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(TOKYO) — Earlier this month, the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo warned foreigners of an increase in suspected racial profiling cases involving Japanese police.

Non-Japanese people were being stopped and searched by the police, as well as being detained and interrogated under questionable circumstances, the embassy said. “U.S. citizens should carry proof of immigration and request consular notification if detained,” read an alert it posted on Twitter and Facebook.

ABC News has learned that the alert was based on multiple, credible reports of suspected racial profiling of foreigners, including American citizens.

Japan was quick to respond to the warning. The Kishida administration’s top spokesman, Hirokazu Matsuno, denied the allegation against Japan’s law enforcement, maintaining that police investigate people when they believe they have committed a crime or have exhibited suspicious behavior.

“Investigations are based on law, not nationality,” the spokesman said.

Accounts of non-Japanese people being singled out by police for questioning and searching are widespread in Japan’s foreign community. Suspects can be held for extended periods of time and many confess to charges, leading to the country’s high conviction rates.

“We have good reason to believe police officers frequently racially profile people of foreign origin,” said Junko Hayashi, an attorney with Partners Law Office in Tokyo. “We need more solid data regarding this issue. Therefore, the Tokyo Bar Association will start a survey on police questioning of people with foreign roots.”

That survey is slated to start on Jan. 11.

Suspects have rights under Japanese law, such as the right to remain silent and have legal counsel, but exercising those rights is a challenge, said Tokyo-based attorney Atsuko Nishiyama.

“You have those rights, but I hesitate in advising people to exercise them. The reason being, when a police officer stops and searches you, they are supposed to do it only when they have grounds to suspect that a crime has been committed or will be committed,” Nishiyama said. “If you actually refuse to cooperate with an officer, the police take your refusal in itself as suspicious making you a suspect. This is twisted logic.”

Nishiyama told ABC News that some foreigners who initially didn’t cooperate with a search or questioning found the situation escalating — and the number of police officers around them increasing. She noted that some foreigners in Japan feel obligated to cooperate because they are at risk of being kicked out of the country and losing their livelihood.

“I think the way the police think is fundamentally wrong. Yet, the way that they think is considered normal and acceptable,” Nishiyama said.

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(NEW YORK) — On Sunday, Eric Zemmour, a former journalist and far-right political pundit with tough views on immigration had his first campaign rally as candidate for the French presidential election. Zemmour announced the creation of his own political party, “Reconquête,” or “Reconquest,” which had already garnered 20,000 supporters in two days, according to French media outlet, BFMTV.

During his televised speech,violence broke out between Zemmour’s supporters and protesters from the organization SOS Racism. Sixty-two people were arrested according to French paper Le Parisien, including some members of SOS racism. Zemmour was also attacked by a protester in the crowd, The Associated Press reported.

Zemmour, who presents himself as a right-wing political outsider, has been referred to by some as the “French Trump,” with a political playbook full of controversial comments and attacks on the press. “For months our meetings have bothered journalists, annoyed politicians and driven mad the left,” he said at Sunday’s meeting.

The candidate exists outside traditional political parties, and uses rhetoric that even Marine Le Pen and the National Rally — the far-right party in France, formerly called the National Front — stay away from.

Zemmour has been fined for hate speech. In 2011, he was fined 10,000 euros for claiming on TV that “most drug dealers are black and Arab,” and in 2018 he was ordered to pay 3,000 euros for stigmatizing comments about a Muslim “invasion” of France, The Telegraph and other outlets reported.

“He is the only one in France to use the theory of “great replacement … even Marine Le Pen does not use that term,” said Jean Yves Camus, a political scientist and director of the Observatory for Political Radicalism, adding: “for Zemmour, the French population has been changed, and French people are now a minority on their own land.”

The theory of great replacement is an idea among France’s political far-right that French people will become minorities in their country after being replaced by immigrants.

If elected, Zemmour has said he wants to deport all immigrants convicted of crimes and incarcerated in French prisons back to their countries of origin, and take away social benefits for foreigners and immigrants who do not yet have French nationality. He also has espoused making immigrants prove they know the French language and are ready to assimilate to French culture.

Similarly to Trump, Zemmour is seen as someone who appeals to a part of the French population that is anxious about the future. “He is speaking to a French society that is particularly anxious, the most pessimistic nation in Europe … but this country is not doing so bad,” Camus said.

