Russia said Saturday that it has produced the first batch of its coronavirus vaccine, after President Vladimir Putin announced it had been first in the world to approve a vaccine.
Putin's announcement on Tuesday about the vaccine was met with caution from scientists and the World Health Organization who said it still needed a rigorous safety review.
"The first batch of the novel coronavirus vaccine developed by the Gamaleya research institute has been produced," the health ministry said in a statement quoted by Russian news agencies.
Putin said the vaccine was safe and that one of his own daughters had been inoculated, though clinical trials were not yet complete and final stage testing involving more than 2,000 people only started this week.
Western scientists were skeptical, with some warning that moving too quickly on a vaccine could be dangerous, but Russia denounced criticism as an attempt to undermine Moscow's research.
The Russian vaccine is called "Sputnik V" after the Soviet-era satellite that was the first launched into space in 1957.
It was developed by the Gamaleya research institute for epidemiology and microbiology in Moscow in coordination with the Russian defense ministry.
The head of the institute, Alexander Gintsburg, told the TASS state news agency on Saturday that volunteers taking part in the final stage testing of the vaccine's safety and efficacy would have two inoculations.
Russia has said that industrial production is expected from September and that it plans to manufacture 5 million doses per month by December or January.
Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said this week that the vaccine would first be made available to medics and would later be available to all Russians on a voluntary basis.
With more than 917,000 confirmed infections, Russia's coronavirus caseload is currently fourth in the world after the United States, Brazil and India.
Currently Russia has 92,000 people hospitalized with the virus and 2,900 in intensive care, according to the health ministry.
Agence France-Presse
MOSCOW - Russia on Sunday recorded its highest daily rise in confirmed coronavirus cases with 10,633 new cases, bringing the total to 134,687, with more than half of cases and deaths in Moscow.
But the mortality rate has slowed in recent days and remains much lower, in relative terms, than many other countries.
Russia has said its lower mortality rate was because the Russian outbreak occurred later than in many other countries which gave the authorities more time to prepare.
Russia's nationwide death toll rose to 1,280 on Sunday after 58 people died in the last 24 hours, Russia's coronavirus crisis response center said on its website.
Russia has been in partial lockdown since the end of March to curb the spread of the virus. People in Moscow can leave home to visit the nearest food shop or chemist, walk their dog or throw out rubbish but need special passes for other activities.
President Vladimir Putin has ordered the nationwide lockdown to remain in place until May 11 inclusive, when Russia finishes celebrating its Labour Day and World War Two Victory Day holidays.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin urged residents on Saturday to continue to strictly self-isolate over the long holidays.
Sobyanin said there had been progress in expanding testing, allowing the authorities to treat those in need more quickly.
But he said the number of critically ill patients was rising, albeit not as steeply as worst-case scenario projections. He said he thought 2% of Moscow, with a population of 12.7 million, had been infected, a much higher figure than official statistics show.
"It is obvious that the threat is growing," he said on his website.
He told Rossiya-1 TV station that the Moscow authorities might cut the number of digital permits issued for travel across the city if the situation worsened.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Russia's second-most senior official after Putin, told the president on Thursday he had tested positive for coronavirus and was temporarily stepping down to recover.
First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov is now serving as acting prime minister in his absence.
On Friday, another Russian cabinet member, Construction Minister Vladimir Yakushev, announced he had been diagnosed with the virus and would be treated in hospital. Dmitry Volkov, one of his deputies, also tested positive, the ministry said.
(Additional reporting by Gleb Stoyarov; Editing by Edmund Blair)
-reuters-
MOSCOW -- Russian police rounded up more than 1,000 people in Moscow on Saturday in one of the biggest crackdowns of recent years against an increasingly defiant opposition decrying President Vladimir Putin's tight grip on power.
The detentions came around a protest to demand that opposition members be allowed to run in a local election. Authorities had declared it illegal and sought to block participation, but thousands of people turned up anyway in one of the longest and most determined protests of recent times.
Chants of "Russia without Putin" and "Putin resign" echoed through central Moscow as guardsmen clad in riot gear beat back protesters with batons and roughly detained people.
At least one woman and a man appeared to have suffered serious head wounds. Activists said the crackdown was the harshest since a wave of anti-Kremlin protests in 2011-12.
Saturday's events showed how Kremlin critics and especially younger people remain intent on pressing to open Russia's tightly choreographed political system to competition.
Jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny had called the protest to persuade officials to allow opposition-minded candidates to run in a Sept. 8 vote.
Authorities say they were barred because they failed to collect sufficient genuine signatures in their support.
Navalny and his allies have no seats in parliament and are starved of air time on state TV where many Russians still get their news.
Opinion polls in the past have shown support for Navalny, a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, only in the single digits. But backers note he won almost a third of the vote in a 2013 Moscow mayoral race and say his movement could build momentum in the Russian capital if allowed to compete fairly.
