WORLD

Helsinki, Finland | THE INDEPENDENT |  Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met here for the first time on Wednesday, expressing willingness to cooperate but also admitted “serious differences” amid the two countries’ tense relations. Meeting with his counterpart on the sidelines of an …

Jakarta, Indonesia | THE INDEPENDENT | Indonesian President Joko Widodo said on Tuesday the construction progress of the Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Railway (HSR) has reached 73 percent, hoping the railway will operate by the end of 2022. Widodo said in a statement released by KCIC, a joint venture consortium between Chinese …

Beijing, China | THE INDEPENDENT |  The smooth kickoff of China-Russia nuclear energy cooperation project will promote the upgrading of bilateral ties, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said here Tuesday. Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin will jointly witness the opening ceremony of the two countries’ nuclear energy …

Gaza, Israeli | THE INDEPENDENT | The main COVID-19 testing center in Gaza city was damaged due to intensive Israeli fighter jet strikes waged on the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian health official said Tuesday. Yousef Abu al-Reesh, health ministry director-general in Gaza, told reporters that the COVID-19 testing center in the …

Tehran, Iran |  XINHUA |  Iran’s Constitutional Council, which supervises elections in the country, on Sunday started the process of vetting the large number of registered presidential hopefuls, of whom a few number would qualify, with heavyweights already in the spotlight. As scheduled, the vetting body will release the names …

Damascus, Syria |  XINHUA | The Syrian presidential campaigns have officially started on Sunday as posters of President Bashar al-Assad and the two other candidates filled the squares and streets in the capital Damascus. Under the theme “Hope is in Work,” Assad has started his campaign where his posters, most …

Madrid, Spain |  XINHUA |  FC Barcelona’s German international goalkeeper Marc Andre Ter Stegen will miss the European Championships this summer because of a knee injury. The FC Barcelona website on Monday confirmed Ter Stegen will “undergo a therapeutic procedure on the patellar tendon in his right knee on Thursday …

Biden is proposing a massive package of around 4.1 trillion dollars Washington, U.S. | Xinhua | U.S. President Joe Biden intends to pass two spending plans worth over 4 trillion U.S. dollars, but Republicans are blasting the package as wasteful and overpriced. Biden is proposing a massive package that includes infrastructure and …

New York, US | XINHUA |  UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday called for a unified Security Council over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and regretted the lack of multilateralism. Asked what the secretary-general expects from Sunday’s emergency meeting of the Security Council on the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian escalation, Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric …

Washington, U.S. | Xinhua | U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed an executive order revoking several measures issued by former President Donald Trump, including one to establish a “National Garden of American Heroes” that called for erecting statues of hundreds of prominent Americans though some of them are controversial over their …