Euobserver.com

More deaths due to unsafe rubber dinghies after EU naval operation destroyed wooden boats, Amnesty International has said.

Sanctions imposed on Russia are a "covert form" of protectionism, president Vladimir Putin wrote in the German daily Handelsblatt on Thursday, ahead of the G20 summit. Putin argued that protectionism was becoming widespread. "Unilaterally imposed and politically motivated sanctions on investment, trade and, in particular, technology transfer become its covert form," Putin wrote. He went on to state that sanctions have "no perspective" and contradict G20 principles.

British prime minister Theresa May will hold a bilateral meeting with US president Donald Trump at the G20 summit on Friday in Hamburg, a British official told Reuters on Wednesday. The two will discuss the potential missile crisis in North Korea, and May will tell Trump that the Paris climate accord does not need to be renegotiated. Trump will hold another bilateral meeting that day with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

MEPs gave the green light on Wednesday to start talks with member states on new anti-dumping trade rules. Talks will begin on 12 July. The new rules, on the method of calculating import duties for all World Trade Organization (WTO) members, were proposed by the European Commission last May as a way of circumventing China's claim for market economy status and its possible unfair trade practices.

Russia and China bond over anti-Western rhetoric and the shared interest of keeping the US at bay, but beyond that, there is little that binds Moscow and Beijing together.