Though Putin's approval rating is still high at well over 60 percent, it is lower than it used to be due to discontent over years of falling incomes. Last year, the 66-year-old former KGB intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new six-year term until 2024.
Burnishing his man of action image, Putin spent Saturday diving to the bottom of the Gulf of Finland in a mini-submarine to honor a Soviet submarine that sunk there in World War II.
ARRESTED 'SITTING ON A BENCH'
OVD-Info, an independent monitoring group, said police detained at least 1,373 people before or at Saturday's protest. As in past sweeps, many were only held for a matter of hours.
Police put participation at more than 3,500 people, of whom it said around 700 people were journalists and bloggers. Activists said the number attending was likely to have been much higher.
Some activists were arrested twice after being released and then returning to protest in a different place. Reuters witnesses said some of those detained appeared to be ordinary passersby in the wrong place at the wrong time.
One of those detained, Alexander Latyshev, 45, said he had come from the nearby Vladimir region to discuss business with an associate and been randomly detained. "I was just sitting on a bench (when they took me)," he told Reuters inside a police bus.
Police also raided an office being used by Navalny's supporters to live-stream the protest.
TV Rain, an independent station covering the protests, said its editor-in-chief had been called in for questioning after police visited its offices.
Under Russian law, the location and timing of such protests need to be agreed with authorities beforehand, something that was not done for Saturday's event.
Kremlin critic Navalny was jailed for 30 days on Wednesday and other members of the opposition have had their homes searched. Ilya Yashin, a Navalny ally, said police had searched his Moscow flat overnight before detaining him and driving him out of the capital. He called for another protest next Saturday.
Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokeswoman, said on Twitter she had been detained on Saturday morning. Other prominent activists Dmitry Gudkov and Lyubov Sobol were also held.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, a Putin ally, had warned beforehand that authorities would act decisively against the risk of "serious provocations."
The police's investigative arm has already opened a criminal investigation into an opposition rally in June which it said may have obstructed the work of Moscow's electoral commission.
An authorized protest in Moscow last weekend, also calling for the disbarred candidates to be registered, was attended by more than 20,000 people, according to the White Counter monitoring group.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
OSAKA, Japan—Russian President Vladimir Putin brought and drank from his own mug during an official dinner at the G20 summit in Japan, prompting social media jokes and speculation that the longtime leader suffered from paranoia.
Videos showed Putin, in power for almost 20 years, drinking from a white thermos mug while other leaders drank from regular wine glasses.
"This is because he is constantly drinking tea from that thermos," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained to the RIA Novosti news agency.
The Russian president was seen toasting US President Donald Trump with the mug.
Trump drank a dark liquid that appeared to be cola from a wine glass.
Putin bringing his own cup to the international event prompted speculation online that the 66-year-old did not trust anyone.
"If you've seen what I've seen, you'd bring your own cup too," a parody account of the Russian leader, @DarthPutinKGB, wrote on Twitter.
The mug resembled one that Putin has drunk from during his annual hours-long press conferences that has a double-headed eagle, Russia's national symbol, on it.
Putin held several 1-on-1 meetings, including with Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May, on the sidelines of the 2-day summit in Osaka that began Friday.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walks past honor guards during a welcoming ceremony upon arrival at the railway station in the far-eastern Russian port of Vladivostok on Wednesday. Although Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin are set to meet for the first time and are not planning on signing any agreements or making a joint statement, the North Korean leader’s visit comes amid a deadlock in the nuclear negotiations between Pyongyang and Washington.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW - President Vladimir Putin offered a raft of financial sweeteners on Wednesday to hard-pressed Russians after opinion polls showed trust in him has fallen to a 13-year low and almost half the population believe the country is on the wrong track.
In his annual speech to the Russian political elite, Putin set out how he planned to raise people's living standards and boost healthcare and education, promising he would find extra money to back the pledges.
Among his promises: More money for pensioners, mortgage and tax relief for families, and financial incentives for women to have more children.
Putin also laid out deadlines to close huge and sometimes apparently spontaneous landfill sites that have become a political sore for the Kremlin and angered many Russians who have seen them spring up near their homes, polluting the air.
"You can't deceive people. They keenly feel hypocrisy, disrespect and any injustice. Bureaucratic red tape is of little interest to them," Putin told lawmakers and regional leaders.
"For people what's important is what has actually been done and how it improves their lives and their families' lives. We need to change the situation for the better now."
Putin also spoke of a new arms race with the United States, something that could potentially reduce funds available for social spending if it continues to escalate.
But for now, Putin said Russia was well able to afford to spend heavily on lifting people's quality of life. He said the country's foreign currency reserves covered the entirety of its external debt obligations for the first time and forecast the economy would be growing by over 3 percent by 2021.
"...We can now invest and focus colossal, at least for our country, colossal financial resources on (Russia's) development. Nobody handed them to us, we did not borrow them - these funds were created by millions of our citizens. They (the funds) should be used to increase Russia's wealth and the well-being of Russian families."
