USA

30 Mar 2021; MEMO: The coalition to defeat the Daesh met virtually on Tuesday and reaffirmed the determination to continue the fight against the terror group, Anadolu Agency reported.

30 Mar 2021; MEMO: The United Nations urged international donors to pledge up to $10 billion on Tuesday to help Syrians fleeing a decade of civil war in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that the need for humanitarian support has never been so great, Reuters reported.

(Reuters) - Oil prices will stabilise above $60 a barrel level this year, as vaccine rollouts support a demand recovery and OPEC and its allies continue to rein in supply, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

The survey of 48 participants forecast Brent would average $63.12 per barrel in 2021, up from last month’s consensus of $59.07 and the average price so far this year of $59.36.

The benchmark was trading close to $64 on Wednesday.

NEW YORK, March 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. COVID-19 deaths surpassed 550,000 on Tuesday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

With the national case count topping 30.3 million, the death toll across the United States rose to 550,073 as of 8:26 a.m. local time (1226 GMT), according to the CSSE data.

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The global economy is in a multi-speed recovery increasingly powered by China and the United States, the world's two largest economies, International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Tuesday.

"While the outlook has improved overall, prospects are diverging dangerously not only within nations but also across countries and regions," Georgieva said in a curtain raiser speech ahead of the 2021 virtual spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank scheduled next week.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden’s son Hunter says his service on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, which Republicans tried to turn into a negative during the 2020 presidential campaign, wasn’t unethical and didn’t represent a lack of judgment on his part.

But the younger Biden wouldn’t do it again if given a chance, he says in a new book, citing partisan politics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a sharp rebuke to Trump-era policies, Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday formally scrapped a blueprint championed by his predecessor to limit U.S. promotion of human rights abroad to causes favored by conservatives like religious freedom and property matters while dismissing reproductive and LGBTQ rights.

NEW YORK (AP) — A vicious attack on an Asian American woman as she walked to church near New York City’s Times Square is drawing widespread condemnation and raising alarms about the failure of bystanders to intervene amid a rash of anti-Asian violence across the U.S.

A lone assailant was seen on surveillance video late Monday morning, kicking the 65-year-old woman in the stomach, knocking her to the ground and stomping on her face, all as police say he shouted anti-Asian slurs and told her, “you don’t belong here.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — Beyond roads and bridges, President Joe Biden is trying to redefine infrastructure not just as an investment in America the place, but in its workers, families and people.

The first phase of his “Build Back Better” package to be unveiled Wednesday in Pittsburgh would unleash $2 trillion in new spending on four main hard infrastructure categories — transportation; public water, health and broadband systems; community care for seniors; and innovation research and development, according to people familiar with the proposal.

DONNA, Texas (AP) — More than 500 migrant children were packed into plastic-walled rooms built for 32 people, sitting inches apart on mats with foil blankets Tuesday at the largest U.S. Customs and Border Protection holding facility for unaccompanied children.

Overall, CBP’s main child processing center, a compound of white tents in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley, held over 4,100 migrants, more than 3,400 of them children who traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border alone. The rest of the migrants being housed were families.