Latest / Apple News Today / Biden’s open to meeting Putin. Here are the risks.

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Biden’s open to meeting Putin. Here are the risks. · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Monday, February 21st. I'm Shumita Basu.
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  Duarte Geraldino, Narrating: And I'm Duarte Geraldino. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news, and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  Basu: President Biden is agreeing "in principle" to a summit meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. That's if Russia does not invade Ukraine. It's the latest in last-minute diplomacy aimed at stopping a potential war, as tens of thousands of Russian troops are on high alert close to Ukraine's borders.
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  Geraldino: The White House says any summit would happen only after a planned meeting Thursday between U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The administration says it's still planning to impose severe consequences if Russia goes to war with Ukraine. And it says Russian troops appear to be prepping for a full-scale assault. On Sunday, Blinken told "CNN" his meeting with Lavrov won't happen if Russia attacks.
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  Antony Blinken: It all depends on what Russia does in the coming days. If it doesn't invade, I'll be there. I hope he'll be there too. And I will do everything I can to see if we can advance a diplomatic resolution to this crisis created by Russia and its aggression against Ukraine.
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  Russia says there's no concrete plans for a Biden-Putin summit. If it happens, it could be risky for Biden. "CNN" helps us understand what's at stake here. If there's ultimately war, Biden could be criticized no matter what approach he takes. He'd be seen as ineffective if Putin attacks Ukraine after a summit. But here's the thing, if he refused a summit, Biden could be seen as failing to have tried diplomacy.
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  Basu: There's also the worry that by meeting Putin, he sort of gives him a win: the prestige of a meeting with a U.S. president. The question of whether an authoritarian leader deserves a meeting like this has dogged other presidents. Trump was criticized for meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un.
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  Geraldino: "CNN" says it appears like Putin wants a return to a Cold War arrangement. Back then, the U.S. and Soviet Union were the global superpowers. A summit with Biden may evoke that image for Putin, which could be something of a propaganda win. Though this possible meeting was set up by France, so it's not exactly a Reagan-Gorbachev moment.
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  Basu: The West is far apart from Russia, which wants assurance Ukraine will never join NATO and troops and weapons out of NATO member states near Russia. The U.S. and allies have rejected Russian conditions. It's not clear how a summit could bridge that gap.
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  Geraldino: So, in movies, Americans kidnapped abroad are taken by bandits, gangs, you fill in the blank. But in real life, the growing trend is that governments are doing the kidnapping. Of dozens of Americans known to be held, around 90% are unlawfully detained by states. "The New Yorker" reports on what one political scientist calls "hostage diplomacy." That's when a state holds foreigners hostage to achieve a certain foreign-policy outcome.
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  Basu: This is what happened to Danny Fenster, an American journalist who moved to Myanmar to edit a local paper. Last spring, he was stopped at the airport and interrogated about his connections to a news agency he used to work for. That outlet was critical of the military, which had taken over the country in a coup. Fenster says he tried to explain that he worked for a different news site now, but it didn't matter. He was under investigation for "unlawful association." He was blindfolded, shackled and jailed.
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  Geraldino: Joel Simon was in touch with Fenster and wrote about this for "The New Yorker." Simon used to run the Committee to Protect Journalists.
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  Joel Simon: Danny was confined to a small cell with a tiny window and a metal gate that opened into a courtyard. He told me that he was able to sort of maintain his sanity just by reading.
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  Simon explains Fenster became a bargaining chip for the military. They would use his arrest to force the Biden administration to acknowledge them, something Biden had refused to do.
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  Simon: It's very complicated to negotiate with governments that take Americans hostage. The government understands that it can't allow American citizens to languish in jail and it needs to do what it can to try and bring them back. But it does not want to make any significant policy concessions, both because that might undermine U.S. strategic interests and also because it might encourage other countries to take Americans hostage.
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  Basu: This rise in state-sponsored kidnapping began during Obama's term in office and continued under Trump. The U.S. has this policy: it won't negotiate with terrorists. But negotiating with other states for the release of hostages is different. It's also tricky when it comes to optics.
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  Simon: Trump saw the political benefit of bringing Americans home and did negotiate, particularly with governments that take American hostage. And while the Trump administration, in many instances, deserve credit, taking the credit in such a public manner can actually increase the risk of further hostage taking.
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  Geraldino: Danny Fenster was finally released after being held for almost six months in Myanmar. Simon told us, even though the military junta did not get anything specific in exchange for Fenster's freedom, this was a demonstration of power. It showed its internal enemies the junta was willing to stand up to pressure from the U.S. and the world.
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  Should minors be allowed to get a COVID vaccine on their own, without their parent's permission? A lot of states are grappling with that question as some teenagers say their parents might be against the vaccine, but they're not.
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  Basu: According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, nearly a third of parents said they will "definitely not" vaccinate their children. That was the case in Nicolas Montero's household. He's 16, a junior in high school. Here's what he told "NPR."
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  Nicolas Montero: They did tell me that they would refuse to allow me to get the vaccinate. They basically forbade it for me, yeah.
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  Geraldino: So one day, Montero jumped on a bus and traveled from his home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to visit his aunt in Philadelphia. That city allows children 11 or older to be vaccinated without parental consent.
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  Basu: The rules are different depending on the city or the state. As "NPR" reports, in Rhode Island and South Carolina, you have to be at least 16 years old to get a COVID vaccine on your own. But in many states, you need a parent to sign off.
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  Geraldino: Montero wrote an op-ed in his high school newspaper advocating for Pennsylvania to lower the age of consent to 14. In the op-ed, he says he sympathizes with his parents and calls them victims of misinformation about the vaccines. And he told "NPR" parents' views shouldn't prevent kids from keeping themselves safe from COVID.
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  Nicolas Montero: I believe that it's necessary for teenagers like me to be able to make their own medical decisions, especially in the middle of a pandemic. I mean, I feel as though it was a commonsense choice for me. It's either get vaccinated or get sick.
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  Basu: Eventually, Montero's parents found out that he had gotten vaccinated. The family was quarantining. He says his parents got COVID, he did not.
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  Americans are going out again: eating in restaurants, going to watch sports, getting on airplanes. But "The Wall Street Journal" crunched the data to show one place people are not in a hurry to get back to: the office. Recent numbers show, on average, only about a third of office workers are back at their desks.
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  Geraldino: That's higher than pandemic lows, but it means a lot of people are still working from home, likely for reasons other than COVID.
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  Basu: The "Journal" cites corporate surveys that show many managers are not putting a ton of pressure on workers to get back into offices. They're being careful. They don't want to do anything that might drive workers away during a labor shortage. And studies show staffers can be just as productive, maybe more, when working remotely.
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  Geraldino: The "Journal" also looks at how some local politicians are trying to lean on managers to get people back to their offices. Scores of businesses that relied on office workers shut down during the pandemic, and they still haven't reopened. New York's governor said companies should offer bonuses for people who, quote, "burn the Zoom app and come back to work."
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  Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app.
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  Geraldino: And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners.
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  Basu: We'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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