Oil revenues mean Russia is not short of money. Its budget surplus this year is projected to be 1.932 trillion roubles ($29.3 billion) or 1.8 percent of gross domestic product. Russia's foreign exchange reserves stand at $478 billion, the fifth largest in the world.
But if Putin had to scale back social spending plans to fund a wider arms race, that could further dent his ratings.
In power as either president or prime minister since 1999, Putin was re-elected last year by a landslide to another 6-year presidential term. He is not under immediate political pressure and enjoys an approval rating of around 60 percent.
But his rating used to be nearly 90 percent and an opinion poll in January showed public trust in him had fallen to its lowest level in 13 years, while another survey showed this month that the number of Russians viewing the country as moving in the wrong direction was at its highest since 2006.
Pollsters attribute the souring mood to people fed up with 6 consecutive years of falling real incomes and unpopular government moves to raise the retirement age and hike value added tax.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Russia on Wednesday accused Washington of being uncooperative on efforts to save a crucial arms control treaty, only to be accused by the US of dishonesty.
Tensions have raged for months over the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) signed in 1987 by then US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
US President Donald Trump has promised to walk away from the agreement and President Vladimir Putin threatened a new arms race, saying Europe would be its main victim.
Speaking after fresh talks between US and Russian officials in Geneva to salvage the INF led nowhere, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was ready to continue negotiating.
"We are still ready to work to save the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty," Russia's top diplomat told reporters.
He called on European nations to help influence Washington, saying they had a major stake in the issue and should not be "at the tail-end of the US position".
Last month Washington gave Russia a 60-day deadline to dismantle missiles that it claims breach the INF treaty or the US would begin the six-month process of formally withdrawing from the deal.
Moscow's top negotiator in Geneva, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov, said the Geneva talks centred on Russia's 9M729 system but that US demands regarding the missile were unacceptable.
Lavrov said on Wednesday the Russian side in Geneva came up with "constructive proposals" aiming to give the US an idea of what the 9M729 system was, but the US side arrived with an "ultimatum" and demanded to "destroy" the rocket and related equipment.
'Lip service'
US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security Andrea Thompson countered that talks "did not break new ground" and said Russia's offers of inspection of the 9M729 were inadequate and merely "paid lip service to transparency."
"Disappointingly but unsurprisingly we weren't able to break any new ground" in the Geneva talks, Thompson told reporters after briefing NATO allies in Brussels.
She said Moscow's offers, such as a "static display" of the missiles, would not show whether they breach the treaty. The US wants to see the system in testing, not in an environment where the Russian military can "control the results," she said.
Russian negotiators on Tuesday proposed holding another round of talks on the agreement but received no reply from the US side, Ryabkov has said.
Russia denies it is in violation of the treaty, which forbids ground-launched short- and intermediate-range missiles.
In Geneva on Tuesday, US and Russian diplomats blamed each other for pushing the agreement to the brink of collapse.
Russian officials said US representatives had confirmed Washington's intention to begin withdrawing from the treaty from February 2.
US trying to 'impose its will'
Lavrov also expressed hope it would be possible to save another key arms control agreement, the New START.
The agreement, which caps the number of nuclear warheads held by Washington and Moscow, expires in 2021.
"We are doing a lot to remove possible irritants regarding it and are interested in having it extended," he said.
He slammed Washington's overall position, saying the potential for conflict was increasing due to the West's unwillingness to accept "the reality of an emerging multi-polar world" and its desire to "impose its will" on the rest of the global community.
Putin has threatened to develop nuclear missiles banned under the INF treaty if it is scrapped.
He said in December he was open to the idea of other countries joining the INF treaty or to starting talks on a new agreement.
Putin has also said that if Washington moved to place more missiles in Europe after ditching the deal, Russia would respond "in kind" and that any European countries agreeing to host US missiles would be at risk of a Russian attack.
The INF deal resolved a crisis over Soviet nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles targeting Western capitals, but put no restrictions on other major military actors such as China.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
Former U.S. president Barack Obama on Tuesday used a tribute to Nelson Mandela to warn of "strange and uncertain times", a day after Donald Trump refused to challenge Vladimir Putin over interference in U.S. elections.
Delivering a speech in Johannesburg marking 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth, Obama made no direct reference to his successor but warned that the "politics of fear and resentment" were spreading across the world.
Obama criticized climate-change deniers, race-based migration policies, unbridled capitalism and "strongman politics" -- all issues likely to be seen as veiled attacks on Trump.
"Given the strange and uncertain times we are in, each day's news cycles brings more head-spinning and disturbing headlines, I thought maybe it would be useful to step back for a moment and get some perspective," Obama said at the start of his speech.
Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 10,000 people at a cricket stadium in Johannesburg in the centrepiece event of celebrations marking 100 years since Nelson Mandela's birth.
"It is in part because of the failures of governments and powerful elites… that we now see much of the world threatening to return to an older, more dangerous, more brutal way of doing business," Obama said.
