Tag: diplomacy

US orders nonessential staff out of Haiti amid gang crisis

WASHINGTON, July 31, 2023 (AFP) – The United States has ordered its nonessential personnel and family of government employees to leave Haiti as the Caribbean nation faces spiraling insecurity, the State Department said. Issuing an updated travel advisory Thursday evening, the State Department also reiterated its warning that Americans should not travel to Haiti. “US citizens in Haiti should depart Haiti as soon as possible by commercial or other privately available transportation options, in light […]

Continue Reading →

Blinken, Austin visit Australia on last leg of Pacific blitz

BRISBANE, Australia, July 28, 2023 (AFP) – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin visited Australia Friday on the final leg of a Pacific tour designed to reinforce Washington’s standing in the region. The United States has been ramping up efforts to re-engage in the South Pacific, where China has emerged as a rising diplomatic and military power. Blinken’s trip to Brisbane caps a diplomatic blitz in which he has also […]

Continue Reading →

Kim shows off new North Korean drones, ICBMs to Russia defense minister

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Walking past huge intercontinental ballistic missiles and previously unseen military drones, Kim Jong Un gave Russia’s defense minister a tour of North Korea’s newest and most advanced weaponry Thursday, state media reported. After Washington earlier this year accused Pyongyang of supplying Moscow with weapons for its war in Ukraine, photographs in state media showed Kim walking Moscow’s Sergei Shoigu through a vast defense exhibition showcasing the North’s nuclear missiles and […]

Continue Reading →

‘Time for peace’ in Sudan, Darfur: Rapid Support Forces envoy

LOME, Togo (AFP) — A top envoy to Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on Monday said it was “time for peace” in Sudan and the Darfur region even as RSF’s war with Sudan’s regular army passed its 100th day. RSF representative Youssef Ezzat made his remarks in the West African nation of Togo where he was attending talks aimed at preventing Sudan’s Darfur region from sliding deeper into war. Sudan’s conflict broke out in the […]

Continue Reading →

UN Command says in ‘conversation’ with N.Korea over US soldier

SEOUL, July 24, 2023 (AFP) – The UN Command has started a conversation with Pyongyang over American soldier Travis King, who ran across the border into North Korea last week, its deputy commander said Monday. “A conversation has commenced with the Korean People’s Army through the mechanism of the armistice agreement,” Lieutenant General Andrew Harrison said at a press briefing, referring to the deal that ended Korean War hostilities in 1953. The UN Command is […]

Continue Reading →

Seoul says North Korean nuclear attack would mean ‘end’ of regime

SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — Seoul told North Korea Friday that using its nukes would mean the “end” of Kim Jong Un’s regime, after Pyongyang threatened nuclear retaliation over growing US military deployments on the peninsula. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points ever, with the North ramping up weapons testing as Seoul and Washington boost military cooperation. Pyongyang’s defense minister warned Thursday that this week’s port visit of a […]

Continue Reading →

UN chief eyes reforms to peacekeeping operations

UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called Thursday for a “serious, broad-based reflection” on reforming the global body’s peacekeeping operations, highlighting persistent “limitations” to their success. Presenting his most recent policy brief, entitled the “New Agenda for Peace,” Guterres praised the work of UN peacekeeping missions as “saving millions of lives” and preserving ceasefires. However, the former Portuguese prime minister cited “longstanding unresolved conflicts, driven by complex domestic, geopolitical and transnational […]

Continue Reading →

Rich-poor split could tighten ‘grip of poverty’: World Bank chief

By Bhuvan BAGGA Agence France-Presse GANDHINAGAR, India (AFP) — The new head of the World Bank said Tuesday that growing divides between rich and poor nations risked deepening poverty in the developing world, at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in India. Many countries are still recovering from the double blow of the coronavirus pandemic and fallout from Russia’s war in Ukraine — which hit global fuel and commodity prices. Climate change, meanwhile, is most […]

Continue Reading →

Sri Lankan leader seeks to disarm India’s China fears

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AFP) — Sri Lanka’s president arrives in India on Thursday for his first visit to the regional powerhouse, with concerns mounting in New Delhi over China’s increasing influence in the strategically placed but financially bankrupt island. New Sri Lankan leaders usually travel to India within a few weeks of taking office, but Ranil Wickremesinghe’s trip comes exactly a year after he became president following the toppling of his predecessor at the height […]

Continue Reading →

Divided ASEAN condemns Myanmar violence again, supports five-point plan

By Agnes ANYA Agence France-Presse JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — ASEAN foreign ministers on Thursday condemned violence in Myanmar again and repeated support for a peace plan ignored by its junta rulers, as the divided bloc struggled to find unity over the protracted crisis. Myanmar has been ravaged by deadly violence since a military coup ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s government in February 2021, unleashing a bloody crackdown on dissent. A joint communique finally arrived late […]

Continue Reading →

ASEAN-plus-three to meet on South China Sea, economic ties

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Economic cooperation and the disputed South China Sea will be on the agenda when Southeast Asian foreign ministers meet their Chinese, Japanese and South Korean counterparts for ASEAN-plus-three talks on Thursday. China will be represented at the talks by top diplomat Wang Yi instead of Foreign Minister Qin Gang after Qin pulled out for “health reasons”, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and his South Korean […]

Continue Reading →

Mediator calls for ‘peaceful resolution’ of DRC conflict

GOMA, DR Congo (AFP) — Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta, a mediator in the conflict in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, appealed again on Wednesday for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. The former Kenyan president was speaking at a meeting in the eastern city of Goma in the conflict-torn region. “We are not here to open new negotiations,” he told journalists after having met the Congolese authorities, UN representatives and western diplomats. […]

Continue Reading →
1 … 16 17 18 19 20 … 104