe Biden has taken laudable steps to address climate change including establishing a ‘whole of government’ approach, rejoining the Paris Agreement and embedding climate experts to take action across the administration,” according to academics Antony Froggatt and Rebecca Peters. Writing in a paper for Britain’s Chatham House policy institute, the pair caution, though, that the “real challenge looms.” They say, “In order for the U.S. to affirm its legitimacy on climate in a politically divided landscape at home, Biden needs to simultaneously prioritize domestic policy action, while rebuilding international alliances to show that his administration can deliver on its long-term commitments.”While policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are determined to repair frayed relations and steady democracies roiled by unprecedented domestic political turmoil and challenged by authoritarian powers, there is a recognition that the road ahead will be tricky to navigate. There has been quick agreement on a range of issues with both Brussels and Washington eager for closer collaboration.  European, Other World Leaders Welcome Joe BidenThere were words of welcome Wednesday from across the world for Joe Biden as he was sworn in as America’s 46th presidentSignificant differences remain. The Biden team is encountering some of the same headwinds that contributed to the straining of Euro-Atlantic ties, first during Barack Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office, and then to a much greater degree under Trump, who identified Europe as an economic adversary and complained about NATO’s purpose.All EU national governments have welcomed Biden’s aim of revitalizing U.S.-European ties and are relieved the adversarial language has gone. Washington, however, is now facing an EU that’s turning inward, with the bloc focused on protecting its post-pandemic market and protecting its industrial champions, analysts say, and determined to become more of a global player in its own right. All fo this is likely to aggravate some trade and geopolitical frictions.The post-Second World War transatlantic consensus is also being complicated by splits within the bloc over the best ways to handle the rising power of Communist China and how to manage a revanchist (retaliatory) Russia, they add. That is placing some populist European governments in an especially awkward position — including Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been accused of hedging his bets between the West and the autocracies of Russia and China.“In the transactional world of Trumpist foreign policy, it was perfectly okay for many European leaders such as Viktor Orban to do this limbo between Eastern autocracies and Western democracies. Right now, they have to choose sides,” Katalin Cseh, a liberal Hungarian politician, said during an online exchange between EU lawmakers discussing Biden’s first 100 days. The discussion was hosted by Visegrad Insight, a Warsaw-based debate platform.But Biden’s more confrontational strategy toward China poses problems also for Europe as a whole, according to the discussion’s participants. “Our challenge is to maintain trade with China while at the same time maintaining our alliance with the United States. It will not be easy,” said Radosław Sikorski, a European lawmaker and former Polish foreign minister. Overload is also seen as a risk ahead for the Biden administration with a daunting number of foreign policy challenges to overcome — not least curbing the spread of the coronavirus and rolling out vaccinations. So far, the Biden administration is given high marks for its blending of clear-eyed pragmatism with idealism in how it is handling Russia, China and Iran, offering both sticks and carrots. “Mr. Biden is attempting a two-track policy, trying at once to resist and relate to such regimes: to constrain their territorial ambitions and discourage their human-rights abuses and transnational meddling, while working with them where their interests might overlap with America’s,” appraised Britain’s Economist magazine. 
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Three days of U.N.-mediated talks are under way to try and reunify the island of Cyprus, which has been divided between Greek and Turkish Cypriots since 1974. That was when Turkey invaded Northern Cyprus in response to a Greek-backed military coup on the island.The Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, as well as foreign ministers of three guarantor States – Greece, Turkey and Britain, the former colonial ruler of Cyprus — will be holding so-called informal talks over the coming days.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres convened this meeting to test the waters, so to speak. His spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said the aim of the meeting is to determine whether there is enough common ground for the parties to negotiate a lasting solution to the Cyprus issue within a foreseeable horizon.“The secretary-general will move forward based on the outcomes of the informal talks. The parties are welcome to be creative and the secretary-general will be encouraging them to move—to use diplomatic language—in a sincere and frank manner,” he said.U.N Peacekeepers stand on a guard post in divided capital Nicosia, Cyprus, April 24, 2021.The spokesman said Guterres will hold separate bilateral meetings Tuesday afternoon with the leaders of the two communities. In the evening, he will host a reception for the heads of delegations.On Wednesday morning, Guterres will host a plenary meeting with all five parties, to be followed by bilateral meetings in the afternoon.There have been three attempts to reunify Cyprus since 2004. All have failed. The last attempt occurred in July 2017, six months after Guterres took office. Guterres took a hands-on approach to resolving this intractable issue, energized at the prospect of achieving a diplomatic win so soon after becoming the U.N. chief.Ten days of negotiations in the Swiss Alpine town of Crans Montana also ended in failure.Dujarric said the secretary-general is unwilling to pre-judge the outcome of the talks. He said this is an issue that Guterres knows well as he has participated in discussions before. Dujarric said the secretary-general is neither cautiously optimistic nor pessimistic, but realistic. 