"You have to believe in facts, without facts there is no basis from cooperation," he said.
"I can't find common ground when someone says climate change is not happening."
- Mandela's birthday -
Tuesday's speech came on the eve of "Mandela Day" -- his birthday, which is marked around the world every year on July 18.
Obama has made relatively few public appearances since leaving the White House in 2017, but he has often credited Mandela for being one of the great inspirations in his life.
Mandela, who died in 2013, remains a global icon for his long struggle against white-minority apartheid rule and for his message of peace and reconciliation after being freed following 27 years in prison.
Obama met Mandela only briefly in 2005 but gave a eulogy at his funeral saying Mandela "makes me want to be a better man" and hailing him as "the last great liberator of the 20th century".
The "Mandela 100" anniversary has triggered a bout of memories and tributes to the late anti-apartheid leader, as well as a debate over his legacy and South Africa's fate since he stepped down in 1999.
African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Mandela's widow Graca Machel were among the guests from Obama's speech.
People queued outside the Wanderers stadium from early morning although the ceremonies eventually started late.
"We need more hope because we are living in difficult times," Nomsa Nkosi, 45, a blind woman in the audience, told AFP.
"Mandela was one of a kind and we need the youngsters to come and see what is meant by motivation."
Before arriving in South Africa, Obama paid a brief visit to Kenya, his father's home country.
Obama will also host a town hall event in Johannesburg on Wednesday for 200 young leaders selected from across Africa to attend a five-day training programme.
Mandela was imprisoned under apartheid rule in 1962 and only freed in 1990, when he went on to lead the African National Congress party to victory in the first multi-race elections in 1994.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday described the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Moscow's election meddling as "political games" that should not be permitted to interfere with US-Russia relations.
Asked in a Fox News interview about Mueller's indictment Friday of 12 Russian intelligence agents for hacking Democratic Party computers in 2016, just three days before his summit with President Donald Trump, Putin said it was not his concern, but rather part of an "internal political struggle."
"I'm not interested in this issue a single bit," he said, speaking through a translator.
"It's the internal political games of the United States."
"Don't make the relationship between Russia and the United States, don't hold it hostage of this internal political struggle," Putin said.
Putin was speaking shortly after his summit with Trump in Helsinki, Finland on Monday, where the question of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race loomed large.
His response echoed Trump's stance on the Mueller probe, which is digging into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow.
Trump has repeatedly branded the Mueller probe a "witch hunt".
And in a press conference Monday with Putin at his side, Trump dismissed his own intelligence chiefs' conclusion that Putin himself oversaw the effort to damage Trump's Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.
Putin suggested Monday, like Trump has done repeatedly, that Mueller's appointment as an independent prosecutor to pursue the investigation lacks legitimacy.
"It's quite clear to me that this is just an internal political struggle and it's nothing to be proud of for American democracy to use such dirty methods and political rivalry," Putin told Fox.
pmh/dw
source: news.abs-cbn.com
NEW YORK -- Global stocks were mixed on Monday as earnings season heated up with reports from major banks, while oil prices fell hard on worries about excess supply.
Markets kept one eye on a summit between US President Donald Trump's meeting with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki.
Trump's supportive posture towards Putin drew some sharp comments from the political world, but had only a "muted" effect on markets, as Briefing.com put it.
There was little pattern in global stock bourses, with London and Paris retreating and Frankfurt edging higher. US stocks finished mostly lower, although the Dow mustered a modest gain.
China's Shanghai stock index retreated after Chinese economic growth in April-June came in at 6.7 percent, in line with forecasts in an AFP survey and better than the government's annual target -- but a shade down from the previous three months' 6.8 percent.
Investors are girding for a heavy week of earnings and economic news, including two days of testimony from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell beginning Tuesday.
Market watchers hope a strong earnings season will be the catalyst for stocks to move higher and shake off worries about trade wars and tightening monetary policy.
Banking shares were buoyed after Bank of America became the latest US company in the sector to report better-than-expected second quarter earnings behind lending growth and lower taxes.
Bank of America jumped 4.3 percent, while JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup both climbed close to four percent. Both JPMorgan and Citigroup had fallen on Friday after reporting solid earnings increases over the year-ago results.
Germany's Deutsche Bank also had a good session, winning 7.2 percent in Frankfurt after Germany's biggest lender far outstripped analysts' estimates of its earnings in the second quarter.
Deutsche is looking to project a refreshed, confident image to investors under new chief executive Christian Sewing, who replaced crisis firefighter John Cryan as head of the bank in April.
Oil prices, meanwhile, closed decisively lower on worries over excess supply, with analysts pointing to myriad factors, including reports the US may tap its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower prices, the return of Libyan oil exports following an outage and speculation the Trump administration could allow some exceptions to a ban on purchases of Iranian oil.
