Month: June 2021

President Biden arrived in the UK on his first overseas trip as U.S. president, and will plan to meet Boris Johnson in Cornwall ahead of the G7 summit.   Biden is expected to deliver a warning not to let the Brexit trade dispute “imperil” the Northern Ireland peace process. The president is also hoping to show that the United States is back as a major international diplomatic force following the presidency of Donald Trump, and hopes to use the visit to Europe to shore up transatlantic alliances.

Biden flew in to the UK on Air Force One, landing at the U.S. airbase at RAF Mildenhall before heading on to Cornwall for talks with Johnson and the G7 summit in Carbis Bay. He told an audience of US military personnel and service families: “We are going to make it clear that the United States is back and democracies of the world are standing together to tackle the toughest challenges and the issues that matter most to our future.”

Biden also called for international action to end the Covid-19 pandemic, saying: “This diplomacy is essential because no single nation acting alone can meet all the challenges we face today because the world is changing.”  The United States is expected to buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine to share through the global Covax alliance for donation to 92 lower income countries and the African Union over the next year.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/biden-arrives-in-uk-on-1st-foreign-trip-as-president-including-summit-with-putin/ar-AAKRg96

An Interior Department watchdog said Wednesday that U.S. park police (“USPP”) cleared Black Lives Matter protesters from Lafayette Park near the White House last June to erect fencing around the area, not to make way for former President Donald Trump’s walk to St. John’s church. The department’s inspector general said the commander in charge of clearing out the crowd didn’t know of Trump’s plans to walk through the park to the church before plans were already in motion to disperse protesters, and the USPP said that they sought to clear the area in order to erect anti-scale fencing around the park in response to violence and vandalism experienced during previous days’ protests.

The inspector general’s office said: “We found that the USPP had the authority and discretion to clear Lafayette Park and the surrounding areas on June 1. The evidence we obtained did not support a finding that the USPP cleared the park to allow the president to survey the damage and walk to St. John’s Church. Instead, the evidence we reviewed showed that the USPP cleared the park to allow the contractor to safely install the antiscale fencing in response to destruction of property and injury to officers occurring on May 30 and 31. Further, the evidence showed that the USPP did not know about the President’s potential movement until mid- to late afternoon on June 1 — hours after it had begun developing its operational plan and the fencing contractor had arrived in the park.”

Trump, in a statement on his website, thanked the inspector general for “completely and totally exonerating me in the clearing of Lafayette Park.” He added: “As we have said all along, and it was backed up in today’s highly detailed and professionally written report, our fine Park Police made the decision to clear the park to allow a contractor to safely install anti-scale fencing to protect from Antifa rioters, radical BLM protestors, and other violent demonstrators who are causing chaos and death to our cities. In this instance, they tried burning down the church the day before the clearing. Fortunately, we were there to stop the fire from spreading beyond the basement — and it was our great honor and privilege to do so. Again, thank you to the Inspector General!”