International

Guatemala votes on international court handling Belize border dispute

by Edgar Calderon © Agence France-Presse GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala (AFP) — Guatemala voted Sunday on whether to send a long-running border dispute with neighboring Belize to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for final resolution. Polls closed at 6:00 pm (0000 GMT) after 11 hours of voting, which took place “without reports of security incidents,” according to Supreme Electoral Tribunal president Maria Eugenia Mijangos. But despite 7.5 million Guatemalans being summoned to the ballot box, the […]

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Journalists killing shows Ecuador, Colombia must act on ‘narco border’

  by Hector Velasco with Jordi Miró in Quito © Agence France-Presse BOGOTA, Colombia (AFP) — The kidnapping and killing of two journalists and their driver has thrown up an uncomfortable truth for Colombia and Ecuador, analysts say: that their long-neglected border has become a drug traffickers’ nirvana. The two governments sent troops into the dense jungle area to hunt for the killers and re-establish control over a region analysts say has become a key corridor […]

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Trump to host Nigerian president April 30: White House

  UNITED STATES (AFP) — President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria will meet Donald Trump in Washington on April 30 to discuss issues including “fighting terrorism” and economic growth, the White House announced Sunday. “President Trump looks forward to discussing ways to enhance our strategic partnership and advance our shared priorities: promoting economic growth and reforms, fighting terrorism and other threats to peace and security, and building on Nigeria’s role as a democratic leader in the […]

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Syrian war will go on despite Western strikes: British FM

  UNITED KINGDOM (AFP) — British foreign minister Boris Johnson on Sunday said the Syrian war will inevitably continue after unprecedented Western strikes, which were limited to targeting the country’s alleged chemical weapons facilities. Britain and France on Saturday joined the US-led missile strikes, which came a week after a deadly attack on the town of Douma where civilians were hit with chlorine and sarin according to the Western powers. Despite describing the intervention as […]

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North Korea commemorates birth of its founder

    by Sebastien Berger © Agence France-Presse NORTH KOREA (AFP) — Thousands of North Korean devotees laid flowers before statues of the country’s founder Kim Il Sung Sunday on the anniversary of his birth. A constant stream of soldiers in brown uniforms, work unit personnel in suits, schoolchildren and families made their way to Mansu hill in the center of Pyongyang, where giant statues of Kim and his son and successor look out over […]

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N. Korea’s Kim greets Chinese official, calls for stronger ties

    SOUTH KOREA (AFP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally greeted a top Chinese official in Pyongyang and called for stronger ties with Beijing, state media said Sunday, as the traditional allies seek to heal battered relations. Kim met Song Tao, head of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee’s international department, who was leading an art troupe to a spring festival in the North’s capital. The delegation arrived just weeks after Kim made […]

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Chemical inspectors to begin work in Syria’s Douma

  SYRIA (AFP) — Inspectors from the OPCW chemical watchdog will begin their investigation Sunday at the site of an alleged chemical attack near Damascus, a senior official said. “The fact-finding team arrived in Damascus on Saturday and is due to go to Douma on Sunday,” Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Soussan told AFP. A delegation of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, based in The Hague, is tasked with investigating an […]

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Trump, allies praise Syria strikes as Moscow seethes

  by Thomas Watkins / with Rim Haddad in Damascus Agence France Presse US President Donald Trump and his British and French allies on Saturday hailed their joint strikes in Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons, warning Damascus that any repetition would be met with renewed firepower. Hours later, the allies signaled their resolve to return to diplomacy, launching a new bid at the United Nations to investigate the chemical weapons […]

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US-led strikes steer clear of Russian military

  by Thomas Watkins © Agence France-Presse UNITED STATES (AFP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has made clear it sees Moscow as complicit in the latest suspected chemical weapons attack in Syria, but Pentagon planners are taking pains to avoid hitting Russian military assets. A clash — intentional or otherwise — between the West and Russia in Syria could have disastrous consequences that could quickly flip the seven-year-old conflict in a new and dangerous direction. […]

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NATO chief ‘supports’ Syria strikes: statement

  BELGIUM (AFP) — The head of NATO expressed his support for Western strikes in Syria on Saturday after bombings targeting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack. “I support the actions taken by the United States, the United Kingdom and France… This will reduce the regime’s ability to further attack the people of Syria with chemical weapons,” Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in a statement. Explosions were heard in the Syrian […]

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Syria has reached ‘point of no return’ over chemical attacks: France

  UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — France warned Friday that Syria’s government had reached a “point of no return” by using chemical weapons and vowed to confront the “intolerable threat” of such attacks to global security. French Ambassador Francois Delattre told a Security Council meeting that world powers must respond to the threat of repeated use of toxic gas as a weapon in Syria’s war. By “deciding once again to use chemical weapons” in the […]

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Syria strikes hit Syrian chemical program: Mattis

  UNITED STATES (AFP) — A quick series of US, French and British air strikes in Syria were designed to send a “clear message” to President Bashar al-Assad and stop his chemical weapons program, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday. The Pentagon chief stressed the strikes were carefully calibrated to provide a strong response to a suspected chemical attack, but avoid pulling the West into Syria’s civil war. “The targets tonight again were specifically […]

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