KEY FIGURES 2100 GMT (5 a.m. Tuesday in Manila)
New York - Dow: UP 0.2 percent at 24,064.36 (close)
New York - S&P 500: DOWN 0.1 percent at 2,798.43 (close)
New York - Nasdaq: DOWN 0.3 percent at 7,805.72 (close)
London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.8 percent at 7,600.45 (close)
Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 0.2 percent at 12,561.02 (close)
Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.4 percent at 5,409.43 (close)
EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.1 percent at 3,452.38 (close)
Hong Kong - Hang Seng: UP 0.1 percent at 28,539.66 (close)
Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.6 percent at 2,814.04 (close)
Tokyo - Nikkei 225: Closed for a public holiday
Dollar/yen: DOWN at 112.27 yen from 112.38 yen at 2100 GMT Friday
Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1712 from $1.1685
Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3237 from $1.3222
Oil - Brent Crude: DOWN $3.49 at $71.84 per barrel
Oil - West Texas Intermediate: DOWN $2.95 at $68.06 per barrel
source: news.abs-cbn.com
BRUSSELS -- French President Emmanuel Macron will hold talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday during his trip to Moscow to watch the World Cup final, a presidential aide told AFP.
It is not yet decided whether they will meet at the Kremlin or at the stadium where France is set to play the winner of Wednesday night's semi-final between England and Croatia, the aide said.
The meeting will come a day before Putin sits down with US President Donald Trump in Helsinki for the first bilateral summit between the two leaders.
Macron and Putin talk regularly on the phone and have hosted each other for summit meetings in the last year, but they have found little common ground on issues such as the Syrian civil war and conflict in Ukraine.
British officials are boycotting the World Cup in Russia after blaming Moscow for the attempted assassination of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the streets of an English town in March.
A limited number of countries, including Iceland, Poland, Sweden and Denmark, have followed suit but to differing degrees.
Moscow has done little to hide its pleasure at the effective failure of a bigger diplomatic boycott of the event.
Italy's far-right Interior Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who is an open admirer of Putin, is also set to attend the final on Sunday.
He and Macron have clashed recently over migration policy in Europe.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
QINGDAO, China - The leaders of China and Russia Sunday praised the expansion of their regional security bloc at a summit which put on a show of unity contrasting with the acrimonious G7 meeting.
President Xi Jinping gave the leaders of Pakistan and India a "special welcome" to their first summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao, since their countries joined the group last year.
Founded in 2001, the SCO also includes the former Central Asian Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, whose country is an observer member, also attended the meeting as he seeks Chinese and Russian support following the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Tehran.
Warning that "unilateralism, trade protectionism and a backlash against globalization are taking new forms", Xi spoke up for the "pursuit of cooperation for mutual benefit".
While never mentioning the United States by name, he added: "We should reject the Cold War mentality and confrontation between blocs, and oppose the practice of seeking absolute security of oneself at the expense of others, so as to obtain security of all."
Xi, whose government is locked in tough negotiations with the United States to avoid a trade war, said World Trade Organisation rules and the multilateral trading system should be upheld to build an open world economy.
"We should reject self-centered, shortsighted and closed-door policies," said Xi, whose own country has been accused of restricting broad access for foreign firms to its huge market.
Addressing the SCO leaders seated, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the addition of Pakistan and India means that the organisation "has become even stronger".
TRUMP VS G7
While Xi feted his peers with fireworks, SCO members have their own disagreements, with India concerned about China's trade infrastructure project in disputed territory in arch-rival Pakistan. China and India had their own heated border dispute in the Himalayas last year.
But no disharmony was evident during the 2-day summit in Qingdao.
The show of unity was in stark contrast to the calamitous end to the Group of Seven meeting in Quebec City, after US President Donald Trump disowned a joint summit statement and lambasted Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "dishonest" and "weak".
In Qingdao, Xi touted security cooperation -- the original raison d'etre of the SCO -- and announced that China would open a 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion) special lending facility within the bloc's interbank consortium.
Putin said trade and investment among SCO countries was growing and Russia and China would propose a Eurasian economic partnership for all member states.
With the president of aspiring full member Iran looking on, Putin said Moscow still supports the Iran nuclear deal that Trump recently abandoned.
The US withdrawal, he said, "can further destabilize the situation" but Russia is in favor of the "unconditional implementation" of the pact.
Putin, however, voiced his support for Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore on Tuesday.
For his part, Rouhani said the "US effort to impose its policies on others is an expanding danger".
Rouhani said the US was monitoring the global reaction to its withdrawal from the nuclear deal, and a weak response would encourage it to carry on acting unilaterally.
"This will have many harmful consequences for the global community," he said.
The Iranian president said his country was ready to cooperate with the SCO against terrorism, extremism and separatism.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
BERLIN - United States President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a phone conversation shared concern over President Vladimir Putin's claim Russia was developing new "invincible" weapons, Berlin said Friday.
"The chancellor and the president voiced concern about Russian President Putin's latest remarks on arms development and its negative impact on international arms control efforts," said a statement by the German chancellery.
