Washington ready to serve as mediator between Russia and Ukraine
The United States remains ready to serve as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, Marco Rubio said Tuesday after speaking with the head of Russian diplomacy, who called on embassies to evacuate kyiv in anticipation of new bombings. American-mediated negotiations to end the deadliest conflict in Europe since the Second World War have been at a standstill since the outbreak of war in the Middle East on February 28. Russian diplomacy on Monday called on foreign nationals living in kyiv, including diplomatic staff, to leave the Ukrainian capital before further Russian bombings. What his leader Sergei Lavrov repeated to his American counterpart Marco Rubio during a rare call. New “strikes will be carried out on decision-making centers” and “companies of the military-industrial complex” in kyiv, his ministry warned, without giving a precise time frame before these attacks.
US military announces strike on missile launch sites in Iran
The US military announced it had carried out strikes in southern Iran, targeting missile launch sites and ships attempting to place mines, despite the ceasefire in force in the war between the two countries. “US forces today conducted self-defense strikes in southern Iran to protect our troops from threats posed by Iranian forces. The targets included missile launch sites and Iranian boats attempting to lay mines,” the US Middle East Command (Centcom) said in a statement. The American army specified “to show restraint during the current ceasefire”, while Washington and Tehran have reported progress in recent days in their ongoing negotiations to reach an agreement.
François Villeroy de Galhau for a “pragmatic plurilateralism”
The Governor of the Bank of France François Villeroy de Galhau, who leaves office in June, calls for a “pragmatic plurilateralism”, in which countries “work together on specific subjects when their interests converge”, in an article published by the magazine The Economist. Taking stock of the ten years he spent at the head of the Banque de France (where he arrived in November 2015), François Villeroy de Galhau speaks of “a decade of fragmentation” and “increasing use of power”. unilateral”. According to him, “monetary policy worked, even if it was not exactly as expected,” he lists. “Secondly, independence is not a given, but it is a prerequisite for effectiveness,†he adds, saying that “the main challenge for central banks today—the growing threat to their independence—was Barely thinkable ten years ago.”
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