Around the Globe
The United States withdrew from a “hypocritical and self-serving” United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform, a move activists warned would make advancing human rights globally even more difficult.
President Donald Trump directed the US Trade Representative to prepare new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports on Monday as the two nations moved closer to a potential trade war.
The tariffs, which Trump wants set at a 10 per cent rate, would be the latest round of punitive measures in an escalating dispute over the large trade imbalance between the two countries. Trump recently ordered tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods in retaliation for intellectual property theft. The tariffs were quickly matched by China on US exports, a move that drew the president’s ire.
US President Donald Trump today defended his decision to stop military exercises with South Korea, saying such "war games" were "provocative and expensive" but threatened to re-start them if talks with North Korea break down.
Trump in a series of tweets claimed that it was his idea to stop the “war games” during the summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
"Holding back the war games during the negotiations was my request because they are VERY EXPENSIVE and set a bad light during a good faith negotiation. Also, quite provocative, he said.
Hundreds of migrants pulled from the Mediterranean by a rescue ship arrived at the Spanish port of Valencia on Sunday, ending a gruelling nine-day voyage but leaving wide open a fierce debate in Europe over how to handle immigration.
Spain swooped to help 629 mainly sub-Saharan Africans on board the Aquarius last week, offering the charity-run ship a berth 700 nautical miles away after Italy and Malta refused to let it dock.
President Donald Trump claimed today that a Justice Department watchdog report related to the 2016 election "totally discredited" the probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into possible Trump campaign collusion with the Russians.
The Inspector General report released yesterday largely focused on the FBI's handling of the investigation into Democrat Hillary Clinton's misuse of a private email server, and said nothing about Mueller's ongoing investigation.
But Trump, who Mueller is examining for possible obstruction of justice, said the report cleared him.
Tough sanctions will remain on North Korea until its complete denuclearisation, the US secretary of state said on Thursday, apparently contradicting the North’s view that the process agreed at this week’s summit would be phased and reciprocal.
US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un issued a joint statement after their Singapore meeting that reaffirmed the North’s commitment to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula”, an end to joint US-South Korean military exercises and gave US guarantees of security to North Korea.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said Donald Trump offered to lift sanctions against his regime when they met Tuesday in Singapore, state media reported, a claim that contrasts with the US president’s rhetoric that the economic strictures would remain.
The report from the Korean Central News Agency, which was published after Kim returned home from his meeting, noted Trump’s vow to suspend US military drills in South Korea. It also said Trump committed to unspecified “security guarantees” for Pyongyang, and to “lift sanctions against it”.
US President Donald Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong Un concluded an extraordinary nuclear summit Tuesday with Trump pledging unspecified “security guarantees” to the North and Kim recommitting to the “complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.”
Meeting with staged ceremony on a Singapore island, Trump and Kim came together for a summit that seemed unthinkable months ago, clasping hands in front of a row of alternating US and North Korean flags, holding a one-on-one meeting, additional talks with advisors and a working lunch.
President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un begin their historic summit today in Singapore, a meeting that could lead to peace between countries that have technically been at war for 68 years —or swiftly end in new recriminations.
Trump has said the public will be able to tell how the summit goes by what he says afterward. If he resumes talking about his “maximum pressure” campaign to squeeze Kim’s regime, he said Thursday, “you’ll know the negotiation did not do well.”
The slow pace of fitting out regional airports risks delaying prime minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious plan to launch more flights connecting smaller towns and cities and get millions more people using air travel.
The programme, flagged off by Modi last year, aims to boost economic growth by refurbishing idled colonial-era airstrips or building newer airports, and incentivising airlines to offer discounted fares to connect them with bigger cities.
