Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday waded into the war of words between the US and Russian presidents, chastising Joe Biden for calling Vladimir Putin a “killer.” “Mr Biden’s comment about Putin does not suit a head of state,” the Turkish president told reporters after Friday prayers in Istanbul, lauding Putin for giving a “smart” and “classy response”.
In an interview with ABC News, Biden was asked if he thought Putin was “a killer”. “I do,” Biden replied, immediately sparking the biggest crisis between Russia and the United States in years.
Putin on Thursday mocked the US leader, saying a Russian phrase that translates roughly as “it takes one to know one”, and wishing Biden, 78, good health.
“I’m saying this without irony, not as a joke,” Putin, 68, said. Erdogan’s comments reflect a new spell of tensions that have entered Turkey’s relations with Washington since Biden replaced Donald Trump in the White House in January.
Erdogan is still waiting for a phone call from Biden, whose administration has highlighted Turkey’s deteriorating record on human rights. Turkish-US relations are also hampered by Ankara’s purchase of advanced S-400 air defence systems from Moscow, which Washington says threaten NATO defences.
Biden is also remembered in Ankara for calling Erdogan an “autocrat” in an interview in late 2019. Despite their differences on Syria, Erdogan has called Putin a “friend and a strategic partner.”
A 20-year-old, soon-to-be high school graduate, has been overwhelmed with job offers after he penned down a handwritten heartfelt letter asking his ‘future employers’ to ‘take a chance on him’ while also adding that he has autism. Ryan Lowry, from Leesburg, Virginia, decided to pursue a career in animation so he set up a LinkedIn profile last month in order to make few connections. He posted a handwritten letter on his profile explaining he has autism, a ‘unique sense of humor’, is ‘gifted at maths’, is ‘really good with technology’ and is a ‘very quick learner.’
Lowry addressed his future employers in the letter to let them know that while he may learn differently, he is worth taking a chance on. The earnest message, written on lined paper, has gone viral, earning six million views and responses from huge companies like Microsoft and Amazon.
The letter reads that he is looking for a job in animation or IT and he understands that ‘someone like you will have to take a chance on me’ as he ‘doesn’t learn as typical people do.’ He goes on to write he would need a mentor to teach him but adds he is a quick learner.
In the end, he promised if he is hired and taught, he would ‘show up every day, do what you tell me to do, and work really hard.’
The heartfelt message posted three weeks ago earned him multiple responses. Currently, he works at a coffee shop called SimplyBe but the employment will end once he graduates, reports CNN.
Lowry’s parents Rob and Tracy stated they are proud of their son, adding he scheduled interviews from several Fortune 500 companies in the coming weeks. Talking to CNN, his father says their son is ‘capable of so much’ and want him to be independent. “He can live in our basement for the rest of his life. We’d love it. But Tracy and I are going to die someday, and he needs to be able to live independently. We’re cautiously optimistic,” he adds.
Before writing the letter, he spoke to his father and young brother. His father thought posting the letter on LinkedIn would also be more effective than sending it in the mail.
The musical collaboration was inspired by the band’s commitment to support Aero India 2021, a press release said
The United States Air Force Band of the Pacific has collaborated with Indian musician Giridhar Udupa, and released a music video online on March 15. The musical collaboration was inspired by the band’s commitment to support Aero India 2021, and reinforces the U.S.-India Major Defense Partnership and people-to-people ties between both the countries, a press release said.
The song ‘Open Clusters’ which features in the video, was composed by Staff Sergeant Luis Rosa, a saxophone instrumentalist with the Hawaii-based Air Force Band and is a musical fusion of two masters of Indian and Puerto Rican culture and rhythm. The music video features Giridhar Udupa playing the Ghatam, and Senior Airman Guy James on guitar, Staff Sergeant Andrew Detra on bass, and Technical Sergeant Wilfredo Cruz on percussion.
