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An Agence France-Presse photographer was recovering Monday after he was shot in the face with a rubber bullet by law enforcement during their standoff with protesters in downtown Los Angeles.The photographer was covering demonstrations on Saturday — part of the many rallies across the country against US President Donald Trump.He was struck twice by rubber bullets fired by authorities when they abruptly moved in to disperse protesters, and had to be treated in hospital for his injuries.”I was covering the protest … approximately 90 feet away from the police when I received the impact of a rubber bullet in my face and another one in my right arm,” he recalled.The photographer, who asked to remain anonymous, said he was clearly identified as a journalist. “I was working with two cameras, a helmet with AFP stickers on it and also, I had a big patch on my chest that said ‘Press,'” he added.Los Angeles Police Department did not acknowledge firing at the photographer but said it had sought to clear protesters after declaring an unlawful assembly. “Following the dispersal order, less-lethal munitions were used to clear the area of those who refused to comply and leave the area,” it told AFP in a statement. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which also policed the protest, said it was reviewing footage of the incident but added it was “not clear whether our personnel were involved.””The LASD does not condone any actions that intentionally target members of the press,” it said.Saturday’s rally was the largest of the protests that began in Los Angeles on June 6 and have continued daily ever since.They first erupted in anger at raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has been ordered by the Trump administration to target undocumented migrants across the sprawling, heavily Latino city.The demonstrations have been mostly peaceful and confined to a small section of downtown Los Angeles. But at times they have spiraled into violence that Trump has pounced on to send 4,000 National Guard and 700 Marines into the city — a move loudly protested by local officials.Other journalists have also been injured during the protests.The Guardian newspaper reported that a British photographer had to undergo emergency surgery after he was shot in the leg by a non-lethal round on June 7.Meanwhile, an Australian reporter was hit in the leg by a rubber bullet while she was reporting on live television on June 8, an incident slammed by the country’s prime minister as “horrific.”And the New York Post said its photographer was shot in the head with a rubber bullet, also during the June 8 clashes.

The main doctor charged in connection with the drug overdose of “Friends” star Matthew Perry is expected to enter a guilty plea in the coming weeks, the US Justice Department said Monday. Salvador Plasencia “has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison,” the department said in a statement.The second doctor in the case, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty last October to conspiring to distribute ketamine in the weeks before the actor was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in 2023.Perry’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of “Friends” fans.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.”I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message presented by prosecutors.He went to Perry’s home to administer ketamine by injection, according to a plea deal published Monday by the Justice Department.In total, Plasencia distributed 20 vials of ketamine over a roughly two-week period in autumn 2023, the document said.Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug. – Dark struggle -Five people have been charged over Perry’s death. Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, is charged with selling Perry the dose that killed him. She has pleaded not guilty. Perry’s live-in personal assistant and another man pleaded guilty last August to charges of conspiracy to distribute ketamine.Comedic television series “Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive global following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

Harmful content including hate speech has surged across Meta’s platforms since the company ended third-party fact-checking in the United States and eased moderation policies, a survey showed Monday.The survey of around 7,000 active users on Instagram, Facebook and Threads comes after the Palo Alto company ditched US fact-checkers in January and turned over the task of debunking falsehoods to ordinary users under a model known as “Community Notes,” popularized by X.The decision was widely seen as an attempt to appease President Donald Trump’s new administration, whose conservative support base has long complained that fact-checking on tech platforms was a way to curtail free speech and censor right-wing content.Meta also rolled back restrictions around topics such as gender and sexual identity. The tech giant’s updated community guidelines said its platforms would permit users to accuse people of “mental illness” or “abnormality” based on their gender or sexual orientation.”These policy shifts signified a dramatic reversal of content moderation standards the company had built over nearly a decade,” said the survey published by digital and human rights groups including UltraViolet, GLAAD, and All Out.”Among our survey population of approximately 7,000 active users, we found stark evidence of increased harmful content, decreased freedom of expression, and increased self-censorship.”One in six respondents in the survey reported being the victim of some form of gender-based or sexual violence on Meta platforms, while 66 percent said they had witnessed harmful content such as hateful or violent material.Ninety-two percent of surveyed users said they were concerned about increasing harmful content and felt “less protected from being exposed to or targeted by” such material on Meta’s platforms.Seventy-seven percent of respondents described feeling “less safe” expressing themselves freely.The company declined to comment on the survey.In its most recent quarterly report, published in May, Meta insisted that the changes in January had left a minimal impact.”Following the changes announced in January we’ve cut enforcement mistakes in the US in half, while during that same time period the low prevalence of violating content on the platform remained largely unchanged for most problem areas,” the report said.But the groups behind the survey insisted that the report did not reflect users’ experiences of targeted hate and harassment.”Social media is not just a place we ‘go’ anymore. It’s a place we live, work, and play. That’s why it’s more crucial than ever to ensure that all people can safely access these spaces and freely express themselves without fear of retribution,” Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet, told AFP.”But after helping to set a standard for content moderation online for nearly a decade, (chief executive) Mark Zuckerberg decided to move his company backwards, abandoning vulnerable users in the process. “Facebook and Instagram already had an equity problem. Now, it’s out of control,” Sherman added.The groups implored Meta to hire an independent third party to “formally analyze changes in harmful content facilitated by the policy changes” made in January, and for the tech giant to swiftly reinstate the content moderation standards that were in place earlier.The International Fact-Checking Network has previously warned of devastating consequences if Meta broadens its policy shift related to fact-checkers beyond US borders to the company’s programs covering more than 100 countries.AFP currently works in 26 languages with Meta’s fact-checking program, including in Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.

US President Donald Trump on Monday warned Iran to make a deal as Israel pounds the country, but he held back on working with fellow Group of Seven leaders to issue a joint call to encourage de-escalation.Host Canada had designed the summit in the Rockies resort of Kananaskis to paper over differences within the bloc of major industrial democracies, as Trump returns to the global stage in his norm-shattering second term.But two days before the summit, Israel launched a surprise, massive military attack on Iran, which had been in negotiations with the Trump administration over the cleric-run state’s contested nuclear program.Trump, who has praised Israel’s strikes despite his stated preference for diplomacy, said Iran would be “foolish” not to agree to a negotiated settlement.”It’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late,” Trump told reporters as he met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.Israel has struck major nuclear and military sites and killed leading commanders and nuclear scientists in Iran, which has responded with its own volley of drones and missiles on Israel.Canada and European leaders have looked to draft a statement on the crisis, but diplomats said that Trump has not committed the United States to joining it.”It’ll be up to the American side to decide whether we’re going to have a G7 statement on the Middle East or not,” German government spokesman Stefan Kornelius said.- Pressure on Iran -Any statement would be expected to put the onus on Iran and stop short of calling for an immediate ceasefire.”We’ll highlight the legitimate right of the state of Israel to defend itself and we will also discuss potential additional measures to reach a diplomatic solution,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that G7 leaders share concern about Iran’s nuclear program but also: “I do think there’s a consensus for de-escalation.”Unusually, Japan — which has historic relations with Iran and limited domestic pressure related to the Middle East — has broken with its Western allies to condemn Israel’s attack, calling it “completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable.”Iran, since Trump pulled out of an earlier nuclear deal in 2018, has ramped up uranium enrichment but not yet at levels to create an atomic bomb. Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons but does not acknowledge them publicly.- Easing tensions with Trump -The summit at a wooded lodge under snow-topped mountains comes after months of tumult on the global stage since Trump’s return.Trump, seeking to shatter a decades-old US-led global economic order, has vowed sweeping tariffs on friends and foes alike although he has postponed implementation until July 9.But Trump voiced optimism about a resolution with Canada and signed documents with Starmer to confirm an agreement with Britain, which he mistakenly called the European Union at one point.Trump opened a folder to display signed documents with Starmer, only for the paperwork to slide out across the ground.”Oops, sorry about that,” Trump said, as Starmer scrabbled to pick up the loose sheets. Trump has previously mocked host Canada, stating that the vast but less populated neighbor should become the 51st US state.But Trump has appeared to show more respect to Canada since Carney, a staid former central banker, took over from the more flamboyant Justin Trudeau in March.Trump was “very respectful” and spoke of “how much he likes Canada,” said the country’s ambassador to Washington, Kirsten Hillman.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to join the G7 talks on Tuesday and to speak to Trump, who had initially tried to force him into a deal with Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.Trump has since voiced frustration that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not accepted a US proposal for a ceasefire. The US president has previously mused about readmitting Russia to the G8, from which it was expelled in 2014 after invading and annexing Ukraine’s region of Crimea, triggering a war which accelerated in 2022 with a full-scale Russian invasion.Trump said Monday that Putin was “very insulted” by the G8 expulsion and that if Russia were still a member, “you wouldn’t have a war right now.”

