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SAN FRANCISCO, June 21, 2023 (AFP) — US President Joe Biden equated his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping with “dictators” on Tuesday as he addressed a Democratic Party donors reception in the presence of journalists. Speaking at a campaign fundraiser in northern California, Biden said Xi had been angered over an incident in February when a Chinese balloon — which Washington says was used for spying — flew over the United States before being shot down […]
BOGOTÁ, June 21, 2023 (AFP) — Thousands of Colombians protested in the capital Bogota and other cities Tuesday against reforms by the country’s first-ever leftist president Gustavo Petro, which many say go too far. Since taking over last August, Petro has submitted several reform projects to parliament to reduce private participation in the healthcare system, redistribute unproductive land, and reform labor and pension regulations. But he has since lost his majority backing in the legislature, […]
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AFP) — Dozens of people were injured in northern Argentina on Tuesday as protesters clashed with police in Jujuy province over a proposed ban on certain forms of demonstration. For several hours, hundreds engaged the police in running battles in the streets of the provincial capital San Salvador de Jujuy, burning cars and throwing rocks, according to TV images. Police responded with rubber bullets and tear gas. One channel showed a demonstrator […]
HELSINKI, June 20, 2023 (AFP) – Finland’s parliament on Tuesday elected conservative Petteri Orpo as prime minister at the head of a four-party coalition including the far-right Finns Party which plans a major crackdown on immigration. Parliament voted in favour of Orpo, who won April elections and has been in thorny negotiations to build a coalition since then, by 107 in favour, 81 opposed and 11 absent. Orpo was to be formally appointed as prime […]
BERLIN, June 20, 2023 (AFP) – Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosted Premier Li Qiang for talks on Tuesday, seeking to recalibrate cooperation between Germany and China after Berlin branded Beijing a “systemic rival”. Li is on his first trip abroad since he was named premier in March and tasked with shoring up China’s sputtering post-Covid economy. But unlike previous visits by Chinese dignitaries, when pragmatic German leaders eager to expand business ties with the Asian giant […]
BEIJING, June 18, 2023 (AFP) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday began the highest-level trip by a US official to China in nearly five years as the two powers looked to notch down the temperature in an escalating rivalry. Both sides have voiced guarded hope of improving communication and preventing conflict, with the world’s two largest economies at odds on an array of issues from trade to technology and regional security. Officials though […]
MOSCOW, June 17, 2023 (AFP) – South Africa’s president, in Russia as part of a delegation pushing for peace between Kyiv and Moscow, told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Saturday that the fighting had to stop. His delegation put forward a set of principles that the Kremlin deemed “very difficult to implement”, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out talks with Moscow. The delegation brought the voice of a continent that has […]
MOSCOW, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday said Ukraine’s counteroffensive would fail as Kyiv’s troops sought to advance in several directions, including the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia. “I think that Ukraine’s armed forces stand no chance here, as well as in other directions — I have no doubt about that,” Putin told an annual economic forum in Saint Petersburg. AFP and representatives of other countries the Kremlin deems “unfriendly” were […]
SEOUL, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – A US Navy nuclear-powered submarine arrived in the South Korean port city of Busan Friday, demonstrating Washington’s pledge to counter Pyongyang’s growing threats, Seoul’s military said. Relations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points, with diplomacy stalled and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un proclaiming his nation an “irreversible” nuclear state and calling for increased weapons development, including tactical nukes. In response, Seoul and Washington […]
BEIJING, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – President Xi Jinping told his “old friend” Bill Gates on Friday that China had always placed its hopes in the American people, after the Microsoft co-founder’s foundation pledged $50 million to help Chinese efforts to battle disease. Gates — one of the world’s richest men — is the latest in a string of Western business leaders to visit China since the country ended strict Covid controls that largely closed […]
MOSCOW, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – Mobile communications were severed Friday in Saint Petersburg in “unprecedented” security measures as President Vladimir Putin attended a global economic forum amid growing Ukrainian attacks on Russian soil. The Roskongress Foundation, the organisers of the forum in Russia’s second city, earlier said internet communication via mobile operators would be blocked. “Use wifi”, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, linking the heightened security to the threat of attacks from Ukraine. In […]
YANGON, June 16, 2023 (AFP) – Myanmar state media condemned the United Nations as “rotten” on Friday, days after the UN special envoy for the country stepped down and the world body slammed curbs on aid for cyclone survivors. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power in February 2021, ending a brief democratic experiment and sparking clashes across the country with ethnic rebel groups and anti-coup fighters. The military has criticised attempts […]