Putin unveiled the new arsenal Thursday in a state of the nation address, challenging Washington to a new arms race ahead of a presidential election that will all but certainly confirm his grip on power.
Putin during his speech showed a series of video montages of missiles crossing mountains and oceans, heading over the Atlantic before striking the US eastern seaboard.
The United States on Thursday accused Moscow of openly breaching Cold War-era treaties by developing what Putin called a new generation of "invincible" hypersonic weapons and submarines.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin called for "pragmatic cooperation" in his New Year wishes to US President Donald Trump, the Kremlin said on Saturday.
In a statement on the Russian president's New Year wishes to world leaders, the Kremlin said Putin told Trump that "a constructive Russian-American dialogue is especially needed to strengthen strategic stability in the world".
According to the statement, Putin said that "mutual respect" should be "a base to develop relations" between the two countries.
"This would allow us to move towards building pragmatic cooperation, orientated on the long term," the statement quoted Putin as saying.
The Russian president also sent messages to other heads of state, including the leaders of former Soviet countries, France's Emmanuel Macron, Germany's Angela Merkel and Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad.
In his wishes to the Syrian leader, with whom he met during a surprise visit to Russia's Syrian air base Hmeimim earlier this month, Putin "expressed sincere hope that key changes for the better will continue in Syria in the new year".
The statement added that Putin told Assad "Russia will continue to show all kind of support to the Syrian Arab Republic in order to protect its state sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity".
Russia became involved in the Syrian conflict in September 2015, when it began an aerial campaign in support of Assad's military. Putin ordered a partial withdrawal of the Russian army from Syria earlier this month.
On ordering the partial withdrawal, Putin praised his country's armed forces for having "brilliantly accomplished" their mission which saw Syrian government forces make major gains from jihadists and assorted anti-regime rebel groups.
Russia does retain a military presence in Syria, however, through its naval base at Tartus, whose expansion Moscow agreed earlier this month, as well as Hmeimim, where Russian singers performed a New Year variety show Saturday.
Moscow hopes to host government and rebel group representatives at the end of January in the Black Sea resort of Sochi to push both sides closer to a political settlement of a seven-year conflict which has cost more than 340,000 lives and displaced millions more.
source: news.abs-cbn.com
WASHINGTON - Executives from Facebook , Alphabet Inc's Google and Twitter have been asked to testify to the U.S. Congress in coming weeks as lawmakers probe Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election, committee sources said on Wednesday.
A Senate aide said executives from the three firms had been asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee to appear at a public hearing on Nov. 1.
The leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said the panel would hold an open hearing next month with representatives from unnamed technology companies in an effort to "better understand how Russia used online tools and platforms to sow discord in and influence our election."
Representatives for Facebook and Google confirmed they had received invitations from the Senate committee but did not say whether the companies would attend. Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The House panel did not immediately identify any companies, but a committee source said lawmakers expected to hear from the same three firms the Senate had asked to testify.
The requests are the latest move by congressional investigators to gain information from internet companies as they probe the extent of Moscow's alleged efforts to disrupt last year's U.S. election. Lawmakers in both parties have grown increasingly concerned that social networks may have played a key role in Russia's influence operation.
Facebook revealed this month that suspected Russian trolls purchased more than $100,000 worth of divisive ads on its platform during the 2016 election cycle, a revelation that has prompted calls from some Democrats for new disclosure rules for online political ads.
On Wednesday, Trump attacked Facebook in a tweet and suggested the world's largest social network had colluded with other media outlets that opposed him. The president has been skeptical of the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election and has denied his campaign colluded with Moscow.
The salvo prompted a lengthy rebuke from Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who said both Trump and liberals were upset about ideas and content on Facebook during the campaign.
"That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like," Zuckerberg wrote on his personal Facebook page.
Other internet firms besides Facebook are also facing rising scrutiny over how Russia may have leveraged their platforms. Twitter is expected to privately brief the Senate panel on Thursday.
Republican Senator James Lankford, who has received classified information about Russia's interference as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Wednesday that the country's attempts to sow discord in U.S. domestic affairs had not abated.
Russian internet trolls over the weekend fueled the debate ignited by Trump over whether NFL players should have the right to kneel during the national anthem, Lankford said.
Also on Wednesday, the Daily Beast, citing unnamed sources, reported that a Facebook group named "United Muslims of America" was a fake account linked to the Russian government and that it was used to push false claims about U.S. politicians, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The group bought Facebook ads to reach targeted audiences, promoting political rallies aimed at Muslims, the website reported.
The Senate and House intelligence committees are two of the main congressional panels probing allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the U.S. election to boost Trump's chances at winning the White House, and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia.
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MOSCOW - Russia's President Vladimir Putin, who loves to cultivate a virile man-of-action image, was shown on Russian TV Saturday spear-fishing in a camouflage wetsuit, piloting a powerboat and catching some rays while on a Siberian holiday.