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EU lawmakers debated the post-Brexit trade agreement between the European Union and Britain for the last time on Tuesday, ahead of a vote that is expected to give the accord overwhelming approval.That should be the final step towards ratification of the trade and cooperation deal, struck in December after more than four years of acrimonious negotiations and lingering mistrust as Britain ended 47 years of EU membership.”This is a divorce. It is a warning, Brexit. It’s a failure of the European Union and we have to learn lessons from it,” the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, told lawmakers, who gave him a standing ovation for his work.The accord crafted in the last days of 2020 only took force provisionally until the end of April, pending approval from the European Parliament. Lawmakers will vote late on Tuesday, with the outcome made public on Wednesday morning.There is no doubt that they will back the deal, after assembly committees earlier cleared it by 108 votes to 1. If they did not, EU-UK ties would fall back to basic World Trade Organization terms, with quotas and tariffs.Even with a trade deal, British exports to the EU fell by 47% in January-February and imports by 20%, far more than the declines for any other EU trading partner.However, there had been some doubt the vote would go ahead as parliament protested against British changes to trading arrangements in Northern Ireland, a move that prompted Brussels to launch legal action.Manfred Weber, parliamentary head of the centre-right European People’s Party, said his colleagues would endorse the deal, but were concerned about its implementation, because they did not trust British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government.European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the trade agreement provided tools, notably the closing of market access, to ensure compliance.”Let me be clear: we do not want to have to use these tools. But we will not hesitate to use them if necessary,” she said at the start of the debate.Once parliament has given its consent, the 27 EU countries are expected to rubber-stamp the deal. The bloc will then inform Britain and the trade agreement will be formally concluded.The lawmakers are also voting on a 17-page accompanying resolution that calls Brexit a “historic mistake”.The text says parliament regrets the limited scope of the deal, which lacks cooperation on foreign policy or student exchanges, and notes that opportunities for Britain’s largely service-based economy are “vastly reduced.”
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Britain froze assets, imposed sanctions and enacted travel bans on nearly two dozen people accused of bribery, kickbacks and fraud on Monday, marking the first time the nation employed its own sanctioning powers to combat international corruption. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told lawmakers that the sanctions would prevent the United Kingdom from being used as “a haven for dirty money,” according to The Associated Press. “Corruption has a corrosive effect as it slows development, drains the wealth of poorer nations and keeps their people trapped in poverty. It poisons the well of democracy,” Raab said, according to Reuters. The list includes 14 Russians implicated in a $230 million tax fraud case, as well as Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, members of the Gupta business family at the center of a South African corruption scandal. The Guptas deny wrongdoing.  Sanctions were also imposed on businessman Ashraf Seed Ahmed Al-Cardinal, who is accused of stealing state assets in impoverished South Sudan, as well as individuals from Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. FILE – U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a press briefing in Brussels, Belgium, March 24, 2021.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he welcomed the sanctions, adding that they strengthened efforts to counter corruption globally. Britain previously imposed sanctions as part of the European Union or United Nations. It has created its own sanctions laws since leaving the EU at the end of 2020. Those laws give the British government the power to penalize those credibly involved in serious violation of human rights and corruption. Sanctioned individuals may not enter Britain, channel money through British banks or profit from the British economy.   The so-called Magnitsky sanctions, which the U.S. and several other countries have enacted, are named for Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who was arrested and later died in prison in Russia after accusing Russian officials of a massive tax fraud. Those officials were among those sanctioned Monday. Opposition politicians said Monday’s sanctions are welcomed but aren’t enough because they don’t target corruption in British overseas territories and dependencies.  Labour Party foreign affairs spokeswoman Lisa Nandy said Britain remains a haven for “dark money” and urged Raab to increase the powers for financial crime investigators.  “The current rate of prosecutions for economic crime is … woefully low, as he knows, and to put it bluntly if he’s serious about what he’s saying today he needs to put his money where his mouth is,” Nandy said, according to the Associated Press. 
