World Affairs Councils of America | WorldQuest Weekly | June 21-27, 2021

President Joe Biden said there was no substitute for a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and he came away from last week’s summit in Geneva saying he did what he needed to do. What did the conflictive leaders agree to work on?

Iran chose a president to succeed Hassan Rouhani in an election marked by low turnout among voters who saw the result predetermined. The new President of Iran is THIS hardline cleric who has “a record of human rights abuses, including accusations of playing a role in the mass execution of political opponents in 1988,” according to the New York Times.

President Biden and NATO leaders met in Brussels last week and issued a communique noting for the first time THIS nation’s “stated ambitions and assertive behavior present systemic challenges to the rules-based international order.”

The UN General Assembly voted a second term for THIS Secretary General who called for a new era of “solidarity and equality,” and promised to make fighting the Covid-19 pandemic his top priority.

Despite antagonisms rising from Biden calling THIS NATO country’s leader an autocrat and labeling a century old mass killing and deportation of Armenians as genocide, that president said there was no issue between him and Biden that could not be resolved.

America’s problematic partner Pakistan has been strategically important to U.S. Covert operations in next-door Afghanistan. Last week THIS Pakistani Prime Minister, whose military has close ties with the Taliban, categorially ruled out future use of its territory for counterterrorism missions in Afghanistan after the September 11^th American withdrawal.

The prospect of China gaining ground in the aviation supply chain prompted U.S. and European leaders to resolve THIS dispute that had led to tariffs and acrimony for decades.

The World Health Organization (WHO) head Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus  announced the end of THIS disease outbreak in Guinea, “thanks to the lessons learned … and new vaccines.”

Israel resumed air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza following THIS provocation.