The main doctor charged in connection with the drug overdose of American-Canadian actor and “Friends” star Matthew Perry is expected to enter a guilty plea in the coming weeks, the US Justice Department said Monday. Salvador Plasencia “has agreed to plead guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine, which carries a statutory maximum sentence of 40 years in federal prison,” the department said in a statement.The second doctor in the case, Mark Chavez, pleaded guilty last October to conspiring to distribute ketamine in the weeks before the actor was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in 2023.Perry’s lengthy struggles with substance addiction were well-documented, but his death at age 54 sent shockwaves through the global legions of “Friends” fans.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered the actor had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the desperate star at hugely inflated prices.Jasveen Sangha, the alleged “Ketamine Queen” who supplied drugs to high-end clients and celebrities, is charged with selling Perry the dose that killed him. She has pleaded not guilty. Comedic television series “Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive global following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

The suspected killer of a Minnesota lawmaker could face the death penalty, US prosecutors said Monday as they revealed chilling details of an alleged murderous nighttime spree targeting local Democrats.Vance Boelter, 57, faces six federal charges, including two counts of murder by firearm, punishable by life imprisonment or the death penalty, acting US Attorney for the District of Minnesota Joe Thompson told a press conference in Minneapolis. Thompson gave a shocking account of Boelter’s alleged activities in the early hours of Saturday, revealing that he went to the homes of four state politicians — all of them Democrats — not only the two previously reported.”It is no exaggeration to say his crimes are the stuff of nightmares. Boelter stalked his victims like prey. He went to their homes, held himself out as a police officer, and shot them in cold blood,” Thompson said.The rampage began with the shooting of state Senator John Hoffman and his wife and ended with the killing of Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband. But it had two other stops in between, Thompson added.After shooting the Hoffmans, clad in a black tactical vest, body armor and a silicon mask, Boelter banged on the door of a politician’s home in the Minneapolis suburb of Maple Grove, but found no one home, Thompson said. He then travelled to a home in the adjacent town of New Hope, but left after he was spotted by a police officer, Thompson said.”The Department of Justice will prosecute this suspect to the fullest extent of the law and if convicted deliver severe consequences for his alleged crimes,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.  The 57-year-old appeared in a federal court in Saint Paul, Minnesota on Monday and a federal judge ordered him to remain in custody, US media reported.  – Security camera footage -State Senator Hoffman and his wife were continuing to heal, their family said in a statement cited by ABC News. Both were struck multiple times by bullets.  Citing security camera footage, US attorney Thompson described how the suspect banged on the Hoffmans’ door and shined a flashlight in their faces before forcing himself inside and shooting them. Boelter was taken into custody after a 48-hour manhunt in a rural area about an hour southwest of Minneapolis, police and state officials said.SWAT teams used drones to identify the suspect’s location, and officers crawled through ditches in the area’s farm fields to confine him, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported. – ‘This cannot be the norm’ -A notebook containing the names of other lawmakers and potential targets was found inside a car left by Boelter at the Hortmans’ home.The attacks renewed fears of growing political violence in America.The United States is bitterly divided politically as President Donald Trump embarks on his second term, implementing hardline policies and routinely insulting his opponents. Political violence has become more common.Trump himself survived an assassination attempt last year, with a second attempt foiled by law enforcement. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set on fire this year. An assailant with a hammer attacked the husband of then-US House speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2022. “(This is) a moment in this country where we watch violence erupt,” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said after the arrest.”This cannot be the norm. It cannot be the way that we deal with our political differences.”Trump has condemned the attacks in Minnesota on the lawmakers and their spouses.The president was asked in an interview with ABC News if he planned to call Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s running mate in the election Trump won last year.”Well, it’s a terrible thing. I think he’s a terrible governor. I think he’s a grossly incompetent person,” Trump said. “But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too.”

