President Joe Biden's administration tried Friday to defuse heated Chinese warnings against a possible trip to Taiwan by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as Beijing announced live-fire military drills in the Taiwan Strait.. The temperature has been steadily rising in Beijing over the prospect of a Pelosi trip.
The top diplomats of the United States and Russia spoke Friday for the first time since the Ukraine war, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken describing a "frank" exchange as he pushed to free two Americans.. The telephone conversation was the first between Blinken and Lavrov since February 15, when the top US diplomat warned Russia against invading Ukraine, repeating a message he delivered in person in Geneva a month earlier.
For Brett Eagleson, this week's Saudi-backed golf event at Trump National is an affront: it's happening just miles from where hijackers murdered his father on 9/11.. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers involved in the coordinated attacks on New York and Washington were Saudi nationals.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday urged Turkey to respect human rights during a testy visit at which she sparred openly with counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu.. Baerbock's visit to Athens saw Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias call on Germany to suspend a joint venture under which Turkey is producing a modern new class of submarines.
French authorities on Friday held a fireman from the south of France accused of being behind a series of wildfires in the region which he says he started in a quest for adrenaline.. The man, a volunteer fireman from the Herault region, was arrested on Wednesday, regional prosectors said.
Pope Francis on Friday was to fly to Nunavut, the territory that covers most of the Canadian Arctic, on his final stop in a landmark tour apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children in Catholic-run schools.. - 'Should be doing more' - From the late 1800s to the 1990s, Canada's government sent about 150,000 children into 139 residential schools run by the Catholic Church.
Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine: - Blame traded over strike on POW jail - Russia and Ukraine blame each other for striking a jail holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian-held Olenivka, with Moscow saying 40 prisoners and eight prison staff were killed.. Russia's defence ministry says Ukraine carried out strikes with US-supplied long-range missiles, in an "egregious provocation" designed to stop soldiers from surrendering.
Pope Francis on Friday was to fly to Nunavut, the territory that covers most of the Canadian Arctic, on his final stop in a landmark tour apologizing for the abuse of Indigenous children in Catholic-run schools.. From the late 1800s to the 1990s, Canada's government sent about 150,000 children into 139 residential schools run by the Catholic Church.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel next month to South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, the State Department announced Friday, as Washington ramps up diplomacy in Africa to counter a Russian charm offensive.. The diplomacy comes as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov undertakes his own extensive tour of Africa, where he has sought to cast spiraling global food prices as a consequence of Western sanctions, a hypothesis rejected by Washington.
The World Bank said Friday it would not offer new funding to Sri Lanka unless the bankrupt island nation carried out "deep structural reforms" to stabilise its crashing economy.. "This requires deep structural reforms that focus on economic stabilisation, and also on addressing the root structural causes that created this crisis."
