Biden administration

Senior officials in the Biden administration said that four to six weeks of fighting would determine the final direction of the war, writes the New York Times.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on Tuesday warned of a forceful response if North Korea carries out its first nuclear test explosion in nearly five years as she traveled to Seoul to meet with South Korean and Japanese allies and discuss the escalating standoff.

Global stock markets and Wall Street futures advanced yesterday after the downturn in China's service industries eased and news reports said the Biden administration might lift U.S. tariffs on some Chinese imports.

London and Frankfurt opened higher. Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong advanced. Oil prices gained to stay close to $120 per barrel.

The Biden administration says it will send Ukraine a small number of high-tech, medium-range rocket systems, a critical weapon that Ukrainian leaders have been begging for as they struggle to stall Russian progress in the Donbas region.

The U.S. administration intends to do that by sending advanced, long-range missile systems, which are now the main request of Ukrainian officials, several unnamed officials said.
The administration is considering sending the system as part of a larger package of military and security aid to Ukraine, which could be revealed next week, CNN reported.

If Turkey "plays its cards right," it can convince the U.S. Congress to allow a roughly $6 billion purchase of 40 Block 70 F-16 fighter jets and approximately 80 modernization kits from Lockheed Martin to upgrade its existing fleet, the Defense News reported referring to comments by Congress members.

The United States has exchanged intelligence with Ukraine on the location of the Russian missile cruiser "Moskva" (Moscow) before the strike that sank the warship, the Associated Press reported.

A US official said yesterday that Ukraine itself had decided to shoot and sink the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet using its own anti-ship missiles.

Russia and the United States have carried out an unexpected prisoner exchange in Turkey in a time of high tensions, trading on April 27 a Marine veteran jailed by Moscow for a convicted Russian drug trafficker serving a long prison sentence in America. 

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Monday that it had revoked its "Do Not Travel" recommendation because of COVID-19 for about 90 international destinations, including Bulgaria.

Turkey's top diplomat has said he will be in the United States in May for talks with his U.S. counterpart as part of the recently launched "Strategic Mechanism," which aims to bolster ties between the two allies.