{"id":65409,"date":"2014-11-15T18:40:43","date_gmt":"2014-11-15T18:40:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=65409"},"modified":"2014-11-15T18:40:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-15T18:40:43","slug":"russia-pressure-g20-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=65409","title":{"rendered":"Russia under pressure at G20 summit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"story_continues_1\" class=\"introduction\">Russia has been rebuked by Western leaders about its role in the Ukraine crisis, at a G20 summit in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he needed to &#8220;get out of Ukraine&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>US President Barack Obama said Moscow&#8217;s &#8220;aggression&#8221; in Ukraine was a &#8220;threat to the world&#8221;, while the UK threatened more sanctions unless Russia stopped &#8220;destabilising&#8221; its neighbour.<\/p>\n<p>The two-day summit in Brisbane is focusing on promoting economic growth.<\/p>\n<p>World leaders are expected to elaborate on plans agreed by G20 finance ministers in February to boost global growth by 2% in five years.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"cross-head\">Frosty handshake<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>However, Saturday &#8211; the first of the two-day summit &#8211; was dominated by Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists have been fighting government forces in eastern regions.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine and its Western allies have accused Russia of sending military forces across the border, something the Kremlin denies.<\/p>\n<p>The EU imposed sanctions when Russia annexed Crimea in March and has added further measures since.<\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79007000\/jpg\/_79007701_024741100-1.jpg\" alt=\"US President Barack Obama chats to German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G20 Summit, 15 November\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">Germany&#8217;s Angela Merkel and President Obama both expressed concern about Ukraine<\/div>\n<p>Before the G20 summit began, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-30066800\">UK Prime Minister David Cameron<\/a> said there would &#8220;have to be a very different relationship&#8221; between Europe and Russia if &#8220;we continue to see Russian troops&#8221; inside Ukraine, adding that there was &#8220;the potential for further sanctions&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Cameron later held a private meeting with Mr Putin. The two discussed &#8220;rebuilding relations&#8221;, Mr Putin&#8217;s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian president faced a frosty reception from Canada&#8217;s Mr Harper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll shake your hand, but I only have one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine,&#8221; Mr Harper told him, the Canadian leader&#8217;s spokesman said.<\/p>\n<p>President Obama said the US was at the forefront of &#8220;opposing Russia&#8217;s aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The BBC&#8217;s John Donnison in Brisbane says President Putin cut something of an isolated figure among the world&#8217;s powerbrokers.<\/p>\n<p>Russian officials said he was planning to leave the summit on Sunday ahead of schedule, but gave no reasons for the move.<\/p>\n<p>Meeting on the margins of the summit on Saturday, Mr Putin urged his French counterpart Francois Hollande to join him to defuse tensions between the two countries over Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>France has withheld the delivery of two warships to the Russian navy over its actions in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"cross-head\">&#8216;Message of hope&#8217;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, President Obama said Asia&#8217;s security must not be based on intimidation of small nations by big ones, but on mutual alliances.<\/p>\n<p>He did not mention China explicitly but he warned of the dangers posed by territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where Beijing&#8217;s actions have raised concern among its neighbours.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Obama said there was &#8220;no question&#8221; over his commitment to Asia-Pacific allies, referring to US efforts to strengthen strategic ties with the region.<\/p>\n<p>Opening the summit, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he wanted to use the event to reassure people about the direction of the world&#8217;s economy, with a &#8220;message of hope and optimism&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He said job creation, identifying tax cheats and strengthening the global economy would all be discussed.<\/p>\n<p>His government had tried to keep climate change off the agenda, despite calls from campaigners.<\/p>\n<p>In other developments, G20 leaders released a statement in which they vowed to do all they could to &#8220;extinguish&#8221; the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.<\/p>\n<p>It said that members state were committed to do what was necessary &#8220;to ensure the international effort can extinguish the outbreak and address its medium-term economic and humanitarian costs&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"cross-head\">Koala diplomacy<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79006000\/jpg\/_79006562_79006561.jpg\" alt=\"Koala diplomacy? Australia's Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin had this photo op, despite tensions\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">Koala diplomacy? Australia&#8217;s Tony Abbot and President Putin had this photo op, despite tensions<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/79005000\/jpg\/_79005003_koalafirstladiescopy.jpg\" alt=\"Australian first lady Margie Abbott, China's first lady Peng Liyuan and Canada's first lady Laureen Harper holding koalas at a koala sanctuary in Brisbane on 15 November 2015\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">Some of the leaders&#8217; spouses cuddled up to koalas at a sanctuary in Brisbane<\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"caption full-width\">Source: BBC<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Russia has been rebuked by Western leaders about its role in the Ukraine crisis, at a G20 summit in Australia. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he needed to &#8220;get out of Ukraine&#8221;. US President Barack Obama said Moscow&#8217;s &#8220;aggression&#8221; in Ukraine was a &#8220;threat to the world&#8221;, while the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":65410,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,14],"class_list":["post-65409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-palaver-newspaper","tag-papa-owusu-ankomah"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/65410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}