In a video call that lasted for just over two hours on Tuesday, President Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin that if Russia invades Ukraine the U.S. will impose unprecedented sanctions and provide additional weaponry to the Ukrainians, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said.
Why it matters: Russia's military activity on the border with Ukraine has triggered alarms from the U.S. and its European allies of a potential large-scale Russian invasion in early 2022. Sullivan said Biden made clear to Putin that, "things we did not do in 2014, we are prepared to do now."
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) sent a letter to Airbnb on Tuesday demanding that the company de-list more than a dozen rentals on land owned by a Chinese paramilitary organization sanctioned by the U.S. for complicity in genocide.
Why it matters: The letter comes in the wake of an Axios investigation that revealed 14 Airbnb listings on land owned by the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, which operates some facilities in Xinjiang where more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities are believed to have been detained since 2017.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) announced on Tuesday their support for mixing different COVID-19 vaccines in initial vaccinations and booster campaigns.
Why it matters: The announcement comes as several European countries struggle to combat recent surges in COVID-19 cases and amid concerns over the Omicron variant.
The pandemic, natural disasters and response to other tragedies spurred giving in 2021, according to GoFundMe's annual report.
Why it matters: The crowdfunding platform says one donation is made every second to help people across the globe. One in three fundraisers is started for someone else.
Rohingya refugees accused Facebook in a $150 million lawsuit filed Monday of amplifying hate speech against the persecuted minority Muslims in Myanmar via algorithms and failing to take down inflammatory posts.
National security adviser Jake Sullivan spoke last week with relatives of U.S. hostages and others wrongfully detained abroad, after more than two dozen families expressed frustrations about their inability to get a meeting with him or President Biden, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Participants on the video call, which began at 7pm ET Friday and lasted more than an hour, told Axios they didn't get satisfactory answers to many of their questions. Nonetheless, they were encouraged by Sullivan's commitment to follow up and pledge to be personally available to them and others going forward.
President Biden will seek to convince Russia's Vladimir Putin in a phone call Tuesday that the price of invading Ukraine would be steeper than anything he's faced in the past.
Driving the news: Biden held a call on Ukraine this evening with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and the U.K., while Secretary of State Tony Blinken called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to offer America's "unwavering support."
President Biden will warn Russian President Vladimir Putin when they speak on Tuesday that if Russia invades Ukraine, the U.S. is prepared to increase its troop presence, capabilities and military exercises on NATO's "eastern flank," a senior administration official told reporters.
Why it matters: The diplomatic boycott — which won't prevent American athletes from competing — marks a major escalation between the U.S. and China amid already heightened tensions over the CCP's treatment of Muslim minorities, military threats to Taiwan and economic tariffs.
Two wide-angle new essays explore how the global movement away from fossil fuels could be wrenching and geopolitically messy.
Driving the news: Adam Tooze's piece in Foreign Policy covers a lot of ground. One key takeaway: He warns that it's not clear if the red-blue U.S. political and policy divide will ever be successfully bridged, despite clean energy's growth in conservative states, its growing economic importance and Wall Street's increasing buy-in.
The U.S. and several allies released a joint statement on Monday condemning "widespread arrests" in Ethiopia made on the basis of ethnicity, specifically of ethnic Tigrayans.
The big picture: The Ethiopian government is engaged in a civil war with rebel forces from the Tigray region. Now the U.S. and its allies are responding to reports that Tigrayans in the capital and elsewhere are being swept up by security forces and held without charge.
The Biden administration on Monday released the first-ever U.S. government strategy for countering corruption, kicking off a week of policy initiatives pegged to the inaugural "Summit for Democracy" on Dec. 9-10.
Why it matters: Joe Biden is the first president to establish the fight against corruption as a core national security interest. Critics say corruption not only robs a nation of its core resources but discourages citizens from believing in the rule of law.
A Myanmar court sentenced the country's ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on Monday to four years in prison on charges of "inciting public unrest" and breaking COVID-19 protocols, per the New York Times.
The latest: Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the country's leader, later cut Suu Kyi's sentence to two years, the Times reports.
Pope Francis criticized European countries' response to migrants and asylum seekers during his visit to a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos on Sunday.
Why it matters: The pope said "migration is a humanitarian crisis that concerns everyone," but little had changed in the global response to displaced peoples since his first visit to Lesbos five years ago, per a transcript of his remarks. "Human lives, real people, are at stake. ... Let us stop this shipwreck of civilization!"
