North America

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 18 (APP): Voicing serious concern over growing hate speech worldwide, Pakistan has called for a collective effort to counter its manifestation such as Islamophobia, racism, xenophobia and incitement to violence.

“Hate is a threat to everyone; Combating it must be a collective effort,” Ambassador Aamir Khan, deputy permanent representatives of Pakistan to the UN, said in a remarks at an event organized by Morocco in connection with the first-ever International Day for Countering Hate Speech.

NEW YORK, June 18. /TASS/: Russian draft agreements on security guarantees will be reviewed when the special military operation in Ukraine is completed, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov wrote in his article for Newsweek.

"Let me remind you that no one has removed the Russian draft agreements on security guarantees from the table. Of course, after the special military operation will be over, their content will have to be adapted to the realities," the diplomat wrote.

WASHINGTON, June 18. /TASS/: Russia hopes that common sense would prevail in the United States in the matter of holding the Tenth Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Russian Embassy in the United States said.

Commenting on an article by Adam Scheinman, the US President’s special representative for nuclear non-proliferation (SRNN), the embassy said: "Judging by the official’s remarks, Washington plans to use this specialized multilateral platform for raising issues that are non-essential to the NPT issue."

SAN FRANCISCO, June 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — An attack on passengers inside a San Francisco International Airport terminal on Friday left three with cuts and scrapes before the suspect was arrested, authorities said.

The attacker tried to injure travellers at around 6pm in the pre-security public area of the International Terminal, airport officials said.

The passengers were treated for minor injuries before continuing on their travels and other airport operations weren’t affected, officials said.

WASHINGTON, June 17 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he was not traveling to Saudi Arabia's explicitly to meet de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman during a trip next month and said he was seeing the Saudi crown prince as part of a broader "international meeting."

WASHINGTON, June 17 (Xinhua) -- More than 60 percent of chief executive officers (CEOs) globally expect a recession in their primary region of operations in the next 12 to 18 months, according to a survey released Friday.

Fifteen percent of the CEOs think the region where their company operates has already been in a recession, showed the global survey of 750 CEOs and other C-suite executives by the Conference Board, a research firm.

HAWTHORNE, Calif. (AP) — SpaceX, the rocket ship company run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, has fired several employees involved in an open letter that blasted the colorful billionaire for his behavior, according to media reports.

The reports published Friday cited an email from Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president, saying the company had terminated employees who put together and circulated the letter. The letter writers denounced Musk for actions that they said are a “frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks.”

HONOLULU (AP) — A Russian-owned superyacht seized by the United States arrived in Honolulu Harbor on Thursday flying an American flag.

The U.S. last week won a legal battle in Fiji to take the $325 million vessel and immediately sailed it to Hawaii.

The FBI has linked the Amadea to the Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov. The U.S. said Kerimov secretly bought the Cayman Island-flagged vessel last year through various shell companies.

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Saturday he plans to talk to Chinese leader Xi Jinping soon as he considers whether to lift some Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods.

Biden did not say when they might speak, but suggested he was getting closer to making a decision about the fate of the economic penalties.

“I’m in the process of making up my mind,” Biden told reporters in a brief exchange after a bike ride near his beach home in Delaware.

ATLANTA (AP) — One of the owners of a nuclear power plant being expanded in Georgia says it’s shifting overruns to Georgia Power Co. in exchange for giving up a sliver of its ownership.

Oglethorpe Power Corp. which provides power to 38 electric cooperatives, said Saturday that it has exercised a contractual option to freeze its costs for Plant Vogtle at $8.1 billion.