World News Roundup: G7 nations agree to boost climate finance, details missing; Putin says Russia would accept conditional handover of cyber criminals to U.S. and more

Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo gave the clearest indication yet that the pardons of the Catalan separatists were "close" in an interview published on Sunday with La Vanguardia newspaper, but the issue has bitterly divided Spaniards. G7 nations agree to boost climate finance, details missing G7 leaders agreed on Sunday to raise their contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of $100 billion a year to help poorer countries cut carbon emissions and cope with global warming, but campaigners said firm cash promises were missing.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Thousands protest against Spain's possible pardons for jailed Catalan leaders

Tens of thousands of Spaniards protested in Madrid on Sunday against government plans to pardon 12 Catalan politicians who were convicted over the region's failed independence bid in 2017, a move the demonstrators see as a threat to national unity. Spain's Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo gave the clearest indication yet that the pardons of the Catalan separatists were "close" in an interview published on Sunday with La Vanguardia newspaper, but the issue has bitterly divided Spaniards.

G7 nations agree to boost climate finance, details missing

G7 leaders agreed on Sunday to raise their contributions to meet an overdue spending pledge of $100 billion a year to help poorer countries cut carbon emissions and cope with global warming, but campaigners said firm cash promises were missing. Alongside plans billed as helping speed infrastructure funding in developing countries and a shift to renewable and sustainable technology, the world's seven largest advanced economies again pledged to meet the climate finance target.

Putin says Russia would accept conditional handover of cyber criminals to U.S.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would be ready to hand over cybercriminals to the United States if Washington did the same for Moscow and the two powers reached an agreement to that effect. Putin made the comments in an interview aired in excerpts on state television on Sunday ahead of a June 16 summit with U.S. President Joe Biden in Geneva. Ties between the powers are badly strained over an array of issues.

Swiss voters look set to reject law to help cut carbon emissions

Swiss voters look set to reject a new law which would help the country meet its goals under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, according to early indications by national broadcaster SRF on Sunday. Projections showed 51% of voters had voted against the new CO2 law in a nationwide referendum conducted under the country's system of direct democracy. A final result is expected later in the day.

EU and UK's 'sausage war' sizzles at G7 as Macron and Johnson spar

Tensions between Britain and the European Union over their Brexit trade deal exploded into an open war of words on Sunday, with both sides accusing the other of sowing disharmony at the Group of Seven summit. Ever since the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in 2016, the two sides have been trying to solve the riddle of what to do about the British province of Northern Ireland which has a land border with EU member Ireland.

With Trump gone, NATO wages war on climate threat

If the U.S. military were a nation state, it would be the world's 47th largest emitter of planet-warming greenhouse gases, a 2019 study found. Though the British universities of Lancaster and Durham took account only of emissions from fuel usage in their study, it pointed to the huge impact that armed forces across the globe are having on the earth's climate.

G7 calls out China over Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan - draft communique

Group of Seven leaders called on China to respect human rights in its Xinjiang region, allow Hong Kong a high degree of autonomy and refrain from any unilateral action that could destabilise the East and South China Seas, according to a draft version of the G7 summit communique seen by Reuters. The re-emergence of China as a leading global power is considered to be one of the most significant geopolitical events of recent times, alongside the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union that ended the Cold War.

Israel's Knesset set to vote on new government, ending Netanyahu's rule

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's record 12-year hold on power was set to end on Sunday when parliament votes on a new government, ushering in an administration that has pledged to heal a nation bitterly divided over his departure. Netanyahu, the most dominant Israeli politician of his generation, had failed to form a government after a March 23 election, the fourth in two years.

Analysis-G7’s billion vaccine plan counts some past pledges, limiting impact

A G7 plan to donate 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses to poorer countries will have limited impact because it includes some previous pledges, but it still offers a small lifeline to a global vaccine buying system, some experts said. Leaders from the Group of Seven major economies announced the move on Friday. A U.S. initiative announced on Thursday to donate 500 million doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech SE vaccine is part of the G7 pledge.

Erdogan says he and Biden must leave troubles behind at NATO meeting

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said that he and U.S. President Joe Biden must use a Monday meeting to move on from past troubles, including a bitter dispute over Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missiles. Before traveling to Brussels for a NATO summit, including his first meeting with Biden since last year's U.S. election, Erdogan told reporters he would raise the White House decision to recognise the 1915 massacres of Armenians by Ottomans as genocide, which had angered Turkey

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