 
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Last week’s killing of a police worker outside Paris offers a chilling reminder that terrorism has become a grim feature of life in France. Now the country, which has weathered some of Europe’s most horrific terrorist attacks, joins just a handful of nations that are building concrete reminders. The French memorial-museum will be the first devoted not to one specific terrorism incident but to a broader arc of horror over a half-century. For VOA, Lisa Bryant reports from Paris.Camera: Lisa Bryant 
 
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday demanded that U.S. President Joe Biden reverse his declaration that the World War I-era massacre of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire constituted genocide.In his first comments since Biden’s statement on Saturday, Erdogan said the U.S. leader “has made baseless, unjust and untrue remarks about the sad events that took place in our geography over a century ago.”Erdogan said he hoped Biden “will turn back from this wrong step as soon as possible.”The Turkish leader also advised Biden to “look in the mirror” at the slaughter of Native Americans by European settlers as the United States developed the western half of its territory in the 19th century.”While all these truths are out there, you cannot pin the genocide accusation on the Turkish people,” he said.Riot police are stationed nearby as U.S. soldiers stand guard on the rooftop of the U.S. embassy during a protest against a statement made by U.S. President Joe Biden, in Ankara, Turkey, April 26, 2021.Erdogan said the Biden statement opened a “deep wound” in its relations with the United States, a NATO ally, at a time when U.S.-Turkey relations are already frayed. The U.S. imposed sanctions when Turkey purchased Russian air defense systems over the protests of U.S. and NATO allies.Nonetheless, the Turkish leader said he expects to “open the door for a new period” in ties with the U.S. and discuss all disputes with Biden at a NATO summit in June.”We now need to put aside our disagreements and look at what steps we can take from now on, otherwise we will have no choice but to do what is required by the level our ties have fallen to on April 24,” he said.Late Saturday, Turkey says it summoned David Satterfield, the U.S. ambassador to Ankara, to condemn the declaration by Biden, the first U.S. president to declare that the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire — the predecessor to modern-day Turkey — between 1915 and 1923 constituted genocide.Armenians say they were purposely targeted for extermination through starvation, forced labor, deportation, death marches and outright massacres.Turkey denies a genocide or any deliberate plan to wipe out the Armenians. It says many of the victims were casualties of the war or murdered by Russians. Turkey also says the number of Armenians killed was far fewer than the usually accepted figure of 1.5 million.Moments after Biden made his statement Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu tweeted, “Words cannot change or rewrite history. We will not take lessons from anyone on our history.”Biden’s statement fulfilled a campaign promise and came on the same day that Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day was observed in Armenia and by the Armenian diaspora.“Each year on this day, we remember the lives of all those who died in the Ottoman-era Armenian genocide and recommit ourselves to preventing such an atrocity from ever again occurring,” Biden said in his statement. “The American people honor all those Armenians who perished in the genocide that began 106 years ago today.”Biden told Erdogan in a phone call Friday that he intended to make the genocide declaration.
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U.S. officials are not yet convinced Russia is making good on its word to de-escalate in Crimea and along its border with Ukraine following a weekslong military buildup, insisting it is “too soon to tell.” The Pentagon on Monday said it appears some Russian troops have pulled back, though the danger remains. “We have seen some departure of some forces away from Ukraine,” Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters, adding that the U.S. military is “going to keep watching this very, very closely.” “It’s too soon to tell and to take at face value Russian claims that what they said was an exercise is now over in there and they’re pulling everybody back,” he added. US, West Wary of Russian Claims That Military Buildup Near Ukraine Is OverPentagon says ‘it’s too soon to tell’ whether Moscow’s assurance can be taken at face value U.S. and Western officials have repeatedly raised concern over what they have described as the largest massing of Russian forces since Moscow gave the order to invade and seize the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. European officials last week said that at the height of the latest buildup, more than 100,000 Russian forces had positioned themselves within striking distance of Ukrainian territory. Bigger Than 2014: US Calls Out Russian Military Buildup Along Ukraine BorderThe Pentagon’s assertion that Moscow is massing more forces than it did when it invaded and annexed Crimea follows EU assessment that 150,000 Russian troops are now in the regionIn contrast to U.S. and Western concerns, Russian officials have continually accused Ukraine of being the cause of trouble in the region. On Monday, Russian’s foreign ministry said Russian President Vladimir Putin used a call with French President Emmanuel Macron to highlight Kyiv’s “provocative actions” in eastern Ukraine. ????? Состоялся телефонный разговор Владимира Путина с Президентом Франции Эммануэлем Макроном. Особое внимание уделено внутриукраинскому конфликту. Выражена обеспокоенность в связи с эскалацией напряжённости на Юго-Востоке Украины.? https://t.co/vf8ezliI9Apic.twitter.com/6cI5UhrwDm— МИД России ?? (@MID_RF) April 26, 2021Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced this past Thursday that military exercises involving troops along the border with Ukraine were over and that they would return to their permanent bases by May 1. Later that day, a NATO official told VOA the alliance had taken note of the Russian announcement, adding, “Any steps towards de-escalation by Russia would be important and well overdue.” VOA’s Nike Ching contributed to this report.