Zemmour’s economic plan is considered more liberal than Le Pen’s say experts who spoke with ABC News, and focuses more on the free market and the simplification of French bureaucracy, something that the experts say is appealing to upper-class voters.

But the comparison to Trump is an imperfect one, because of Zemmour’s long-standing ingratiation with the French elite. “Zemmour has the elites, Le Pen has the people,” said Nicolas Lebourg, a historian and specialist of far-right movements.

For Camus, the fact that Zemmour was a journalist for a mainstream newspaper, Le Figaro, and has been seen on television by voters for the past few decades puts him at an advantage from Marine Le Pen who cannot get out of the shadow of her father, Jean Marie Le Pen and the National Front’s extremist history.

“[Zemmour] was seen as someone on the right, resolutely conservative on the questions of identity and immigration, but he does not have a far-right history like Marine Le Pen,” says Camus.

Zemmour’s tough stand on immigration include his plans, if elected, he says to reduce the amount of immigrants and asylum seekers who are allowed to enter the country each year, and would only admit those willing to “assimilate,” although he is not clear on how he would measure assimilation. A recent report from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows that France’s population is composed of only 13% immigrants, less than its neighbors such as Germany.

Zemmour has also suggested reviving an 1803 law which was abolished in 1993 requiring parents to only give their children historically and traditionally French names.

Meanwhile, Zemmour has presented himself as a model for successful integration. “I am a Jewish man from Algeria who grew up in the Paris banlieue, and whose family heritage and readings transformed into a French man of land and ancestors,” he wrote in his latest book, “France Has Not Said its Last Word.”

A strong critic of the American “melting pot” approach to immigration, Zemmour often uses America as an anti-model. “[Zemmour] … thinks everything wrong in France is an import of everything that is wrong in America,” says Lebourg.

At an October 2020 rally in Versailles, Zemmour described “woke” culture as a plot to make “white, heterosexual, Catholic” men feel “so full of guilt” that they willingly abandon their “culture and civilization.”

The French presidential election will take place from April 10-24. The latest polls https://www.lci.fr/politique/sondage-exclusif-forte-percee-de-valerie-p… show Zemmour in fourth place after President Emmanuel Macron, Republican candidate Valerie Pecresse and Marine Le Pen.

Zemmour needs 500 signatures from local mayors to secure a place on the ballot, as per French law.

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(LIMA, Peru) — The COVID-19 pandemic spread across South America at an alarming rate in 2021, with the death toll surpassing one million in Latin America and the Caribbean in May, according to the Pan American Health Organization.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, the prevalence of hunger is now at 9.1% — the worst rate in 15 years, according to a United Nations report published in 2021.

According to the report, the prevalence of hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 2% between 2019 and 2020, with 59.7 million people in the region suffering from hunger.

Number of omicron cases in US ‘likely to rise,’ CDC director says

In a small neighborhood outside the Peruvian capital of Lima, Olinda Huamani, who is a single mother of three, has struggled to feed her children.

Huamani said she used to clean houses for a living and her children would accompany her to work, but due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, she lost her source of income.

“We don’t have anything. Everything you see has been tossed out by others and were picked up from the trash,” she told ABC News.

“I would go to the garbage to look and would think there would be COVID in the trash but thankfully I didn’t get it. I would wash the fruit. I would wash it with hot water so my kids wouldn’t get sick and they didn’t. Only God protected us.”

Huamani’s family is one of millions in Latin American and the Caribbean who are dealing with hunger and in Peru, the situation is particularly dire.

According to a study by the COVID-19 resource center at Johns Hopkins University, Peru has the worst death rate per capita than any other nation in the world, with more than 600 deaths from the virus for every 100,000 residents. Meanwhile, in the United States there are 242 COVID deaths per 100,000 people, the study shows.

Patients overwhelmed the health care system, despite closed borders and nationwide lockdowns and amid the pandemic, the poverty crisis in Peru intensified and millions more faced hunger due to a rise in poverty.

In 2020, 30.1% of Peru’s population was affected by poverty – an increase of 9.9% since 2019, according to local statistics.

Victor Zamora, a former Peruvian health minister, told ABC News that there’s “hope” because the vaccination campaign has helped the situation, but people have yet to recover economically.

“I hope our leaders in Peru; economic and political, social leaders will find a way to lead the country out of this very poor situation,” he said.

