The Latest: Locals surprised as Bidens attend Sunday service
The Latest on the Group of Seven nations meeting being held in England:
FALMOUTH, England — Churchgoers in a seaside resort in England say they have been left “gobsmacked” when U.S. President Joe Biden and the first lady Jill Biden dropped in for a Sunday service.
The Bidens are in Cornwall, southwest England, where the U.S. president is attending a Group of Seven wealthy democracies summit. On Sunday morning, ahead of the summit’s conclusion, they were seen attending mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in St. Ives.
“I think gobsmacked is probably a very true word,” said Annie Fitzpatrick, 58. “It’s quite amazing, we went into the church and they took some details from us and I thought this is a bit unusual. About 10 minutes into the service the doors opened up and President Biden and Dr. Jill Biden walked in and just sat in the pew just across from me.”
The president “quietly got on with his prayer like everyone was doing,” she said, adding: “He looked around and said peace be with you, and I was one of them so I’m delighted. I’m not sure I will ever get over this moment completely.”
Gayle Wood, 63, said Biden appeared to make a “very generous donation” to the church before leaving.
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FALMOUTH, England — Britain is accusing European Union of holding the “offensive” view that Northern Ireland is not fully part of the United Kingdom, as Brexit continues to cast a shadow over the Group of Seven summit.
Britain and the EU are in a spat over post-Brexit trade arrangements that could see British sausages banned from entering Northern Ireland, the only part of the U.K. that borders the 27-nation bloc. The dispute is raising political tensions in Northern Ireland, where some people identify as British and some as Irish.
British media are reporting that Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked French President Emmanuel Macron when they met at the summit in Carbis Bay, England, how he would feel if sausages from Toulouse could not be moved to Paris. They said Macron replied the comparison did not work because Paris and Tolouse were part of the same country.
The French presidency did not deny Macron had made the comments. It said he meant “that Toulouse and Paris were on a geographical unity of territory, Northern Ireland is on an island. The president wanted to stress that the situation was quite different and that it’s not appropriate to hold that kind of comparison.”
U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said the idea Northern Ireland was not an integral part of the U.K. was “not only offensive, it has real world effects on the communities in Northern Ireland, creates great concern, great consternation.”
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FALMOUTH, England — Group of Seven leaders are talking about climate change on the final day of their summit in England, with naturalist David Attenborough warning they must take urgent action to avoid human-based environmental catastrophe.
All G-7 countries have pledged to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, but many environmentalists say that will be too late. The leaders also plan to announce new green-financing plans to help poorer countries reduce carbon emissions.
Attenborough, who is due to address the leaders on Sunday by video, said global warning and loss of biodiversity are “beyond doubt,” as is the fact that “our societies and nations are unequal.”
He said “the question science forces us to address specifically in 2021 is whether as a result of these intertwined facts we are on the verge of destabilizing the entire planet?”
“If that is so, then the decisions we make this decade — in particular the decisions made by the most economically advanced nations — are the most important in human history,” Attenborough said in comments released by summit organizers.
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FALMOUTH, England — The head of the World Health Organization has welcomed the vaccine-sharing announcements coming out of the Group of Seven summit but says “we need more, and we need them faster.”
“The challenge, I said to the G-7 leaders, was that to truly end the pandemic, our goal must be to vaccinate at least 70% of the world’s population by the time the G-7 meets again in Germany next year,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters Saturday at the summit in southwest England.
“To do that, we need 11 billion doses,” Tedros said, adding that it was “essential” for countries to temporarily waive intellectual property protections for coronavirus vaccines.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the summit's host, has said the group would pledge at least 1 billion doses, with half that number coming from the United States and 100 million from Britain over the next year.
Tedros reiterated his target of vaccinating 30% of the population of every country by the end of 2021. He said that reaching the goal requires 100 million doses in June and July, and 250 million more by September.
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FALMOUTH, England — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his wife, Carrie, have welcomed leaders from South Korea, Australia and South Africa, as well as the secretary-general of the United Nations, to the Group of Seven summit taking place on the coast of southwestern England.
The leaders elbow-bumped and posed for photos Saturday on a pristine beach in Cornwall.
The G-7 nations are the U.K., the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. The British government said the guest nations were invited to take part in the summit as part of Johnson’s “Global Britain” agenda and that the expanded group can help the G-7 “intensify cooperation between the world’s democratic and technologically advanced nations.”
India was also invited, but its delegation is not attending in person because of the severe coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The leaders, whose 3-day summit is scheduled to end on Sunday, are expected to commit to a new plan, called the “Carbis Bay Declaration,” to quash future pandemics within the first 100 days.
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CARBIS BAY, England — French President Emmanuel Macron says it’s good that U.S. President Joe Biden is able to lead through cooperation, adding that the United States is “definitely” back as Europe's partner.
Biden and Macron met Saturday as part of the Group of Seven summit in southwest England, where they and other leaders of the world's wealthy democracies are discussing the coronavirus pandemic, the environment, national security, relations with China and economic issues.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump took an adversarial approach with NATO allies, but Macron said Biden has shown that “leadership is partnership.”
The desire for cooperation cuts both ways. Biden described the European Union as “incredibly strong and vibrant,” which he said not only helps with tackling economic challenges but also provides a backbone for NATO.
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BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Joe Biden have met on the sidelines of the G-7 summit in England.
A spokesman for the German chancellor tweeted two pictures of the leaders sitting at a table in Carbis Bay on Saturday.
“At noontime on the second day of the G7 summit the chancellor talked to U.S. President Biden in between the work meetings," read the caption accompanying the photos.
Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert didn’t give any details about what the two discussed.
Merkel, who is leaving office later this year, plans to visit Biden in Washington next month. The president invited her to the White House earlier this week.
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FALMOUTH, England — Hundreds of environmental protesters took to the Cornish seaside Saturday morning in a bid to draw the attention of world leaders and the international media outlets that have descended on southwest England for the G-7 summit.
Some protesters paddled out to sea, while others sunbathed on the beach wearing masks of leaders' faces.
A crowd of surfers, kayakers and swimmers gathered Saturday on a beach in Falmouth for a mass “paddle out protest” organized by the group Surfers Against Sewage, which is campaigning for more action to protect oceans.
U.S. President Joe Biden and fellow leaders from the Group of Seven wealthy democracies are meeting near the town of St. Ives for talks focusing on the pandemic and climate change.
Earlier, activists from Oxfam assembled on Falmouth beach to protest climate change and put on masks depicting the leaders attending the G-7 summit.
Max Lawson, Oxfam’s head of policy, said activists want the G-7 countries - Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the U.K. and the United States - to commit to bigger reductions in carbon emissions and to financing to help poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change.
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CARBIS BAY, England — The White House says President Joe Biden will hold a solo news conference after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The two delegations will have a working session and smaller session as part of their meeting on Wednesday in the Swiss city of Geneva. But the White House says it is still finalizing the format of the meeting.
The White House says a news conference with only Biden is the appropriate format to communicate the topics discussed, areas of agreement and sources of significant concern.