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This is VOA News. Via remote, I'm Marissa Melton. U.S. President Joe Biden said Monday he would lay down "red lines" to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at their upcoming meeting after rallying NATO allies to face up to challenges from Moscow. Speaking after his first NATO summit since being elected president, Biden insisted, "I'm not looking for conflict with Russia, but we will respond if Russia continues its harmful activities." Biden also called Putin "tough" and "a worthy adversary" ahead of their hotly anticipated meeting in Geneva on Wednesday. The warning to the Kremlin leader came as Biden pressed to renew Washington's transatlantic ties with allies after years of tensions under his predecessor, Donald Trump.
The World Health Organization said Monday that the virus continues to spread and kill people in Africa despite the fact that the number of new COVID-19 cases overall has fallen steadily for seven straight weeks. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the decline in cases obscures the fact that the virus continues to spread and kill in regions with limited access to vaccines and treatments. He cited a recent study in the British medical journal The Lancet showing the continent of Africa has the highest global mortality rate among critically ill COVID-19 patients, yet it has reported fewer cases than most other regions. He also said the virus is moving faster than the global distribution of vaccines. The WHO chief expressed his gratitude to the leaders at the G7 summit last week who pledged 870 million doses of vaccine through the WHO-administered global vaccine cooperative, known as COVAX. This is VOA News.