The surge in poverty has made food distribution centers like Olla Comun, which means the “community pot,” essential for some families to survive.

“Sometimes we only think about kids but older adults need to be fed also to have a better quality of life,” a staff member at Olla Comun told ABC News.

Leybi Barrios Briceno, a mother to three young children, told ABC News that she had to move with her children to an orphanage so that they can have access to food and a safe place to spend the night.

“Someone I know told me about this place. Surely they saw I had nowhere to go or anything to eat so I came here and immediately they opened their doors to me,” she said.

“I don’t think any mother wants to sleep on the street with her kids and run the risk of them getting sick, hurt, kidnapped — all of that is scary.”

Meanwhile, Huamani is hoping that 2022 will bring better days for her and her family.

“Hopefully next year things get better. I have the hope they do,” she said.

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(LONDON) — Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, have shared with the public their 2021 Christmas card photo.

The photo shows William, Kate and their three children, Prince George, 8, Princess Charlotte, 6, and Prince Louis, 3, all smiling while on a trip to Jordan earlier this year.

The family is posing casually in the photo, with William, George and Louis wearing shorts and short-sleeve shirts and Kate and Charlotte each wearing a dress.

The photo was shared on William and Kate’s Instagram page Friday with the caption, “Delighted to share a new image of the family, which features on this year’s Christmas card.”

Their card last year featured the Cambridges sitting on haystacks and posing in front of stacks of firewood at Anmer Hall, the family’s country home in Norfolk, England.

Their card the previous year featured the family posing outside on a motorcycle and sidecar.

In 2018, their first Christmas as a family of five, the Cambridges’ holiday photo was another casual shot of them posing together outside at Anmer Hall.

That year’s photo was also taken by Porteous.

In 2017, the Cambridges posed for a more formal family photo.

The previous year, William and Kate chose a candid photo from their official tour of Canada for their Christmas greetings.

The Cambridges shared their first Christmas photo as a family of four in 2015, when they posed outside of Kensington Palace.

Kensington Palace has not yet publicly announced where William and Kate and their children plan to spend the Christmas holiday this year.

In past years the Cambridges have joined the royal family in spending Christmas at Sandringham, Queen Elizabeth’s estate in Norfolk.

The royals were forced to break that decades-long tradition last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

This Christmas will be the royal family’s first without Prince Philip, who died at age 99 in April.

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(NEW YORK) — The omicron variant has exponentially spread in South Africa in a short time, and now experts are warning that widespread vaccine hesitancy and the lack of basic medical supplies in the region may lead to an explosive outbreak of new cases.

In just two weeks, the number of new COVID-19 cases in South Africa has surged more than 1,600%, according to an ABC News analysis of data from the National Institute for Communicable Disease. The increase coincides with the discovery of the omicron variant in southern Africa and comes as countries around the world institute protective measures against the new strain.

“We were going through a period of actually much lower level transmission of the virus and we were getting optimistic that we might have a bit of respite again from this virus,” said Dr. Richard Lessells at the University of Kwazulu-Natal in South Africa. “Unfortunately, that did not turn out to be the case.”

Before the emergence of omicron, Lessells and a team of doctors wrote a paper on the state of COVID-19 in Africa. The last sentence in his team’s abstract warned of what could come.

“Africa must not be left behind in the global pandemic response, otherwise it could become a source for new variants,” said the paper.

Omicron now accounts for the vast majority of new cases in South Africa and has reached at least 10 other African countries and the French territory of Reunion. South Africa’s Gauteng Province — home of the major city of Johannesburg — has become the epicenter, where cases are roughly seven times higher than the nation’s other provinces, according to government data.

“I think people have all lost hope when it comes to protection from COVID-19. I think many of them have developed the mindset that ‘whatever happens, happens.’ They have lost hope and are not worried about this new variant as compared to the one before,” said Busisiwe Vilakazi, a resident of Johannesburg.

Tshwane District Vaccine Coordinator Dr. Mpho Shabangu stressed, now more than ever, the importance of getting shots in arms. She led a vaccination push in Mamelodi, a town about an hour outside of Johannesburg.

“All hands are on the deck. So what we are doing currently, we are trying also to make sure that we take vaccines to the people. We’ll go in and have a pop-up site in an area so that people can come and vaccinate,” said Shabangu.