Stocks rose and oil prices retreated Monday as fears of a wider Middle East conflict eased even as Israel and Iran pounded each other with missiles for a fourth day.The dollar dipped against the euro and pound, while safe-haven gold declined slightly.”As things stand, investors seem less fearful than they were going into the weekend of the possibility that the war between Israel and Iran spreads across the Middle East, and beyond,” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at financial services provider Trade Nation.”It appears that most of the Israeli airstrikes and missile launches avoided the most significant parts of Iran’s energy infrastructure. And so far Iran’s retaliation has done relatively little damage,” he added.Wall Street’s main stock indices pushed higher, with the broad-based S&P 500 finishing up nearly one percent after spending the entire day in positive territory.In Europe, London, Paris and Frankfurt all closed the day with gains.They tracked gains in Asia, where Tokyo closed up 1.3 percent, boosted by a weaker yen, while Hong Kong and Shanghai also advanced.Israel’s surprise strike against Iranian military and nuclear sites on Friday — killing top commanders and scientists — sent crude prices soaring as much as 13 percent at one point on fears about supplies from the region.However, concerns over the conflict spreading appeared to have receded, with both main oil contracts declining on Monday.”Unpleasant as it is to watch two sides trade missiles on a sustained basis, so long as the Straits of Hormuz remain quiescent it is hard to envisage a scenario where Friday’s gains can be sustained,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG.Analysts said the recent decision by the OPEC+ group of crude producing nations, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, to raise output again in July also played a role.”There may need to be a major escalation in the conflict before we get another sharp upswing in oil and gold prices,” said Kathleen Brooks, research director at trading group XTB.Investors were gearing up for monetary policy decisions this week from the US Federal Reserve, Bank of England and Bank of Japan.All are expected to hold steady but traders will be keeping a close watch on their statements for clues on interest-rate outlooks, with US officials under pressure from President Donald Trump to cut borrowing costs.Also in focus is the G7 summit in the Canadian Rockies, which kicked off Sunday, where the Middle East crisis will be discussed along with trade after Trump’s tariff blitz.In corporate news, shares in Nippon Steel rose more than three percent in Tokyo after Trump on Friday signed an executive order approving its $14.9 billion merger with US Steel, bringing an end to the long-running saga. US Steel advanced 5.1 percent.Shares in Gucci owner Kering climbed almost 12 percent in Parison reports that the outgoing boss of French automaker Renault would take over as chief executive of the struggling luxury group.Kering announced the appointment after European markets closed.Renault shares slumped 8.7 percent, following its announcement on Sunday that Luca de Meo would step down in July. – Key figures at around 2030 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.8 percent at 42,515.09 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.9 percent at 6,033.11 (close)New York – Nasdaq: UP 1.5 percent at 19,701.21 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.3 percent at 8,875.22 (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 0.8 percent at 7,742.24 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 0.8 percent at 23,699.12 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 1.3 percent at 38,311.33 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: UP 0.7 percent at 24,060.99 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 3,388.73 (close)Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1562 from $1.1549 on FridayPound/dollar: UP at $1.3579 from $1.3571Dollar/yen: UP at 144.79 yen from 144.07 yenEuro/pound: UP at 85.12 pence from 85.10 penceWest Texas Intermediate: DOWN 1.7 percent at $71.77 per barrelBrent North Sea Crude: DOWN 1.4 percent at $73.23 per barrelburs-jmb/des

Gender equality, climate change, biodiversity, poverty, health, gay rights and more — the list of issues missing at the Canada G7 from past summits is long.The G7 gathering has been carefully planned to ensure US President Donald Trump agreed to attend at all and Canada is keen to avoid a public dust-up.Official agenda items are the global economic outlook and energy security, with organizers naming priorities as critical mineral supply chains and AI adoption, as well as “international peace and security.”Last year’s Group of Seven summit in Italy, when Joe Biden was US president, ended with a joint declaration promising better ties with Africa, action on poverty, and determination to tackle “the triple crisis of climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.”Such