Putin's affinity for the tough guy pose has been documented with shots of him bare-chested on horseback, diving in a submarine in Lake Baikal -- the world's deepest -- and flipping a Judo opponent.
These latest images, provided by the Kremlin, captured his two-day stay in the remote Tuva area of southern Siberia.
Putin "fished in a waterfall near a mountain lake, indulged in underwater fishing, sunbathed, went rafting in mountain rivers, piloted... motor boats, went hiking and four-wheeler riding in the mountains," said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
The images broadcast on public television, which insisted on "the physical fitness of the president", show Putin catching a pike in a camouflage wetsuit or sunning his bare torso with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who is originally from the region.
His trip comes days after Putin said the US would have to cut 755 diplomatic staff in Russia and warned of a prolonged gridlock in its ties after the US Congress backed new sanctions against the Kremlin.
Putin's previous made-for-TV exploits, however, have not been without controversy. During a 2011 dive in the Black Sea he allegedly discovered two 15th century amphoras, but the find was mocked in independent media because the vessels were suspiciously without algae or other sea life.
Peskov admitted several months later that the scene had been staged.
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US President Donald Trump said on Twitter on Sunday that he discussed forming a cyber security unit to guard against election hacking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Tweeting after his first meeting with Putin on Friday, Trump said now was the time to work constructively with Moscow, pointing to a ceasefire deal in southwest Syria that came into effect on Sunday.
"Putin & I discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe," he said following their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
Trump said he had raised allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election with Putin.
"I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I've already given my opinion....."
He added: "We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia!"
Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida immediately criticized the move on Twitter, saying Putin was not a trusted partner.
Partnering with Putin on a "Cyber Security Unit" is akin to partnering with (Syrian President Bashar al) Assad on a "Chemical Weapons Unit," he wrote.
Investigations by a special counsel, Robert Mueller, and several US congressional committees are looking into whether Russia interfered in the election and colluded with Trump's campaign. Those probes are focused almost exclusively on Moscow’s actions, lawmakers and intelligence officials say, and no evidence has surfaced publicly implicating other countries.
Moscow has denied any interference, and Trump says his campaign did not collude with Russia.
(This version of the story corrects the day of meeting in second paragraph to Friday)
(Reporting by David Stamp, Valerie Volcovici and Yasmeen Abutaleb; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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From US First Lady Melania Trump's travails to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's facial twitches, here are some of the moments that livened up this year's G20 summit in Hamburg.
Mixed day for Melania
US First Lady Melania Trump was due to go on a cruise tour with other spouses of G20 leaders, but was instead trapped at her residence as anti-globalization demonstrators went on the rampage, smashing shop windows and burning cars.
When she finally emerged, her husband Donald was in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"There are so many issues on the table... Just about everything got touched upon... Neither one of them wanted to stop" talking, said US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
"I believe they even sent in the First Lady at one point to see if she could get us out of there, but that didn't work either... We did another hour. Clearly she failed," he added.
Later that evening, Melania found herself sitting next to Putin who, having already kept her husband for two hours and 15 minutes in talks, appeared equally chatty with her.
Ivanka steps in
For a moment at the G20 summit Saturday the United States was represented by another Trump, when the president's daughter Ivanka took a seat at the table of world leaders.
The 35-year-old former fashion model sat around the table with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister Theresa May, diplomats and the White House confirmed.
Ivanka had been at the back of the room but "briefly joined the main table when the president had to step out," a White House official told AFP.
That quickly sparked a storm, with historian Anne Applebaum slamming what she called "an unelected, unqualified, unprepared New York socialite" being seen as "the best person to represent American national interests."
Macron warms to Trump
If a video of France's President Emmanuel Macron swerving away from Trump to greet other leaders was a key image from a NATO summit earlier this year, at the G20, there appeared to have been a clear rapprochement between the young leader and the US property tycoon.
Macron was at Trump's side at "family photo" sessions of the leaders. He even inserted himself to the far right of the entire group at one photography session, saving the US leader from being at the edge of the picture.
At a concert of Beethoven's Symphony Number 9, the former investment banker was seated next to the US billionaire.
And on Saturday morning, Macron was seen greeting Trump, leaning toward the US leader at one point, sparking questions on whether he offered him a peck on the cheek.
But journalists at the scene say it was more of a hug.
Who were they clapping for?
Trump, among the last to arrive at Hamburg's Elbphilharmonie concert hall for a cultural evening, appeared to be greeted by a round of applause as he stepped out of his armored vehicle.
The US leader returned a big smile.
It turned out that the applause was for Macron, who pulled up just behind Trump, German media reported.
Merkel rolls eyes at Putin
An animated encounter between Merkel and Putin has been making the rounds on social media, with much buzz and speculation about what the two leaders discussed.
Walking into the conference room, Merkel lifted a hand and traced what appeared to be movement of a projectile.
But Putin held up a finger, then offered his version of the same gesture, prompting the usually poker-faced German chancellor to roll her eyes.