She said that many residents in Mamelodi need to be convinced to get the vaccine.

“We are actually experiencing a lot of vaccine hesitancy. I think it’s not that people don’t want to be vaccinated. People just need more information on the vaccines, especially on the issue of safety,” said Shabangu.

“We know [there] are a few countries in Africa that have discarded some of the doses and that the simple reason is that these countries received vaccines that are near expiring with a very short shelf life,” said Dr. Richard Mihigo, the coordinator of Immunization & Vaccines Development in the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa.

As it stands, roughly 7% of Africa’s population has been vaccinated, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The benchmark set by the WHO is to have 40% of the continent’s population vaccinated by the end of the year.

Issues like logistic hurdles are hampering efforts to reach that milestone, according to the WHO Regional office for Africa.

In Kenya, where less than 6% of the country is fully inoculated, five million shots have arrived within the past two weeks.

Unvaccinated resident Julius Tuyioto said he traveled miles to a hospital, only to leave without a shot.

“While we were still standing there, we were told that the vaccine was over. So, I was discharged and was not interested in following it up again,” said Tuyioto in a statement translated to English.

Clinical officer Gerald Yiaile said their vaccine supply cannot keep up with demand.

“We’ve run out of stock five days ago. We have already ordered our supply again,” said Yiaile.

In larger cities, like Nairobi, some residents say they are not ready to roll up their sleeves. Salon owner Godfrey Maale telling ABC News he’s still not convinced the vaccine works.

Salon owner Godfrey Maale said he’s still not convinced.

“I don’t want to be vaccinated because it means nothing to me. Two of my friends got vaccinated. After [a] few days… they got [the] virus,” Maale said. “You can be vaccinated and you can get virus again, so it’s nothing.”

Mihigo, the WHO regional coordinator, said social media is aiding the spread of vaccine hesitancy.

“We’ve seen in some countries really where the influence or misinformation that has been spreading through the social media has had some devastating effects in terms of acceptance of vaccination,” said Mihigo.

Continent wide, an estimated 85% of cases in Africa go undetected, according to the WHO.

In October, UNICEF projected that Africa could be short 2.2 billion syringes in 2022.

Despite the shortfalls, Shabangu said she sees hope for the future and that more people are beginning to get vaccinated as case numbers increase.

Lessells said it’s important to remember that the pandemic is global and won’t be stopped by borders.

“This is a global pandemic and it needs a global response,” he said. “We’re all in this together and we need to act responsibly as a global community.”

ABC News’ Bea Wangondu contributed to this report.

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(CHIAPAS, Mexico) — A vehicle full of migrants overturned in Chiapas, Mexico, Thursday night, leaving 54 dead and 105 injured, authorities said.

“After the accident that occurred in Chiapa de Corzo, I inform you that unfortunately 49 people died at the scene and 5 more died while receiving medical attention in hospitals,” Chiapas Gov. Rutilio Escandón tweeted. “We have 105 injured (83 men and 22 women), care for the injured continues.”

Civil Protection Chiapas said on Twitter that the tragedy was the result of a “car accident of two trucks traveling on the Belisario Domínguez Bridge and Ribera Cauharé in Chiapa de Corzo.”

“I deeply regret the tragedy caused by the overturning of a trailer in Chiapas carrying Central American migrants. It’s very painful. I embrace the families of the victims,” Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador tweeted.

Mexico’s National Institute of Immigration also confirmed the incident on Twitter, saying it “regrets the death of migrants in the tragic accident that occurred in Chiapas.”

It said it is coordinating efforts with national, state and municipal authorities to provide consular assistance, identify bodies, cover funeral expenses and facilitate the repatriation of remains to countries of origin.

“Humanitarian attention that will be granted to the survivors will be accommodation, food and in case they accept, Visitor Cards for Humanitarian Reasons,” the institute wrote. “The INM will assist in the investigation of the accident.”

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(HONG KONG) — Hong Kong’s already-jailed media tycoon Jimmy Lai was among three prominent democracy activists convicted on Thursday for taking part in a banned gathering in June 2020 to remember the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown.

Hong Kong has a long history of commemorating June 4 — it’s traditionally a day when the city’s freedoms are on show to the world — but the Tiananmen vigil has been banned since Beijing intensified its crackdown in the city after 2019’s protests, with the Hong Kong Police dubiously citing the pandemic.