subjects are almost totally absent at the G7 talks this year in order to placate Trump, said John Kirton of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto.”There’s no point in putting them on the agenda if the Americans will just refuse to discuss them. And if you put too many of them on, Trump wouldn’t even come,” he said.Kirton added that the schedule was also crowded out by crises from Ukraine to the Middle East, with G7 nations increasingly concerned with defense spending rather than development aid.For the G7 — founded 50 years ago by the world’s leading economies at the time — such a lurch in priorities poses major questions about the club’s purpose and future.But, for the Trump administration, the group is just returning to its original function of promoting global economic stability and growth.”Canada knows its audience and if it wants a unified outcome of this year’s G7 leaders summit then it should stick close to traditional G7 values while avoiding controversial topics,” said Caitlin Welsh of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.- ‘Retreat’ from world problems -The impact on the ground has alarmed many campaigners who say the G7 reduction of foreign aid is hitting millions of world’s poorest, threatening food supplies, water, education and health.”The G7’s retreat from the world is unprecedented and couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.“Rather than breaking from the Trump administration’s cruel dismantling of USAID and other US foreign assistance, G7 countries like the UK, Germany and France are instead following the same path.”Oxfam calculated that G7 nations, which provide three-quarters of all official development assistance, are cutting aid by 28 percent between 2024 and 2026.No joint communique is expected at the end of the summit on Tuesday to avoid the potential failure for all members to agree on the text. But there is one way that the non-US members of the G7 are fighting back — discreetly.An unexpected item on the agenda is to “boost collaboration to prevent, fight and recover from wildfires.”The wildfire issue “allows us to talk about climate change without saying it directly because we know that unfortunately not everyone likes it,” a Canadian official speaking anonymously told AFP.Both Canada and the United States are increasingly affected by major forest fires — worsened by climate change — including blazes that burnt down swathes of Los Angeles earlier this year.Professor Kirton said the wildfires agenda tactic was “clever rather than sneaky.””They saw wildfires as a point of entry, and one that would work with Donald Trump.”Kirton highlighted that wildfires are currently causing damage across the US states of North and South Carolina, both Trump heartlands.”That’s getting into his MAGA base,” he said.

A judge on Monday extended a restraining order pausing Donald Trump’s ban on Harvard bringing in and hosting foreign students as part of the US president’s escalating campaign against the elite university. Trump has tried a host of different tactics to block the Ivy League institution enrolling and educating international students.They have included seeking to remove Harvard from an electronic student immigration registry, and instructing foreign embassies to deny visas to students hoping to attend the Massachusetts-based university.Harvard had sued the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies to block the efforts, arguing that they were illegal and unconstitutional.It previously secured a temporary restraining order against the government, which federal Judge Allison Burroughs extended Monday at a hearing in Boston.International students accounted for 27 percent of total enrollment at Harvard in the 2024-2025 academic year and are a major source of income.”Court takes matter under advisement. Current temporary restraining order will stay in effect through June 23,” the court clerk wrote on the electronic case docket.The halt on the Trump administration’s crackdown on Harvard’s foreign enrollees will be in force until Burroughs decides whether to further extend it with a preliminary injunction.In court filings, Harvard has argued that Trump’s actions were “part of a concerted and escalating campaign of retaliation by the government in clear retribution for Harvard’s exercising its First Amendment rights to reject the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the ‘ideology’ of its faculty and students.”Alongside the campaign against Harvard’s foreign students, the Trump administration has also cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting the university and pledged to exclude it from any future federal funding.Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump’s campaign against top universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and “viewpoint diversity.” Trump and his allies argue Harvard and other prestigious universities are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism.