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PARIS - Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen said on Tuesday she was better placed than her rival, centrist Emmanuel Macron, to defend France's interests in what she called the "new world" of US President Donald Trump and Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Le Pen, who rails against "uncontrolled globalization", hopes to channel the same nationalist, anti-establishment sentiment that propelled Trump to the White House and spurred Britain's vote to leave the European Union, and become the first woman to lead France.
She bills Macron, a pro-European Union former investment banker, as a stooge of banks and the elite.
"I think I'm best placed to talk to this new world that's emerging, to talk to the Russia of Putin, to the United States of Trump, to talk to the Britain of (Prime Minister Theresa) May ... to talk to the India of (Prime Minister Narendra) Modi," she said in an interview.
She said that was "because all of those countries are more or less turning their backs on the ideology of free trade, of competition and of undermining social protection.
"So I feel much more in line with their political philosophy than with (German Chancellor Angela) Merkel's," she told Reuters, speaking at her campaign headquarters.
Behind her stood the French national flag and a poster with the slogan "Choosing France".
Despite the Brexit vote, Britain says it remains a defender of free trade. Trump has said he wants trade deals to work for the United States.
ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT
Le Pen goes into Sunday's decisive run-off the clear underdog, according to opinion polls. While her policies of economic nationalism and stinging anti-EU rhetoric strike a chord among workers in low-income areas, she struggles for support in France's main cities.
Macron calls her a demagogue and a heiress raised in a chateau, with no experience outside far-right politics.
The winner of the second round will lead a core member of the European Union and the NATO alliance, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, and the euro zone's second largest economy.
Asked what she thought of the hurdles Trump had faced in his first 100 days in office, including his failure to push a repeal and replacement of Obamacare through Congress, a core campaign promise, she said:
"It shows the establishment exists and is trying to fight against the democratic result of the people. You can see that a part of the system is uniting to stop Donald Trump from putting in place the measures which were chosen by the people."
Asked about Trump's boast in a 2005 video about grabbing women by the genitals, she said: "It's true his comments were worthy of criticism but they were private comments ... what's most important is the policies he implements."
"I don't think that he's implementing policies which aim to roll back the rights of women," she added.
(Writing by Ingrid Melander; editing by Richard Lough)
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MOSCOW - Several hundred Russians lined up in central Moscow on Saturday under the gaze of riot police to hand over handwritten appeals for President Vladimir Putin to quit, as similar protests took place in other cities.
Putin, who has dominated Russian politics for 17 years, has not said whether he will run in presidential elections in March 2018. But the 64-year-old politician, who enjoys high popularity ratings, is widely expected to do so.
Saturday's protest in the capital -- called "We're sick of him" -- was organized by the Open Russia movement founded by Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Once Russia's richest man, he was freed by Putin in 2013 after spending a decade in jail for fraud, a charge Khodorkovsky said was politically-motivated.
One of hundreds shepherded into a queue behind metal barriers by police before handing over their petitions one-by- one, Anna, a 16-year-old Moscow schoolgirl, said she hoped Putin would get the message and not run again.
"Nothing positive has happened in our country on his watch and I have the sense that things are getting worse, and that the main problem is the fact that those in power are the same," she told Reuters.
Her preference for president was opposition politician Alexei Navalny, who spent 15 days in jail last month after helping organize the biggest anti-government protests since 2012, which ended with over 1,000 arrests.
Saturday's event, held in bright sunshine, was more modest, though authorities were taking no chances. A Reuters reporter counted at least 30 police buses and coaches in the area, packed with hundreds of riot police.
Videos posted by Russian media showed police in riot gear detaining protesters in St Petersburg, where activists reported over 100 arrests. There was no official confirmation of the arrests.
STEPPING UP PRESSURE
Police said 250 people had showed up in Moscow, the Interfax news agency reported, while Maria Baronova, an Open Russia activist, said at least 500 people had handed over a petition.
Irina Glushkova, 64, standing in the same line as the schoolgirl, said she and many others simply didn't agree with how Putin governed.
"I'm sick of the situation," she said. "I'm the same age as Putin and I don't think I'm less intelligent than him, but my opinion is not taken into account at all."
Authorities have stepped up pressure on Open Russia in recent days. The General Prosecutor's Office ruled on Wednesday that the activity of Open Russia's British arm was "undesirable" and accused it and other organizations of trying to discredit the election.
On Thursday, police searched the Moscow offices of Open Russia's Russian branch. Activists said they confiscated 100,000 blank appeal forms which the foundation had hoped to hand out to people encouraging them to call for Putin to quit.
On Friday, REN TV, a Russian TV channel, broadcast a documentary about Open Russia activists, some of whom it accused of having criminal records, of being drug addicts, and of cultivating close links with the U.S. government.
Activists dismissed the program as a cheap stunt designed to discredit them, with at least one noting that REN TV had somehow obtained video footage stored in his mobile phone.
(Additional reporting by Andrey Ostroukh and Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by John Stonestreet)
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