STORY REMOVED: AS--New Caledonia-Unrest
PARIS (AP) — Please disregard AS--New Caledonia-Unrest, published at 8:50 EST on May 16, 2024, and datelined in PARIS. The story already moved in a previous cycle.
PARIS (AP) — Please disregard AS--New Caledonia-Unrest, published at 8:50 EST on May 16, 2024, and datelined in PARIS. The story already moved in a previous cycle.
India and China have agreed to work urgently to achieve the withdrawal of tens of thousands of troops stationed along their disputed border in a long-running standoff, India's government said. Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on Thursday on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings in Laos, where they stressed the need for an early resolution of outstanding issues along the disputed Line of Actual Control, the long Himalayan border shared by the two Asian giants.
Top diplomats from Southeast Asia met Friday in Laos with China’s foreign minister for talks that come as friction escalates over Beijing’s growing effort to press its sweeping maritime claims in the South China Sea. Several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have territorial disputes with China, which have led to direct confrontations that many worry could lead to broader conflict. “One wrong step in the South China Sea will turn a small fire into a terrible firestorm,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said ahead of the talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Kamala Harris signaled a major shift on US Gaza policy Thursday, with the presidential hopeful telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal a peace deal and insisting she would not be "silent" on the suffering in the Palestinian enclave."As I just told Prime Minister Netanyahu, it is time to get this deal done," she said.
Palestinian factions including rivals Hamas and Fatah have signed an agreement on “ending division and strengthening Palestinian unity” in Beijing, China said Tuesday.
The increased use of digital assets in cross-border settlements between Russia and China is easing bilateral payment issues, digital platform Qifa told Reuters, as some settlements directly through banks are taking months to clear due to sanctions. Qifa, founded in 2013 and Chinese owned, initially focused on importing Chinese consumer goods to Russia. This year, however, it launched bilateral trade, tapping into surging trade between the two countries even as the threat of secondary U.S. sanctions on Chinese banks complicates payment flows with more stringent compliance procedures.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza, nearing the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war. At Trump's Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists that he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages. “I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress.
China's ties with Vietnam are expected to remain largely stable, observers say, even as uncertainty looms in Hanoi following the death of long-serving leader Nguyen Phu Trong. Trong, 80, who died last week after a long unspecified illness, has left a mixed political and economic legacy after overseeing Vietnam's rapid economic growth and a "blazing furnace" crackdown on corruption to consolidate the Communist Party's power. But observers were generally positive about Hanoi's pragmatic "bamboo di
Russia and China should join efforts to counter interference from external forces in Southeast Asia, Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told his Chinese counterpart as the strategic partners push for strong coordination in the region as a counterweight to the US. Without specifying, he said: "We have a unified position. We must do everything to prevent it from being destroyed, [and] we believe it is important ... to jointly counter interference by forces from outside this region in the affa
NORAD intercepted two Russian and two Chinese bombers flying near Alaska Wednesday in what a US defense official said was the first time the two countries have been intercepted while operating together.
Bomber jets from Russia and China flew over the far east of Russia and the Bering Sea near Alaska on Thursday during a joint aerial patrol. Although not seen as a threat by the North American Aerospace (NORAD), US and Canadian warplanes intercepted two of the bombers. Russian and Chinese bomber jets carried out a joint patrol over far eastern Russia and the Bering Sea near Alaska, Russia's defence ministry said Thursday.It said "Russian space forces' Tu-95MS strategic missile carriers and the Ch
Arrest of Dmitry Bulgakov is latest high-profile incident in ongoing purge within Moscow’s military top brass
China has outlined steps to increase energy cooperation with Russia despite discussions in the United States about possible new sanctions against Beijing over the war in Ukraine. Vice-Premier Ding Xuexiang told the Sixth China-Russia Energy Business Forum in Moscow on Tuesday that China would seek to "solidly advance cooperation in energy trade and investment" with its top crude oil supplier. Ding had proposed putting "large scale" energy projects in motion, working together on hydrogen power an
WASHINGTON/CAIRO (Reuters) -Israel is seeking changes to a plan for a Gaza truce and the release of hostages by Hamas, complicating a final deal to halt nine months of combat that have devastated the enclave, according to a Western official, a Palestinian and two Egyptian sources. Israel says that displaced Palestinians should be screened as they return to the enclave's north when the ceasefire begins, retreating from an agreement to allow civilians who fled south to freely return home, the four sources told Reuters. Israeli negotiators "want a vetting mechanism for civilian populations returning to the north of Gaza, where they fear these populations could support” Hamas fighters who remain entrenched there, said the Western official.
Labor is ‘carefully considering’ the ICJ findings on the occupied Palestinian territories – and soon it will have to give its view
The United States and Vietnam are discussing the sale of Lockheed Martin C-130 Hercules military transport planes to Hanoi, two people familiar with the discussions said, in a sign of closer security cooperation between the two former foes. The talks could lead to a supply agreement this year, the sources said, in what would represent Vietnam's largest military deal since it said publicly at the end of 2022 that it intended to diversify its defence supplies, which have for decades relied heavily on Russian gear. The United States could offer Hanoi financial support as part of a sale, the sources said.
Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday in Laos, where the two leaders agreed to resolve border issues as soon as possible. The two countries share a long Himalayan border, much of it poorly demarcated, and relations between them have been sour since a military clash in July 2020 when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed. Jaishankar met Wang on the sidelines of the Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN summit in Laos, just three weeks after their last meeting in Kazakhstan, India's foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Signing an agreement with Russia to stop the war with Ukraine would amount to signing a deal with the devil, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, as pressure mounts on the country to seek an end to more than two years of fighting. A deal would only buy time for Russian President Vladimir Putin to strengthen his army and usher in another, potentially more violent chapter in the war, Mykhailo Podolyak told The Associated Press in an interview Thursday.
Around 80 countries reached agreement on Friday on rules governing global digital commerce including recognition of e-signatures and protection against online fraud, but failed to bring the United States on board. After five years of negotiations, coordinators Australia, Japan and Singapore distributed what they called a "stabilised text", which the European Union hailed as "historic news" and Britain as "groundbreaking". "We negotiated the first global rules on digital trade," EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis posted on social media site X.
China and Russia's foreign ministers met their Southeast Asian counterparts Friday after vowing to counter "extra-regional forces", a day before Washington's top diplomat was due to arrive.On Thursday Wang and Lavrov agreed to work together in "countering any attempts by extra-regional forces to interfere in Southeast Asian affairs", according to Moscow's foreign ministry.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers and top diplomats from key partners including the United States and China are gathering in the Laotian capital on Thursday for the start of three days of talks expected to focus on the increasingly violent civil war in Myanmar, tensions in the South China Sea and other regional issues. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi will participate in the meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Vientiane, which come as both Beijing and Washington are looking to expand their influence in the region. China is also Russia's most important ally in its war against Ukraine, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov arrived on Thursday to take part in the meetings.