NATO urged Russia on Wednesday to tone down its "fiery rhetoric" after repeated Moscow attacks on the growing influence of the military alliance and US plans to base parts of a missile shield in Europe.
"We have seen too much rhetoric at too high a level ... we would like to see it dialled down," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told the Russian press in a video conference, speaking from Brussels.
"Fiery rhetoric does make the headlines and there has been a little too much of it," he said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday accused NATO of aiming to replace the UN and warned of raising the potential for conflict.
"You get the impression that attempts are being made to set up an organization that would substitute for the UN," he said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Relations between Russia and the Western military alliance have deteriorated in recent years amid a NATO expansion drive, US plans to install anti-missile defenses in central Europe and Moscow's suspension of a key Cold War-era arms pact.
Putin is expected to attend a NATO summit early next month in Bucharest with some 50 state leaders including US President George W. Bush.
In a move to ease strained US-Russian relations, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Moscow next Monday and Tuesday to meet with their Russian counterparts and seek talks with Putin and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, aides said.
Washington's anti-missile shield plans to install 10 interceptor missiles in Poland and a radar base in the Czech Republic have angered Russia, which sees them as a threat to its security.
US defense officials say the system is intended to counter a possible attack from "rogue" states such as Iran.
A NATO expert said on Wednesday that the alliance's leaders will discuss at the April 2 summit a new analysis of the threat posed by a possible missile attack, as well as the role of the proposed US system and how NATO might complement it.
The new analysis "will allow heads of state and government to have informed discussions and eventually make decisions on a NATO approach to missile defense," said Peter Flory, head of NATO's defense investment division.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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