Lai, who turned 74-years-old on Wednesday, was found guilty on Thursday of inciting people to join the Tiananmen gathering. Rights lawyer Chow Hang-tung and former journalist Gwyneth Ho were also convicted of taking part in the ‘unauthorized assembly’ at Victoria Park.

Judge Amanda Woodcock said that prosecutors were able to prove that Lai and Chow encouraged others to join the vigil, citing Chow’s call for people to “light candles.” Sentencing is on Dec. 13.

Lai, the founder of now-closed pro-democracy paper Apple Daily, is currently in prison serving out sentences for other charges related to his activism. He’s also still waiting to hear charges against him under the controversial national security law.

Thursday’s ruling is another worrying sign that Hong Kong’s once vibrant civil society and independent legal system is heading down a more autocratic path, in line with mainland China.

In a statement, Amnesty International said: “The Hong Kong government has once again flouted international law by convicting activists simply for their involvement in a peaceful, socially distanced vigil for those killed by Chinese troops on 4 June 1989. The authorities have deemed the vigil ‘unlawful’ because the police did not approve it, but peaceful assembly does not need government approval. These convictions merely underline the pattern of the Hong Kong authorities’ extreme efforts to exploit the law to press multiple trumped-up charges against prominent activists.”

The group added, “People should be free to peacefully mourn and remember the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown – and to prosecute people for doing so is an egregious attack on the rights to freedom of expression and assembly.”

With many of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy politicians in jail or in exile, for the first time in history the city is holding a Legislative Council election without opposition next Sunday, Dec. 19. It’s also the first city-wide poll under Beijing’s new electoral system to ensure only Chinese ‘patriots’ run Hong Kong.

In March, it passed legislation to reduce pro-democracy representation in the legislature, introducing a pro-Beijing vetting panel to screen candidates and expanding the ratio of pro-Beijing seats. This election has been postponed twice — it was originally scheduled for September 2020 — with officials citing the pandemic.

Meanwhile Chinese and Hong Kong authorities have been trying to deflect concerns about a potential record-low voter turnout. Earlier this month, an online survey found that 40% of 6,400 people polled said they “most likely” or “absolutely” would not be casting a ballot on election day.

Seemingly in response, Hong Kong Leader Carrie Lam told the Chinese tabloid the Global Times that a low turnout rate “would not mean anything,” musing that it could mean that the public was satisfied with the government and didn’t need to vote.

Nevertheless, the potential turnout was sensitive enough that the Hong Kong government issued a threat to The Wall Street Journal after it published an editorial about the upcoming election. The editorial commented that ‘not voting’ is probably one of the remaining forms of protests left in the city. However, it is against the law to incite others to boycott the election or cast blank ballots.

Before the election was delayed, democrats held an unofficial primary poll to boost their chances of gaining a majority in the chamber. Forty-seven political figures involved in the election were arrested and charged with subversion under the security law. Since then, many other democratic politicians have quit or been disqualified over oath-taking requirements.

The pro-democracy camp had seen a surge in support during the 2019 protests, enjoying landslide wins in record turnout during the District Council election in November that year.

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(NEW YORK) — India’s military chief and his wife were among 13 killed in a helicopter crash around noon local time on Wednesday.

Gen. Bipin Rawat was traveling to Defence Services Staff College, Wellington in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to address the faculty and student officers of the Staff Course. The helicopter crashed roughly 2 miles away from the college, in Coonoor.

The Indian Air Force confirmed the crash in a thread on Twitter, calling it a “tragic accident,” adding that the vehicle was an IAF Mi 17 V5, a Soviet-designed military helicopter.

One of the 14 people aboard the aircraft survived and was being treated at a hospital.

The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known. Authorities are investigating.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Rawat “an outstanding soldier” and a “true patriot” who has greatly contributed to modernizing India’s armed forces and security apparatus.

“His insights and perspectives on strategic matters were exceptional,” Modi stated on his official Twitter account. “India will never forget his exceptional service.”

Other Indian officials express their condolences, some on social media.

“India stands united in this grief,” Rahul Gandhi, a member of the Indian National Congress, tweeted, calling the accident “an unprecedented tragedy.”

Born in 1958, Rawat became India’s first chief of defense staff, or CDS, in 2019. As the highest-ranking active duty military officer in the country, he also worked as an adviser to the minister of defense and led India’s Department of Military Affairs.

