President Vladimir Putin was sworn in for a new six-year term on Tuesday at a Kremlin ceremony that was boycotted by the United States and a number of other Western countries due to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Putin, in power as president or prime minister since 1999, begins his new mandate more than two years after he sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, where Russian forces have regained the initiative after a series of reversals and are seeking to advance further in the east.

At 71, Putin dominates the domestic political landscape. On the international stage, he is locked in a confrontation with Western countries he accuses of using Ukraine as a vehicle to try to defeat and dismember Russia.

“For Russia, this is the continuation of our path, this is stability – you can ask any citizen on the street,” Sergei Chemezov, a close Putin ally, told Reuters before the ceremony.

“President Putin was re-elected and will continue the path, although the West probably doesn’t like it. But they will understand that Putin is stability for Russia rather than some sort of new person who came with new policies – either cooperation or confrontation even,” he said.

Putin in March won a landslide victory in a tightly controlled election from which two anti-war candidates were barred on technical grounds.

His best known opponent, Alexei Navalny, died suddenly in an Arctic penal colony a month earlier, and other leading critics are in jail or have been forced to flee abroad.

The United States and other Western countries stayed away from Tuesday’s inauguration ceremony.

“No, we will not have a representative at his inauguration,” Matthew Miller, a U.S. State Department spokesperson, said on Monday.

“We certainly did not consider that election free and fair but he is the president of Russia and he is going to continue in that capacity.”

Britain, Canada and most European Union nations also decided to boycott the swearing-in, but France said it would send its ambassador.

Ukraine said the event sought to create “the illusion of legality for the nearly lifelong stay in power of a person who has turned the Russian Federation into an aggressor state and the ruling regime into a dictatorship.”

(hindustantimes.com)

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday (May 06) attended a China-France – EU trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

Expressing his delight in meeting with Macron and von der Leyen again, President Xi noted that France is the first stop of his overseas visit this year, and that the trilateral meeting amplifies the Europe-wide significance of this visit.

China always approaches its relations with the European Union (EU) from a strategic and long-term perspective, and regards Europe as an important dimension in its major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics and an important partner on its path toward Chinese modernization, Xi said.

In an X post, the EU President said that that she had met the Chinese President for the third time in just over one year that they had an ‘open and honest exchange on points  where we see eye-to-eye and on points where we have differences… Our topics ranged from geopolitical issues to climate change and of course our economic relations’.

The Chinese President arrived in Paris on Sunday for a state visit to France at the invitation of President Macron and attended a welcome ceremony held by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron at Les Invalides in Paris on Monday.

This is the second state visit by China’s head of state to France in five years and coincides with the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

France is the first leg of Xi’s three-European country tour, which will later take him to Serbia and Hungary at the invitations of President Aleksandar Vucic of the Republic of Serbia and President Tamas Sulyok and Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.

Xi’s entourage includes his wife Peng Liyuan, Cai Qi, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, and Wang Yi, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and foreign minister.

Al Jazeera Media Network has condemned the Israeli government’s decision to close its operations in Israel as a “criminal act” and warned that the country’s suppression of the free press “stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law”.

“Al Jazeera Media Network strongly condemns and denounces this criminal act that violates human rights and the basic right to access of information. Al Jazeera affirms its right to continue to provide news and information to its global audiences,” the network said in a statement on Sunday

“Israel’s ongoing suppression of the free press, seen as an effort to conceal its actions in the Gaza Strip, stands in contravention of international and humanitarian law. Israel’s direct targeting and killing of journalists, arrests, intimidation and threats will not deter Al Jazeera from its commitment to cover, whilst more than 140 Palestinian journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war on Gaza.

“The Network vehemently rejects the allegations presented by Israeli authorities suggesting professional media standards have been violated. It reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the values embodied by its Code of Ethics,” it said.

The statement comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet voted unanimously to close Al Jazeera’s operations in Israel, weeks after Israel’s parliament passed a law allowing the temporary closure of foreign broadcasters considered to be a threat to national security during the months-long war in Gaza.

Netanyahu announced the decision on X, formerly Twitter. “The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel,” he posted in Hebrew.

Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi wrote on X that he had signed the orders against Al Jazeera, which would be effective immediately.

Karhi said he ordered the seizure of Al Jazeera’s broadcasting equipment “used to deliver the channel’s content”, including editing and routing equipment, cameras, microphones, servers and laptops, as well as wireless transmission equipment and some mobile phones.

Later on Sunday, police raided Al Jazeera’s premises in occupied East Jerusalem and satellite and cable providers took Al Jazeera off air.

Messages have appeared instead of Al Jazeera’s broadcast on a number of satellite providers, including messages with the words “Yes” and “Hot”.

(aljazeera.com)