Mediaboss Marketing

Issued on: 16/04/2021 - 19:59

What could possibly go wrong?Russia insisting that the 83-thousand troops its land and sea maneouvres at the Ukranian border are routine.Ukraine responding with military drills of its own with diplomatic lobbying in overdrive. Latest stop for president Volodimir Zelesnkiy Paris where lunch at the presidential palace came with a phone call to German leader Angela Merkel. Tensions were dialled up further on Wednesday with the expected arrival of two US warships.

The Russians then decided to stage live fire naval exercises. Only in the end, those two warships never came.

Further easttwenty years after 9-11, ten years after the killing of Osama Ben Laden, it was the week Joe Biden fixed a final withdrawal date from Afghanistan. The USpresident dispatching his secretary of state to Kabul to brief president Ashraf Ghani and try to reassure his hostswith mixed results. What a US-led Nato withdrawal means for Afghanistan's neighbors is also an open question. After announcing that troop withdrawalthe US president going to Arlington National cemetary, where 14-thousand US military veterans are buried, a reminder that his late son, Beau Biden earned a bronze star in Afghanistan.

A footnote in all of it may be Hong Kong where sentenced were handed down for nine prominent pro-democracy activists. Their crime, taking part in mass protests back in 2019. On the same day of the Hong Kong sentencing,the French president and the German chancellor in a three-way conference call with Chinese president Xi Jinping. The topic on the agenda:climate change. How much leverage do European leaders have if they feel like talking human rights?

Produced by Charles Wente, Juliette Laurain andLopoldine Iribarren.

Read the original here:
The world this week - Ukraine tensions, US Afghanistan withdrawal, Hong Kong, Notre Dame Cathedral - FRANCE 24