German Chancellor Angela Merkel was to meet Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday as the major trading partners moved to overcome strains exacerbated by the recent war in Georgia.
The leaders, accompanied by senior ministers, were also to discuss global financial turmoil and Iran’s controversial nuclear program, a German government official said.
Germany is widely considered Russia’s closest ally in Western Europe, but ties frayed when Russian troops rolled into Georgia in August after Tbilisi tried to reclaim control of the Moscow-backed rebel province South Ossetia.
Merkel has been sharply critical of Russia’s actions in the Caucasus republic, but she has stood out in the EU by pressing for the lines of communication with Moscow to remain open.
Yesterday’s talks were expected to touch on Wednesday’s deployment of an EU mission charged with ensuring security as Russian forces pull back from “buffer zones” around South Ossetia and fellow rebel enclave Abkhazia by Oct. 10.
Since the August war, tensions over Georgia have spilled over into other areas of German-Russian cooperation.
An EU summit sheduled for this month to debate the resumption of negotiations with Russia on a new partnership and cooperation pact was also on the agenda, the senior German official said.
An industry delegation was to travel with Merkel, including the German energy agency president, the chief executives of chemicals behemoth BASF and engineering giant Siemens, and the head of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, which represents German exporters.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
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