The USAF Band of the Pacific is a squadron of professional U.S. Air Force musicians that perform in diverse musical configurations and fulfil community relations and military functions throughout the Western Pacific region. Bengaluru-based Ghatam artist Giridhar Udupa has had a musical journey of three decades, and has collaborated with several artistes and has also performed across the world.
Speaking about this collaboration, the United States Air Force Band of the Pacific’s Publicity Section, Chief Technical Sergeant Wilfredo Cruz, said they were extremely honoured and grateful to be able to produce this musical collaboration for viewers worldwide. “The pandemic did not allow us to be in India to perform live during Aero India, yet music connects all regardless of distance or borders. We leverage the power of music to strengthen bonds with our friends and partners through the Indo-Pacific region,” he said.
Mr. Udupa said that the composition fits perfectly into the world music scene. “I am very excited about the newly-composed track with incredible musicians from the U.S. Air Force Band,” he added.
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Eight people were killed in shootings at three different spas in the US state of Georgia Tuesday and a 21-year-old male suspect was in custody, police and local media reported, though it was unclear if the attacks were related.
Four people were killed in a shooting at Young’s Asian Massage near Acworth, a suburb of Georgia’s capital city Atlanta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported, citing the Cherokee County sheriff’s office.
“Shooting suspect in custody!” the county sheriff’s office posted on Facebook.
The Atlanta police department separately confirmed that four women were found dead at two business establishments in Atlanta, identified by media as the Gold Massage Spa, and Aroma Therapy spa.
“Upon arrival, officers located three females deceased inside the location from apparent gunshot wounds,” the police department said in a statement.
While on the scene, officers were advised of shots fired across the street, and upon responding they found a fourth woman who appeared to have been shot dead.
Police told CNN told that all four victims in Atlanta appeared to be Asian.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the suspect is a 21-year-old man, taken into custody about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Atlanta.
“At this time, investigators are gathering information from both scenes to determine exactly what occurred and attempting to obtain confirmed information regarding the suspect or suspects,” said the Atlanta police statement.
It said it was too early to confirm whether the shooting in Atlanta and Cherokee County were linked but that they were “looking into that possibility.”
The vaccine initiative will allow new manufacturing capacity to be added in India for exports to the Indo-Pacific region.
Even as leaders of four countries — India, Japan, US and Australia — gather for the first online summit of the Quad group of nations, it is being learnt that as part of deliverables envisaged, vaccines developed in the US will be manufactured in India.
US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Japan Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga will come together for the summit on Friday.
The initiative will mean that vaccines developed in the United States will be manufactured in India and it will be financed by Japan and US. It will be supported by Australia.
The vaccine initiative will allow new manufacturing capacity to be added in India for exports to the Indo-Pacific region. It is aimed at countering China in the region.
This will not impinge on India’s existing manufacturing capacities.
The Quad summit will also committ to a free, open, inclusive and resilient Indo Pacific region and one of the most important aspects of that would be safe and effective vaccines in the region during the pandemic.
Three ships carrying ethanol were heading to China from the U.S. Gulf Coast, three trade sources told Reuters on Monday, in a sign that exports of the fuel were sharply increasing from the United States to the country.
The shipments may surpass the total amount of U.S. ethanol that China imported last year, a positive development for the U.S. ethanol industry, which has seen decreased demand because of the coronavirus pandemic and the U.S.-China trade war.
The ships each have a capacity of around 30,000 tonnes, or about 240,000 barrels of ethanol, the sources said, though the exact amount of the renewable fuel onboard was not immediately clear. It was also unclear when the cargoes would arrive in China, which buys U.S. ethanol for fuel to blend with gasoline. One source said at least two of the tankers left at the end of February.
The three cargoes should be among vessels booked earlier, and more were expected to get shipped to China in the coming months, three Asia-based traders said. In January, Archer Daniels Midland Co Chief Financial Officer Ray Young said that China had bought “roughly 200 million gallons” (4.76 million barrels) of U.S. ethanol for the first half of 2021.