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(LONDON, U.K.) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson is facing calls to resign over reports that members of his staff attended a Christmas party last year while the country was in lockdown.

The Daily Mirror newspaper reported that the party took place on Dec. 18, 2020, which would have been illegal under the coronavirus restrictions in place at the time. Johnson has denied the allegation.

In a video leaked to ITV News, the prime minister’s press secretary can be heard joking about a Christmas Party, four days after the party was alleged to have taken place.

In the video, the prime minister’s press secretary and other staff members can be seen holding a mock press conference, discussing how they would respond to allegations that Downing Street had held a Christmas party.

“It wasn’t a party, it was cheese and wine,” one person can be heard saying, prompting laughs across the room. The leaked video prompted fury from opposition lawmakers and residents alike.

Allegra Stratton, the staff member seen in the video, resigned from her post on Wednesday.

At a weekly scheduled parliamentary session on Wednesday, Johnson repeatedly denied that a party had taken place, but he did apologize for the leaked video, saying: “I was also furious to see that clip … I apologize unreservedly for the offense it has caused up and down the country.”

Johnson said he had ordered an internal investigation into the incident, but the leader of the opposition Labour Party, Sir Keir Starmer, has called for evidence to be handed over to the police, saying the prime minister had taken the British public for “fools.”

 

There will be many people asking the Prime Minister the same heartbreaking question as Trisha:

Why did the Conservatives throw a party, when we couldn’t even see dying loved ones?#PMQs pic.twitter.com/7cdbtem6nV

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) December 8, 2021

 

“Her Majesty the Queen sat alone when she marked the passing of the man she’d been married to for 73 years,” Starmer said. “Leadership, sacrifice – that’s what gives leaders the moral authority to lead. Does the prime minister think he has the moral authority to lead and to ask the British people to stick to the rules?”

Further fallout could be on the horizon, with one lawmaker asking the prime minister about another party that may have taken place on Nov. 13, which Johnson also denied. As of June 2021, a month before social distancing measures were fully relaxed in England, a total of 366 fines had been issued in England and Wales for large gatherings, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

Critics of the prime minister say the video threatens to undermine public trust in the government, particularly at a time when new restrictions are set to be introduced to combat the spread of the omicron variant. One lawmaker, from Johnson’s own Conservative Party, went as far to suggest that the possible new restrictions, reported before the fiery exchange in Parliament, were a “diversionary tactic.”

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(UKRAINE) — President Joe Biden gave his first comments Wednesday on his video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he was “very straightforward” with the Russian leader, that “there were no minced words,” and if Putin decides to invade Ukraine, he will face consequences “like nothing he’s ever seen.”

“I was very straightforward. There were no minced words. It was polite, but I made it very clear: if in fact, he invades Ukraine, there’ll be severe consequences. Severe consequences. Economic consequences, like nothing he’s ever seen, or ever have been seen, in terms of being imposed,” Biden told reporters, after first dodging the question.

The comments come one day after a two-hour video call on Tuesday in which Biden warned Putin that the U.S. “would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation,” the White House said, as Russia builds up its forces on its border with Ukraine.

Asked about the possibility of U.S. troops on the ground in Ukraine, Biden it’s “not on the table,” but a few moments later he said it would also depend on “what the rest of the NATO countries were willing to do.”

“The idea of the United States is going to unilaterally use force to confront Russia invading Ukraine is not in the cards right now,” he said.

The president said he “made it clear” to Putin that the U.S. would “provide the defensive capability” to Ukraine and “reinforce our presence in NATO countries.”

Biden also said he expects that by Friday the U.S. and “at least four” NATO allies and Russia will be able to announce high-level meetings to discuss Russian concerns “relative to NATO writ large” and work out a deal “as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the Eastern Front.”

“The positive news is that thus far, our teams have been in constant contact,” he said. “We hope by Friday, we’re gonna be able to say., I’ll announce to you that we’re having meetings at a higher level, not just with us, but with at least four of our major NATO allies, and Russia to discuss the future of Russia’s concerns relative to NATO writ large, and whether or not we can work out any accommodations as it relates to bringing down the temperature along the Eastern Front.”

And before walking away, Biden said “I am absolutely confident he [Putin] got the message.”

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