USA

04 June 2021; MEMO: The US ambassador to the UN has said that Turkey's Cilvegozu border crossing is the "best" option for international NGOs to get aid into Syria, TRT World has reported.

05 June 2021; MEMO: The US administration has pledged to replenish Israel's Iron Dome defence system after it was depleted during the 11-day Israeli offensive on Gaza in May, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Friday.

Quds Press reported Kan stating that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made this pledge to Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz in the presence of US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Latvian woman has been charged with developing malicious software used by a cybercrime organization that infected computers worldwide and looted bank accounts of millions of dollars, the Justice Department said Friday.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Friday that famine is imminent in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region and the country’s north and there is a risk that hundreds of thousands of people or more will die.

Mark Lowcock said the economy has been destroyed along with businesses, crops and farms and there are no banking or telecommunications services.

“We are hearing of starvation-related deaths already,” he said in a statement.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI issued a subpoena demanding U.S. newspaper giant Gannett provide agents with information to track down readers of a USA Today story about a suspect in a child pornography case who fatally shot two FBI agents in February.

The subpoena, served on the company in April, came to light this week after the media company filed documents in federal court asking a judge to quash the subpoena. The Justice Department’s actions were immediately condemned by press freedom advocates.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci has been a political lightning rod since the early days of the pandemic, lionized by the left as a beacon of truth in an administration that badly mismanaged the pandemic and villainized by the right as a misguided, spotlight-seeking bureaucrat seeking to undermine former President Donald Trump.

(AP) --- Facebook announced Friday that former President Donald Trump’s accounts will be suspended for two years, freezing his presence on the social network until early 2023, following a finding that Trump stoked violence ahead of the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

At the end of the suspension, the company will assess whether Trump’s “risk to public safety” has subsided, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a blog post.

(AP) --- President Joe Biden portrayed the May jobs report as a jumping off point for more spending on infrastructure and education to keep growth going — essentially an argument for his agenda. But the employment numbers issued Friday also hinted at the possible limits of how much government aid can be pumped into the world’s largest economy.

“We’re on the right track,” Biden said. “Our plan is working. And we’re not going to let up now. We’re going to continue to move on. I’m extremely optimistic.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has dismissed a fresh Republican infrastructure proposal that offered modestly more spending but fell short of “his objectives to grow the economy,” the White House said.

His reaction Friday cast further doubt on the two parties’ prospects for striking compromise on one of the administration’s chief legislative priorities as deadlines slip and time runs out to make progress toward a deal.

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 04 (APP): A new United Nations report on Afghanistan highlights the continued and ever-growing cross-border terrorist threat posed by proscribed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which according to the report, continues to operate from the eastern Nangarhar province of neighbouring country.

The 12th report of the UN monitoring team on Afghanistan submitted to the UN Security Council also notes TTP’s “distinctive anti-Pakistan objectives”.