Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
U.S. President Joe Biden's first overseas trip put his diplomatic and negotiating philosophy on display, as he rallied traditional U.S. democratic allies to confront new and old challenges and offered an often rosy take on the possibilities of co-operation with Russian President Vladimir Putin after a one-on-one summit.
Here are some key takeaways:
Biden and Putin did not use the word "reset" to describe the state of relations between the two nations after their summit in Switzerland. But that's what the meeting amounted to, with both men staking out clear areas of disagreement, even as they pointed to smaller-scale areas where they could cooperate.
They conveyed both a mutual respect and a mutual skepticism. It was an abrupt return to more conventional U.S.-Russia framing after the presidency of Donald Trump, who often seemed to elevate Putin and create at least the aspiration that the countries could be more like partners.
This time, each leader left with the understanding that some of the old rules still apply. Russia returns to its place as a "worthy adversary," as Biden put it, rather than some kind of colleague. And the longer-standing tensions, over cyberwarfare and human rights, remain.
After their three-hour meeting, Biden's sunny disposition stood in sharp contrast to the more sober, taciturn tone of Putin, who at times became defensive when asked questions by reporters about human rights violations in Russia and the country's invasion of Ukraine.
Even so, Biden acknowledged his optimism was more wishful thinking than reality.
"I'm going to drive you all crazy because I know you want me to always put a negative thrust on things, particularly in public," he said shortly before boarding Air Force One, adding, that way, "you guarantee nothing happens."
It highlighted the president's negotiating style, whether it be with Putin or with Senate Republicans at home on infrastructure -- in which he publicly expresses his belief that a deal can be struck despite often overwhelming odds.
"I know we make foreign policy out to be this great, great skill that somehow is sort of like a secret code," Biden said. "All foreign policy is a logical extension of personal relationships. It's the way human nature functions."
He later added, "There's a value to being realistic and to put on an optimistic front, an optimistic face."
Biden's eight-day, three-country foreign trip demonstrated his emphasis on personal relationships above all.
"There's no substitute, as those of you who have covered me for a while know, for face-to-face dialogue between leaders. None," Biden said, declaring his summit with Putin a success simply for the fact that they spoke in person.
Throughout his trip, most of Biden's meetings were conducted in private, without cameras, or with only a few moments open to media.
It highlighted Biden's faith in intangible personal ties that can drive policy outcomes, both foreign and domestic.
And it marked a clear departure in style from Trump, whose freewheeling public meetings with global leaders became something of legend on the international stage. Relationships tended to flow one way -- with obsequious public displays by heads of state and government trying to get on Trump's good side.
Biden is banking that those leaders will welcome a return to the "old school" approach.
Before leaving Washington, Biden reasserted his view that democracies are in a generational confrontation with autocratic governments and that the U.S. can't hope to prevail if it stands alone.
With that in mind, he rallied American allies at the Group of Seven meeting of wealthy democracies and treaty partners at NATO, before his sit-down with Putin.
The sequencing was as much strategy as it was symbolism, with the unified-front posture with allies meant to bolster Biden's position regarding Russia. It also drove momentum behind the U.S.' ongoing showdown with China over trade, security and health policy, as Biden secured tough language on China, both in the G7 leaders' communique and from NATO countries in their joint statement.
In the wake of a series of disruptive cyberattacks that have emanated from Russia, Biden pressed Putin to curtail criminal and state-sponsored activity from his country by warning of American digital firepower and his willingness to deploy it.
Saying he gave Putin a list of 16 "critical infrastructure" sectors, from the energy industry to water systems, Biden said the leaders agreed to task experts "to work on specific understandings about what's off-limits" in this new domain.
Even as Biden said of Putin, "I think that the last thing he wants now is a Cold War," the American president embraced a defining characteristic of that era: deterrence.
Biden said he broached with Putin and his top advisers the possibility of a cyberattack taking down one of their oil pipelines and the devastating impact it could have on their energy-dependent economy.
Biden said Putin was well aware that the U.S. has "significant cyber capability." "He doesn't know exactly what it is, but it's significant, and if in fact they violate these basic norms, we will respond, he knows, in a cyber way."
After four years of "America First" under Trump, Biden set out to show the world that "America is back," but lingering domestic instability cast a long shadow overseas.
Whether it be the last president's temperament and isolationist policies or the months of efforts to undermine the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, the tumult of the last four years remains a fresh and raw memory for allies and adversaries alike.
Biden's actions and public comments showed the lengths to which he felt he needed to go to reassure allies that the U.S. could be a credible leader on the world stage.
"They have seen things happen, as we have, that shocked them and surprised them," Biden said Monday of American allies. "But I think they, like I do, believe the American people are not going to sustain that kind of behavior."
Even if allies were convinced, it was clear that adversaries were unwilling to forget so soon.
In his news conference following his meeting with Biden, Putin repeatedly deflected from his own deadly crackdowns on political dissenters with familiar -- but now more potent -- whataboutisms, by pointing to the Capitol assault and Black Lives Matter protests against racial injustice and police brutality in the U.S. last year. Biden called it a "ridiculous comparison," though it was clear some damage couldn't be swiftly undone.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.