That would be equivalent to around 15-20 vessels of the renewable fuel, the traders said, mainly booked last year, when U.S. ethanol prices hit their lowest point. COFCO and Sinopec were among buyers of the U.S. cargoes, traders had said.
Two cargoes booked by COFCO have already arrived in China recently while Sinopec is shipping imported ethanol to the domestic markets, said one China-based source familiar with the ethanol trade. “Domestic grain prices keep rising, which has pushed up prices of domestic ethanol, and created great profit margin for importing ethanol,” said the source, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
COFCO and Sinopec did not immediately respond to faxes seeking comment. While China imported an annual record of 4.72 million barrels of U.S. ethanol in 2016, it has not recently been a large importer. However, tightening supplies of domestic corn used to make the biofuel, coupled with comparatively cheaper U.S. prices have spurred the need for imports.
“Domestic corn is too expensive,” said a China-based trader with an international trading house, making imports profitable.
U.S. ethanol to China on a CIF basis is currently quoted at around $700 per tonne, while domestic ethanol in March is a bit over $1,000 per tonne, according to the trader.
If all three tankers were filled to capacity, the cargoes would be equivalent to around 720,000 barrels of ethanol, more than the 506,000 barrels of U.S. ethanol shipped to China in the whole of 2020.
The increased exports come as the U.S. ethanol industry tries to return to more normal levels of production following the demand destruction from the pandemic. Ethanol production has increased to 849,000 barrels per day in the week to Feb. 26, from a record low of 537,000 bpd last April, EIA data showed.
The United States and China signed a trade deal in January 2020, where China pledged to purchase more of American farm, energy and manufactured goods.
The US, the world’s largest economy, owes India USD 216 billion in loan as the country’s debt grows to a record USD 29 trillion, an American lawmaker has said, cautioning the leadership against galloping foreign debt, the largest of which comes from China and Japan. In 2020, the US national debt was USD 23.4 trillion, that was USD 72,309 in debt per person.
We are going to grow our debt to USD 29 trillion. That is even more debt owed per citizen. There is a lot of misinformation about where the debt is going. The top two countries we owe the debt to are China and Japan, not actually our friends, Congressman Alex Mooney said. We are at global competition with China all the time. They are holding a lot of the debt. We owe China over USD 1 trillion and we owe Japan over USD 1 trillion, the Republican Senator from West Virginia said on the floor of the US House of Representatives as he and others opposed the latest stimulus package of USD 2 trillion.
In January, US President Joe Biden announced a USD 1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package to tackle the economic fallout from the pandemic, including direct financial aid to average Americans, support to businesses and to provide a boost to the national vaccination programme. The people who are loaning us the money we have to pay back are not necessarily people who have our best interest at heart. Brazil, we owe USD 258 billion. India, we owe USD 216 billion. And the list goes on the debt that is owed to foreign countries, Congressman Mooney said.
America’s national debt was USD5.6 trillion in 2000. During the Obama administration, it actually doubled. Since the eight years Obama was President, we doubled our national debt. And we are adding anotherprojected herea completely out of control debt-to-GDP ratio, he said urging his Congressional colleagues to consider this national debt issue before approving the stimulus package.
So I urge my colleagues to consider the future. Don’t buy into thethe government has no money it doesn’t take from you that you are going to have to pay back. We need to be judicious with these dollars, and most of this is not going to coronavirus relief anyway, he said. Congressmen Mooney said that things have gone completely out of control. The Congressional Budget Office estimates an additional USD 104 trillion will be added by 2050. The Congressional Budget Office forecasted debt would rise 200 per cent.
Today, as I stand here right now, we have USD 27.9 trillion in national debt…That is actually a little more than USD 84,000 of debt to every American citizen right here today, Mooney said. We have actually borrowed USD 10,000 per person in one year. I mean, that is out of control, he said.