 
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Thirty-seven percent of surveyed countries are still experiencing disruptions in vaccinating children against deadly diseases like measles compared to 2020 levels, according to a press release from the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
The disruptions stem from the COVID-19 pandemic, the groups say.
They also say 60 lifesaving campaigns are currently “postponed in 50 countries, putting around 228 million people — mostly children — at risk for measles, yellow fever and polio.”  
As the world marks World Immunization Week 2021, which takes place in the last week of April, the groups are calling for countries to increase investments in vaccines.
The groups say investment could save 50 million lives by 2030.
“If we’re to avoid multiple outbreaks of life-threatening diseases like measles, yellow fever and diphtheria, we must ensure routine vaccination services are protected in every country in the world,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
Measles outbreaks have been reported in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan and Yemen, according to the groups. They added that further outbreaks were likely as children are not vaccinated.
“As COVID-19 vaccines are at the forefront of everyone’s minds, it is more critical than ever that children maintain access to other lifesaving vaccines to prevent devastating outbreaks of preventable diseases that have started to spread alongside the pandemic,” said David Morley, president and CEO of UNICEF Canada. “We must sustain this energy on vaccine rollout to also help children catch up on their measles, polio and other vaccines. Lost ground means lost lives.”
UNICEF said it delivered 2.01 billion vaccines in 2020 compared to 2.29 billion in 2019.
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Russian authorities ordered all offices of jailed opposition leader Alexey Navalny closed Monday as a court reviews a request from state prosecutors to label his Anti-Corruption Foundation an “extremist” group.Labeling the group “extremist” would give Russian authorities more freedom to arrest and freeze assets of those associated with Navalny – the most high-profile opponent of President Vladimir Putin.Members of the group wrote on social media Monday that following the order, it will be too dangerous for them to continue working, but that they would continue to oppose Putin in a “personal” capacity.Russian Opposition Leader Navalny to End Hunger Strike From Instagram account, Navalny says he has been seen twice by a panel of civilian doctors “We all understand perfectly that there is no extremism in (our) work…The extremism allegation is being used purely as a pretext for political repression,” Leonid Volkov, an associate of Navalny, said, according to the Reuters news agency.State prosecutors have said the group threatens to undermine the stability of the country.As Russians Protest to Save Navalny, Nationwide Turnout is Key In Russia, thousands took to the streets in Moscow and across the country to protest the continued detention of jailed — and reportedly ailing — opposition leader Alexey Navalny, now on the third week of a prison hunger strike.   But as Charles Maynes reports from St. Petersburg, it is nationwide support that may be key to saving Navalny’s life. 
Camera:  Ricardo Marquina Montanera , Agency Navalny, a 44-year-old Kremlin critic, has been detained since January in a high security prison under conditions that may amount to torture, according to the United Nations.Navalny was arrested immediately on his January 17 arrival in Moscow for alleged parole violations after returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Russia.Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service said Navalny violated the probation terms of his suspended sentence from a 2014 money laundering conviction, which he denounced as politically motivated.Navalny has accused Putin of ordering Russia’s security services to poison him, a charge the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.  Several European laboratories have confirmed that Navalny was poisoned with Novichok, a nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union.
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Russia is considering using convicts to expand a railway line in the far east, a government document showed, as Moscow faces migrant labor shortages due to COVID-19.Restrictions linked to the pandemic have prompted many migrant workers to leave Russia and authorities have warned construction projects could be slowed down.Russia has already brought in soldiers to build a segment of its Baikal-Amur Mainline railway (BAM) in the far east to transport more coal and metal to ports for export to Asia.It is now also considering convict laborers to work on the line which is being expanded as part of a more than 6 trillion rouble ($79 billion) plan to upgrade and construct infrastructure.A document drawn up by Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin’s office ordered the transport ministry, the Federal Penitentiary Service and Russian Railways, the state company that runs the vast national rail network, to assess the feasibility of using convicts to build railways.The document, first reported by Kommersant newspaper and reviewed by Reuters on Monday, ordered the three bodies to assess the possibility of using convicts to work on the construction of railway infrastructure on the Baikal-Amur Mainline and the Trans-Siberian railways by May 14.Russian Railways and the transport ministry declined to comment.A spokesman for Khusnullin did not immediately comment. The government and prison service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Prisoners from the Soviet Union’s vast GULAG labor camp system were used in the 1930s to build portions of BAM and develop large swathes of Siberia.
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