US President Donald Trump on Monday warned Iran, which Israel is pounding, to re-enter negotiations “before it’s too late” as Group of Seven leaders considered a joint call for de-escalation.Host Canada had designed the summit in the Rockies resort of Kananaskis to paper over differences within the bloc of major industrial democracies, as Trump returns to the global stage in his norm-shattering second term.But two days before the summit, Israel launched a surprise, massive military attack on Iran, which had been in negotiations with the Trump administration over the cleric-run state’s contested nuclear program.Trump, who has praised Israel’s strikes despite his stated preference for diplomacy, said he believed a negotiated settlement remained “achievable.””It’s painful for both parties, but I’d say Iran is not winning this war, and they should talk, and they should talk immediately, before it’s too late,” Trump told reporters as he met Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.Israel has struck major nuclear and military sites and killed leading commanders and nuclear scientists in Iran, which has responded with its own volley of drones and missiles on Israel.Canada and European leaders have looked to draft a statement on the crisis, although it looks set to stop short of demanding a ceasefire.Leaders will discuss the statement Monday evening, a diplomat said.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that G7 leaders share concern about Iran’s nuclear program but there is “absolutely a focus on how we de-escalate this and that will be a central focus as we go into the talks.””I do think there’s a consensus for de-escalation,” Starmer told reporters.- Pressure on Iran -German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that a text being put forward by the Europeans would put the onus on Iran.”We’ll highlight again that Iran must never possess material that would allow it to produce nuclear weapons,” Merz said.”We’ll highlight the legitimate right of the state of Israel to defend itself and we will also discuss potential additional measures to reach a diplomatic solution,” he said.Unusually, Japan — which has historic relations with Iran and limited domestic pressure on the Middle East — has broken with its Western allies and is the only G7 nation that has criticized Israel.Israel’s strikes while diplomacy was ongoing were “completely unacceptable and deeply regrettable,” Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said.Iran, since Trump pulled out of an earlier nuclear deal in 2018, has ramped up uranium enrichment but not at levels to create a number bomb. Israel is widely known to have nuclear weapons but does not acknowledge them publicly.- ‘I’m a tariff person’ -The summit at a wooded resort under still snow-topped mountains comes after months of tumult on the global stage since Trump’s return.Trump, seeking to shatter a decades-old US-led global economic order, has vowed sweeping tariffs on friends and foes alike although he has postponed implementation until July 9.Trump has also mocked host Canada, imposing economic pressure and repeatedly stating that the vast but less populated neighbor should become the 51st US state.Trump said he was optimistic about reaching a solution on trade as he met Carney, a staid former central banker who has appeared to win more respect from the US leader since succeeding the flashier Justin Trudeau in March.”I’m a tariff person,” Trump told Carney. “It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s precise, and it just goes very quickly.””I think Mark has a more complex idea, but also very good.”Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to join the G7 talks on Tuesday and to speak to Trump, who had initially tried to force him into a deal with Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.Trump has since voiced frustration that Russian President Vladimir Putin has not accepted a US proposal for a ceasefire. The US president has previously mused about readmitting Russia to the G8, from which it was expelled in 2014 after invading and annexing Ukraine’s region of Crimea, triggering a war which accelerated in 2022 with a full-scale Russian invasion.Trump said Monday that Putin was “very insulted” by the G8 expulsion and that if Russia were still a member, “you wouldn’t have a war right now.”